Chapter 3
Chapter Three
December 2024
I t was December fifteenth and the busiest of all seasons. Tara was entrenched in paperwork and phone calls and putting out little metaphorical fires. She had a to-do list about a mile long, one she continued to add to at odd times—like when she woke up in the middle of the night, was in the grocery store, or was out with the Salt Sisters, trying to have a good time. Hilary Salt, the saltiest of the Salt Sisters, often told her, “You need to create boundaries between your work and life.” But Tara no longer had a life. It was all work, work, work. And because Tara was grateful for the career she’d built—a career she probably shouldn’t have had because she’d dropped out of college in 2001—she didn’t want to let her guard down. She didn’t want anyone to swoop in and take what she’d built.
Now, Tara was bundled up in downtown Nantucket, watching as the Christmas Festival was set up around her. It was much the same as it always was, with similar games, food and wine stalls, and a few rides. For safety reasons, they’d gotten rid of the more aggressive rides over the years but replaced them with other activities and ways of amusing Christmas-craving Nantucketers and their children.
Tara still loved the Christmas Festival just as much as she had as a kid. As she walked through the stalls, chatting with the staff she’d hired as well as volunteers who refused money, her heart opened.
“There she is! The Nantucket Christmas Queen!” Greg was working the clam chowder stand this year, spooning bowls of his mother’s recipe. “I hope there won’t be any fainting this year?”
Tara rolled her eyes into a smile. Nobody let her forget the first year she’d planned the festival when she’d fainted “out of nowhere” and gone to the hospital. It was the last time she could ever remember fainting. But that was the thing about small towns. Oftentimes, you were remembered for something you did once twenty years ago. It stuck to you like a bad smell.
“No fainting,” Tara promised. “But I’ll make sure to get extra bowls of clam chowder, just in case.”
“There will be buckets of it!” Greg promised.
Tara’s phone blared with an alarm: Grief Therapy. Thirty minutes. How could she have forgotten? She sped away from the festival setup to grab a cup of coffee and rearrange her thoughts for her meeting with Stephanie, a grief therapist she’d been seeing for the past few years. Sometimes she wasn’t sure if therapy was working at all. Other times, she clung to her sessions with Stephanie, knowing they were powerful weapons against Tara’s loneliness, depression, and fear of the future.
Tara sat in Stephanie’s office with her ankles crossed. Stephanie was bright and friendly, her hands glowing with lotion and her face taut from face yoga. Stephanie had recommended face yoga to Tara a year ago, but Tara never stuck with it for long because it seemed pointless and silly. I should have stuck with it , Tara thought now. Why am I so impatient?
“How are you, Tara?” Stephanie smiled, crossed her legs, and leaned forward.
Empty , Tara considered saying. Dead inside. If I didn’t have the Christmas Festival or all the other events I need to plan, I’d probably sit at home and stare at the wall. If I didn’t have the Salt Sisters, I’d move to a cabin in the middle of nowhere, watch bad television, and never smile again.
But Tara didn’t feel like being honest with Stephanie today. She didn’t want Stephanie’s brow to wrinkle. She didn’t want to hear Stephanie saying, Can you walk me through how you experience these emotions? What brings them on? Where are you? What are your triggers?
Instead, Tara poked through her mind to find “safe” subjects to talk to Stephanie about. She discussed the Christmas Festival, about a little fight she’d had with a vendor, about an incident with one of the Salt Sisters, when Robby had thought Tara had insulted her, and Tara had had to backtrack and explain what she’d meant. “I love Robby,” Tara said, her heart crushed. “I met her in this very office! I know we’re both going through so much.”
“Did she understand where you were coming from?” Stephanie asked.
“Eventually, she did,” Tara said.
“Friends misunderstand each other all the time,” Stephanie assured her. “Explaining ourselves better and finding ways to forgive are beautiful processes. We’re all trying to get better at them all the time.”
Tara forced a smile and pretended that she’d gotten a lot from her meeting with Stephanie. But the reality was bleak.
The reason for Tara’s grief was now many years in her rearview mirror. But Tara was still grieving. She wasn’t sure there would ever be an end.
“Is there anything else you want to talk about?” Stephanie asked. Her eyes were filled with meaning. It was as though she knew Tara was avoiding the “big” topics.
Tara shook her head. “Don’t think so!”
Grief therapy ended at five thirty. The sky was already inky black, and the temperature had dropped to nineteen degrees. Tara hurried to her car and turned up the heat full blast. She gasped for breath, trying to stabilize herself. What did she need to do next? Grocery store for dinner food? Or should she just pick something up?
