Summer House (8 page)

At the airport, they went through the rituals of checking in and getting their boarding passes pleasantly, automatically, as they had done a thousand times before. Their strides matched evenly as they
walked swiftly through the crowded halls, past newsstands, fast-food boutiques, and coffee shops, from security checkpoint to gate. Worth tapped memos into his BlackBerry as they sat on the hard plastic chairs at the Cape Airlines gate waiting for their flight to be called. Helen read a book, or pretended to.

In fact, her mind whirled with questions. With whom was Worth having an affair? Someone from the bank, a sleek young secretary or administrative assistant? Perhaps a widow or a divorcée? No. Worth would never call a woman of Helen’s age “Sweet Cakes.” It had to be a younger woman, a much younger woman, with her breasts still riding high above her rib cage and her skin free of stretch marks. How long had this been going on? What kind of wife was Helen, to have been so oblivious—to have gone about her life in such a carefree manner, unaware that her husband was having sex with another woman?

Their flight was called and they boarded the nine-seater prop jet that carried them to Nantucket. It skimmed south, above the coast, humming and rackety and too noisy for conversation. The day was brilliant with sunshine, the water below infinitely blue.

Worth’s sister, Grace, was at the airport to meet them in her father’s beloved 1949 Chrysler woody convertible.

“Worth! Helen! On time! Good for you!” Grace hugged them, then grabbed one of their suitcases and led the way out to the car.

It was a relief to be with Grace, who jabbered away enthusiastically about all the plans she’d made for Nona’s birthday the entire time it took to drive out to the house. Not that Helen could hear her. Grace liked to drive with the top down, and it was a beautiful day for a ride in a convertible, but Worth with his long legs got the passenger seat in front behind the windshield, and Helen was wedged into the back with the luggage, where the wind beat at her face and tugged at her hair. She felt oddly calmed, caught like a leaf spinning on the stream of the family’s life. She could only let herself be carried along. Other thoughts had to wait.

Grace slowed on Polpis Road for the turn onto Nona’s land, and there was Charlotte’s little market-garden stand. Charlotte was there, too, and now Helen’s thoughts receded in a wave of love and delight at the sight of her wonderful daughter.

Charlotte was dressed like a farmer in striped overalls and boots and a straw hat, and Helen remembered all the costumes Charlotte had worn in her life. Her favorite pastime as a child was to play dress-up, raiding the trunks in Nona’s attics. Charlotte was Helen’s Gemini child, with at least two personalities. She was smart, hardworking, and kindhearted, but she had never been very practical. She was idealistic, a dreamer, and in spite of her attempts to seem businesslike with this garden, Helen was afraid Charlotte still had her head in the clouds.

“Hello!” Helen waved at her daughter, who waved back.

Charlotte was talking with Bill Cooper from the house next door. He was a handsome man, and Helen looked forward to seeing his parents tomorrow at Nona’s party. They were on the guest list, Grace had informed Helen, and she was glad. They weren’t close with the Coopers, but they’d known them forever, played tennis with them occasionally, had cocktails on the Coopers’ deck or in Nona’s garden or on the Coopers’ yacht. Felicity and Mark Cooper had had only one child, Bill. Helen thought Mark had wanted his son to follow him into his business in real estate. Instead, Coop had wandered around, trying different jobs, a bit of this, a bit of that, a bachelor’s degree in English literature, which would help him get no job at all, and, later, a master’s degree in computer science, which did, after a few years, pay off. Coop was self-supporting now with his software business, at least that was what Felicity had told Helen last summer. Of course, “self-supporting” was a relative term when someone lived at home without paying rent or mortgage as Coop was doing on the island.

Still, Helen didn’t think Coop had ever caused his parents any serious concern. One summer night, when he was sixteen, he’d gotten drunk with friends and thrown up on the beach in front of Nona’s house, but Mark Cooper had given him holy hell, and Nona, playing the role the Coopers had asked her to play, gave the boy an old-fashioned tongue-lashing which had put the fear of God into him. Helen smiled, remembering how the grown-ups had conspired to terrorize Coop out of his reckless overindulgence in alcohol.

And then Helen frowned as she remembered that she and Worth
had played out many scenes of censure, anger, and threat with Teddy, and with Teddy their condemnations did not seem to work.

