The Summer House

by Hannah McKinnon

  “Cement him in good!” Maddy ordered. Paige stood off to the side, making calls to her office to check on some dog or other who was recovering from one surgery or another. Richard dozed in a beach chair, an open book slipping off his lap. Even Sam seemed less edgy, stretched across a towel, well out of the way of the kids’ and Evan’s sand-flinging activity. Flossy was the only one on high alert, having parked her beach chair so close Clem could practically hear her breathing in her ear.

  “Are you sure you aren’t getting too much sun?” Flossy asked, leaning closer. “We’ve been down here for a long time. I think everyone’s getting ready to head back up to the house.”

  Clem wordlessly pointed at her floppy straw hat and the kids’ hats, and then held up a bottle of sunscreen for good measure. “You guys can go ahead. The kids and I will be up soon.” She just wanted fifteen minutes to herself.

  Yesterday at East Beach had been a disaster, no thanks to her siblings, who couldn’t refrain from offering their two cents on every decision she made. Even Evan, who usually stepped aside to let Sam and his sisters navigate the rough road of ancient childhood battle wounds that they inevitably seemed to revisit during reunions. Has this happened before? Do you want to take a nap? Have you been in touch with your doctor lately? She cringed at the memory. What was wrong with everybody? She knew what was wrong with her. She just needed more time. She needed everyone to leave her alone.

  It had been a while since one of her episodes. Still, she knew it had been a bad one, and today she was determined to make it up to the kids. So she’d risen early and stolen away to town as soon as the storefronts on Main Street opened. The new sand toys she’d found now littered the beach in front of her, the bright plastic landscape interrupted only by a lopsided sand castle whose watery moat was now home to several hermit crabs who hadn’t dug fast enough to escape Maddy’s deft fingers. The entire family had helped to make an afternoon of it, and as much as she’d enjoyed the distraction and the extra sets of hands and eyes, now she was happy to see them packing up their beach chairs and shaking the sand off their towels.

  “You sure you don’t want company?” Evan asked. “Sam and I can stay down here and keep an eye on the kids if you want to take a snooze.”

  Clem lifted the brim of her hat and squinted up at him; how she loved this man! His concern was the only one that somehow didn’t grate her nerves. “Thanks, sweetie. But we’re fine. We’ll see you back up at the house.”

  Sam, loaded up with beach bags, stood over her casting a shadow. “Okay, but no griping when you get the cold shower,” he half teased.

  Clem closed her eyes and smiled. Let them go shower and change for dinner. She didn’t care if the last of the hot water was all used up by the time she got back; she’d happily use the cold outdoor shower in the side yard, as long as she could steal a few minutes’ peace.

  Now, at Clem’s feet, Maddy knelt over her new bucket adoringly. “Hello, Sebastian,” she whispered into the watery recess.

  George trotted up from the water’s edge, listing sideways with the weight of his bucket, water sloshing against his legs. “Here,” he puffed, crashing onto the sand beside his sister. He dumped the contents of the pail into the moat. “Maddy, you’ve gotta keep it full, or they’ll crawl away.” He counted the hermit crabs aloud. “One, two, three, four . . . hey, we’re missing one!”

  Maddy covered her bucket protectively with both hands and scowled.

  Clem smiled and leaned back in her beach chair. Yes, this was what they all needed—hermit crabs and sand toys. And the glorious stretch of empty sand before them. She would languish the rest of the day on the beach if the kids wanted to.

  With her loud, boisterous family gone, they had the beach all to themselves, which wasn’t unusual. Save for a couple of beach paths that wound down to the water off their private road, there was neither easy access nor a place for visitors to park. Unlike the state beaches with their giant parking lots in Westerly and Charlestown, this stretch of shore was dotted with cottages and private driveways. Throughout the day, neighbors would emerge to set up beach chairs and lay out towels, still leaving plenty of space and quiet. This beach had long been a slice of heaven that the Merrill children did not take for granted.

