Even though they were all returning to the same house, their soon-to-be-sold summer house, there was a heavy pause and then they each hugged and kissed their parents and thanked them for dinner.
Flossy guided the little kids into the back of the Bug. The rest of them stood in the driveway and watched the Volkswagon convertible drive away.
Emma leaned against her father. “So, this is our last summer in Westerly?”
David put an arm around each of his teens. “Let’s take a walk and give your mom a minute with her brother and sister. Evan, you’re welcome to join us if you want.”
Sam put a hand on Evan’s arm. “Please, I want you to stay.”
“Well isn’t anyone else going to cry?” Clem asked. She felt like she was ten years old again, unable to contain her feelings or her words. Her siblings just stared back at her miserably.
Finally, the valet pulled around with her car. She handed the keys to Evan. “I’m too upset to drive home.” The news was too fresh, too hard to hold.
David and the kids took the Volvo, and the others piled into Clem’s just as they had as teenagers. As they pulled away from the Ocean House and Clem looked back at its glowing portico and the sea behind it, her heart swelled. No one spoke on the ride home.
It was late when they got back. She tucked the kids into bed, and was relieved that both were nearly asleep by the time their little heads hit their pillows. Richard and Flossy had retired to their room, wordlessly. In the kitchen, Sam, David, Paige and Evan crowded around the kitchen island.
Sam opened a bottle of Cabernet intended for the party and gave each of them a deep pour. “We knew this day would come. They’re getting older. I don’t blame them for wanting to let go.”
Clem swung around to face him. “You’re not the least bit upset?”
“Of course I am, but I also see the sense in it. It’s part of their retirement. It’s a smart business decision.”
Paige, who’d been silent, spoke up. “We all knew it was coming, but we’ve had this place so long, it just seemed like we would forever.”
“You can tell it hurt them,” Evan said, softly. “I think Flossy’s right about honoring tomorrow. Your dad’s birthday, the house, all of it.”
“I just don’t see why they didn’t tell us all sooner,” David wondered aloud. “It must’ve been a burden for them to keep to themselves all week.”
“There’s got to be another way,” Clem said. She wasn’t willing to talk realtor-free transactions or emotional burdens. She wanted to take action. “I have some money left from Ben’s estate—what if we all . . . ?”
“No!” Paige said. “You can’t, Clemmy. That’s an emotional knee-jerk reaction.”
“But you cried at dinner,” Clem reminded her. “Fine, then what about you guys?” She looked at all of them, waiting.
David winced. “Clem, I like the idea, but I’m looking for a job.”
She felt awful as soon as he said it.
“And I’ve expanded the practice,” Paige added. “Ned starts college in two years.”
“So that’s it, then? We just toast Dad tomorrow, wake up the next day and pack our bags and don’t look back?” Clem was furious with them all. Where was the emotion she was experiencing? Was she the only one to cherish the years here—didn’t any one of them want to hang on to that, or at least try to?
“What are our options?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know, but quitting out of the gate isn’t like you, Sam. Where’s your fight? Yours, too, Paige. You two duke it out over every dinner, but you can’t summon some of that to at least consider what we can do to save this place?”
“Save it? Clemmy, it’s not like someone’s dying,” Sam insisted.
She felt the air go out of the room. Clem closed her eyes, as the kitchen swayed in front of her. She had to get out of there.
Sam turned to her and grabbed both arms. “Wait. I didn’t mean it like that.”
She let Sam hold her and let him look right through her, at all the hurt she knew was behind the green eyes Ben used to sing about. Everyone was waiting to see what she’d do.
Clem laughed. She couldn’t help it. A small, strangled laugh escaped her mouth. Sam squeezed her hands harder. “You know, that’s the funny thing, you guys. Someone did die.” She pulled her hands gently from Sam’s, first one then the other. He let her.
“He already died. So you don’t have to worry about me. The worst thing that could happen already did.”
“Clemmy, honey.” It was Paige, in her right ear. Then Evan. The kitchen was still swaying, but it was slowing down. She thought of the orange bottle on her dresser. She could feel the dry pill under her tongue. But no. She didn’t want that.
