The Repeat Year (18 page)

“You disagree on what grounds? Have you ever been married? Have you ever had a child?”

“No, but—” She had witnessed her mom over the years and could testify to the pure love and joy her mom had gained from her role in the family; she always said raising such wonderful children was the accomplishment she was most proud of in her life. Maybe it did take an act of total selflessness to give that kind of love. Wasn’t it worth it? But maybe her mom had wanted something more from this life, something separate from them, all her own, but had been too afraid to go after it.

Sherry rose from the table with some difficulty. “Get back to me in about ten years. Then we’ll talk about selfishness.”

Olive stood, too. “What do you have to gain by keeping this all to yourself? I see it all the time with my patients—having the support of family and friends can make a huge difference. You told me that repeat years are for last chances, Sherry. You think you’re just going to get surgery and chemo and everything will be fine? You don’t think there’s a bigger picture here?”

“I’m tired,” Sherry said, her sun hat covering most of her face. “I’d like you to go home now.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll leave soon, but you know I’m right. You know that you’re here this year so you can try to fix things with your son, but you’re scared he won’t forgive you.”

“You don’t know anything about my son.”

“No, I don’t. I don’t presume to. I just think—”

“I think you have enough of your own problems to fix this year without nosing into mine.” Sherry made her way around the table, opened the glass patio door, and slipped inside. She slid the door back into place with a quiet click.

Stunned, Olive sat alone and waited. She was sorry but not sorry enough to go inside and apologize. She doubted Sherry was torturing herself about dropping the bombshell on her about her mom and Harry. Since January, Sherry had been the one doling out advice. The suggestion to reach out to Heath was really the first time Olive had ventured to speak up. Perhaps she could have said it better, but maybe brusqueness was what it took to get through to Sherry. Nothing else seemed to work.

Sherry didn’t come back out. Finally giving up, Olive walked around to the front of the house, returning to manicured lawns, order, and civilization. The sun was hot on her skin, but she knew it would be even hotter in St. Lucia. As she drove back down the bluff, the buoyant feeling she’d experienced on the way there was replaced with heavy reluctance.

Chapter 14

A
world of lush green opened up below. Two spectacular mountains rose up out of the green; the helicopter cast a small shadow as they flew over them. Their pilot said something in his melodious accent, but over the roar of the whirling blades, Olive couldn’t hear him.

“What did he say?” she asked Phil, who sat on her left, pressed up against the wall of the cabin.

“Pitons,” Phil said. “Those mountains are the Pitons.”

“Doesn’t
pitons
mean ‘breasts’ in French?” Olive’s mom shouted from the other cabin wall. She was a nervous flyer and had had one glass of champagne too many on the plane.

“Yes. I think it’s actually a Creole word,” Harry said. He was on Olive’s other side, and his sweaty knee touching hers was the only thing preventing her from enjoying the helicopter ride. “According to the guidebook, they’re called Gros Piton and Petit Piton. You can’t tell it from up here, but they’re different sizes.”

“A pair of lopsided breasts!” Olive’s mom exclaimed, and Olive tried not to think about Sherry.

“Why do all mountains remind explorers of breasts?” she asked Phil.

“Perhaps because there’s nothing else quite so majestic,” he said.

Last year Olive had taken a different flight than her mom and Harry, a later flight. The airport was located in the southern tip of the country, but the resort was located in Castries, a northern city, so she’d taken a shuttle there. Three young couples, all honeymooners, shared the shuttle with her. They’d looked at Olive as though she were an exotic specimen—a single tourist in a lovers’ paradise. Solitary, Olive had sat up front next to the driver and closed her eyes every time they motored up a mountain. In St. Lucia, they drove on the left side of the road, and the roads were so narrow and winding that drivers honked perfunctorily to warn other motorists of their presence before plowing ahead. For the whole two-hour drive the newlyweds had snuggled and talked about all the neat wedding gifts they’d just received and the ones they would still need to complete their registries. By the time they had arrived at the resort, Olive’s nerves were frayed.

But with Phil by her side, everything seemed better. The bellhop didn’t glance at her with pity as he had last time when he left her alone with her luggage in her room. The king-size bed didn’t appear to be so ludicrously huge. The pools, hammocks, shuffleboard courts, and lawn chess sets looked more inviting. Some of this, she knew, had to do with the fact that now, as a part of a couple, she belonged here. But there was more to it; it was the way Phil viewed and interacted with the world. He became fast friends with an Australian couple as they waited in line to check in. He made Olive dance with him to the tinny tropical music that emitted from speakers painted to look like rocks along the pathway as they walked to dinner and then wondered aloud if they could make love in a hammock without falling out. His playfulness helped keep her mind off the unpleasant conversation she’d had with Sherry.

