Leaning against one side of the garage was an impressive quantity of dilapidated bicycles. Oliver extracted his own from the jumble before eyeing the rest and picking one for Maren. Its only qualification seemed to be that it was the proper height. It was rusty, the seat rent from front to back, and an odd lack of symmetry in the handlebars hinted at some long-ago catastrophe. But once the tires were pumped, it seemed willing to carry her, so she hopped on and followed Oliver down the hill and across the causeway to the country club.
Maren was puzzled by the Demarests’ derelict collection of bikes. This was the primary mode of transportation on Haven Point, after all. Surely they could afford some decent, updated models. When they reached the bike rack near the tennis courts, she discovered it was endemic. It looked like a chaotic bicycle museum, with one ancient model knocking carelessly into the next.
The country club itself was surprisingly lovely, though—a lodge-like structure of green wood with a stone foundation and wraparound porch. A broad staircase faced the grass tennis courts, and the back side of the porch looked onto the golf course and across the bay.
After she and Oliver found seats on the porch, Maren surveyed the crowd, which spanned all ages. Toddlers squirmed in their mothers’ arms. Four ancient, sour-faced women in shirtwaist dresses and flats, evidently the dowager uniform of Haven Point, sat in a row farther down the porch. In addition to heads of hair so thoroughly styled and sprayed no comb could possibly penetrate, they all wore expressions of intense discontentment.
“I see you noticed the Founding Fathers,” Oliver whispered.
Maren looked at him, eyes wide. “What did you say?”
“It’s a parlor game on Haven Point, deciding which of the Founding Fathers each of those four widows most resembles.”
“That’s terrible!” Maren scolded. A moment later she chanced another glimpse at the women then leaned back toward Oliver.
“But the one with the reddish hair?” Maren whispered.
“Yes?”
“That’s Jefferson, right?”
“Naturally.” Oliver smiled and threaded his fingers through hers in a way that still made her heart jump.
A respectable crowd had assembled to watch the women’s match, but soon after Maren and Oliver arrived, the rest of the porch chairs filled up, then the stairs and the backless benches around the courts. When the seats were filled, latecomers leaned against nearby pine trees.
Every person on Haven Point seemed to be in attendance (with the exception, Maren noticed, of Pauline). Most women appeared to be dressed in anticipation of some athletic endeavor. Some wore white belted tennis dresses with pleated skirts and Peter Pan collars. Others were in pants, striped shirts, and jackets, as if they might hop on a sailboat the instant the tournament ended. The rest had on longer skirts, button-down blouses, and golf shoes. In her simple sundress, Maren was one of the few who didn’t look like she’d jumped from the pages of Sporting Woman magazine.
Maren had watched a tennis exhibition match in Minneapolis once and thought the game looked like great fun, one of a few sports she thought she might try if ever she had time or opportunity. But ten minutes of watching these men put her off that idea.
She was not intimidated by the talent on display. She was athletic and didn’t mind being a novice. And she was impressed by the way the men ran down every ball, even flailing themselves into the fences if need demanded.
They just did not seem to be enjoying themselves. Other than the occasional victorious smirk, she saw no smiles. It was not the genteel game played by accomplished amateurs she’d expected.
Oliver’s father and Bull Trumbull won the first set, but it did little to improve William’s temper. He snapped at Bull more than once for being out of position. Their opponents seemed to hit their stride in the second set. William appeared particularly annoyed when he lost two points serving.
“Watch my father here. He can’t bear to lose serve,” Oliver said. Maren heard a hint of weary resignation in his tone.
After his next serve went in, hard and to the outside, William rushed the net. The return came back high. William picked it out of the air, and slammed his volley directly into his opponent’s stomach.
There was an audible gasp. While most eyes were on the injured party, Maren watched William return to the baseline. She was certain she detected a smile.
“Does the losing team get fed to lions?” Maren whispered to Oliver.
“It’s much worse.”
“What happens?”
“The losing team loses,” Oliver said.