“I’ll be right back,” she said.
Evan looked alarmed. “Where are you going? Want me to come?”
Clem shook her head. “Just to the bathroom. I’m okay. Really.”
She felt the weight of their eyes on her back as she walked to the front of the house. She opened the bathroom door, splashed water on her face and stood looking in the mirror.
When she came back out, she stopped by the front door. She could hear them talking. Probably about her. No way was she going back in there. Quietly, Clem slipped through the front door and out into the night.
The beach path was rough beneath her feet: cold sand, sharp grass. But she ran. When she reached the base, she did not head straight for the water. This time she turned right, and headed up to the Weitzmans’.
Clem was done worrying—about the kids, about getting through each day and sleeping through each night. She was tired of the empty space at the base of her spine where Ben used to rest his hand, guiding her into a room or up a sidewalk on any given day. She was tired of being alone and lonely, two things so different but that caused an ache that anchored her in place, unable to imagine allowing someone else to fill that void. Tonight something in her shifted. Whether it was the news of their beloved home, and with it all of its memories, being sold, or the realization that time went on, no matter how many things, good or bad, took place within its hours. Clem did not have hours to waste worrying anymore. All she had was right now. And right now she wanted to take some of those hours for herself, without wondering for a single beat if it was selfish or wise, and spend it. She quickened her pace across the sand.
Her way was well lit as the back porch of the Weitzmans’ summer place was illuminated by the hurricane lamps on either side of the back door. She climbed the sandy stairs. Clem had not been here since she was a teenager, but nothing had changed. Through the sliding door screen she could hear music. Inside, someone stood at the kitchen sink in madras shorts. She went to the screen door.
“Fritz.”
He spun around, but didn’t seem surprised. “Clementine.”
Fritz crossed the floor to meet her at the door, and she watched him move toward her. He was so boyish in nature, and yet he had the build of a man. He was a man. When he opened the screen door aside, she had one question. “Are your parents back from their trip?”
He shook his head. “They drive up tomorrow.” And before he could ask her what she was doing there or what she might need, Clem stepped inside, pressed her hands against his bare chest and tilted her head up to his. She kissed him firmly on the mouth, her eyes searching his face. The planes of his cheekbones, the dark lashes over his eyes. Again and again she pressed her mouth to his and he responded. Clem was not a mother, not a widower. Clem was not grieving her life, her childhood, the summers that defined her. Here, in Fritz’s arms, she was flesh and bone. And longing. When he lifted her up and carried her into the living room, she curled into him like a child. Tenderly he set her upon the couch and stepped back a moment, taking her in. Under his gaze, she felt herself yield. Clem did not think about slipping her shirt up over her head. She moved fluid as water, fabric rolling over hips, hair spilling over her breasts. A skirt spilling on to the floor.
Fritz waited for her.
&n
bsp; She reached for his hand and pulled him in, like the tide.
Paige
It was low tide, and she hiked along the exposed rocks on the bay side of Napatree Point. Sandpipers skittered along the watery outskirts. The sun was high, and she lifted her binoculars to her eyes and looked east. In the distance a shore heron stood on one leg in the shallows of a tidal pool. It arced its neck, danced forward, and speared the water. There was a splash, and it emerged with a spindly legged fiddler crab in its beak.
Paige had slept little after the last twenty-four hours. She’d thought that finding Emma hung over and sick from a night drinking at a beach party had been the worst of it. Then her parents had dropped the bomb of their house decision on all of them, in the most elegant of white tablecloth dining rooms in New England, no less. She let the binoculars hang from her neck and made her way farther up the point. Tonight was her father’s birthday, and though she was sure the house would be humming with activity upon her return, she was determined to soak in the quietude of Napatree. It would get her through the day.
