Troubles in Paradise (Paradise #3)(103)
Huck and Irene head down the hall to the bedrooms, the bathrooms. They’re hot, stuffy, unbearable—but fine. Except…
“Uh-oh,” Huck says. He emerges from Maia’s room with the portrait of Milly. The glass has one long crack down the front. “I think the actual photograph is okay, though.”
Irene takes the frame from him. Yes, it looks like the picture is okay. What this picture has survived in the past year. “Why…the kitchen?” Irene says.
“I didn’t shutter the windows,” Huck says. “I was about to when you called and then I got on the phone with Rupert and I had to track down Sadie and then I thought I’d come back and do it later.” He turns to Irene with tears in his eyes. “I got so caught up in the baby coming that I completely forgot about those three windows. I forgot until just this moment.”
“It’s nothing we can’t clean up,” Irene says. The rat has disappeared, though no doubt he’s lurking around here somewhere. “I kind of wanted to remodel the kitchen anyway.”
They remove the shutters from the slider and Huck checks to make sure the deck boards are secure before they step outside. All the railings are broken; one whole side has disappeared. Irene is sure Huck is craving a cigarette but he busies himself with stacking the broken pieces of the railing in a pile. The whole thing will have to be torn down and rebuilt.
Irene remembers when she used to wake up believing that Russ was still alive. One nightmare in particular returns to her now: Russ staggering down the beach, his shirt soaking wet, his pants ragged. He wanted to tell her something. The storm is coming. It will be a bad storm. Destructive.
When Huck turns around, his breathing is shallow. Irene takes his left hand, the one with only half a pinkie, and presses it between both of hers.
“Look at this place,” he says, pointing down the hill at the wreckage, which extends all the way to the water. “St. John is destroyed.”
“Damaged,” Irene says. “Not destroyed.” Like me, she thinks.
This island—and this man—have taught Irene some things about resilience, about patience, and, most of all, about hope. Bad things can happen, terrible things. You can lose the people you love the most; you can lose homes, cars, antiques, hand-knotted silk rugs that cost five figures; you can discover that the very life you’re living is a terrific lie. And despite this, despite all this, the sun will continue to rise. Tomorrow morning, over the bruised and broken body of St. John USVI, the sun will rise again.
Irene Steele knows this better than anyone.
Epilogue
Millicent Maia Steele
September 6, 2019
6 pounds, 14 ounces, 21 inches
I can’t believe you named her after me,” Maia says.
“We did,” Ayers says. “Because, you know what, Nut? I want Milly to grow up and be smart and strong and fun, just like you.”
“And precocious?” Maia says.
Ayers laughs. “And precocious.”
Maia leans over into the bassinet to look more closely at her niece. She’s asleep, and her little bow of a mouth is making a sucking motion. Maia reaches out her pinkie, and baby Milly’s impossibly tiny hand grasps it.
“Just watch me,” Maia whispers. “I’ll show you how it’s done.”
Acknowledgments
I want to start by thanking my brother, Douglas Hilderbrand, who is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service and who provided all the weather details in the last section of this book based on his research of Hurricane Irma. He is also the inspiration for the character Dougie Clarence, the CBS weatherman who appears here and in my novel Winter Storms.
There is a real-life version of the Lovango Resort and Beach Club being built as I write this, and no one like Duncan Huntley has any part in it. The owners are my dear friends Mark and Gwenn Snider, who own the Nantucket Hotel and Resort and the Winnetu on Martha’s Vineyard. I’ve held my bucket-list weekends at both of their properties and we all hope that at some point in the near future, we can host a St. John bucket-list weekend on Lovango!
I have taken ten trips to St. John. Eight of these were my usual five-week writing-retreat visits, one was at Christmas, and my most recent trip there, in March of 2020, coincided with the outbreak of COVID-19. I ended up staying on St. John for seven weeks and “sheltered in paradise.” Over the course of these visits, I have made friends and acquaintances. I always say that the places we love are about people, and that is certainly true in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Thank you to Julie, Matt, and Shane Lasota; Beth and Jim Heskett of St. John Guest Suites; Bridgett and Jimmy Key of Palm Tree Charters; Captains Stephen Sloan and Kelly Quinn (no relation to “our” Kelley Quinn!) of Singing Dog Sailing Charters; Brian and Michelle Zehring of New Moon; Alex Ewald of La Tapa; Ryan Costanzo of Extra Virgin Bistro and 1864; Allison Gould of Sam and Jack’s; Hank and Karen Slodden; Sarah Swan; John Dickson from the Papaya Café and Bookstore; Dana Neil of Cruz Bay Watersports; Richard Baranowski of Lime Inn/Lime Out (who saved my son Maxx’s life, but that’s a story for another day); Karen Coffelt, head of school Liz Morrison, and all of the amazing teachers and staff at the Antilles School; Jorie Roberts; Meredith DeBusk from St. John Provisions; Sarah Bigelow, Peter Bettinger, Mattie Atkinson, Rhonda McCay, and Linda Beer (I told you I’d get you in!); and Heather Hearn Samelson of Pizza Pi VI. If I have forgotten any of you, it’s because I’m old, not because I don’t love and appreciate you.