The Perfect Summer (Hubbard's Point) (17 page)

“Go to it,” Tara said. “I've got to get the house done early today. There's an opening at the Black Hall Art Academy tonight, and I want to arrive at six sharp, to have my pick of the single artists. For whatever that's worth.”

“Leave when you're done—I'll walk home,” Bay said, smiling and waving Tara away.

She went into the garden shed, locating clippers, shears, shovels, rakes, and trowels. Cobwebs filled the space, but the walls were covered with fantastic, whimsical drawings by Hugh Renwick. Charmed, Bay spent a few minutes regarding the sketches he'd done of his wife in her sunhat, his daughters building sand castles and dancing with mermen, a sky filled with starfish, and a flying dog with a bone in his smiling mouth and a ribbon reading “Homer” around his neck.

Then she filled her arms with garden tools and went outside.

For four straight hours she walked the property, familiarizing herself with the land, starting in on some of the most tangled hedges and beds. Her grandmother had taught her to never be afraid of pruning.

“Right down to the ground with those blue star bushes,” Granny Clarke had said in her Wicklow brogue.

“But I can't,” Bay would protest. “It will kill them!”

“No, darling . . . the new growth brings the flowers. Chop away . . . that's a
girl . . .”

And so Bay did that now, ruthlessly cutting and hacking away dead growth, snipping pennybright bushes straight down to the leaf nodes. Leaving a trail of small and large piles of sticks and brown leaves, like a series of bonfires waiting to be ignited, she made her way through the yard. Only when the air began to cool and the shadows lengthen did she realize that it was almost the dinner hour; time to get home to her kids.

“I see that you believe in annihilation,” came the stern, throaty voice.

Peering over one especially large heap of vegetation, Bay came face-to-face with her employer.

“Oh, Mrs. Renwick,” Bay said, pulling off her garden gloves, reaching across the brambles to shake her hand.

“So. You are my new gardener.”

“Yes,” Bay said, smiling. “Don't be alarmed—I know it looks as if I've cut a lot, but I promise it will all grow back.”

“I'm particularly concerned,” Mrs. Renwick said, drawing out the word with her extremely patrician accent, making it sound like con
suhhhh
ned, “with all of those sticks that were once my husband's prize blue star bushes.”

“And they will be again,” Bay assured her. “They've been choked by ivy and bittersweet, almost strangled; so now I've cut off all the dead wood, and all the
vines . . . They'll focus their energy during the winter, and come back strong next summer.”

“I certainly,” or
suhhhh
tainly, “hope so,” Mrs. Renwick said darkly, “for Tara's sake.”

“Tara?”

“She's your friend, isn't she? She recommended you.”

“I know. Thank you for giving me this chance.”

Mrs. Renwick stood tall, white tendrils of hair blowing in the wind, the legendary black pearls she wore everywhere, even to the A&P, at her throat. But she looked perplexed. “Why would you say that? Tara assured me that you are the best there is.”

“Well, she might be a little biased. I am her best friend.”

“So she said.”

Bay tried to smile. “You came to my husband's funeral,” she said.

“We haven't formally been introduced, Barbara,” the older woman said. “I, as you obviously know, am Augusta Renwick.”

Barbara? Bay thought. No one called her that; it wasn't even her name.

“It's actually ‘Bairbre,' but my friends call me ‘Bay.' ”

“Bay,” Mrs. Renwick said. “I always thought that was such an unusual nickname, when your husband would speak of you.”

“Sean spoke of me?” As the sun began to tilt downward toward the horizon, Bay felt herself getting paler by the moment.

“Yes, he did,” Mrs. Renwick said, her voice thin. “He sensed that I would be amenable to hearing about his wife and three children. I have three children myself.”

“I know,” Bay said.

“Sean always knew what to draw on, in order to get what he wanted. He realized that we had three children in common, so he very often talked about his. Yours.”

“He loved them,” Bay said.

The wind picked up, and Bay felt the chill as she noticed the look in her employer's eyes. The conversation felt very tense, and suddenly Bay had the sinking feeling that Tara had talked them both into a situation that was all wrong.

“So much,” Mrs. Renwick said, “that he disgraced them the way he did?”

