Had anyone seen the wild donkeys? Where, oh where, did the donkeys take cover in the storm?
No sooner does the storm clear than someone sees Margaret Quinn herself in a pair of Hunter rain boots and a bright green anorak broadcasting from the Cruz Bay ferry dock. Margaret Quinn! Candice from the St. John Business Center and several others saw Margaret’s broadcast from the night before Inga hit, but the rest of us, of course, were too busy preparing for the storm to casually watch TV. After Margaret Quinn finishes her spiel on the dock—what can she say but that St. John sustained monumental damage that will take a long time to recover from?—she insists on walking over to the Dolphin Market building so she can talk to real people. We see her producer and even the camerawoman trying to dissuade her but Margaret Quinn strides ahead. That’s why we love her, after all; she’s a strong, independent woman who will do what it takes to get to the beating heart of a story.
Margaret sees a couple about her age waiting at the end of the line. The woman—nice-looking with a neat chestnut braid—is handing out what appear to be cookies to the people ahead of her in line.
“Lemongrass sugar cookies,” Margaret overhears her saying. “Homemade.”
This will be her first interview, Margaret decides. A woman who brought homemade cookies to share while she stands in line to maybe get a cell phone signal is someone Margaret would like to meet. “Excuse me,” Margaret says, touching the woman’s elbow.
The couple turn and the woman’s eyes widen. “Why!”
The man says, “Holy smokes. Margaret Quinn!”
The woman holds out the platter. “Would you like one? They’re lemongrass sugar cookies. Homemade.”
“I’d love one,” Margaret says.
Their names are Captain Huck Powers and Irene Steele. Margaret had pegged them for a long-married couple but she’s apparently mistaken. This must be one of these magic relationships—not unlike Margaret and Drake—where people of a certain age find love later in life.
Huck reveals that he’s a charter fishing captain who has lived on St. John for over twenty years. His boat is called the Mississippi. Irene is from Iowa City; she moved to the island in February because she needed a life change.
Huck wraps his arm around Irene’s shoulder and pulls her in close. “She sure changed my life.”
Who are Huck and Irene waiting to call? Family back in Iowa?
“Most of my family is here,” Irene says. “My son Baker and his girlfriend, Ayers, had a baby last night at home.”
Margaret thinks she must have misunderstood. “They had a crying baby last night at home?”
“They had a baby last night,” Irene says. “Ayers gave birth in the bedroom with a nurse practitioner who happens to be a friend of the family. So I have a brand-new granddaughter.”
Margaret can’t help herself. “Will she be named Inga?”
“Oh,” Irene says. “I hope not.”
“No,” Huck says. “They haven’t settled on a name yet, but rest assured, it will not be Inga.”
Irene says, “And that’s not all. My other son, Cash”—here, Irene pivots and casts a concerned glance behind them, at the water—“is over on Lovango Cay with his friend Tilda. Her family is building an eco-resort on Lovango, and, if I’m not mistaken, Cash and Tilda are the only two people on the entire island. I’m going to try to call Cash to make sure they made it through okay.”
This is such a good local story that Margaret feels like she hit the jackpot on the first try. She asks Huck and Irene to repeat all of this—including the shtick about the name Inga—with the cameras rolling. She has Linda get a close-up of the cookies and then she asks Linda to pan across the water toward Lovango Cay.
When they finish filming, Irene says, “I’m not one to play the name game but I think you know my cousin.”
Margaret smiles. She loves this woman, this couple; they’re authentic and charming, and even if Margaret has no idea who Irene’s cousin is, she might pretend she does. “Who’s your cousin?”
“Mitzi Quinn,” Irene says.
Ha! Margaret thinks. Ha-ha-ha! “Mitzi? Mitzi is your cousin?”
Irene nods shyly. Huck looks lost. “Who’s Mitzi?”
“Mitzi was married to my ex-husband for many years,” Margaret says. “Mitzi’s son, Bart, is my children’s half brother.” She beams. “We’re practically related!” She pulls out a business card and hands it to Irene. “Please, let’s keep in touch. If you ever need anything…”
“Thank you,” Irene says.
Margaret tilts her head. “Before I move on, I have to ask one more question. How did the two of you meet?”
Irene and Huck smile at each other and Margaret can see something pass between them that seems to indicate it’s a story too complicated for a sound bite. Of course, Margaret thinks. All the best stories are.
“We could tell you,” Huck says. “But you’d never believe it.”
Irene
Cash and Tilda are okay. The cell phone reception when she’s talking to Cash goes in and out but the gist is that they’re going to stay on Lovango for a few days to try to clean up before they take the skiff back over to St. John.
