Haven Point

by Virginia Hume

  As soon as the cab left, Ben and Skye burst out laughing, and kept laughing as he led her up the walk and into the house. When they got inside, Ben leaned against the inside of the front door and turned Skye to face him. The laughter was gone, replaced by a look of searching intensity. Skye felt a quiver of excitement.

  He pulled her closer and kissed her. Skye loved how she felt in his arms, how his strength was tempered by his youthful air, his well-bred charm. She loved that he never preened.

  He pulled back and smiled gently.

  “Will you come to my room?” he asked; no expectation, no pressure. She nodded.

  What followed was sweet and gentle and passionate, a combination Skye had never experienced or even known to hope for. Ben’s face had a way of lighting up, of looking as if he was constantly discovering something fresh and appealing about her. She always felt like she was escaping when she was with him, but especially so that night.

  The following morning, when Skye woke up, she turned to look at Ben. He was still asleep, his wavy hair tousled, his expression peaceful and untroubled.

  Ben’s eyes opened slowly, as if he’d sensed her looking at him. He turned to her, smiled lazily, then pulled her toward him.

  “Come here. I’m worried you’re too close to the pentagram,” he said. Skye laughed, then obliged him by nestling into the crook of his arm. As his eyes closed again, he said, “You’re really something, Skye.”

  Skye appreciated the sentiment, even as she worried that she might not be the “something” he thought.

  * * *

  The following week, Skye and Mac were to accompany the congressman to the district, where he was making a speech to local business leaders. When the driver pulled up, Skye was dismayed to see Jennifer Heubert already seated in the Escalade.

  Skye climbed into the cramped third row, as befitted her lowly station. Mac sat in the passenger seat next to the driver, while the congressman sat next to Jennifer in the middle row.

  The affair was common knowledge among the Vernon staff, but Skye assumed the congressman and Jennifer were at least trying to be discreet. As they made their way to the district, she discovered that was not at all the case. They flirted and touched each other ostentatiously, not a hint of concern that Skye was sitting directly behind them.

  When they arrived at the event, the congressman and Jennifer walked ahead, arm in arm.

  “We’ve got to do something about this,” Mac said, steaming.

  “Agreed,” Skye said. She had long thought Randall Vernon was an arrogant spoiled billionaire, but she was pleasantly surprised that Mac also thought the congressman had crossed a line. She quickly learned she had misread his comment.

  “We have to find a way to throw her under the bus,” he continued. “She’s going to ruin his reelection chances. And if Shelley finds out, God knows what she’ll do. That woman can be a real battleax.”

  Skye felt a surge of fury. Of course. It’s their fault—Jennifer the temptress, Shelley the fishwife.

  “Mmm-hmm,” she replied, trying to keep her voice from betraying her.

  Mac turned and looked at Skye closely. “Any ideas?” he asked sharply.

  “I don’t know. Tough one.” Skye shrugged, her anger shape-shifting to anxiety. Once again, her attempt to sound earnest had not fooled Mac.

  Skye knew she’d been hasty in taking this job, but she had consoled herself with the fact that Congressman Vernon was a businessman. His tentacles reached into so many sectors of the economy, which could help when she finally returned to the private sector. What she hadn’t considered until now, when Mac had her in his sights, was that those tentacles could just as easily choke off opportunities as open them.

  * * *

  Meanwhile, Skye’s mom showed no sign of emerging from her terrible torpor. Skye still felt resentful. She knew Anne had not forced her to move back home, or to take this disastrous job. It was hard not to notice, though, how much her professional life had unraveled once she got back in her mom’s debris field.

  And for what?

  “I’m just working through some things, Skye” was as much as she would say, with that sad half smile. Skye knew Gran had spent a lot of time with her mom, but Gran was strangely reticent when Skye asked what they could do, how they might help.

  The situation with her mother was dark. Work was crazy. She felt like a pinball bouncing between the two. Dark, crazy, dark, crazy, dark, crazy.

