Andrea cleared her throat. “I guess it has something to do with Dad?”
“It does.”
“Figures. Ever since Christmas, it’s been one thing after another. First, he left. Then, he can’t find a place to stay. Then, he’s calling me all the time, but I’m busy, and I’m angry at him, and I don’t want to take his calls. I mean, come on. He left. I can’t very well forgive him for that. My friend, Monica, says that divorce happens all the time, but I just can’t deal with that as an answer. I —”
“There’s a lot more than that,” Camilla finally interrupted. Sometimes, Andrea did this. Her words ran on and on and on, and you had to interrupt mid-sentences if only to get your point across.
Andrea pressed her lips together. Silence filled the space between them. Camilla stared first into her water and then forced her eyes up toward Andrea’s, a set of baby blues just like hers.
“Your dad made a series of bad investments,” Camilla finally said. Her voice wavered and threatened to break.
“Jesus,” Andrea whispered.
“It’s not the end of the world,” Camilla tried hurriedly. “We can still keep the house. And your dad still has his job and that crummy apartment of his. But unfortunately, the funds he was fast and loose with were your college funds.”
Andrea placed her glass of water on a cardboard box off to her right. When she did, her arms and legs started to shake. Camilla stretched her hand over Andrea’s wrist, but Andrea shook her off.
“What exactly are you saying?” Andrea’s words were laced with anger and brimming with chaos.
Camilla’s nostrils flared. Maybe, sometimes, it was just better to say the information flatly, without emotion. “We don’t have the money to send you back here this fall.”
Andrea stood on weak legs. She walked around like a baby giraffe who’d just erupted onto the surface of the earth. For a long moment, she stood at the window and studied the road outside. Camilla couldn’t help but think, as she stood there, that she was the exact replica of herself at age twenty-one. Almost around the same time, she had gotten married and given birth to her.
Outside, a car alarm blared. A woman screamed with excitement. A baby’s wail hummed down from one of the top floors of the apartment building. In New York, you were just another body in a sea of strange people. Individualism went out the window.
“I wanted to finish my degree so badly,” Andrea said softly. “And Dad told me, he always told me, that he would help me with that. He always said he would help me reach my dreams. Anything I wanted.”
Camilla’s throat tightened. She, too, had thought Jonathon’s words had been trustworthy. For over twenty years, she’d listened to his constant stream of “I love you” and “I’ll take care of you” and “Andrea will be safe, forever, as long as I have something to do with it” and she’d been naive enough to believe every syllable, every word.
Andrea turned back from the window. Her eyes shimmered with tears as she said, “This isn’t the end.”
“What do you mean?”
Andrea stepped toward the stack of boxes with the energy of a working mother of four. She assessed the top of the box, then drew out a marker from her back pocket and labeled it: BOOKS/RECORDS. Camilla watched her as though she was a stranger. Andrea then wrapped her hands beneath the base of the box and lifted, careful to place the weight on her legs.
“Andrea. What do you mean?”
Andrea’s eyes were difficult to read. They were hard and filled with fury. “I’ll figure it out. I have to figure it out for myself.”
Camilla’s heart shattered right then.
“If I want to go back to school — if I want to marry Isaac in December, then it’s on my shoulders,” Andrea said as she stepped toward the door. “I should have known better than to trust Dad. Actually, ever since he left in December, I should have planned for the worst. I don’t know if he’s having some kind of mid-life crisis or what. But...” She paused at the door and adjusted herself so that she could grip the door handle with the box on her left knee.
“He was never like this before,” Camilla said softly. Somehow, she felt more like the child at this moment, while Andrea took the reins of her own life.
“I know,” Andrea said. “But if there’s anything I’ve learned from watching my friends in this city date men, it’s this. You can’t trust them. One minute, they want one thing; the next, they want another.”
“You shouldn’t think that,” Camilla stated, taking a step closer. Her brows were knitted as she tried to reason with her only daughter.
