“I’m grateful for the mindfulness and meditation I’ve used for my healing here at the Katama Lodge and Wellness Spa,” one woman in her forties said softly, her voice meek. “In the real world, I’m always so frantic and outside of myself. But here on Martha’s Vineyard, I’ve found a way back to my own mind.”
Another woman explained her gratefulness for Carmella’s acupuncturist clinic, which had aided in her anxiety symptoms over the span of several sessions. Another said she was grateful for her mother, who’d recently passed away but left her a wonderful sense of adventure and curiosity. Another said she was grateful for her body, which, even into her fifties, allowed her to go on long runs, upwards of thirteen miles. “My grandchildren can’t keep up with me,” she said with a funny smile. “I know one day, my body will give out on me. But I hope that day is a long, long time from now.”
When everyone returned to their seats, the dessert was served. Nancy’s heart swelled with the stories of all these women, whose gratefulness brewed over them, thickening like the storm clouds above. Janine placed a hand over Nancy’s and squeezed gently.
“You know how to make people think,” she said.
Nancy gave a light shrug. “It’s because I didn’t know how to think for so long. I had to train myself. And it completely changed my life.”
Janine’s eyes filled with tears. “It’s changing mine, too.”
Chapter Nineteen
Phone service returned to the island the following morning just before six. Nancy stretched her legs out beneath the comforter until her toes crept up into the air as she braced herself for news of the outside world. The frantic howling of the wind had died out somewhere around two or three in the morning, at which time Bruce and Henry had stepped out to assess the exterior world. As they were located on higher ground, and the streets remained black and wicked, Nancy and the other girls had insisted they return to the safe house until morning. “We can’t do anything now,” Janine had said firmly.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t a whole lot of information yet about the state of Martha’s Vineyard. Nobody had had social media to report anything; everyone had existed solely within their own storylines, unable to compare. Nancy’s heart beat wildly as she considered the hours ahead. She prayed that no horrible stories would come out of this time; she prayed that the island had made it through the night.
Unable to sleep a wink longer, she placed her feet on the floor alongside the bed and gazed out through the darkness. Her bed was located in one of the smaller rooms, which was attached to the main room. Within this room were three other beds, in which Bruce, Elsa, Janine, Henry, Carmella, and Cody all slept now. Mallory, Lucas, and Zachery were located in a smaller room down the hall, set aside for them because Zachery hadn’t been able to stop crying when he’d started around midnight. Gretchen had passed out on her father’s chest around nine in the evening, and he’d placed her delicately in a larger crib, one that Nancy was surprised to find in one of the back closets. Apparently, Neal had thought of everything as he’d arranged the space.
Nancy stood in the kitchen as coffee bubbled and spat into the pot. She rubbed her eyes and then began to scribe a list of essential tasks for the day ahead. Namely: she had to figure out how to get these women either back home or back to the Lodge— whatever the Lodge allowed and whatever the women willed. Beyond that, she had to arm her heart for what awaited her at the Lodge. If there was a great deal of damage, she couldn’t let it harm her. “One day at a time,” she whispered to herself now. They could handle whatever was thrown at them.
Family drama and hurricanes and potentially life-threatening diseases— it all offered a unique balancing act that very well could make her go crazy.
But she wouldn’t go crazy. Not today.
As she poured her first cup of coffee, someone entered the kitchen. She flashed her eyes up to find none other than Stan Ellis. He looked rundown, and his knees seemed to bend awkwardly as he walked toward her. His eyes remained far away, even as he tried out a soft, shy smile. Throughout dinner the night before, he’d hardly said a peep, and when it was his turn to express his gratefulness, he’d lifted a glass and just said, “I’m grateful to be safe and surrounded by all you fine people.” It had been enough, but of course, it hadn’t been the full story. Not in the slightest.
Probably, Stan Ellis didn’t have so much to be grateful for. It had been a hard road.