  Ben was light and sane, but Skye still felt like she was presenting him with the highlight reel, leaving so much on the cutting room floor.

  They never talked about that summer they dated—if you could even call it that—but from time to time he’d mention Haven Point or talk about visiting a Haven Point friend in Greenwich or Bronxville or Newburyport. When he did, Skye would be forcefully reminded of this key fact about Ben: He was a Haven Pointer in the truest sense—the perfect educational pedigree, traditional family, and childhood of summers that had cemented a sense of belonging and certainty of his place in the world.

  Ben seemed to think Haven Point was something they had in common. Skye, however, was beginning to see it as an irreconcilable difference.

  One evening, Skye and Ben planned to meet for a quick dinner on Capitol Hill. Congress was debating an economic package to stimulate the economy, and Congressman Vernon was trying to insert some pet project into the legislation. The effort was doomed to fail (and not making him any friends) but Mac insisted the staff work around the clock anyway.

  Skye had been doing her best to feign enthusiasm and determination, but that evening, when Mac spotted her leaving for dinner, he raised an eyebrow.

  “I hope you won’t be gone long, Skye,” he said, looking at his watch.

  “Back soon!” she replied.

  She arrived at the restaurant late. Ben had already grabbed a table. He had changed out of his suit and into khakis and a button-down shirt.

  “Sorry. Things are crazy,” Skye said as she slid into her seat. She gave him a quick rundown, ending with Mac’s comment as she was leaving. Ben rolled his eyes.

  “People gotta eat,” he said, handing her the bread basket.

  “Eat? While the rest of the staff slaves away on this vitally important, totally futile exercise?”

  Ben laughed, and they moved on to other subjects, but Skye was unable to shake the tension from work. Ben’s relaxed humor and general cheerfulness were usually contagious, but tonight they just highlighted how messed up her life was.

  Easy laugh, easy life, she thought, when he chuckled at something she said.

  “Listen, some friends of mine are having a party at Thompson’s Boathouse next Saturday,” Ben said, after they got their entrees. “Can you come? Band, kegs. You’re welcome to bring friends.”

  “Sounds great, thanks,” Skye said. She felt a little kick of pleasure at the invitation. She hadn’t met many of Ben’s friends, so it seemed like a step forward.

  “I think a few guys from Haven Point might come down from New York,” Ben added.

  The pleasure receded, eclipsed again by her doubts.

  He assumes I’ll be thrilled by this? For some reason this annoyed her, which probably accounted for what she asked him next.

  “That reminds me, you know Ryan Donnelly works on the Hill, right? Will he be there?”

  She was not sure what Ben thought of Ryan, but it was no secret that his grandmother despised the Donnelly family. Anne had told her as much through the years. Harriet’s family owned the last house on Haven Point Beach. When the Donnellys had built their mansion on the other side of the rocks, they had effectively become her next-door neighbors, and she’d never forgiven them.

  Ben paused.

  “You’re friends with Ryan?” he asked finally, his tone colorless.

  “Sure. I mean, not great friends, but everyone knows him,” Skye said, pretending not to notice his shift in mood.

  Here we go, she thought as her irritation was joined by something almost li
ke satisfaction.

  “I hadn’t asked him, but you’re welcome to,” Ben replied stiffly.

  Skye lifted her chin. “I will, thanks.”

  After a few moments of silence, Ben’s good breeding overrode his petulance and the conversation got back on track, but his response stuck with her throughout dinner and continued to pop into her mind in the days that followed. She knew she might have misread him, but she could not help feeling that he had failed a test she had unconsciously administered.

  She had not actually planned to mention the party to Ryan, but when she ran into him a few days later in the cafeteria of one of the House office buildings, she found she couldn’t help herself.

  “Listen, you might know Ben Barrows is living here,” she said, after they had caught up for a few minutes. “His friends are having a party at Thompson’s on Saturday night. Do you want to come?”

  Ryan looked at her closely. “This is Ben’s party?”

  “No, some friends of his, but I told him I would invite you.”

