The Family Beach House

by Holly Chamberlin

  “A sieve of some sort,” Tilda ventured. “Like a big colander?”

  “Well,” the owner said, “then I guess that’s what it is.”

  Dennis laughed, then Tilda, then the shop’s owner. “Seriously,” the man said, “my wife brought that in. Don’t know where she got it and she has no more idea than I do what it is or where it came from. Thought someone might want it though. You can have it for fifteen dollars.”

  Dennis graciously declined the offer. Tilda watched him walk to the back of the store to return the mysterious object to its place. She thought of how she had snapped at Jennifer earlier in the day. She determined to apologize to her father’s girlfriend as soon as she could. It was never right to begrudge someone her happiness. Your own unhappiness was a burden you had a duty to bear alone. At least, you should not use it as a weapon.

  Dennis returned and Tilda took his hand as they left the shop. It was as natural as putting one foot in front of the other.

  “I can’t believe you actually read that rag! It’s garbage! It’s all lies and innuendo. You’re even more of an idiot than I thought!”

  “Don’t call me an idiot. You’re a fool if you don’t worry about socialism encroaching in this country. You’ve got your head in the sand and you always have!”

  Susan was in the kitchen, alone. The loud voices she was hearing belonged to Hannah and to Adam. She guessed they were in the living room. It didn’t matter. They should not have been shouting as if they were in an open field.

  A door slammed. A moment later, Hannah stomped into the kitchen. “My brother,” she said, “is an ass.”

  Susan frowned. “Be that as it may, did you really need to scream at each other? You could have woken the dead.”

  Hannah, who was rummaging in the fridge, looked around at Susan. “What?”

  “You were screaming at each other.”

  “We were angry.” Hannah emerged from the fridge with a yogurt and plopped down on one of the stools at the bar top. Susan handed her a spoon.

  “You’ve never heard of rational discussion or negotiation?”

  “You get mad. You have a temper.”

  “Yes,” Susan admitted. “I do. But I just can’t imagine fighting with my sisters and brothers the way you McQueens can go at it. I just can’t.”

  “What do you do when there’s a conflict?” Hannah asked. “How do you solve problems?”

  “We don’t have conflicts. We don’t have problems with each other.”

  “Oh, come on, Susan. I really find that hard to believe.”

  “Have you ever seen one of us tense with another?” Susan demanded. “Have you ever heard me complain about my sisters and brothers?”

  “Well, no,” Hannah admitted. “But I have heard you complain about your parents!”

  “But with understanding. They still think we’re all ten years old. When they overstep their boundaries it’s only because they love us so much. They can’t get out of the habit of being overprotective.”

  Hannah laughed. “My mother never got into the habit of being overprotective. It might have been nice if she had.”

  “At least you have your father. But let’s get back to the point. Look, Hannah, if we do have a family, I really don’t want us to engage in a dynamic of nastiness and fighting and judgment and dissension and—”

  “Okay, okay, I get it.” Hannah put down the spoon and empty yogurt container. She felt hurt but chastened, too. This coming together of two people who had grown up in very different households was tough. She wondered if the adjustments and negotiations would ever come to a peaceful end. She hoped that they did. “We’ll make our own rules,” she said. “New rules, and new guidelines. I promise.”

  Susan gave her a long, enquiring look. “We’ll see,” she said finally. “Maybe we shouldn’t make any more promises to each other just yet.” She took the yogurt container to the recycling bin, put the spoon in the dishwasher, and left the kitchen.

  Hannah sat very still. She had heard Susan say “if” they ever had a family. And she knew what Susan had really meant by those last words. She meant that she, Hannah, should stop making new promises until she fulfilled the ones she had already made. Susan, her wife, didn’t trust her. Hannah thought she might be sick right then and there. She was destroying her marriage by her hesitation, by her inability to confront and conquer her demon.

  She continued to sit very still for a long time, until the nausea passed.