“Morning,” he said. His voice was gritty and deep. His eyes, however, were earnest and bright. Nancy had a funny sensation, looking at him now. She could see the man he’d been some thirty years before, the man Anna Sheridan had fallen head-over-heels for. He’d been handsome; in a way, he still was.
“Good morning. Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“Sure would.” He watched as Nancy poured him a mug and then thanked her.
“I hope you slept okay?”
“As well as I could,” Stan told her. “In truth, I can’t remember the last time I slept through the night.”
Nancy’s heart cracked the slightest bit. “I hate hearing that. Sleep is so important.”
Stan shrugged. “I got used to it. Just a bit weird to be in a big room with so many other folks.” He sipped his coffee, then nodded. “Funny to drink coffee in the morning after a disaster, isn’t it? Life just keeps going forward, and you always need coffee to make it so.”
Nancy marveled at his words. They seemed stitched into the back of her mind. She’d had a similar thought when Neal had passed away— that she couldn’t believe she still needed to eat, to drink coffee, and to walk. How could these processes continue when so much had faltered?
Probably, Stan had felt the same when he’d lost Anna.
“Thank you again for letting me sleep here,” Stan told her.
“Where were you headed when you stopped for us?”
Stan tilted his head. “I wasn’t so sure. I just knew my little shack didn’t have the will to withstand the storm.”
“You were going to just sit in your truck?”
“Somewhere away from the water. Yeah.”
Nancy shuddered to think what might have happened. She now shuddered to imagine the state of his shack. Assuredly, he needed a place to sleep that night, too.
Probably, he didn’t have much money, either.
“I don’t suppose you’d like to drive me down to the Lodge this morning,” Nancy said suddenly. “I want to see the state of it before we plan out what to do with our guests.”
“It would be my pleasure,” Stan told her. “It’s not like I have anything else going on.”
Nancy gathered her purse, changed into her previous day’s outfit, took a glance at herself in the mirror, then wrote a little note and placed it next to Janine’s bed. It was just six-thirty, and already, she and Stan strode out into the parking lot of the safe house as the sunlight swept across the tumultuous state of the island. Around the parking lot, several trees had fallen with the strength of the wind, casting themselves across the edge of the pavement and making it crackle beneath them. Stan whistled as he unlocked the truck.
“I guess I’d better mentally prepare for what state the rest of the island is in,” he commented. “It’s a strange sensation. When the island is attacked, I feel personally attacked. I’m no original islander, but I guess I’ve been here long enough that I ought to feel like one.”
As they drove away from the safe house, something occurred to Nancy. “Isn’t your stepson on the island?”
Stan nodded. “He normally lives on the island with that Lola Sheridan. Sweet girl.”
“But he’s not here now?”
“No.” His face grew tense with a sudden wave of worry. “I just pray he wasn’t out on the water.”
Tommy Gasbarro was Stan Ellis’s ex-stepson from a previous marriage. He was a very accomplished sailor and frequently won the Round the Island race, held every summer on the Vineyard. His sailing accomplishments had been the topic of one of Lola Sheridan’s articles for a
local Boston newspaper. She’d journeyed with him by boat from Florida, all the way back to the Vineyard. Unfortunately, a storm had overtaken them in the midst of their expedition, and their boat had almost capsized.
It was their origin story— the reason, maybe, they’d fallen in love.
“If there’s anybody who understands the intricacies of the ocean, it’s Tommy Gasbarro,” Nancy said softly. “I’m sure he’s fine.”
They continued their trek from the center of the island, back toward Edgartown. The hurricane had eaten its way through trees and across fields. They’d witnessed several little houses, cracked along the side or with tree limbs bursting through their windows, as though trying to perform some kind of heinous surgery. When they reached downtown, they had to backtrack to avoid wild rivers of flooding, which looked like it had impacted the local high school and some of the downtown restaurants and shops.