  So it was with some curiosity that Clem noticed, out of the corner of her right eye, the figure striding across the sand. She sat up. It was a young man in red swim trunks. He seemed to have come from the Weitzman’s place next door. She watched as he tossed his towel on the sand by the high-tide mark before trotting toward the surf. He was fit and tawny-skinned, the muscles of his back tensing as he jogged straight into the waves. Clem watched as he dove into the white froth. His arms sliced through the choppy water as he swam away from her. After last night’s rainfall, it had to be cold. Directly in his path, she noted the large metal buoy bobbing gently on the gray ocean surface. Without breaking his pace, he circled the buoy and turned back for shore. It was then that she realized she was matching the breath in her chest with his stroke. As he returned to the beach, Clem sat up straight. She plucked the novel she’d brought out of her beach bag and cracked it open, glancing over the page as he emerged from the water. Was he one of the three Weitzman kids she’d grown up with? But no—Andrew Weitzman was in his mid-forties, married with kids. Clem had been closest to Suzy, the middle sister. They were inseparable in the way that only summer friendships allowed: endless sandy days interrupted only by dinner back at their own houses, before racing back down the beach path to play in the dune grass and watch the sun set before someone initiated a game of flashlight tag. The last Clem had heard, Suzy had moved to Los Angeles with her husband and had had a baby. The only other member of the Weitzman family was the baby, Fritz. Fritzy, as they had all called him, had been what his father, Ray, had once referred to as an “oopsy” baby, after more than a few bottles of wine had been opened at one of the family’s bonfires. The men had all laughed, Richard included, but Clem remembered the scowl Flossy had thrown her father’s way across the flames. Fritzy had been an infant the summer Clem was in the fourth grade. Watching this young man over the top of her book as he strode across the sand, she was pretty sure this was not Fritz. He’d be—what?—recently graduated from college? The shaggy-haired man in front of her looked too young. He must be a summer renter.

  To her delight, he stopped by his towel and shook his head like a dog. Something inside her stirred. She watched as he toweled off, put his sunglasses back on, and turned her way.

  “Beautiful,” he said, smiling. She flushed, and then realized he was talking about the water. “Best time of day to swim.”

  She nodded, and before she could recover to reply, he was trotting up the path toward the house. Clem let her breath out as he disappeared between the dunes.

  As if sensing his mother’s attention had strayed, George followed her gaze across the beach. “Who’s that?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Clem said, swiveling back to her offspring. But it occurred to her that she was suddenly determined to find out.

  Clem

  She made sure she was at the beach by four thirty the next day. If he was disciplined about his solo swim at the end of each day, then so would she be about showing up to witness it.

  They’d spent the day in Watch Hill, shopping on Bay Street, and now it was just Clem and the kids. She told herself (and Flossy) that they were catching a quick swim before dinner. By four forty-five, when he still hadn’t show up, Clem realized she’d been clenching her teeth—something she’d apparently been doing for the past year, her dentist had pointed out at her last appointment. She’d come to think of the accompanying headaches as another added physiological manifestation of grief. And of widowhood. Her dentist prescribed a bite plate that she was to sleep in, a cumbersome piece of plastic that previously she likely would have shoved into the recesses of her bedside table drawer without a thought. But now she wore it without complaint. What was one more small annoyance against the backdrop of he
r new life?

  Now, she flexed her jaw and reminded herself to relax. He was just a stranger in red swim trunks who had happened to share her beach yesterday afternoon. What did it matter to her if he showed up or not? She was here with her kids. To relax. To let go of worries, the least of which would be whether or not some kid in the house next door crossed her line of vision as he peeled off his shirt and dove headfirst into the surf. But that suntan line at the base of his back above his red board shorts. And the way he shook his slick head when he emerged from the surf. Something inside her stirred again.

  “Mom, I’m hot.” Maddy raced over, spraying Clem with sand.

  “Maddy.” She rummaged through the beach bag. “Put your sun hat on. Or better yet, hop in the water.” She pointed to the surf coming in, and just as she did, he walked past her index finger. He turned, just in time to see her pointing directly at him. She thrust the sun hat at Maddy. “Here. Put it on. Now.”

