A Vineyard Rebirth

by Katie Winters

  But Mr. Bellow didn’t hear their cries.

  And in fact, the next three potential buyers over the next week didn’t hear the cries, either. Kelli was exasperated. She sat at her desk in the real estate office, the very one her father had sat at for a number of decades before he and her mother had passed the company on to her. She curved her hands over her cheeks and let out a low sigh. Brittany made her way to the doorway, placed her hands on her hips, and said, “Have you eaten the lunch I brought you. You didn’t, did you?”

  Kelli’s lips tugged into a smile. “You know me too well.”

  Brittany clacked her heels over to the refrigerator and pulled out the salad that she had purchased from the organic store down the street. She placed it again on Kelli’s desk along with a fork.

  “It’s why I’m here, you know.”

  “To guilt me into eating healthier?”

  “To take care of you,” Brittany corrected her, tapping a nail on top of the plastic container. “Office stuff, life stuff— all of it.”

  Kelli blew the air out of her lungs. “I’m not sure what I would do without you.”

  “I know what you would do. Starve yourself and then eat French fries to make up for it, and I just can’t let that happen. I won’t hear of it!”

  Kelli let out a little laugh as she unsnapped the top from the salad and peered at the wide selection of spinach greens, bright red onions and shining green peppers. “Mm, nutrients.”

  “Don’t joke about nutrition. It keeps us all sane.” Brittany furrowed her brow. “I guess it didn’t go well this morning with that potential buyer?”

  “Everyone just looks at the old mansion and scoffs at the amount of work it would take to build it back up, I think,” Kelli admitted. She pieced through the salad delicately and stabbed a black olive with her fork tongs. It was a jolt of salty goodness on her tongue. Her brain suddenly came into operation again.

  “When I see that place, I see all this romantic potential,” Brittany said. “If I had the money and the time, I’d love to fix it up. Oh, but you know how obsessed me and my husband are with all those fixer-upper TV shows. They’re so soothing to watch.”

  Kelli chuckled. “Wish I could sell it to you. That old place could use your ideas and your commitment to the old, romantic ways of the island.”

  “An islander, through and through, just like you.” Brittany grinned, tapping herself on the upper chest proudly. Her smile faltered slightly. “But Sanderson Real Estate has offered again to take the property off your hands.”

  Kelli gripped the fork harder till her knuckles turning white. “The nerve they have to keep asking.”

  “I know. I know. I just figured I’d tell you, just in case the idea sounded appealing this time around.”

  Kelli hesitated with her fork lifted. A leaf of spinach hovered in the air. “It would be such a relief, wouldn’t it? Not to have that old place on my conscience?”

  “I figured the answer was a no. I’ll call them back right away.”

  “Thank you, Brit.”

  Brittany closed the door. Kelli dropped her fork again. Her appetite was gone. Why couldn’t she sell this property herself? She felt completely void of purpose. She’d read countless self-help articles online about divorced women who “found themselves” during the year post-break-up. Why couldn’t she be one of those women? Why was she floundering?

  Several hours later, Kelli jumped into her car. She had half-planned to stop at the old boutique she still ran, now with a great deal of help from Lexi. But some invisible force dragged her westward, toward the cliffs. Before she knew it, she was standing on the old Aquinnah Cliffside Overlook Hotel property with her heart in her throat. The last tower on the old mansion still struck out toward the pink and purple sunset sky above, as though it still had hope of supporting people once again. The staircase that led up to the top of the tower had been rotted out long ago. Nobody had dared go up there. In fact, back in the sixties, there had been an accident— some teenager trying his hand at being a daredevil and winding up with a broken leg.

  It’s funny to think that the sixties had been only twenty years after the hurricane. Now, the old hurricane had been nearly seventy years ago.

  “I wish I could build you up myself,” she whispered to the property as her heart surged. And even now, she could close her eyes and imagine the streams of new tourists as they rushed around the old property. Perhaps there would be a tennis court, a croquet area, a gorgeous bright blue swimming pool. Perhaps they would have horses to borrow and gorgeous stables to house them in. Perhaps they would build the ballroom back up to its previous status and hold classical balls, ones that would require men and women to wear outfits reminiscent of the twenties and thirties of the previous century.

