“I’d like to make a toast,” Kelley says. “To all the members of the Quinn family who are present, and to the newest addition.”
“Hear, hear,” Kevin says, and he kisses Isabelle.
“What addition?” Mitzi says.
But nobody answers.
They are seated for dinner. Kelley takes his usual place and Margaret sits at Kelley’s right, which is where Mitzi used to sit. Next to Margaret are Patrick, the three boys, Jennifer, Scott, Ava, George, Mitzi, Kevin, and Isabelle, who is next to Kelley.
Isabelle says to Mitzi, “Ton chapeau. Your hat.” She makes a motion indicating Mitzi should take it off.
Mitzi looks flustered and embarrassed, and Kelley’s heart goes out to her. She never wears hats and hence is unaware that hats are inappropriate at the dinner table.
Kevin pours a nice pinot noir for everyone at the table who is drinking, which again seems to include Mitzi.
“Something smells delicious,” George says.
“Standing rib roast,” Margaret says. “That’s what we used to have when the kids were growing up.”
“And Yorkshire pudding made with the drippings,” Ava says.
Again, the look on Mitzi’s face is priceless. She may be drinking wine, but Kelley will bet a pretty penny she won’t eat beef or anything made with “drippings.” Just the word “drippings” is probably enough to send Mitzi to the hospital for a month.
Everything about the present situation delights him.
When everyone is seated, he reaches out, encouraging them to hold hands for the blessing.
He says, “O Lord, we thank you for the meal before us, lovingly prepared”-pause, let Mitzi consider-“and we are grateful for all of the family and friends assembled at this table. We also remember, O Lord, the ones who are not at this table tonight, especially our beloved Bart, who is overseas, defending our freedom. Please, Lord, keep Bart safe from bodily harm and let him know he is in our thoughts and prayers. Let us take a moment of silence to pray for Bart.”
Silence.
MARGARET
She’s squeezing Kelley’s fingers so hard, she’s surprised his fingers don’t break. Please let Bart be okay! Not on that convoy! Her most recent memory of Bart is from eighteen months previous, when Bart’s senior class came to New York City. Margaret offered the class a guided tour of CBS studios, with herself, “Bart’s stepmother,” as their guide. Bart texted her before the class arrived, saying, “I told everyone you were my stepmom, okay? Hashtag avoidconfusion.”
Margaret laughed and laughed at this. She is something of a reverse stepmother to Bart, the first wife of his father, the mother to his half siblings. Why isn’t there a term for this relationship? Surely, there must be thousands of instances. Maybe because an actual relationship between a woman and the child of her ex-husband is so rare?
Margaret has always been fond of Bart. He has characteristics of Kelley’s that her own kids do not-Kelley’s aquiline nose, his golden hair, his sense of mischief. Bart got in a lot of trouble growing up. But then, so did Kelley.
The day Bart came into the studio, Margaret was as motherly as possible; she kissed him hello, she tousled his shaggy hair (all shaved off now, she supposes), she teased him about his excellent grades, or lack thereof. He had glowed from all her attentions, and at the end he hugged her and said, “Thanks, Mmmmmm.” She hadn’t been sure if he meant to call her Margaret or Mom.
“For you,” she said. “Anything, anytime, always and forever.”
His grin, both sweet and wicked, was all Kelley.
She misses him, she who honestly barely knows him. How must everyone else feel?
AVA
Ava is chastened. She has been so busy fretting about her relationship with Nathaniel that she hasn’t had two seconds left over to think about Bart.
She and Bart used to be… so close. When he was born, Ava was ten years old; she would push him in his stroller, pretending he was her baby. He had soft, chubby cheeks and blue eyes and blond chick fuzz on top of his head. He was a living doll.
When Ava was a teenager, the thrill of taking care of Bart wore off a little. She was always called on to babysit him, and when she turned sixteen and got her license, she was enlisted to drive him and his pesky friends all over the island. Did she complain?
Yes, she complained. She called him a spoiled brat. Mitzi never punished him, he was never held accountable for his actions, and as he grew older, his actions became more and more atrocious. He started smoking at fourteen. Ava caught him and his friend Michael, each with a cigarette, in the back parking lot of the high school. She turned him in to Mitzi, who cried and blamed herself. Bart hosted enormous parties at Dionis Beach with beer he stole out the back door of the Bar. He crashed three cars in eighteen months, he got caught repeatedly with marijuana-by Kelley and Mitzi, by the high school principal, by the police-and he broke and entered a summer house in Pocomo one weekend night in February when he and his derelict friends were bored.
But Ava doesn’t want to spend her moment of silence running down Bart’s rap sheet. What a person does isn’t the same as who a person is. Bart is charming, fun loving, mischievous, and magnetic. Bart is her little brother, and Ava needs him to be safe.
ISABELLE
Dear Lord, please keep Bart in the palm of your hand. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
KEVIN
He has been having a great Christmas, the best of his life, perhaps. He remembers Eric Metz giving away money he could most certainly use. This is for Nantucket Hospice, Eric said. They made things so much easier for my mom at the end.
Grace, Kevin reminds himself.
He prays for Bart-Bart, man, stay well, stay safe, stay strong, be smart, not reckless, don’t take any unnecessary risks, Mitzi needs you, man, and so does Dad.
Kevin has been convinced that Bart wears a Teflon shield, that everything slides off him, but right now, Kevin becomes aware that, wherever Bart is, he is probably scared and more than a little lonely.
We’re thinking of you, man.
PATRICK
Patrick has spent the past nineteen years being a mentor and a role model for Bart, but no longer. Now, the tables have turned-Patrick is the screwup and Bart is the hero, and who would have ever predicted that?
Before Bart left for Germany, he spent the night with Patrick, Jen, and the kids in Boston. Jen made roast chicken and potatoes and a banana cream pie, because it’s Bart’s favorite. After dinner and tucking in the kids, Patrick and Bart walked over to Silvertone and had a couple of drinks. Patrick told the bartender, Murph, that Bart was shipping overseas with the Marines, and with that, the fact that Bart was nineteen was ignored, and the first round was on the house.
Patrick said, “So, are you nervous?”
“God, no,” Bart said. “I’m pumped.”
“It’ll be good for you to get off the island,” Patrick said.
“Yeah,” Bart said. “I think Mom and Dad have finally run out of patience with me. And I don’t want to go to college, not right now, anyway. I’d party my ass off, flunk out, come home to Nantucket, and work as the first mate on some fishing boat the rest of my life. The Marines, man, it means something. Defending our country, our freedom, so people like you can go out and make millions of dollars each day.”
Patrick had laughed. They had done a shot of Jameson together with Murph, they had played some Kings of Leon on the jukebox, they had arm wrestled, and Bart had won. They had stumbled home arm in arm. Patrick experienced brotherly feelings he’d never had with Kevin, probably because he and Kevin were so close in age, raised as twins, or as two halves of the same person-the go-getter and the slacker, the perfectionist and the one who liked to half-ass things. Bart looked up to Patrick instead of resenting him, as Kevin did, and that felt good.