“It was scary,” Cash admits. “The cottage shook so bad, we felt like dice in a cup. During the worst of it, I looped my belt through the handle of the front door and pulled, and Tilda sat behind me, bracing me. We knew if we lost the door, the roof would be next.”
Irene gets a chill. You should have stayed with us, she almost says. The Happy Hibiscus didn’t sustain any damage because it’s made of stone, because it’s sheltered from the water, because the yard has only bismarckia trees, no palms. The wind was loud, the windows rattled, they could hear the branches of the trees coming down, but that was the worst of it. The baby cried a little, which was a sound everyone loved, and Winnie whimpered, which was a sound nobody loved but everyone tolerated. “Isn’t it lonely being the only two people on that whole island?” Irene asks.
“Actually,” Cash says, “it’s kind of romantic.”
Well, Irene thinks, looks like Tilda is back in the picture. “We have a surprise for you when you get home,” Irene says.
“A what?” Cash says.
“A surprise!” Irene says. There’s no answer. “A surprise!” She turns to Huck. “I think I lost him.”
Suddenly she hears Cash say, “Thanks, Mom. Hug Winnie for me.”
When Huck and Irene leave town, Irene says, “Shall we go to your house?”
“Our house?” he says. He sighs. “Can’t put it off forever, I guess.”
They’ve avoided it until now because the most important thing was making sure everyone was safe, including Cash and Tilda. The fate of Huck’s house and the boat is secondary.
Sort of.
If the house is destroyed, where will they live? If the boat is destroyed, how will they live?
Slowly, they begin the climb up Jacob’s Ladder. Irene is surprised when her phone pings with a text.
It’s from Lydia. We saw you on Channel 2 with Margaret Quinn! it says. Congrats on your new granddaughter! Brandon was so happy his cookies made it on TV!
There are branches down on the road up to Huck’s house that Huck has to clear. One of their neighbors lost his entire roof; it’s like someone pried the lid off a jar. Where is it? Somewhere down the hill? The destruction is everywhere and it is epic. There’s a truck on its side with the doors ripped off. Entire homes have been reduced to rubble—insulation and beams and crumbling bricks. The Ladder looks far, far worse than Fish Bay.
When they’re still fifty yards away, they can see the Mississippi. Huck exhales. It’s a little crooked on the trailer but otherwise fine. It must have been shielded by the house. Huck jumps out to look at the boat more closely while Irene heads up the front stairs.
They still have a roof, and the deck is intact, although the railings are all broken. She has to wait for Huck to retrieve his drill from the truck so he can take the shutter off the front door
. Together, they step inside.
Something is wrong—the windows in the kitchen have blown out. There’s glass everywhere and the living room looks like it’s been ransacked; lamps have been knocked over, cushions from the sofa are all over the room, everything is wet. There’s at least three inches of water in the kitchen, the chairs are all smashed; the sugar bowl, the toaster, Irene’s food processor are all sitting broken in the shallow pond of their kitchen. There’s a palm rat feasting on what looks to be an overturned plate of chicken and rice.
Irene gags. Huck comes up behind her. “I’ll get him out in a second,” he says. “Let’s check the rest.”
Huck and Irene head down the hall to the bedrooms, the bathrooms. They’re hot, stuffy, unbearable—but fine. Except…
“Uh-oh,” Huck says. He emerges from Maia’s room with the portrait of Milly. The glass has one long crack down the front. “I think the actual photograph is okay, though.”
Irene takes the frame from him. Yes, it looks like the picture is okay. What this picture has survived in the past year. “Why…the kitchen?” Irene says.
“I didn’t shutter the windows,” Huck says. “I was about to when you called and then I got on the phone with Rupert and I had to track down Sadie and then I thought I’d come back and do it later.” He turns to Irene with tears in his eyes. “I got so caught up in the baby coming that I completely forgot about those three windows. I forgot until just this moment.”
“It’s nothing we can’t clean up,” Irene says. The rat has disappeared, though no doubt he’s lurking around here somewhere. “I kind of wanted to remodel the kitchen anyway.”
They remove the shutters from the slider and Huck checks to make sure the deck boards are secure before they step outside. All the railings are broken; one whole side has disappeared. Irene is sure Huck is craving a cigarette but he busies himself with stacking the broken pieces of the railing in a pile. The whole thing will have to be torn down and rebuilt.
Irene remembers when she used to wake up believing that Russ was still alive. One nightmare in particular returns to her now: Russ staggering down the beach, his shirt soaking wet, his pants ragged. He wanted to tell her something. The storm is coming. It will be a bad storm. Destructive.
When Huck turns around, his breathing is shallow. Irene takes his left hand, the one with only half a pinkie, and presses it between both of hers.
“Look at this place,” he says, pointing down the hill at the wreckage, which extends all the way to the water. “St. John is destroyed.”
