A Vineyard Rebirth

by Katie Winters

  Baby Max stirred slightly in his crib. Kelli’s heart cracked at the sight of this soft, innocent form, so tender and apart from all the inner chaos of her own mind.

  “Really? Tommy would go all the way across the ocean?”

  Lola shrugged. “That wasn’t his plan. But he’s kind of a free spirit. It appeals to me— and it’s the reason I fell head over heels for him. But I can’t help but worry—I kind of hate this about myself. I’ll be forty in August. I’m a grandmother. I wonder if I’ve just lost my edge.”

  “Lola Sheridan could never lose her edge,” Kelli assured her.

  “I hope you’re right, Kelli. In the meantime, I hope you don’t mind Max is here. He’s somehow soothing to me and it makes me happy to know that Audrey can think about other things. Like her career, her budding relationship, about the fact that she’s twenty years old and on the brink of everything.”

  “On the brink of everything.” Kelli swallowed and then turned her eyes to the ground. “That’s strangely how I’ve felt the past few weeks. It’s a feeling I thought I’d never feel again. Not at forty-six, anyway.”

  Lola set her jaw as she placed the mug of tea upon the old desk. “Tell me everything you can.”

  Kelli explained what she could about her current situation, down to the fact that she wasn’t entirely sure what to do about the old hotel, as she didn’t want anything to affect her budding romance with Xander Van Tress.

  “I feel so dishonest in showing him the place,” she whispered. “And I have no idea who this James Peterson even is or was. I don’t know. My next stop is to talk to my parents about it, of course, but in the meantime, I thought I’d do some research here. Apparently, with you by my side. I feel so lucky about that.”

  Lola cracked her knuckles. “This is exactly the kind of work I’m up for today. Hard research. James Peterson and the Mystery of the Aquinnah Cliffside Overlook Hotel. On it.”

  The book pile seemed to cover every given genre with relation to Martha’s Vineyard.

  A History of Whaling on Martha’s Vineyard

  The Deaf Colonies of Martha’s Vineyard

  The Rise of Tourism on Martha’s Vineyard

  African American History on Martha’s Vineyard

  Wildlife of Martha’s Vineyard

  The collection went on and on.

  “What did the librarian say when you checked out all of these books?” Kelli asked with a vibrant laugh.

  Lola buzzed her lips. “I went to high school with her, so she just asked if I was still up to my old tricks, and I said yes, and she laughed and let me take all of them. She did say that she would bill me if they were late.”

  “And when are they due?”

  “Who knows. Probably like last week,” Lola returned, rolling her eyes. “I don’t know about you, but I always feel like time operates with its own rules in the summertime. Hard to believe I’ve been back on the Vineyard for a whole year. But harder still to believe I was away for so, so long.”

  They got to work: Kelli pouring through one book while Lola scattered herself through several, which she said was a more appropriate way for her brain to operate. Occasionally, Lola popped up to check on baby Max, while Kelli continued to read, her forehead wrinkles deepening with each passing hour.

  “There’s so much information about the Cliffside Overlook when Johnson was the owner,” Kelli finally said, exasperated. “But nothing after that. He retired from the hotel just a few years before his death. And then, in 1943, the hotel was signed over to James Peterson. But I can’t find record of him anywhere.”

  “Hmm.” Lola hovered over the collection of books, muttering the titles to herself. Finally, she snapped her fingers, shot a hand forward, and grabbed one of the books from the lower part of the stack. “Yes. The Storms of Martha’s Vineyard. Perhaps...” She began to flick through the pages as Kelli’s heart pounded. “It’s wild to think of some of these storms, isn’t it? Like August 14th and 15th of the year 1635. Apparently, there was a tidal wave of more than twenty feet. Can you even imagine that? It’s much larger than any of the others reported. And then, phew, Hurricane Bob? I remember that one. 1991. How old was I then? Nine, I suppose. Ah, but here. The hurricane of 1943.”

