Return to Me

by Katie Winters

  “Are you sure you’re okay to cycle?” Jeff asked.

  “Wasn’t so bad, actually,” Henry said. “Luckily, I’m pretty flexible.”

  Janine placed her hand over her throat. Dread permeated through her. “Hey Henry?” she said, just as he placed one of his feet on the pedal.

  “Yes?”

  “Please. Don’t tell him where I am.”

  Henry furrowed his brow. He then placed his other foot on the pedal and cycled fast, away from Janine and Jeff. Janine’s heart nearly burst in two. She realized she’d sounded like the craziest woman on the planet. Maybe she was.

  Chapter Eight

  The Katama Lodge and Wellness Spa was positioned along Katama Bay, the body of water that ballooned between of Edgartown and the island of Chappaquiddick on the eastern skyline. Janine had investigated it on the map, but nothing fully prepared her for the sight of the lodge and spa itself — a large log-cabin, with what looked to be four wings and four stories, with several balconies and porches that cut out toward the sandy beach beyond. Janine hovered outside the Katama Lodge vehicle as Jeff pulled out her suitcases.

  “If you’d been here this time last year, you would have seen a bustling place. I’ll tell you that. Women come from all over the world to stay here for weeks at a time. Talking to them was fascinating, as they were always from all walks of life, sometimes dealing with some major life change, or medical issue. Of course, some came just to relax and be pampered like we all deserve.”

  Janine made a funny noise in her throat. She couldn’t help but compare herself to these women and wondered if Jeff had said this purposefully, to allude to Janine’s own heartache.

  Of course, he really didn’t seem to be that kind of guy. Cruelty had nothing to do with him.

  “Yes. I really could always learn something about life or love or what it means to become older and wiser when I hung out here, driving Katama guests to and from the ferry and around the island,” Jeff said as he placed his hands on his hips.

  “But you don’t think Nancy will reopen anytime soon?”

  Jeff gave her a side-eyed glance, one that showed his curiosity at her calling her mother by her first name. “Like I said, Nancy and the girls are pretty broken up with Neal’s death. I can’t imagine it’ll be an easy transition back. You have to be healed to heal others, I think.”

  “Who can say?” Janine returned, thinking again of the long-ago version of the Nancy she had known, who hadn’t hesitated to pour herself a drink before three in the afternoon. Nancy — a healed Nancy, who could help heal others? It was difficult for Janine to imagine.

  “There she is,” Jeff beamed as a woman stepped out from the side of the lodge.

  Janine’s heart sank into her stomach as the woman came into view. She was trim, athletic, with a beautiful silver bob that bounced beneath her ears. She wore trendy clothing, including boot-cut jeans and a figure-hugging blouse. The woman gripped the wooden railing where she stood and looked out, her chin lifted.

  Janine looked at her mother and couldn’t believe how beautiful she looked — that her mother was so poised and confident in the way she held herself. Her memories of Nancy were far from what she saw right then and there, and Janine felt a pang of guilt from the last conversation she’d had with her mother over a decade ago.

  But before another moment passed, Nancy’s familiar laugh escaped her lips, and she called out, “Janine! You made it! I’ll be right down.”

  Janine took several tentative steps forward as her mother raced to meet her. Janine’s heart was in her throat, and her legs and arms quivered as though the weather wasn’t balmy and warm. When Nancy appeared directly in front of her, she brought with her a wave of expensive-smelling perfume and that same, beautiful smile, one that pulled Janine’s heart, soul, and mind all the way back to Brooklyn in the ‘80s, when all she’d had was Nancy.

  “Look at you,” Nancy breathed as her eyes welled with tears.

  Janine willed herself to remain hard. Her thoughts swirled in her head as she wrapped a strand of hair around her ear and turned her eyes back toward the Katama Lodge vehicle. “We had a flat tire on the way. Sorry if we’re a little bit late.”

  Nancy waved her hand back and forth. “Don’t worry about it. My schedule is a whole lot looser these days. I guess Jeff filled you in a bit about how the Lodge has been closed for quite some time.”