Bay felt her face turning white, her hands shaking as she twisted her leather gloves.

“He stole from me,” Mrs. Renwick said.

“I know. I'm so sorry.”

“I hate being taken advantage of,” Mrs. Renwick said, suddenly seeming very old and fragile. “I trusted him! I trusted your husband!”

“I'm so sorry,” Bay said again, reaching for her hand as Mrs. Renwick stumbled backward, steadying herself on a thornbush, pricking her hand.

Bay gasped, feeling suddenly frantic, realizing that this was a disaster, gathering up the tools. “I'll put these away, Mrs. Renwick,” she said. “It's getting late, so I have to get home and feed my kids, but as soon as I do, I'll come back and rake up these piles of brambles—”

“It will be dark!”

“That's okay. I'll come back to do it tonight, so you won't have to see me tomorrow,” Bay said, stepping on the head of a rake and whacking herself in the forehead. She was in a panic, upset with herself for thinking this job ever could have worked out.

“Now, look what you've done,” Augusta said, sounding outraged. “You've gone and hurt yourself. This isn't going to turn into a lawsuit, is it? Because I'm telling you right now, if you think I'm going to let one more McCabe cheat
me . . .”

“No, Mrs. Renwick,” Bay said, her forehead throbbing and the bone above her right eyebrow starting to swell. “I would never, in a million—”

“That's what I would have said about your husband!” Mrs. Renwick said, her voice rising. “I trusted him! That's what devastates me—I
liked
Sean very much!”

Bay tried to block out the voice, gathering the tools together, dropping the shears, picking them up, slicing the palm of her right hand. So Mrs. Renwick wouldn't see, she slapped her hand into the pocket of her pants.

“And now, to have YOU on my property, butchering my Hugh's blue stars and hurting yourself, why, it's too much! It's too much!”

Bay's hand was bleeding, stars dancing in her vision, tears blurring her eyes. But as she looked across the pile of vines and dead wood, she saw the old woman bury her face in elegant hands—gnarled with age, but still with long, slim fingers pressed into her eyes—and begin to sob.

“Oh, Mrs. Renwick,” Bay said, coming around the heap of vegetation. Not knowing what to do, not wanting to increase the woman's distress and needing to escape herself, Bay just stood there.

“I trusted him . . . and I cared about him very much,” Augusta wept. “I saw you at the funeral . . . we are both mothers . . . Tara loves you very much . . . Oh, I wanted to help you. I did.”

“You don't have to help me, Mrs. Renwick. I'm just so sorry for the pain we've caused you,” Bay said, starting to cry herself, moved by the old woman's acute suffering. Again, she remembered words her grandmother had once said to her: “Always look kindly on the old, Bairbre . . . Because they have loved people so much longer than you have, they have so very much more to lose . . .”

“When I think of your children,” Augusta said, unable to look up, “I can't bear it. I simply can't abide the thought of what they must be going
through . . .”

“They're fine,” Bay said. “They'll be fine. They're my worry, not yours. Please, just forget I was here. I'll leave now . . .”

And feeling dizzy with grief and pain, she began to walk.

15

B
LACK HALL ART ACADEMY.

Twilight.

White wine flowing like white wine. Artists and people who wanted to meet or be artists buzzing, the art incidental to the conversation. The cognoscenti somewhere else because the word was out that Dana Underhill was giving a private gallery talk wherever that somewhere else was. New York, maybe. Tara tan and clad in a red sarong, eyeing the crowd.

The evening was a bust, manwise, the opening a deadly bore, until into the midst of all the paunchy artists and skinny art students, everyone wishing they were Hugh Renwick—or could at least paint like he could—walked a true man. Arms like iron, a chest that wouldn't quit, blue eyes that could melt rock: Dan Connolly.

Tara saw him enter the gallery from the parking lot side, thinking he really did look awfully fine, if awkward, in his blue blazer. The exhibit was a sculpture show: “Found Objects and Maritime Media”—work that incorporated things found in boatyards.

“Way back in the day when you were reroofing the Hubbard's Point guardhouse, did you ever think that you could wire a barnacle-encrusted plank to a chipped propeller and get famous as an artist?” Tara asked, sidling up to him.

