Return to Me

by Katie Winters

  “Did you remember me here?” Janine whispered to the photograph. “Did you want your only daughter to attend your wedding?”

  Of course, Janine had been pretty clear in her opinion of her mother that last time she’d come to Manhattan. “Don’t come back. I never want to see you again.”

  Yet here she was.

  Janine stepped behind the desk and sat in the cushy chair. The desk had been organized, wiped clean. There was a collection of folders off to the right, which seemed to contain information about the spa’s various packages. Janine had already dreamed up her ideal schedule there at the lodge: what she would specialize in and how she would help these women get back on their feet.

  With every step forward they took, she knew she, too, would heal.

  Something caught the corner of Janine’s eye after that. It was a dark cardboard box, clearly worn-down from age, and on the side, someone had written “NYC” in marker. She bent down to pull it out from under the desk as her heart pounded. As she lifted it into the air, she could almost see this very box, beneath another desk, far away in one of their Brooklyn apartments.

  Was this possibly the same box? Had Nancy dragged it around the world with her, while she’d gallivanted, before winding up here?

  At the very top of the box, Janine found a number of letters. She unfolded the first to find her own handwriting. The letter was dated 1997 — twenty-four years before.

  Mom,

  I don’t think you’ll even get this letter. Last I heard, Marvin told me you were in North Carolina, but I know you’ve been moving around a lot.

  I don’t know why you left the way you did. Yes, I know you couldn’t pay our rent anymore, but Mom, I was only eighteen — hadn’t even graduated from high school yet. And I still needed you so much.

  The letter you left me, saying that you just needed to get well, totally destroyed me, Mom. I mean, there are options for you to get well here, with me.

  But actually, I’m writing this to tell you I’m not bitter anymore. In fact, I’ve met someone — someone who will protect me in ways you never could.

  Probably, you’ll hear about me. He’s famous.

  Anyway, I don’t know why I’m writing any of this to you, because I’m nineteen now, and you’ve been gone an entire year, and I don’t even know where you are. Maybe you’re here. Maybe you’re in Oregon or Illinois or Arizona or any of the other fifty states. Maybe you ran off to Europe, the way you always said you would if you had money.

  Don’t come find me. Although I’ve forgiven you, I will never forget all you did.

  Janine

  Janine’s hands quivered as she read the letter. Tears dripped down her cheeks and she felt the lump lodged in her throat. She didn’t remember writing this letter, although she could still feel the person she’d been back then. So wounded but so sure of herself! So positive that everything would work out!

  Gosh, it hurt to read it.

  Janine continued to dig through the various letters and then found probably fifty photographs toward the bottom. Most of them were of her, of Janine, at various ages. There she was, seated in front of a large chocolate birthday cake, no shirt, only a diaper. There was chocolate frosting all around her mouth, and she grinned madly at the camera — with that knowledge only a toddler has, that they can get away with murder. Then, there was a photo of a much younger Nancy, with Janine in her arms. They stood outside the Brooklyn YMCA, where they sometimes had slept, and the sun beat down upon them. Janine frowned in the photo, but Nancy’s smile was enormous, as big as her glasses at the time. It was such a classic, early eighties photo.

  There were others. Janine, on a bicycle. Janine, with her mother’s lipstick on. Janine, with her arms, wrapped tightly around Maxine, her hair in pigtails. Janine was the central focus of the photos, but they all told a singular story — one of a young girl, who absolutely adored her mother, and a mother, who loved her girl so, so much but just couldn’t keep herself together.

  She just couldn’t keep it together.

  Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. Carmella appeared, then stopped short at the sight of Janine, whose face was probably so blotchy, so red, and heavy with tears.

  “What’s wrong? What happened to you?” Carmella breathed.

  Janine dropped her face forward and let out a big sob. Carmella rushed around and wrapped her arms around her, then blinked down at the photos and whispered, “Oh my God. Look at these.”

  “I can’t believe she kept them after all this time. After all the times I told her that I never wanted to see her again,” Janine whispered.

  After a long pause and several more sobs, Janine exhaled. “We can’t give up on her, Carmella. No matter how complicated your feelings are with your father and sister. We have to keep going. She called me back to her. And I have to make things right.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Since Janine and Henry’s little trek through Edgartown, Henry had texted Janine intermittently with updates about his documentary and its progression. He seemed busy, as his mother had only passed away in April, and he had a number of family responsibilities to tend to. Janine didn’t mind, though. Time slipped through her fingers, and her heart still ached with sadness at what she’d lost. She wasn’t exactly in the “mood” to flirt, not even with attractive, talented men like Henry. Friendship was all she needed.

  At least, this is what she told herself. When she did hear from him again, the evening after she discovered the photographs and old letters in her mother’s old office, her heart jumped into her throat and performed a little dance.

  HENRY: Hey! How are you? You haven’t escaped the island for the city again, have you?

  JANINE: Nope. Still here.

  She pressed send and then stared at their text conversations for a number of minutes. Panic set in. Had she not said enough? What were the rules of texting? It was way too soon to ask her daughters about such topics.

  JANINE: And how is the documentary coming?

