“I saw you and Charlotte sailing that morning, and I got angry when you didn’t mention it.” She spoke quickly, as if to force the words out before she could stop them.
Ben’s brow furrowed, as if he was mentally assembling a puzzle.
“Okay. Wow. I can imagine how that must have seemed.” He shook his head a little, as if to clear it of surprise. “Okay, so first, about Charlotte. Here’s the thing.…”
He stopped. Now he was uncomfortable. Skye nodded, encouraging him to continue.
“You might know we dated for a long time,” he said finally.
“Of course I know.” Skye laughed, wondering how he thought that fact could have escaped her.
“I’m not sure what’s going on with her,” he continued, searching for the right words. “I think Charlotte was trying to figure out where things stood. Like she…”
When he could not complete the thought, Skye realized what held him back. He was too much the gentleman to betray Charlotte’s confidences. Skye, on the other hand, felt no such compunction.
“She wanted to get back together?” she prompted.
“Yes,” he said finally, with reluctance. “She wanted to give it another try.”
“I see. And you don’t?”
“No. I don’t. Charlotte and I aren’t going anywhere,” he said, his tone certain. He picked at the label on his beer bottle and laughed—just a little laugh, but to Skye’s ears it sounded like church bells, angels singing.
“I see,” Skye replied.
He sighed, as if relieved to have that business dispensed with, then sat up straighter and regarded her, a gleam in his eye.
“So, Ms. Demarest, I have a question for you now,” he said in a lawyerly tone.
“Okay,” she replied warily.
“You were angry I didn’t mention sailing with Charlotte. Why was that?” He crossed his arms and tilted his head in a spirit of playful inquisition.
Skye looked down. Now it was her turn to struggle for words.
“I don’t know. I knew it was none of my business. I just…” She trailed off.
He waited a beat before he spoke again. “You didn’t think it was your business?” he asked, his expression inscrutable.
Put up or shut up, Skye.
“I guess I should say I wasn’t sure it was my business, but…” Her cheeks felt hot. “But I wanted it to be.”
She glanced at him and discovered he was not just smiling, he looked downright amused. With his eyes glued to her face, he reached down and plucked her hand from the back of the sofa and pulled her toward him—not forceful, but commanding.
“Now, this is a very interesting development.” His lawyerly tone was back as he grinned down at her. He lifted her chin, and she looked up at him, her heart thudding in her chest. His eyes explored her face, then his hand slid behind her head and he leaned toward her.
Just as his lips met hers, a heavy clomping on the stairs signaled Georgie’s arrival. He groaned quietly and they separated.
“How is she?” Ben asked, when Georgie stepped into the light of the lanterns. Skye hoped she didn’t look as flustered as she felt.
“Your grandmother cleaned and stitched the wound. Her head hurts like Billy Hell and she probably has a concussion, but she’s awake. Making as much sense as she ever did.” Georgie sounded weary. “You can see her. I just wanted to let you know. I’m going to bed myself.”
They said good night, and Georgie disappeared back into the darkness. When they heard her on the landing upstairs, Ben pulled her toward him again. He kissed her, deeply now.
After a moment he pulled back, looked at her, and shook his head. Skye felt like she was seeing her own feelings mirrored in his eyes, that sense of wonder that someone with whom you could share so much laughter, whom you had known, really, for so little time but who felt like the dearest of old friends, could also ignite such powerful desire. He pulled her down so they were lying on the sofa. Her hands wandered over his broad shoulders and brushed the sides of his waist.
Under any other circumstances, Skye was certain nothing would have stopped them, but simultaneously they both seemed to recall the situation, the presence of their grandmothers upstairs. He groaned again, theatrically this time, and they both began to laugh.
“We should probably go upstairs,” he said, eyes to the ceiling. Before he got up, he looked down at her again and smiled. “But this is a nice way to end a bad night.”