“No, and I still don't.” Dan grinned. “But I told Eddie Wilson I'd come see the work he did with the old stem apron and hood ends I gave him . . . and I have to admit, I thought maybe you and Bay might be here.”

“Really!”

“Yep.”

“Well, she's not here, but why don't I give her a call and see if I can tempt her to come? It was her first day at a new job, and I bet she'd enjoy the diversion. Meanwhile, do you see your friend's work?”

Dan accepted a glass of wine from a tray being passed by a young art student, and pointed at a chipped and peeling sculpture that incorporated the worst of an old boat's stern with the worst of an older boat's bow.

“The American Impressionists would roll in their graves if they could see what Black Hall has come to,” Tara said, rummaging through her bag for her cell phone.

“Really? I think it's pretty cool,” Dan said, drinking his wine. “I wasn't expecting to like it, but I do.”

“Oh,” Tara said, her eyes widening as she saw who was coming.

“Bay!” Dan said, sounding as happy as a teenager in love one moment, looking as worried as a bystander at a disaster the next. “What happened?”

Bay walked into the gallery and over to them, her face streaked with dirt and her red hair filled with twigs and leaves, her forehead bruised and swelling. But the truly frightening thing was the streak of blood soaking through her right pants pocket.

“Tara,” Bay said, breathless.

“Honey, what happened?” Tara asked, her heart beating very fast, alarmed by Bay's pallor, by the high pitch of her voice.

“I saw your car here. Will you drive me home?”

“Oh, Bay, what happened?” Tara asked, realizing that she was about to pass out—putting her arm around her and leading her to a chair.

“She saw me from the window and thought I was desecrating her husband's blue star bushes. She's lost so much trust this summer already . . .” Bay's voice trailed off, and she bowed her head. “It was a huge mistake for me to be there, Tara.”

“I hoped it would be good for both of you,” Tara said.

“It was a train wreck.”

“What happened to your hand?” Dan asked, touching her elbow. Her right hand was still shoved in her pocket.

“I cut it,” Bay said, seeming to see him for the first time.

“Let me see,” Dan said, frowning with worry.

“I have to get home to the kids,” Bay said. “Tara, will you drive me?”

“Let's go,” Tara said, helping her out of the chair. “Bay, you know I only did it because I love you, and because you needed a job, and Augusta needed a gardener . . . It was like one of those moments, when the elements come together so perfectly, you just know you'll get struck by lightning if you ignore them.”

“I know that's what you thought,” Bay whispered.

“Bay!” Dan cried, as she turned slightly, took a few graceful steps away from Tara toward one of the sculptures, weaved like a reed in the breeze, and fainted straight into his arms.

WHEN BAY CAME TO, SHE WAS LYING ON AN EXAM TABLE AT
the Coastwise Clinic. Two men were peering down into her face: a man in green scrubs, and Dan.

“What happened?” she asked.

“You passed out,” Dan said.

“My kids . . .”

“Tara went home to feed them dinner.”

She realized that he was holding her left hand, and that her right hand was stiff and aching. A clear plastic bag filled with fluid hung on a pole above her head; a tube ran into her arm. Hospital sounds of beeping machines and police radios were muffled, on the other side of a curtain.

“Good, you're awake,” said the man in green scrubs. “I'll get the doctor.” He left the cubicle, leaving Bay and Dan alone.

“I shouldn't have gone to the gallery,” Bay said, turning her head, so her cheek was pressed flat against the table's cool surface. “But I saw her car, and I wasn't sure I could make it home.”

“You couldn't have,” Dan said, squeezing her good hand. “Tara was very glad you stopped. Kicking herself for sending you to Mrs. Renwick, though. She's still the same as ever—irrepressible. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead, but with a heart of gold. I'm glad you two are still best friends. She knows she put you in a bad situation, though . . . the last thing she said was that she hopes you'll forgive her.”

“She knows I will,” Bay said. Then, as the seconds ticked by, “How did I get here?”

“I drove you. Tara wanted to call nine-one-one, but I didn't want to wait for the ambulance to arrive.”

“How did I get to your car?”

“I carried you. To my truck. Now that they've got you stabilized, you're going to need stitches in your hand. I think they want a plastic surgeon to take a look; you cut it pretty deeply.”

