Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
December 2024
Nantucket Island
I t was funny to be back at the Nantucket Christmas Festival. But Josie was too weak to do anything she wanted to do. She couldn’t ride the Ferris wheel or mill through the snowy streets, gossiping and laughing with Nantucket islanders she’d missed. All she could really do was sit by the flailing bonfire, bundled up with coats and blankets, and wait for people to come to her. She held a big mug of hot cocoa with melted marshmallows. From where she sat, she could see Tara running around like a chicken with her head cut off, making sure the Nantucket Christmas Festival ran smoothly. It was Tara’s lot in life to be anxious. But Josie reckoned that was why Tara had had such success. Her anxiety-bred organization always churned out better festivals and events.
It was Josie’s sixth day back on Nantucket, which was hard to believe. Due to holiday constraints and tight schedules, Tara hadn’t been able to get Josie an appointment at the cancer ward at the Nantucket Hospital until the new year, which was fine with Josie. It gave her more time to get out of it.
Josie wasn’t yet sure how she could convince Tara of how monstrous it felt to live inside her body. Chemotherapy and radiation had eaten her alive. Now that she wasn’t undergoing treatment, she had full hours during which she felt like herself. Those hours were priceless. She hadn’t thought she’d ever have them again.
She’d told her stepdaughter Leah, “I just want to enjoy the end of my life the way I’ve enjoyed the rest of my life. I don’t want to be in pain anymore.”
Leah had said she got it.
But now that Tara was back in Josie’s life, Josie understood why Tara clung so hard. Beyond her tightly knit friendship circle, the Salt Sisters, Tara didn’t really have anyone. She’d confessed she’d been going to grief therapy for years with no end in sight.
Suddenly, Tara was back at the bonfire to check on Josie. “How are you feeling? Are you too cold? Too hot? How can I help?”
Josie rolled her eyes. “You can treat me like a normal human being.” But she smiled to let Tara know she was joking, or mostly joking.
Tara laughed. “I’m sorry. You know how I get. Hey, I want to introduce you to someone.” Tara beckoned toward a beautiful woman in an expensive-looking puffy jacket with what looked like real fur lining the hood. Josie thought she recognized her and learned a few minutes later that she was the mother of a famous film actress.
“This is one of my best friends, Hilary,” Tara said.
Hilary smiled dreamily. “I’ve heard so much about you, Josie! Welcome back to Nantucket.”
“I have to run off and help with a Christmas parade float,” Tara admitted.
“You’re my babysitter,” Josie joked to Hilary.
“Oh, stop it!” Tara said before she ran off again.
Hilary and Josie watched her go, and then Hilary sat down beside Josie and looked at the fire. It occurred to Josie that, at one time, she might have been intimidated by such a beautiful and prosperous woman as Hilary. But now that Josie knew she was going to die, she no longer felt inferior to anyone. She was just a human like anyone else. This was freeing.
For a little while, Hilary and Josie talked about light things, like how Nantucket had changed since Josie left, and how Tara’s business was going, and Hilary’s truly bizarre and “enormous” year, during which she’d met her romantic partner and rekindled her relationship with her daughter.
“That sounds like a lot,” Josie admitted with a laugh. “You must be exhausted.”
“Actually, I have more energy than ever,” Hilary admitted. “But enjoying life has a way of doing that to you.”
“I know what you mean,” Josie said.
Hilary winced, probably because she knew Josie was dying.
“Don’t worry,” Josie told her. “I don’t want anyone to censor what they say in front of me. I want to have real, honest conversations with as many people as possible. It’s how I see my last months going.”
Hilary nodded. “That’s beautiful.”
Josie had begun to feel incredibly cold, cold down to her bones, and when she confessed this to Hilary, Hilary popped to her feet and insisted on taking her home. “You can come to my place,” Hilary said. “Tara and some of the other girls are coming over later. You’ll love everyone.”
Josie agreed.
But when Hilary pulled into the driveway of her mansion in Siasconset, Josie could hardly believe her eyes. She’d grown up in Nantucket, which meant she knew of wealth, and she’d spent many years in Manhattan with the wealthy living all around her. But she’d never seen such tremendous proof of money this close-up. Hilary waved her hand and explained that her family was Old Hollywood and that her mother bought the place before she died. “It’s extravagant, but I like to have people over as much as possible to enjoy it.”
Hilary set Josie up by a roaring fire and fetched her some tea and cut fruit and dark chocolate. Josie didn’t say how tired of dark chocolate she was. She’d started eating that as her “sweet treat” almost exclusively after her diagnosis, and it hadn’t helped at all. Milk chocolate was the way to go.
Josie was surprised at how at ease she felt around Hilary. She was grateful that Tara had Hilary as a friend all this time.
“Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
Josie perked up. “I love difficult questions.”
Hilary laughed. “Tara mentioned you want to reach out to your parents and rebuild a relationship with them. But I know how they left you. I know the emotional injuries you and Tara sustained. Why do you think they deserve another chance?”
Josie knew that this was heavily on Tara’s mind. She also knew that Tara was too frightened to bring it up right now, not now that Josie was settling in and “getting well again.”
“I’m only forty-five years old,” Josie said.
Hilary winced but remained quiet.
“I figured I had another forty years of life left in me,” Josie continued. “I figured there was time to make art, change careers, build friendships, and fall in love again. I figured there was time to travel and see the world. But more than anything, I figured there was time to forgive, mend things, and see beyond the messes we humans create. Now that I know I’m out of here soon, I want Tara to recognize how precious this life is.” Josie hesitated. “I know how lonely Tara has been. I know how awful the past decade has been for her. And I just can’t handle the fact that she won’t have anyone from our little family left when I'm not here.”
Hilary bowed her head. “Tara has us. She has the Salt Sisters.”
“I know that. And I’m so grateful for that,” Josie stated. “But what you have to understand is Tara loved our parents. She looked up to them. She honored them. The way they left was cruel and unusual, and I’ve never fully understood it. I think Tara needs to sit down with them, talk to them, and understand them. I think they need to find a way to understand us, too.”
“This is your final mission?” Hilary asked.
“It’s one of them,” Josie said. “I also want to learn to play the trombone.”
Hilary cackled and slapped her thigh. “You’re kidding.”
“Yes, I am.” Josie smiled, even as pain filled her stomach and chest.
“You know how stubborn Tara is,” Hilary said.
“I do.”
“I don’t think she’ll go for it,” Hilary offered.
Josie raised her shoulders. “The only thing I know, now that I’m on the verge of leaving this world, is that being stubborn is a waste of time. It’s the reason I reached out to Tara in the first place.”
Hilary sniffed. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
Josie sipped her tea and settled deeper into the couch cushions. She hoped she wouldn’t fall asleep on accident because she was enjoying herself.
“Tell me about your life in Manhattan,” Hilary said. “You were married, weren’t you?”
“I was.” Josie nodded. “Joe was a pretty good husband for a while.”
Hilary chuckled. “They’re all pretty good for a while.”
“When I married him, he had two daughters aged twelve and fourteen. Leah and Violet. They spent weekends with us and weekdays with their mother. It was strange for me. I wasn’t sure how to fit myself into their lives. Their father was just as lost as I was, and they fought often.”
“You were brave to enter into that arrangement,” Hilary said.
“It didn’t feel brave. It felt like there was a lot of love there,” Josie remembered. “Until there wasn’t.”
“You got divorced?”
Josie nodded. “It was mostly amicable. Leah and Violet still visit and call sometimes. But they’re busy with their own lives, and they have two parents to keep up with. I’m just an ex-stepmom.”
“You were there during an important time.”
“Maybe,” Josie said. She hated how sorrowful she felt when Violet and Leah came up. It reminded her of her intentions for that other life and how she’d failed herself and them.
“I missed Nantucket,” Josie said wistfully. “I missed the sound of the wind and the crashing waves and the snow falling gently over the bluffs. I missed the people and the food and the conversations like this. When Tara invited me to come back with her, I wanted to resist. But it’s been a balm.” She smiled. “I think it’s the perfect place to say goodbye.”
Hilary nodded. “We don’t think about death being a part of life. But it is. And it’s dignified to have a beautiful and planned death.”
“It’s a privilege to be able to plan it,” Josie admitted.
“Tara isn’t going to let you go without a fight.”
Josie sighed. “I know that. And I’m frightened about that. I don’t want to spend my final months on earth fighting with Tara about my health. Our memories are hard enough to wade through as it is. I don’t want to create more darkness. I don’t want to give her more reasons to go to grief therapy.”
Hilary looked thoughtful. “Grief is a part of life, too. Ideally, we help each other carry it.”
Not long after that, a few other members of the Salt Sisters arrived: Rose, Stella, and Gale. They were thrilled to meet Josie and begged her for stories about Manhattan and her childhood in Nantucket. By the time Tara swung by after she finished at the festival, Josie was all talked out and exhausted but as thrilled as a child on Christmas morning. She gabbed to Tara about how “brilliant” her friends were all the way home.
“You should join the Salt Sisters!” Tara said as she parked in the garage and cut the engine. “It looks like Hilary has already welcomed you into the fold.”
Josie laughed. She didn’t tell Tara she would never be a member. She didn’t say, I won’t be around for that .
She knew Tara couldn’t take much more of that talk.