William and Bull went on to win that game, and then the set and match. Moments after the four men shook hands, the courts were filled with players eager to get in their own games, and the rest of the crowd dispersed to their various activities.
William, who also had a bike, joined Maren and Oliver on the return trip to Fourwinds.
“Congratulations, Father. That was quite a game,” Oliver said as they rode up the hill. Maren picked up some irony in Oliver’s tone, though William did not.
“I thought we were done after that first set. Bull was a disaster,” William replied. His mind seemed back on the court. He had derived no joy from the outcome.
“I think it made a real impression on Maren,” Oliver said. “Didn’t it, Maren?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it,” Maren said brightly, wondering why Oliver had put her on the spot. “They should call you the Fearsome Foursome!”
“Ha! The Fearsome Foursome,” William repeated, wrinkling his brow as if considering the label. “I rather like that.” He looked over from his bike and gave her a genuine smile, the first she’d earned from him.
So, this is the way to his heart, Maren thought, though she was annoyed rather than pleased with the discovery. Her father-in-law had more than enough people to remind him of his magnificence.
* * *
That evening they headed to the country club for the cocktail party. Pauline, in a full-skirted pink dress, looked like a little girl next to her husband. No one mentioned the fact that she had not attended the tennis match, and Maren didn’t ask. It was just another of the many pieces of the Demarest family puzzle scattered about. She wasn’t sure she’d ever complete the picture, or if she wanted to.
When they entered the country club, Maren thought she understood Georgie’s look of commiseration the previous day. All eyes were on them. This was indeed their debut. Or hers, really.
She was glad she had consulted Dorothy about her wardrobe.
“It’s not fancy, Maren. No evening wear required.” Maren’s simple blue cap-sleeved dress with a matching belt and square neckline seemed in keeping with what other women wore.
They made their way to the makeshift bar, a long table with a tablecloth, staffed by one of the tennis pros. On the way, Oliver introduced her to several friends she had not yet met, all of whom gave the same impression the others had: Everyone wanted to meet her. Few wanted to know her.
While they waited for their drinks, a woman near Oliver’s age approached. She was slim, and her tan brought out her blue eyes, but a haughty expression added harshness to an angular face. Her russet hair was curled to a perfection Maren knew could only have been achieved with great violence.
“Hello, Harriet. You look well. I’d like you to meet my wife, Maren. Maren, this is Harriet Hyde.”
“How do you do?” she said to Maren, smiling just enough to avoid appearing uncivil before returning her attention to Oliver.
“Oliver, you’ve finally come. How long will you be on the Point?”
On the point. Maren chafed at the phrase, which she’d heard some of Oliver’s friends use earlier (along with its reverse, “off the point”). It seemed to imply that life beyond the Haven Point causeway was somehow devoid of meaning.
Oliver responded politely to that and a few similar inquiries until he was pulled into conversation with a few friends nearby. Harriet abandoned the smile.
/> “So, you’re a nurse?” Harriet said.
“Yes.” Maren, sensing hostility, was not inclined to help the conversation along.
“Is that how you met Oliver?”
“We met through a mutual friend.” Dorothy’s introduction, Maren had realized, provided a veneer of legitimacy—an antidote to suspicion that Maren had been a nurse in the Caroline Sturgeon mold, on the hunt for a doctor husband.
“You got married so quickly.”
“Yes.” Maren let the silence hang.
“We wondered about that,” Harriet said. She held her chin up and tilted her head at an odd angle, as if she was somehow trying to look down on Maren, who was actually taller.
“What, exactly, did you wonder?” Maren understood the implication but had a perverse desire to hear her say it out loud.
“We just wondered why you had to get married so fast.” Harriet changed her tone to one of friendly conspirator, as if Maren might be fooled into sharing some confidence. Her eyes moved slowly but unmistakably toward Maren’s midsection.
Maren suppressed a flash of fury. Harriet had surely done the math. If she had been pregnant at their wedding, Maren would have a baby by now. Either she was feigning obtuseness, or, worse, implying Maren had tricked Oliver. Just as Maren was about to respond, Georgie approached.
