A vineyard tide, p.1
A Vineyard Tide, page 1
A Vineyard Tide
A Vineyard Sunset Series
Katie Winters
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Copyright © 2023 by Katie Winters
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. Katie Winters holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Coming Next
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Chapter One
June 1983
It was never easy to put Lola Sheridan to bed. Two months from her second birthday, she was unwilling to go to sleep before her older sisters, resistant to nap time, and often screaming until Anna finally brought her back to the “real world.” When Anna was in a good mood about it, she joked that Lola was her “wild child,” the one most apt to take on the world and demand more from it. When Anna was exhausted, it took every bit of inner strength she had not to sob when little Lola refused her crib, when she kicked her legs and shook her fists.
“Come on, Lola.” Anna heaved Lola back into her arms and blinked tiredly through the dark shadows of the Sheridan House. Out Lola’s window, the Vineyard Sound lapped gently against the dock and their boat, shimmering beneath a hungry, empty moon.
Downstairs, Susan was curled up next to her father, reading a book quietly as Wes watched baseball on television. Susan was seven years old going on fifteen, an old soul in every sense of the word— and often, Anna’s saving grace. She helped with chores, with the baby, and with tasks around the Sunrise Cove. Anna often felt guilty about this, as seven was too young for such difficult adult tasks. But Susan constantly pestered Anna about it, demanding more to do, wanting to carry the weight of the family and the Sunrise Cove on her little shoulders.
Now, Susan closed her book. “She still won’t sleep?”
Anna shook her head and placed Lola gently on the floor. Christine, who was four years old, was curled up in the corner of the living room, her knees tucked beneath her as she drew on a pad of paper. Christine was her quiet, moody child, apt to spend hours and hours alone in her bedroom. When Christine was upset, she didn’t kick and scream and cry as other children did; rather, she isolated herself from the rest of the world and kept herself occupied. Already, Anna envied her ability to sense her own needs and meet them. Then again, being a mother meant that you pushed your own needs to the backburner when necessary, and it would remain that way for the rest of your life. Anna had known this before getting pregnant, of course. But she hadn’t known how alienated she would eventually feel from her own body.
On the floor, Lola babbled happily, bouncing on her diaper with her arms raised. Christine, Susan, Anna, and Wes watched her, giving her the attention she so craved, while the Boston Red Sox entered the fourth inning of a game they would eventually lose— casting Wes into a sour mood that would last the next twenty-four hours.
“She’ll get tired soon,” Wes assured Anna, his eyes hardly twitching from the television.
Anna’s shoulders slumped forward with exhaustion. “Did everything work out with that family? The Hamiltons?”
Wes finally looked away from the screen. “Yes. Thankfully, Jeff dropped off their suitcases this afternoon.”
Anna sighed, still reeling from the horrific looks on the Hamilton family’s faces when they’d learned the ferry company had lost their baggage. As was common with Sunrise Cove Inn guests, they’d decided to blame this on the Sunrise Cove itself, Wes, Anna or whoever else was in front of them, and they’d threatened to tell all their friends back in Wisconsin never to stay there.
“Did they apologize?” Anna demanded.
“The ferry company?” Wes asked.
“No. The Hamiltons. They were so rude!”
Wes grimaced. “That’s just hospitality. People say things they don’t mean.” He paused for a split-second before he added, “You’ll get used to it,” which made Anna shimmer with anger. She’d worked with Wes at the Sunrise Cove since the age of eighteen when she’d given birth to Susan. The only difference now, of course, was that Wes’ parents, who’d originally operated the Sunrise Cove, had both passed away, leaving the entire workload on Anna and Wes’ shoulders. Anna had suggested they hire more help. Wes had said, “We’ll see.”
Anna tried again to put Lola to bed a half-hour later. But again, Lola just blinked up at her from the crib, her little hands around the bars. Lola looked at Anna as though she could see all the way through her, as though she, in her little toddler mind, could read everything that flitted through Anna’s mind. Anna left her bedroom for a while, helping Christine get ready, before Lola let out several high-pitched screams, dragging Anna back.
But this time, when Anna picked Lola back up, Lola was running hot with a fever.
“Oh no! Oh no.” Anna groaned and cuddled Lola close, rocking her on the rocking chair Wes’ mother had left behind from her own mothering days. “What happened, sweetie? Huh?” She cooed to her youngest, who continued to smile even as her forehead glistened with sweat.
Anna loved Wes. Sometimes, she thought she might love him too much, that she’d given him too much territory in the wide space of her heart. Still, she couldn’t help, sometimes, but feel resentful. As he headed to bed, she remained awake with their sick baby, lost in the loneliness of the night, flicking through stations on television until they gave out and left a screen of static. Lola’s temperature was manageable, nothing that required a hospital visit— but her cries were consistent when Anna put her in her crib, and Anna wanted to ensure Christine and Susan were able to sleep, even if she and Lola couldn’t.
