The Family Beach House

by Holly Chamberlin

Tilda’s heart contracted. Weddings had always made her cry, but more so since she had lost Frank. They had married at Larchmere on an afternoon in early October. She had wanted to wear her mother’s dress but Charlotte, admittedly not sentimental, revealed that she had sold it years before to a high-end resale shop in Boston. Instead, Tilda had worn a simple, ivory satin sheath with an ivory satin bolero jacket (the woman at the bridal store had insisted that the jacket gave Tilda some much needed “padding”) and dyed-to-match kitten-heel shoes. She had danced with her father to “Moon River” and tossed her bouquet of ivory roses and green verbernum to the single women present. (Hannah had declined to participate but Ruth had joined in for the fun of it.) Oddly, now Tilda couldn’t remember who had caught it. The next day she and Frank left for a honeymoon in Jamaica, though secretly Tilda had wanted to stay in Maine. Frank had never been to a tropical island before, so for his sake, she went along and of course, they had had a good time.

  The bride modestly adjusted her bodice. An older man now stood at her side, in a tuxedo much like the groom’s. Probably her father, Tilda thought. Her proud, and slightly sad, father. Tilda turned away, tears in her eyes.

  Poor Frank. He hadn’t lived to see his daughter marry. And poor Tilda! The thought of attending the wedding of one of her children alone, without the father of those children, without Frank, reduced her to something like despair. Weddings were part of the plan. Have children, raise them, send them to college, see them married, be given grandchildren, live out the rest of your life in peace.

  But in her case the plan had gone horribly wrong. Well, she supposed that most life plans went wrong somewhere. Why were people stupid enough to plan what they couldn’t control? She had been stupid. So had Frank.

  Tilda got into her car and headed back to Larchmere. Frank! How could she possibly walk down the aisle of her daughter’s or son’s wedding on the arm of just any man, just a friend she knew from town or from work? She wanted that man to be Frank. But that was now impossible. Almost as impossible as it was to imagine attending the wedding of one of her children with someone who was a real partner, a lover, a companion, even, possibly, a husband.

  Well, Tilda supposed she could wrangle Craig into being her date, if he was around when a wedding was scheduled to take place, if she could count on him not to take to the road and leave her stranded. That was unfair. Craig was good to her, as good as he could be to anyone, she supposed. He would keep a promise to his sister.

  Still, her brother as her date to her child’s wedding was an unsatisfactory option. Unless…Tilda turned into the driveway at Larchmere, a smile creeping across her face, an idea taking shape in her mind. Yes, she would talk to Craig as soon as he arrived. There might be a solution to this problem of aloneness, for both of them.

  7

  Craig arrived at Larchmere later that morning in his usual fashion, with a toot of his horn and a call of “The festivities may commence!”

  He drove an old, rusty, red van that he had bought from a guy up in Bar Harbor at least twelve years earlier. Tilda didn’t know how it still operated. Craig did have a lot of natural “fix-it” talent but even the most inspired and talented amateur mechanic had need of a professional from time to time. Where did he get the money for a tune-up or an oil change or for new tires? He certainly had never asked her for money.

  Craig McQueen had always considered himself the odd duck of the McQueen family and indeed, a physical resemblance was hard to pinpoint. He didn’t look much like either of his parents or his siblings. His hair was blond and though his eyes were blue, surrounded by very dark lashes, they weren’t blue like his father’s or like Hannah’s. He was about five feet, eight inches, with broad shoulders and a muscular build. His coloring, too, was unlike that of the other members of his family. He seemed to have a perpetual tan while the other McQueens were pale to downright milk-skinned. Craig had always been very attractive to women—his smile was winning, his features regular, his walk confident—and he had always known it, though he had been a lot less of a cavalier or a Casanova than he let on.

  Now he was wearing slouchy jeans, beat-up leather sandals, and a mock bowling shirt. Tilda recognized the shirt as one she had given him for his birthday several years earlier. How, she wondered, and not for the first time, did he do his laundry when he wasn’t staying with her? Where did he shower and shave? (He was always clean shaven.) What did he do when he was sick? When was the last time he had seen a doctor? He certainly didn’t have health insurance. Her brother’s life was a puzzle to her.

