Healing Tides

by Katie Winters

  Elsa stepped up to the bistro window, where a teenage boy sold her a cup of coffee and a freshly-baked croissant. He was boisterous and eager and thanked her for her service. “We’re almost out of croissants for the day,” he said. “Good thing you made it.”

  Elsa nibbled on the croissant and sipped her coffee on a bench just outside of Susan Sheridan’s law office. Several tourists walked past, some with ice cream that dribbled across their cheeks. That was the thing about vacation, something Elsa craved: nothing mattered — not the ice cream on your face or the time of day or how loud you laughed. Everything was ultimate freedom.

  Amanda Harris, Susan Sheridan’s daughter, greeted Elsa in the foyer. She was the spitting image of her mother. “Hello, Mrs. Steel. How are you today?”

  “Just fine, thank you,” Elsa lied. She had grown accustomed to that lie over the previous year. “Sorry. I’m a bit early.”

  “Don’t worry. Bruce is in his office. I’ll see if he can take you already.”

  Elsa hovered near the front desk with her big box of paperwork. There was the muffled sound of voices as Amanda explained that his appointment was early. Then, the door pushed open to reveal a broad-shouldered man of approximately six feet, four inches. He wore a nicely-cut suit, nothing too flashy and his seafoam green eyes found Elsa’s immediately.

  There was a comfort behind those eyes.

  It was as though he, as a lawyer, working for people in the depths of despair, had learned how to generate this feeling of calm.

  “Hello, Mrs. Steel,” he greeted as he joined her in the foyer. “Let me take that box from you. It looks pretty heavy.”

  “Thank you.” Elsa watched, amazed, as he lifted the thing from her arms as though it weighed nothing at all.

  He held the box with his left hand as he reached out with his right to shake hers. “Welcome to the Sheridan Law Offices. Would you step into my office?”

  Elsa followed him without a word and soon collapsed in the chair across from the main one as he closed the door behind them. His cologne was ever-present in the air over the desk — a cedar, sandalwood, and grapefruit combination that made Elsa feel incredibly alert. He wore a beard, which Elsa liked on him, and it was trim and fresh-looking, not like a hipster’s or a lumberjack's.

  “Amanda has brought me up to speed about what you told her on the phone,” Bruce began as he folded his hands over the desk. “But I want to hear everything with your own words if it isn’t too much trouble to go over it again. I don’t want to miss any details.”

  Elsa pressed her lips together. In truth, she hadn’t explained much of anything to anyone as of yet and she found it difficult to uncover the narrative that the story required.

  “My husband died a little over a year ago. He was a remarkable man. He worked as a stockbroker throughout essentially our entire marriage, and we were quite comfortable with his career alongside mine...”

  “Which is?”

  “I work as the public relations manager for the Katama Lodge and Wellness Spa.” Elsa was surprised at the jolt of pride she felt as she said her title, despite the fact that she’d hardly managed to make it into the office the previous week.

  “Ah yes. Neal Remington’s place. Your father, I take it.” Bruce tapped the tip of his pen against the desk.

  “You’re heard of us?”

  “Sure. I grew up on the island. Everyone knew Neal, even over here in Oak Bluffs. My father was friends with him before his own passing. I was sad to hear to Neal had died, as well.”

  Elsa nodded somberly. “It was a real surprise for all of us. He’d had a few health problems, but nothing serious, so it was shocking, to say the least.”

  “He deserved a whole lot more time with his loved ones,” Bruce said.

  A lump formed in Elsa’s throat and threatened to yank her into the depths of sorrow. Somehow, she kept her chin held high.

  “I received this letter last week —” Elsa placed the letter on the desk and watched as Bruce read it. Slowly, his brow furrowed.

  “I see.” Bruce yanked out a notepad and began to scribble out notes for himself, none of which Elsa could possibly read — probably not even close-up.

  “I also heard a few sailors at the Round-the-Island race discussing it,” Elsa continued. “It seems like there are a number of people looking to defame my husband and take a huge amount of funds from his estate.”

