A Vineyard Wedding

by Katie Winters

  “Scott. Hi.” Susan appeared beside him and wrapped a strand of hair around her ear. Her heart seemed to pulse in her throat.

  His eyes found hers. They echoed with love, the forever kind. He stood and wrapped his thick arms around her and held her like that, without speaking, for nearly a full minute. Susan thought back to the opening statement she’d made earlier that day. How terrified she had been! This moment of safety was a complete contrast to that.

  Scott beckoned for her to sit with him on the stump. She did and placed her hands on her knees. She felt like a little kid. Above them, the moon was huge and cast a bright glow across the water.

  “I’m so proud of you, Susan Sheridan,” Scott said. “You were always the smartest woman I’d ever known. And now, the world’s eyes are upon you.”

  “It’s a strange feeling. Especially because the whole thing was so rushed,” Susan admitted. “I want to make sure I give this girl all I can. She deserves that much at least.”

  Scott nodded. His large hand wrapped over hers. It was warm, powerful, and strong. It almost overwhelmed Susan.

  “It’s been quite a time, hasn’t it?” Scott breathed. “Only a couple weeks since Kellan arrived. And now, you’re full-throttle into this trial, and I’m going to parent-teacher meetings.”

  A lump formed in Susan’s throat. She knew what needed to be asked, even if she didn’t want to do it.

  “What do you need right now?” she finally asked. “What do you need from me? From our relationship?”

  Scott’s eyes dropped toward the ground. “I don’t know. I guess I just need your patience as I figure this next chapter out.”

  Susan nodded, even as tears sprung to her eyes. “Do you think we should push back the wedding? I feel crazy asking since it’s only a month away. But here we are.”

  “I just don’t know.”

  Susan nodded. This information was essential. It showed her where they stood.

  But now what?

  “We have to decide soon,” she said. “It’s not the end of the world if it doesn’t happen this summer.”

  Even as she said it, her heart felt cracked. Scott held her gaze for a moment. His thumb traced a line along her palm.

  “I have to get back to the case,” she finally said. “Get home safe, okay?” She kissed his cheek gently and then headed back around the side of the house. Once back at Amanda’s desk, she only allowed herself to cry for few minutes. After that, she directed her attention back to the case.

  She was Susan Sheridan. She could withstand this heartbreak. This was just another confusing element in a confusing yet completely blessed life.

  Chapter Twelve

  The following morning was Saturday. Susan rolled over beneath the scratchy comforter of the upstairs bed and peered out of the window, which caught the full rush of pink buds from the nearest tree. On the far end of the bed still sat a number of court documents, research, and notes from her long night of work; her head remained fuzzy from all the work she had done the previous night. Maybe, at forty-five, all of this was a bit too torturous on her. Maybe she needed to take a step back.

  That moment, the door sprung open. Audrey and Amanda barreled in, acting like silly teenagers.

  “Aunt Susie!”

  “Mom!”

  “We have a surprise for you!”

  “Get up! Now!”

  “Allez!” Amanda cried in French as she grabbed her mother’s hand and tugged gently.

  Susan rubbed her eye as her groan turned into a laugh. “All right. All right. I’ll get up.”

  Amanda drew open the closet and selected a dark blue dress and a pair of modest heels. She then said, “You have a half-hour to get ready and then, the car is headed out of the driveway, Missy. Step on it.”

  “The student becomes the master,” Susan said mid-yawn. “All right. I’ll make it happen. Now scram, so I can jump in the shower.”

  When Susan appeared downstairs, she found Lola, Christine, Amanda, and Audrey all waiting for her. Max slept in his baby carrier when Audrey said, “He can sleep through anything. Trains. Loud screaming. Grandpa Wes’s snores.”

  “Hey! I heard that.” Grandpa Wes stepped out of the little breakfast nook area with a cup of coffee in his hand. He grinned at them as he ruffled his grey curls. “Look at my girls, all of you together. Where are you off to?”