  There was so much to imagine about this place. Why couldn’t her clients see that?

  Kelli walked along the cliff’s edge, her eyes trained on the horizon. Sailboats dotted the edges of what seemed to be the earth, their sails lifted with the wind. Kelli hadn’t been on a sailboat the entire summer. Perhaps that’s why she felt so despondent? She knew deep down there were a number of other reasons.

  Kelli reached the edge of a trail and peered down at the beach below. There, a couple stood as the water rushed forth, frothing over the rocks. They were picture-perfect with their hands latched together. Kelli and Mike hadn’t done anything like that in years. She had hardly looked him in the eye in ten years. The last time they’d been romantic with one another, she had felt so broken and used. There had been no love at all.

  Suddenly, the man down below dropped to his knee. He gripped the woman’s hand delicately as he performed this very private, very beautiful act— a proposal. Instinctively, Kelli stepped back, wanting to give them their time alone. But then, a jolt of recognition came over her.

  It was Andy. Her baby brother. Her baby brother was now proposing to Beth, the woman who had helped him rediscover life all over again.

  Tears filled Kelli’s eyes as a sob escaped her lips, and she covered it with her hand. This was remarkable.

  Down below, Beth nodded and threw her arms around Andy. They stayed in the warmth of that embrace for a long time. Even a year ago, Kelli hadn’t thought she would ever see Andy again. Now, here he was, making a commitment to the love of his life. It was a beautiful thing.

  Kelli resented the fact that it made her feel even more alone. Her marriage had ended, and now her baby brother was just starting. It was so funny how these things worked. She tried to shove this thought aside, but there it was, a little stone of jealousy in her stomach. It didn’t negate her happiness for Andy; it simply reminded her of her own sorrows. She couldn’t help it, especially with everything so fresh.

  She knew Andy had brought Beth there for the privacy. Kelli refused to ruin that moment for them. She rushed back for her car and drove toward the main road, her eyesight blurry with tears. The radio DJ played an old Simon and Garfunkel song about loneliness. Kelli’s heart screamed every word.

  Chapter Four

  It was the weekend of the Fourth of July. Almost on cue, as though to add to the curse of her reality, the air conditioner cut out mid-way through the morning on one of the hotter days of the year. The repair guy couldn’t make it till Tuesday, which left Lexi and Kelli in tank tops and shorts, sweating profusely on the couch as they stared with glazed eyes at the television. They’d decided to close the boutique that day, as nobody was really in the mood to shop with this extreme heat wave.

  “Grandma says we should come over.” Lexi glanced at her phone then tossed it on the couch next to her. She took a large swig of ice water, her eyes only half-open. “She says we’re crazy to stay here.”

  “Okay. Can you carry me to the bathroom to take a shower? I don’t think I can move a muscle,” Kelli returned, side-glancing her daughter.

  Lexi chuckled. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

  “We’re pathetic.” Kelli gripped the remote control and turned the sc
reen black. In a moment, she had forgotten whatever it was they had been watching. Lexi didn’t protest because she had already forgotten, too.

  Finally, Lexi stood and stretched her arms toward the ceiling, making them crack. “Grandma says we should go through the old stuff in the attic before everyone else arrives.”

  “I’ve been asking her for those clothes to put in the boutique for years.” Kelli stood, also stretching. “Wonder why she changed her mind now.”

  “That attic has always been a mystery to me,” Lexi affirmed. “Let’s just hope there’s not too much polyester up there. Guessing that won’t sell too well at the boutique.”

  “Oh, you should have seen what your grandmother wore in the eighties: big, puffy sleeves and enormous glasses. And I caught her smoking sometimes. Just what everyone did back then, I guess.”

  Lexi wrinkled her nose. “Ew.”

  “Glad you think that way, honey. Times changed for the better.”

  “Yeah. Now, we spend all our time with our phones instead of socializing over cigarettes,” Lexi said with a cheeky grin. “The future is a beautiful thing.”

