Summer House (26 page)

Helen watched, relieved, as Charlotte steered Teddy out the French doors toward the grassy lawn and the low brush and the beach. Charlotte knew the drill. They all did. Now it was just a matter of keeping Teddy moving until he wore out his drunk. He would be boring, repetitive, and maudlin, but he wouldn’t drink any more alcohol. Helen didn’t think he’d had the chance to get shit-faced enough to vomit like he had in college. It was good of Charlotte to deal with her brother.

She walked back to where Worth and Kellogg stood. “Charlotte saves the day.”

Worth’s face was as dark as thunder. “Charlotte shouldn’t have to save the day. I’ve warned Teddy I won’t put up with this behavior. I want him out of the house tomorrow.”

Seventeen

N
ona z
fighting with his wife about her grandson. She didn’t want to be in the room. She wanted to be in
bed
, she needed to rest—but at this moment she didn’t have the stamina or the breath to climb the stairs. She gestured to Grace to help her to a chair.

“Just for a moment,” she told her daughter. “I just need to catch my breath.”

“Of course, Nona,” Grace said, with a saccharine smile.

Oh, don’t be so smug!
Nona wanted say. It was so unbecoming, the way Grace relished her brother’s discomfort. “Could I have a glass of water?”

“Yes, Nona, I’ll get it,” Grace cooed.

“I’ll help!” Kellogg noticed his wife leaving the room and hurried after her, eager to escape the living room battlefield where Worth and Helen were speaking in low, tense voices.

“Worth, please,” Helen pleaded. “Teddy wasn’t so very awful this time. He was only a little bit drunk.”

“Helen, look. We’ve been through this all before, more times than I want to remember. You know as well as I do that with Teddy there’s no such thing as a little bit drunk. The point is, he’s
drunk.
And we agreed that we were not going to enable him.”

“But the situation is different now,” Helen argued. “Teddy’s married. His wife is going to have a baby, our grandchild! Teddy is employed, and he’s showed up every day, and he’s doing a good job, and it’s work he enjoys. Really, Worth, he’s changed. We should give him another chance.”

“How can you say he’s changed?” Worth shook his head angrily. “Because he’s married? You think he’s
really
married? This is Teddy we’re talking about here.”

Grace returned with a crystal tumbler filled with ice and water. “Here, Mother,” she whispered dramatically.

“Thank you, dear.” Nona took a long, soothing drink. “Now I need to go to my room. Would you ask Kellogg to help me up the stairs?”

Grace looked alarmed. “Nona! Are you okay?”

“Darling, I’m just exhausted, that’s all. I want to get these clothes off and crawl into bed.”

In a flash, reliable Kellogg appeared at his wife’s side; reaching down, he put his hands on Nona’s waist to help her out of the chair. This was always awkward, and sometimes Nona thought it was funny and crumpled into a fit of giggles, but she was too tired for laughter just now. Doctors had instructed Glorious and all the adults who helped Nona that they should not try to help her stand by pulling on her arms. That might actually pull them right out of their sockets. The helper was supposed to put his arms beneath Nona’s, but in Nona’s case, the gelatinous mass of her ancient enormous bosom made it difficult to reach her back. So Kellogg secured his hands near Nona’s waist, and she put her hands on his shoulders, and he heaved her to a standing position.

It took her a few moments to catch her breath.

“Give him another chance,” Helen said again from the other side of the room.

“How many chances have we already given him, Helen?” Worth demanded. “And every time—
every time
—he’s let us down.”

“Worth, for God’s sake, it’s not a matter of letting us down. It’s not about us. It’s about Teddy. This is a weakness of Teddy’s. It will not go away. It will be with him—with us—for the rest of our lives. But Teddy is doing his best to rise to the challenge, and we are his family. We need to stand by him.”

“Helen, it’s not as simple as that, and you know it. Teddy isn’t just an alcoholic, he’s manipulative, he’s a troublemaker, and he’s a spoiled brat. Why can’t you see what’s right before your face? Teddy getting drunk on Oliver’s wedding day? Why today, of all days?”

Nona didn’t want to listen anymore. “Kellogg, I’m ready,” Nona told her son-in-law.

Kellogg wrapped a supporting arm around Nona’s back, beneath her arms, and very slowly they made their way out of the living room, into the hall, and up the stairs. The sounds of the argument followed them, and Grace followed them, too, looking pious.
Oh, I’m such a critical mother
, Nona thought.
Here Grace is helping me, and she’s so proud to be helping me; why can’t I admire her for that?

While Kellogg arranged Nona in a sitting position on her bed, Glorious appeared. “I’ve got the dishwasher packed and running,” she told everyone. “But there’s still a lot to be brought in from the patio.”

“We’ll get it, Glorious,” Grace announced in her capable voice. “You help Nona. Are you okay now, Nona?”

“I’m fine, thank you. And thank you so much, Kellogg, for your strong arms.”

Kellogg blushed with pleasure. “Glad to do it.”

“Come on, Kellogg,” Grace said. “Let’s clear up the patio.”

The excitement and effort and beauty of the day had told on Nona, and she let herself relax the way she could with Glorious, the way she never could with her own children, because she needed to keep at least some small sense of distance and dignity with them. With Glorious, who was so voluptuously large, whose hands were so soft and gentle, whose personality did not
come at her
the way her children’s did, Nona could relinquish all endeavors to be competent, lucid, and in charge. She let herself slump. She was like a child as Glorious knelt to lift one foot and then the other, Glorious slipping
off Nona’s court shoes. As Glorious gave each foot a brief, friendly little massage, Nona took a deep breath of pleasure. She leaned against the bedpost then, while Glorious unbuttoned her silk shirt and unsnapped the technological wonder that held Nona’s breasts in check. Like a little girl, Nona raised her arms for Glorious to slide her nightgown over her head. Then Glorious unfastened Nona’s silk trousers and pulled them off Nona’s ancient, unresisting body.