  34

  Thursday, July 26

  It was around eight-thirty in the morning. Predictably, Tilda was taking a walk on the beach. Bill had gone for a half round of golf with Teddy. Hannah was sleeping in and Susan was online, in their bedroom, keeping up with the case of one of her more difficult clients. Ruth was out, no one knew where. Percy was sunning himself—he liked to get an early start—in the sunroom. Craig, too, was gone somewhere in his old red van. Sarah and Cordelia and Cody were playing a game of catch on the back lawn. Kat was on the front porch, busily sending text messages to people unknown and drinking iced coffee.

  Adam was alone in the kitchen when he heard the front door open, then shut, and high-heeled footsteps approaching.

  “Oh,” Jennifer said when she walked into the room. “Good morning. Is Bill around?”

  Adam took a long sip of coffee before answering. “No.”

  Jennifer adjusted the shoulder strap of her tan leather briefcase. “Please tell him that I was here,” she said, and she turned to go.

  Adam banged his empty cup onto the bar top. “This isn’t going to happen, you know.” He spoke loudly. He meant to sound menacing.

  Jennifer knew that she should just keep on walking but an old fighting spirit made her turn back. “What’s not going to happen?” she said.

  “The little invasion you’ve planned into the life of the McQueens. Your little scheme to take over Larchmere.”

  For a brief moment Jennifer wondered if Adam was mentally ill. “What?” she said.

  Adam took a step closer to her. “If you insist upon hanging around our father, I will make your life hell. I have the means to do it. Do you understand me?”

  Jennifer clutched the strap of her briefcase more tightly. She had no idea of what to say. She felt threatened. She wondered if they were the only two people in the house. She had seen Kat on the porch but she would be no help if Adam attempted to harm her physically.

  Adam’s voice was a roar. “I said, do you understand me?”

  Jennifer, now terrified, found herself nodding.

  The front door opened, then closed. “I’m back!” It was Bill, returning from his golf game.

  Adam left the room quickly and quietly, brushing against Jennifer hard enough for her to stumble. He avoided his father by slipping into the living room until Bill had passed the open door on his way to the kitchen. Then, Adam left the house.

  Bill came into the kitchen and propped his golf bag against a wall. “Hi, Jennifer,” he said. “What a nice surprise to find you here.”

  “Bill,” she said, her voice trembling, “something’s come up. I’m afraid I have to go away for a while.”

  Tilda was just back from the beach. She went immediately to the kitchen for a glass of water. Hannah was there, leaning against the sink. Susan stood next to her. Ruth stood by the fridge. Her expression was grim. Bill was sitting at the table, his hands on his lap. He was very still.

  “Dad,” Tilda said, alarmed. “Are you okay?”

  Bill’s voice was flat. “Jennifer is gone to Portland.”

  “Oh. Why? When will she be back?”

  Her father looked down at his hands. “She told me she got a call from an important client about a job in the city. She said she had to go. She said she probably won’t make it back for the memorial service.”

  Tilda felt her face go hot. She avoided meeting her aunt’s eyes. Jennifer’s excuse for leaving Larchmere was so clearly a lie, Tilda was sure that her father, an intelligent man, had not believed it, eithe
r. What had happened? When had it happened? “Oh, Dad, I’m so sorry,” she managed to say, finally. “I’m sure she’d rather be here, with you…. You know how work can be….”

  Bill gave his daughter a weak smile, got up, and left the kitchen.

  “What happened?” Tilda asked, looking now from Ruth to Hannah to Susan.

  “I’m not quite sure,” Ruth replied. Her voice was tight. “I got back from the store—we were low on milk again—and found your father sitting right where he was a moment ago. Jennifer had just left.”

  So, Tilda thought, whatever had happened to finally drive Jennifer away from Larchmere had happened this morning. Who had been home? Had someone said something awful to her? Had it all just been too much, the McQueens and their difficult personalities?

  Her poor father! He had looked heartbroken. Tilda thought again of how she had snapped at Jennifer when she had asked about the day spa. She felt guilty. She was pretty sure that her behavior since first meeting her father’s girlfriend had contributed to Jennifer’s feeling unwelcome. And she had not had the chance to apologize to her. “I think it’s partly my fault that she’s gone,” she said now to Ruth and Hannah and Susan. “I’m sorry. I feel very badly.”