When they reached the Katama Lodge, Nancy stepped out of the truck a split second before Stan stopped the engine. When she hustled to the top of the hill that overlooked the Bay, she found that the water line had rushed toward the base of the Lodge itself; it had risen halfway up the various cabins down below, eating away at the furniture and the hardwood and the hand-selected decor.
But still— the waterline had stopped before the colossal damage of the greater Lodge. Nancy had to be grateful.
She then headed into the Lodge itself, which had been protected beautifully. Even the large window in the dining hall was fully intact. Stan entered and helped her move aside the large protective walls, which allowed the glorious glow of a fresh day to billow across the dining hall. Nancy’s heart lifted with hope. It felt exactly like the days after the Great Flood when the dove appeared to Noah, and he knew, soon, there would be new life ahead.
“Stan,” Nancy said as he gazed out across the Bay, which bubbled just below the edge of the large Lodge. “I want you to pick out a room for yourself and stay as long as you like until you can figure out what to do about your place.”
Stan furrowed his brow. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t say anything. Just drive over to your place and get as much of your stuff as you can. Anything that made it through. We’d love to have you with open arms.”
Stan nodded. He cupped his hands over his chest and said, “Thank you so much.” He then swallowed and added, “What you said about being grateful after losing so much— it resonated with me. I don’t know if I’ll ever have the strength to build something again. But I do have so much, even after so much loss. I have to be grateful. Thank you again, Nancy.”
Nancy gave him a genuine smile. “I think gratefulness is a superpower. If you can harness it, there’s not a whole lot you can’t have because you’ll feel like you have everything you need.”
Chapter Twenty
Henry was in full documentarian mode. He flashed his finger forward to alert her he’d pressed play. Nancy shifted her weight, then clasped and unclasped her hands due to her nerves. She stood just a few feet from where the water remained, a flooded lake over the docks around two feet high that still lingered around the surrounding cabins. Henry wanted to capture the intricate stories of Hurricane Janine; he wanted to weave them together in a way that allowed the island to heal and represent all voices, all those affected. As Nancy was his girlfriend’s mother, he’d opted for Nancy first.
“What do you want me to say?” she asked him now, suddenly flummoxed.
“Just talk about what happened when the hurricane came and about the damage to the Lodge,” Henry explained, with just the slightest hint of exasperation.
“Right. Okay.” She cleared her throat. “When we heard about the approaching tropical storm, we knew we needed to get all of our guests to safety. Luckily, Neal, my husband, crafted a plan for such an event, and we took all the women of the Lodge up to higher ground. As you can see, the flooding from Hurricane Janine crept up over the waterline and flooded out several of our luxury cabins. Luckily for us, the main Lodge is intact and ready for operation again. Most of the women who’d been staying with us during the hurricane left the island yesterday, but we will begin to welcome new guests as early as this next weekend.”
Henry snapped his thumbs in affirmation and then asked, “What do you say to those more affected by the hurricane across the island?”
Nancy bowed her head somberly. “My heart goes out to those affected. The Hesson House, in particular, took a real blow. Olivia Hesson built a beautiful space out of that old mansion. It would be a real disservice to the island’s culture as a whole if the mansion wasn’t rebuilt.”
Nancy watched from the parking lot as Henry weaved around the grounds, taking shots of the water and the flooded cabins below. She felt anxious and strange, as though her skin didn’t quite fit her face. When Henry returned to the lot, he asked if she wanted to see some of the footage. She said no. She’d seen enough.
Back at the main house, which had mercifully been spared in the hurricane, Nancy found her three girls plus Mallory out on the back porch. It was a chilly day in late September, and they wore thick knit sweaters and sipped hot tea. Nancy collapsed in her familiar chair and explained the events of the day, from having her car finally towed, to running into a strained Olivia Hesson downtown, to calling Wes Sheridan to see how the Sunrise Cove had made it through (generally unscathed, although the Bistro had taken a hit), to the final filming with Henry.
“Sounds like an exhausting day,” Janine breathed.