The buffet-style restaurant was mostly outdoors, covered only by roof beams painted a cerulean blue with red flowers. Bananas, pineapple, plantain, and a watermelon with a fish carved into its rind were heaped on a central table. The restaurant had a view of the ocean, if the ocean hadn’t been too dark to see at that time of night. If everyone at the table stopped talking at the same moment, Olive could hear the ocean rise up onto the beach with a forceful, inhaling rush and then retreat with a soft exhale.

Christopher and Verona, who had taken the late flight this time, arrived as the four of them were just finishing dinner. They both looked a little green around the gills, probably from the shuttle ride, Olive suspected. A pang of guilt shot through her. Her mom invited them to fill up some plates and join their table.

“We’re pretty tired, so we’re just going to go to bed,” Christopher said.

“We want to be fresh for tomorrow,” Verona added quickly. “We just wanted to check in and see what’s on the agenda.”

“Nothing’s set in stone,” Olive’s mom said. “We’ve been tossing around a lot of ideas. Taking a catamaran to Martinique. Checking out the resort and just relaxing on the beach. Phil found out there’s a golf course if anyone wants to golf.”

“I’d like to learn to golf,” Christopher said, speaking directly to Phil.

“I’d be happy to give you some pointers,” Phil said.

“That’s a great idea,” Harry chimed in. “Why don’t the guys play golf, and the ladies can treat themselves to a spa day? I know that’s something you wanted to do before the wedding anyway, Kathy. Then we can all meet up for dinner.”

Phil looked at Olive questioningly. Her mom scrutinized Christopher with a furrowed brow. The ocean sucked in a deep breath and then spit it back out.

“Sounds good to me,” Olive said. On their first day last year—their first day of three excruciating days in limbo before the wedding—they had milled aimlessly around the resort without a plan. They finally settled in at one of the pools. A few hours later, Christopher and Verona had left to play tennis, and then Olive had lingered on awkwardly with her mom and Harry, until she’d come up with an excuse that she needed to get out of the sun and would take a short nap before dinner. Instead, she’d walked to the busiest bar at the resort, where she’d be less conspicuous, and drunk Bahama Mamas.

“It’s settled then,” Harry said, draping his arm around his fiancée.

However, their plans changed abruptly the next morning when Verona came to breakfast alone.

“Christopher went to breakfast early. He said he really wanted to try some watersports first, and he’d meet up with you guys for golf later.” She said this in a voice that let them know she did not condone his behavior. Olive guessed they’d probably had an argument about it.

“We don’t have to golf. I’d like to check out what kinds of watersports they have, too,” Phil said.

Olive stepped on his sandaled foot under the table. “No. He’ll meet up with you later. Go golf. Have fun.” She turned to her mom. “Would you mind if I took a rain check on the spa day? You know I’m not that into having my face shellacked with different creams and getting my cuticles pushed back. I think I’d like to join Christopher.” She knew she was letting her mom down, but she’d let Christopher down, too. And she needed to fix that first before she could make anything else better.

The Watersports Center stood at the far edge of the resort property. It was a small wooden outbuilding with a blacktopped apron leading down to the sand. The shutters were closed tightly with a sign listing its hours. Presumably it hadn’t opened for the day yet. Christopher sat on a large rock facing the ocean.

“It’s nothing against Phil,” he said when he saw her. “I’d be happy to play golf with Phil. I’m sorry to leave him with Harry, but there’s no way I’m spending a whole day with that pompous jerk. It’s useless trying to convince me.”

“I didn’t come here to try to convince you. I came here to rent a kayak.”

Almost as if on command, two young men in red polo shirts and swim trunks appeared to unlock the shed. They outfitted Olive and Christopher with puffy red life jackets and signed out to them a yellow two-seater kayak and two double-ended paddles.

“I’ve never kayaked before,” Christopher said as he dragged the kayak to the water’s edge.

“Neither have I,” she said. “But I’ve canoed before, and it can’t be much different, can it?”

“I’ve never even canoed. I was planning on renting something more motorized. Like a Jet-Ski.”

“You’re so lazy. Why don’t you sit in the front, then?”

“No. You sit in the front.” Christopher stepped into the boat and tried to sit on the back seat. He almost fell out.

“The person in back steers. If you’re in the back, we’ll go in circles.”