  “What did Ben say?” The usual jocularity was gone from Ryan’s tone.

  “He said fine.”

  “Oh. Okay. Well, unfortunately, I’m heading up to New York that night, but thanks for thinking of me.”

  The coolness in his tone surprised Skye. “Do you have an issue with him, Ryan?”

  “Honestly, Skye, I don’t have an issue with Ben. But he has one with me,” Ryan said with a sigh. “It’s the old Hyde-Donnelly thing, I guess. He’s just kind of a jackass to me.”

  Skye walked away, wishing she hadn’t said anything. Ryan clearly sensed Ben didn’t like him, and she’d only succeeded in reminding him of it. Skye would not have guessed Ryan Donnelly’s seemingly boundless confidence could be vulnerable to such petty judgment, but evidently it was.

  Skye was too busy to give the issue much thought. Adriene had agreed to go to the party with her, and she figured she could give Ben a chance to explain himself (assuming he could explain himself).

  In the end, it was all moot, because the night before the party, Skye’s world fell apart.

  * * *

  Two unreturned phone calls to Anne hadn’t worried her. Even the third could be written off as typical flakiness. But the fourth had set off alarm bells. Skye had left work at the earliest possible moment.

  She turned the key to her mother’s house, her heart thudding in her chest. She stepped into the hallway and looked around at the usual disarray.

  “Mom?” she called.

  Nothing.

  After checking the basement and around the first floor, she climbed the stairs to her mother’s room. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the bed unmade, but empty.

  She’s gone away. She forgot to tell me.

  Then she noticed her mother’s batik print purse lying open by the closet door, and her heart resumed its hammering. Her mom was not one to change accessories with outfits, but Skye still had some faint hope as she moved toward the purse. When she spotted the keys and wallet inside, she felt a terrible clutching sensation in her chest.

  “Mom?” she called, her voice trembling.

  Nothing.

  She made her way to the far side of the room, where a hall led to the small master bathroom. She felt as if her legs were moving through wet concrete. When she saw the sliver of light coming from under the bathroom door, her knees buckled. She had to extend an arm to brace herself against the wall.

  Part of her wanted to run, for someone else to be responsible for whatever was on the other side of the door. Only the tiny chance her mother might be alive and in need of help propelled her to push it open.

  For the briefest instant, Skye tried to convince herself that the figure in the tub was not her mother, but a work of her mother’s art. The face was too waxen, and the pose—knees up, covering the chest—too modest.

  It lasted only until she took in the bluish tint to the skin, the hand draped over the side, as if reaching for the pills that had spilled from their bottle onto the tiles.

  “Oh God, Mom. Oh God.” Skye stumbled toward the tub and fell hard on her knees. She already knew when she lifted the cold, heavy hand, but she felt for a pulse anyway. Her stomach churned as she half crawled back to the bedroom and picked up the phone.

  Swim to the surface, swim to the surface.

  She dialed 911 and somehow made the words come out. She returned the phone to its cradle and squeezed her eyes closed as whimpers escaped between shallow breaths. When she picked up the phone again to call Gran, her fingers were so numb, she had to dial three times before she got the number right.

  “Gran. I’m at Mom’s. Something’s…”

  “Skye? Are you all right?”

  “She’s … the bathtub. I’d called four times. I left work. I came to check…”

  Skye, who made a living arranging words, could not seem to find any to arrange. It was as if her mind had deconstructed the previous few hours into a series of discrete images but expelled the knowledge of what they added up to.

  “The bathtub…” she repeated numbly.

  “What is it, Skye?” Gran asked quietly.

  “She’s dead. My mom…”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  August 1960

  Haven Point, Maine

  MAREN

  The screen door slammed violently, Irina’s signature manner of announcing her presence. She soon stood before Maren and Dorothy, hands on hips, face flushed.

  “This monkey, I cannot stand,” she said. In her thick Russian accent, it sounded like “Zees minkey.” Dorothy stifled a giggle. The summer’s two new additions to the household, Pauline’s nurse, Irina, and the pet monkey, Sassafras, hated each other with a passion.