“I got a final confirmation from all of our guests,” Elsa said then. “Everyone is safe at home and accounted for. And everyone thanks us for our commitment to their safety.”
“I guess that’s it then.” Nancy felt strangely hollow after the events of the previous few days. Perhaps it was just exhaustion. She closed her eyes and thought again about calling the doctor’s office. They had stated the results would be in soon, but that was before anyone knew the storm was about to hit the island and, of course, had pushed everything back.
The waiting game only upped her anxiety.
“I think we should order food,” Elsa suggested. “I don’t feel like cooking.”
“Me neither,” Janine agreed.
“Pizza?” Mallory tried.
“We’ve had pizza so much lately,” Carmella offered doubtfully.
“Does that mean you’re against it?” Janine asked.
“Never. Not in a million years,” Carmella affirmed with a playful smile. “Just wondered if we should cast any judgment on ourselves.”
“Nope, not this week,” Elsa said as she lifted her phone to dial up their favorite place. “Carbs for days, please.”
HENRY’S FOOTAGE WAS featured on all major news stations over the next few days. Nancy sat at the edge of the couch alongside Mallory, Elsa, and Janine and watched herself as she described the damage the Katama Lodge had sustained and how she prayed for others on the island that had experienced so much more loss.
“Why did you let me wear my hair like that?” Nancy demanded of Janine.
Janine’s lips parted in shock. “What are you talking about? You look beautiful.”
Nancy rolled her eyes. “I have a face for radio.”
“Good grief,” Mallory said. “You’re hot.”
“See? You have confirmation from a twenty-four-year-old,” Janine pointed out. “No more putting yourself down.”
Nancy marveled yet again that you could be so far on your self-love journey and still not be anywhere at all. It was a life-long job.
Henry’s footage continued across the island. It showed the busted-up result of The Hesson House, along with a tearful Olivia Hesson, who explained that she’d received the mansion from her great aunt. “It was a beautiful dream, and maybe today, I have to put that dream to rest,” she said.
Nancy wandered into the kitchen to find Carmella and Elsa, both hovering over the pile of dishes from breakfast. They’d taken to eating as a family as much as they could, especially in the wake
of the hurricane— all of them gathered together over pancakes, sausages, eggs and biscuits, contemplating just how lucky they were as the island continued to recuperate. It would be a long road ahead of them for sure.
And, of course, Nancy’s test results hovered over them like more dark clouds. Everyone was on the verge of crumbling, it seemed like. The world could turn to chaos at any moment.
“You want help with these dishes?” Nancy asked now, sliding a hand across Carmella’s shoulder lovingly.
Carmella exhaled and turned on the faucet. “No way. You know your only duty today is to rest.”
Nancy laughed, although she didn’t fully believe her humor. Elsa grabbed a large towel and began to dry the dishes as Carmella passed them over to her. Her eyes were shadowed.
“I spoke with Stan this morning,” she announced.
“How is he doing?”
“He’s thrilled to be at the Lodge, that’s for sure,” Elsa told her. “He took the smallest room. God bless him. But he also showed me the state of his house.”
Nancy scrunched her nose. “That bad?”
“He said his son Tommy plans to help him with all repairs. They should be done in two months or so.”
“That’s fine.”
Elsa nodded firmly. “He said he wants to give back as much as he can. I set him to work repainting that far wall in the kitchen. I figured it was best to get it done before the new guests arrive this weekend.”
“Good thought. Maybe we could even hire him part-time after he returns home? The poor guy. I don’t think I’ve spent more than five minutes with him in the past. When I got to the island, all I ever knew was that everyone hated him; everyone kept their distance. But God knows he’s made just as many mistakes as the rest of us.”
Carmella paused and then turned off the water for a moment. “I still remember Anna Sheridan. I remember her as this beautiful angel, always quick to laugh, always giving us little pieces of candy when she ran into us. She died when I was maybe around fifteen? Something like that? Gosh, around the time our mom died.”
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