The Forever Summer

by Jamie Brenner

  “Have you seen my mother?” Marin walked into the kitchen wearing a decidedly unbeachy, distinctly non-Provincetown outfit of jeans, shoes rather than flip-flops or sneakers, and a button-down shirt.

  “No, haven’t seen her.”

  “So annoying. She was supposed to go with me to my doctor’s appointment this morning. If I wait any longer, I’m going to be late.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Rachel said. She could use the distraction. Besides, they hadn’t talked much since Marin freaked out about the proposed dinner party at the house. It would be good for them to maybe reconnect.

  “No, that’s okay. Thanks. I just…”

  “I want to. Really. I could use the company. I honestly had the most epic fail with Luke. The night I cooked dinner at his place—”

  And then the pieces clicked. Marin overreacting to the idea of her inviting people to the house when Amelia and Kelly got back. Paul asking her at dinner if Kelly was sick. “Marin,” Rachel said slowly. “Is Kelly sick?”

  Marin hesitated. And then said, “We’ll talk during the drive.”

  Blythe found a quiet spot on the beach, near the dunes. She rested the shoe box on her lap. She’d gambled in asking Kip to send it to her. Gambled, and lost.

  We need to be on good terms…for Marin’s sake.

  Now she couldn’t bring herself to open the damn box. It had cost her too much.

  But no. Kip had been pulling away for a long time. Kip had had an affair. The marriage had ended months ago, and she’d just refused to see it. He had come back to Provincetown to talk to her in person, to make sure she did see it, once and for all. And he might have done that with or without the excuse of bringing her the shoe box.

  So why didn’t he just do it the last time he was in town? Maybe he’d tried that day at Pilgrims’ Park but lost his nerve. Maybe he was on the fence, and then after talking to Marin about her paternity, he’d decided. But again—he could have talked to Blythe that night. Instead, he left town.

  She ran her thumb over the white-gold wedding band she’d worn for thirty-two years. And she slipped it off her finger and into her bag. The spot was still marked by a thin tan line. A few weeks in the sun, and that would be gone too.

  The sun could cure a lot of woes.

  Blythe brushed sand off the top of the box, wondering if Nick had sat near that very spot, sketching the ocean, back in the days when he had been happy in this town, when inspiration had come as naturally as breathing.

  It all fit together now—why he had left, why he had cut himself off so abruptly from the place he had loved. And when she met him, he was still struggling with losing his muse. Maybe he had been looking for a new muse in Blythe, or in the party scene in Philly, only to leave and find it on a beach halfway around the world. But she did know one thing; there was no way Nadine’s depiction of his mental state in Italy was true. He had not run away distraught from his affair with Blythe. And he had not been unhappy in Italy—and certainly not unhappy enough to kill himself. Because for the first time in years, he had been successfully drawing again.

  A part of her wanted to open the box, to hold Nick’s letter, see his drawing and close her eyes and maybe, for a brief moment, see him again. But a stronger part of her did not. She didn’t want to revisit the past. She’d had an impulse to save the letter all those years ago, and now she understood the universe worked in strange ways, as Nick had predicted.

  The letter was not for her. It was for Amelia.

  But there was something she wanted to see again. Slowly, almost holding her breath, she lifted the lid and pulled out her old Degas journal. How amazing that she’d bought the book maybe an hour before meeting Nick, before her life changed forever. She traced the cover painting with her finger, then opened to the first page and closed it again. The words were written by a lonely and confused young woman she would never recognize today. She didn’t want to revisit that either.

  Her phone rang. She reached for her handbag, happy to be called back to the present.

  “Blythe? Warren Ames here.”

  She smiled. “Hi, Warren. I’m at the beach, so reception might not be great.”

  “Gotcha. Just wanted to see if you’re free for dinner tonight?”

  Blythe stood up, looking out at the ocean. “Yes. Yes, Warren—I’m free.”

