Chapter 25
Twenty-five
After disembarking the ferry, my dad and I only stopped once on the way home.
Swede—seemingly fine with his vacation being cut short—was pretty vocal about his need for a bathroom break.
We grabbed coffee after hitting the rest stop’s bathroom ourselves, then we were back on the road.
I put on my dad’s favorite playlist, but he didn’t drum along on the steering wheel like usual.
We both stayed silent with our thoughts. Mine circled around Connor…
“Fuck,” I whispered.
My dad switched lanes. “Mmm?”
“Fuck,” I said again. “I was supposed to go out to lunch today.” I winced. “With Christian Fox.”
“Christian Fox as in Topper’s friend?”
“Yes.” I nodded, then I started to spill the story. “He knew Annie, Dad. He knew her back when she and Kathy Ryan came to the Vineyard.”
“I knew Kathy would have some involvement,” my dad mumbled.
“Christopher.” I poked his arm. “I’m serious. I found out he’s the artist behind Annie’s little watercolors. He was really important to her.”
“Okay…”
“He’s the Chris she’s been complaining never visits, Dad. Not you.”
My dad glanced over at me, now hooked. “What’s the story?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I was supposed to have lunch with him today to find out.” I groaned. “He probably thinks I blew him off…”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” he said. “Olivia Lupo never blows anyone off.”
I snorted, because she’d definitely done a fantastic job of blowing off Connor. He’d poured his heart out to me and what had I done?
Left.
Like I always do, I started to reflect. I left relationships so no one had the chance to leave me.
“Why don’t you text Erica?” he suggested, our car speeding up. “I bet she can get in touch with Christian.”
I bit the inside of my cheek, knowing it was a good idea but worried too. She’d only given me a shoulder-squeeze goodbye.
This was more important, though.
Hi, I wrote. I was supposed to meet Christian Fox today for lunch. Could you or your dad tell him I had to leave?
Of course, she texted back. I will call him.
I stared at her message for a few seconds, then typed, I’m sorry, Erica. I’m the worst.
She typed for a while after I hit send, but her response ended up being brief: Please give Annie a kiss for me.
My chest tightened.
“How are Erica and the twins getting home?” I asked later, when we finally crossed the Connecticut border into New York. Connecticut was such a small state, yet it took forever to get through because of its traffic. It suddenly hit me that we’d taken the car.
“They’ll fly,” my dad said as I scratched Swede’s ears. He’d fallen asleep with his head on the center console. “Martha’s Vineyard to Boston to Philly.”
“Expensive?” I asked.
“Outrageously,” he answered, and then he smiled the closest thing to a smile I’d seen this whole drive. Pilots and their families flew for free.
Onward we drove.
* * *
After finally dropping Swede and our suitcases at home, we drove to Capital Health, the closest hospital to Elkins Village.
Annie was in surgery, so we sat in the waiting room until the doctor found us.
Her surgery had gone well but sounded grotesque.
She’d needed a few screws, along with a serious plate.
“You don’t have to see her,” my dad said when we were waiting for Annie to leave the recovery room and get settled elsewhere. He dug out his keys from his pocket. “Head back to the house, figure out what you want to order for dinner, and later I’ll Uber—”
“Dad, no.” I shook my head. Haddonfield was fifty minutes away, and I wanted to see Annie. “I’m staying by your side.”
He pulled me close, wrapping an arm around my shoulders.
“Lupo?” A nurse eventually called. “Annette Lupo?”
“Yes, that’s us.” My dad and I sprung up from our seats. “Annette is my mother.”
My heart grew heavier after the nurse escorted us to Annie’s room; I hardly recognized my grandmother.
Her still unfamiliar gray hair was flat but unkempt at the same time.
And her skin was so eerily pale, which only emphasized her bruises.
I sucked in my breath at the one on her face.
Black and blue had blossomed on her left cheek, the color cradling her eye.
Oh, Annie, I thought, tears welling up. I took her hand and squeezed it, blue veins looking like lace on her skin. If Bryce were here, he’d call it a spiderweb.
He’d also want to sign her white cast, but if things were different, I knew she’d be horrified at the thought.
But things weren’t different; we didn’t have all of Annie, so I didn’t think she’d mind some Sharpie action. Or even notice.
Her eyes blinked open once or twice during the two hours we spent there—and I swear we got the ghost of a smile—but she didn’t speak.
“See you tomorrow,” I whispered before kissing her forehead goodbye.
