Page 69 of Winter Solstice
He feels someone rubbing his feet. Lara, not Laura.
Kevin’s voice. “I love you, Dad.”
A tiny, soft hand on his cheek. Genevieve!
Isabelle says something in French. Kelley remembers the puzzled look on Isabelle’s face seconds after Kelley found Mitzi and George kissing in room 10.
George is buying the inn.
Mitzi’s voice. “It’s December twenty-first. The winter solstice,” she says. “It’s the shortest day of the year. It’ll be dark by quarter past four. So dark, so early.”
Mitzi touches his face. “It’s okay, Kelley,” she says. “We are all going to be okay.”
It’s permission, he realizes. He can let go.
It’s the winter solstice.
Do you know what the best thing about the winter solstice is?he wants to tell Mitzi.
After today the days will get longer.
AVA
Both her mother and Mitzi give her a pass. By the time she gets to Nantucket, Kelley may well be unconscious. He’ll never know if Ava is there or not. She should go to Austria like she planned.
“Your father would want you to be happy,” Mitzi says.
Kelley may never know, but Ava will know. He’s her father. Her spirit sinks at the thought of missing Austria, a place she has always wanted to go at the most magical time of year with the man she loves. Potter is still on the plane. She will call him in the morning and tell him she won’t be joining him.
In the morning she has a text from Potter that says:Landed safely. Checking into hotel and crashing.Ava tries calling him, but she gets his voice mail. She calls the hotel, and they put her through to the room but there’s no answer. He must be sound asleep.
She sends a text that says:My father has a day or two left. I have to go to Nantucket tonight. I love you.
And then she sends a second text that says:I’m so sorry.
Ava goes to school to teach. Her mother and Drake are leaving the city at seven o’clock, but Ava doesn’t want to wait that long. She books a five o’clock flight to Boston and squeezes herself onto the last flight from Boston to Nantucket on Cape Air.
Austria will always be there,she thinks. She feels bad about abandoning Potter at Christmastime, but he is a good person; he will think she’s making the right decision. Potter’s parents were killed in a car accident; he never got to say good-bye.
She tries not to think about Potter or Austria or Kelley or a world without Kelley; she doesn’t respond to any of the texts between Patrick, Kevin, and Bart discussing travel plans. She focuses only on logistics: Uber to JFK, the hour-long flight from JFK to Boston, the walk through Terminal C to gate 27, home of Cape Air. Ava has an hour before her flight to Nantucket. She can finally relax.
Wine,she thinks.
She sees an empty chair at the bar right next to gate 27.
“Is anyone sitting here?” she asks the guy on the neighboring stool.
He turns. They lock eyes.
Not happening,she thinks.
“Ava,” he says, and he gives her that familiar wicked grin.
It’s Nathaniel.
“What?” she says. “Are you…?”
“I’m going back to Nantucket for Christmas,” he says. “My parents are taking everyone skiing in Tahoe, but I fell off a ladder this fall and tweaked my back, so I can’t ski. Plus, I can only take four or five days away, so I thought I’d just go back home. Hang at the brewery the whole time, probably. See some friends. In fact, you know who I’m supposed to see tomorrow night is your old friend ScottSkyler.”