  Hannah felt a bit badly, too, but she was not about to admit that. She was more concerned about the possibility that Jennifer’s love for her father wasn’t really as strong as he believed. She wondered if Jennifer was just bailing on him the moment things got rough. She would try her best to comfort her father. She owed him that much.

  Craig came into the kitchen then, followed a moment later by Adam.

  “What’s wrong with Dad?” Craig said. “We just passed him in the front hall. The poor guy looks like he got sucker punched.”

  When neither Ruth nor Hannah nor Susan spoke, Tilda told her brothers about Jennifer’s sudden defection.

  “Ouch.” Craig winced. “Poor Dad. That doesn’t bode well for their future.”

  “Well,” Adam said, “I, for one, am glad she’s gone. Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

  “His command of the English language is so fine and subtle, isn’t it?” Craig said.

  Ruth took a step forward. “We all know that excuse about an important client was just a lie,” she said. She was angry now. “Jennifer left because none of you—none of you except Craig and Susan—made her feel at all welcome. Adam, you were downright rude to her. I don’t blame her one bit for leaving though I’m sorry for your father.” Ruth took a deep breath. It wasn’t entirely the kids’ fault that Jennifer had left. Her brother could be a weak man. “And,” she said, “Bill should have seen what was going on and shielded Jennifer from all the crap Adam tossed at her. And from the hostility you girls betrayed.”

  No one said anything. Adam looked bored. Tilda and Hannah looked guilty and worried at the same time. Susan looked as if she might cry. Craig looked embarrassed. He was not used to praise, no matter how faint. He felt he could have done more to make Jennifer feel welcome. At least he should have made Adam shut up.

  Ruth sighed and reached for her black linen Kate Spade tote bag, which was sitting on the bar top. “I’ll be back later,” she said.

  “Where are you going?” Tilda asked, wondering for a moment if her aunt was going to drive up to Portland and bring Jennifer back to Larchmere with her.

  “To see Bobby.”

  35

  Not long after Ruth’s departure, Jon and Jane pulled into the driveway at Larchmere. Tilda was happy to see them but at the same time she was very aware that she was not as desperate for their company as she had been only days earlier. This surprised her. She wondered if it was because of Dennis’s recent companionship. Probably. Maybe.

  Jon got out of the car and waved to his mother. He was looking more like his father every day, husky though not fat, his eyes the same cow brown, his hair the same light brown. For Tilda, the transformation was both wonderful and painful to witness. She supposed, she hoped, that the painful part would lessen over time. Time healed all wounds. Time made the unusual usual and the new, old. Or so it was said.

  Time had not made Frank’s changing appearance easier to bear. At least, it hadn’t for Tilda. When it was first clear that he had lost a significant amount of weight as a result of the illness, drugs, and other treatments, Frank had joked that he was in the best shape of his life. Then, after a beat, he would add: “Except for the cancer.” No one had really found it funny, least of all Tilda, but everyone, Tilda included, would laugh or share a falsely happy, conspiratorial smile.

  After a few months of continued weight loss Frank stopped making this joke. It was no longer possible for anyone to pretend that it was funny. The face of illness was never amusing. In The Historian, a novel by Elizabeth Kostova, a character looks down on the face of his beloved mentor. The mentor is, in a manner, dying. He had become “the unbearable beloved.” Tilda knew exactly what that meant.

  Jane followed her brother up onto the porch. Unlike Jon, she closely resembled her mother. She was as tall and slim as Tilda and shared her longish face. Unlike her mother, though, she wore her dark brown hair to her shoulders, and her eyes were a very definite, unambiguous green.

  Jane smiled and gave Tilda a hug. “You look good, Mom. Better than you have for a while. You’re not slouching.”

  “Maybe it’s the fresh ocean air.” Tilda felt sheepish. Maybe it was the fresh ocean air. Or maybe it was the fact that a man, a nice, handsome man, was paying attention to her. But she couldn’t tell that to her daughter. For now, maybe for always, Dennis Haass would remain a secret. That is, unless one of the locals gabbed and she would deal with that when and if it happened.

