Page 24 of Before the Storm

“You too,” Tara said. “Thanks for coming by. It made our night.”

Tara waited in the foyer and watched the lights of his truck beam across the rolling hills and disappear in the darkness.

“Tara? Did you run away with Johan?” Josie called.

Tara cackled and hurried back to the kitchen. Josie was giving her a mischievous smile.

“What?” Tara demanded. She gathered the takeout and offered her arm to Josie. Josie accepted it, and they walked into the living room for their feast.

“You know what?” Josie said.

“I really don’t.”

“Johan always had a crush on you,” Josie said. Slowly, she shifted onto the couch and gathered a blanket over her legs. It looked painful for her.

“He did not.” Tara’s cheeks were hot.

“Don’t you see the way he looks at you? And come on. You haven’t seen him in years, and he just stops by like that? He’s held a candle for you all this time.”

“He was happily married,” Tara pointed out.

“We’ve both been married. We know how complicated it is.”

For a minute, they squabbled about what to put on the television but decided on another episode ofFriends.

“I just hope you won’t deny yourself happiness,” Josie said quietly as she scraped her fork over some melted cheese. “There’s still so much to live for.”

Tara gave Josie a pointed look. “That’s what I’m trying to convince you of. Not the other way around.”

Josie raised her shoulders. “When you’ve been through what I have—”

Tara set down her fork. “I want to help you. I want to be there for you. I want to carry this.”

Josie wouldn’t make eye contact with Tara. Phoebe sat on the big TV screen in the coffee shop, telling a story so silly and fantastical that it didn’t seem to belong to a world as somber as the one Tara had always known.

“Eat up,” Josie ordered.

“I should say the same to you,” Tara shot back.

They were two squabbling sisters, back together again. Nothing had really changed, except that everything had.

Chapter Eight

December 2024

Nantucket Island

It was funny to be back at the Nantucket Christmas Festival. But Josie was too weak to do anything she wanted to do. She couldn’t ride the Ferris wheel or mill through the snowy streets, gossiping and laughing with Nantucket islanders she’d missed. All she could really do was sit by the flailing bonfire, bundled up with coats and blankets, and wait for people to come to her. She held a big mug of hot cocoa with melted marshmallows. From where she sat, she could see Tara running around like a chicken with her head cut off, making sure the Nantucket Christmas Festival ran smoothly. It was Tara’s lot in life to be anxious. But Josie reckoned that was why Tara had had such success. Her anxiety-bred organization always churned out better festivals and events.

It was Josie’s sixth day back on Nantucket, which was hard to believe. Due to holiday constraints and tight schedules, Tara hadn’t been able to get Josie an appointment at the cancer wardat the Nantucket Hospital until the new year, which was fine with Josie. It gave her more time to get out of it.

Josie wasn’t yet sure how she could convince Tara of how monstrous it felt to live inside her body. Chemotherapy and radiation had eaten her alive. Now that she wasn’t undergoing treatment, she had full hours during which she felt like herself. Those hours were priceless. She hadn’t thought she’d ever have them again.

She’d told her stepdaughter Leah, “I just want to enjoy the end of my life the way I’ve enjoyed the rest of my life. I don’t want to be in pain anymore.”

Leah had said she got it.

But now that Tara was back in Josie’s life, Josie understood why Tara clung so hard. Beyond her tightly knit friendship circle, the Salt Sisters, Tara didn’t really have anyone. She’d confessed she’d been going to grief therapy for years with no end in sight.

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