  Lola propped the book up to show off the lettering, which gave the year and the month— September 1943. A black and white photo showed a crumpled-up building in Edgartown, one that neither Kelli nor Lola had ever known. Kelli drew back the first page, then the second, until she found herself gazing at a familiar sight: the Aquinnah Cliffside Overlook Hotel. There it was, in all its glory, with a number of guests positioned out front, many holding old croquet mallets. They were beautiful, high-society types— the sort that somehow had gotten out of the war, assuredly due to money or important families. The year was 1943, and the rest of the world was burning. But not there— not on Martha’s Vineyard.

  “They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” Kelli breathed, not being able to rip her eyes away from the photo.

  “They just don’t make people like that anymore,” Lola agreed.

  Beneath the line of people was a description. Kelli read the words aloud.

  This photo was taken four days prior to the hurricane that ultimately tore the Aquinnah Cliffside Overlook Hotel to shreds. Listed above in order: Max Swinton and his wife, Tanya; Greta Colson and her daughter, Margaret; Henry Maddocks; Robert Sheridan; James Peterson and his wife, Marilyn.

  “Oh my God. Oh my God!” Kelli cried out. Her finger found James Peterson in the photograph. He was terribly handsome with a wicked smile and eyes that seemed to know something, something almost sinister, even in their humor. Kelli’s heart shattered as she gaped at this man— this man who had come to ruin her so, so long after the fact of his life. For sure, this man was now dead. All of them were.

  “But— Kelli...” Lola’s eyes bugged out. “His wife, Marilyn.”

  “Marilyn Peterson.” Kelli furrowed her brow as the realization took over her. “You don’t think?”

  Lola lifted her own finger toward Robert Sheridan— who, Kelli recognized now, was her grandfather, a man she had never met.

  A man who had worked alongside his wife, Marilyn, in operation of the Sunrise Cove Inn, until their early death, even before Wes and Kerry’s marriages to their spouses.

  Kelli’s hands dropped to her sides. She felt as though she’d just uncovered an enormous secret, something buried under the sand for decades and meant to remain there. It was an incredibly important piece of their lineage, their family tree.

  “Grandma was married before Grandpa,” Kelli breathed. “And gosh, look at her. She was so beautiful, wasn’t she?”

  In the photo, her husband at the time, James, had an arm wrapped around her shoulder. Her eyes seemed to tell a story, one Kelli was ill-equipped to understand. Lola’s eyes filled with tears as she continued to stare at the photo.

  “Even now as we live in the year 2021, it’s difficult to be a woman. It’s a man’s world and it always has been. How do you think she found her way to Grandpa? It must have been so heart wrenching. It must have torn her apart,” Lola breathed. She then swallowed the lump in her throat and added, “Do you think she loved James?”

  Kelli shook her head. “I don’t know. All Mom and your dad have ever talked about is how much love they had for one another. Uncle Wes said once it was like they never needed either of their kids. ‘We were just baggage holding them back,’ he said I think. Of course, he was teasing, but still, I can’t imagine that. My love for Mike dried up so long ago; I don’t even feel its shadow any longer. But our kids are my world.”

  “I think that’s why they died around the same time,” Lola offered. “One couldn’t go on in this world without the other.”

  Kelli’s smile faltered slightly. She lifted her phone and took a photo of the photograph within the book for safe-keeping. She then texted the photo to Frederick Bachman, with the words: “You were right. I just needed to do a little digging. Found my first clue!”


  Frederick Bachman didn’t write back immediately. In fact, he probably wouldn’t even look at his phone for a number of hours.

  Suddenly, Kelli remembered something: the diary tucked away in her mother’s chest upstairs in the attic.

  “I didn’t even look at the dates. I didn’t imagine at all that Grandma would come into the story,” she breathed as she explained this to Lola. “But it makes sense why the old blueprints were there. Why...”

  “Yes, but then why is James Peterson now listed as the owner of the hotel?” Lola demanded.

  “I don’t know. Maybe we can pin this down with more details from the diary.”

  Lola then snapped her fingers. “And that little boy I interviewed! For the article! Dexter Collington! Maybe he has some memory of these people.”

  “Where does he live?” Kelli whispered. She now felt like a child on a treasure hunt— reckless and willing to do anything to complete the story.