  “It’s a surprise, Dad,” Lola answered with a wide grin. “And oh look! Aunt Kerry is here.”

  Aunt Kerry stepped into the house and hollered hello. Once she reached Wes, she formed a fist and bumped it against his bicep. “You ready for me to beat you in a round of cards, Brother?”

  “My babysitter is back again,” Wes said, teasing both Kerry and himself. He knew that he couldn’t be left at home alone; he knew it was for his benefit. Plus, Kerry was one of his very favorite people, so he didn’t mind much.

  Grandpa Wes called for them all to have fun as they piled into two cars— Christine’s and Lola’s. Susan sat up front in Christine’s, with Audrey and Max in the back, while Amanda headed over with Lola. Often, Susan wondered what Lola and Amanda spoke about when they were alone together, as the two were just about as different as any two creatures. Still, as they jumped out of the car over in Edgartown, they were in the midst of uproarious laughter. It warmed Susan’s heart just as much as it confused her.

  In Edgartown, the five of them plus Baby Max headed into the Frosted Delights Bakery. They ordered a wide selection of delightful donuts and sat around a table to people-watch and gossip. Jennifer Conrad and her mother were both stationed behind the counter, which was thrilling to witness, as Jennifer’s mother had had a horrific stroke back in December. This event had led to Jennifer taking over the bakery, despite her blossoming career as a social media manager. This reminded Susan of herself: this constant drive to take over everything, even beyond time constraints. Jennifer, in contrast to Susan, had recently divorced her high school sweetheart and become involved with a high-powered developer from New York City. It was funny where life took you.

  Susan ate one-half of a chocolate-glazed donut with a hazelnut cream filling, then rolled her eyes back in her head. “This is insanely delicious.” She waved to Jennifer over the counter and called, “You keep outdoing yourself!”

  Jennifer laughed. “My mom is obsessed with inventing new recipes. You would think after working here for over forty years, she would have had enough, but I guess not!”

  When Susan returned her attention to her table, they looked at her mischievously. They had already gathered up the rest of her half-donut, along with the uneaten pieces they’d ordered and announced that they would eat the rest of the donuts after the real surprise.

  “What the heck?” Susan asked as she followed them out into the light sunshine of the May morning.

  The girls led her down the street, back toward a little white house with long floor-to-ceiling windows and a large willow tree out front.

  “What is this place?” she asked.

  Amanda tugged her hand as she guided her up the little path. Once at the door, they rang the bell; a second later, a woman of about seventy, wearing cat-eye glasses, appeared in the doorway. She beamed at Susan as she said, “This must be the beautiful bride.”

  Susan’s heart drummed with confusion. She hadn’t had time to discuss any of her and Scott’s conversation from the previous night with her sisters or her daughter — and thusly, they’d crafted a surprise that had something to do with the wedding. As she stepped into the house after the older woman, she found herself in a sea of vintage-looking wedding dresses, all of them unique and delicate, all with their own histories and beautiful stories. Susan’s eyes immediately welled with sadness.

  “Wow,” she breathed, feeling the eyes of her sisters upon her. “This is truly spectacular.”

  “It’s something of a hobby of mine,” the older woman said. “I collect antique wedding dresses and fix them up and then serve them to the beautiful brides of Martha’s Vineyard
or whoever wants to travel to see them, of course. Some of them have been used in films; others were used by celebrities long ago. When my husband died, I filled up the entire house with gowns. Maybe the word shouldn’t be hobby, then. It’s more of an obsession.”

  Susan nearly lost her breath. Amanda roped her arm through Susan’s and whispered, “Don’t you want to try one? I didn’t want you to eat all that donut; I knew you’d kill me if I left you to do that.”

  Susan tried to laugh, but the sound of it grew lost in her throat. The older woman’s eyes bore into her. She had to do something, to at least try one. She pointed toward one in the corner, a cream-colored gown from the forties with a high neckline. It was absolutely stunning, something fit for Old Hollywood. And in a moment, she had the thing over her breasts and buttoned up the back. She stepped out of the dressing room area and stood before a mirror with her two sisters, her daughter, her niece, and the old collector behind her. They ooohed and aahed at the glorious view, and in truth, Susan couldn’t have imagined anything more unique and stunning for her wedding to the love of her life.

