Winter Street (12 page)

G
eorge was the one who always wore the red suit, but Kelley is the real Santa Claus at the Quinn household.

Despite everything that’s happened, Kelley stuffs the stockings—he even stuffs stockings for Patrick’s three boys, as if by some reverse Christmas magic, the presents will make them appear. He puts gifts for everyone under the tree.

He checks his phone, but there is no word from Bart.

It is Christmas morning in Afghanistan.

Kelley goes to bed.

S
he wakes up with her daughter snuggled at her side. Margaret is filled with such joy, she nearly cries. Her career has come at an enormous cost, and the person who has suffered the most, she knows, is Ava. Ava was only six years old when Margaret and Kelley split and ten when Kelley moved to Nantucket. Margaret had considered keeping Ava with her in Manhattan—even at six, she demonstrated an exceptional musical talent, and the best place to develop that was in the city. But Ava would have been raised by housekeepers and nannies, whereas Kelley had given up everything to be a hands-on parent, and Margaret had reluctantly agreed that Ava would be better off with him. Still, six years old is a tender age for a girl to be separated from her mother. Margaret always told herself she was leading by example, building a legendary career. She had thought Ava would be a concert pianist or perhaps a rock star. But Ava likes teaching music on Nantucket, and Margaret is happy
she is happy. Now she hopes that Ava will find true love, get married, have children, and be the mother that Margaret never was.

Ava opens her eyes, blinking rapidly in the way she used to when she was young, except now her eyes are smudged with makeup and she’s wearing a black velvet cocktail dress. The party the night before must have been a humdinger.

Margaret thinks about the captured convoy, and Bart. She has found herself in many delicate situations before, but nothing has quite prepared her for what to do here. She doesn’t know for sure that Bart was on the convoy; it’s just a gut feeling. However, her gut is nearly always right. Should she share her knowledge with Ava? With Kevin? With Kelley? If she’s wrong this time, she’ll never forgive herself. But if she’s right, everyone will hate her, despite the fact that she is merely the messenger.

She decides to say nothing. Once there is definitive news, military officials will contact Kelley.

“Mommy?” Ava says. “Are you real?”

“I’m real,” Margaret says.

She and Ava cling to each other and Margaret cries a little and Ava cries a little and Margaret can’t decide whether to feel heroic for being here or guilty for all the days she wasn’t here.

“I decided, since I couldn’t get you to Hawaii, that I would come here instead,” Margaret says. “I wanted to be with you.”

“Thank you, Mommy,” Ava says.

“And look!” Margaret says. She points to the nightstand. “I brought your paper angel.”

“Let’s hope she really is magic,” Ava says.

“How are things with Nathaniel?” Margaret asks.

“He doesn’t love me,” Ava says.

Deep breath. This happens, Margaret knows. You can give birth to a beautiful, perfect human being, but requited love isn’t guaranteed for her—or for any of us.

Margaret wonders for a second if Drake is feeling anything this morning. Did she
hurt
him by canceling? Is he heartsick?

Margaret kisses the tip of Ava’s nose. “Should we go make coffee?” Margaret wants to see Kevin, and Kelley. “Your father doesn’t know I’m here. Nobody does. I’m basically a stowaway.”

Ava clings tighter. “Don’t get up yet. Stay just mine for now, please?”

Margaret relaxes, then nearly falls asleep. She is exhausted in every way, just as she is every Christmas—physically, mentally, emotionally. For the first time in 360 days, her laptop is uncharged in the front pocket of her carry-on. When she stepped off the plane the night before, she found the secretary of state and his wife waiting for her. Margaret felt flattered by this—not only because it was the secretary of state, but because John and Teresa are friends from way back. Margaret interviewed him during his first run for senator, in
1984, when she was a graduate student in communications at NYU.

The secretary said, “Where are you headed?”

She said, “The Winter Street Inn. My ex-husband, Kelley, owns it.”

He said, “That’s right, that’s right. My driver will take you.”

“Wonderful,” she said.

Margaret has nothing packed that is even remotely appropriate for Nantucket in December, and so she borrows a T-shirt and sweatpants from Ava and pulls on her own pink Chanel cardigan.

Ava says, “I’m going to sleep a little while longer. The kids aren’t here, so it doesn’t matter.”

“What happened with Patty?” Margaret asks.

Ava gives Margaret a look. “He got himself in trouble, I guess.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“He’ll tell you himself,” Ava says. “He’s here.”