Glorious pulled back the covers, plumped the pillows, and helped Nona into bed. Nona was so very tired that Glorious had to pick up Nona’s legs, one after the other, to lift them onto the mattress. Then she arranged the covers, smoothing and tucking them into the tidy, wrinkle-free expanse Nona liked.

Nona subsided against her pillows. “Oh, Glorious. Just what I need. Thank you.”

“Would you like something to eat, Mrs. Nona?”

“No, thank you. I just need to sleep.”

“I’ll check on you in a while, then.”

Nona felt the slight stir of air in the room as Glorious moved from the bedside to the door. She couldn’t keep awake any longer. She slept.

1945

May 1, 1945

Darling
,

Tonight I write you under candlelight and I am not green with envy, just short of paper, so I borrowed these sheets from my German host for the night. The family were just preparing supper when we moved in. I have to say the pan-fried potatoes left on the kitchen stove looked very tempting. The family left the food for us and moved out in their customary German rush when American troops told them their home would be used to billet troops. So I have a roof over my head. I don’t know how
long we’ll remain here. But now that the war is almost over I can give you a sketchy account of our activities since leaving the States.

We left New York on July 26 aboard the U.S.S.
William G. Mitchell
and debarked at Liverpool August 6. We went by train to South Wales. After living in the field for several days, we departed for Carmarthen to live in a tank camp near Pembroke. From September to November, we traveled via rough seas and complicated routes, listening to and ducking buzz bombs, until we finally hit combat in the northern flank of the Bulge with the 30th Infantry Division. Then we worked a long time with the 82nd Airborne Division, shoving the Jerries back within their famous Siegfried Line. I’ll never forget our bitter weather and the fighting during the latter part of December, January, and February. During this period I earned the Bronze Star.

Now we are up north and nearing the Baltic Sea and a linkup with the Russians and with the 8th and 82nd again. We are working with the 9th U.S. and 2nd British armies.

This information is not for all your friends or newspapers as yet; however, our folks can know.

My date for the cessation is May 7, and I pray the damn thing will be over before this letter reaches you. Fighting is sporadic and disorganized now; it is merely a matter of contacting the Krauts for them to surrender, and then we occupy the territory.

I suppose America was all agog over the big false, and unofficial news recently. I can’t see why people couldn’t wait for an official statement from General Eisenhower or President Truman. Now Americans will have to locate a new supply of liquor to celebrate officially. From reports received here, about all the celebration liquors were consumed.

Honey, I shall close now. This is not a romantic letter, but it does tell you why I haven’t written you for so long. I love you.

Herb

Anne didn’t receive the letter until early June. She wept with relief when she read it, even though by then the war in Europe was over. Herb was alive, that was what mattered; that was all that mattered. Soon they could begin their real lives.

The Stangarone Freight Company was busier than ever, as the Army of Occupation settled in Europe to deal with thousands of prisoners of war and even more thousands of displaced persons, families who had lost their homes, their communities, their real lives, and now were dependent on the relief offered by Americans. Food and supplies for the troops had to be shipped over the Atlantic, and now, in addition, the necessities for survival for everyone else.

When July rolled around, Gwendolyn Forsythe once again insisted that Anne take a two-week vacation, and once again Anne joined her in-laws in their old white whale of a summer house on Nantucket, but this time she felt restless and rebellious. She was tired of being around her hypercritical, unaffectionate, dull, and dreary in-laws and their rigid routine. She found some relief playing tennis or sailing at the yacht club, but even those activities did not bring real pleasure. She was only treading water, killing time, waiting for Herb to come home.

One morning as she sat on the patio sipping her third cup of coffee and listening to her mother-in-law run down the list of menus for the week, groceries that had to be bought, cocktail parties, luncheons, and bridge groups to be attended, Anne looked at the long rectangle of space closed in by tall privet hedges and thought she’d lose her mind.

“Mrs. Wheelwright?” Anne asked, because that was what her mother-in-law insisted she call her.

“Mmm.” Charity Wheelwright did not look up from her pad of paper.

“I’d like to do some gardening. Would you mind if I—”

“We have a gardener to attend to the hedges. You wouldn’t be able to do it properly anyway, Anne; there’s a real art to snipping them so they are straight and true.”

“Oh, of course; I didn’t mean that. I mean, I’d like to—fill a few pots with flowers and set them around, here and there.”

Charity Wheelwright gave Anne a look she couldn’t decipher. “Go ahead,” she said.

That was sufficient encouragement for Anne. She asked to borrow the car, found her purse, and soon she was driving across the island to Bartlett’s Farm. It was late in the season for planting, they told her, but they had a number of plants left, growing root bound in their terra-cotta pots. Anne went wild at the sight of so much color: vivid yellows, dreamy blues, explosive reds, cheerful whites. She got out her checkbook and loaded up the trunk of the car with daisies, geraniums, cornflowers, petunias, calendulas, black-eyed Susans, and, best of all, sunflowers, the pride of the Midwest. She bought wooden tubs and the largest terra-cotta pots she could find, and she bought bags and bags of potting soil.

Driving home, she found herself not just singing but absolutely bellowing out all the optimistic, hearty ballads she’d grown up singing during Girl Scout meetings or from a wagon piled with hay, drawn by horses, on the way to an autumn bonfire. “You Are My Sunshine,” and “Daisy, Daisy, Give Me Your Answer, Do,” and—for no reason except that it was so much fun to sing—“The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” With a flourish, she brought the car to a halt on the gravel drive and set her purchases near the mudroom, because she knew Charity Wheelwright would not want the mess of potting inside her hedged garden.