  “Maybe,” Jane said. “Well, whatever you’re doing, do more of it. Where’s Craig?”

  “I don’t know. Craig is his own man.”

  Together the three went into the house and headed straight for the kitchen. Though Jon and Jane were quite capable of getting themselves something to eat, Tilda put out a snack of grapes, a round of goat cheese, and crackers. Jon reached for a bottle of water and Jane opted for cranberry juice.

  Tilda told them about their grandfather’s romance. She also told them that Jennifer had been suddenly called back to Portland on business.

  “Grandpa’s the man,” Jon said with a grin. “Dude.”

  “So, when is she going to be back?” Jane asked. “I’m dying to meet her.”

  Tilda felt her face flush. “I’m not sure, exactly. The client in Portland is an important one or something.”

  Jane eyed her mother, who had always been a terrible liar. “What’s wrong? Why did she really leave?”

  Tilda was embarrassed. “Ruth thinks she didn’t feel particularly…welcome. She also thinks it’s our fault. Mine and Hannah’s and Adam’s, I mean. I do feel terrible. It was just so…surprising to learn that Dad was involved. We all could have been nicer.”

  “Is she hot?”

  “Jon!”

  “Answer the question, Mom,” Jane said.

  “Well, yes,” she admitted. “She is hot. Attractive, I mean.”

  “I bet Uncle Craig was nice to her.”

  “Yes, he was.”

  Jane sighed. “It’s your generation of women. You’re all so prejudiced.”

  “Prejudiced!”

  “If Jennifer was ugly or fat you wouldn’t have minded so much that she was dating Grandpa.”

  “I’m prejudiced against attractive women?” Of course, she was. “That’s crazy,” she said.

  “Yes, you are prejudiced. Women can be their own worst enemies. Women are all too ready to turn against each other. It all comes down to jealousy.”

  Jon guzzled the last of his water and grabbed a fistful of grapes. “I’m out of here,” he said. “I’ll be down at the beach for a while if anyone needs me.”

  Her brother loped off and Jane set to the food.

  It was not a generational thing, Tilda wanted to tell her daughter. It was a middle-aged thing, the anger over the loss
of your looks. And the anger at yourself for being so upset about something that should be trivial! Sagging chin? Who cared when there was world hunger to remedy! Flabby middle? How could that really matter when global warming was destroying the planet! Jane would know all about it when she was forty-seven. Or maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she would escape the insanity. (Sarah seemed to have. So did Ruth.) Maybe she would figure out what an incredible waste of time it was to lacerate your fading appearance and to feel jealous of other women who were more physically attractive. Maybe she would be comfortable in her body. Tilda hoped that she would.

  “I’m going to see if Craig’s around,” Jane said, startling her mother from her thoughts. “Thanks for the snack.”

  Jane picked up her plate but Tilda said, “I’ll clean up.” Jane smiled and Tilda watched her daughter leave the kitchen. She so prayed for her happiness.

  Tilda knocked on the front door though she knew it was never locked. It was later that day and she had gone to Bobby’s house on an errand for Ruth. In her left hand she carried a shopping bag filled with “used” books Ruth had bought for her friend. It was well known that Bobby was a great reader. Tilda had peeked at some of the titles. There was a pristine copy of Run to the Mountain: The Journals of Thomas Merton. There was a hardcover copy of Harold Bloom’s Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. And there was an old paperback copy of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22.

  Bobby opened the door and nodded. Tilda followed him inside.

  “Kids get in okay?” he asked.

  Tilda set the bag on the kitchen table. “Yes. Jon’s already at the beach and the last I saw Jane she was following Craig around like a puppy dog.”

  Bobby smiled. His house was miniscule compared to Larchmere and neat as a pin. The kitchen contained no fancy appliances and most of the furniture had come from his parents’ house. The floors and countertops were immaculate. Bobby was someone who still beat his throw rugs with a stick. Books were stacked floor to ceiling along one wall of the living room. There was no dust.