Page 6 of The Summer Guests

Colin and Ethan watched as their mother carried their father’s remains into the house. The screen door slapped shut behind her.

“Well,” Colin said dryly, “Mom seems to be handling the loss very well.”

“Ithasbeen three months,” said Ethan.

“It’s notthatlong.”

Brooke said, “Everyone handles grief in their own way, Colin. And your mom’s never been the sentimental type.”

“I suppose.” He shut the trunk of the car. “As long as she doesn’t plant him on top of the toilet.”

They followed Elizabeth into the house, and two steps inside, Susan halted, staring in wonder at the spacious living room. Sunlight streamed in through the floor-to-ceiling windows and gleamed on polished hardwood floors. Open beams arched overhead in a cathedral ceiling. A gallery of family photographs covered one entire wall, documenting the Conover family through the decades.

Brooke leaned in and whispered to Susan: “And they call this placejusta cottage.”

“It’s not at all what I expected,” said Susan.

“Whatdidyou expect?”

“I don’t know. A cabin on the lake. Bunk beds.”

Brooke laughed. “Trust me, the Conovers don’t do bunk beds. Thank God, or I wouldn’t have been coming here all these years.”

Susan turned her attention to the family photos on the wall. It was a pictorial history of the Conovers in Maine, dating back to an image of a young Elizabeth and George, standing beside the pond with a group of friends.

“These were all taken here?” said Susan.

“Right next to the same pine tree. The tree’s out there, by the canoes. You can see how much it’s grown over the years. Every summer, Elizabeth makes us stand under that tree for a photo. Here, that’s right after Colin was born.” Brooke pointed to the cherubic blond baby in Elizabeth’s arms. She moved on to a different photo, of Elizabeth holding a different infant, this one with dark hair. Colin, now a sturdy toddler, scowled up at his new brother. “And here Ethan makes his first appearance.”

Even as babies, the brothers were different,thought Susan. As the years passed, the differences grew more apparent. She could already see her future husband in the lanky child with the glasses and the serious face. Even then, he had a book in his hand, while Colin, the taller and blonder brother, projected robust confidence. A confidence that no doubt served him well on Wall Street.

Footsteps pattered down the stairs. Susan turned to see her daughter, already dressed in her purple bathing suit, scampering through the living room. “Zoe?”

“Just a dip, Mom! Come on, come out with me!”

“We have to unpack!”

But Zoe had already pushed out through the screen door and was dashing down the deck stairs and across the lawn, toward the water. Of course she was; if there was a body of water nearby, Zoe could not resist plunging in.

Susan followed her daughter out of the house and was only halfway down the lawn when Zoe splashed into the pond and shrieked in delight.

“It’s like having a humongous swimming pool all to myself!” yelled Zoe.

Susan stepped onto the private dock and smiled down at her daughter, who was effortlessly treading water. “Not too cold?”

“Not for me!”

The water’s never too cold for a mermaid,Susan thought as she watched Zoe glide away across a surface that gleamed a brilliant red gold. Except for the haunting cry of a loon and the soft splash of Zoe’s strokes in the silky water, the afternoon was magically silent. There was only one other person in sight, a man gliding past in a kayak.

She waved to him, expecting him to wave back. That’s what people did in Maine, wasn’t it? They waved to each other.

The man did not return the wave. He merely stared back at her, his face a black cutout against the glare of the sunlit pond, then he paddled away.

“She just couldn’t wait, could she?” said Ethan, chuckling as he came down the lawn to join his family.

“Can you blame her? She’s been cooped up in the car all day.”

He wrapped his arm around Susan’s waist, and for a moment they just stood together, watching Zoe’s head bob in and out of the water, her dark hair slick and gleaming like a seal’s.

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