  Bruce lifted his eyes toward hers. “I can’t even imagine what you must be going through.”

  Elsa hadn’t expected such empathy. The lump in her throat grew even bigger. “Yes, it’s been hard, to say the least.”

  Bruce placed his pen down for a moment as his eyes held hers.

  “I promise you that I will do everything in my power to get to the bottom of this and find some resolution. You have my word.”

  Elsa exhaled slowly. Her shoulders threatened to shake. “I just hate that his good name is already being dragged through the mud. He doesn’t deserve this. He was always such a good and honest man.”

  Bruce set his jaw. After a moment, he said, “I understand. If someone had dragged my wife’s name through the mud after her death, I would have lost my mind. All we have are our memories. And they’re not only attempting to rob you of those; they’re also trying to take your money. It’s horrendous and an act of evil in my books.”

  Tears sprung to Elsa’s eyes. How readily had this man brought the truth of his own life to the surface? And yet, Elsa would have never known just by looking at him that he, too, had gone through some of the worst pain Elsa had ever experienced.

  “I’m so sorry to hear that you lost your wife,” she said softly.

  Bruce nodded. “Thank you for saying that. It’s part of the reason I came back to the Vineyard. I wanted a fresh start in a familiar place.”

  “Has it been welcoming, being back?” she asked, shifting in her seat.

  Bruce considered this. “I’m still adjusting. I took the past year and a half off of working in law to focus on myself, trying to heal. I’m sure you know, when things get especially rough, it can be difficult to maintain health. That’s one way of putting it, at least.”

  Elsa had the funniest urge to tell Bruce about her horrible scotch-fueled bender the previous week. Luckily, she held herself back and just said, “Yes. It’s funny that in the midst of so much sadness and pain, you have to remind yourself that you have a body that needs to be fed and maintained in order to keep yourself well.”

  “It’s such a rollercoaster,” Bruce agreed.

  Bruce returned his gaze to the letter before him and continued to jot notes off to the side. Elsa crossed and uncrossed her legs as panic eased out of her. She hadn’t expected to feel so calm with her lawyer; she hadn’t expected to find such empathy, echoed back in his eyes.

  “I guess I have my work cut out for me,” Bruce said as he tapped the top of the stack of paperwork. “Lots to go over.”

  “Aiden was always very thorough. I just can’t make heads or tails of anything in there,” Elsa admitted.

  “Don’t worry. I’m a very lame superhero. I’m all paperwork and forms and legal jargon. It wouldn’t make for a very good movie, but —”

  “On the contrary, I think this is exactly the kind of superhero the world needs.” A warm smile stretched across Elsa’s lips.

  Elsa told Bruce to call her if he required anything at all. She even heard herself offer up Aiden’s office if he wanted to search for more documents. As their conversation wound down, her legs turned to lead. She didn’t want to leave that office. She’d found her knight in shining armor; she didn’t want to return to the trenches of her own life just yet.

  “I guess I’ll see you very soon,” Bruce said as he led her toward the door and shook her hand again. This time, Elsa fell into the flood of warmth, which beamed out from his hand.

  It was difficult for her when they parted.

  It was difficult for her to sit in the front seat of her car and stare straight ahead and v
isualize the next empty hours of her day.

  It wasn’t that she craved him in any way beyond the safety he offered.

  Or maybe — just maybe he had reminded her, for the first time in over a year, that she wasn’t dead yet. She hadn’t fully realized that before; that for the majority of her time since Aiden had been lowered into his grave, she had considered herself more or less a corpse.

  Bruce Holland was handsome, articulate, empathetic, and intelligent. He was on the case to save her husband’s good name. It was a thrill to know him — a bright light in the darkness. And beyond anything, Elsa was just grateful he existed. That had to be enough.

  Chapter Eleven

  AS ELSA DROVE BACK to the house she shared with Nancy and Janine; her phone began to ring. She snapped a finger located just above the rear-view, which allowed her speakerphone to come through the speakers of the car. Her phone remained latched away in her purse, and she answered with an air of professionalism, just in case it was a work call or something associated with Aiden’s case.