The ride was bumpy as Grace sped the convertible along the dirt lane leading up to the house. To the west lay Charlotte’s garden, rows and rows of plants, which might have looked attractive except for the ugly wire enclosure. Charlotte said the fence was necessary to keep the deer out, and Nona didn’t mind; she couldn’t see the area from her living room or from the formal garden, where she liked to spend her summer days. They passed the old barn, which had been converted into a garage and toolshed, with the long new addition of Charlotte’s potting shed added on, the wooden shingles still pale gold, not yet weathered to silver. The driveway circled around a large concrete vase spilling over with ranunculus and pansies. Slate stepping-stones led right, to the boathouse and boat ramp, and left, across the lawn to the mudroom and kitchen. But Nona would be in the living room, so Helen and Worth went under the opening in the high privet hedge and through the formal garden and in through the French doors, where Nona was seated in her chaise by the window.

“Hello, darlings.” Nona held up her arms. She wore one of her trademark tailor-made outfits, silk slacks and a matching silk top with a mandarin collar, toggle closures, and embroidered cuffs. Today, it was coral with white trim. Helen thought Nona probably had thirty of these outfits in a range of colors. They had a simple elegance to them which Nona completed by adding her pearl choker and pearl earrings, just the luminous white of Nona’s hair. The older woman’s face was creased with age, but when she smiled she was young and beautiful.

“Mother. You look wonderful.” Worth bent to kiss his mother’s cheek.

“Thank you. What’s that in your hand?” Sharp-eyed Nona didn’t waste a moment. “You greet me with your cell phone in your hand?”

Worth grinned sheepishly. “I’ve got just one more piece of business to conclude.”

Nona gestured imperiously. “Take it outside. Or into the library. No business in the living room or in my garden.” She held her arms up to Helen. “Honestly. How do you put up with him?”

“Actually, I have no idea.” Helen kept her voice bantering as she bent down to kiss her mother-in-law.

Nona patted the side of the chaise. “Sit here a moment, dear. Let’s catch up. Grace and her tribe have already invaded—”

“I heard that, Mother!” Grace yelled from the hallway.

Nona laughed. “The great-grands are darling, and Mandy and Claus ride herd on them very capably. Mellie, however, as the first woman on earth ever to endure pregnancy, is languishing, and Mee—well, poor Mee is taking this divorce really hard.”

Divorce
, Helen thought, and wasn’t sure whether the idea frightened or tempted her. Perhaps a bit of both. Absentmindedly, she said, “Your party will cheer her up.”

Sharp Nona caught something. “You look tired, Helen.”

Helen put her hand to her windblown hair. “Not tired, really, just disheveled.”

“Grace drives that convertible like a maniac. I told her I will never ride in the backseat again.”

Helen laughed. “I don’t blame you. How’s Charlotte been treating you?”

Nona lay back against her pillows with an affectionate smile. “I see very little of her these days. It’s her busiest time in the garden. She’s up at four-thirty every day. I know, because I’m awake then, too, but I’m too lazy to get out of bed. I just lie there, watching the sky lighten and listening to the birds singing. I can hear her coming down the stairs, tiptoeing like a little children’s-book cherub so she won’t wake me. I hear the door to the mudroom open and close; I always mean to have someone oil those hinges, and I forget it as soon as I remember it. I love lying there, imagining her out in her garden, smelling the fresh morning air, gathering up all her tools, hearing the world wake up.”

What a gift it was, what sheer delight, to hear her mother-in-law speak with such fondness about her daughter! A rush of love and gratitude swept through Helen, and she said, impulsively, “That reminds me, Nona! I made a present for you. I’ll get it now.”

Nona held out a hand to forestall her. “But my birthday’s not until tomorrow.”

“I know, but if I give it to you now, you can use it first thing in the morning.”

Nona quirked an eyebrow. “Now you’ve got my curiosity aroused.”

“I’ll be right back.” Helen hurried out into the hall. Her bulging duffel was there on the floor, and from the dining room came Worth’s voice as he paced around, still on his cell phone. Helen unzipped the duffel, lifted out the package, and carried it in to Nona. Smug as a child, she presented it to her. “Happy birthday.”

Nona said, “Thank you, dear.” She untied the ribbon and carefully unfastened the tape; Nona always saved wrapping paper. She lifted out a mound of lavender mohair, as soft as a cloud. “A shawl?”

