The Summer House

by Hannah McKinnon

  Sam couldn’t argue it. He was feeling generous. “I don’t know. I guess I realized that the week is halfway over, and I want to enjoy it.” He turned to Evan. “Does it seem disingenuous?”

  Evan considered this. “No, I wouldn’t say that.”

  “What then?”

  “I was just wondering what took you so long.” He slipped his hand into Sam’s and they continued down the beach after the kids. Sam tipped his head back to the sun. This, he thought. This was what he’d been chasing.

  It had been a long year, a year of starts and stalls, and steps backward. Sam wasn’t used to the stepping back part. At work, as in his personal life, he’d always had to push. When one angle didn’t work, he’d approach from another. There was always a way to get there, if he persisted. But that hadn’t been the case with adoption, or with Evan. He’d entered into a process that required surrender.

  “It’s been hard,” Evan said, as if reading Sam’s thoughts. “I’ve been worried about us.”

  “Don’t be. We are going to make this work.”

  Evan stopped. “That’s not the part I’m talking about. I’m talking about us.” His brown eyes softened and Sam felt his own insides giving, too.

  “We’re fine,” he insisted. Though he didn’t believe the words any more than he felt Evan did. They had not been fine, not in a while, and there was the thing he still hadn’t told Evan. That was certainly not fine. Up the beach, George and Maddy were bent over the sweeping deposits of seaweed at the high tide mark, looking for treasures. Ned was knee-deep in the waves looking out toward Block Island. Sam squinted in its direction, but the horizon wasn’t clear enough to see it today.

  “Evan, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  Maddy shouted up the beach to them. “Look what we found!”

  Evan started toward her, but Sam grabbed his arm. He didn’t want to say it, but he had to. Here, on the beach today, he’d known he had to. It felt right.

  “Can it wait?” Evan asked, gesturing ahead. Both kids were waving at them.

  Sam blurted it out. “I said something to Mara.”

  Evan stopped. “What do you mean?”

  He’d been over this a thousand times in his head: to tell Evan or not to tell. The principles for doing so, the reasons for keeping it to himself. In all the sleepless hours and distracted days he’d never once thought how.

  “When we were in New Jersey the last time, at the end of our meeting, she told us that she wanted to go back to school.”

  Evan nodded impatiently. “To get her nursing degree.”

  “I wanted to help.”

  “Help Mara?”

  Sam dug his foot into the sand. “Sort of. No.” He met Evan’s gaze. “I wanted to help us.”

  Evan’s face fell. “What did you say to her?”

  “I don’t remember exactly, but . . .”

  “Tell me what you said, Sam.”

  Sam had to look him in the eye, but when he did the words fell away. “I thought maybe I could help her out somehow. It started out as a gesture, but I guess she could have taken it a different way.”

  “Sam.” Evan’s voice rose about the beach.

  “She was worried about getting in, and she said that even if she did, she wasn’t sure how she was going to pay for it. And I insinuated that I’d take care of it.”

  Evan threw up his hands. “Take care of it? As in, get her accepted into the program? Or did you mean put her through college?”

  “I don’t know how she took it! That’s just it. She didn’t say anything, and she’s not contacted me since. Maybe she just thought I was being nice.” He reached for Evan’s hand, but he pulled it away.

  “You bribed her, Sam. That’s bribery!”

  “I know. It was wrong.”

  “Wrong? It’s illegal!” Evan spun away from him and started walking toward the kids. Then he turned and came back. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? You may have just jeopardized our chances of getting our baby!”

  “I’ll talk to Mara, I promise. I’ll clear this up!”

  “Mara? This goes well beyond her. I’m talking about the agency, Sam. God knows what the protocol is when this kind of thing happens, but I’m sure there’s some kind of list. We’re going to be flagged! We could be reported, or worse!” Evan stood as close as he could without making contact. His voice low, he spoke through his teeth. “You may have blown it for us.” He turned down the beach, the way they’d come. Sam started to follow.

  Sam had known Evan would be angry—furious, even. Because what he’d done was awful. But now, hearing Evan say these things out loud brought it all out into the light. And it was a far more dangerous beast than he’d acknowledged.

