The Summer House

by Hannah McKinnon

  “No, thanks,” Emma said. She paused by Sam, who was on his phone.

  “Find anything?”

  Emma shook her head. “Nope.”

  “Not yet,” Paige said, reaching for a sherbet-colored tankini. “What about this?”

  Emma rolled her eyes and wandered off to where Evan was looking at board shorts.

  “What’s that all about?” Sam asked.

  A group of teenage girls crowded in, bumping into them. “She found this horrendous bikini and she’s mad at me because I won’t get it,” Paige said.

  “Horrendous how?”

  The music was too loud and the racks too close. Paige was getting irritated.

  “Never mind, Sam. I need to go talk to her.” She pushed around the racks in search of Emma.

  Sam shrugged. “I’ll get it for her.”

  “Emma doesn’t need a tiny black bikini. It’s too old for her.” She found Evan and Emma at the storefront. Emma had her arms crossed.

  Evan held up a pair of board shorts. “Thoughts?”

  “Cute,” Paige said, barely glancing at them. “Emma, if you want a new suit, we can look at some more.”

  Emma kept her expression neutral, but stared right past her mother to the sidewalk outside. “No, thank you, Mother.” There it was again—the stone-faced politeness that reeked of fury.

  “I think I’m going to buy these,” Evan said, excusing himself.

  “Emma, please,” Paige said.

  “Mom. Stop. I said I’m fine.”

  Paige gave up. Clearly Emma didn’t want to talk or shop. She glanced at her watch: 12:30. She needed to eat something. They’d all feel better if they ate something. “Let’s wait for the uncles outside and go find Grampa.” Emma didn’t argue.

  It was hot, and Bay Street was thickening with the midday crowd who had left the beach and come into town for ice cream and a little shopping. Older couples dressed in pressed white shorts and collared shirts passed. Paige swept the back of her hand across her sweaty forehead. How did they stay so crisp? A young couple pushing a stroller with red-faced twins went past. Both babies were holding melting ice cream cones and crying. The father looked like he was about to join them. Paige smiled at Emma; thank God that phase was over. “Things could be worse,” she said, patting Emma’s back. Emma took one step out of her reach. Paige tried not to sigh.

  When they finally emerged, Sam and Evan each had a bag. “Did you get the red suit?” Paige asked, trying to sound enthused.

  “Blue,” Evan corrected her. “That and a golf shirt.” He pulled a pink vineyard vines collared shirt out of the bag. Evan could totally pull off pink.

  “Nice,” Paige said. “What about you?”

  Sam shook his head. “Oh, nothing for me.”

  She was about to ask him what was in the bag when he smiled broadly and handed it past her to Emma. “Something for you, my dear.”

  Emma’s face lit up. She peered inside and lifted out the black triangle bikini. “You didn’t!” she shrieked. She flung her arms around his neck. “Thank you, Uncle Sam!”

  “Just a little something from the uncles,” Sam said.

  Evan’s eyes traveled from Sam’s to Paige’s. “Uh, from one uncle, anyway,” he rushed to add.

  Paige could feel her blood rise into her ears. Emma caught herself and tucked the bathing suit back into the bag. She averted her gaze sheepishly.

  “What?” Sam asked, holding up both hands.

  He knew what. “I told Emma she couldn’t get that suit.” Paige’s voice was clipped with the strain of keeping her tone even. “I didn’t think it was appropriate for her.”

  Sam shrugged. “It’s a swimsuit. She’s a teenager. What’s the big deal?”

  Here it was again: someone in the family undermining her authority, someone questioning her judgment. But worst of all, someone else bringing the smile to her daughter’s face that she could not.

  Evan leaned in. “Sam, we should take it back.”

  Sam turned to Emma. “Don’t you like that suit?”

  “Sam!” Paige snapped. She was a child. Her child. How dare he thrust her in the middle of their rivalry, let alone position her like that against her own mother? She’d deal with him later. Now, she looked at Emma, eyes round and threatening to fill with tears. Not here on Bay Street, not in front of her daughter.

  Emma stared at her flip-flops. “I do like the suit,” she said in a small voice. Paige wanted to grab Sam by the neck and shake him. “But Mom said no,” Emma added. And then she handed the bag over calmly. Not to Sam, but to her mother. Paige exhaled.