  “This is Elsa Steel speaking.”

  There was a strange croak on the other end of the line; then, a sob echoed through. Elsa would have recognized the sound anywhere.

  “Mallory? Honey? Are you okay?”

  “Mom...” Mallory’s voice wavered. Elsa could picture her daughter's face: scrunched tight marred with sadness, her eyes closed as she willed herself to stop crying. “Mom, can you come get me? Can you come get us?”

  Elsa’s heart raced. “Where are you?”

  “I’m at home. Lucas took the car. He’s so angry, Mom. So angry. I just don’t want to be here anymore. I can’t do this anymore.”

  Elsa pressed her foot against the gas and raced toward the apartment building, where Mallory and Lucas had moved in together about two years before. Elsa still remembered that gorgeous day when she and Aiden had assisted Mallory in carrying a number of boxes and decorations. Mallory had never wanted to leave the island; she’d told them, point-blank, that her life on the Vineyard with Lucas was all she ever wanted. Then, Zachery had arrived the year after and Mallory had, for a moment, seemed the portrait of happiness.

  Naturally, her father and grandfather’s deaths had had a say in that happiness. Probably, it had contributed to every day struggles at the apartment with Lucas. Add a new baby to the mix and boom. Things were rocky. It was a recipe for disaster.

  Elsa rushed up the steps to Mallory’s apartment door. All she could hear was Baby Zachery’s wails as they rushed through the bottom of the door. Mallory had recently confessed that a number of her neighbors detested her and Lucas. Having a colic baby and screeching fights didn’t help the matter. Most of the neighbors were older, divorced and probably, whatever happened between Mallory and Lucas’s walls reminded them of a life they’d all put behind them.

  Elsa rapped her knuckles on the door and waited. When it seemed the noise of the knock hadn’t gotten to her daughter, she instead opened the door on her own. When she stepped into the apartment, fear wrapped itself around her heart.

  The place was a complete mess. Pizza boxes lined one side of the couch, all of them empty; the trash overflowed in the connecting kitchen; there were plates and bowls with half-drunk cereal and milk at various locations around the living area, including on top of the TV.

  “Mal? Are you in here?”

  Even as Zachery continued to wail, Mallory appeared in the doorway between the living area and the bedroom. Her eyes were rimmed red with tears. She rushed for her mother and fell into a hug as Zachery belted out another horrendous scream.

  “What happened in here?” Elsa whispered.

  Mallory grimaced. “I’ve just spent a lot of the last few days in the bedroom with Zach.”

  “So that means Lucas has been sleeping out here? On the couch?”

  Mallory squeezed her eyes shut and turned back toward the bedroom. Elsa took this as a yes. She followed after her daughter, snaking back into the bedroom, which was much cleaner, with its freshly-washed sheets, its glowing white crib, in which Zachery sat, with his little hands wrapped around the wooden crib bars. His cheeks burned red with sadness, as comically big tears rolled down his cheeks.

  “Oh no. Baby Zach, what’s the matter?” Elsa’s voice lilted as she reached into the crib and drew her grandson up to her chest and shoulder. Firmly, she patted his back as he wept against her. It had been a week or two since she’d held him and the feel of his warmth filled her with a tremendous amount of longing and sadness, yet also purpose.

  Mallory and Zachery needed her. Aiden’s good name needed her. Cole needed her to step up and be the woman Aiden Steel had left behind.

  “Is Lucas at work?” Elsa whispered as Zachery began to coo. Already, his eyelids seemed heavy; they dripped toward his cheeks as he lifted his thumb toward his lips.

  Mallory shook her head. “He’s on the verge of losing that job. We got into a fight earlier this afternoon about it and he stormed out.”

  Elsa’s heart darkened at the thought of this selfish man treating her daughter like this. She clenched her jaw as Zachery whimpered. How horrendous was it that over the span of his life, Zachery would have to know this toxic side of Lucas as his father?

  “Let’s pack up everything you need and head back to Nancy’s,” Elsa said firmly.

  Mallory’s shoulders crumpled forward. “I feel so stupid and lost.”

