Page 26 of Before the Storm

“This is your final mission?” Hilary asked.

“It’s one of them,” Josie said. “I also want to learn to play the trombone.”

Hilary cackled and slapped her thigh. “You’re kidding.”

“Yes, I am.” Josie smiled, even as pain filled her stomach and chest.

“You know how stubborn Tara is,” Hilary said.

“I do.”

“I don’t think she’ll go for it,” Hilary offered.

Josie raised her shoulders. “The only thing I know, now that I’m on the verge of leaving this world, is that being stubborn is a waste of time. It’s the reason I reached out to Tara in the first place.”

Hilary sniffed. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

Josie sipped her tea and settled deeper into the couch cushions. She hoped she wouldn’t fall asleep on accident because she was enjoying herself.

“Tell me about your life in Manhattan,” Hilary said. “You were married, weren’t you?”

“I was.” Josie nodded. “Joe was a pretty good husband for a while.”

Hilary chuckled. “They’re all pretty good for a while.”

“When I married him, he had two daughters aged twelve and fourteen. Leah and Violet. They spent weekends with us and weekdays with their mother. It was strange for me. I wasn’t sure how to fit myself into their lives. Their father was just as lost as I was, and they fought often.”

“You were brave to enter into that arrangement,” Hilary said.

“It didn’t feel brave. It felt like there was a lot of love there,” Josie remembered. “Until there wasn’t.”

“You got divorced?”

Josie nodded. “It was mostly amicable. Leah and Violet still visit and call sometimes. But they’re busy with their own lives, and they have two parents to keep up with. I’m just an ex-stepmom.”

“You were there during an important time.”

“Maybe,” Josie said. She hated how sorrowful she felt when Violet and Leah came up. It reminded her of her intentions for that other life and how she’d failed herself and them.

“I missed Nantucket,” Josie said wistfully. “I missed the sound of the wind and the crashing waves and the snow falling gently over the bluffs. I missed the people and the food and the conversations like this. When Tara invited me to come back with her, I wanted to resist. But it’s been a balm.” She smiled. “I think it’s the perfect place to say goodbye.”

Hilary nodded. “We don’t think about death being a part of life. But it is. And it’s dignified to have a beautiful and planned death.”

“It’s a privilege to be able to plan it,” Josie admitted.

“Tara isn’t going to let you go without a fight.”

Josie sighed. “I know that. And I’m frightened about that. I don’t want to spend my final months on earth fighting withTara about my health. Our memories are hard enough to wade through as it is. I don’t want to create more darkness. I don’t want to give her more reasons to go to grief therapy.”

Hilary looked thoughtful. “Grief is a part of life, too. Ideally, we help each other carry it.”

Not long after that, a few other members of the Salt Sisters arrived: Rose, Stella, and Gale. They were thrilled to meet Josie and begged her for stories about Manhattan and her childhood in Nantucket. By the time Tara swung by after she finished at the festival, Josie was all talked out and exhausted but as thrilled as a child on Christmas morning. She gabbed to Tara about how “brilliant” her friends were all the way home.

“You should join the Salt Sisters!” Tara said as she parked in the garage and cut the engine. “It looks like Hilary has already welcomed you into the fold.”

Josie laughed. She didn’t tell Tara she would never be a member. She didn’t say,I won’t be around for that.

She knew Tara couldn’t take much more of that talk.

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