  “Evan, I’m sorry!” he called after him. Evan did not turn around. Sam swiveled back to the kids, the roar of the ocean in his head. Ned was watching them curiously from a distance. The little ones had moved on down the beach.

  Sam tried to lighten his tone as he waved the kids in. “Come on, guys! Time to head back.”

  Maddy sat down on her haunches. “But you didn’t see my collection yet!”

  He glanced back longingly at Evan’s distant figure. Even from here, he could see the anger in his clipped stride and the roll of his shoulders. Then, against his will, he went to where George and Maddy were seated, cross-legged, in the wet sand. “Yes, Maddy. Show Uncle Sam.”

  Sam wanted to turn back down the beach for Evan. He wanted to yell at the kids to get up, get moving. What he most did not want to do was stand here a second longer and force himself to sit still during a five-year-old’s show-and-tell of a bunch of broken sea shells. But he went over anyway.

  Maddy held out her closed fists, palms up, and then opened them with flair. “Ta-da!” With great care, she deposited her treasures one by one in his open hand: twists of dried jade-green seaweed, a razor shell, a pink stone. As she did Sam stared at her cherubic hands, at the baby dimples across her knuckles. With each brush of her sandy little fingers his chest ached. What he really wanted to do was cry.

  Clem

  Fritz was wrong. The full moon wouldn’t officially occur until that Saturday night, the evening of her father’s birthday party, as luck would have it. But it was almost full—an asymmetrical yellow orb hanging low in the skyline over the bluff. It gave off just enough light that she could make out the dune grass tips bending in the evening breeze. She glanced at the clock: eight thirty-five.

  It was an unusual night of early retreats at the house. The kids were tucked in. David and Paige had retired separately. Her to her room, “to call to the animal hospital manager and check in,” and he to the back deck with a beer. Evan and Sam had also split that evening. Sam had gone for a walk, and Evan had begged off to read in bed, having claimed a headache. Leaving Richard and Flossy alone in the living room with cups of tea and a deck of cards, which probably suited them both at this point in the week. As much as her mother demanded (no, commanded) everyone’s presence and participation, even Flossy seemed worn out from the party planning and the ever rounding-up of family members. Meal after meal, wet swimsuit after wet towel, the endless setting up and breaking down of activities grew tiring. If Clem had to face one more sand-crusted bottle of sunscreen that needed to be applied to each of her offspring, she’d cry. Which was exactly what had driven her to tiptoe upstairs with a magazine and the promise of a quiet night alone.

  She preferred these kinds of nights, honestly. While the group outings and Trivial Pursuit evenings were fun in a boisterous way, Clem had long understood that of all her family members she was the most introverted. She loved to socialize, of course, but it required an energy she could not sustain long-term. And a family vacation was a nonstop onslaught of the senses: clanking of pots and dishes in the kitchen, voices rising and falling in conversations, children crying one minute, shrieking in a fit of laughter the next. And always, the incessant slap of the screen door as people strayed in and out, in and out. They were the comforting
sounds of the summer house, all of them. Sounds that harkened back to her own childhood when her parents were gatekeepers of adulthood, and Clem’s only real concern was which swimsuit to wear to the beach, or which flavor of saltwater taffy to purchase at the candy store off of Bay Street. How things had changed. Now she was not just an adult and a parent, but she was the adult and parent. If someone awoke sick in the night, it fell to her to fly out of bed and face it, sometimes leaving her racing between vomit-soiled sheets and a child retching over the toilet bowl. If someone was hungry, thirsty, sad, happy, in need of a nap, a hug, a scolding—it was all on her. Which is why she did not feel an ounce of guilt, as she might have any other year before, when she stole upstairs with a copy of Better Homes & Gardens tucked under her arm and an icy glass of lemonade.

  Stretched on her bed, she flipped to an article on coastal gardens, allowing her eyes to roam lazily over hollyhocks and zinnias, a wave of rest following. But it did not last. At her open window, the curtains stirred. She sat up and listened; no music tonight, not even the roar of the tide coming in below. But the humid air was heavy with the scent of salt and the weight of water. She tried to settle back against the pillows. But the breeze picked up, the curtain dancing against the window screen. She rose.