  “Don’t. Don’t feel stupid.” Elsa’s chin quivered, even as she kept her eyes focused on her daughter’s. “This is life and sometimes it can deal us a bad hand, but we need to learn how to handle it. It can smack you in the face every which way, but as long as you get back up, that’s all that counts. I’m here for you— every step of the way.”

  Zachery fell asleep in Elsa’s arms a moment later. She placed him gently back in the crib and set to work, thrusting shorts and t-shirts and light jackets into Mallory’s suitcase. Mallory zipped up a toiletry bag and blinked at a pad of paper there on her desk. “I should leave a note.”

  Mallory lifted her pen and scribbled out something unemotional. “I’ve gone to Moms. Don’t call or follow me. I need time to think.”

  Elsa carried Zachery out of the apartment while Mallory snapped the car seat into the back of Elsa’s car. She placed him tenderly into the car seat and then snapped the seatbelt over him. All the while, he buzzed his lips as though in his dreams, he performed some kind of song.

  Once Mallory’s suitcase was lodged into the back of the car, Elsa slipped into the driver’s seat and watched as her daughter lifted herself into the passenger seat. Her cheeks were hollowed-out; her skin was oddly the wrong color, as though she hadn’t eaten properly in a while.

  Still, she looked so much more like herself outside of that stupid apartment. What was it Aiden had said about the place? “I want to buy my little girl an apartment, somewhere she’ll be safe.” But Mallory and Lucas had resisted. They’d wanted to fight their own battles together.

  Like most young couples, they hadn’t imagined that their own battles would mostly be the ones that came between them. They hadn’t imagined that their enemies would just be one another, more than everyone else.

  Elsa felt so lucky that Aiden had only ever been a welcoming, loving, marvelous partner. It was the luck of the draw, maybe. Mallory certainly deserved much better than all this.

  “What should we tell Nancy?” Mallory asked as they eased into the driveway.

  Elsa cut the engine and furrowed her brow. “You know about Grandma Nancy’s past, right?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Well, she isn’t the kind of woman to judge anything that happens to anyone else,” Elsa told her. “You can tell her what happened if you want to; or, you can just keep it to yourself. But just know that Nancy will support you. Janine will, too, no matter how difficult it has been for me to accept her into the family. I know she genuinely cares for us. Maybe one day, we’ll love each other like real sisters.”

  Of course, with her own re
lationship with Carmella continually fraught, Elsa had tremendous difficulty imagining such a thing. Again, her most recent fight with Carmella from the previous week rushed to her mind. She hadn’t seen her since.

  She wondered if Carmella had heard that Cole had won the sailing competition — the ultimate honoring of his father’s memory.

  She wondered if she cared at all.

  Probably not.

  It wasn’t like Carmella had ever really stepped up into the “aunt” role, either.

  When Elsa opened the front door, Nancy called out from the kitchen.

  “Elsa? Is that you?”

  “Sure is. I have a few guests with me.”

  Nancy walked in from the kitchen and beamed as Mallory carried Zachery in from the car. Mallory had left the suitcase in the back; perhaps she still wanted to pretend that this was just a normal, everyday visit.

  “Look at you two. You’re so beautiful,” Nancy said as she beckoned for them to come further in. “Should we set him up in the crib? He looks about as cozy as a clam.”

  Once Zachery slept on in the next room, Mallory, Janine, Elsa, and Nancy sat around the porch table with a bottle of chardonnay. The once-sterling day had morphed and shifted, and dark clouds brewed on the horizon and threatened to take hold of their little island.

  “I love watching the storms roll in from here,” Janine said softly as she dropped her head back the slightest bit. Her ponytail swept across the top of her back. “Storms are so different in the city.”

  “Weren’t you all the way up on the fortieth floor?” Nancy asked. “That must have been quite a show.”

  Janine’s eyes grew shadowed, as though suddenly, she was forced to remember the unique apartment in which she had raised her two girls, far up from the grounds of Manhattan.

  “It was really something. I had to pinch myself every day,” Janine breathed.