  “He’s in the nursing home,” Lola affirmed. “But I got chummy with one of the workers so that I could interview him for the article. It shouldn’t be a problem to stop by on the way to your parents’ place.”

  As Kelli rose and began to gather her things, Max wailed from his crib. Lola bent over to calm him as Kelli’s phone buzzed. It was as though time itself had sped up and tilted them toward chaos.

  XANDER VAN TRESS: Hey, I haven’t heard from you. What do you say we meet this week to finalize the sale and discuss future building plans?

  “Shoot.” Kelli dropped her phone back on the desk as Lola turned to look at her, incredulous.

  “What is it?” Lola asked.

  “I just feel we’re losing time,” Kelli affirmed. “Let’s get to the bottom of this. At least then, I can give Xander the entire story. No matter which direction it takes us. At least it’s the truth. They’re always saying the truth sets you free.”

  “If it doesn’t destroy you,” Lola said as she slipped baby Max into his carrier. Slowly, his cries calmed. He’d just wanted to be held for a moment, to remember how much he was cared for. Kelli could relate.

  “I’ll drive,” Kelli said. “Let’s hit the road.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  1943

  September 17th.

  The Aquinnah Cliffside Overlook Hotel cowered against a frantic windstorm. Rain splattered across the window panes as Marilyn cupped her elbows with tired hands and quivered with fear. She had avoided breakfast and lunch, telling James that she felt ill and needed to keep to herself. James had told her that he felt she did, in fact, look very ill— and he knew better than to take her anywhere in such a state.

  Of course, Marilyn knew that would be a blessing to him to ensure he didn’t latch himself to a pale, exhausted wife, especially as he wanted to lend a good impression to the other guests of the Cliffside Overlook. Although he hadn’t yet purchased the hotel, the sort of company he’d taken up the previous weeks would almost certainly lead to numerous business dealings and, most likely, raucous nights which would involve women, lots and lots of women; women called in for the duty of doing whatever it was businessmen wanted random women to do. Marilyn knew enough about the state of the world to know this.

  But it didn’t matter to her what James Peterson did in his free time or any of his time, really. Her head was heavy with thoughts of Robert and how she felt she’d lost one of the most fascinating and beautiful, and nuanced relationships of her life. She had scribed endless visions of her emotions in her diary, almost praying that James would pick it up and discover the innermost aching of her soul. James wasn’t a terribly curious person; more than that, he didn’t imagine she had a single creative thought in that head of hers.

  Perhaps she would be this miserable for the rest of her life. She needed to prepare for that— for finding unique pleasure in very small moments of her life. Perhaps she could take up needlepoint or write poetry. Perhaps she would love her children with a wild intensity, so much so that she could avoid thinking about the loss of Robert. Perhaps she would think of him exactly once in the future, on her deathbed as the world faded from her vision and she fell into darkness.

  The door flew open, like an enormous mouth screaming out. James flung himself through it like a force of nature. In his hand, he held several sheets of paper. His expression was exuberant.

  “I did it, Marilyn. I made that bastard sell me the hotel!”

  Marilyn’s eyes widened. She stood on wavering legs. “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not,” he continued. “I demanded it of him a final time, and he said he would draw up the paperwork now. That’s the thing about us Peterson men, my darling. We always get what we want.”

  Marilyn reached a quivering hand out to take the paperwork. Sure enough, James had signed himself as the owner of the Aquinnah Cliffside Overlook Hotel, dated September 17th.

  “It’s everything we wanted, darling,” James continued. His breath was hot with liquor. “We can stay on the island. You can reside in this very room if you like. Or perhaps we’ll have a mansion built on the property to ensure we’re close by. We can live between the city and the island— just as you like! And our children will know the adventures of the island and the artistry of the city.”

  It was almost enough, Marilyn thought then. It was nearly a perfect recipe, perhaps better than she could have dreamt when she’d first told James Peterson, “I do.”

  But did this mean that Robert still wanted to keep up their affair?

