The Summer House Page 10

  After Texas, when Tania had decided to keep the baby and they suffered the first blow to their dream of becoming parents, Sam’s bent became one of business. At work, Sam’s time was at a premium; he could barely bring himself to spend it, and certainly not to waste it. So he’d approached the adoption process with the same mind-set he approached an acquisition in the boardroom: close the deal. When the agency called again to ask if they were interested in meeting another prospective mother named Mara, he’d hedged. Evan was insistent—jubilant. But Sam weighed the situation before deciding. Mara was a nineteen-year-old girl in community college who did not plan to keep her baby. He and Sam wanted to start a family. The only thing standing between them was convincing her that they were that family.

  The first meeting went very well, as had the previous ones with Tania. Evan remained stalwart. Sam remained cautious. When they were called back for a second interview, Sam felt the early pull of desperation. He liked Mara. She was smart and plucky, she laughed at his offbeat jokes. She shared with the two of them that she wanted to go to nursing school: it was a dream of hers, and she wanted to pursue it but was struggling to make ends meet, working double shifts at Gap. Suddenly Sam saw a need not just to find a home for her baby but for something beyond that. Mara had what they wanted. Maybe he could help her get what she wanted, too.

  Was it wrong of him, what he did in the end? Maybe it was a mistake not telling Evan what he’d said to Mara. But Sam reassured himself that if his sister, Clem, had been privy to the details, she would probably have understood his reasoning. Flossy likely would have, too. But when he tried to imagine telling Richard, an overwhelming sense of dread rose like a plume in his chest, and he pushed the thought from his mind—just as he’d pushed away the thought of telling Evan. No, wrong was too subjective a term. Besides, was anyone ever truly wrong if they acted for the right reason?

  * * *

  On edge and unable to fall back to sleep, Sam rose and went to look out the window for the source of the noise that had roused him. A movement caught his eye across the yard. A lone figure was bobbing up the dune trail. A girl. Or was it a woman? Slight and quick-footed, she emerged from the path and trotted across the moon-splashed grass. She paused once in the middle of the silvery yard and looked back toward the beach. Sam swore he could hear her laugh. Then she darted toward the deck below. He pressed his forehead against the window, trying to get another look. She’d already disappeared from his view, but he was sure of it. It was Emma.

  Clem

  We need to go over the checklist,” Flossy announced as she set down the last of the dinner platters. They were all seated at the large farmhouse table off the kitchen, which overlooked the backyard. Outside, the sky seemed low and overcast, large gray clouds tumbling in off the water.

  Richard pushed his glasses up his nose and squinted down the table at his offspring. “We need to do no such thing,” he told them all. “All I want is a simple dinner with my family.” He looked around, making satisfied note of the sun-kissed cheeks and freckled noses.

  “Well, good!” Sam said, raising his glass. “So this counts?”

  Everyone laughed, except Flossy and Evan, who managed a halfhearted smile, which made Clem’s own smile fade. Evan’s joviality ran deep, and the absence of it this summer was a reminder of her own loss—something still so three-dimensional that she never knew whether to navigate around it or give up and simply pull out a chair for it at the table. On the harder days, it could easily have filled a seat. Being in the summer house was good for her—the company, the impossibly bright July sun that spilled into every room, the sound of the surf always in the background. It reminded her that she was alive, her heart pounding in her chest just as surely as the waves pounded the beach. But sitting beside Evan reminded her that others bore their own grief.

  “Fine if no one sees reason to celebrate you or your seventy-five years on this earth, then I’ll cancel.” Flossy lifted one shoulder as though it didn’t matter to her either way, but they all knew their vacation week at the summer house depended on it. There would be no living with Flossy if it didn’t happen.

  Paige interjected. “Of course we’re going to have the party, Mom. Dad, you want the party, right?” She looked so earnest; Paige never liked it when plans fell through. That didn’t happen in her orderly world.

  Richard sighed deeply. “Darling, you know I appreciate all this hard work, but that’s just what it is—hard work. I don’t see why we can’t just invite the Weitzmans and the Russells for a simple gathering. I don’t want you wearing yourself out over a silly birthday.” His voice was soft and filled concern for the trouble he knew this celebration was causing his wife, but there was also an air of bewilderment.