Andrea buzzed her lips as she hovered in the doorway. “I love Isaac. I do. And I want to be able to trust him with my life. But the truth is, everyone on this planet has faults. It’s better to forge your own path and not rely on anyone. That way, you don’t get disappointed. Right?”
Camilla, who had fallen into the depths of despair since Jonathon’s departure, who had really come to know what disappointment meant since December, could do nothing but nod. It seemed her daughter had been given a few extra pages to read from the book on life, more so than Camilla ever had.
“I’m going to come back to school. And I’m going to marry Isaac. And everything is going to work out,” Andrea said, as her voice began to waver again and her shoulders slumped forward. “I — I —”
But as she began to stutter, Andrea lost control of the box. It fell from her arms as she burst into tears. Camilla rushed for her daughter. She nestled her daughter in her arms as Andrea shook and cried while her head rested against Camilla’s chest. This, at least, made sense to Camilla. This, at least, was something she could handle. She held her daughter for many minutes, stroking her hair, until Jennifer returned to the space outside the door, with news that their parking meter would run out soon. It was time to head back to the Vineyard. It was time to face the truth.
Camilla let Jennifer drive them away from Brooklyn, back north, then east, to the beautiful rock that swelled above the Atlantic Ocean. Throughout, Andrea was quiet in the back. Jennifer spoke when she could about her boyfriend, Derek’s daughter’s upcoming wedding, which would be held on the Vineyard.
“You’ll have to talk to her, Andrea,” Jennifer said, her voice overly bright. “I know there’s nothing like talking about your wedding with other women planning their weddings.”
Andrea seemed to try to pull her lips into a smile. But when she answered, her voice was weak. “I’m sure Emma will have a beautiful wedding. One that she’s always dreamed of.”
Within her words, Camilla felt the devastation of Andrea’s loss. Maybe she wouldn’t have the career or the wedding of her dreams; maybe nothing would work out the way she had planned. Camilla could empathize. After all, nothing in her life had worked out, either— like mother, like daughter.
Chapter Three
Andrea stood at the center of her childhood bedroom, which Camilla had painted light yellow so many years ago. On the far wall, Andrea’s graduation photos still hung on the wall. There, she stood, alongside one of her dear friends, Chelsea, who was also Olivia’s daughter; in another, both she and Isaac wore bright and shiny graduation gowns and cheesy smiles. In another, she and three other friends stuck out their tongues and closed their eyes. The photos seemed to mock her, as though they’d trapped Andrea back in the life she had wanted to escape.
“You okay?” Camilla hovered in the doorway. Between her and her daughter were six boxes stacked into piles.
“I have my work cut out for me, I guess.” Andrea gestured toward the boxes. “Lots to put away. Lots of laundry to do. And the sooner I start to get settled, the sooner I can focus on how to get out of this mess.”
Camilla nodded somberly. “I know this is awful. I—”
Andrea waved a hand back and forth. “It’s not the end of the world. And besides. I—I know that I’ll get out of this. What Dad did to you? It’s so much worse.”
Camilla felt the weight of this, like a punch to the stomach. She blinked at her d
aughter as the silence stretched between them.
“I’m sorry,” Andrea said softly as she dropped her chin to her chest. “That was really insensitive.”
Camilla stepped back into the hallway. She felt herself move back toward the kitchen, where she hovered over the counter and considered the immense mess of her life. It was true what Andrea said; Andrea had options and so many opportunities. All Camilla had, really, was a night shift to get to at the hospital, a husband who’d wronged her, and best friends who thought she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Maybe she was.
Andrea appeared in the living room and crossed her arms over her chest. “What time does your shift start?”
“Nine-thirty.”
“We should order pizza before. You hardly touched your burrito earlier.”
“I’m not that hungry, honey,” Camilla told her.
Again, silence. Camilla just wasn’t sure how they could chit-chat like mother-daughter like they’d used to be able to before Jonathon had tossed this devastating bomb into their mix.