“Damaged,” Irene says. “Not destroyed.” Like me, she thinks.
This island—and this man—have taught Irene some things about resilience, about patience, and, most of all, about hope. Bad things can happen, terrible things. You can lose the people you love the most; you can lose homes, cars, antiques, hand-knotted silk rugs that cost five figures; you can discover that the very life you’re living is a terrific lie. And despite this, despite all this, the sun will continue to rise. Tomorrow morning, over the bruised and broken body of St. John USVI, the sun will rise again.
Irene Steele knows this better than anyone.
Epilogue
Millicent Maia Steele
September 6, 2019
6 pounds, 14 ounces, 21 inches
I can’t believe you named her after me,” Maia says.
“We did,” Ayers says. “Because, you know what, Nut? I want Milly to grow up and be smart and strong and fun, just like you.”
“And precocious?” Maia says.
Ayers laughs. “And precocious.”
Maia leans over into the bassinet to look more closely at her niece. She’s asleep, and her little bow of a mouth is making a sucking motion. Maia reaches out her pinkie, and baby Milly’s impossibly tiny hand grasps it.
“Just watch me,” Maia whispers. “I’ll show you how it’s done.”
Acknowledgments
I want to start by thanking my brother, Douglas Hilderbrand, who is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service and who provided all the weather details in the last section of this book based on his research of Hurricane Irma. He is also the inspiration for the character Dougie Clarence, the CBS weatherman who appears here and in my novel Winter Storms.
There is a real-life version of the Lovango Resort and Beach Club being built as I write this, and no one like Duncan Huntley has any part in it. The owners are my dear friends Mark and Gwenn Snider, who own the Nantucket Hotel and Resort and the Winnetu on Martha’s Vineyard. I’ve held my bucket-list weekends at both of their properties and we all hope that at some point in the near future, we can host a St. John bucket-list weekend on Lovango!
I have taken ten trips to St. John. Eight of these were my usual five-week writing-retreat visits, one was at Christmas, and my most recent trip there, in March of 2020, coincided with the outbreak of COVID-19. I ended up staying on St. John for seven weeks and “sheltered in paradise.” Over the course of these visits, I have made friends and acquaintances. I always say that the places we love are about people, and that is certainly true in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Thank you to Julie, Matt, and Shane Lasota; Beth and Jim Heskett of St. John Guest Suites; Bridgett and Jimmy Key of Palm Tree Charters; Captains Stephen Sloan and Kelly Quinn (no relation to “our” Kelley Quinn!) of Singing Dog Sailing Charters; Brian and Michelle Zehring of New Moon; Alex Ewald of La Tapa; Ryan Costanzo of Extra Virgin Bistro and 1864; Allison Gould of Sam and Jack’s; Hank and Karen Slodden; Sarah Swan; John Dickson from the Papaya Café and Bookstore; Dana Neil of Cruz Bay Watersports; Richard Baranowski of Lime Inn/Lime Out (who saved my son Maxx’s life, but that’s a story for another day); Karen Coffelt, head of school Liz Morrison, and all of the amazing teachers and staff at the Antilles School; Jorie Roberts; Meredith DeBusk from St. John Provisions; Sarah Bigelow, Peter Bettinger, Mattie Atkinson, Rhonda McCay, and Linda Beer (I told you I’d get you in!); and Heather Hearn Samelson of Pizza Pi VI. If I have forgotten any of you, it’s because I’m old, not because I don’t love and appreciate you.
A huge and special thank-you to Judy Clain, my new editor at Little, Brown, who took me in as an orphan and made me feel like her favorite child. She is brilliant, and this book owes her an enormous debt.
To my kids, Maxwell, Dawson, and Shelby: Everything, always, is for you.
For me, St. John is, above and beyond all else, about Timothy Field. The man has been setting up my towels, pouring my cocktails, and keeping the water from washing me (and my notebooks) away for years. I love you in Love City, HB. XOX
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About the Author
ELIN HILDERBRAND has been visiting St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands, for five weeks every year since 2012, and in the spring of 2020, she “sheltered in paradise” there for seven weeks. She spends the rest of the year living in Nantucket, Massachusetts, and is the mother of three children. Troubles in Paradise is her twenty-sixth novel.
Also by Elin Hilderbrand
The Beach Club
Nantucket Nights
Summer People
The Blue Bistro
The Love Season
Barefoot
A Summer Affair
The Castaways
The Island
Silver Girl
Summerland
Beautiful Day
The Matchmaker
Winter Street
The Rumor
Winter Stroll
Here’s to Us
Winter Storms
The Identicals
Winter Solstice
The Perfect Couple
Winter in Paradise
Summer of ’69
What Happens in Paradise
28 Summers
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Troubles in Paradise Page 31