Helen shook her head. “A bed jacket.” Eagerly, she reached out and unfolded the garment, holding it up for Nona’s inspection. “I know how you enjoy reading in bed. Sometimes I’ve seen you with a blanket tossed over your shoulders for warmth, and I thought this might be lighter and warmer.”

“It’s lovely, Helen. Did you actually make it yourself?”

“I did. I chose the yarn and I knitted it.” She swallowed her innate shyness. “I love you, Nona, and I wanted to give you a birthday present especially and only from me.”

Nona took the bed jacket and held it against her. “It’s as light as feathers.”

“But it will be warm,” Helen said.

“Yes. It will be perfect. And the color is dreamy. You are so thoughtful, Helen; I’m touched. I’ll put it near me so I can slip into it tomorrow morning. It will be my first present, starting off my ninetieth birthday just right.” Nona reached out a wrinkled hand and patted Helen’s.

Worth came in, Helen’s duffel over his shoulder. “I’m going up, Helen. Do you want to come choose a room?”

“Look what Helen gave me, Worth.” Nona held up the bed jacket.

“Nice.” Worth shifted impatiently from one foot to the other.

“I’d better go up,” Helen said.

Nona’s summer house
had plenty of bedrooms and bathrooms, but anyone who had stayed there once or twice knew from experience that some of the baths had showers and not bathtubs and some had old claw-footed bathtubs but no showers, and these were lovely for long soaks but impossible for washing one’s hair. Some of the bedrooms had high four-poster twin beds, and some had old lumpy double beds, and some had queen beds, and no one claimed any room as theirs because personal sleeping arrangements changed almost every year. For example, Mee had been married for three years to Phillip and they’d insisted they couldn’t have a room with twin beds; they wanted to sleep together. But now here Mee was, divorced, so she would take, she had announced like a good brave martyr, any little room with a futon or something, someplace for one person alone.

Because Helen and Worth were late arrivals on Friday, they ended up with a choice of one of the cramped attic bedrooms or a second-floor room with a lumpy double bed. It was a pretty room. All the rooms were nicely wallpapered and softened with thick silky rugs, and the bed linens were old but clean and crisply ironed.

“This will have to do,” Worth said, and dumping his bag on the bed he began to unpack, setting his striped pajamas in the bottom drawer of the dresser, allowing Helen, as was his habit, the top two drawers.

All at once panic rinsed down Helen’s back. She could not share this pretty little room, that narrow double bed, with Worth, lying, philandering, cheating, deceitful Worth. It would be sickening to feel his large hairy male body shoved up against hers, knowing he had been lying on top of, inside of, another woman, and it would be heartbreaking if he should curl up against her—and how could he not in such a small bed—without becoming aroused and initiating sex.

“You know,” she said, and her voice seemed higher than usual, “I am too familiar with the lumps in that bed to want to attempt a night’s sleep there, and you don’t want to deal with my insomnia. I think I’ll try the sleeping porch.”

Worth kept unpacking. Socks in the drawer with the pajamas, and ironed boxer shorts, and a couple of short-sleeved polo shirts in the
deep blues that brought out the blue of his eyes. “No one sleeps on the sleeping porch,” he said.

“Then why is it called a sleeping porch?” She sounded light-hearted, flippant, as she left the room and walked down the hall.

The sleeping porch, at the end of the house, had three walls of screened-in windows, a wooden floor with an old rag rug in an oval puddle of blues and browns, and a disreputable daybed shoved up against the inner wall, covered with a white chenille bedspread that probably dated from the 1930s. The spread was stained with dubious spots that looked like blood, but Helen knew it was from pizza or chocolate ice cream, because not so very long ago, when they were teenage boys, Oliver and Teddy had turned this room into their private and unassailable lair. Mismatched furniture that Nona couldn’t quite give up but didn’t know what else to do with had migrated from other rooms to the sleeping porch: a white wicker rocking chair with unraveling wicker and chipped paint, a handsome ladies’ desk with a wobbly leg, a standing brass lamp with sockets for three bulbs, only one socket of which worked, and a very ugly card table that someone—Grace, no doubt—had covered with Con-Tact shelf paper in a white-and-pink rose print. The paper was coming unstuck at several places along the edges of the tabletop.