“I think Isaac might come over,” Andrea said.
“As he should. You’ve probably missed each other a lot,” Camilla returned.
“I’ll have him bring pizza. Promise you’ll eat a slice?”
“Sure, honey. I will.”
AROUND NINE, CAMILLA dressed in the shadows of her bedroom. She donned a pair of light pink scrubs and pulled her blonde hair into a ponytail. When she blinked at herself in the mirror, she tried to scrounge up some kind of pep-talk for herself — anything to get her through the next twelve hours of hospital service. Her mind gave her nothing.
In the living room, Andrea and Isaac bantered lightly. Their laughter floated through the bottom of the door. Already, Andrea had explained the predicament of her college funding to Isaac. Their low voices had reasoned what to do as they added up their options and cursed Jonathon for what he’d done. But in time, they had found the strength to focus on other things. Camilla marveled at this but reasoned that it was all based on the fact that they had one another. Nothing else really mattered but their love.
Camilla remembered when she’d felt similarly about Jonathon. She had thought he had the world on a string.
When Camilla appeared at the end of the hallway, she found Andrea and Isaac on the living room floor, with the pizza box between them. Andrea’s grin was bright with grease.
“You heading out?”
“Yep.” Camilla pressed her hand on her empty stomach, which sloshed with hunger pains.
“Did you have some pizza?” Andrea asked.
“I did,” Camilla lied. “Thank you.”
“Have a good shift,” Isaac said. “And thanks for getting Andy back safe. Sorry I couldn’t come with you. I couldn’t get out of that shift.”
“Not a problem. It was a girls’ road trip,” Camilla said sadly.
When Camilla stepped outside into the chill of the night, she heard her name. The shock of it forced her back around to blink out into the darkness of Katama Rd. There, at the end of the driveway, stood a man. He was only a shadow, but his voice was familiar, and it made her heart ache with sadness. She hadn’t seen Jonathon in months. He had informed her of a large amount of funds he’d lost over the phone, and she hadn’t wanted to see his damn face since. She’d even avoided it when she had borrowed the truck from his construction company, ensuring that she had gone in when he’d been on site.
“What are you doing here?”
Jonathon stepped closer. Camilla headed for the driveway and clicked her key fob to unlock the car door.
“I want to see my daughter.”
Camilla chuckled unkindly. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.” She stood at the side of her car with her hand extended over the top of it.
Jonathon stepped closer to her so that she could make out his face. He looked as though he had lost a great deal of weight, and the shadows were overly exaggerated across his cheeks.
“Please, Camilla. She won’t answer my calls. And I just want to — to explain to her. I want to tell her what happened. I want to tell both of you everything,” Jonathon continued.
Camilla’s nostrils flared angrily. How many nights had she wallowed in bed, hating herself for still loving him? How many mornings had she struggled, just getting out of bed? There was nothing in the world Jonathon Franklin could say to her, nothing he could do to make things right.
“Jonathon, listen. This has been the year of hell. Andrea and I have to find a way to get through this without you. Do us both a favor and step back. Don’t contact us. Just leave us alone.”
Camilla then slid into the car and slammed the door closed. She sped out onto Katama Rd., grateful he got out of her way. When she eased away from the house they’d once shared, she spotted his shadow in the rearview mirror as he snaked his way from her place, back toward his hole-in-the-wall. Camilla hoped he knew that this was the life he deserved. He had ruined their future together along with the future of their child and he deserved nothing but microwave TV dinners and lumpy mattresses and long nights of insomnia as far as she was concerned.
At least, Camilla wanted to think that. In truth, she ached with sadness. She’d loved this man. Much of her still loved him. How could she trust a world in which Jonathon Franklin did this? How could she continue on, knowing that the people in the world she trusted the most could destroy her?
As though the devil himself had ordered it, the hospital was chaotic. There had been a boat accident in Katama Bay, and a man had very nearly lost his leg. Three people had horrible flu symptoms; a young girl had broken her arm while attempting to steal candy from the top shelf; and several tourists waited in the waiting room as time ticked on, all of them impatient and demanding of her when they would finally be seen by a doctor.
