Healing Tides

by Katie Winters

  She wasn’t on just any mattress. She was on the mattress she had once shared with Aiden, in the house, they’d raised their kids in. She hadn’t slept in it since the night before Aiden had passed on.

  And oh, yes. She’d gotten hammered in Aiden’s office because of the letter— the letter that was poised to ruin her life even more.

  “What time is it?” Elsa finally asked.

  “It’s just past eleven.”

  Elsa’s heart surged into her throat. She tried to yank herself up from the mattress, but the hangover dragged her back to the depths as her head throbbed with pain. “No. No, that’s not right,” she told no one in particular. “I don’t understand.”

  “Shh.” Nancy drew a line from Elsa’s hand, up toward her elbow. “I’m just glad I found you. I was so worried when you didn’t come home last night. Janine told me to let it go, that you were an adult and that you could do what you wanted with your time. But when you didn’t come into the Lodge this morning, I panicked.”

  Elsa clenched her eyes once more, then shook her head ominously. Her soul felt black. “I can’t even tell you how sorry I am. I totally lost my mind.”

  “Hey. You’re allowed to lose your mind every once in a while.” Nancy tried out a small laugh, but it fell flat. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

  Elsa really did want to tell someone about the letter, about the horror of realizing that so much was about to come crumbling down on her head. But her throat was parched and her thoughts had no gravity and she thought she might hurl.

  Finally, she whispered, “What about your classes today? I don’t want you to miss your work.”

  Nancy waved a hand back and forth. “I must have told you that we hired that new yoga instructor— the young one. She’s around twenty-something and can work non-stop, all day long it seems like. I asked her to take over my classes for the morning and early afternoon. It’s not a problem at all.”

  Elsa buzzed her lips. Resentment for herself, for her situation, for everything, rose to her throat.

  “I have to say. This doesn’t look very comfortable,” Nancy commented as she scanned the mattress Elsa was lying on. Again she let out a slight laugh.

  “I don’t think I cared at some point. I just needed something soft to lie on,” Elsa returned. “I feel pathetic.”

  Nancy reached for something on the bedside table and then lifted a little brown bag and a cup of take-away coffee into the air. “Look. I brought you those croissants from the Sunrise Cove and their coffee. I know you think it’s the best on the island.”

  Elsa groaned. This act of love and allegiance made her feel even worse. For weeks, she’d felt that Nancy wanted to abandon her for her “real” daughter; it was clear, now, that Elsa had been acting foolish, like a jealous teenager.

  “Thank you,” she moaned as she lifted up and pressed herself against the headboard. She took the first sip of coffee, and almost immediately, a few clear thoughts sprung into her mind. “Gosh, I can’t believe this. I can’t believe I just didn’t even go in to work. What kind of person am I? I’ve never done that.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up about it. It happens to the best of us.” Nancy’s voice warmed. She scooted the slightest bit onto the mattress so that she could cross her perfect legs beneath her. “I want to ask you something. And I want you to answer as honestly as you can.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you think you maybe weren’t really ready to return to the Lodge?”

  Elsa allowed her eyes to close again. She felt so much behind this question: earnest love, the kind that seemed straight from her father’s heart. Nancy and Neal had been so close that they’d frequently finished one another’s sentences. It was like Neal had fallen into her, used Nancy as a conduit to check in on Elsa.

  “I don’t know,” Elsa said finally. “I wanted to be ready. You and Janine and Carmella seemed so excited about it. I tried to fall in line with everyone else, and it felt good for a while. At the party, I told myself that I had to keep it together. That it was so clear the island needs us. But now...”

  Nancy nodded earnestly.

  For a moment, Elsa considered telling Nancy everything about the letter she had received regarding her and Aiden’s estate. But it seemed too difficult to explain.

  It was better to keep this private for now. She didn’t want anyone, not even Nancy, to think a single ill thought about Aiden. In Elsa’s eyes, Aiden was the perfect man and nobody could take that away or tarnish his good name.