* * *
When they poked their heads into the green bedroom, the light was dim. Harriet, clean and dry, was wearing one of Gran’s nightgowns. She was covered to her waist with a quilt. Her head, wrapped in gauze to keep the wound’s dressing in place, rested on two pillows.
Harriet’s expression was mild. Skye hadn’t realized what a constant feature Harriet’s look of disapproval had been until now, when it was absent.
By far the strangest aspect of the scene was Gran, seated on the chair beside the bed, Harriet’s hand in her own. Skye’s eyes widened. Gran responded with a bemused look that promised a story to come.
“Hi, Grandma,” Ben said.
“Hello, Ben.” Harriet kept her eyes closed. “I’m sorry about all this.”
The apology was another stunner.
“She’ll need to get to Bath when you are able, but she’ll be fine,” Gran announced.
“Thanks, Mrs. Demarest. Grandma, I’ll stay here tonight and get you out in the morning if the causeway is clear. Do you need anything?”
“I’m well, thanks to you and Maren.” Harriet began to open her eyes and turn her head toward him, but she seemed to think better of it and sank deeper into the pillow instead. “Just go on to bed. It’s late.”
Skye grabbed sheets, towels, and a flashlight from the linen closet and brought them to the room next to hers. Once she and Ben finished making up the bed, he pulled her to him and kissed her again.
“So, we might have to wait a bit to tell people about us,” Ben said with a smile when they separated. The quiver of pleasure Skye felt at the idea of an “us” was promptly dampened by the words that came out of his mouth next: “I have to give my parents time to get used to the idea.”
Skye froze, bewildered. He had spoken lightheartedly, but his meaning seemed inescapable.
“Okay, Ben. No problem,” she said coolly. He stood motionless as she moved toward the door. When she reached for the knob, she felt his hand on her shoulder.
“Wait, Skye.” He turned her toward him, his eyes searching her face. “I’m sorry. I think you misunderstood me just now.”
“You’re worried what your parents would think about us. What’s to misunderstand?” she said stiffly. He looked at her for a second, then put both hands on her shoulders, guided her to the bed, and gently compelled her to sit.
“I was making a dumb joke, Skye, because of how I was last time,” he said as he sat next to her.
“What do you mean how you were last time?”
He paused. “Oh my God, Skye, I thought you knew this. It was kind of an open secret around here.”
“What was?”
“So, um, when you blew me off after that summer in high school, I didn’t take it very well.” He seemed a little embarrassed.
“I didn’t blow you off.” She looked at him, still baffled.
He smiled a little and raised an eyebrow. “What else would you call it?”
Skye tried to recall what happened after she left Haven Point that summer. Ben had called a few times. Skye remembered that he suggested they get together, and she had resisted. It never occurred to her she had hurt him, though. Or that she could.
“I had no idea.”
“It’s okay, but please understand, I was totally kidding about my family. You and I had a couple of weeks together when we were seventeen. I was kind of a mess after, but it ended up being sort of a family joke. ‘Ben’s Blue Period,’ they called it.”
“Still. I’m sorry.” She frowned and squeezed his hand, still struggli
ng to take it in.
“I should clarify.” Ben lifted an index finger. “I was a very manly kind of mess.”
“Oh, goes without saying.” She nodded. “Five o’clock shadow, empty liquor bottles.”
“Exactly. Hole-punched-in-wall type stuff. Angst, but manly.”
“Of course,” Skye said solemnly. “Mangst.”
They both laughed. Though it was ancient history and they had joked their way through the awkwardness, Skye still felt he deserved some honesty from her in exchange for his own.
“For what it’s worth, Ben, that was a confusing time for me. I felt a bit like I was playacting that summer, like it wasn’t really me here.”
He looked down thoughtfully, his thumb rubbing her knuckle. After a moment, he smiled gently and peered up at her from under his lashes.
“And I’ll just say for what it’s worth, in every way that matters, you are just as I remembered.”