  But maybe it didn’t have to be. She had been mulling over her plan, formulating it, since that morning in the Cove when she had seen the bride and groom. Why couldn’t she and Craig be a sort of “couple,” sharing a house and chores and meals? Why couldn’t they live together like Charles and Mary Lamb—well, without the matricide part? Or like William and Dorothy Wordsworth? Even when William married—which Tilda had no intention of doing, but Craig might, someday—Dorothy had lived with the couple. Most importantly, if she and Craig lived together neither of them would have to grow old alone.

  He was barely out of the van when Tilda, the only one there to greet him, said, “Craig, I need to talk to you about something.”

  “Can’t I settle in first?” he asked. He stretched his arms over his head. “I’ve been driving all day.”

  “No. This is important.”

  Craig dropped his arms. “Tilda, I’ve been on the road for—”

  “Please, Craig, it will only take a minute or two.”

  He sighed. “Okay. What’s up?”

  Tilda shot a look over her shoulder, but no one had appeared from the house. “Look, Craig, I was thinking. How about you move in with me? In South Portland. You can have Jon’s room. He won’t mind switching to the den, and he’ll be moving away before long anyway, and there’s plenty of room in the garage for your van. You know the neighborhood, you know how to get around, and you can be in the Old Port in ten minutes, maybe fifteen. You like to go to Rí Rá when you’re in town, right? Doesn’t your old friend, the one from college, Jake somebody or other, tend bar there? And—”

  “Tilda!” Craig put up his hands. “Please, just stop.”

  She stopped talking. She figured her brother needed a minute to take in her surprise offer. But Craig wasn’t entirely surprised at his sister’s offer. He knew she was afraid of growing old alone. He knew she was reluctant to meet another man and maybe start a relationship. He knew she saw him as her easy way out of a painful situation. He felt somewhat flattered by this. He also felt somewhat annoyed. It might not look like it but he had a life, too. He was fully aware that since Frank’s death his sister increasingly had been seeking his time and his presence. He knew she was lonely and he was more than willing to help around the house, especially with the chores Frank had once handled, but he also knew that she needed to stand on her own two feet.

  “Thanks, Tilda,” he said, with what he hoped was a kind, at least a patient, smile. “Really. It’s a sweet offer. But you and me living together is just not a good idea. Trust me on this.”

  “But why not?” she said. “It would be good for both of us. You could have a home base. I’m not saying I’d ask you never to travel and see your friends and—”

  Craig reached out and squeezed his sister’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Tilda, really. Thanks for the offer. It’s very generous. Now, I’m sorry, but I really have to use the little boys’ room.”

  Craig hurried off into the house and Tilda stood at the foot of the stairs alone, angry, hurt, but in the end not really surprised at Craig’s rejection of her offer. She knew it had been a pathetic cry for help, an act of cowardice and need, rather than an act of real generosity. Still, he might have pretended to consider the offer! He needn’t have dismissed it so immediately! Tilda felt like a fool. She knew Craig was a kind person, and knew he would never mention their talk again. Still, she felt embarrassed.

  Slowly, she went inside.


  “Smartinis!”

  Tilda, who had rapidly deemed her earlier embarrassment unnecessary, and who very much wanted to enjoy her younger brother’s company, was in the kitchen, as were Hannah, Susan, Adam, and Craig. Kat was taking a nap. Ruth had taken Cordelia and Cody into town with her to pick up more milk. The kids seemed to drink it by the gallon. Bill was in his room, reading.

  Craig held a martini shaker in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other. “Who’s up for one of my specials?”

  Tilda smiled. All the locals knew, and some remembered, that around 1947 the actor J. Scott Smart had come to live—to preside, some would say—in Ogunquit. At five of an evening he would stand in his doorway and with a cry of “Smartinis!” beckon his friends to cocktail hour.

  “I’ll have one,” Hannah said. “With three olives, please. I need my veggies.”

  “Me, too, but just one olive. Aren’t olives a fruit? Tilda, what will you have?”

  “As much as I hate to be a killjoy,” she told Susan, “I’ll stick to wine.”