“You wondered why we would have to marry so quickly?” Maren asked. This seemed like a good way to bring Georgie up to speed.
“We just didn’t know…” Harriet faltered. It seemed Georgie’s presence had thrown her off.
“We?”
“Some of us. I mean, again, it was rather sudden,” Harriet said quickly.
“Harriet,” Georgie cut in, her voice clipped. “I think your mother might need you. Why don’t you go check on her?”
Though vanquished, Harriet still gave Maren a final once-over, as if Maren were an item at a flea market that she had considered, but found wanting.
“Well done. You have a knack,” Georgie said after Harriet walked away. She nodded in grudging respect.
“For what?”
“For handling Harriet. She probably thought she had the mouse under her paw the second she met you.”
Just as Maren was about to ask Georgie to elaborate, a man with a cheerful, ruddy face approached and slung his arm over Georgie’s shoulder. Maren’s initial thought was that he must be Georgie’s brother.
“Maren, this is my fiancé, David Ormsby. Everyone calls him Cappy. Cappy, meet Maren.”
He smiled and gave her a hearty handshake. In response to Maren’s inquiry, they explained they’d known each other since middle school.
“When did you all actually start dating?” Maren asked.
They answered in such a disjointed fashion, with so much talking over and contradicting each other, Maren was laughing heartily by the end of it.
“Where did you get your nickname?” Maren asked Cappy.
“He was barking orders at everyone from the first time he set foot on a boat,” Georgie said. “Hasn’t quit.”
Cappy smiled and shrugged.
Maren had noticed a tendency on Haven Point toward making perfectly good names ridiculous. She had already met a “Twink” (Mary), a “Tug” (Robert), and an “Orry” (Orwit).
Cappy’s nickname was more forgivable once he explained that his first boating experience had not been on a sailboat, but on his grandfather’s lobster boat, which he spoke of with nostalgia.
A bark of laughter from the side of the room attracted their attention, and they looked over to see William Demarest and his tennis partner, Bull Trumbull, both bent at the waist, laughing noisily.
Probably at someone’s expense, Maren thought. Bull’s eyelids were heavy, and his fleshy face as red as if he’d just come off the court. A woman with ashy blond hair and a feline expression stood near them, smoking a cigarette. She did not look amused.
“Who is that with them?” Maren asked.
“Bull’s wife, Adelaide Trumbull,” Georgie said, rolling her eyes. “They’re a pair. She wants to be known as ‘Lady,’ but we all call her Adelaide. They live in New York. She doesn’t come up here much. Too rustic for her.”
The couple gave off a whiff of something unpleasant, and Maren kept one eye on them until Oliver approached and slipped his hand into hers.
“We’ll leave you newlyweds,” Georgie said, as she led Cappy away. Oliver pulled her close and looked down at her with the gentle smile that made her heart turn.
“Let’s get out of here, shall we?”
Maren nodded, delighted to escape. As they slipped out, the last thing Maren saw was Adelaide Trumbull watching Bull through narrowed eyes as he lurched toward the bar with a look of drunken determination.
* * *
When William left Sunday, the house seemed to exhale. For the next few days, she and Oliver were mercifully free of social obligations and spent much of the time reading on the porch. Just as Maren began to relax, the world intruded.
They awoke Tuesday to news that a bomb, bigger and more destructive than any before, had been dropped on the city of Hiroshima in Japan. Amid the horror of the destruction, there was hope.
“Maybe this is it,” Oliver said, looking up from his newspaper. “Maybe he’ll finally give up.”
When another bomb fell on Nagasaki, it was certain. It would only be a matter of days before Emperor Hirohito would surrender. The war’s end did not mean the end to their work, however. It was time to return to Walter Reed, to do what they could for the men who would suffer the war’s consequences for months—many for years or even lifetimes.
