Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2
“ I know I put the photo album where I wouldn’t lose it,” Maggie said.
Concerned, Chelsea watched her best friend rummage through the contents of the hope chest.
“Honey, slow down. We’ll find it. Let me help you.”
Chelsea dropped to her knees and opened two shoe boxes containing family photos from before Maggie was born.
“Maggie, why do you have all these photos? I mean, have you looked at some of them? Do you even know who these people are?”
Maggie sighed and pulled a photo from Chelsea’s hand. “Let me see that.”
Maggie shook her head. “Who the heck is that?”
Chelsea laughed. “My point exactly. Whoever she is, she must have been born in the eighteen hundreds.”
Looking at the back of the photo, Maggie turned it over and then pushed her glasses further up on her nose.
“Alice, age twelve, New Hampshire, eighteen-ninety.”
“Now do you know who she is…correction…was?”
Maggie shrugged. “Not a clue. I know my grandmothers and even my great-grandmothers. No Alice that I can remember. I’m sure my mother’s mother was Kathleen, and my father’s mother was Anabelle.”
“Well, whoever she was, apparently, she was important enough to land in your family photo shoebox. Is there a reason you’re keeping all these photos?”
Shaking her head, Maggie gave up searching and leaned back against the foot of the bed.
“No reason. Just too many other things to do than deal with it.“
Maggie’s daughter, Sarah, yelled from the stairs. “Hey, is anyone up there? Mom?”
“Chelsea and I are in the bedroom. Come on up,” Maggie yelled back.
Sarah flung her shoulder bag onto the bed and looked down at Chelsea and her mother.
“What are the two of you doing on the floor?”
“I’m looking for photographs of your aunt Kat. She’s coming here tomorrow, and I wanted to look at a few of our old photos. I used to have an album filled with pictures of all of us when we were kids, but I can’t find it.”
Sarah sat on the bed. “There’s a reason for that. It’s in Andover. Don’t you remember before we drove down to Captiva, you took only a few albums and a few boxes of photos with you? The rest are up at Christopher and Becca’s.”
Maggie sighed. “I guess that explains it.”
Sarah laughed and pointed to the box of old photos. “Why did you bring that box?”
Maggie shrugged. “I don’t know, why?”
“Because that box is filled with old photos of people from the nineteenth century. Remember in high school Christopher had a project that involved writing about people from that century? I remember this because I took him to an antique shop and we got a few photos, I’m pretty sure those are the ones we got.”
Chelsea chuckled. “Seriously, Maggie? You left important photos in Massachusetts and brought these instead?”
Maggie ignored Chelsea’s teasing and, pointing a finger at Sarah, changed the conversation. “I suppose you’ve come to babysit me too?”
Sarah’s eyes met Chelsea’s.
“It isn’t like you to be here in the middle of the day,” Maggie said.
“Trevor took the kids to his parents’ house. He wanted a visit with his father. Devon’s been doing so well, you’d never even know he had a stroke. I thought I’d come spend the afternoon with you while they were gone. Is it a crime to want to be with my mother?”
Maggie was about to respond when her phone rang.
Chelsea’s stomach tensed. This was the call they’d been waiting for. She and Sarah watched Maggie’s face for any hint of bad news.
“Hello Celeste, yes, I’m fine. I’ve been waiting for the doctor to call…oh, I see…Oh, that’s wonderful. Yes, thank him for me…six months? Yes, I’ll call the office on Monday to schedule that. Thank you so much for calling.”
Maggie ended the call and looked at Sarah and then Chelsea. “The scans were clear. No evidence of cancer at all. I don’t have to have another scan for six months.”
Not realizing she had been holding her breath, Chelsea sighed and then leaned over and hugged Maggie.
“Oh, honey, this is the best news.”
Sarah ran to Maggie and threw her arms around her. “Mommy,” she whispered.
Chelsea watched the two of them as they held each other for several seconds, before Maggie jumped up.
“I’ve got to tell Paolo. Sarah, did you see him in the garden?”
“Yes, he was doing something near the cottage.”
Chelsea smiled, watching her best friend run out of the room. She wiped the wet from her cheeks and laughed a nervous laugh.
Looking at Sarah, she said, “I’ve never been so scared in my life.”
“You and me both,” Sarah said.
Kat Garrison Chandler sat on the stairs and looked at her luggage in the hallway. An Uber sat in the driveway, waiting.
Her husband, Nolan, watched the baseball game from his usual seat, an old, worn recliner in the corner of the living room. Except for a few trips to the bathroom, Kat knew her husband would sit in that chair for the next three hours.
She swung the cross-body bag over her head, picked up her suitcase, and walked to the front door, only to put the bags down and return to the steps.
How hard is it to walk out this door? You’ve done it thousands of times.
She wondered how long it would be before Nolan read the note she’d left on the kitchen table. He’d most certainly walk to the refrigerator to get another beer, and he’d be hungry too. A plate of leftover fried chicken covered with aluminum foil sat next to the envelope. His name clearly written on the front, there was no way he’d miss it.