  “Thank you.”

  Emma looked away. But before she did, her eyes grazed Paige’s, and in them Paige saw a flash of it: that undulating ribbon that still connected them. The fabric of familiarity as visceral as the flesh they shared.

  Sam pivoted on the sidewalk. “Fine,” he said, holding up the bag like it contained something offensive. “I’ll take it back.” He was such an ass.

  Paige ignored him, putting her arm around Emma’s shoulders. She turned her up the street toward the sound of the carousel and the beach. It was a narrow victory, but the only one that counted. “Come on,” she said, her voice false, too bright even for the midday light. “Who’s hungry?”

  Flossy

  Gravlax

  Quail eggs and cucumber

  Roasted Fig Crostini

  Stuffed Oysters

  Grapefruit Gimlets

  Flossy poured over the appetizer course for the party for the hundredth time, and sat back contentedly in her Adirondack chair. She took a deep sip of her mint-iced tea. It was all coming together, finally. The kids, the food, the party.

  At the edge of the yard, dune grass stirred in the breeze. It was a sensational morning, but then all July mornings at the summer house were so. She’d been relieved when the kids had gone into town to do some shopping. Clem, Ned, and the little ones had stayed behind to play on the beach. Clem sure was intent on getting the most out of the beach this summer; she was the first one to suit up and head through the back door every morning, and the last one to straggle up the beach path, sun-soaked and sand-weary. Well, there was nothing as healing as the ocean, as Flossy had been telling them all for years. At least one of her offspring had figured out that their mother knew a thing or two.

  She wandered inside, adjusting piles of notes and images she’d compiled on the kitchen counter. She ran her finger down the spines of her hardest-working cookbooks: Julia Child, The Joy of Cooking, and Jean-Georges, whose exquisite lobster tails with mace butter had gone to waste that first night everyone arrived. No matter; she’d put Jean-Georges back on the beat. There was still his Black Pepper Shrimp that she’d seize upon if she had to.

  Joe was finishing up the trim work in the front hall, whistling quietly as he worked. Flossy sighed. She’d made peace with the paint. Now it was time to tuck one more conciliatory feather in her cap. She picked up the phone and dialed.

  “Hello, Judy, it’s Flossy. Such a gorgeous day. How are you?” She was at risk of babbling.

  Judy Broadbent did not reply right away. “Hello, Flossy. It is indeed.”

  Wasn’t Judy going to ask how she was?

  “Well, things are going very well over here,” Flossy went on. “The kids are in town doing a little last-minute party shopping. So excited for their father’s big day! You know how Paige loves to shop.” She faltered. She had no indications that any of her children gave a hill of beans about their poor father’s birthday. And Paige hated to shop. That was Clem. She grimaced at the kitchen sink.

  Judy cleared her throat. “That’s all very nice. But I should share that I’m expecting an important call this morning. Although I despise call waiting, since it’s my doctor I’m waiting on, I’m afraid I’ll have to take it should he call in. You understand, of course.”

  Was that a question? And what were the odds of Judy’s doctor calling in at that precise moment? Flossy glanced at the wall clock. Eleven thirty.
Everyone knew doctors didn’t return patient calls until during lunch or after hours. Judy was rushing her. Well, fine. Flossy had no desire to extend this conversation, either. Judy could’ve saved them both this annoyance if she’d just handed the recipe over months ago.

  “Of course, I understand. Anyway, I’m going over some final notes for the party menu, which is coming together beautifully, and which the caterer needs today. So, I’m hoping you’ve had a chance to locate Ci Ci Le Blanc’s stuffed oyster—”

  “Oh! Just a moment,” Judy interjected.

  Flossy let her breath out. Could it be that easy? Was Judy poised to pluck the recipe from her files and dictate it over the phone, right then and there? Flossy scrabbled furiously through her kitchen junk drawer in search of a pen.

  Judy came back on the line, her voice bright. “Wouldn’t you know, it’s my doctor’s office. I’ll be just a moment.” And before, Flossy reply, there was a sudden click, followed by silence. Judy had all the nerve.