They paddled hesitantly along the shoreline, never straying more than ten feet from land, the kayak listing first to the left, then the right, as Christopher got the hang of it. The only sound was the splash of their paddles churning the water. It was ten o’clock, and no one else was on the water. They passed the roped-off swimming area where a few pairs of heads bobbed in the ocean; other people lay like strips of bacon frying on the beach.

“Was Mom upset that we’re not joining in the festivities?” he asked at last.

She suddenly realized that he thought she had joined him in his strike today. “What do you think? This is supposed to be a family trip, but instead Mom and Harry are off spending time with our significant others instead of us.”

“This isn’t a
family
trip. This is Mom getting remarried. I don’t get you. You seem so resigned to this.”

“Christopher,” she started, but then found herself at a loss for words. She’d had a year longer than him to process this. She wanted to tell him it would get easier with time, especially once he saw how happy Harry made their mom. Well, maybe that made it harder at first, but eventually, it became possible to witness her radiance and accept that the cause of it wasn’t their dad. She wanted to tell Christopher what Sherry had said about the library reading three years ago and see what he made of it, but she didn’t want to add more fuel to his fire of loathing for Harry. She wondered how he’d been able to suppress his anger last year. Had she been so terribly effective at venting it for him?

“I guess I
am
resigned to this. This is Mom’s life, not ours,” she finally said.

Christopher snorted, but his shoulders relaxed slightly. They passed the resort property line—a pile of rocks and a chain-link fence on shore—and entered the public beach.

“What bugs you the most about Harry?” she asked.

“I could give you a top ten list. Besides him touching Mom all the time? The way he finishes her sentences. Like she’s too dumb to complete her own thoughts.”

“He does that with everyone, though. Not just Mom.”

“Well, then, he thinks he’s smarter than all of us.”

“That drives me nuts, too. But I’ve thought about it a lot, and I don’t think he does it with malicious intent. I think he does it to show he’s really listening to us and that he’s in tune with what we’re saying. Trying to demonstrate that he understands. It still pisses me off, though.”

The shore was forested now, the beach rockier. It looked more like a park in Wisconsin than a beach in St. Lucia. A local family stood on the rocky beach; two naked children splashed each other in the shallow water.

“Let’s go out to that island,” Christopher said, pointing with his paddle.

“Are you sure? We’re already pretty far out.” Her biceps burned.

“Is the expert rower scared?” he taunted.

“This isn’t Lake Mendota, Christopher; this is the ocean. Right now we’re protected by the inlet, so the waves aren’t that bad. But once we get out there, it’s going to be a lot choppier. And you’re going to feel stupid if the resort staff has to send a boat to rescue us.”

“I’m up for a good challenge.”

She tried to remember that this was Christopher, her twenty-eight-year-old brother, a married man with a mortgage, a gifted journalist, not the stubborn twelve-year-old who’d convinced her it was perfectly safe to ride her bike off the ramp he’d built in the street in front of their house and then broken his own arm demonstrating. She considered bringing this up but then thought better of it. Kayaking out to the island was something Christopher and her dad would have done together before he had gotten sick.

She stared at her brother’s back as they paddled to the island. Under his red life vest, he wore a gray T-shirt. A large oval of sweat darkened his collar and upper back. The tendons in his neck bulged from the exertion of paddling, and the skin above his collar looked bright pink.

“Didn’t you put any sunscreen on the back of your neck?” she asked him. “You’re getting burned.”

He stopped rowing and swatted at his neck. “Dammit. Do you have any?”

“Not with me, genius.” She rested her paddle across her lap. The current pushed them farther out to sea but away from the island. It felt very symbolic of her year.

“Well, I guess we’d better head back, then,” he said.

“That’s it? A little sunburn and you’re ready to give up?” The waves rocked the kayak.

“You said it was dangerous.”

“Yes, but, Christopher—” The island beckoned to her from the horizon. She’d become charmed by the idea of reaching it, and besides, she didn’t want to come this far just to turn back around, defeated.

Christopher had always been the changeable, flighty one. He’d given up in fast succession a variety of activities in his childhood—soccer, guitar lessons, sketching, fishing. In college, he’d changed his major five times before settling on computer science. Then after graduating and securing a good position doing tech support for a prominent investing company in Milwaukee, he’d quit his job, moved back to Madison, married Verona, and started submitting articles to online newspapers about same-sex marriage, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and violence against women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“It’s the principle of the thing,” she continued. “We’re over three-fourths of the way there. Do you want to give up now?”

“God, Olive. Can’t you let a guy save a little face? My arms feel like jelly.” He stabbed his paddle back into the water and shoved off, but without Olive paddling behind him, he wasn’t making much progress. “That’s the problem with you: You’re so goddamn stubborn. You don’t know when to say when.”