  Janine furrowed her brow. Was this her mother already asking for pity due to the death of her husband? She searched for some sign of that in her eyes but found nothing but a strange mix of sorrow and eagerness for Janine’s arrival.

  “Do you also live here?” Janine asked.

  Nancy shook her head. “We have a house about a mile from here. I just wanted to check on a few things this morning and make sure you saw the resort itself. I think it has a pretty stellar view of the Bay, although I might be biased.”

  Jeff announced that he would move the suitcases from the Katama Lodge vehicle over to Nancy’s. Nancy thanked him and said she would need his help with some handy-work in a few days’ time and that she would call him when she was ready to move forward. He thanked her profusely, then smiled at Janine as he said, “I hope you enjoy your stay here on the island. It’s a one-of-a-kind place, and your mother is a one-of-a-kind person.”

  The words stung. As Jeff drew the vehicle back down the driveway, Janine wanted to rush after him, to scream at him that he had no idea what he was talking about. Nancy wasn’t the woman, he thought he knew. But before she could, his vehicle disappeared.

  She turned back to face her mother, who really did look somehow younger than she had twelve years before, the last time Janine had seen her in the city. That two- or three-hour meeting had been nothing short of disastrous. It had culminated in Janine’s screaming at her mother to leave her apartment. “I never want to see your face again,” she’d cried, as Maggie and Alyssa had escaped to their bedrooms, unable to fully comprehend the weight of the strange relationship between Nancy and Janine.

  “Would like to see the Lodge, then?” Nancy offered.

  Janine supposed she didn’t have a choice, so she shrugged and swept a hand out toward the log mansion. “Let’s go.”

  Janine walked behind her mother as they entered the back of the building, which operated as the foyer and front desk area. A large photograph hung behind the desk itself, and it featured Nancy alongside a man in his early seventies. The man had a terrific smile, the stuff of early cinema, and his blue eyes glittered like the sky over Martha’s Vineyard itself. Janine’s heart dropped slowly as she realized that was the man her mother had loved and married. His name — Neal — hit her again. She would never know him.

  “It’s so terribly dark around here right now,” Nancy said as she slid across the foyer and turned on a light. “It used to be that you’d stand in this room and hear echoes of countless conversations. Every person who came here had a story or two and it seemed that everyone was constantly learning from one another, building friendships and communion.”

  Janine arched an eyebrow. Another sarcastic comment bubbled beneath the surface of her mind, but she refused to let it free.

  “I actually started working here before Neal and I got together,” Nancy said suddenly, as she flashed a bit of her bob behind her shoulder and headed out of the foyer area toward a wrap-around staircase.

  Janine followed her up into a dining area with twenty-foot ceilings and windows that stretched floor-to-ceiling and offered a beautiful view of the water beyond. Tables stretched up and down the enormous room, and a window toward the back of the space showed an elaborate kitchen, the kind that could serve upwards of fifty guests, maybe more, if Janine had to guess.

  “I received my massage therapist license and began to work here part-time,” Nancy continued. “Neal had just gotten divorced from his second wife, and he wasn’t looking for anything serious. Heck, neither was I. I was something of a vagabond during those years. Always moving from place to place. I had it
in my mind that I would never belong anywhere.”

  Ah. This was the Nancy that Janine understood. The drinking Nancy. The wild Nancy. The immature Nancy.

  “But Neal, well. I guess you could say he changed my life.” Nancy’s eyes flashed as she said it.

  Janine wanted to interject. She wanted to tell her mother that she couldn’t just open up with her deep, personal emotions of her soul. Janine hadn’t even begun to decide if she cared to forgive this woman yet.

  In truth, Janine was just on the run from her mess of a life. She was only trying to find herself again.

  When Janine didn’t say anything to Nancy’s “changed my life” comment, Nancy’s shoulders slumped slightly, proof of her disappointment. But she hardly missed a beat. She beckoned for Janine to follow her from the dining area into the various other wings. She showed her where the acupuncture was performed, the sauna and spa, the hot tub, the cupping area along with the meditation area, and the space where they hired inspirational women to come and discuss what they’d learned. The lodge seemed somehow even bigger from the inside, and Janine found herself truly impressed, especially with the rustic-yet-chic decor and the fine artistic details, which made every room memorable.