  Maddy grumbled and tugged the hat over her head, and Clem tried to focus her attention on the tie. She peered over her daughter’s shoulder. He was standing at the shore, hands on his hips. Good Lord, he was fit.

  “When’s snack?” Maddy asked. “I’m star-ving.” She had positioned herself directly in her mother’s line of vision. But Clem would not peer around her daughter to better see him. She would not.

  “Check the cooler. There’s cheese and crackers,” she said. As Maddy trudged away, Clem sat back and let her breath out. He was in the water now, already halfway to the buoy. Something about the sure way his arms sliced through the water soothed her. She followed his stroke, her breath evening out with his smooth rhythm. The day was clear and bright, the sun reflecting sharply off the water so she had to squint, but she kept her eyes trained on his progress, lulled by memories.

  Every spring, Ben’s law firm sponsored an adult soccer league. Like many of the younger men and women at the firm, he’d joined the team, and Clem used to bring the kids down to Battery Park to watch their Saturday games. There was something about Ben on the field that had always filled her with a sense of peace. Ben was an athlete in the truest sense—a lithe, agile player. But it was his gait that distinguished him on the field. No matter how often she arrived late at the game, she could always pick Ben out on the field: sprinting, purposeful, his arms pumping methodically at his sides, Greek-like in form. But it was the way he ran when not chasing the ball that hit her right in the soft spot of her middle. In the exuberant moment after scoring a goal, Ben would throw his head back in the wind, his stride loose and leggy, like a child’s. It was joy in motion. And it never failed to fill her with the same.

  There were so many things Clem missed about Ben. If someone had asked her shortly after he had died, there were the obvious things: his arm thrown over her side in the middle of the night; the look in his eye when he knelt down to listen to his children—really listen—as they descended upon him shouting and talking over each other the second he walked in the door from work. But watching his body move through space on the soccer field—the grace in that reckless abandonment—was one thing that never would have occurred to her. And how her insides had ached when she’d seen it that spring in young George as he’d sprinted down the sideline during one of his soccer matches. She’d had to leave the bleachers and go to her car, where she’d heaved over the steering wheel until her eyes were dry. It was something she had never known she would miss until that moment.

  Now, sitting on the beach at her family’s summer house, something inside Clem was triggered. Unlike the wash of emotions that had shadowed her in the past year, this feeling was anchored very much in the present. There was no connection to those fall afternoons watching Ben in Battery Park that roused her memory. Not for this beach. Certainly not for this boy, barely a man, emerging from the water. Whatever it was, it stilled her insides and elongated her breath in a way she suddenly recognized, in a way she realized she’d stopped feeling for some time. It was yearning. So she decided to allow herself these stolen moments each afternoon. This voyeurism, or whatever it was she could call it. She was only human. And as far as she was concerned, a grieving widow and young mother was just about as raw a human as one could get.

  Her children were kneeling in the sand by the water, shrieking and feverishly digging holes as quickly as the incoming waves filled them. Behind them, the young man was emerging from the surf. Suddenly he stopped, bent down, and retrieved something from an incoming wave. She couldn’t see what it was, but he studied it before turning toward her children. When he said something to them, she straightened. Maddy and George looked up. She leaned forward, straining to hear over the rush of waves.

  “Mommy!” Maddy shouted up to her, waving her arms. “Come look.”

  Clem stood, and he looked up and smiled.

  “Coming.” Clem adjusted her sarong and hurried down the beach. The sand burned the soles of her feet, causing her to take quick, hopping steps. She probably looked like a stork approaching.

  “Look!” Maddy shrieked. “It’s a sea orchard.”

  “Urchin,” Clem and the young man said together. She tried to focus on the small, shiny urchin balanced in his upturned palm, but she snuck a sideways glance at his face. His eyes were green, lighter than her own. His lashes were thick and dark.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a live one here,” she said.