She didn’t know what to do about Emma. Emma, her reader, her easy-going kitchen helper, who never got sucked in to the catty issues between teenage girls at school or on social media. The kid hadn’t even wanted a phone, though her brother begged for one for years, and when she and David finally gave both one at Christmas, it was Emma who had asked if she could download the Audible app over Instagram. Friends had told Paige it was a matter of time, she was just a late bloomer. Maybe, she’d thought. But she hadn’t believed it. When Flossy met her on the stairs yesterday morning Paige was sure it had been a mistake. Surely she meant Ned. Or maybe it was that Emma was sick—some kind of stomach bug or food poisoning—because the thought of Emma staying out all night, alone, and vomiting from having been drinking, was not something Paige could compute. It wasn’t just that she was disappointed in her daughter. She was most disappointed in herself. She’d missed the signs. She hadn’t seen Emma.
Paige had raced to the couch and sat beside her, running her hands through Emma’s snarled hair, the stench of beer and throw-up profound in her mother’s living room. “Are you all right?” she kept asking, because none of this made sense and Paige, herself, was most certainly not all right. Had it been Ned, she’d have addressed him first with concern for his physical well being, reserving the emotional display for after. She was a veterinarian, a woman of science and medicine, after all. Part of her job was the intake of urgent cases—dogs who had been struck by vehicles, femurs protruding from skin, animals in shock. There was protocol to follow, and she was experienced enough to no longer feel the press of emotion in her chest when injured animals were hauled in to her waiting room by equally distraught people. But with Emma, she’d found herself useless. She’d burst into tears and wanted to shake her.
David was the one who had handled it. After determining that she did not in fact need medical attention, he’d sent her straight upstairs to shower and go to bed. Red-faced and in sore shape, Emma had obliged. He brought her water and Tylenol, along with a plate of dry toast and the subsequently requisite trash can. David was the one who stayed upstairs working on applications from their bedroom so he could hear Emma in case she became sick again or needed them. Paige had been dispatched to the beach, by all of them.
Before they went to dinner at the Ocean House, Paige had knocked on the bunkroom door and found her alone. She’d sat on Maddy’s lower bunk while Emma stood in front of the mirror brushing her hair. By then they’d covered the who, what, where, when. All Paige wanted to know was, “Why?”
Emma had been forthright. “Because I wanted to know what it was like.” An answer that Paige could appreciate for its bare honesty but found terrifying. Proof that no matter the number of verbal warnings or graphic news clippings a parent procured and shoved under their kid’s nose, there were some kids who still needed to see for themselves. Paige had looked her in the eye and said, “That’s an honest answer, honey. It’s also fucking stupid.”
Emma had recoiled, but Paige was all right with that. They were not done talking about it. And she realized that with two teens, they never would be. She’d left to get dressed and find a decent pair of shoes to wear.
Now, there was the matter of the summer house. It was a shock, no matter how they tried to reason with their parents’ decision. Paige was attached to this house in the way she was attached to her childhood self—she thought of it fondly and she felt most like herself here. But she also didn’t give it much thought. It had always been there, some childish voice in her head had reasoned, and therefore it always would be. Clem, however, was most upset. Which made sense, after all she had lost that year. But it was more than that. Paige agreed with her on some level that there should be some way to keep it in the family. She did not like the thought of Emma and Ned not being able to return here to the place where she, Sam, and Clem had run barefoot through the summers of their teens and through college. To bring their own children here to toddle along the shore, giggling at the waves that lapped their toes. She’d always imagined it so. The thought it would not be brought grief.
At the end of the point, Paige stood at the water’s edge. Richard had taken them here to hike when they were children, when he came up on the weekends. They’d come armed with nets and binoculars and a large metal pail. He’d point out the Piping Plovers, more plentiful in number back then, and the sandpipers. Richard taught them that the most stagnant and pungent pools were most rewarding. “The stinky spots are where you find the good stuff.” He was right, and Paige would follow him right into the slime and murk of low tide with her net. Unlike her sister and brother, she never minded the effusive stench. Richard delighted in that fact. When Clemmy and Sam covered their nose and howled about the smell, Richard would lean in close and whisper to her, “tourists.”
