East Hope (17 page)

The loud jangle of Lila's old telephone in the kitchen interrupted her thoughts. She picked up the cut chives and hurried inside.

“Mom.”

The sound of Rob's voice lifted her mood instantly; then it fell. “Sweetie, you're up early. Are you all right?”

“We just got off Jasper Peak. Cell phones are working again. Wanted to check in.” His far-off voice came through in quick bursts. Caroline felt as if her body were being recharged just listening to him.

“Mom, it's amazing. This last trip we hiked eight days and saw no one. It's so great. And no rain at all. My group has really hung together. Sixty-pound packs, and nobody's complaining. And you should see the wildflowers. You'd love it.”

“It sounds wonderful,” she said. Thank God she had let him go. It was obvious that this time away—and on his own—was doing him good. The happiness rushing through her was all about the joy of children, having children as part of her life. She missed her son more than ever.

“I wanted to ask if it's okay to bring someone home,” he said. “Before I leave for school.”

“I guess so.” She faltered. She wasn't sure she wanted another person around. “It's just that when you come home you'll only have a short time before classes begin.”

“Is everything okay?” he asked. “You sound strange.”

“I'm fine. Sure. Bring a friend. What's his name?”

“Her name's Melanie.”

A girl. Caroline's stomach lurched. An unpleasant taste, metallic and bitter, came into her mouth. Why hadn't she thought he might have met someone? The program was coed. She shouldn't be surprised. “Of course. I'd love to meet her. Why don't you bring her to Maine? You'd love it up here.”

“Mom, I want to see my friends in DC. Jim's going to have a big party. We might want to go down to Rehoboth, too. Besides, I thought you'd be home by August,” he said, his voice mildly accusing.

“Everything is taking longer than I expected.”

They talked a while longer, and Caroline promised she'd be home by the time he was. They would have so few days together before he went back to school. All the while, she tried to picture them at the house in Washington. Rob and Melanie, a couple, on one side of the table and Caroline with her secret on the other. Would it even be a secret by then? The idea of telling her nineteen-year-old son that she was . . . what? An unwed mother? She didn't think that would be the way to impress his girlfriend. How could she even imagine she could keep this baby?

Caroline and Hollis sat on the screened porch. Vern had finished painting the outside of the house that afternoon. His next project was to replace the rotted part of the porch. She clinked glasses with Hollis before taking a sip. Her gin and tonic remained ginless, but a sprig of mint floated gamely on top, making it look like the real thing. She rested a hand on her belly, her pregnancy hidden to the casual observer.

“You live here, you have to love weather.” Hollis Moody raised his glass. “Here's to Maine, the way life should be.”

The green signs on the highway had touted that message when Caroline first arrived in the state. The way life should be. What would her life be like now?

“Yup,” he continued, “it's the weather that makes Maine what it is, and it's not an easy place.”

“The fog last week did get a little depressing,” Caroline agreed.

“Fog's nothing nowadays, with GPS and all these other gizmos. Sailors used to get lost and trapped out there when the wind died. If that weren't bad enough, there were the storms. Devoured the fishermen, leaving the wives and children behind. It's made the people here strong. Know what I mean?”

Caroline agreed that Maine did seem to be a land of survivors. Even the old cookbooks offered clues to the resilient New England-ers. The growing season was short, and there were endless recipes using potatoes and root vegetables, crops that would grow in the hard climate and could be preserved to satisfy hunger when winter snows covered the rocky earth.

“Vern did a fine job with the painting.” Hollis gestured with his glass and then sipped his drink.

“I'm pleased,” she said. “He's about to do some work here on the porch. He thinks we can get away with just replacing a few of the supports.” She gazed at the floorboards, which still needed paint, and the blue ceiling that made her think it was always a clear day. “I washed the old wicker this afternoon. It had been in the barn all winter. What a job.”

“Have you met Vern's wife?”

“No. He talks about her a lot.”

“Now, there's one Maine gal. They go fishing every year. The Rangeley Lakes. A few summers ago Dottie drove a bear right out of camp with only a mop.” Hollis laughed so hard at the memory that he had to remove his glasses and dab at his eyes.

Caroline laughed with him. “I could never be that brave,” she said, remembering her fear of the bat.

“I have a feeling you're braver than you let on.” Hollis grew more serious and looked at the door leading inside the house. “Lila was brave too. Never went up against a bear, to my knowledge, but went up against certain folks. Worse, in a way.”

“What do you mean?”

“The summer people would have nothing to do with her.”

Caroline thought of the elegant old lady, a teacher at some private girls' school in Boston, Harry had told her. “But her husband, Francis, didn't he grow up coming to East Hope?” she asked. “I thought their house belonged to one of the old families who spent the summer here.”

“All true,” Hollis said. “Except for the fact that Lila and Francis never married.”

“Never married? Harry never said anything.”

“More than likely he never knew. All this happened before he was born. Families have their way of hushing things up. Francis was from one of the original old families that summered here for generations. This was during the depression years. He was a professor at Harvard. Lila taught at the Pine Hall school. She was twenty years his junior. They met and fell in love. Classic story, really. Both from fine old Boston families.”