Suddenly, there was a much-needed text from the Salt Sisters group chat.
HILARY: Anyone up for an impromptu dinner party? I want to order a ton of Chinese food and veg out.
Tara sped out of the parking lot and over to Hilary’s like a woman running away from her life.
Like Mom and Dad running away from Nantucket Island , she thought without meaning to.
No surprise that Tara was the first one there. She found Hilary in a pair of loose-fitting jeans and a big fuzzy sweater, her makeup done perfectly, and her honey hair in beautiful curls. As usual, she smelled like a dream, like a kind of perfume you could only get if you were related to the rich and famous, as Hilary was.
Hilary hugged Tara and studied her face. Tara could hide from her grief therapist, maybe, but she couldn’t hide from Hilary Salt. She had an almost witchy sense for things.
“What’s going on?” Hilary demanded.
Tara waved her hand. “It’s just stress.”
“Christmas Festival?”
“It happens every year,” Tara said. “I shouldn’t be surprised.”
Hilary winced and led Tara into the kitchen to pour her a glass of red wine. Tara thanked her and sat near the fireplace, snuggled under a blanket. Before Hilary could pester her for details, a few other Salt Sisters arrived—Robby, Stella, Rose, and Gale. Tara got up to hug each of them and noticed that Robby hugged her extra long, presumably because of their brief argument. It was rare that the Salt Sisters took issue with one another. But they always worked extra hard to repair whatever had broken.
Soon after, the Chinese food arrived, and the six Salt Sisters lay around the living room with plates of food and chopsticks, too lazy to sit at the table. The fire roared. A few of them asked Tara about the Christmas Festival, and Tara moaned. “It’ll come together. It always does.” Then she laughed. “Somebody already asked me not to faint this year. They won’t ever let me forget.”
Stella grimaced. “Nobody forgets anything on this island. It’s sort of amazing?”
“Everyone’s carrying a big head of Nantucket gossip,” Hilary agreed.
“But that was a crazy time for you,” Gale remembered.
Tara looked down at the hot lumps of beef and veggies on her plate. She didn’t necessarily love thinking about that time—when she was three months pregnant, Donnie came back, and her parents left. The emotional complexities were difficult to carry. It made everything in the here and now feel comparably bleak.
Tara wasn’t sure if her life would ever get started again. Maybe she had to learn to be okay with that.
From upstairs came the sound of Hilary’s daughter—the famous actress—who, Hilary explained, was rehearsing for a role and running lines.
“I have most of the movie memorized at this point,” Hilary said. Her eyes shone with happiness.
Tara’s stomach thrashed with jealousy. But upon her face, she fixed a smile. Hilary’s relationship with her daughter was something to be celebrated. Tara knew comparison was the thief of joy.
“I told her to join us if she has time,” Hilary said.
Please, don’t join us! Please, stay in your room! Tara wanted to call up to Hilary’s daughter.
Being around young women made her heart ache.
After dinner, Robby suggested a card game, but Tara felt too grim and tired to stay. She hugged the five of them, promising she’d find them at the Christmas Festival for a mug of mulled wine and maybe something “greasy and fried and delicious.” Before she knew it, she was back in her car, driving slowly through a fresh layer of snow. It was hard to believe that just three hours ago, she’d driven to Hilary’s like a madwoman, eager for the comfort she’d find there. And now, comfortless, she was heading home.
Will I ever feel normal? Tara wondered, then laughed at herself. What was normal? Did anyone feel it? She turned up the radio, then changed it when Mariah Carey’s Christmas song came on. She felt like the Grinch.
Tara parked in the garage and went inside to turn up the heat and put on warm pajamas. It was only eight thirty, so she put on an old episode of Friends and remembered, inexplicably, a time when she and her roommates from the University of Massachusetts would “do their homework” and watch Friends at the same time. They’d given roles to each other, saying that Tara was most like Jennifer Aniston because “everyone likes Tara.” Tara didn’t feel especially likable right now.
At nine fifteen, Tara’s phone buzzed. Tara was sure it would be Hilary checking in. Her first instinct was to ignore it. But when it buzzed again and again with a call, Tara pulled her phone out from between the cushions on the sofa and read the name: JOSIE.
Tara’s heart slammed.
Josie was calling. How many years had Josie been calling for the first time? Three? Five? Tara had lost count.
It felt as though Josie was reaching out to her from a black abyss.
Tara’s hand shook. But what could she do but answer it?
“Hello?”
Josie’s voice cracked. “Tara.”