He stood, pulled her from her perch, and wrapped her in a hug. He smelled like salt water, wind, and sand. Like Haven Point. She wished more than anything she could join him in the little twin bed with its American flag comforter, but she released him, rested her hand on his cheek for a moment, then picked up her lantern and went to her room.
As she climbed into her own bed, she considered Ben’s very different construction of that long-ago summer. She thought she had presented a false front, a carefully edited story about her mother, her life.
Perhaps there was another way of looking at it. Maybe what she had presented was just a more forgiving perspective. That wasn’t lying. In its own way, it was growing up.
For the first time, she saw herself as Ben saw her that summer: not as a girl, broken and dissembling, but as a young woman, telling her truth and learning to love.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
SKYE
When Skye struggled awake from her deep sleep, she was assaulted by flashes of memory. My mother … Uncle Charlie … the door flying open, wind raging through the house … Harriet … a wound. She pushed herself up on one elbow and rubbed her eyes. She opened them to see Ben at the end of her bed, a mug of steaming coffee in his hand. She smiled, remembering the night’s happier ending. Ben.
“That was like watching my three-year-old nephew wake up,” he said with a grin. He handed her the mug.
“Is that for me?” She sat up and took it gratefully.
“Your grandmother sent me up with it.”
His hair was tousled. He needed a shave. He still smelled faintly of sweat and rain. She thought he looked beautiful.
Did all that really happen?
As if in answer, he grabbed ahold of her blanket-covered foot and jiggled it playfully. They exchanged a smile. As she took another sip of coffee, something in her peripheral vision caught her eye. She looked at the nightstand and saw the clock blinking.
“The power’s on? Hallelujah!”
“It is. I’m heading out now to check the road. Your grandmother says to come down when you’re ready.”
He returned a half hour later, as Skye and Gran were making breakfast. The causeway was clear, so he could take his grandmother to the hospital in Bath. His aunt Polly would meet them there and take Harriet to Hartford when she was discharged, while Ben would return to Haven Point.
After Skye ate and saw Ben off, she went to have a look outside. The yard was littered with debris—branches, shingles, and roof tiles everywhere. A random wooden door was in the driveway, evidently blown off someone’s shed or garage. A giant limb of the ancient oak in the center of the yard hung limply, twisted and shorn almost clean off. Other trees were stripped nearly bare of their leaves. Even the pines looked scraggly and thinner for their ordeal.
Skye did what she could. She cleared branches from the driveway and flower beds and returned items they’d stowed in the garage to their rightful places.
When she came in, Gran beckoned her to the porch, where she had iced tea waiting.
“You and Harriet looked chummy last night,” Skye said.
“You won’t believe the half of it.”
“I’d believe about anything after yesterday. What happened?”
“Well, when she finally came to, she was crabby as ever and a little confused. When she put the pieces together, I think she was humbled. She looked at me at one point and said, ‘We never have been friends, have we, Maren?’ And I said, ‘No, we haven’t. You’ve never liked me, and I always wondered why.’”
“Wow, Gran. Bold!”
“Wasn’t I?” Gran said, pleased with herself. “She tried to deny it at first, but I’d have none of that. She got really quiet for a minute, then she said, ‘You don’t know why?’ I told her I truly did not.”
“What, that she loved Pop?”
Gran’s eyes widened. “How do you know that?”
“What else would it be? You told me she got married soon after you did. She had known Pop her whole life. She was probably waiting for him all those years, then the pretty nurse from Nowheresville snatched her fellow out from under her.”
She smiled. “Harriet didn’t put it that way, but that’s the gist.” Gran shook her head and leaned over to pick up some papers from the coffee table. “On another subject. I understand why you weren’t interested in seeing this, Skye, but after our conversation yesterday I think you should know what it says.”
Skye looked at the cover. Government of the District of Columbia. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. The toxicology report.