  But as her thoughts swirled, as Lola’s squeal of, “Oh, Susan, you dreamboat,” and as Max suddenly cooed in his little carrier, Susan found herself hunching forward as tears rolled down her cheeks. A sob escaped her throat. The older woman watched in horror as the result of her perfect collection pushed Susan to agony.

  Amanda rushed in front of her to collect Susan’s head on her shoulder. Susan sobbed again as the older woman grabbed a large towel and placed it beneath Susan’s chin.

  “I just don’t want the fabric to get wet from your tears, dear,” she said under her breath.

  “I understand!” Susan cried. How pitiful she felt. How weak.

  “Mom? What is going on?” Amanda’s voice was somber yet warm. She placed a tender hand on Susan’s upper shoulder and led her toward the far end of the room, where they sat on a couch.

  Christine, Lola, and Audrey followed after them. Susan gestured toward the dress and said, “This dress deserves a happier occasion.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?” Lola demanded.

  The older woman looked both perturbed and curious. Susan blinked out and said, finally, both terrified and not that they weren’t sure if they needed to push back the wedding. “There’s just so much going on. I don’t want to pressure Scott into an immediate marriage, especially when he’s got his hands full with Kellan.”

  Lola closed her eyes tight. “It’s such bad timing. And it’s not your fault!”

  “No. It’s not. And you know, Scott loves you more than anything,” Christine added.

  “I know that. I do.” Susan gestured down at the dress. “It’s just, for the past few months, I’ve really dreamed about this wedding. I couldn’t wait to tell Scott Frampton I do — finally, after all these years apart. And now, it doesn’t really feel like the dream I always imagined it to be.”

  Nobody seemed to know what to say. The beautiful plan had backfired and now, Susan Sheridan — the normal backbone of the entire family — had proved herself to be frightened and sad and not at all this “strong woman” Susan herself had perceived herself to be.

  “I should really get out of this dress, huh?” Susan finally said, trying to brighten her voice. “I probably look like a bridezilla on the verge of a serious meltdown.”

  “You really don’t,” Christine said then. She whipped around toward the collector and said, “Will you just hold this one off to the side? Just until Susan knows for sure.”

  The woman drew her hands together gently. Her eyes were rimmed red.

  “I can see how much you love him,” she said.

  Susan nodded as she sniffled again. “I really do. I would wear a paper sack just to marry him.”

  “But you shouldn’t. You should wear this. When you’re ready,” the woman said. “You look like a classic movie star. So regal. So proud.”

  Susan was overwhelmed with her feelings. She stood from the sofa and glanced again at her reflection in the mirror. The woman who peered back looked devastated; the woman who peered back wanted to eat the rest of her donut. The woman in the mirror didn’t have anything figured out.

  “Don’t give it away just yet,” she told the woman in a whisper. “Thank you.”

  When she and the girls reappeared outside the wedding dress shop, Susan admitted she had to get back to work. Her sisters and daughter and niece gave her worried smiles. Susan drew her hands up between them and waved them as she said, “Don’t worry about me, okay? That was just a small little psychotic break. It’s been a strange few weeks. But you know me. I’ll come out on top.”

  “You always do,” Lola affirmed. “But we can help you along the way, you know.”

  “Stubborn Susan Sheridan,” Christine said with a crooked smile. “You don’t have to be so strong all the time.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  That week, it was decided that they needed to hire another lawyer to maintain the Sheridan Law Office while Susan spent so much time in Boston. They had received a tip from a friend that an islander who’d spent the previous decades in Boston had returned in the wake of his wife’s death and was hungry to work for a law firm again. “Apparently, he’s fantastic, but he came to the island to live a quieter life, closer to his family,” Amanda said as she read through his referrals and his resume again.