  “It’s not just another birthday,” Flossy reminded him, her eyes traveling around the table and landing for a guilt-inducing beat on each person sitting there, grandchildren excepted. “This is a milestone for your father, and we should honor him accordingly.”

  Sam smirked. “Whether the birthday boy likes it or not.”

  “Sam,” Paige warned.

  Richard raised a hand. “I do like it,” he replied, as if settling the matter. “And I’m sure it will be a wonderful evening. But I want you all to remember why you’re here first. It’s our family vacation here at the shore, something that has brought your mother and me great joy over the years, and something we’re grateful to be able to still share with you. So all I ask is that you don’t let the party planning take away from that.”

  “Daddy, you say that as though it’s our last,” Clem said. From the expressions around the table, she wasn’t the only one who had heard it. Flossy narrowed her eyes at him. What was going on?

  “No need to be dramatic,” Richard added quickly. “I just want you all to make the most of the house. It’s been in the Merrill family for many decades, and we’ve been fortunate.” He turned his attention abruptly to his salad, leaving them all wondering.

  “Can I go down to the beach tonight?” Ned asked, switching the subject.

  “No!” Paige and David answered in unison. Clem averted her gaze and pretended to help Maddy cut up her chicken.

  “Oh, come on. You heard what Grampa said. He wants us to have fun.”

  “You’ve had plenty of fun lately,” Paige said firmly. “Let’s play a family game tonight.”

  “That’s boring!” Ned protested. “Only the little kids like it.”

  “Ned!” Paige snapped. She turned to Clem apologetically, but Maddy and George were too engrossed in their chicken nuggets to have heard.

  “I’m with Ned,” Sam said. “It’s not like we didn’t go to parties on the beach.”

  Paige threw him a look that could have melted tar. “Thanks, Sam. Even though you were the life of the party, I think you’ll likely change your opinion on that topic if you ever have kids.” As quickly as the words came out of her mouth, silence fell. She put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, Evan. I didn’t mean . . .”

  Evan met her gaze without ire. “It’s okay. I know you didn’t.”

  But Sam didn’t. “What the hell does that mean?” he snapped.

  “All right,” Richard said, clearing his throat. “That’s not what she meant.”

  “It’s not, I’m sorry.” But she was talking more to Evan. To Sam she said, “Maybe if you didn’t stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong all the time. You have no idea what kinds of issues teens face these days, issues none of us had to contend with. And besides, if I remember correctly, you got off by the skin of your teeth with some of the stunts you pulled.”

  He jumped up so quickly the table shook. The little kids startled, eyes wide.

  “Both of you, please,” Richard admonished.

  Sam tossed his napkin on his plate. “It’s okay, Dad. I’m not hungry anymore.”

  * * *

  Later, Clem and Evan stood side by side at the sink. Tradition was that two family members took turns each night doing dishes, and they’d decided sh
e would dry and he would wash. “Rough night,” she said quietly.

  “Yeah, that’s a fair statement.”

  Clem watched Evan scrub Flossy’s copper-bottomed frying pan until it shone. “You know Paige didn’t mean it like that.”

  Evan handed her the pan with a resigned look. “I know. Sam’s been under a lot of pressure at work, and he likes to point to that. I think it’s the adoption that’s really weighing on him.”

  “What about you?”

  Evan submerged a plate in soapy water and paused. “I have a good feeling about it. I don’t know; after what happened last time, I wondered if we should take a break, you know?” He looked at Clem. “But this mother, Mara, is different. She’s a little older. She’s got plans, things she wants to do. Which makes me think she’s maybe a little more sure of herself.”

  Clem leaned forward to wipe a spot of soap off Evan’s cheek, and then kissed it. “I want this for both of you,” she said. There was a thunder of kids running down stairs. Maddy streaked into the kitchen, wearing nothing but a pair of Ned’s swim trunks. She snatched a freshly cleaned serving spoon from the counter and the pot Clem had just dried. “Hey, now,” Clem said, reaching for them. “Uncle Evan just washed those!”