All the while, Camilla walked hurriedly, hyper-focused on her patients, yet knowing she was on the verge of collapse. At around two, she hovered in the break room with her hands pressed against either side of the vending machine. Her stomach was completely hollowed-out, and her mind had long-since given up on having concrete thoughts. Would a Snickers pull her through the rest of the night? Pretzels? Three Little Debbies snacks, followed by a huge gulp of Dr. Pepper? Her stress had a master, and that master was a hard drug — sugar.
But before she could press play on her sugar rush, there was a voice from the doorway.
“Well, well. What do we have here?”
Camilla turned and arched an eyebrow at Brett Oliphant, a forty-something emergency doctor, who had only just begun his career at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, as he’d attended medical school a bit later after what was rumored to be a crazy decade of partying before he settled, like his father before him. Camilla had never given Brett the time of day, although she had certainly noticed his good looks. He was handsome in an almost rugged Disney-prince way, and what could she do about that?
Her pulse quickened as her eyes found his dark ones. “I’m trying to decide what direction to take my sugar binge tonight.”
“I can see that,” Brett replied with a lopsided grin. He stepped into the break room and placed his large hands in his pockets. He didn’t seem like a guy who, just a few hours before, had had to perform emergency surgery. He was calm, cool, collected.
“I guess, since you’re a doctor, you’re here to give me some kind of lecture about the dangers of sugar,” Camilla said.
“No way. I would be a hypocrite if I went that far.” With a flourish, he drew out a dollar from his pocket and then placed it tenderly in the mouth of the cash-accepter on the vending machine itself. He fluttered his fingers, then typed A22. The spiral flung back to drop a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup package down below.
“A Reese’s guy, huh? I had you pegged as an Baby Ruth kind a guy.”
A light chuckle escaped his lips as he bent down and grabbed the bright orange pack from the belly of the beast, then ripped it open. “I’m a sucker for peanut butter. In my mind, it
’s the perfect snack. And when you add an extra dose of glucose to the equation, you get magic.”
Brett removed one of the Reese’s cups from the container and said, “Hold out your hand.”
“What? No, no. Don’t worry about me.”
“If I don’t administer this medicine, I feel you won’t make it through the night,” Brett said teasingly.
A warmth flashed across Camilla’s chest and eased over her belly. Her eyes maintained contact as she stretched her palm out. There, on the flat of her hand, Brett placed the Reese’s cup.
“How often should I take this medicine, Doctor?” Camilla asked, playing along.
“At least once per day,” Brett said as he removed the wrapping beneath the Reese’s he’d left for himself. “It promotes a life of goodwill, and it reduces compulsion toward murder.”
Camilla laughed good-naturedly. It felt so nice to laugh after the crazy day she’d had. It was remarkable. Brett knew nothing about her situation. He didn’t know about the funds her husband had lost, or about Andrea’s sadness, or about her own hollow heart. He knew only: a semi-attractive nurse, no-ring-on-her-finger, eager for a moment of flirtation.
“Doctor Oliphant. Please report to room twelve.” The speaker system sliced through their newly found flirtation banter and called him back to reality.
“That’s my cue,” he said with a wink. “I’ll catch you later, Camilla. And remember. If that Reese’s doesn’t tide you over, then a Snickers might do the trick.”
Camilla watched, befuddled, as Brett sauntered out of the break room and rushed back toward room twelve. In minutes, he would surely be up to his elbows in someone else’s pain. For now, though, he’d done his job at attempting to heal hers.
Camilla took a delicate bite from the edge of her Reese’s cup and closed her eyes as a moan escaped her throat. When she checked her phone, there were several messages from her best friends— her sisters.
JENNIFER: Today was hard, but you and Andrea will get through this. Let me know if you need anything else.
113 Katama Rd Page 2