  Flossy retrieved her coffee mug from the kitchen sink and took a deep swig of the lukewarm liquid at the bottom. As soon as Judy came back on the line Flossy would cut right to the chase. Judy had held her appetizer list hostage long enough.

  When Judy came back, Flossy would make up her own interruption to cut off any more possibilities for stonewalling. Oh dear, Judy, wouldn’t you know? That’s my painter, Joe. Did I mention we’re having the whole house repainted? I’m afraid he needs me, but I’ll pop over in an hour to pick up that recipe. Thanks, again! That’s what she’d say.

  Suddenly the phone clicked again. She cleared her throat to speak. And then the line went dead.

  Flossy stared at the receiver and put it back to her ear. “Hello? Judy?” There was nothing but a dial tone. The call had ended.

  Flossy huffed. Surely Judy Broadbent had not hung up on her. Even she wouldn’t stoop that low. Had she forgotten Flossy was waiting on the other line? Would Judy call back? Flossy returned the phone abruptly to its receiver. She stared at it, waiting. Willing it to ring. It did not.

  Flossy slammed her coffee mug back down in the porcelain sink, where it promptly cracked right down the middle. At that moment Joe poked his head in the kitchen doorway. “Heading out for lunch,” he said.

  Flossy crossed her arms. “That wench.”

  Sam

  He checked his phone again. The only message he had was from Adya detailing a contact error she’d caught, which she’d found and sent to one of the younger managers on the project, Craig. Shit. He’d forgotten to include those papers in the file he’d left for him. Thank God for Adya, she was worth twice her weight in bullion. At the end of the message she asked, “Any news?” He stuffed his phone into his shorts pocket. Adya wasn’t asking about the Shanghai office.

  Sam knew she meant well; she was thinking about them and worrying about them in the same way his parents were. This wasn’t their first rodeo as adoptive parents. The last one had nearly broken them, and Sam wasn’t sure if he and Evan could go through a disappointment like that again this summer. In fact, he was pretty sure they could not.

  It was late afternoon, and Evan was upstairs in their bedroom napping. Sam had intended to join him—how he wanted to, when he walked in the darkened room and saw the shades drawn and Evan’s supple limbs sticking out from the cool white bedding—but he was still amped up from town. Paige had given him such shit about Emma’s bathing suit. Christ, with all the running she did, she should be far less strung out. He’d meant it as a gift for Emma, but he couldn’t help it—seeing how worked up it made his sister still gave him some perverse kind of sibling pleasure. But when it was all said and done, he regretted it, and now it was under his skin. That, and the pressing thoughts on the adoption application. He needed to walk it off on the beach.

  The last thing they’d heard from the agency was that Mara would be getting in touch with the couple she’d chosen by the end of the month. Sam and Evan had not commented on this; nor had they dared to celebrate having made it this far. This new sense of caution was something they’d acquired from the last failed experience. They would still be competing with the most innate urge of all: the visceral pull of a mother to her newborn. Sam tried to envision the process as a series of hoops, just as he did with his job. There was the scouting period, where product was aligned with a consumer. The period of educating said consumer or buyer about the services that could be provided, the need to be met. This was followed by an investment period, where a deal was made or a buyer hooked. The remaining stretch was the longest. Sam tried to imagine them at that stage. It was the news they were still waiting on. And it made him edgy. He needed to run.

  As he stretched, he glanced back at the house, half expecting Paige to trail him outside and down to the beach, as she had in high school. He was the one on the cross-country team, but suddenly Paige had decided she enjoyed running, too—and lo and behold—she was good at it! While she never formally went out for the team (which he suspected had more to due with Flossy’s intervention—he later learned that she’d redirected Paige’s aspirations toward field hockey, a measure probably taken to give Sam some sense of athletic autonomy in the household of competitive siblings), Sam had loathed the fact that she often shadowed him on his practice runs. She didn’t brag or taunt, but it was the nature of her being there, and keeping up, that taunted him most. The screen door slapped shut; it was Richard.

  “Heading to the beach?”

  Sam shook his head. “Just for a run.”

  His father nodded, gazing at the bluffs behind him. “Perfect weather this week. Your mother couldn’t have ordered a better one.”

