MOON SIGN: Capricorn
RISING SIGN: Aquarius
AGE: 37
OCCUPATION: lawyer
RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER GUESTS: married to Ted, sister to Adam
SPECIAL NOTES: with her Pisces stellium, boundaries are not strong. What will push her to take a stand?
MARGOT
This is my picture of heaven: a cushioned Adirondack chair outside a gigantic Victorian home on the North Fork of Long Island where every room has sweeping ocean views by day and a wood-burning fireplace, expertly lit by the owner of the home without us having to risk a splinter, to keep us warm after we watch the sun set. Guaranteed cozy nights, as promised by the haven host, Rini.
“Doesn’t it look amazing?” I turn the phone to my husband.
“Margot, we’re going to be there in five minutes,” Ted says.
“I hate waiting,” I huff. I close Instagram and toss my phone in my purse, but not before the date flashes on my locked screen. “I can’t believe this weekend is twenty-seven years since my parents died.”
Ted glances away from the road to check on me. “It’s a long time, but also not?”
I nod. Twenty-seven years and I can still see my father laugh at my precocious monologues about life. Twenty-seven years and I still wonder if I’m making my mom proud.
“It’s weird that this year feels like a hard one. Twenty-seven is so unremarkable.”
“Grief doesn’t follow a timeline.”
My long-suffering husband smiles without taking his eyes off the road ahead of us. His tall, stocky frame and stable demeanor are the anchors in our rough seas, and we’ve had our share of those lately. This weekend, the tides will turn.
Stars Harbor Astrological Retreat popped up on my radar thanks to a fortuitous social media ad. After another month of failed pregnancy tests, I impulsively booked the last weekend of the summer at Stars Harbor, which was available due to an unexpected cancellation. Somehow, all of our schedules were open. It felt like fate.
Fate. In my twenties I would have said fate was for lazy people, people who don’t put in the work to get what they want. But as I get older, and coincidences no longer seem random, I’ve started to wonder if I’m missing an intangible ingredient required to make things happen. Maybe the answers are in the stars, as Rini promises.
I’m not sure I believe in astrology yet, but I am nearing desperation. I have questions I need answered. The Stars Harbor testimonials raving about Rini’s astrological accuracy were as important to me as sunset snaps over the water. Guests boasted that they’d come back year after year for equal parts relaxation and life insight. Ted thought the included astrological reading was nothing more than a parlor trick, but I took it seriously.
This weekend I will secure my future: to have a baby, and to get my brother back.
The car’s navigation alerts us that our destination is one thousand feet ahead. Ted makes a left into the driveway marked STARS HARBOR ASTROLOGICAL RETREAT. He squeezes my hand as we wait for the beechwood gate to open slowly.
“It’s to keep the deer out,” I say, repeating the owner’s words.
“Well, good, because it doesn’t look like much of a match for anything else,” he says, kissing the back of my hand. The gate is tall but flimsy, the mechanics no more sophisticated than a lever and a crank. It looks like it would splinter if Ted pressed the gas and barreled right through it. And we drive a very tame Audi.
The gate exposes a long and decadent gravel driveway, a river of small brown-speckled white pebbles, like my favorite Toasted Marshmallow jelly beans. The edges are lined with bricks of light gray stone.
Ted barely lifts his foot from the brake as the gate recedes and we take in the lush flora. Soon, the white clapboard Victorian home appears as if it’s rising out of the sparkling ocean in the distance. The structure is accented with black shutters, a black roof, and a circular turret. On the ride out east, I felt slightly disappointed that Stars Harbor was not painted Easter egg colors of turquoise and purple with sunshine yellow, like some of the other versions we’d passed. But the truth is, I prefer things in black and white.
My legs stick to the leather seats after three and a half hours of traffic, but I swing my door open and peel myself out of the car. I raise my arms overhead and stretch my spine tall. Behind us sits a tiny cottage where the owner must live.
“Turn around and look at that view,” Ted says.
The manicured lawn sprawls out hundreds of yards to the sparking blue water. Evergreen trees in the distance to the east and west obscure the neighbors. The distant shoreline of Connecticut is twenty-three nautical miles away. Ted wraps his arms around my waist and I lean into him. It’s like we’re the only people in the world.
“Hello,” a young woman calls. She waits for us at the grand front entrance of the house. The double doors are made of dark wood with raised glass panels etched in a vine motif. There’s a projecting pavilion above the entry door laced with greenery. It’s even more stunning than the photos.
“Rini?”
“It’s Ree-knee, short for Serena,” she says.
On the phone I imagined an uptight, snobbish woman who fancied herself “refined.” If I’d had to guess, I would have said she was older than my thirty-seven years. Much older. An empty nester. But in person, Rini barely looks like she could legally buy alcohol.
“Welcome to Stars Harbor, Mr. and Mrs. Flynn,” she says.
I was the one who made the reservations, so she thinks my last name is Ted’s last name too.
“Please, call us Ted and Margot,” I say, electing to keep it casual. Rini opens the front door and waits for us to step inside. My gaze lifts to the candelabra-style chandelier hanging from the twenty-foot ceiling. Below it is a spiral staircase like a strand of DNA. The flooring is a wide blond-wood herringbone. Very elegant.
“This is lovely,” I say.
“I’ll give you a little tour, and then you can get settled,” Rini says.
We pass the sweeping staircase on the left, and on the right, a unique round library I saw posted on BookTok. Outfitted with books in every color from floor to ceiling, it looks like a candy store.