  “Why don’t you take some time off?” Nancy asked as she tilted her head. “You deserve it.”

  “No way,” Elsa told her. “I had one off day. It won’t happen again. I can promise you that.”

  Nancy pressed her lips together as though she wanted to say something much more but willed herself to keep it in. She sighed, then said, “You’re so much like Neal. So stubborn and always putting everyone else above yourself.”

  Elsa blinked quickly to hold her tears in. “I just miss him so much.”

  “I know. Me too, honey.”

  Nancy stepped out of the room for a moment to grab Elsa a glass of water. Elsa took further stock of herself. She had apparently removed her suit pants and suit jacket, so she just lay there in a tank top and a pair of underwear. Apparently, she’d dragged one of Cole’s old blankets with his high school logo smattered all over it out of the closet, but she had kicked it to the side in the middle of the night.

  By the time Nancy returned to the bedroom, Elsa had yanked on her pants and suit jacket once more. She thanked Nancy for the glass of water and drank the entire thing in a hurry. She then stepped into the ensuite bathroom, where she found a grisly version of herself, a version of herself with stringy hair and pit stains and big bags under her eyes. This wasn’t the Elsa Remington Steel she had built over the years. This was a sad, depressed widow.

  “You should get back to work,” Elsa hollered through the crack in the door. “I don’t want to keep you.”

  Nancy grumbled. “Are you sure you don’t need me? I’m here for you if you want that.”

  “Don’t be silly. You know that I can handle anything.” Elsa feigned her brightest smile, even as her insides screamed.

  “Right, of course. Just like Neal.” Nancy’s smile fell the slightest bit as she gathered her purse over her shoulder. “I’ll see you at home, then, right? You aren’t moving back here?”

  “No.” Elsa shook her head violently. “I just, I don’t know. I can’t explain it. But thank you for finding me. I feel like I had some kind of, erm, mental break. But it’s over now. I promise.”

  Nancy paused at the doorway and lifted her eyes to Elsa’s. “You know, you don’t have to be so strong all the time. That’s what we tell the women at the Lodge, but, well, it’s especially true for us, too.”

  Elsa squared her shoulders and prepared to respond with something bright and cheery. But before she could, Nancy disappeared into the darkness of the hallway. There was the rap-rap-rap of her shoes across the foyer and then a moment later, she was gone.

  This left Elsa in the reality of the truth: that no, she couldn’t handle this by herself. But she was damned if she wasn’t going to try.

  Chapter Eight

  THE YEARLY ROUND-THE-Island sailing race was held every year in Edgartown Harbor. In previous years, Elsa had been very much involved in the planning of the extravagant party, as Aiden had been a prominent part of the Martha’s Vineyard sailing community. Frequently, Aiden won the race and their house had a number of his trophies to prove it. The previous year, Elsa had avoided the festivities like the plague. She hadn’t wanted to see the soulful, pitying eyes of the other sailor wives, the ones she’d known for decades, as their own husbands embarked over the ocean waves. She hadn’t wanted to acknowledge the depth of her sadness in the midst of the world Aiden had loved so dearly.

  This year was different, though. Cole had announced months before that he planned to follow in his father’s footste
ps and race around the island with the others. His father had taught him everything there was to know about sailing; in fact, they’d gone out on their first expedition when Cole had been only seven years old. By that time, Cole had already spent a number of hours per night perfecting his sailing knots. For Halloween, three years in a row, he had dressed as a pirate. “That boy is just like you,” Elsa had teased Aiden. “And God help us all.”

  Elsa appeared at the docks as the first of the Edgartown race party began. A tent had been set up, and beneath it, a live band had begun to perform classic rock hits — stuff from Journey and the Eagles and Tom Petty, songs that Aiden had blared out in that wretched voice of his. Elsa informed herself that crying on this day wasn’t an option. She wanted to have a good time. She wanted to be the other Elsa, the one she’d always been years before when cancer had just been something that happened to other people’s husbands. What a fool she’d been.