  It was a day of dramatic news—good and bad. On the bad side, Marin had to break it to Rachel that Kelly had cancer. This resulted in Rachel crying the entire ride to Hyannis. But then, in the exam room, the teeny-tiny 6.7-centimeter baby waved at them. Well, moved a tiny hand in their general direction. Marin couldn’t quite believe her eyes. She stared and stared, thinking, That’s my baby. My baby. Rachel smiled and squeezed Marin’s arm and squealed that she was going to be an aunt.

  The doctor—a Cate Blanchett lookalike wearing on her lab coat a uterus pin that read POLITICS-FREE ZONE—asked Marin if she wanted to know the gender.

  Rachel had immediately said, “Yes!” Marin had to shoot her a look to temper her enthusiasm. She needed a minute to think. Did she want to know? It was a moment she would want, ideally, to share with Julian. But Julian was not there, had in fact not called her in days. As far as paternity went, as far as their relationship went, it was wait-and-see. But there was no reason to wait to fall more in love with her baby.

  “Yes,” she said. “I want to know.”

  “Congratulations. It’s a boy!”

  Oh my God, Marin thought. I’m a mother.

  “We have to tell Kelly and Amelia,” Rachel said. “It’s such good news and, well, they need good news.” Of course, she was right.

  And so, back at the house, armed with a thin paper printout of the sonogram and the news that Amelia had a great-grandson on the way, Marin set off to try to bring her grandmother some measure of happiness. (Honestly, she would have liked to share the news with her mother first, but oddly, she was still nowhere to be found.)

  Marin didn’t have to look far to find Kelly and Amelia. They were reading out back, side by side in lounge chairs, a pitcher of iced tea on the small table between them.

  “Hey, you guys. Sorry to interrupt,” Marin said. “I wanted to show you something.”

  Amelia moved over, giving Marin space to sit on the edge of her lounge chair. She offered her tea. “I’m good, thanks,” Marin said, handing her the thin strip of paper with three images. Amelia straightened out the paper that was already beginning to curl and squinted.

  “I need my glasses,” she said.

  “It’s the baby,” said Marin. “A boy.”

  Amelia looked up. “It’s a boy?”

  “Holy shit, Amelia, you’ve got a great-grandson!” Kelly said, lifting up her sunglasses. Her green eyes were bright with happiness.

  “We have a great-grandson,” Amelia said, leaning over and reaching for Kelly’s hand. “Exciting, right?”

  Marin passed the sonogram pictures to Kelly.

  “It’s so fucking amazing,” Kelly said. “Look at that little nose! See, babe—life goes on.”

  “Yes. Something for us to look forward to,” she said pointedly.

  The two of them locked in a gaze that excluded Marin so completely, all she could do was back silently into the house. She left the sonogram photos behind.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Amelia gave up on trying to read. She’d been reading all day, and now she was reading in bed, and not a word was sinking in. She set the book on her nightstand, moving carefully so as not to disturb Kelly, who seemed to have drifted to sleep. Amelia checked the time: 8:00.

  “Where you going, babe?” Kelly asked groggily.

  “Oh! I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “I’m awake,” Kelly said, sitting up and pulling her hair away from her face.

  “I thought I’d get some fresh air. Want to come out back for a little bit?”

  Kelly shook her head. “You go. I’m going to work for a few hours.”

  Amelia nodded reluctantly, kissed h
er on the cheek. She had never felt so alone. Kelly, relatively communicative during the initial cancer diagnosis last year, was now shutting her out completely. She didn’t understand why.

  Frantic, Amelia had confided in Bart. He had listened empathetically, but in the end told her, “Terminal illness is very personal. We want to be with them every step of the way, partners as we are in everything else. But ultimately, it’s impossible. The journey is theirs alone.”

  Amelia’s stomach rumbled. When was the last time she’d eaten? She’d cooked dinner for Kelly but had barely eaten a bite. Amelia knew she had to take care of herself. It wouldn’t do Kelly any good if she got run-down and sick.