  Kelli and Lexi both took chilly showers and headed off to Kelli’s childhood home, where they had planned a combined Fourth of July and engagement party, to celebrate Andrew and Beth. Needless to say, Kelli’s mother, Kerry, was head-over-heels for the news from her prodigal son. Her cheeks had taken on a bright color, and she climbed up the attic ladder like a schoolgirl as she talked about the menu she’d prepared for the later party.

  “I do hope Beth isn’t overwhelmed. She can sometimes be so quiet while our family can be so...”

  “Overwhelming?” Lexi tried as she scampered up the ladder after her.

  “I was going to say exuberant,” Kerry said.

  Kelli hadn’t been in her parents’ attic in decades. She half-remembered playing up there, in the dust and haze of a long-ago afternoon, probably with Steven, as he was the closest to her in age. The attic was lined with boxes and old trunks; piles of books lay near the far wall, and boxes labeled TOYS were aligned near the tiny window. A small lightbulb hung from the slanted ceiling. Kerry gripped it and clanked the little string, which resulted in, to Kelli’s surprise, light.

  “How old is that lightbulb?” she asked her mother.

  “Good question. Guess it’ll hold out a little longer,” Kerry returned.

  The first trunk was filled with a number of mid-grade clothing items from the seventies and eighties. Lexi’s face was difficult to read as she pieced through the items and created NO, YES, and MAYBE piles. Kelli guessed that she made the YES pile much bigger than she might have, had her grandmother not been beside her.

  “Oh, that old thing,” Kerry said, regarding a particularly trashy-looking dark purple dress. “I wore that when your father took me dancing in the city. Goodness, it feels like a lifetime ago.” She beamed and lifted the dress to align across her figure.

  “Looks like it still fits,” Lexi pointed out.

  “Sure does. Not sure it fits the style or my age,” Kerry replied sadly. “Do you think anyone would want it?”

  Lexi pondered this for a moment. “Don’t you want to hold onto it? Maybe as a keepsake?”

  Kerry nodded quickly and clung to it harder. “Yeah, don’t take it. Not this dress.” Her eyes flashed with a sudden thought. “And if I’m not mistaken, that night of dancing in the city resulted in a baby—”

  “Grandma!”

  Kelli loved the sudden mischievous nature of her mother’s face. It was a rare thing to get a story like this out of her mother. She had always stood for womanly propriety. One didn’t say such things— not even around family.

  But now, Kerry shrugged and gazed longingly at the dress. “It must have been Steven or maybe Kelli. Maybe we got a sitter for the weekend, or Steven stayed with Wes. It’s difficult to say, now that’s it’s been so long. But I can still remember your father’s face when he took me to that club. He looked so handsome.”

  When they reached the bottom of that chest, they moved on to the next: more clothes, more jewelry, and more stories. Kerry poured them over Lexi and Kelli as though she’d been dying to give her things away, to tell the inner-aching of her soul for decades. Despite Kelli’s recent sorrows, she still felt the magic behind her mother’s words and longed to lap up everything, cling to these elements of her mother that Kerry had long ago hidden.

  “You were something of a wild card, I guess, Grandma,” Lexi commented with a slight grin.

  “I guess so. Your grandfather used to say he couldn’t believe I ever settled down,” Kerry said mischievously. “Of course, back then, that’s what you did. But I don’t want you to rush yourself, Lexi girl. Go out there and live as well as you can.”

  “Did you hear that, Mom? I think Grandma’s telling me to go out and take risks,” Lexi said.

  “Don’t give her the wrong idea, Mom,” Kelli joked. “She’ll go off and steal a yacht or something.”

  “And if she gives me a ride in that yacht? I’m all for it.” Kerry shook with laughter as she opened another trunk near the far wall. “Oh, my goodness. No clothes in here.”

  Kerry leaned forward the slightest bit to take stock of the trunk. Within were what seemed to be yesterday’s important files. Kelli lifted the first folder and said, “Ah, look. It’s the deed to this very house. I wondered where that was. We paid it all off so many years ago that, well— stuff like that doesn’t matter so much to us these days. I suppose it will happen sometime when we— well.” She gave a light shrug.