  Bruce Holland stepped into the Sheridan Law Office Monday afternoon. He was a hunk of a man — even Susan had to admit it — perhaps six foot four, broad-shouldered, with a smile that looked borderline arrogant. Amanda’s eyes were buggy as she trailed after him and into Susan’s office for the interview. Within the hour, she’d hired him. Bruce Holland wasn’t the type of guy you didn’t hire.

  With Bruce around, Susan could pass off a few other cases and give herself more space to head off to Boston. She was gone by two in the afternoon — speeding up from Woods Hole all the way back to that beautiful city and the girl within it, Marcie Shean. As she clutched the steering wheel, she tried to imagine what it had been like for Marcie Shean, as she’d sprung off the island of Martha’s Vineyard and into the rest of her future. What had she dreamed of on that fateful day? Had she had dreams, desires that extended beyond the love she’d found? Had she been hunting for something in particular?

  Certainly, she hadn’t planned for this.

  Susan checked herself back into the same hotel room and arranged the room just so. She texted Amanda throughout to tell her that she was “really going to miss her,” but “thank you for holding down the fort and showing Bruce the ropes.”

  AMANDA: Weird to have such masculine energy in the office!

  AMANDA: Dad is going to be so jealous when he sees a photo of this guy.

  SUSAN: You know I only have eyes for one man on this earth.

  SUSAN: But Bruce is great! I’m so glad to have him on the team. He has that intimidating, brooding voice like Don Draper in Mad Men.

  After Susan set up her hotel room, she again drove over to the burger place. She was hungry — aching for it, actually, but she also craved a conversation with that bartender again. She had a hunch he would remember her, as it had only been a few days. When she slipped onto the stool, he snapped his fingers and said, “Hey! You again. Can I grab you an iced tea? A beer?”

  “An IPA today, please,” she said. Was he flirting with her? He was definitely at least ten years younger than her. The thought of it thrilled her just the slightest bit.

  “And a bacon-cheeseburger?”

  “I think I’ll go with a veggie burger today,” Susan replied with a grin.

  “Heart health. I appreciate that,” he said. “I should think about that myself.”

  “You have a few more years of the good stuff before you have to worry, I think,” Susan said.

  It was still before the dinner rush; still, a few hours before the real sports began. Yet again, the bartender clicked through and found the news, which discussed the opening statements of the M
arcie Shean trial. Thankfully, it seemed the part with Susan’s speech had already been shown, and they now focused on the prosecution.

  “Phew,” the bartender said as he placed the glass of beer before her. “Can’t get it out of my head sometimes, you know? That he worked here. That he had this whole life here. And then one day, he got involved with the wrong people.”

  “Awful,” Susan breathed.

  “I mean, I’ve been to that house before,” the guy continued. He seemed to say it as though he thought it would impress Susan.

  “What house?”

  “It was kind of like their meeting point, I think, where they passed out the drugs and gave them to the other dealers. I normally don’t mess with that side of things, but I had this girlfriend once who was friends with one of the top guys. They had gone to kindergarten and everything together, and she said that he was a really good guy, deep-down, even though he had done some pretty not-so-good stuff.”

  Susan arched an eyebrow. “Like murder, perhaps?”

  The guy shrugged. “I know it sounds crazy. The guy was nice to me, but I was Jan’s friend, you know, so he had to be.”

  “What was this guy’s name?”

  “Jimmy,” the guy told her. “He actually came from money, I guess, but his parents kicked him out and he fell on hard times and then boom. He’s the guy involved in all this stuff.”

  Susan sipped her beer. “So I guess things didn’t work out with Jan?”

  “Naw, man. She ran off with one of the line cooks from this very restaurant,” the bartender said with a sarcastic smile. “I have bad luck. Real bad luck. I guess my luck isn’t as bad as old Vincent’s, but close.”

  “Where exactly is this house?” Susan asked.

  She half-expected the bartender to step back and accuse her of something. But he seemed so open, so trusting.