  Olivia Hesson, a teacher at the nearby high school, brushed past her with a glass of wine, then turned her head brightly to say hello. “Elsa! You look amazing.”

  “Olivia, hello.” Elsa hadn’t seen much of Olivia since her youngest, Alexie, had graduated from high school. All of her children had adored Ms. Hesson; she had brought countless books to life for them and forced them to dig into their creativity, something far different than their typical science or math classes. “How are you doing?”

  “Oh, I’m just fine. A bit stressed I guess,” Olivia admitted.

  “That’s right! I read about it in the paper. The Hesson House just opened, didn’t it?”

  Olivia grimaced. “You’re such a wonder for working in hospitality for so long. Honestly, I am so proud of that little boutique hotel. The last few months almost killed us trying to make sure everything was up to par and ready to go.”

  “But nothing is ever ready when it comes to tourists,” Elsa said with a knowing laugh.

  “I figured you’d get it,” Olivia said.

  “All too well.”

  “Maybe I could pick your brain sometime. You’ve done so remarkably for years at the Katama Lodge,” Olivia said.

  “Sure. Yeah. Let’s find the time,” Elsa said, even as her insides screamed just how little she wanted to help anyone with anything. It wasn’t that she didn’t care for Olivia; it wasn’t that she didn’t have the know-how to assist. She just felt so stretched thin; she felt she couldn’t offer anything at all to anyone beyond her own children.

  Speaking of which, where was Mallory? They’d agreed to meet at the party around this time.

  “Anyway, I have to find my boyfriend, Anthony,” Olivia told her as she peered through the crowd. “He’s massive, so you’d think it wouldn’t be this difficult to pick him out of the crowd. Maybe I’m going blind in my old age.”

  “We’re not so old yet!” Elsa tried yet again to laugh, but it came out sour.

  In truth, she felt about a million years old.

  Elsa continued to weave through the crowd. She paused at a natural wine stall for a glass of orange wine, locally made from a Massachusetts winery; while there, she spotted Mallory, deep in the crowd. She wore a light yellow dress, which fluttered around her thighs. She had hired a babysitter for the afternoon. Elsa realized just how much she’d missed her daughter and grandson since the last time they’d been at the house. It had only been a few days, but somehow, she looked lighter, freer, like a young woman on top of the world, rather than a woman with a million responsibilities and a bickering fiancé, to boot.

  Elsa waved an arm and caught Mallory’s attention. Mallory’s smile was electric, contagious. She rushed toward her mother and wrapped her arms around her. Elsa was reminded of the long-ago days when Mallory, Cole, and Alexie had greeted their parents in just this way. Elsa and Aiden had been their superheroes— their world. The switch of that from superhero to just another parent had been a difficult thing to grasp. Elsa and Aiden had teased one another about it frequently. “Well, I guess the magic’s over. We had a good run.”

  “You look beautiful, Mom,” Mallory commented as she gestured for the bartender to pour an additional glass of wine. “Where did you get that dress?”

  “This? Oh. I dragged it out of the back of my closet.” Elsa glanced down at the long black summer dress, with its slight cleavage and its fluttering sleeves.

  “What else do you have back there?” Mallory teased.

  “I know, I know. I haven’t dressed my best the past year,” Elsa returned.

  Mallory’s smile faltered immediately. “I didn’t mean that at all and besides. If we’re bringing past history into the mix, I haven’t exactly spent a lot of time out of my sweatpants this past year.”

  Elsa lifted her wine glass for Mallory to clink hers against it. “Well then. Cheers to us, finally out of sweatpants.”

  Mallory laughed as the light returned to her eyes. “Now, that’s something to celebrate.”

  Elsa and Mallory walked toward the starting line, where they spotted Cole toward the far end of the harbor, preparing his sailboat. The wind rushed through his dark hair and swept the strands back as he concentrated on the ropes, on his balance, and for a moment, he looked remarkably like his father some twenty-five-years before — an earnest and confident young man, a man who could fully handle himself, a man who could operate an entire sailboat alone and, probably place in the top three of the race, at least.