  But Maddy held both over her head and clanged them together before scooting out of her reach. George rounded the corner, his eyes wild with pursuit. He snatched a colander off the counter before Clem could stop him and took off after his sister with it on his head. “Bedtime!” Clem shouted.

  Evan laughed.

  “Oh, you think that’s funny?” Clem asked. “Laugh now, brother. Laugh hard. Soon it will be your turn!”

  He rolled up the dish towel she’d tossed on the counter and snapped it at her retreating behind.

  Clem scooped Maddy up and motioned for George to follow. At the top of the creaking staircase she paused to both catch her breath and inhale the intoxicating scent that was her child: a sweet, gamey combination of hard play and seashore, tinged with baby shampoo. It gripped Clem with a visceral sense of calm, stilling her frenetic thoughts in a way she had not felt since the kids were babies and she used to linger in the rocker beside their cribs well into the night.

  “You sleepy, baby?” she whispered. Maddy’s legs dangled, and she’d grown suddenly heavy and still against her chest.

  “Mmhmm,” came the muffled voice. It was just like Maddy to go from full-tilt to near-collapse.

  Clem herded George into the bathroom to wash faces and brush teeth and carried Maddy to bed. There would be no protest about bedtime tonight. This summer had been tougher with the gap in ages; in past years Clem’s children were toddlers to Paige’s elementary-aged kids, so everyone was usually tucked in by the same hour of eight. Now, however, the teens stayed up closer to ten, an ungodly bedtime for her little ones, but one they were determined to mimic. Luckily the long beach days worked their magic, and by dessert they were sun-weary, waterlogged, and wrung out by the sea air.

  Clem tucked Maddy in with a quick prayer to the tooth fairy gods for not possessing the strength to rouse her child to brush her teeth. George hoisted himself into his bunk above, and she climbed onto the bottom rung and kissed his head. “ ’Night, sweet boy.” But he didn’t answer. As soon as he had turned over, he was already drifting off and away from her. She stared at his boyish features: his broad forehead, his freckled nose. George was all Ben, a fact that left her forever heartsick and terribly grateful at once.

  Below, she could hear the rattle of dessert dishes being washed in the kitchen sink and the creak of the screen door as people came in and out from the deck, probably getting another bottle of wine. She’d planned to go back down and have a bite of the peach cobbler Flossy had set out, but she was suddenly seized by a fatigue she could not deny, so instead she padded down the hall and washed up in the bathroom. Even the Ambien didn’t allow her a sense of tiredness this complete, and the thought of getting to bed without taking one of the small yellow pills was too good to skip. If only she could keep the feeling. She’d just slid beneath the crisp sheets and switched off her bedside lamp when she heard it: the faint strum of guitar music and muffled laughter outside her window. It was so dark.

  She got up and went to the window. The sash squeaked in protest from years of salt air and humid summers, but she finally managed to tug it open high enough that she could lean out into the night. The breeze was brisk and the sound of the shore stronger up here, echoing up over the bluff. Below, in the distance, she could see the orange flicker of a bonfire down on the sand, and her heart gave. Someone was having a party on their beach.

  When they were teenagers, their annual summer departures to Westerly never failed to begin with vocal adolescent objection. Sam wanted to hang out with his school friends; Paige and Clem didn’t want to miss a whole summer at home in Connecticut. But once they arrived at the shore, they always picked up right where they’d left off the summer before, with the bonus of having grown up a year. Like the summer Sam got his driver’s license—before he crashed their father’s vintage VW Bug along Shore Road after a beach party at Weekapaug. Or the year Paige took a job scooping ice cream behind the counter at St. Clair Annex—the same summer Clem could finally fill out her bikini in a way that made the college-age lifeguards at East Beach turn around in their chairs. The Merrill kids wasted no time rounding up summer comrades: Sam was trailed home regularly by swathes of freckle-skinned Irish students who worked as Ocean House hotel maids and busboys. Paige made friends with the teenagers at St. Clair’s, and Clem spent her days linked arm in arm next door with Suzy Weitzman and the other local summer families who shared their narrow strip of beach. Each season became a reunion. As the years went on, their bonfire parties on the beach became legendary among the summer crowd, and though Flossy sat sentinel in the checkered wingback by the fireplaces running her fingers edgily over the threadbare arm covers until everyone stumbled safely back up the dune path and into the house, their parents did not forbid them those weekend forays. It was the one part of their childhood that was silently acknowledged and never commented upon, as long as the flames were smothered by sand and the beer cans were picked up before high tide washed away the last set of departing footprints.