  Below, across the yard, was just a stretch of darkness. But beyond it, the reflection of the low moon over the water bathed the incoming tide in golden rivulets. She reached for her sweater on the chair, and it was then she noticed Fritz’s sweatshirt. She stared at the faded red color and pressed it to her nose: it smelled of sunscreen and sun. And something else—that filled her with loneliness.

  The night air was heavy, but as she trotted down the trail through the dunes, the wind picked up, so much so that by the time Clem stepped onto the sand a gust blasted the hair away from her face. Down here on the beach, the roar of the tide was thunderous. She knew it must be the moon.

  To the right, the spot where the Weitzman’s beach path ended was empty. She zipped her hoodie up and looked up and down the dark beach in both directions, but there was no sign of Fritz or any other visitor out there. Clem walked down to the water’s edge.

  The ocean had always seemed fluctuating to her; during the day it was the deep green rolling playground from her youth. By sunset, it was placid—the waters flat and glasslike, stretching out in pink and yellow ribbons beneath the last of the day’s light. But now, at night, it was ominous. The tides encroached, lapping hungrily up the beach toward the houses. It reminded her of a storm every time. Watching the crashing surf and listening to the pounding it made upon the beach was alarming, almost as much as the imagined sea creatures she pictured farther out in the quiet depths of darkness. When they were kids, Sam and Paige would think nothing of peeling off their sweaters and diving in for a night swim, catching waves and bodysurfing right up onto the beach, whooping as they rode in on invisible waves. But not Clem; she’d stayed on the safety of the sand, nestled among the dunes, or perhaps seated on a log of driftwood. She envied their brazenness. She still did.

  Now, she walked timidly to meet the incoming surf. It surged in, swallowing her feet, tugging underneath her heels. She hopped back, regaining her footing. In the distance she could see the lights of a couple of boats, large yachts and sailing vessels. But even they were part of the sea, leaving her alone and vulnerable on the wet sand. In that instant, she longed for Ben. She felt closer to him at night, always had since he’d left them. And so she forced herself to lock her feet into the sand, despite the churning water that moved in and around her, pulling and pushing. She stood strong and still, eyes bent on the horizon line where black sky met black sea, waiting. But no matter how hard she tried, she could not feel Ben tonight, and the thought left her bereft. Clem raised her eyes to the almost-full moon. Where was he?

  A blast of wind came in off the water and, combined with the surf, she stumbled backwards. It was enough. Clem turned back up the beach. Her pace quickened as she approached the dunes, the wind at her back. The gusts were so fierce now, she couldn’t differentiate between water and wind, and suddenly she yearned to be back in her bed. The summer house lights flickered above on the bluff, faint but present, and she ran up the sandy incline to the dunes. She was at the base of the beach path when suddenly someone caught her sleeve, pulled her back. She yelped.

  “Clem, it’s me.” It was Fritz. She could just make out his profile against the filtered light coming from the houses along the bluff.

  “God, you scared me!” She put a hand to her chest. Then, seeing the look on his face, she started to laugh.

  “Sorry! I thought you saw me coming.” He watched her curiously, as she doubled over in laughter. “Do you always laugh when you’ve encountered perceived danger, or are you amused to see me?”

  Clem straightened, stifling her giggles. “Do you always sneak up behind women on a dark beach and grab their arm?” she teased. Seeing the worry on his face, she back-pedaled. “I’m fine, really, just a nervous reaction.”

  Fritz smiled. “Good. I was just coming down to take a walk.”

  She paused, hoping he’d ask her to join him. It was then she saw he was holding two bottles. “With two beers?” She didn’t want to read into it, but had he been hoping to see her? But no, he could’ve easily polished off two beers on his own.

  Fritz held the beers up between them. He didn’t answer her, but instead asked, “Would you like one?”

  “Drink and walk?” she asked.

  “Preferred to drink and drive.”

  Clem grinned. Fritz’s voice still held a note of boyishness, so familiar to her from childhood. It was the kind of voice she would enjoy staying up late listening to on the phone. “I was just heading home, actually,” she said. Which was exactly what she did not feel like doing anymore. What was she doing? Fritz was so young. And she was so . . . tired. But despite the long day and the late hour, suddenly Clem wanted nothing more than to stay down there on the beach.