  “Adam?” Craig asked.

  “No, thanks,” he said curtly.

  Craig shrugged and went to work at the kitchen bar.

  Next to Tilda, Adam bristled. “I hate it when he does that.”

  “What?”

  “That stupid ‘Smartinis.’”

  “I think it’s kind of clever.”

  “Clever? It’s ridiculous. I’m getting myself a scotch.”

  Adam went to the liquor cabinet and Tilda to the fridge to retrieve the bottle of sauvignon blanc that had been chilling. She wasn’t the killjoy. Adam was.

  When the siblings each had a drink, Tilda proposed a toast.

  “To what?” Adam asked.

  “Uh, to your mother?”

  “Good idea, Susan.” Tilda raised her glass. “To Mom.”

  “To Mom,” they chorused. “To Charlotte.”

  Ruth had set the dining room table that evening with pale gray linen napkins against black linen placemats and stark, white dishes. At one end of the table, to allow guests an unobstructed view of each other, sat a tall, silver vase in which Ruth had placed several orange day lilies plucked from the garden.

  Tonight, the McQueens would meet their father’s romantic partner. Ruth’s expectations for the reception were not high. There was nothing wrong with Jennifer Fournier. But only Craig had welcomed the news of her being in Bill’s life. Tilda, Hannah, and certainly Adam seemed predisposed to find faults where there were none.

  Ruth, herself, found her brother’s new girlfriend near perfect. For one, she was not at all like her predecessor, which, in Ruth’s opinion, was a good thing. And Jennifer seemed to like Ruth, too. Not that Ruth required her to, but things had worked out nicely this time for her. No more having to put up with a prima donna, just for her brother’s sake.

  At six-thirty, Bill opened the door for Jennifer and led her into the sunroom where the rest of the family was gathered. “Everyone, this is Jennifer,” he said, with a big, proud smile.

  Hannah said, “Hi.” Tilda gave a silly little wave. Susan gave her a hearty hello. Craig shook her hand. Adam nodded. Kat shyly told Jennifer that she liked her bracelet.

  Jennifer Fournier was an attractive woman. She was almost as tall as Bill, taller in heels. Her blond hair was thick, straight, and bluntly cut. She wore minimal makeup and dressed simply but stylishly in black, brown, taupe, and tan. Her jewelry was singular and stunning and she wore very little of it at a time. That evening she was dressed in lightweight, taupe, wide-legged linen pants over which she wore a long, white linen tunic. A large wooden bangle around her right wrist—the bracelet Kat had admired—was her only adornment. Tilda now felt childish in her mint green crew neck sweater and jean shorts, though earlier that day she had caught sight of herself in a hall mirror and thought she looked kind of cute.

  Yes, her father’s new friend was definitely a standout, and that bothered Tilda. She would vastly have preferred Jennifer to be old and frumpy, maybe even missing a front tooth, maybe even cursed with blotchy skin. Jennifer would be far more acceptable and certainly less threatening if she was visibly flawed. The thoughts were irrational and unworthy, but there they were.

  The talk during dinner—lobster risotto, salad, and strawberry sorbet—was vague and general and polite. There had not been a good rain in almost three weeks and people were worried about their crops and their lawns. The president had just returned from a visit to South America and reactions to what had happened there were mixed. When Adam got a bit agitated, the subject of politics was hastily abandoned and Hannah wondered what everyone thought of the new teen trend, in her opinion ridiculous, of having the very tip of the nose tattooed. Weren’t nose rings gross enough?

  The only awkward moment came when Adam unnecessarily, and apropos of nothing, recalled the fact that their mother, Charlotte, had won a beauty contest when she was seventeen. What was there to say to that, except, “She must have been very pretty.”

  “She was beautiful,” Adam had replied, the implication being, of course, that Jennifer was not.

  As soon as the dessert plates were cleared into the kitchen, the group drifted onto the big front porch. (Percy, who had a limited tolerance for company, went up to Ruth’s room.) The night was warm. The waves were just audible. Everyone took seats. Craig perched on the wooden rail. He asked Jennifer where she had grown up, and where she had gone to college, and did she miss living in Ogunquit year round.