Kat knew why she struggled to leave the house...guilt. But then she reminded herself of all the reasons she had to go. They’d talked about the problems in their marriage before…correction, she talked about them…Nolan barely said a word.
She tried to get him to go to a marriage counselor, but he refused. She offered to book a romantic vacation for the two of them, but he was too busy at work to take the time off. More than once, she’d confronted him about taking her for granted, but her words seem to fall on deaf ears.
Now that their children were grown and had their own families, Kat and Nolan seemed to settle into a routine that bordered on the mundane. Inertia set in, and the evenings went without much interaction between them. Every night they’d do the same things, in the same order. Just once she wanted to drop a glass and watch it shatter, so that she could break up their routine and end the silence.
Each night, Nolan arrived at home after work at six-thirty. Kat would have dinner waiting for him. They’d eat in silence, and once finished, he’d go to his chair in the living room, and Kat would do the dishes. After she’d cleaned the kitchen, she’d join her husband in the living room, pick up her knitting, and pay no mind to whatever was on the television. By eleven o’clock they’d go to bed, only to get up the next day and do it all over again.
Their house was eerily quiet, like someone had died. The truth was that she felt dead inside. Even without her husband, she couldn’t bring herself to see a therapist. Knowing professional help might make a difference, she briefly considered it, but dismissed the idea.
She’d already lost years to her unhappy existence, she couldn’t imagine spending years in therapy. What she wanted…needed was a radical and immediate change, something that could turn her life around in a heartbeat.
Her excitement grew the more she thought about it. She became obsessed with the dream that she might have the same adventure her sister, Maggie, had when she moved to Captiva Island.
After years married to a man who’d cheated on her multiple times, Maggie took control of her life and found a way to start over. It didn’t hurt that her husband, Daniel, died of a heart attack two days after telling her he wanted a divorce.
Ashamed that she’d often fantasized about Nolan dying young, Kat shook her head.
How did we get here? Nothing will ever change if I stay. Wishing my husband dead can’t be a good thing.
Panic clutched at her throat, and her chest felt heavy. Feeling a sudden urgency, she grabbed her luggage and ran out the door. Her heart racing, she stepped inside the car and waited for the driver to get behind the wheel. To steady her shaking hands, she folded and placed them in her lap. As the car sped away, she faced forward and didn't look back, knowing if she did, she’d change her mind again.
Lauren Phillips rubbed her pregnant belly and looked at her swollen ankles. She didn’t remember feeling this big with her two previous pregnancies. There were many firsts with this one. Morning sickness was constant and lasted into her second trimester. She and her baby almost died in a fire, and the trauma of that experience hadn’t abated.
Now, exactly three weeks from her delivery date, she’d had two episodes of false labor in the last week, and both times the pains started in the middle of the night. Good-natured and patient, her husband, Jeff, saw the bright side of things.
“At least we know where to go when we get to the hospital,” he said.
“Yes, but I hope when I’m in actual labor, they take me seriously.”
“Honey, I’m pretty sure they’re not going to ignore you when the time comes.”
“I don’t know. Did you see the face on that nurse the second time? I swear she rolled her eyes at me.”
Jeff peered over the bowl of ice cream balanced on her belly. “What flavor is it today?”
Lauren smiled. “Chocolate chip and thank you for not teasing me about how much weight I’ve gained. To be honest, I think the weight gain has been more because I’m not working than food cravings.”
Jeff joined her on the sofa. “What you need to do is appreciate this down time.”
Lauren nodded and gobbled up the last of the ice cream. When finished, she handed the container to Jeff. “I’d put this in the trash, but I think you’d have to help me up off this sofa if you wanted me to do that.”
Jeff laughed as he headed to the kitchen. “Not to worry. This stay-at-home-husband is happy to help.”
When he returned to Lauren, she reached for his arms. “I could use a cuddle.”
Jeff wrapped his arms around her as she leaned back against him. “If I haven’t already told you how much I appreciate your support during the pregnancy, I do. Seriously, you have been incredible, and I know that I haven’t been the sweetest wife these last months.”
Jeff squeezed her and kissed the top of her head. “Don’t be silly. This pregnancy hasn’t been easy on you.”
Lauren sighed. “No one anticipated the fire. I have to remind myself that whatever we all went through was nothing like what the parents of the two kids that died have had to deal with.”
The enormity of the situation brought up the sadness they’d all felt, but Lauren had more than sadness on her mind. She’d vowed to live her best life after the fire. She promised her family that she would remain grateful for her blessings, starting with the life growing inside her.
She smiled, thinking about the baby and her two little girls. “We’ve been blessed, Jeff. We’re so lucky to have our family and that everyone is healthy and happy. I don’t ever want to take for granted what we have. Promise me that if I ever forget this, you’ll remind me?”
Jeff laughed. “Can I remind you when you get mad at me about something?”
Lauren turned her head and looked at him. “Sure. It won’t stop me from nagging you, but at least I’ll be happy knowing I have such a wonderful husband.”
Jeff beamed. “I knew you’d finally admit I’m the perfect husband.”
Lauren slapped his arm. “I said wonderful…not perfect.”