Page 30 of The Summer We Started Over

“It was your mother’s,” William said.

“When did our mother ever make hors d’oeuvres to serve at a party?”

“Point made.” His grin was wicked. “Maybe you girls would like to have it. We could give a party here…”

Eddie snorted. “Right, that could happen. First of all, there’s not enough room for a party. This is out.”

Barrett laughed. “Eddie, look—a Thomas Kinkade engagement calendar!”

William grinned again. “Those arereallynot mine. Your mother liked his pictures.”

Barrett lifted out an armful of Kinkade’s books. “Someone will enjoy these.” She tucked them into a brown paper bag.

Slowly they added other books.Learn to Sail in a Weekend.Quilting for Fun. Scuba Diving for Beginners.

Stacked neatly together beneath the long table were at least two dozen hardback novels by Barbara Vine and Ruth Rendell.

“Look, Dad,” Barrett said. “We can put these in your bookstore and some mystery reader will be thrilled.”

“Fine.”

“Well, these are definitely Mom’s.” Eddie lifted up a stack of books about diamonds. How to value diamonds. Elizabeth Taylor and diamonds. A history of diamonds.

“Maybe I’ll keep them.” Barrett took them in her arms.

“Really?” Eddie raised her eyebrow at her sister.

“You’re right,” Barrett said. “They should go.”

Eddie turned to her father. “Do you want to send them to her, Dad?”

William rolled his eyes. “She’s in Amsterdam. I don’t think she needs them.”

The girls continued working, carefully checking each book title and suggesting some to their father. They struck gold when they found an entire set of the 1995Encyclopaedia Britannica.

“Remember how you used to explain stuff to us by reading from these?” Eddie asked their father.

“I do. Those were good old days.” Before they could react, he said, “And we’ve all got many more good days to come.”

By noon, they had moved several bags of books and had dust in their hair. There were spaces in the bookshelves like gaps between a seven-year-old’s teeth. They stretched, groaning at their complaining muscles.

“Dibs on first shower,” Eddie said, and raced up the stairs.

Barrett shook her shirt and watched the dust drift in a ray of sunlight. With Eddie here, everything seemed easier.

“Come into the kitchen, Dad,” she said. “I’ll make you some lunch.”

“I’m not really hungry,” William said. They’d discovered an ancient tome—ancient for their family—titledGreat Poems of the English Language.It had been given to their father’s grandmother by her aunt. The cover was falling off, but many pages had been dog-eared,and William sat on a chair with the book on the dining room table, reading the selected poems and nodding to himself.

“Yes, yes,” he said every so often. Or, “I had forgotten this.”

Barrett went into the kitchen and made three tuna fish and tomato sandwiches, covering two plates with paper towels. She ate her sandwich standing over the sink. She was worried about her date with Drew. Althoughworriedwasn’t quite the right word. She was unsettled. She was twenty-six years old and living with her father. On Nantucket, that was normal. Real estate was crazy expensive on the island, and she knew she’d never have enough money to buy her own place. But was she weird for being so glad that Eddie was home? Had their brother’s death and their mother’s desertion made Barrett unable to start her own life? Plus, Eddie was almost thirty and not attached to anyone, and their father was handsome, but he didn’t have a woman in his life.

Barrett was attracted to Drew, but he might be smug or boring. She resented the time she spent thinking about him when she should be focusing on her shop.

Still, this summer would be interesting.

seven

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