“He
is?
” Margaret says, and before Ava even makes a face, Margaret knows she sounds like a starstruck teenager. It is a long-held family complaint that both Margaret and Kelley favor Patrick. Margaret vehemently denies this, although there is something special about Patrick. He was the first, obviously, and his whole life has been a clinic in How to Excel.

He got himself in trouble
. What could this mean?

Margaret bends down and kisses her sleepy daughter’s forehead; then she heads out into the hallway to find the rest of her family.

She walks toward the kitchen and the smell of coffee. She’s nervous, almost like she’s doing something illegal. Every other time she’s been at the inn, she’s had to deal with Mitzi’s wrath.

But Mitzi isn’t here,
Margaret reminds herself. If Mitzi
were
here, Margaret would be in Hawaii. Margaret wonders if any of the guests will pop their heads out of their rooms to find Margaret Quinn roaming the hallway. Her photo is bound to end up on Twitter.

In the great room, Margaret is greeted by the tree, under which lie mounds and mounds of presents. The battalion of Mitzi’s nutcrackers lines the mantel; Margaret has only been to the inn at Christmas once before, a dozen years earlier, but she remembers the nutcrackers well. Her favorite is the gardener nutcracker, with his rake, watering can, and green overalls. Margaret runs her hand over the slanted top of Ava’s grand piano, and then, unable to help herself, she lifts the lid off of a glass apothecary jar and pulls out a piece of green, white, and hot-pink striped ribbon candy and takes a lick.

When Margaret enters the kitchen, Kelley is by himself, drinking coffee at the counter. Margaret feels a rush of what must be love—the kind of love one feels for a brother,
perhaps, or a long-lost best friend. She knows the man
so well,
better than she knows anyone else on earth, including her own children, and yet she hasn’t lived with him in more than two decades and has only seen him fleetingly when she’s come to visit Nantucket in August, and every one of those interactions was supervised by Mitzi.

“Kelley,” she says.

He looks up and blinks.

“Are you real?” he says.

“I’m real,” she says.

Where to start? Where to start? They hug, long and hard. Kelley smells like himself, which is Irish on Irish—Irish Spring soap and Irish whiskey.

She pulls away first, as she always does—that much intimacy crosses some kind of line with Margaret, which in some ways caused the downfall of their marriage. Kelley always wanted more, closer, tighter—and Margaret wanted space and boundaries. She was afraid of intimacy, Kelley said. Margaret called it Retaining a Sense of Self. She never believed in two people melding to become one. She believed in self-sufficiency. After all, everyone dies alone.

“How’s Bart?” she asks gently. “Have you heard from him?”

“He texted when he left Germany,” Kelley says. “But I haven’t heard from him since.”

“When was that?” Margaret asks.

“The night of the nineteeth,” Kelley says. “I’m sure he’s either too busy, or the reception is nonexistent. I’m surprised I heard from him at all.”

Margaret’s heart feels like a vessel filled to the brim with some potentially toxic liquid. Is she going to spill it? She knows nothing for certain, and until the military gets in touch, there is no cause for alarm.

Her gut tells her otherwise.

But it’s Christmas morning, so she will ignore her gut.

“Is there coffee?” she asks.

“Yes! Of course!” Kelley jumps right into innkeeper mode, the consummate host. He fetches a cup of cinnamon-flavored coffee in a thick ceramic mug decorated with a raised set of crisscrossed candy canes, and then he presents her with a plate of dark-brown muffins.

“Pumpkin ginger,” he says. “I baked them myself.”

Margaret sips her cinnamon-flavored coffee, trying not to wince—she drinks espresso only, the more hot and bitter, the better—but it’s actually pretty good. She abandons her ribbon candy—it looks a lot better than it tastes—and takes a muffin, despite the fact that she never eats breakfast, and Kelley gives her a ramekin of honey butter. This is life at a bed-and-breakfast: the homey atmosphere, the fresh-baked muffins, the colonial decor of the kitchen. If she were being cynical, she would say it’s sort of like being suspended in a Thomas Kinkade painting, but she appreciates how cozy and rustic the room and the inn in general feel; it appeals to her
childhood fantasy of Christmas. Margaret’s taste is generally sleeker and more sophisticated; her apartment in New York is spacious, and it has forever views across Central Park—but cozy it is not.

“So,” she says between bites of fragrant, moist, buttery muffin, “what’s up with our eldest?”