  She headed down to the kitchen. The fridge was full. That dear Rachel had clearly gone above and beyond in the cooking department. She pulled out a dish covered in aluminum foil. Was that cheese? She cut off a piece and couldn’t help but smile at the fruits of her labor. All those years lamenting the lost opportunity to pass her recipes on to Nadine. If only she had known what life had in store for her!

  A breeze blew off the bay through the open window. Amelia breathed deeply. She had to keep it together. She wouldn’t give up hope, despite Kelly doing her damnedest to convince her to.

  Amelia stepped out into the backyard. In the distance, the foghorn sounded. Above, the clear night sky framed the glittering stars. Loneliness washed over her, but she refused to give in to it. She took a deep breath, reminding herself that Kelly was upstairs. She was there. And all around Amelia, even in that solitary moment, was so much that she held dear: the water, the salt air, the house where she had labored and loved for so many decades. And later that night, the rest of the family would make their way back into the house, filling the rooms.

  She looked up and saw the light go on in Kelly’s studio.

  Amelia sat at the picnic table, her back against it, staring at the stunningly visible stars. Next month would be September already. Where had the summer gone? She closed her eyes, thinking of that first September with Kelly. Oh, to be able to reset the clock, to live the past thirty years all over again. Of course, that was impossible. That was greedy, that was asking too much.

  Okay, then, she bargained with the stars. How about just one more summer?

  It was no use. Blythe had no business dating. With everything that was going on, she was barely able to keep her own head straight, let alone offer anything to a dear, sweet man like Warren Ames.

  Oh, she tried. Their dinner conversation stayed light, both of them consciously avoiding talking about their marriages. It was as if, in the days since their last dinner, they had both consulted a midlife-dating handbook. Unfortunately, her present was so complicated, it made her past look like a cakewalk.

  How could she enjoy dinner with Warren when she knew Kip was still in town?

  Probably at dinner with Marin that very moment.

  Still, she and Warren had managed to laugh a few times. But she was certain he knew, when he walked her back to the house, that the laughter had been between friends, not potential lovers.

  The house was dark and quiet. Before she met Warren at the restaurant, she’d tried to find Marin, but she wasn’t at the house. Now Marin’s door was closed, without a crack of light underneath it.

  Blythe, feeling ghostlike wandering the halls, headed down to the kitchen. She filled the teapot with water and set it on the stove. Only when rifling through Amelia’s tin filled with herbal teas did she finally remember: Marin’s sonogram appointment. She’d missed it!

  She was just failing all around.

  And then she noticed the light on out back. Through the kitchen window she could see someone sitting at the farthest end of the table, facing the water. Amelia.

  It was not too late to redeem herself, to save the day from being a total loss. She turned off the stove and hurried up to her room, where she pulled the shoe box out from under her bed.

  Amelia was startled by the back door creaking open. She turned around, hoping Kelly had changed her mind, abandoned her art in favor of a talk. When she realized it was only Blythe, the disappointment was so swift and heavy, it almost made her gasp.

  “I hope I’m not intruding,” Blythe said.

  She was, of course. But Amelia pushed away the ungenerous thought.

  “Not at all,” she said. “I was just getting some fresh air. Did you have a nice night?”

  Blythe sat across from her, nodding. “I did. Well, I tried to. I had dinner with Warren Ames.”

  Amelia smiled with genuine joy. “Oh, Blythe. That’s wonderful. He’s such a nice man. A terrible shame about Catherine. We all liked her very much.”

  “Well, I’m afraid I disappointed him. I’m not ready to date. I feel ridiculous even saying the word.”

  “I think it’s our need to label everything. Puts too much pressure on ourselves. It’s the summer. You’re entitled to some fun.”

  Blythe looked very serious, and Amelia sensed that whatever was weighing on her had little to do with Warren Ames. Well, if she wanted to talk, Amelia would listen. She glanced back at the house. She had the impulse to go inside, but then she would only be tempted to disturb Kelly. The truth was, Blythe’s intrusion was just what she needed.

  “Shall I get a bottle of wine?” Amelia offered.