They’d identify crabs and shells, dumping them gently into the basin of the bucket to best inspect them. Afterward, he’d have them all release their treasures on the sandy stretch of sanctuary before returning home. “Leave the wild in the wild,” he liked to say.
It was time to go home. Paige’s sneakers were soaked with saltwater, and the briny smell of low tide reeked on the warm day. On her way back, she passed a well-dressed young couple with two boys, about George’s age. The boys ran ahead, picking up bits of seaweed and clamshell. As they approached a rocky outcropping by the water, one of the boys waved his hand in the air. “Peew! Let’s get out of here.”
The parents caught up to them. They were standing over a pool that she knew to be full of hermit crabs. “What is that smell?” the father asked, wrinkling his nose. He pulled the boys away from the water.
Paige continued down the beach, smiling to herself. “Tourists.”
* * *
Back at the house, Flossy was beside herself. The caterers arrived at four o’clock and began setting up. Outside in the driveway cars circled in and out, unloading. White tablecloths, white lights, white candles. The florist arrived with bunches of Endless Summer blue hydrangeas, to complement the ones Clem had cut from the family garden, and she arranged them in the crystal vases Flossy had set aside earlier in the week. The scent was intoxicating.
Sandy arrived next, in her white apron, hair pulled back in a sharp dark bun. She was efficient and calm, unlike Paige’s mother who hovered and fluttered at the edge of the preparations, asking questions and worrying out loud, before alighting to another perceived near-disaster. “Are you sure those won’t tip?” she asked the florist. Before turning her attention to the bartender, “No, I don’t want the ice kept in that ugly bin. That’s what the copper trough is for.” Then, “Good Lord, where is the copper trough?”
Paige had dressed and done her makeup early in an effort to assist her mother, not so much in setting up, as there were certainly plenty of competent people there doing just that, but to assuage her.
“Mom. Have you had anything to eat yet?”
“Eat?” Flossy’s eyes were wild. “
Have you any idea how much food there will be?”
Paige put an arm around her mother. “At six, Mom. It’s been hours since lunch, and you barely ate then. Have some cheese and crackers, please.”
Sandy addressed Flossy. “Mrs. Merrill, I’m going to set up in the kitchen now. If you would like to go get dressed, we will be fine. The menu is set, and we’ve started the grill.”
“But there’s no ice at the bar. And I want to check the table settings.”
Sandy looked at her in the same way Joe, the painter, had all week. “All taken care of, Mrs. Merrill. Now, why don’t you relax and get ready?” She handed Flossy a small plate of cheese, crackers, and thinly sliced cantaloupe and directed her to the stairs.
Flossy blinked in confusion, and submitted. It was the most polite demonstration of kicking one out of one’s own kitchen Paige had ever witnessed, and suddenly she wanted to hug this woman. She would make sure Richard tipped Sandy well.
Evan came downstairs in creamy linen pants and a sky-blue button down. He looked as crisp and cool as a late winter’s day standing among the heated flurry of deliveries and food preparation.
“Look at you!” Paige said. He took her hand and spun her around once.
“Looking lovely, yourself, Dr. Merrill.” They went outside and helped themselves to a glass of champagne each at the bar.
“Is the bar open?” David joined them, planting a kiss on Paige’s mouth before ordering a beer. Things between them felt better, if not exactly right, yet. Oddly enough the incident with Emma had helped bring them closer.
“Where are the kids?” Paige asked, looking around the yard. She spied Ned, in a pink polo shirt and shorts. “Shorts? What happened to the dress pants I ironed?”
David shrugged.
She was about to trek across the yard and tell Ned to go inside and change, but she held herself in place. Let it go, she told herself.
Clem brought the children down. Maddy wore a gingham dress with two tiny sprigs of hydrangea in each pigtail, and the effect was fairy-like. George stood like a little man in his button-down shirt, his hands in the pockets of his khakis, and for a second Paige saw Ben. She snapped a picture of him and wiped a tear from her eye. This would be a good night.
The Summer House Page 24