She opened it and looked at the first page. It contained a list of substances for which her mother had tested positive. She didn’t recognize the names. Below the list, under “Cause of Death,” it said, “accidental multidrug intoxication.”
“Don’t they call it an accident unless they’re one hundred percent certain?” Skye asked.
“Probably, but in this case, I think it’s accurate. I am almost positive your mother died from serotonin syndrome.”
“What’s that?”
“She tested positive for three prescription drugs: an antidepressant, a migraine medication, and Xanax. You aren’t supposed to mix medications that raise serotonin levels. My guess is the first two got her heart racing. She then self-diagnosed anxiety and took the Xanax. In this combination, it was toxic.”
“Wouldn’t she know not to mix them? Didn’t the doctor or pharmacist tell her?”
“I suspect she didn’t mention the migraine prescription to the pharmacist. As you know, her migraines were bad but infrequent. The prescription was old.” Gran grimaced. “Expired, actually.”
“Oh my God.” Skye put her head in her hands and groaned. Classic. Her mother always said expiration dates were a conspiracy.
“Absurd, but it makes a certain kind of sense,” Gran said. “If she intended to die, she could have taken a fistful of those, or any of a half-dozen other medications. There was no reason to take all three, unless it was a mistake. She was definitely careless, heedless of her life on some level, but in the end mostly unlucky.”
Skye felt unsteady, as if sands were shifting beneath her. She had claimed to be indifferent about the cause of her mother’s death, but it was only because she had assumed it was suicide one way or another. Why was she so unnerved to find out it was more likely an accident?
“You knew, didn’t you?” she asked, recalling Gran’s curiosity when Adriene had offered to expedite the toxicology report.
“I had a hunch,” Gran said. She paused, and Skye saw her lips quiver. She took a few breaths before continuing.
“The last time your mother got out of rehab, she called, wanting to talk about Charlie. You have to understand how unexpected this was. She’d scarcely spoken his name to me since he died. We reminisced for a while that day, and we continued to do so over a number of similar conversations. One day she broke down. ‘Why did he die, Mom?’ she asked.”
“Oh no.” Skye began to cry.
“I know. It is horribly sad to think of her in such pain,” Gran said, her e
yes damp. “It was a good thing, though. She was finally grieving.”
Her grandmother paused, and reached for her hand. “This is what I wanted to tell you most of all. She wanted to be well, Skye.”
“Isn’t this worse, though?” Skye asked, tears streaming down her face. “Is it better to lose her in an accident? To have her trying to heal and then make a stupid mistake?”
Gran looked at Skye sadly. “We lost her either way, Skye.” Gran paused then added, “It’s not worse. It just might be harder.”
Not worse. Harder.
The words hit Skye like a blow to the solar plexus. She bent forward, as if trying to keep something within, but it would not be contained. She heard a sound emerge from her throat, and began to weep—not the sweet tears of the previous night, when Gran opened the door to childhood memories, but wrenching sobs. She understood with a terrible clarity why it was not a relief to discover her mother’s death was an accident.
When Skye moved home, she had seen a woman who couldn’t cope, a woman in a steady and inexorable decline, a woman whose death was inevitable. She had held on to that view for the same reason people so often cling to a story: because she thought it made it easier.
But her mother did not have to die. It had not been inevitable. Suddenly, stripped of her illusion, she saw her mother as she had been, not in black and white, but in all her color—the messy, beautiful, addicted, creative, funny, maddening, original whole of her—and she was consumed by a feeling of loss so acute, she wondered if she could bear it. She could not imagine anything ever filling the huge, gaping hole.
Gran moved to the ottoman next to her chair, took her hand, and sat patiently, while Skye did what she had long needed to do, what her mother had so belatedly done: looked grief in the face.
After a time, Skye took a shaky breath, looked up at Gran, and shook her head.
“The clarity of tear-washed eyes,” Gran said tenderly.
“What about her ashes, Gran? Do you think she wanted to be close to Charlie?”
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