It had been Olivia’s everything. But that didn’t work for everyone and she knew that.
Olivia switched off the engine and turned toward Melanie in the back seat. Anthony’s daughter was back for her second visit, the second in two weeks, and she beamed with excitement. They had only just stopped at the Frosted Delights Bakery, and she had a flicker of icing across her lower lip.
“You really don’t have to go,” Olivia said to her. “It’s just an old cemetery, and you didn’t know my Great Aunt Marcia, anyway.”
She wanted to allow Melanie an out if she wanted that. Olivia couldn’t fully remember what graveyards had been like to her at sixteen, but she imagined that she hadn’t been entirely keen on them.
“I want to,” Melanie affirmed. She lifted up and grinned at her father and Olivia. “If this woman was the reason you two came together, then I want to say hello and thank her.”
Anthony and Olivia exchanged glances. Olivia’s heart filled with happiness. This sixteen-year-old girl somehow had enough graciousness to respect the love they felt from the dead. This meant one thing: Anthony had raised her right. He’d raised her to feel the full breadth of those things in the world that sometimes, you just couldn’t understand. Not fully.
“Thank you, Melanie,” Olivia said. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that.”
“Come on,” Melanie ushered with her hand. “It’s the least I can do.”
To love and be loved. To love and be loved.
Once outside of the car, Anthony slipped his fingers through hers. It was around thirty-five degrees, and the clouds above cast over them a strange, light, wintry rain. Chelsea and Xavier walked up ahead, with Chelsea clunking forward, her crutches dipping into the soft mud and grass.
How had Olivia gotten so lucky to have so many wonderful people in her life?
As she and Anthony walked forward, Melanie hustled forward to chat with Xavier and Chelsea. Chelsea was just three years older than Melanie, which was a lot when you were a teenager, but Chelsea treated Melanie like a little sister.
“How was Frosted Delights?” Chelsea asked. “I can’t go there. I’m totally addicted to their apple pies.”
“We had donuts,” Melanie explained. “And we met Jennifer.”
“Jennifer is the best,” Chelsea explained as they headed through the iron gate. “She has this really hot son. Somehow, all these years, he managed to ignore me.”
“You sound pretty upset about that,” Xavier said with a crooked grin.
Again, that grin reminded Olivia of Tyler, all those years ago.
Chelsea continued with a laugh. “As if you were my first choice! Melanie, I’m dating a younger man. Can you believe it? I mean, how embarrassing.”
Melanie laughed. “I have a huge crush on a fifteen-year-old, to be honest.”
Olivia flashed her eyes toward Anthony, who squinted with a moment of fear and angst.
“A fifteen-year-old? Do I have to be worried?” Anthony whispered to Olivia.
Olivia nodded resolutely. “If there’s anything you have to do in this life when you’re a parent, it’s worry. But I’ll help you. I’ll help you worry. It’s the easiest thing in the world, once you get started.”
“Teenage worry is a lot different than worrying if they’ll scab their knee in the parking lot,” Anthony said.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Olivia affirmed.
But really, it pleased her how much the girls seemed to get along. Olivia thought again of her older sister, Sara, and about how much she’d loved her as a younger girl.
Only days before, Olivia had told Sara about her “romance” with Anthony.
“Are you serious? You’re in love?” Sara’s voice was bright with excitement, all the way from her other-world, off the island.
“I don’t know. We don’t have to say the L-word, yet,” Olivia had said. “But he’s very important to me. I can say that.”
“Wow. I don’t even know what to say,” Sara had said. “I want to run to the island and see who this guy is that stole my little sister’s heart.”
“You really freaked Tyler out all those years ago,” Olivia had reminded her.
“True. But he deserved it. Especially in hindsight. Little SOB.”
“Hey. Come on. He’s fine,” Olivia had reprimanded her.
“Whatever. I’m allowed to talk smack about him.”
“He’s having that other kid,” Olivia had said.
“I know. How do you feel about it?” Sara had asked.
“I feel nothing now, which is kind of weird. I should feel something, shouldn’t I?” Olivia had asked.
Sara had just laughed. “If you don’t want to feel anything, don’t feel anything. Let it go. He’s off on his own adventure. You’re off on yours. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? One day, you can just let everything go.”
WHEN THEY REACHED MARCIA’S grave, Olivia squatted down and placed her finger over the engraving of her name. The stone was terribly cold from the chill and the rain, and it would be a long time before they would be able to plant flowers. Already, it seemed apparent that she and Anthony would be the ones to plant flowers and not the children and grandchildren.
In fact, when she had called Marnie to report that the treasure had been nothing more than a few diaries, photographs and letters, she’d heard that Marnie had actually packed up and left the island.
What a waste.
She was glad that Marcia hadn’t been alive to see it.
Hovering over the grave, Olivia opened the letter from Marcia’s grandfather and read it aloud. She just felt that the words needed to be transported across the ground here, to Marcia’s final resting place. She kissed the paper and then breathed, “I can feel it, Marcia. He loved you more than life itself. Isn’t that spectacular? And now, Anthony and I, along with Chelsea, Melanie and Xavier, are going to build the house back up to its former beauty. You gave me this inheritance. And I will do what I can to make it the most beautiful place on earth. Imagine it—people from all over the world, coming to stay there and build memories together. I can’t wait.”
When Olivia swung back up to stand alongside her daughter, Chelsea lifted her lips to her mother’s cheek and whispered, “I know she heard you.”
Chelsea, who was ordinarily so sarcastic and hard, seemed to say this in earnest.
Obviously, she understood what this meant to her mother.
And maybe, just maybe, she was growing up.
Anthony had his own words to say to Great Aunt Marcia. He squatted, as well, and then said toward the stone, “Thank you for watching out for me when my world crumbled. You gave me the greatest gift. And I will take care of this woman. Olivia Hesson has changed my life. And Melanie already did, all those years ago. I wish you could meet her. I wish you could be here with all of us. We miss your fire. But we will keep it going as long as we can.”
He then rose up and splayed a hand across Olivia’s back. She’d never felt more protected. She’d never felt more alive.
She’d never felt more sure of the rest of her life.
After the graveyard, Anthony drove Olivia and Melanie back to the mansion. Xavier and Chelsea followed after them in Xavier’s car, which they planned already to take with them when they ran off to college together.
Jennifer, her son and his fiancé, and her new boyfriend, Derek, along with Mila and her children, Amelia, Camilla, and Olivia’s mother, father, and brother, Jared, Maxine, Tessa, and Troy, all planned to come by to help build, and eat countless helpings of clam chowder, laugh, and fall in deeper love with the old historic building. Olivia already had an order of donuts coming in from the Frosted Delights Bakery. If she was going to get these people to help her build the place up, she knew she would have to use food as a bribe.
It was just the way of the Vineyard.
As they drove, Olivia rolled the window open just the slightest bit and allowed the air to flow across her cheeks. It was fresh and light and it tasted like spring was in the
air. She held Anthony’s hand between the seats. Her heart had never felt more free.
To love and be loved was just enough for her. It had to be.
Coming Next in the Sisters of Edgartown Series
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289 Captain's Walk (Sisters of Edgartown) Page 16