  Sam smiled. He wouldn’t have put it past her.

  Richard came down the back porch steps, stopping to sit on the last one. “We should grab the fishing poles and cast some lines.”

  Sam looked up. It was an invitation. Just as he had when faced with his sleeping husband’s form stretched luxuriously across the bed, he declined. “Sorry, Dad, I’m just taking a short run to clear my had. I’ve got a work thing I have to sort out.”

  Sam could feel the disappointment settle in the air between them. “Another time, then.”

  He felt guilty. He’d barely spent a moment with his father, certainly not one alone. How was it that every time he visited his family, he arrived with grandiose notions of long walks and meaningful conversations, only to be stymied by the constant charge of children’s interruptions or inclement weather, or if he was most honest, his own reservations. Richard was aging; the fact of gathering for his seventy-fifth birthday was proof plenty. But still Sam couldn’t seem to get past the divide he sensed between them.

  “How about after dinner?” he asked quickly. “I’ll make it up to you.”

  Richard stood and smiled good-naturedly. “Nothing to make up for, it’s just an invitation to fish.” But Sam knew it was more than that.

  Chiding himself, he turned for the beach path, his thoughts returning to Adya’s question. He was pretty sure it was the same question his father was hoping to ask him. Whether they acknowledged it or not, the truth was they were all keeping their own vigil, silently awaiting word.

  Sam strolled down the dune path and onto the beach. He turned left onto a mile-long stretch of sand ahead of him that snaked down the beach and eventually curved right to the point. He kept along the water where the ground was wet and firm, the balls of his bare feet creating small divots where they struck sand. How he loved the feel of the sand between his toes. It took him back to the endless summer afternoons of his childhood when time was as slow and thick as the humid July weather. The thing was, Sam was relieved there was no word. Because the news everyone else was hoping for was quite different from the breaking news he feared. Since that afternoon he’d uttered them two weeks ago at their last meeting with the adoptive mother, he’d been replaying the words he’d said over and over in his head. Trying to determine if they were as definitive as he thought. Had he really crossed a line? Because the pow
er of suggestion was something quite different than an actual suggestion, and what Sam most feared was that he hadn’t just made a flippant comment to this nineteen-year-old woman—that, in fact, he’d offered an outright bribe.

  What remained was whether or not Mara actually understood what he’d offered. He realized that if she had not, he was in the clear. Mara wouldn’t feel pressured and there would be nothing unethical that she could report to the agency or to her attorney; there’d be no repercussions and they could just wait and see how things panned out naturally. It should’ve been a relief to him. But Sam was in a boatload more trouble than just that because he realized that a large part of him actually hoped she had understood. In fact, he was betting on her understanding exactly what it was he had laid on the table and hoping that she’d take him up on it. Was that cause for culpability? They’d already suffered through the change of heart with Tania. Evan had gone into a depression so deep he’d taken a short leave of absence from work. For days he’d stayed home, sleeping through whole afternoons and pacing the loft at night. When Sam had tried to talk to him about it—proposed they return to the agency for the “support” sessions that Malayka had strongly suggested they do—Evan had balked.

  One night, when Sam returned from work, the nursery was no longer. The small office desk was back from the storage unit, tucked in the corner of the room. The green chenille rug had been rolled up and the vintage baby toys stripped from the shelf, replaced with their old architecture and travel books. Evan would not speak of the baby. It went on like this for over a week, and Sam was ready to call the agency, or Flossy, or anyone, until one morning, Evan had risen early, showered, dressed, and gone to work. Everything had seemed to return to normal, except for the hulking dark space that had settled between them. No, Sam wouldn’t let them suffer through all that again.

  He quickened his pace. Sam was smarter than that. Regardless of what words had tumbled from his lips that day, it wasn’t the delivery or the timing or the words themselves that held the power—it was how Mara perceived them. Inferences. Implications. Offers. He thought of the Nietzsche quote he’d fallen in love with during his freshmen year philosophy class. So much so, he’d had it printed and framed for his office wall as a reminder that in his line of work he was not dealing so much with the concrete transactions of funds and properties, but in the managing of mindsets. “All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.”