“So why didn't they marry?”

“Seems he was already married. His wife, Anna, was what they called an invalid. That's what they used to say. Truth is, she was mentally ill.”

Caroline passed him the plate of cheese straws. “How very sad,” she said.

“They married young. Anna had a series of miscarriages. She was a nervous sort, had a hard time coping.” Hollis paused and chewed for a moment, brushing a few crumbs off his lap.

“When she lost a fourth baby,” he continued, “she had some sort of breakdown. Her family insisted on putting her in an institution—not far from here, actually. Francis was beside himself and didn't want her to go. He thought her family wanted to keep him away from her.”

Hollis stopped speaking and took a long sip of his drink. He glanced at his watch. “I'm going on too long.”

“No. Please. Tell me what happened. I can't believe Harry never knew this. I'd wondered why they never had children. Now I understand.”

“I'll keep it short.” Hollis leaned back in his chair and craned his head around for a quick look at the water. “Francis was crushed. He lived the quiet life of a bachelor, going to see Anna in Maine whenever he could get away. My wife, Millie, knew the story better than I do, but eventually Anna sort of shut down. It might have been early Alzheimer's. She no longer recognized people. Terrible, really. In the meantime, Francis met Lila. They adored each other, but of course Francis wasn't free to marry. They saw each other in Boston, still leading separate lives, but after a while he started bringing her here to his house for the summers. This was before the war. You can imagine the scandal. The summer people would have nothing to do with them. They did have friends to visit. Some of their artist and writer friends came up.

“Francis died in the early fifties. Anna a few years later. He left his money to Anna for her care, but the house was for Lila. She loved East Hope. They had had all those happy summers. So after his death Lila gave up her teaching and moved up here for good. She became part of the winter community. Started the children's collection at the library, volunteered at all kinds of things through her church, entertained friends. Her own family managed to forget all those years when she ‘lived in sin.' Funny about that. Lila never held a grudge. I think her one sister was your husband's grandmother. She died years ago. Not much offspring on either side of the family. I think your husband was the only great-nephew she ever had.”

“What a sad love story.”

“Not all the time. Lila didn't give a hoot for convention. She ignored the standards of the day. I guess she figured she had only one life, maybe only one chance at love.”

“I'm so glad you told me.”

“It's been a pleasure. But the sun's going down and I've got to be going.”

“You're sure you can't stay for dinner?”

“It's my night for cards. Few old buddies. We get together every coupla weeks. I'll take a rain check, though.”

Caroline gave Hollis a quick tour of the property, showing him all that Vern had accomplished, and then walked him to his car. Turning back to the house, she thought about Lila's story, all that had happened here, a secret of sorts right here in these rooms.

Will did not take his usual run in the morning. It was a good day for business at Taunton's, a relief to be busy. Still fuming about Mary Beth, who hadn't called him back, he worked on putting her out of his mind. He had had a recent onslaught of customers, though not much money in the cash register to show for it. He was certain that would turn around soon. The summer people wanted books for the beach. When he'd called Penny Taunton to tell her about his plan to stock current titles, she had been enthusiastic. She had also told him that her dad was not doing well.

The weather had been strange all day, fog, drizzle, an hour of sun, and then more fog, as if the day couldn't make up its mind. By six that evening the sun came out, a golden syrup pouring across the lawn. After closing the store Will decided to take a run to the town beach.

Martha, the proprietor of Karen's Café, had told him about the town beach out on Route 219. “Just for the local residents,” she had explained. “You gotta have your dump sticker on your windshield to park.” The town of East Hope had no trash pickup. Some of the wealthier residents paid for private trash collection, but Will had acquired the town sticker to prove he lived in East Hope and was therefore authorized to use the dump. He dutifully cut all his boxes into two-foot lengths for recycling. All other garbage had to be dropped off in regulation-size black plastic bags. Will would never forget the precise instructions he was given the first time he brought his trash. An old man with a greasy baseball cap had chastised him for calling it a dump. “It's the transfer station,” he snarled, “and don't you forget it.” The memory still made him cringe.

This evening he pulled on his shorts and trail shoes, and, abandoning his usual running route, he took 219 and then the poorly marked turnoff to Hawthorne Beach. The rutted dirt road dipped down into the woods, and though dense, the forest floor was covered with ferns of all sizes. The taller ones bowed gently in the dappled light that filtered through the leaf canopy. Eventually he arrived at a parking area, also unpaved, where two cars were parked. He figured that the locals were home eating dinner—or supper, as most of them called their evening meal.

The beach road narrowed to a path with marshlands and a pond to the right and three weathered gray picnic tables up on a knoll to his left. Will followed the pathway to the end, stopped, wiped the hair back from his face, and allowed the wet salt air to cool his skin. He stared at the wide curve of beach before him. It was low tide, and the water lay far in the distance across the rippled hard sand where earlier the waves had molded the surface, each ridge as unique as a fingerprint. To his left the rough barnacle-covered rocks stood out wet and dark in the evening sun. A band of fog had sunk down along the opposite side of the beach.