  “There’s Tommy Gasbarro,” Mallory muttered as she nodded toward the docks, where the previous year’s winner sauntered toward his own boat.

  Tommy Gasbarro was a second-generation Italian sailor and the ex-stepson of Stan Ellis, the man who had been driving the boat that had crashed the night Anna Sheridan had died. Tommy had won the race the previous year and then almost immediately scooped up Lola Sheridan, the third of the Sheridan sisters. They’d fallen in love and moved in together in a little cabin in the woods, the same one Chuck Frampton had once resided, prior to his arrest for robbing a number of island businesses.

  “He’s so handsome, isn’t he?” Mallory said with a smile.

  “Your father always liked him,” Elsa said. “Some of the other sailors weren’t as kind. Tommy always kept to himself.”

  “Elsa! Mallory!”

  Elsa whipped around to catch sight of Nancy as she swept through the crowd, a glass of wine in hand. Janine hustled up behind her. Nancy and Janine were so close in age — sixteen years apart, and now, their faces reflected one another like mirror images. They could have passed as sisters.

  Despite her occasional resentment for Nancy and Janine’s budding relationship, Elsa’s lips tugged into a smile. Nancy wrapped an arm around her shoulder and held her close. “There he is! That handsome Cole. He looks like a real man, doesn’t he?”

  “He sure does,” Elsa breathed.

  “Wow.” Janine sidled in on the other side of Mallory and greeted them all warmly. “Look at all those sailboats. It’s unreal. Oh, and look! There’s Henry!”

  Elsa peered out across the sailboats to find Henry, Janine’s friend; she suspected that ‘friendship’ would turn into a budding relationship with time. Elsa didn’t feel close enough to Janine to press her for details; besides, she’d only just gotten out of her marriage about two months before. But the way Janine lifted her hand to wave at the handsome documentarian told Elsa they were extremely close. You could practically feel Janine’s heart rising in her chest with excitement.

  “He hasn’t raced since he was in his twenties,” she explained.

  “He’s really taken island life back, hasn’t he?” Nancy stated as she turned back to the water.

  The sailboats lined up then. There was the blast of the starting gun, and then, full-blown white sails filled like balloons. Elsa forgot herself and reached for her daughter’s hand, which she squeezed hard as Cole struck out into the wild breeze and soon disappeared on the far side of the Edgartown lighthouse.

  “There he goes,” Elsa breathed, to no one in particular.

  Ma
llory flashed Elsa a wide grin. Her eyes were heavy with tears. “I remember coming here as a little girl and standing right here as Dad raced. I always begged for him to take me around the island for the race.”

  Elsa laughed. “Yes, but when it came time for him to teach you how, you always had something better to do, remember?”

  “I was such a horrible teenager.”

  “That’s not true at all. You were just typical. You liked your friends. You liked your boyfriends. Your dad got it.”

  “Not sure I deserved how understanding he was,” Mallory returned.

  “Maybe none of us did,” Elsa finished.

  Nancy, Janine, Mallory, and Elsa gathered around a tall table as the boats circled the island. Another band walked up onto the stage as several islanders passed them by and said hello. Elsa willed her smile to grow brighter; she prayed that her laugh sounded genuine and not fake. Still, she felt everyone’s pity; and everyone’s words — that they only wished both Aiden and Neal could be there with them, like the old times. It really didn’t help at all.

  Nancy and Janine fell into another walk down memory lane. This left Mallory and Elsa to stir in their own anxieties about the current situation. Elsa’s eyes searched the horizon line for some sign of Cole; all the while, she tried to drum up some way to ask Mallory about her situation with Lucas. She had avoided the topic since she’d first brought it up, but Elsa didn’t want to have that sort of relationship with her daughter. She didn’t want anything brushed under the rug.

  She was there for her till the end. She had to be. There was no one else around.

  “Mal, you’d tell me if anything was wrong, wouldn’t you?” Elsa finally asked as she swirled the wine in her glass.

  Mallory grimaced and turned her eyes toward the ground.