“I know,” she said. In spite of the pain medication they'd given her, her palm felt white-hot, as if she was holding molten iron.

“And you've got a shiner and a bump the size of an egg on your head. What happened, did Mrs. Renwick beat you up?”

Bay shook her head, which felt very foggy. “I stepped on a rake and grabbed a sharp pair of shears.”

“Very graceful, Galway,” Dan said.

“That's really a nice thing to say,” Bay said, trying to keep her words straight. “You have a world-class bedside manner, you know? I remember when I hit my thumb with that hammer.”

“I remember that. You lost your nail.”

“But not right away,” Bay said slowly, the memory washing through her. “At first, it just hurt like crazy—I'd split the skin along the side, and you had to take me to the clinic—here—for stitches.”

“That's how I knew how to find the place tonight,” Dan said, still holding her hand. “From all the times I've had to drop what I was doing and drive you to the emergency room.”

“One other time,” she corrected him.

“Well, if you want to be
exact,
” he said.

“And you were so very helpful that time, too. Telling me I'd lose my thumbnail and that when it grew back it would probably be ‘misshapen and grotesque.' ”

Dan lifted her left hand, bringing his face close to it, examining her thumbnail. “Looks like I was wrong. It's very pretty.”

“It was my right thumb,” Bay said.

She drew her right arm out from beneath the sheet, wincing as she did. Her hand throbbed in spite of the shot, and every movement made it worse. But she held her thumb for Dan to see.

“Ah,” he said, as if he were a doctor and knew what he was seeing.

“What?” Bay asked, light-headed with pain, medication, and emotion.

“I'm assessing the situation, young lady,” he said.

“I didn't know you were a doctor.”

“Twelve years as a father gives a man certain expertise,” Dan said, “in the realm of medical care.”

“Eliza,” Bay said, remembering the mysterious message, that she had gone away. “How is Eliza?”

“You're my patient right now—let's not get off track, here.”

“Well, tell me, then. Were you right all those years ago, when you told me my nail would be ‘misshapen and grotesque'?”

“You certainly have a mind like a steel trap,” he said. “To remember the exact phrase I used.”

“When you're a fifteen-year-old girl and you read
Seventeen
and all the models have perfect, oval nails, the words ‘misshapen and grotesque' carry quite a lot of weight.”

“I'm so sorry, Bay,” Dan said, holding her mangled right hand, staring into her eyes. “I was wrong about what would happen to your thumbnail. Most apprentice boardwalk-builders who smash their thumbs end up with nails misshapen—well, you know. But not you.”

“Not me?” she asked, suddenly, openly, weeping.

“No. Yours is beautiful,” Dan said, bending his head and at the same time raising her right thumb to his lips and kissing it.

Bay cried, dizzy with a million feelings, clinging to his hand and never wanting to let it go. Just then the curtains opened, and a young doctor walked in with a big smile and a very large needle.

“Hi,” she said. “I'm Dr. Jolaine.”

“Hello,” Bay said.

“Hi, Doc,” Dan said.

“You might want to step outside,” the doctor said, indicating the patient and the needle.

“I can't do that,” he said.

“No?” the doctor asked.

“No. I've signed on for the long haul,” he said. “I was here to make sure her right thumbnail wasn't smashed beyond repair, and I think the least I can do is stay to oversee her palm.”

“Well, some people mind being here for stitches, but if the patient wants you, and you don't mind—”

“I don't,” Dan said, laying Bay's hand down on the table, lightly touching the side of her head. “I'm right with you, Galway.”

“Thanks,” she whispered.

So Bay just closed her eyes and tried to be brave, the way she always told her kids to be brave when they got hurt and had to go to the clinic.

And the way—it all came floating back to her—Dan had told her a lifetime ago, when she was fifteen and all of life was a hopeful mystery, when she'd banged her thumb with the hammer, when her worst fear in life was that she would have an ugly thumbnail.

He did it again, right now, his voice soft and sure, reminding her that she was strong, and that she wasn't as alone as she thought she was.

“Be brave, Bay,” he said as the doctor shot her hand full of anesthetic. “You can do it.”

Bay wasn't at all sure of that; but she would certainly try.