Page 81 of Summer After Summer

I take a seat and look down at my plate. There’s an envelope there, and my heart catches in my throat. My name is written on the front, but it’s not my mother’s handwriting. It’s Tracy’s. “Thanks for the card.”

“Of course.”

I open it. It’s one of those silly cards, full of puns and jokes about aging. Innocent. I smile and tuck it next to my plate. Aunt Tracy’s heating up a pan for the pancakes, and there’s a pot of syrup warming on the stove. It smells heavenly.

“I’ve always meant to ask you,” I say, popping a raspberry into my mouth from a large bowl that’s full of them. “Those notes that Mom left for me, did you know about those?”

Aunt Tracy turns from the stove. She’s wearing a benign smile, part sad, part reminiscing. “She gave them to your father before she died. I think that there were three or four for each of you.”

“Three or four? I only got two.”

“Perhaps I’m mistaken.”

“Or William forgot to give them to me?”

She shakes her head. “I’d always remind him, each year.”

I want to cross-examine her. Was it three or four or two? But what’s to be gained from that? She didn’t hide anything from me. And if my father let a card or two slip through the cracks, it’s hard to blame him. My mother died over twenty years ago. That’s a long time to keep the faith, especially for a man like him, always thinking of himself first. But it also feels odd knowing that there might be other messages for me somewhere in this house. I still haven’t been able to bring myself to go into her private room, the most likely location. I know I can’t avoid it forever.

“Where’s William?” I ask as Aunt Tracy pours several large rounds into the smoking pan.

“Charlotte took him to check out one of those retirement communities in Quogue.”

“I’m shocked.”

“At what?”

“Not sure. That Charlotte did it. That he was willing to go.”

She flips over the pancakes. “Not much choice for both of them. Time is ticking away.”

“I have to find somewhere to live myself.”

She bends and pulls a plate from the oven, then stacks the pancakes onto it, adding syrup and then berries. She puts it down in front of me.

I inhale deeply, then pick up my knife and fork. “This smells amazing. Thank you.”

“Of course, my dear. It is always my pleasure.”

I take a bite and close my eyes at the memories. My birthdays stack on top of one another. “Why didn’t you go with them?”

Aunt Tracy puts a pancake on another plate and sits next to me. “I went the other day and picked out the house that I want. Charlotte is showing your father to let him pick it for himself.”

I laugh. “You’ve managed it perfectly. But you don’t have to move there if you don’t want to.”

“He needs me.” She cuts into her pancake. “And we’re used to each other. I’ll keep up the old rhythm, spending the winter down south, coming here for the summer.” Tracy sold her apartment in New York ten years ago and bought a condo in a retirement village in Florida. October to April, she flies there with the Canadian snowbirds and nurtures her tan. I’d seen her down there once or twice when I was playing. I’m fairly certain there’s a man in her Florida life, but she’s never mentioned him.

I put down my utensils and put my arm around her shoulders. “I don’t know what we would have done without you. Truly.” I kiss her weathered cheek. “I love you. I don’t tell you that enough.”

She squeezes her body closer, then pulls away. “Enough with that now.”

We return to eating, and before long half my stack is gone. I have that uncomfortable feeling in my stomach, like I’ve eaten too much, but I can’t stop myself.

“Where will you live?” Aunt Tracy asks.

“I’m not sure. I thought I was going to have to find a place I could afford on my teacher’s salary, but now … I guess I have more options.”

“You don’t have to go back to teaching if you don’t want to.”

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