Tara stood and stared through the dark window that looked out upon the black Nantucket Sound. She tried to picture Josie. But the face her mind pulled up was Josie’s at twenty-two, not now. Tara was forty-four, which meant that Josie was forty-five.
“It’s good to hear from you,” Tara said, hating how formal she sounded. She took a step through the living room because she couldn’t sit still.
“I figured one of us had to break the silence eventually,” Josie tried to joke. “I’m not too proud to lose the battle.”
Tara’s lips twisted into a smile. Her heart opened. “I was always too stubborn for my own good.”
“You’re telling me.”
Tara let out a laugh that was more like a sob. “Are you calling from Manhattan?”
“I sure am. I call it ‘the other island,’” Josie joked.
“The lesser island,” Tara said.
“Nobody would say Manhattan is the lesser island,” Josie said. “Except for us.”
Warmth flooded Tara’s arms, legs, and belly. She had half a mind to jump in her car and drive to Manhattan immediately. But of course, a ferry didn’t run at this hour. She was trapped on the island in the middle of the Atlantic. She’d have to wait till morning.
“It’s Christmas,” Josie said hesitantly. “You must be planning the festival again?”
“Oh yes. I’m in the middle of a thousand messes,” Tara said. “But the Christmas Festival usually runs itself. It’s the other events that are getting to me. Weddings and private Christmas parties and birthday parties and retirement parties and so on. But I have a few assistants; there are people to help me out.”
“Your career is really something.” Josie sounded proud.
Tara grimaced, hating herself for bragging. “But how are you?”
Josie let out a soft, ironic laugh. “I’m not sure how to tell you that.”
Tara’s gut twisted. “What do you mean?”
Josie exhaled deeply. “It’s weird, Little Sis. Truly weird.”
“Just tell me.”
“No sugarcoating?”
Tara wanted to scream. “Come on, Josie.”
“Fine. I have cancer.”
Josie said it so matter-of-factly that Tara initially thought it was a joke. But the silence Josie let form afterward made it clear. This was not a drill.
“Oh, Josie.”
“I’ve been through the wringer,” Josie said. “Chemo and radiation. But there’s nothing left to do. It’s over.”
Josie was dying.
Tears filled Tara’s eyes, and her throat was thick with phlegm. It’s impossible. This isn’t happening. It’s a dream. But it wasn’t a dream. It was really happening.
Her sister was dying at forty-five years old.
“It’s cervical cancer,” Josie explained. “They said I have anywhere from three to six months.”
“But these doctors,” Tara sputtered, “do they really know for sure? I mean, there has to be something else they can do. Don’t they usually say to get a second opinion?”
“They’re at NYU Hospital,” Josie said. “I’m pretty sure they know what they’re talking about.”
“Nobody knows what they’re talking about,” Tara insisted. Already, she was on the stairs, speeding up to her bedroom to get her suitcase and fill it up. “Josie, come on. They always say to get a second opinion. There are always more people to talk to.”
Josie’s breathing sounded ragged. “I just wanted to call and tell you.”
“I’m coming to Manhattan tomorrow,” Tara shot back. “I’m bringing you back to Nantucket. We have a brilliant cancer research facility here. And a top surgeon moved here just this year from Atlanta. Bethany Sutton? Maybe you’ve read about her?”
“I’m not well-versed in surgeons,” Josie joked. “But I always thought we needed more women surgeons. So that’s a good thing, I guess. For the future of women. For the future of womankind.” Josie laughed to herself.
Tara was already throwing sweaters into her bag. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been to the city, but she knew it was violently cold in the wintertime. There was no reprieve from that wind. Layers were the only answer.
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” Tara insisted. “I’m coming to get you.”
“But what about the Christmas Festival?” Josie’s voice was small. “You’ve planned that thing every year since 2001.”
“Like I said, it plans itself,” Tara insisted. “And I have a few assistants who can take over.”
Usually, Tara didn’t trust her assistants to do much more than carry things from one place to another. But in her heart of hearts, Tara knew they were more than capable. They’d been waiting for Tara to give them a reason to show her what they could do.
“I won’t let you go through this by yourself,” Tara insisted.
Josie groaned. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll let you come visit me. But I reserve the right to send you away whenever I feel like it. You can’t just barge into my house like you did back in 2001.”
Tara felt the words like a knife through her stomach. We were best friends. Are we strangers now?
She wasn’t sure.
But right now, she felt just as Josie had back in 2001—ready to leap in her car, save her sister, and bring her back to Nantucket.