  Henry wrote back almost instantly. While the app showed him typing away, Janine didn’t dare breathe. She felt like a teenager.

  HENRY: It’s good. Better than before. The interviews gave me a better direction.

  HENRY: I just need to put more of my mom into it somehow. She was such a pillar in the Vineyard community.

  Janine pressed her phone against her chest and again thought of the tremendous amount of loss they’d all experienced.

  JANINE: Can I ask you a question? In person.

  HENRY: I’m intrigued.

  JANINE: Don’t worry. It’s not an aggressive question or anything. I just might need your help.

  HENRY: No problem. This is the least busy summer of my life. I think I can find the time.

  Henry and Janine agreed to meet the following afternoon. Henry suggested a little wine bar located near the Joseph Sylvia State Beach. As Janine approached, her skirt fluttered beautifully over her thighs and upper calves, and she tried and failed to tame her long locks, which flew wherever the wind took them.

  Henry stood up from one of the front tables, closer to the boardwalk. Janine’s heart pounded at the sight of him. He looked cool, every bit the “artist from New York,” with his dark jeans and black t-shirt and untamed hair. His eyes met hers, and he looked genuinely happy to see her — her alone and no one else. Janine tried to remember what she’d first thought of Henry, all those years ago, when she’d first met him. Had she taken any interest in him?

  No. She hadn’t been that kind of woman. It had been Jack, and Jack only, for so long.

  They ordered a bottle of wine. Janine was surprised at how frightened she was to make good conversation. She asked Henry what he’d been up to, and he spoke a bit more about his interviews, about his father’s sadness, about his sisters, who both had remained on the island while he’d “run around the world.”

  “They must be impressed with everything you’ve done,” Janine tried.

  Henry laughed good-naturedly. “They just do
n’t understand it. They know my films haven’t been seen by so many people.”

  “That’s the nature of art these days, I guess.”

  “You’d have to be sort of an idiot to get into the field,” he said.

  “No way. Just idealistic, I guess. Which is something we all need a little bit more of,” Janine returned. She then sipped her wine and gazed out across the water. “Although, I’m really one to talk. I have to scrape my idealism from the bottom of the barrel.”

  “You seem to be doing remarkably,” Henry said softly.

  Janine shrugged. “I don’t know. My main goal right now is to help my mother. She brought me here under the guise of helping me, but I think she needs my help more than ever. I want to help her reopen the Katama Lodge and Wellness Spa. I want to run it with her and her step-daughters. But she doesn’t want to reopen. I need to figure out a way to make her see how important that place was for so many.”

  “I see.” Henry’s eyes widened. “And you thought about the interviews.”

  “Exactly.” Janine was amazed that he read her mind so easily. “Maybe with some of the islanders who loved the Lodge the most. I’ve already spoken to several of these women. Their husbands died, or they got divorced, or they’ve had mild illness — and they found ways to rebuild at the lodge.”

  “I think that’s fantastic,” Henry said. “I’ll help you, for sure.”

  “Really?” Janine’s voice brightened a bit too much; she was reminded of a cheerleader. She cleared her throat and then added, “That would be so amazing.”

  “Don’t mention it. Like I said, I have loads of time this summer. Time and a camera.”

  “Those just happen to be the two things I need the most.”

  OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS, Janine and Henry spent nearly every waking moment together, conducting interviews with those who agreed to share their stories. First, they met with Mila, who Janine had met at the lodge itself. She explained her story again — how her husband, Peter, had died and how she’d taken refuge at the lodge to heal. She then passed along her best friends’ names, including Jennifer Conrad of the Frosted Delights. When Janine entered the bakery, Jennifer beamed and said, “Mila already told me about your project. I would just love to help. You know how I feel about your mother. If you think she needs a push in the right direction, I’m here for you.”

  Jennifer’s story weaved around her sister's death, again, along with the divorce from her high school sweetheart, Joel, whom she still loved dearly. “We’ve both moved on, and it’s for the best, but I needed my time at the lodge after he moved out. I sat with these other, broken women, and we talked and talked for ages about everything. Of course, Nancy and Carmella’s treatments were instrumental, as well.”

  Janine and Henry continued on across the island. They spoke briefly with a nurse named Carmella, who informed them that her husband had left her around the time of Neal’s death, which meant she hadn’t been able to go to the lodge during her time of need. “I would be there in a heartbeat if it was open,” she told the camera. “Nancy, what you have in the lodge is truly remarkable. Don’t forget that the women of Martha’s Vineyard and beyond need you so much.”

  Their last stop of the day was at the Sunrise Cove Inn, where they spoke with a woman named Susan Sheridan. She reported that the previous year had been the turning point in her life. “I moved back to the Vineyard after twenty-five years away. I rekindled my relationships with my sisters and with my father. Then, I found out I needed chemotherapy for breast cancer,” she said into the camera. “After I found out that I’d been cured of cancer, I checked myself immediately into the lodge. I believe I was one of their last guests, and for that, I feel terribly lucky. Nancy, you do God’s work there. I hope you know that.”