On the eve of their departure, Maren went downstairs to get her book from the porch. As she returned to their room, she took her time looking over the dozens of pictures along the staircase wall. She stopped at one of William and Daniel, standing on the cliff, shotgun barrels against their shoulders. She had noticed it but had not taken the time to look at it closely until now.
Daniel, smiling broadly, held a small bird by its feet. With his thumb and forefinger, William held one of the bird’s feathers in the band of his hat, a jokey gesture. The bird was delicate, white with wispy plumes.
A snowy egret. It was the bird they had seen on the rocks that first day. Maren felt sick. Every day, Pauline had to pass this photograph of her husband and son, fresh from killing the bird she so admired.
She heard a sound and looked up to see Pauline on the landing, peering down at her. Pauline, who had evidently seen the stricken look on Maren’s face, lifted her fragile shoulders in a slight shrug.
Maren read the question in her eyes: What could I do?
CHAPTER NINE
August 1997
Haven Point
SKYE
“How’s this?” Adriene asked as she came to the living room, where Skye sat waiting with Gran. Adriene was wearing one of Skye’s plaid button-down shirts tucked into a pair of jeans.
“That’s fine,” Skye said.
“Good. I want to blend in.”
“Adriene’s like the guy on Wild Kingdom,” Skye said to Gran. She made a motion with her hands like she was parting grasses and lowered her voice. “I’m here at the yacht club, observing the creatures in their native habitat.”
“I just want to see these people in action,” Adriene said, unapologetic. Skye looked at Gran and raised an eyebrow. Once Adriene decided she was interested in something, things tended to get unpredictable.
“Oh, it will be fun,” Gran said.
“You don’t get it, Gran,” Skye said. “She asks the most outrageous questions.”
“Yes, but they let her, don’t they?” Gran said.
“True,” Skye acknowledged with a sigh. Adriene got away with being nosy because she didn’t seem like she was digging for dirt. Everyone was fair game, even herself. Once, when Skye was thumbing through Adriene’s CDs, she made the mistake of asking Adriene where she got her terrible taste in music.
“I know. It’s so sad,” Adriene had repl
ied, as if her appreciation for Neil Diamond was a chronic affliction, like having one leg shorter than the other. Skye thought that was the end of the discussion when she heard the dreaded “But wait…”
The next hour was spent analyzing where exactly Adriene got her terrible taste in music. Was it genetic? Was she subconsciously rebelling against what was cool? Could it be a reaction to some traumatic moment in childhood when good music had been playing in the background?
Skye had since learned to be careful with rhetorical questions.
“All right, we’re off, Gran. Wish me luck,” Skye said. They put on jackets and headed out into the cool evening.
After the baton relay summer, Skye and Gran had struck a bargain: Skye would never try to hide her mom’s drinking again, and if her mom had a relapse during the summer, she could stay with Adriene.
Skye hadn’t been to Haven Point since. She liked being at the Maduroses’ house. With all the kids and countless relatives in and out, there was plenty of chaos to hide behind. At the same time, Adriene’s family stuck to the basic rules of domestic grammar: days punctuated by regular meals and routine. It was a nice change of pace from Skye’s own home, which was more like a garbled run-on sentence.
It also helped that Mrs. Maduros was not shocked by her mom’s issues. They fit nicely, in fact, with her fatalistic view of humanity. When Skye would arrive for one of her stays, Mrs. Maduros would wrap her in a great hug.
“Oh, my poor Skye. Your poor mother. It’s a fallen world, so much suffering,” she’d say in her thick Greek accent (while Adriene did a pitch-perfect imitation behind her mother’s back, complete with eyes to the heavens and the sign of the cross).
Skye’s mom had been clean for a while, but spring of junior year, Skye began to spot signs of trouble on the horizon. Her mom stayed up so late, Skye had to plead with her to get her out of bed in the morning. Then that bitter edge came out. Those jackasses don’t pay me enough anyway. Sometimes Skye’s efforts failed, and her mom simply wouldn’t go to work, leaving it to Skye to make excuses for her.
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