  Fritz peered over her shoulder, toward the bonfire area below. A few orange embers still glowed in the distance. “Looks like I did a lousy job putting the fire out. I heard some kids down here earlier.”

  “Yeah, but the tide will take care of that,” Clem said. “Unless . . .” Here was her chance.

  “Unless what?”

  “You any good at making fires?”

  Fritz followed her gaze to the smoldering pile of driftwood, a smile spreading across his face. “I’m the king of beach bonfires.”

  “The king?” Relief flooded her chest. To hell with age differences and a good night’s sleep. “Okay, then your highness. I think I’ll have that beer.”

  They got the fire going again with a few pieces of driftwood and some dried seaweed Clem collected from the high tide area. As she scoured the sand for more pieces of wood, she glanced over her shoulder at Fritz, who was bent over the flames. She admired the strong curve of his back, the quick speed with which he worked.

  If he was trying to hide his pleasure in the fact that she was staying, Fritz did a lousy job of it. As the fire crackled and spit, he talked animatedly about his family, about his mother, Cora, Flossy’s dear friend, who was in Europe at the moment with her sister. About his sister, Suzy, and her kids, whom he was clearly crazy about.

  “What about a girlfriend?” Clem braved. It was none of her business, and yet it was a question she’d been pushing to the back of her tongue until the beer started to soften her resolve.

  Fritz shrugged. “What about her would you like to know?”

  “Ah, so there is one.”

  He shook his head. “There was, but we ended things before graduation. Claire’s down in Atlanta now. I guess we made more sense in the bubble of our campus life than we did in the real world.”

  “Geography can be hard.”

  “Nah, it was more about who she was. Claire was sharp but she was so indecisive. Her father was really well connected, and she landed a ton of interviews all over the country. She finally settled
on New York. When she got a great job offer in Manhattan, she turned it down to stay in Durham and take a year off working at a clothing boutique.”

  “A clothing boutique? After three years of law school?”

  Fritz shook his head. “If that was what she wanted to do from the start, fine. But I want someone who knows herself. Who has a little more pluck.” He glanced at her. “Like you.”

  Clem snorted. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. My compass has been spun completely out of whack this year. As for pluck . . .”

  “No, I’m not talking about this past year. I’m talking about who you always were. Remember the dunes by the Spinner house?”

  Clem did. Halfway up the beach was the highest point of grassy dune. Beneath it, the sand had been eroded away so that when you stood on top of the dune and looked down it was a straight drop of about ten feet. The kids used to line up at the edge and peer over, daring one another to jump. It used to scare her to death.

  Fritz elbowed her gently. “You were the youngest in your family, but whenever we climbed those dunes, you always jumped first. I liked that about you.”

  Clem couldn’t help it; she blushed. “Tell me about law school,” she said, switching the subject.

  He told Clem about his decision to go to Duke and how disappointed his dad had been that he didn’t go to Dartmouth, as he had. When she congratulated him on graduating, he also told her that it was his opinion that anyone, really, could go to law school. It was a matter of discipline, yes, and a passion for the law, too. But also the ability to memorize.

  “So what you’re saying is that you have a good memory?” she asked.

  Fritz feigned confusion. “When did I say that?”

  Clem laughed and blurted out, “Ben is a lawyer, too.” Then she caught herself. “I mean, was.”

  Fritz studied her for a moment. “I know. And I was so sorry to hear of your loss.” He paused. “How are you doing?”

  It was the invitation Clem had been waiting for. She did not know exactly how to answer that, as her answer changed moment to moment, but she began to try. And once she began, she talked for what seemed like hours. Clem told Fritz how they’d met at a sports bar in college and how she hadn’t cared much for Ben when her friends introduced them (too fixated on the televised football game), but how he’d won her over at the very end of the night by listing every personal detail he’d picked up on over the course of the evening, from the name of her roommate’s cat (Simon), to a novel she couldn’t put down (Mansfield Park), while she’d assumed he’d been absorbed in the game. And how he wanted to memorize each and every one of those details. They’d started dating that night.