“The twins and Erica love you so much.” A few tears drip-dropped into her matted hair. “They’ll be here soon.”
Would a week feel like “soon” to her? No one knew how time worked in Annie’s head, not even Annie herself.
She only spent one night at the hospital, then she was discharged and brought back to Elkins.
My dad handled that part, and I pulled into the parking lot a few hours later.
The drive from Haddonfield had felt unusually long, and even though we’d only been gone two weeks, Finlay House didn’t feel as familiar.
There was the atrium, which tried so hard to be cheery with its bright skylight and colorful photographs decorating the taupe walls.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t buying it today.
Residents had congregated at the rally point, like it was Groundhog Day. Women worked on a jigsaw puzzle while blind Bob Coleman wore his big headphones, off in audiobook land.
Other people dozed in their wheelchairs and strollers, keeping warm under their fleece blankets. A lump rose in my throat. How long until Annie became one of them?
She looked so small in her bed; my grandmother had never seemed small to me. She’d always been a statuesque five foot eight.
So much has changed, I thought. So much has changed in two weeks…
I told myself over and over that it had nothing to do with the fact that none of us had visited. That a lack of visitors had nothing to do with Annie’s setback.
Setback, not decline.
“Hi, Annie,” I softly smiled when she was finally awake-awake during my visit, three days after surgery. I kept my relieved enthusiasm in check, not wanting to frighten her. “How are you?”
She blinked, and I held my breath, preparing myself to be no one special to her. “Mmm…livia,” she mumbled, and that was it.
But when she squeezed my hand, I squeezed hers back.
It was like this the next day too. Even if Annie’s eyes were open, she didn’t really engage with me or my dad. He stuck to asking questions about her bachelorette life in New York or telling stories from his childhood, like he had for a while now. Her long-term memory had hung on the longest.
But her responses were more or less the same: a combination of her dreamy voice and distant smiles. “Oh, yes,” she whispered after we asked about living at the Barbizon Hotel. “My roommate would always…” She trailed off. “…and then stole…Daddy bought me…”
I willed my Martha’s Vineyard memory book to come faster. I’d finished compiling it the night my dad and I’d gotten home and paid for express shipping. Golden Hour Girls was the title.
Seeing Connor throughout my camera roll had been harder than I’d thought, because there were more pictures of him than I realized I took.
One I lingered on, perhaps my favorite, had been taken at sunset on the Farm.
Meredith had secretly snapped it, she then sent it to Connor, who sent it to me. It was our last photo together.
Everyone had gotten off the Oystercatcher to find the best view, but Connor and I’d stayed put, legs dangling off the flatbed.
He had his arm around my shoulders, and I had both of mine looped around his waist, hugging him close.
We weren’t grinning at the camera, but instead smiling slyly at each other in the pink-orange glow.
My heart heaved. I hadn’t heard from him since I’d left the island, but why would I? Not only had he resumed minding Teddy and Finn, but I hadn’t exactly signaled that I wanted him to call me. All I’d given him was a litany of reasons why we wouldn’t work.
Shutterfly finally fulfilled their promise on Friday, and I didn’t bother opening the box before driving to Elkins. Needing a breather, my dad had gone out to lunch with friends. It was only me today.
“I’m so sorry, Olivia,” Tara said as I signed in at the nurses’ station, excitement written all over my face. “I must sound like a broken record, but she’s asleep. We had her in a chair for a couple hours this morning”—she gestured to the rally point—“and I think walking tired her out.”
“Oh.” My stomach sunk. It was good that they’d gotten Annie up and walking, but… “That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll just sit with her.”
I cracked the front cover of Golden Hour Girls once I’d plopped down in my grandmother’s cushy bedside “throne,” but I kept checking on Annie.
Her breathing was pretty steady, although the pained expression on her face made me shift in my seat.
She still hadn’t gotten used to her sling.
My dad had to stop her from tearing it off the other day.
Two minutes later, my phone buzzed with a text. From Erica, a photo of Bryce and Teddy on the beach. Someone had buried them waist-down in the sand before giving them mermaid tails. Connor and Finn sculpted the tails, Erica had written. Maisie collected “the scales.”
The scales were pebbles, shells, and bits of purple and white wampum.
Siri, play “Under the Sea”, I wrote, hearting her messages. I wouldn’t say things were good between us, but we had been updating each other throughout this week.
If my dad had any idea what I’d said to Erica before we’d left, he didn’t let on.