  Kelli wasn’t sure how to talk about any of that— the approaching years. She supposed the dialogue would come to her when it was necessary. As it stood, Kerry still seemed so young and vibrant to her. Perhaps she didn’t feel that way on the inside. Kelli had never asked her mother what it felt to be in her seventies. The question seemed somehow rude, as though it drew attention to the passing of time, which normally you were supposed to ignore.

  But it still had its way with you, regardless.

  Lexi grabbed the clothing items for the boutique and headed for the ladder. “I’ll run these out to the car.”

  “Thanks, hon.” Kelli kneeled in front of this newly opened trunk and followed her mother’s eyes over the yellowing pages. “What’s all this other stuff?” She was scared to touch them, scared they might disintegrate between her fingers.

  “Looks like old letters.” Kerry sifted through some and gently unfolded various pages. Her lips formed a circle as her eyes scanned the documents. “Wow. This one is from my Grandma Sheridan to her future husband, my grandfather. They’re the ones who built the Sunrise Cove.”

  Kelli had heard the story, of course— but she had never met her great-grandparents on the Sheridan side, as they had died terribly young. Heck, she’d never even met her grandparents.

  “I hate that we’re apart, darling, but I know when I return to the Vineyard, our lives will be cast out before us like the glittering stars above,” Kerry read from the letter as her own eyes twinkled with tears. “Goodness. People don’t write like that anymore, do they?”

  “They certainly don’t. It makes our text message correspondences look weak, huh?”

  “At least we don’t have to wait for weeks to receive them,” Kerry said as she folded the letter once more. “Goodness. I can just picture her writing that. And that penmanship is divine. Mine is a scrawl in comparison.”

  “And even yours would win penmanship awards, Mom.”

  They continued through the chest, gently removing each item and organizing the pieces in the space in front of their knees. Kelli’s own had begun to ache; she couldn’t even imagine what her mother’s felt like. Still, neither of them found space to complain.

  “Goodness. What is this?” Her mother lifted a larger, rolled-up piece of old paper— so old that it was crackled and water stained. It had an aura to it; it spoke of a time before the twentieth century. Kelli felt lost for words.

  She peeked within
the rolled-up paper and noted various designs within, sharp lines that reminded her of old architectural drawings she’d seen at a museum. Her heart raced.

  “These are old blueprints, I think.”

  “Wow,” Kerry breathed. “I wonder why I’ve never seen them before. Should we open them?”

  “I don’t know. I’m scared that they’re too damaged for us to handle properly. Maybe I could take them to an antiquarian.”

  Kerry nodded stoically. “That would be fascinating, wouldn’t it?”

  She returned to the chest and leafed through a number of newspaper clippings after that. Many regarded both Wesley and Kerry’s childhood. Kerry had been born in 1949, Wes in 1953. In one newspaper’s photograph, both Wes and Kerry stood with other children in front of the school house in Oak Bluffs, where they’d all gone together until age twelve.

  “Goodness. Look at this dress!” Kerry laughed at the little lace get-up the child-Kerry wore in the photograph. “I look terribly uncomfortable. I guess I’m eight here? Little Wes is only four. I think our parents pushed him to go to school so they could work more at the Sunrise Cove without having him get underfoot. He would kill me if he heard me say that now. After all, that inn is his life, his love— it’s his everything. But before that, it was our parents’ to love. Before they, too, died so young.”

  Her eyes grew shadowed at that very thought.

  Other newspaper clippings seemed even older. Wonderfully, two or three of them reported the hurricane of 1943, along with a longer article about the destruction of the Aquinnah Cliffside Overlook Hotel. Kelli made a mental note to read more about that later.

  Slowly, one of Kerry’s hands crept over what looked like a diary in the far corner of the chest. The skin on her hand was terribly thin, like paper.

  “This must be my mother’s diary,” Kerry breathed. “I remember her writing in them when I was younger, but I just never knew where they ended up. We must have moved this chest in the attic when we were first married. My goodness, how time gets away from us.”