  “Yes, I know, Irina. But Sassafras has a room to herself now. Can’t you just stay out of there?”

  “But Pauline … she brings her out!”

  “All right, Irina. I’ll talk to Pauline.” Maren sighed. Irina looked dubious, and slammed the door again as she went back in the house.

  “Maren, this is absurd,” Dorothy said, pointing at the spot where Irina had just stood. “Why do you put up with Oliver being gone all summer like this? Three kids underfoot, and now all this nonsense?”

  Maren and Dorothy, still in knee-length skirts and polo shirts from golf, lounged with iced teas in hand. In what had become an annual tradition, Dorothy had come up from the Hamptons to play in a women’s golf tournament. The weather, which would have felt like a miracle in D.C. in August, was tropical by Maine standards. For weeks it had felt like the Maine coast was stuck under a damp, warm blanket.

  “Oliver’s working a lot this summer.”

  Dorothy sniffed and waved her hand impatiently, and Maren prepared for one of her trademark diatribes.

  “I’m sorry, but he’s presently at a medical conference in Manhattan. That’s not ‘working.’ He could get up here easily from there.”

  “But he’s a speaker. It’s on arthroscopy, and you know what a pioneer he has been. Also, I refuse to be one of those whiny wives. What do I have to complain about anyway? Look at this place.” Maren made a sweeping gesture toward the view.

  “If it’s not your dread of sounding like a complainer, it’s your guilt. So, because this place is beautiful, you have no right to want your husband around more?”

  “Maybe a little. But mainly it’s that I knew what I was getting into when I married him.”

  “Ah, so that’s it! You knew he was a hard worker when you got married, so you must reap what you’ve sown. Boy, he’s off the hook no matter how you come at it.”

  “Sort of,” Maren said, a little sheepishly.

  “Allow me to point out a few facts,” Dorothy said. She began ticking off items on her fingers, like a lawyer addressing a jury. “One: When you got married, you didn’t know you would have to spend three months a year with his mother. Two: You did not know said mother would be so thoroughly pickled. Three: You did not rea
lize you were signing up for a good bit of time with his highly unpleasant father.…”

  Maren opened her mouth to object, but Dorothy put up her right hand.

  “I’m not done! Or, four, that upon William’s death, God rest his miserable soul, he would be replaced with one of the nastiest Russians ever born. And, five—la pièce de résistance—that Pauline would then bring that wretched monkey into the little tableau.”

  Dorothy’s long arm was raised now, index finger wagging in the direction of the upstairs room, from which came the nervous, high-pitched shrieks of Sassafras, who was, indeed, a wretched monkey.

  “Yes,” Maren said with a wry laugh. “Sassy does add a certain flair to the summer, doesn’t she?”

  “Where on earth did she get that thing?” Dorothy slumped in her seat, as if fatigued by the climax of her closing argument. “Couldn’t she have bought some little dog?”

  “She saw an ad in the back of one of Billy’s comic books. Squirrel Monkey! America’s Most Amusing Pet!” Maren said, using her best pitchman’s voice.

  In May of the previous year, William had died of a heart attack. To Maren’s thinking, Pauline outliving her husband had to be one of the greatest ironies in Demarest history.

  Not a month later, a neighbor found Pauline in a heap at the bottom of the outside stairs of her Boston home. Pauline was not drunk at the time, but alcohol was still the culprit. A doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital informed Maren and Oliver that Pauline had alcoholic neuropathy, a form of nerve damage that weakened her muscles and numbed her extremities.

  Maren found the meeting with the doctor both uncomfortable and terribly sad. When the doctor suggested inpatient treatment, Oliver flatly refused.

  She and Oliver rarely spoke of his mother’s drinking, but she had held out hope he might see things differently after William died. At that moment she realized he had simply taken over as the enforcer of the long-standing Demarest position on Pauline: Her drinking was a weakness, not a disease. Oliver did, at least, agree to the compromise solution: a full-time nurse.