  “Oh, no, thanks. At least, not for me. I’m going to bed. I really just came out here because there’s something I want to show you.” It was only then that Amelia noticed the envelope in her hand. Blythe, fumbling for a minute, pulled out a folded piece of paper. “This is a letter Nick sent to me from Italy.”

  Amelia shook her head. “What?”

  “This is the last I heard from Nick. I saved it all these years. I think I was hesitant to throw it away because of the drawing. I could never throw away his art. And now I’m so thankful I didn’t, because this letter tells a different story than the one you’re hearing from Nadine.”

  She held out the paper and Amelia took it gingerly, as if it would dissolve at her touch. Blythe reached out and squeezed Amelia’s hand. “But you read it for yourself.”

  Amelia couldn’t say anything. She waited until Blythe was gone, until she was probably already in bed, before looking down at the paper in her hand.

  On one side, a drawing: high cliffs framing a stretch of beach and the wide, expansive sea. It was black-and-white, but so finely etched it hinted at color. The water, blue stillness. The pristine, ivory beach. She traced his lines with her finger, imagining him bent over this very sheet of paper, his brow furrowed in concentration, his hair—always too long—falling into his eyes.

  She blinked back tears. Was Blythe right?

  His words could speak for themselves. Finally. She read them eagerly, her breath in her throat, her pulse racing.

  Dear Blythe:

  Sorry to leave in a way that I guess seemed out of nowhere. But now that I’m back near the sea, reunited with my sister, there’s no question it was just what I needed. I’m drawing again, finally. This is where I belong. So I guess you were right: it was good-bye. But I do think of you. I imagine what this relentless sun would do to your pale beauty, burnishing it into something new and exotic. If we see each other again I hope it will be here. Though I suspect you are back in the arms of your husband, happily now, I hope.

  He signed it Always, Nick. When she was finished, she read his words again. And again. How many times until she was satisfied? She didn’t know. How many times more would she drink in his words? Endlessly. But for now, she closed her eyes, pressing the letter to her chest.

  He had been happy.

  Amelia, overcome with a sense of urgency, rushed back inside the house. She had to tell Kelly. Kelly, who had been right all along about Nadine, the extent of how unfairly punishing she had always been toward them both. That Amelia did not have to bear the weight of Nick’s death so completely.

  She made her way up the stairs, feeling light and energetic. She paused on the second-floor landing, catching her breath before ascend
ing to the studio. Outside the door, she hesitated; she hated to disturb Kelly when she was working, but this was worth it.

  “Kel?” she said, knocking. She looked down at the letter in her hand. She still couldn’t believe it! She knocked again. No response. “Kelly?” She tried turning the doorknob, but it was locked.

  She knocked again, feeling the first prick of alarm. “Kelly, open up.” She banged on the door, open-palmed, so hard it hurt. She again tried to turn the doorknob, then stepped back. Her whole body had broken out in a sweat.

  There was a key to the studio behind the front desk. She ran down the stairs, taking them nearly two at a time, ignoring the pain in her legs. In the dark, she bumped into the living room couch but didn’t miss a step. She reached the desk, breathless, and pulled open the drawers, rummaging through the messy contents, dumping rubber bands and pens and Beach Rose Inn notepads onto the floor. There were a few loose keys, and she grabbed them all.

  When she looked up from the base of the stairs, the climb seemed like Everest. Cursing her age, cursing the body that was betraying her as she wanted to leap up to the third floor, she huffed and dragged herself as fast as she could. Hands shaking, she tried the first key in the door.

  “Kelly, open up!” She dropped the useless key and moved on to the next one. Mercifully, the knob turned. She burst into the room, rushing blindly and knocking over a chair and a container of tiles, sending it clattering to the floor. “Kelly!”

  Kelly, wearing her green cargo pants and NO ONE LIKES A SHADY BEACH T-shirt, was curled up on the small couch near the window. Amelia, less panicked now that she was inside the room, rushed over to her.