Page 37 of The Holiday

Or maybe she didn’t tell her--maybe Molly had her own connections to this symbol of luck, love, and hope, and like so many of her secrets, she took her private reason for getting the tattoo with her to the Great Beyond.

That would be just like Molly.

Sheer Providence

I got an email from Athena after we first talked on the porch of the Shipwreck Key house in September, as she was more than a little interested in hearing about the people I'd be talking to for my book.

You need to call Heather,she wrote in one long email about who might have good stories to share about Ruby. She's told me a number of times that she thinks she and Dave only got married because Mom stepped in and talked to him before the wedding. I doubt that's true, but she believes it, so it might be an important story for you.

So I called Heather Charleton-Bicks, who became Heather Hutchens when she married Dave one bright, clear New Year's Eve on Shipwreck Key. She and Dave had fully moved to Providence, his hometown, about a year after the wedding, and while they came back to the island to visit occasionally, she'd embarked upon a new life up north and not really looked back since.

"Absolutely," Heather said when I got her on the phone. "I want to talk about Ruby, I want to catch up with you, I want some company. Can you come to Providence? I'd suggest meeting you in Manhattan just to get away from Rhode Island and have a little getaway, but--well, I can't leave Dave. I'm sure you understand."

I did, and I made arrangements to stay at a quaint B&B in Providence and to meet with Heather on a Saturday afternoon.

* * *

The dining room of the B&B in the Fox Point part of town was full of charm. The owners had installed floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on the street, and the tables were a mishmash of round and square, with a jumble of differently patterned chairs and tablecloths.

I sat at a small square table right next to a window, watching as a woman with three small dogs on leashes stopped to talk to a bald man wearing a wool coat and a red scarf.

"Dexter!" Heather was through the door and walking my direction before I'd even noticed her approaching.

I stood to hug her and to take in our old friend, marveling at how close in age she was to Ruby. I couldn't help but imagine what this meeting might have looked like if Ruby and I had been traveling through New England together, dropping in to meet up with Heather, our close friend from Shipwreck Key, and to find out how life in Providence was treating her.

We sat and she ordered a bottle of chardonnay and a beet salad for us to share, and then we decided to split an order of clam cakes and another of pizza strips, which turned out to be strips of airy, fluffy dough with tomato sauce, and a sprinkle of herbs and cheese. I had no idea how all of that would sit in my stomach after a rough flight from Destin to Providence, but I have always been a good sport when it comes to culinary delights, so I prepared to tuck into those clam cakes like nobody's business.

As it turned out, Heather's sixth husband, Dave Hutchens, was living in a full-time care facility, and much of our conversation revolved around what it meant to have a spouse get ill or need care. The chardonnay helped us wind our way through these hard topics, and before long we were comparing notes on things that no one ever wants to compare notes on, debating the merits of certain medications, end of life care, and what happens when your spouse needs more assistance than you alone can give.

Dave, who was about twenty-five years Heather's senior, had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s five years earlier, and now, in his nineties and after a number of challenging incidents involving him walking out the front door of their house and getting lost, he needed to live in a memory care facility.

"I didn't want to admit that I couldn't do it myself," Heather said with a grim set to her mouth. She leaned forward on the table, and while she'd always been a lovely woman, I found her even more so with the softness of twenty years etched onto her face. Gone were the hard years of midlife, and in their place, a calmness, an understanding. "I finally found the man I wanted to be with until the end, and now, here I am, living alone in his house and visiting him every day in a place where I have to get buzzed in just to see my own husband."

I flagged down our server to order another bottle of wine, already planning on letting Heather nap in my room if necessary while I walked off the wine in the brisk afternoon. I wouldn't send her home directly after drinking three glasses of chardonnay, but neither of us seemed prepared to switch to water.

“The nuts and bolts of it are hard,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “But the losing is harder.”

“Dexter.” She looked me right in the eye. “Dave has Alzheimer’s. I’ve already lost him.”

I wanted to shift away from sad talk of all we’d lost, so I picked up another pizza strip and took a bite. “What do you think you’ll do next?” I asked her.

Heather laughed softly, but it was a real laugh, and tears formed at the corners of her eyes. She glanced around to see if anyone was paying attention, to gauge whether or not she was making a scene. She was not.

“Next?” Heather said disbelievingly. “You mean in my seventies?” She leaned back in her chair. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll go back to college and start a new career.”

“Okay.”

She blinked a few times. “Wait—you’re serious?”

I spread my hands expansively. “Yeah. I’m serious.”

“You’re, what, Dexter—fifty-five? You still have road ahead of you to travel. You’ve got options. You’re a good-looking man. If you wanted to, you could probably find a woman in her thirties and still have a family.” Her words suddenly sounded bitter. “There’s nothing left for me.”

Rather than responding to the sharpness of her words and tone, I just waited. I could understand her anger, and it wasn’t at me—it was aimed at life. The unfairness of it. The shortness. The randomness.

“Do you think I’ll find love again, Dex? Marry for a seventh time?” When she laughed at this, it was shallow. “I don’t think anything is in the cards for me now but to just sit here.” Heather looked around the restaurant like it represented all of Rhode Island. “I’m kind of stuck here. I sold my place on Shipwreck Key years ago.”

“So buy it back.” I said.

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