  Now, Clem kneeled at the open bedroom window and breathed in the salt air, remembering. Somewhere in the distance she could make out the faint lyrics to “American Pie.” Her mind drifted to Fritz. Was he was sitting at home next doors reminded of the parties they’d shared as kids? She wondered if he recalled them with the same breezy longing that she did.

  There was something about nighttime at the summer house. A sudden burst of laughter wafted up over the dunes, and she turned her face toward it, relishing the comforting rush it brought. Unable to resist, she tiptoed downstairs in her nightgown.

  Outside, the backyard was so still, contradictory to the backdrop of roaring surf and voices coming from the beach below. A salty wind rose over the bluff. She paused on the edge of the porch and wrapped her thin bathrobe more tightly around her.

  The grass was coarse and damp beneath her bare feet as she trotted across the yard. It had been how many years—ten or more—since she’d crept out of the house during the night like this, and the realization gave her spontaneous exit an air of deviousness. She paused at the opening of the sandy trail and glanced back at the house. There was a lone glow from Sam and Evan’s window, but all the others were dark with what she imagined to be slumber. Still, as she stepped onto the beach path, it occurred to her that the kids might wake up and go looking for her, and she froze. It was the exact kind of fear that kept her close to home on weekdays or waiting in the car at after-school practices, always wary of leaving the children, even for a quick run to the grocery. Because no one knew better than she that anything could happen in the most ordinary of moments.

  But Paige’s room was right next door to the kids’, and her parents were at the end of the hall near the stairs. Surely Maddy or George would know to go to them if they
found her bed empty. Besides, after the long day on the beach, she doubted seriously that either would awake. And so she headed down the path, her heartbeat quick in her chest.

  Ahead there was a faint glow by the water. The smell of wood smoke drifted up, and she pictured the large driftwood logs they used to pile up to burn. The voices grew louder as she approached; this definitely wasn’t a group of grown-ups gathering with wine and picnic baskets. Too boisterous. The trail snaked back and forth through the dune grass and eventually opened up at the head of the beach. She halted as the bonfire came into view. A group of teens, maybe ten or fifteen of them, mingled around a roaring fire in small groups. There was the tinny flash of beer cans being lifted in the firelight and the pelt of laughter. Clem grinned; it felt like yesterday that she had been one of those very teenage girls racing down to the firelight to join them, welcomed by a chorus of shouts.

  Not wanting to intrude, she stayed in the shadows. There was a sheltered spot at the base of the trail; it was an alcove between the dense thicket of dune cover and the grassless stretch of open sand, out of sight from both the house and the shoreline. The same cozy spot she’d taken shelter in as a child to watch the sunset or the moonrise. A spot she’d stolen away to for private moments over the years, whether for a good cry or a sun-drenched escape from her siblings. And later, a hideaway that teens would steal away to, to make out unseen by others. Now, she sank down into the cool sand and wrapped her arms around her knees. By the looks of the group down by the water, there was little to distinguish them from the group from her own teenage summers: the denim shorts, the baseball hats on most of the boys’ heads, the bare limbs that took on an apricot glow in the fire’s light. Most of them were seated around the fire, faces alight with both youth and sunburn. A few kids stood off to the side, huddled together in conversation. Clem had no intention of walking down there, but something about the group made her want to stay a minute and take it all in. It was then she heard the clink of a bottle somewhere off to her right. Her gaze jerked in its direction, eyes narrowing at the tangled shadows of dune and sky.