When Wes woke up at five-thirty to get ready for work at the Sunrise Cove, he seemed surprised to find Anna and Lola still awake in the easy chair downstairs. Anna wanted to scream.
“She’s slept only about an hour all together,” she said, forcing herself to take long breaths to remind herself of her deep, powerful love for Wes. To remember that they’d been through thick and thin together and that one night of his “inconsistent” parenting meant nothing. He took care of them. He managed the inn. He handled the money. They needed him so much.
“Poor baby.” To Anna’s surprise, Wes bent down to take Lola in his arms, cuddled her against him, and asked, “You want a cup of coffee?”
Anna could have cried. Still carrying the baby, Wes poured her a mug of coffee and toasted her a slice of bread, which he slathered with peanut butter. Feeling outside of her body, Anna ate the toast and watched as Wes doted on their youngest— who, she knew, he’d wanted to be a boy. They hadn’t talked about it, not since the doctor had announced, “It’s a girl!” Would they try for another? Anna couldn’t imagine having the stamina.
But Wes’ “fathering moment” was short-lived, as he was needed at the Sunrise Cove. As he streamed out the door, there was the first foot on the top step as Susan arrived downstairs, followed by Christine. Both were starving and both needed their mother, Anna.
With Wes gone, Lola decided to scream again, and Anna worked herself up, her tongue swollen with sorrow as she made her other girls toast, put out the knife and peanut butter for Susan, then took Lola upstairs to check her fever again. Her temperature had gone down, a relief. Still, she seemed no closer to sleeping than she’d been last night.
Downstairs, Christine’s face was slathered with peanut butter, and Susan was doing Christine’s hair, braiding it in a long line down her back. Anna’s heart hammered with love for them.
“Girls? We’re going for a walk,” Anna announced, heading for the garage to grab the two-sided stroller— one side for Christine, who was still quite small, and the other side for Lola. Susan hadn’t been in a stroller in years. She wouldn’t deign to be.
“Is Lola sick?” Susan asked.
“Just a little bit,” Anna replied sweetly, tucking Lola into the stroller and buckling her in. “Christine, would you like to pack your drawing supplies? Susan, your book?”
Once Anna was outside, making her way down the edge of the paved road toward downtown Oaks Bluff, she was able to breathe again. It was a gorgeous morning in mid-June, and the trees were plump with green leaves, which shifted gently in the fresh breeze. Where she walked, she could see the ocean, popping through the trees, dramatic and sparkling. And when she reached the outer edge of downtown, she was thrilled to see people again, tourists who’d come to Martha’s Vineyard, knowing it to be one of the most beautiful places in the world. Anna, Wes, and their children were natives; they’d never known anything else. They were lucky.
“Mom!” Susan called. “Lola fell asleep!”
Anna’s eyes widened wi th surprise. She stopped the stroller for a moment and whipped around, peering down at her darling third daughter, who’d finally closed her eyes. Softly, Anna touched Lola’s forehead to feel that her fever had broken, and she breathed a sigh of relief, nearly falling to her knees with exhaustion.
“Walking always works, doesn’t it?” Anna said to Susan, laughing.
Susan nodded, having been through this song and dance before. She’d gotten very good at reading and walking at once, keeping herself on the inside of the stroller so as not to get too close to the edge of the sidewalk. Christine was busy drawing, ignoring all of them.
“Let’s keep walking for a while,” Anna said quietly. “I don’t want Lola to wake up just yet.”
Anna walked like a zombie toward the boardwalk, along the carousel, past world-famous restaurants and shops that were now preparing to open, employees sweeping the front stoops and adjusting the collars of their uniforms. Anna waved to several of them, recognizing them from previous summers. Many came from off the island, working seasonally for the influx of tourists before returning to wherever they’d come from for the winter. Winters on the island could be brutal, lonely, and brittle with cold.
Down the dock, leaning against the boardwalk railing was a woman about Anna’s age. Just now, she arched her back and her neck and cried out to the sky, her entire body shuddering with her tears. Across her chest was a baby, just a tiny thing, and one of her hands cupped the baby’s head as she sobbed.
After an entire night of listening to Lola crying, Anna stopped short, scared of such sharp emotions. But then, she realized that nearly everyone else on the boardwalk that morning was also avoiding the crying woman, as though she had some kind of disease nobody wanted. Anna raised her chin, willing herself to be stronger.
“Why is that woman crying?” Susan whispered, her eyes shining.
“Let’s go make sure she’s okay,” Anna said, hurrying forward. “Excuse me?”
But the woman continued to shake, weeping as though she couldn’t hear what Anna said. Tentatively, Anna reached up and touched the woman’s shoulder, and the woman whipped around so quickly that she woke up her baby, who immediately started to cry, too. The baby’s mouth opened wide like a red gash. And all that crying, of course, woke up Lola— which nearly brought Anna to her knees.