  She now imagined decades of their lives together. She would still have James to ensure the money would continue to weave its way toward her parents’, with her sneaking off to find her lover, her Robert, even as she cared for James’ children and performed the duties of a perfect wife.

  Perhaps even some of the children wouldn’t belong to James at all.

  “Darling, say something!” James cried.

  With that, another wind pummeled at the glass. James’ eyes grew sinister and strange. He stepped toward the window and stared at the ever-darkening skies. In the city, James was never terrified of anything. It was strange, now, to recognize the symptoms of his fear. He was anxious, his hands wrapped tightly at the base of his back, and his shoulders cast all the way back.

  “I think it’s wonderful,” Marilyn finally told him, although the sound of the wind obliterated her voice altogether. She supposed he didn’t truly care what she thought, anyway.

  James was quiet for a moment. His eyes scanned the horizon.

  “Why aren’t you dressed for dinner?” he finally asked.

  Marilyn rushed for the wardrobe and selected her dinner outfit. “It won’t take me long. I’ll meet you there.”

  “Good. Robert and I plan to celebrate. He’ll stay on with me here at the hotel. Work with me as a sort of manager. Assuredly, he’ll want to take all the money I give him and take off for all corners of the world. He’s a handsome man with a wealth of good ideas. Perhaps he was wasted here, anyway.”

  “Are you suggesting you’re not an ideas man?” Marilyn regretted the words almost instantly. She froze as she blinked into the mirror with her hairbrush raised.

  But after a pause, James burst into laughter. “I never knew quite how funny you were, Marilyn. Really quite funny. I hope you’ll share more of your humor as you find it.” And with that, he ducked into the hallway and left Marilyn alone with a single task: look as beautiful as she possibly could, if only to make some sort of statement to Robert.

  What statement would she make? Perhaps just: I love you and I plan to always love you. Perhaps that was enough.

  MARILYN REACHED THE bottom of the grand staircase. Near the wide stretch of the broad window, Robert and James stood side-by-side with cocktails in hand. They gawked at the same idea on the other side of the pane: the whirling chaos of the brewing storm. Marilyn’s heart swam with panic as she steadied her smile.

  She stepped toward the men and then glanced across the ballroom toward the restaurant, where the high-society gue
sts seemed in a state of panic. The air was sinister and taut overhead. They leaned across the table and whispered, assuredly, about the weather. It was seven and night would fall in the next few hours. What then? If the storm grew too frantic, there was nowhere else to go on this cliffside. She remembered that first day when she had leaned too far over the side and blinked down at the tumultuous churning waves below.

  Probably now, they were ten times as tumultuous. She imagined them as a constant, bright white froth.

  “There she is. My beautiful wife.” James reached a hand to steady her, placing it at the base of her back. She longed to kick it off. “What do you say to Mr. Sheridan, now that we’re the owners of this fine hotel?”

  Marilyn’s eyes glistened with tears, the likes of which only Robert noticed, as James hovered above her shoulder. After a pause, she said softly, “I suppose he’s given you what you have craved, hasn’t he?”

  “And what’s that?” Robert asked.

  The windows rattled mere feet away. Everything seemed frantic and horrible.

  “He gave you your freedom,” Marilyn said.

  Robert heaved a sigh. She saw it in his eyes: agreeing to the sale had nearly ripped him in two. Assuredly, he didn’t believe James to be a worthy owner of the hotel, not so soon after Mr. Johnson’s death.

  “I will stick around, I think,” Robert said. His voice was taut with emotion. “I love this old place. I want to make sure she gets through the change in management as easily as possible.”

  “You’ll be a worthy mind to have around, I believe,” James stated. He clapped his hand on Robert’s shoulder and again turned his eyes toward the window. “I don’t suppose this storm is anything to worry ourselves about?”

  Robert’s face was difficult to read.

  “As the new owner of the hotel, it’s essential that you tell me as much as you can about the state of things. I haven’t grown accustomed to the violent nature of these ocean storms,” James returned.

  Yes, Marilyn wanted to add. He was a city boy with city boy hands. He wasn’t accustomed to the way a storm could unravel in the blink of an eye and sweep over a farmhouse, as though God himself might strike it down.