  “The women always report that they feel like they belong to some kind of club while they’re here,” Nancy said as they breezed past some of the larger suites, where women stayed the night. At the end of the hallway, they again enjoyed a beautiful view of Katama Bay, where the waves rolled in and splashed across the beach. Nancy went on to explain that all of their yoga sessions took place in the morning, poolside, before they continued on to a fully-stacked schedule of activities. “Of course, I still don’t know if we’ll find a way to reopen.”

  Janine arched an eyebrow. She knew better than to pretend she truly cared about the state of this place. Her voice flat, she said, “And why is that?”

  Nancy shrugged. “It’s just a difficult thing, considering moving forward with the place without Neal. He was the heart and soul of this place.”

  “I see.”

  “His daughters helped us run it,” Nancy explained as she turned back down the hallway and then entered a side staircase to lead Janine back to the foyer. “Elsa and Carmella. Elsa has taken her father’s death particularly hard.”

  “And Carmella?”

  Nancy’s eyes flashed again. “Carmella handles things a bit differently. We all do, I suppose. Grief is a funny thing.”

  “Yes. It is.” Janine held her mother’s gaze for a moment as they both stirred in discomfort. There were thousands of things she could have thrown in her mother’s face — regarding her abandonment of Janine and her horrible job of raising her.

  But the woman who stood before Janine — this beautiful woman that now went by Nancy Remington, widow of Neal Remington — knew a far different reality than the one they had shared. Separately, Janine and Nancy had lived lives of luxury.

  How strange.

  “Well. I suppose that’s all there is to see here for now,” Nancy said softly as she shifted her weight on her white tennis shoes. “Elsa reports she’s cooked us up a pretty big lunch. I hope you’re hungry?”

  Elsa. One of the step-daughters. Janine’s step-sister, who she’d only just learned about. Goosebumps popped up along Janine’s arms and legs. Hunger was a very distant idea.

  “That sounds good,” Janine said. “Let’s head over.”

  “Splendid.” Nancy furrowed her brow, and her smile didn’t match her eyes. “I want you to know that you’re very welcome here, Janine, for as long as you want to be here. It means so much to me that you came.”

  Her words were powerful. They felt like a punch to the stomach.

  “I’m sure I’ll have to head back to the city soon than later,” Janine returned, her voice cold. “But I’m glad to see Martha’s Vineyard, finally. So many of my friends over the years have recommended it. They all said the same thing that it’s quite a magical place.”

  Her answer totally side-stepped the issue at hand. But there was no way she was going to acknowledge her complete meltdown and there was no way she was going to point to the fact that this was her and Nancy’s first meeting in over a decade.

  It was like they walked over a ravine, supported only by an unstable bridge. At any moment, that bridge might collapse and cast them to their deaths below. Forgiveness was maybe not possible. Maybe all they could do was live in whatever illusion they now created, especially after so much shared pain. Time would tell the tale.

  Chapter Nine

  Janine couldn’t remember her mother behind the wheel of a car. She sat in the passenger seat and watched as the fifty-nine-year-old Nancy Remington pressed the button on her key chain, which roared up the engine of her BMW. It buzzed beneath them as she glanced into the rearview, then returned her eyes to the little camera beneath the radio, which gave a full view of the space behind the car.

  “I always forget that’s there,” Nancy said as she eased her foot from the brake. “I told Neal it was so unnecessary. Humans have been driving for years and years without all this technology. But he told me once I had it, I’d never look back.” Nancy flashed her eyes toward Janine as a laugh escaped her lips. “Get it? I’ll never look back? Neal was always so witty. Gosh, I wish you could have met him.”

  Janine wasn’t sure what to say. When they reached the road, Nancy pulled out and started their drive. She splayed her hand toward the Katama Lodge and heaved a sigh. “I’m glad you got to see the place. Maybe you can help me and Elsa decide what’s next. We could always sell it. Ah, but imagining someone else storming in and redesigning everything... it hurts just to think about.”