  They compiled twelve interviews with women from all walks of life. Excited, bubbling, Janine jumped into Henry’s car and spoke endlessly about the various things people had said over the previous days while Henry drove them back to his quaint cabin, which he’d rented for his stay on the island. She was totally immersed in their project, as was he, so much so that she hardly questioned it. They both stood over his computer only an hour later and discussed how to edit the clips together, which parts could be deleted, and whether or not they should order pizza or Chinese food.

  “Well, you know the Chinese here is nothing like the Chinese back home,” Henry pointed out with a crooked grin.

  “I’m sure you’re right,” Janine said, remembering her savory favorites from Chinatown restaurants. “I’m still craving it, though.”

  “Then I guess we’ll make do,” Henry said as he called the Edgartown Chinese restaurant, one that offered delivery.

  An hour and a half later, they lay back, both of them with their hands over their overly-extended bellies. Throughout the night, they’d swapped stories about their time in Manhattan, about the various parties they had attended, and about which people they secretly detested in that “Manhattan socialite” circle.

  “You have to understand, I was never really a part of it, like you,” Henry said. “I was just there because Jack was sponsoring my film, and I hoped to meet other people who might throw me a bone later on down the line.”

  “I know that,” Janine returned. “But you have to understand that I never really felt like I fit into that world either. I was just a poor girl from Brooklyn who struggled like so many others. And believe me; even after I met Jack, people went out of their way to let me know that’s how they still saw me.”

  “That must have been awful.” Henry tapped his chopsticks against the side of a paper box, which had held a savory, noodle-y concoction, nothing that even resembled anything from Chinatown.

  “I sometimes think that previous version of myself might have paid anything to be here right now,” Janine confessed then, surprising herself. “I haven’t worn a designer dress in over a month. I haven’t had my hair blown out or worried about what anyone thought of me. When I go out in public, I sometimes wear jeans. I never imagined how freeing it would be not to be Jack Potter’s wife because I almost always had been. Now—”

  She arched an eyebrow as the truth rolled off her tongue. Was this really what she believed?

  It was.

  Silence fell between them. Janine wondered if she’d pointed too firmly at some kind of truth and “freaked him out.”

  Finally, Henry answered.

  “I think you’re better off without him. I mean, everyone always knew he wasn’t the most loyal of husbands.”

  Janine dropped her chopsticks. She pressed herself back in her chair and gaped at Henry, who suddenly seemed like a stranger.

  This was her life he spoke about.

  This wasn’t something to joke about.

  Her heart darkened. As time passed, Henry tilted in his chair, seemingly confused.

  “I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?”

  Janine swallowed the lump in her throat.

  “I’m sorry. I just assumed, what with everything that happened, that you knew—”

  “Knew it wasn’t the first time?” Janine breathed.

  Henry seemed unwilling to say yes or no to that. He just blinked at her.

  “I guess I would be an idiot to think Maxine was the first time,” she said then. “Maybe I am the idiot. It’s the only thought that’s run through my mind, non-stop, since I got here. Maybe I just ignored all the signs. My god, how stupid of me.”

  “Janine, don’t.”

  But she’d already begun to get up, to grab her cardigan and her purse, to head for the door. Her shoulders shook as she rushed, and she found her way to Elsa’s car swiftly, grateful that she’d allowed her to borrow it yet again. She turned on the engine as Henry stalled on the walkway that led from the driveway to the front door.

  “Janine, please. Let me explain,” he called, loud enough for her to hear through the window.

  But Janine didn’t want to talk about the past any longer. She drove as fast as she could down the road
, all the way back to her mother’s house. Once there, she stared long and hard at her mother’s closed door. For the first time in thirty years, maybe, she considered crawling into her mother’s bed, searching for comfort.

  It was impossible, now.

  Once in her bedroom, she checked her phone. Henry had sent her a number of messages.

  HENRY: I am so sorry, Janine.

  HENRY: I was completely out of line.

  HENRY: I should know when to put my foot in my mouth.

  Janine exhaled slowly. She tried to fall into a meditative zone, unthinking, unfeeling, but soon jumped out of it into a state of panic.

  Finally, she wrote him back.

  JANINE: It’s my fault for being sensitive.

  JANINE: Thank you for your help the past few days. I love what we did with the videos, and I can’t wait to show Nancy.

  JANINE: Really. I am sorry for freaking out. Jack is just a ghost, now. I hate that I still allow him to haunt me.

  HENRY: We all have our ghosts. It’s a part of life.

  JANINE: Right now, I think my mother and I are haunting each other.

  HENRY: I think it’s because you have unfinished business. It isn’t over between you two. Not even close.

  JANINE: You should write horror screenplays.

  HENRY: I don’t know about that. Real-life is about as scary as it gets. It’s why I’m a documentarian.

  Chapter Nineteen

  In the wake of Janine and Carmella’s failed dinner with Nancy, Nancy spent as little time downstairs as she could. Janine hardly caught sight of Elsa, either — and when she did, Elsa seemed to try to scamper out of sight, as though she worried she, too, would be cornered about the future of the lodge. One morning, as Janine poured herself a cup of coffee quietly in the kitchen, Elsa entered and then looked on the verge of leaping right back out again.