  “Of course she does,” Adam said under his breath. “That’s why she’s with Dad, so she can get her hands on Larchmere.”

  Craig noted that Tilda had gone to Hampstead College, too, and asked his sister what year she had graduated. Tilda told him and Jennifer said that she had graduated the year Tilda was a freshman. No, they hadn’t known each other.

  After about twenty minutes of orchestrating the conversation, Craig announced that he had plans to meet a friend. When he was gone, the conversation went dead.

  Bill looked down at his cell phone and excused himself to take a call from the minister regarding a detail for Charlotte’s memorial service, which was being held at St. Peter’s-by-the-Sea in Cape Neddick.

  When he had gone inside, Adam, who had not addressed Jennifer since dinner, said: “So, Jennifer, Ruth tells us you have a little design business.”

  Jennifer smiled. “Yes. I own an interior design firm.”

  “That must make a nice little pastime.”

  Ruth shot her nephew an angry look, which he ignored. Hannah shot a questioning look to Tilda, who didn’t know how to respond.

  “Well,” Jennifer said, with great composure, “as a matter of fact it’s a full-time job. I work at least forty hours a week. And that doesn’t include the time spent commuting from one location to another.”

  Adam laughed. “Hard to imagine that sort of thing would be profitable in this economy. People tend to cut out what’s not necessary and spend only on the important things.”

  The tension on the porch was palpable. Susan looked as if she could leap from her chair and strangle her brother-in-law. Kat looked confused.

  “I do just fine,” Jennifer said after a moment, with a tight little smile.

  Ruth cleared her throat and said, “Not to change the subject but—”

  But Adam spoke right over his aunt. “You don’t need a degree for that sort of work, do you? No special training? Just tell people to paint their walls green instead of orange.”

  Tilda was mortified by her brother’s behavior but felt completely incapable of coming to Jennifer’s defense. Yes, she thought, I am truly tongue-tied.

  “Excuse me.” Jennifer rose and walked into the house. Ruth got up and followed her.

  The moment the women were gone, Susan turned to Adam. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she demanded. “How could you be so rude?”

  Adam shrugged. “I wasn’t being rude. I was simply asking about her business. I think we have a right to know what our father’s gi
rlfriend does for a living.”

  Kat was looking at her hands, which were flat out on her lap.

  Tilda finally said, “You could have been nicer, Adam.”

  Hannah said, “Yeah.”

  Ruth came back out onto the porch. She looked furious. “Jennifer is leaving for a B and B. Your father is confused. He doesn’t know why she isn’t staying here, as usual. I didn’t have the heart to tell him it’s because his son was an ass to his girlfriend.”

  “Oh,” Tilda said.

  “I’m surprised she was able to get a room at this late hour and at this time of year. And by the way, Adam, she has a master’s degree from the Rhode Island School of Design.”

  Tilda felt her aunt’s accusing eyes on her. Adam might have been overtly horrid, but Tilda was at fault, too. She should have stopped her brother; she should have said something to alleviate the assault. Hannah, too, should have said something. Kat should have told her fiancé to shut up. They all should have….

  Ruth shook her head. “I’m going to bed.”

  Kat followed shortly after.

  Tilda, Hannah, Susan, and Adam remained on the front porch. The night had grown chilly and Tilda was wrapped in a big gray sweatshirt that had once belonged to Frank. He had kept it in the closet of their room at Larchmere for just such occasions. Tilda saw no reason not to keep it for herself.

  She still felt bad about what had happened earlier with Jennifer. She could only credit her ill behavior to the fact that she was still in a bit of shock. The thought of her father being with another woman simply had never occurred to her and left her feeling disoriented.

  But her bad behavior wasn’t the only thing bothering Tilda. She was annoyed by the fact that she felt jealous on the behalf of her dead mother. Jealous on behalf of a dead person! She couldn’t help but think that if her father had to date and—God forbid!—get remarried, he should have done the seemly thing and chosen a woman nearer to his own age. He should have chosen someone who wouldn’t feel like a threat to the family unit, someone who wouldn’t feel like a threat to Tilda.