Page 95 of Summer After Summer

But no, no. That’s not the point. The point is for us to be together. It doesn’t matter where. That’s a detail we can figure out, like the objections Aunt Tracy and my father are raising. Everyone starts their life together with questions and uncertainties.

“William said that Mom would be against this too.”

Tracy’s face turns grim. “There’s no way of knowing that.”

But it turns out she’s wrong. Because when I leave the kitchen and go upstairs to my room, to lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling while I play Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black” and try to figure out what the hell I’m going to do, I see my mother’s card sitting on my dresser, where I left it six weeks ago. And I’m not sure what drives me to it, but after so many weeks of letting it lie, I pick it up, my heart thrumming. I use my thumb to pry the old glue apart.

My love,

Today you are twenty-one! I’m so happy for you on this milestone. And I’m sad also that I’m not there to share it with you.

But that’s selfish. I hope you’re living a good life. I hope you’re surrounded by love. I hope you and your sisters are a comfort to each other, and your father too.

Are you still playing tennis? I hope that you are. I’ve never been prouder of you than when I watch you on the court, your concentration, your glee at making a good shot.

Are you in love? I hope that for you too. I hope that you’re happy and with a good man. I want to think that we’d have the kind of relationship where you’d tell me all about it. That you’d want my advice on love, like when you used to ask me about the color of the sky and why rainbows exist.

And what advice would I give you? Love wisely, my dear. Be careful who you give your heart to. I got married so, so young, and I would tell you not to follow my example. Don’t be in a rush. If the love is real, it will wait until you’re ready for it. Marriage is a blessing, but it’s also a challenge. You might feel old today, but you’re so young and have so much living left to do.

So live, my darling. Live your life to the fullest.

No one else can do it for you.

Love, Mom

When I meet Fred at the summer house that night, right away he knows something’s wrong. It’s after the cocktail hour, and I’ve had a few, sipping gin and tonics on the veranda as the party whirled around me, tasting the bitterness of the tonic as I watch the usual crowd wander around as if there’s nothing out of place.

“No one thinks we should get married,” I say, trying not to sob.

Fred expels a long breath. “Who’s ‘no one’?”

“William, Aunt Tracy—even my mom.”

“What?”

I gulp back the misery that wants to escape. “It’s this card she left me for my twenty-first birthday. It’s like she knew. How could she know?”

He takes me by the hand and leads me to one of the moldering benches. The windows are partly fogged, the temperature change from day to night closing us off in this bubble.

“Tell me about it.”

I summarize it for him. The conversation with my dad, with Tracy, the card.

“She was just giving you general advice about life. She doesn’t know you now, or us …”

“No,” I say, my voice rising. “She did know me. She was my mom.”

“I’m sorry.” He gathers my hands in his. They’re warm and moist. “You’re right—I don’t know her. And to be honest, my mom isn’t thrilled either. But that isn’t the point. It’s our life. It’s what we want that matters. They’ll get over it.”

“But, Fred, I don’t want to do this if everyone is against us.”

“They won’t be, I promise.”

“They are.” I pause, and then it all comes out in a rush. All the questions and insecurities I’d absorbed that afternoon. “Why do we have to move to Boston? Why can’t you come to my school? Did you even consider that?”

Fred lets my hands go and leans away from me. I feel cold, a shiver going through me like when the weather shifts suddenly right before a storm.

“Honestly? I didn’t.”

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