  He thrust his hand in her direction, and she involuntarily stepped back. “It won’t sting,” he said, eyes twinkling. He rolled the prickly ball of sea life gently into her open hand, which she hadn’t realized she’d extended.

  “It’s beautiful,” she managed.

  The kids sprang into action, gathering buckets and water. “Let’s make it a house!” George shouted. The man laughed. There was something so familiar about him, she thought.

  As the kids set up the bucket, he turned to her. “I hope that was okay, showing them the urchin,” he said.

  Clem allowed her eyes to travel across his face. Friendly. Handsome. The eyes again. She nodded. “Of course, thank you. They love stuff like this.”

  “Can we keep it?” Maddy crowed. “Please! Ooh, let’s take it home to show the uncles!”

  But George was already reaching for it. “No,” he said, firmly. “It belongs to the ocean. We’re letting it go.”

  “That’s right,” Clem said, kneeling down, level with Maddy’s disappointed scowl. “He’s wild, honey. But you can enjoy him for a few minutes before we put him back.”

  Maddy’s brow unfurrowed slightly. “But I want to keep him.”

  “No!” George insisted, reaching for the bucket.

  Maddy grasped the plastic handle with both hands and sat down hard. “He’s mine!” she hollered.

  Clem closed her eyes. Here they were, in typical sibling fashion, about to thrash it out. In front of this perfectly nice stranger, no less.

  “Maddy, listen to Mommy. We can catch critters and study them, but then we have to let them go.”

  She leaned in until she was nose to nose with her daughter’s consternation. Maddy was so stubborn, so fierce. Just like Clem had been, according to Flossy. Her blue eyes sparkled with hot tears, and the sadness behind them was as familiar as it was heartbreaking for Clem. “I’ll miss him,” she whispered.

  Clem wrapped her arms around her sandy, wet toddler and pulled her in. As it always did, Maddy’s heartache made her forget everything else around them. Until she felt the sand shift beside her. It was him.

  He kneeled behind Clem and waited until Maddy peeked up at him.

  “You know, I’m pretty sure I saw that urchin yesterday.”

  Maddy buried her face in her mother’s hair, but he went on.

  “I think he came to the beach with his family, just like you did today with your family.”

  Clem could feel Maddy’s head turn. “He has a brother?” she asked in a small voice.

  The young man cocked his head. “I think maybe it was a sister. She was pretty sparkly. And prickly!�
� He wiggled his fingers playfully, imitating little spikes.

  Maddy laughed.

  “His parents are probably wondering where he is,” he added, gathering his towel and standing. “Imagine how worried your mom would be if she took you to the beach, but then she couldn’t find you.”

  Maddy thought this over, and after an excruciatingly long moment she placed the urchin gently back in the bucket. “Okay. I’ll put him back in a few minutes.”

  “Good girl. Five minutes,” Clem said.

  Maddy turned to regard her mother. “Six,” she mouthed.

  Beside her, the young man covered his laugh. Clem stood and turned to him, feeling a sudden rush of gratitude for this stranger.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Not just for showing them the urchin, but for what you said to her.” She paused. “Maddy has trouble letting go of things.”

  He held her gaze, unblinking. Did he find her familiar, too? “It’s okay. Beautiful things are hard to let go of.”

  Clem felt her face flush beneath the brim of her hat. There was nothing she could think of to say. “Well, thanks.”

  “You bet.” He waved good-bye to the kids and then turned toward the dunes. Wordlessly, she watched him go.

  Now the kids were arguing about where to let the urchin go, and she sensed they were one spilled bucket of water away from a meltdown. But Clem couldn’t steal her gaze away, even when the young man disappeared up the path through the dunes.

  Adjacent, from her family’s own beach path, came the sound of voices. Flossy’s straw hat emerged above the beach grass, and the soft outline of her mother stepped onto the sand in a bright orange cover-up. Behind her, Evan, Samuel, and David followed, carrying beach chairs, umbrellas, and more coolers. Leave it to Flossy to have arranged and assigned the men. Paige followed with the kids.