“Insider trading,” Kelley says. “He invested over twenty-five million in a leukemia drug he knew was going to score. He got word from one of his fraternity brothers and invested that guy’s money and everyone else’s… and it looks like he got caught. The SEC has been watching him, apparently, because of some other stuff.”

Margaret says, “Insider trading.”

Kelley nods, and they lock eyes.

“With the dissemination of information these days, I can’t believe that term even still exists,” Margaret says. “Isn’t it sort of like smoking pot? Too prevalent to effectively prosecute?”

“Apparently not.”

“Twenty-five million isn’t so much money,” Margaret says. She realizes her maternal instincts are overriding her moral compass. She, after all, has reported on Kenneth Lay and Enron, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, and the big winner… Bernie Madoff. Until this second, she had liked nothing better than a good financial scandal. “I mean, it could have been much worse. I’m surprised the SEC even noticed.”

“They noticed.”

“It’s not our fault,” Margaret says. “So stop thinking that.”

“I’m not thinking that,” Kelley says. “Are
you
thinking that?”

“No,” Margaret says. But yes, she is. It’s the curse of any parent, isn’t it? When your child has a crack in his character, you feel responsible. Patrick was always such a straight arrow, an ardent follower of the rules. He loved rules.

“He’s thirty-eight years old,” Kelley says. “That’s when men get greedy. His kids are getting older, he starts thinking about how much boarding school is going to cost, then college. He wants a Jaguar; Jen wants a summer house on Cliff Road so they don’t have to keep staying here at the inn. Here’s an easy way for him to pocket five or six million himself, plus make a boatload of profit for his clients, who will then invest even more money with him. I can see where it would have been tempting.”

“He’s here?”

“Here,” Kelley confirms. “Jen took the kids to San Francisco.”

“Ouch.”

“And in other, happier news,” Kelley says, “Kevin is getting married. He proposed last night to Isabelle, my girl Friday. None of us even knew they were seeing each other. And she’s pregnant.”

“I know,” Margaret says. “I gave him five thousand dollars so he could buy the ring.”

Kelley gets a look on his face, and Margaret says, “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t make that
face,
” Margaret says. “Like I trumped you again, or like I’m always giving the kids handouts to make up for the fact that I almost never see them.”

“I wasn’t thinking that,” Kelley says.

“What were you thinking, then?”

“I was thinking, can you lend me four million dollars so I don’t lose the inn?”

“Are you going to lose the inn?” Margaret asks.

“I have to sell it,” Kelley says. “You’ll notice there’s nobody here? Not one paying guest at the Winter Street Inn on Christmas. The bed-and-breakfast market is all dried up on Nantucket. People can stay at the White Elephant or down the street at the Castle for about the same price, and I can’t compete. And this place has gobbled up all my savings. Now I’m nearly broke, and Mitzi left anyway, so I have no desire to prostrate myself at the foot of some loan officer to borrow against the equity. I’m sixty-two years old, and I’m all alone.”

“Stop the pity party,” Margaret says. “You’re not alone. You have the kids. And today, you have me.”

Kelley beams. “Today I have you! Would you like to come back to my bedroom and see my etchings?”

Margaret laughs. “The pathetic thing is that, yes, I would.”

“Really?” Kelley says, raising his eyebrows.

“I’m pretty lonely,” Margaret says. “And I blew off the man I was meeting in Hawaii so I could show up here and save the day.”

“Well, then!” Kelley says. He takes Margaret by the hand, but she breaks free.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” she says. She wants to use Ava’s bathroom to freshen up.

“Be quick,” Kelley says. “The kids are going to wake up eventually.”

The kids,
Margaret thinks.

Is she really going to do this? Sleep with Kelley?

She brushes her teeth, applies the moisturizer that Roger claims can fix anything, smiles at her reflection in the mirror. She looks a decade older than she does on TV—no surprise there—makeup, lighting, television magic. Should she put on mascara or concealer? No. Kelley won’t care if she’s wearing makeup or not. He’s seen her after giving birth, for God’s sake—three times. And he always said that was the most beautiful she ever looked.

Sweet man.

So… she’s fifty-nine years old, and she’s about to have sex with her ex-husband.

Really?

Really. She’s old enough to have learned that sex is just sex, and at fifty-nine and sixty-two, desire should be treated like a rare and precious commodity. She’s also grateful that forgiveness and the passing of time have brought them to this moment.