  Neal Remington’s family home was located on the waterline, southwest of the city of Edgartown and the Katama Lodge, near Katama Beach, and very close to the Katama Airport. It was a dusty rose color, with large windows and a porch that wrapped around the front and the back. The place was wholesome and large; the type of place that you could tell brimmed with countless memories and should have been stocked with children, laughter, animals and life. From the driveway, however, Janine sensed nothing of the kind. It seemed the house once had a life; now, it was in some kind of retirement.

  “This is the place,” Nancy said softly. These were the first words in several minutes, and they seemed so simple, yet so profound.

  “It’s beautiful,” Janine said, surprising herself.

  “Thank you for saying that.” Nancy tilted her head as she turned off the engine. “I sometimes pinch myself when I look at it. When Neal first brought me here, I wanted to tell him. You know—everything.”

  Janine furrowed her brow. She had a hunch what her mother referred to — the multiple slum apartments they’d lived in, the countless nights they’d spent without much food. These were stories she didn’t want to get into or think about.

  “But instead, I just let it happen to me. I followed him inside that door, and I just knew that we would live a beautiful life together. And we did, for ten full years.”

  They both gathered Janine’s two suitcases from the trunk just as Nancy commented, “I’m surprised you don’t have more luggage?”

  To this, Janine could only say, “I just grabbed what I could and got out.”

  Nancy seemed unwilling to touch that subject.

  They continued to dance around what they could say and what they couldn’t say, like that children’s game where you pretend that the carpet is lava.

  When they reached the front door, Nancy opened it promptly, without the use of a key, and said, “It isn’t like the city here. People just don’t lock up as often. It took me years to get used to it, but now, I can’t believe I lived any other way.”

  Buttery and herb smells wafted out from what she assumed would be the kitchen. Janine placed her suitcases in the foyer and removed her heels, which had begun to make her feet swell. When she glanced up from her bright red toes, she found a woman standing between the kitchen and the foyer, wearing an anxious smi
le. Her eyes were midnight blue, and her smile was large, the stuff of toothpaste commercials or State Fair Queens. She looked at Janine with endless curiosity and then held up a spatula as she greeted with a smile. “You must be Janine.”

  Nancy drew her palms together and beamed at both of them. “Janine, this is my darling step-daughter, Elsa. And yes, Elsa, this is my daughter. Janine Potter.”

  Janine shivered at the use of Jack’s last name, even though it had been her own for over twenty years. She held Elsa’s gaze as she stepped toward her and shook her hand. It seemed foolish to shake the hand of her new “step-sister,” but a hug seemed even more foolish considering the situation. Besides, she didn’t want Elsa to think she was ready to full-on accept her mother’s adopted life.

  “I’m so glad you made it,” Elsa said. She was soft-spoken, or else just shy, and she held Janine’s eyes without aggression. All she could sense was warmth.

  This was a woman who knew a very, very different version of Nancy. Janine’s stomach soured as she considered what Elsa might know already about Janine. What had Nancy told her? What story did she have?

  “How’s the cooking going?” Nancy asked after a long pause.

  “Almost done!” Elsa replied. She dropped Janine’s hand and beckoned for them to follow her. Once in the kitchen, she showed them the elaborate seafood meal she’d prepared, complete with crab, salmon and buttery biscuits with marbled cheese throughout. Already, she’d set the table on the back porch, which overlooked the glittering water, and now, she popped open a chilled bottle of chardonnay.

  Janine glanced toward her mother, suddenly panicked. After all, her mother around alcohol didn’t bring back particularly stellar memories. But steadily, Nancy poured them each moderately-sized glasses, and then lifted hers to say, “A toast to having my daughter home with me. What a remarkable blessing it is.”

  Janine’s cheeks grew crimson. She clinked her glass with her mother’s, without making eye contact, then took a small sip. Her mother sipped as well, rather than downing it like she used to back in the day. Janine wondered just how much Nancy had changed. What was she all about?