The woman blinked at Anna confusedly, her face slack. She’d stopped crying so that now, only her baby and Lola wept.
“I’m so sorry,” Anna stuttered, hurrying around the stroller to pick Lola back up. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
The woman nodded, bobbing her knees to try to calm her baby. “I am sorry,” she said, her voice strained and her accent different, maybe European. Anna wasn’t sure. Wherever she was from, English wasn’t her first language; that was clear.
“Are you okay?” Anna asked, cradling Lola as she calmed down again.
The woman closed her eyes. Bit-by-bit, their babies both quieted, their eyes enormous.
“I don’t know,” the woman said.
Anna understood the sentiment. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee or something?”
The woman’s cheeks twitched as though she was on the verge of crying again. “I don’t know. I don’t know where to go. I don’t know where I am.”
Anna furrowed her brow. This was a lot more serious than she’d initially thought. “You know you’re in Martha’s Vineyard, right?” Maybe the woman was having a sort of mental breakdown?
The woman nodded. “I know. I do. I just don’t know what’s supposed to come next. Someone was supposed to show me the way. Someone was supposed to meet me.” As she grew more and more upset, her accent intensified, and it was sometimes difficult for Anna to understand what she said.
“Who was supposed to meet you?” Anna asked.
The woman’s shoulders slumped forward.
“Where are you staying?” Anna asked.
“I don’t know,” the woman said. “They took my husband away from me. And I have nowhere to go.”
Anna’s heart shattered. Briefly, she glanced around the boardwalk, sensing that everyone kept an even wider berth around her and this stranger. They were two women, heavy with sorrow, exhausted and in need of sleep.
“Do you need somewhere to sleep tonight?” Anna asked.
The woman bowed her head and cupped her baby. “Yes.” She was very embarrassed.
“My husband and I run an inn,” Anna explained. “We have a spare room right now. Maybe you’d like to stay there?”
The woman squinted at Anna, sizing her up.
“I know what it’s like to be really, really tired,” Anna tried. “You can’t think about what comes next, or make any kind of plan, because you can hardly put one foot in front of the other.”
The woman nodded.
“My name is Anna. Anna Sheridan. My husband, Wes, is at the inn right now. It’s ten minutes away from here. You could be asleep in a bed in thirty minutes.”
The woman’s voice was strained, almost a croak. “My name is Frederika.” And just when Anna thought she was going to refuse the help, that she was going to push Anna away, she breathed, “And I would really like that bed. I don’t know what to say or how to thank you.”
“Just get some sleep,” Anna told her, swimming in her own fatigue. “And when you wake up, everything will seem brighter. I promise.”
Chapter Two
Present Day
It was Fourth of July in Martha’s Vineyard, and the Sheridan Family was ready to celebrate. About a half mile from shore, they floated on sailboats in the glittering turquoise water: three boats in total, with Lola, Tommy, Audrey, Noah, and Max in one, Amanda, Sam, Kellan, Susan, and Scott in another, and Christine, Zach, Wes, and Beatrice in the third. Christine had left baby Mia on shore with a babysitter, which meant that nearly every hour, on the hour, she checked her phone for updates, ensuring that little Mia was safe and happy, that everything was right as rain. Lola wanted to tease her, to tell her to stop being a helicopter parent— but she understood, beyond anything, that Christine’s newfound post as a mother was incredibly important to her, that being a “helicopter parent” was a blessing.
“Mom! Let’s do our dive!” Audrey was on the edge of the sailboat in a black bikini, her slender arms extended on either side of her.
Lola laughed, knowing exactly what Audrey was referring to. Back when Audrey had been a teenager in Boston, Lola and Audrey had spent many summer days at the public pool, perfecting their “synchronized diving” techniques. They’d grown fascinated with the sport during the Olympics and tried to imitate them with flips and back dives, telling themselves they would compete in the next Olympics as a mother-daughter team.
“Don’t hurt yourselves!” Susan called from her boat, sitting with her legs in the water and a glass of chardonnay in one hand, smiling sleepily and happily. Scott was beside her, his arm slung around her shoulder as they watched.
Lola and Audrey aligned themselves at the edge of the boat with their toes over the side. Quietly, they spoke about which dive they wanted to try, with Audrey reminding Lola that she hadn’t done any of this since before she’d had Max, that probably, she wouldn’t be able to do a flip.
“Let’s just do a simple tuck dive,” Lola suggested, flipping her long hair over her shoulders.
Audrey wrinkled her nose. “That’s too easy, isn’t it?”
“We had that one mastered,” Lola reminded her. “If we’re going to show off in front of family, it has to be that one.”
Audrey set her jaw and nodded. In this moment, her eyes sparkling, Lola was reminded that Audrey was the closest in looks to her mother, Anna— who’d died back in 1996, the result of a freak boat accident. Audrey had never known her— and Lola had been too young to understand how her death would crater through her life and permanently alter it.
