Page 60 of Before the Storm

“I want to do everything on my own terms,” Josie offered. “I’ve been dealt a terrible hand, maybe. But I’ve had a beautiful life. I’ve had love. And our life back in Nantucket is truly gorgeous. I hope you’ll come back with us and…” Josie wanted to say wait with me for the end, but it felt too dramatic.

Suddenly, Tara snarled, “She’s been offered an experimental treatment plan in Nantucket, Mom! And she’s refusing it! Because she’s selfish! Because she doesn’t understand how precious any of this is!”

Tara spun around and burst away from Bob’s burial plot, leaving Josie in the rain. Tara’s cries echoed across the foggy gravesite.

Josie watched her go. Tears filled her eyes and made the world even blurrier. But suddenly, she felt something draped around her. It was her mother’s raincoat.

“I’ll talk to her,” Cindy whispered, then ran off, leaving Josie alone in her raincoat. Cindy was already drenched by the time she got to the edge of the cemetery.

As Josie approached her mother and sister, their cries and argumentative words echoed.

“But honey, if she’s in such tremendous pain, doesn’t she have the right to—”

Tara interrupted Cindy, saying, “She doesn’t have the right to bring me back into her life just to die on me!”

“Well, I don’t understand why you two lost touch to begin with,” Cindy called back. “I thought you were always there for each other. I thought—”

“Mom, this is really rich coming from you,” Tara spat. “Need I remind you what you did?”

“I’ll apologize till I’m blue in the face,” Cindy cried. “I know I was wrong. I know I never should have left you. I know, I know, I know.” She wept into her hands.

Josie reached them, sidled past them, and got into their rental car without a word. But what she wanted to say was,This is my life. It’s my decision and has nothing to do with you.

The rainfall increased, and her mother and sister were unable to continue. Soon enough, Tara was weeping and driving them back to their mother’s place, huffing over the steering wheel in such a way that Josie thought they were going to get into an accident. Tara refused to look or speak to Josie.

Back at home, Tara stormed upstairs and left Josie and Cindy in the calm gray light of the living room. Cindy made tea and pulled out a package of cookies, saying, “People brought me too much food. I’m in my sixties and have no appetite.”

“I don’t have an appetite, either,” Josie admitted. “It’s like I can’t enjoy anything I used to enjoy.”

Cindy sighed and looked down at the untouched package. “For what it’s worth, I don’t want you to go, either. But I don’t want to spend our last months fighting. I want you to go wherever you’re going next with fond memories of me. And I want to hold this new chapter in my heart for the rest of my days.”

Josie reached across the sofa and squeezed her mother’s hand.

Maybe this was what she’d come to Seattle for.

Chapter Eighteen

January 2025

Seattle

Tara felt like a teenager with a bad attitude. After a restless night in her mother’s home, tossing and turning in a guest bed above which hung a photograph of Bob and Cindy on their thirtieth-anniversary cruise, Tara was enraged and heartbroken and even more terrified of losing Josie than she’d been before their trip. Somehow, she’d imagined that they’d come to Seattle, reunite with their parents, and forgive each other and themselves. After all that, Josie would remember just how much she loved living and lean toward doing the treatment plan. But the reality was far more grim. Instead, it had found Tara listening to Josie tell their mother she planned to die—standing in front of their father’s burial plot in the rain.

Tara collapsed on the guest bed and pressed her pillow against her face. It felt like someone was squeezing her lungs.

The sensation reminded her of when Winnie was small, and she’d jump onto her bed and sit on Tara’s chest and sing songsuntil Tara or Donnie got up if Donnie was even in bed, Tara remembered, because Donnie had so often stayed out all night.

Tara groaned and pulled her phone out of her purse. When was the last time Winnie had contacted her? Six months ago, she saw now, just a few days after Tara’s birthday. Tara’s heart filled with longing.

Did she have the strength to call her only daughter and apologize?

Just the thought of it nearly gave her a panic attack. She crunched herself into a ball and heaved into the pillow. But what alternative did she have? Either she gave it a go with Winnie or she didn’t. But if she didn’t, she’d watch Josie die, and then she’d watch their mother die, and she’d go to grief therapy sessions and hang out with the Salt Sisters and never really find a way to recover from the past.

Before she knew it, she pressed Winnie’s number and put the phone to her ear.

The phone rang and rang. She thought she was going to throw up. After the fourth ring, Tara considered hanging up. It was clear that Winnie was screening her calls. She didn’t want anything to do with Tara, not now. It was too late. Tara decided it was for the best. But just as she pulled the phone away from her ear, she heard that beautiful voice calling out to her from the opposite end of the continent.

“Mom?”

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