Page 31 of Summer Light on Nantucket

“Yes. When can I see you again?” Before she answered, Aaden said hopefully, “Tonight?”

“I don’t think so. It’s our second day here and Miranda’s boyfriend just got here. I’ll figure out everyone’s schedule and call you.”

They walked to the door together.

“Thanks for the lunch,” Aaden said.

Blythe paused. She hoped Aaden would surge forward and press her against the wall with hungry kisses. He would have, once. But they weren’t teenagers now. They had families. Responsibilities. They had to go slowly.

“Thanks for coming,” Blythe said. “And thanks for the flowers.”

Aaden left. As he went down the sidewalk, he turned, looked up at Blythe, and waved.

Blythe watched as Aaden walked away, along the brick sidewalk, past the hedge shaped like a whale, past the house with the blue door and the widow’s walk, past the house with the Mercedes convertible sitting next to the Range Rover in the driveway. Then he turned the corner and was out of sight. She wanted to sink down onto the steps, lean back on her elbows, and remain right there, in the air where Aaden had been.

conversations

Blythe had learned to keep the refrigerator, pantry, and shelves stocked with food. Seedless grapes, bananas, watermelon slices would disappear in one day as various kids swarmed the kitchen, grabbing whatever they could eat without having to sit down. Once a week Blythe made meatloaf and cut it into thick slices so it could be eaten in a sandwich or warmed on a plate with chips. She made a large pot of macaroni and cheese every week, and a rice salad tossed with vegetables, a bottle of the ranch dressing her children preferred placed next to it. Bowls of Brussels sprouts roasted in olive oil, sea salt, and, sometimes, parmesan cheese. Towers of carrots, cucumbers, broccoli, red peppers, cut fresh every day. She seldom bought cookies or chips, knowing they wouldn’t last twenty-four hours in her house, but she bought mozzarella sticks and yogurt with fruit and salted nuts. She refused to buy sodas but made pitchers of fresh lemonade. Her kitchen was a kind of free twenty-four-hour cafeteria.

Tonight, Miranda would have dinner at home with Brooks and some, if not all, of her siblings. Blythe told Miranda it was the proper thing to do. It was a way to welcome him into the household. Any other evening, Miranda and Brooks could eat lobster rolls and hot dogs from the Sandbar restaurant at Jetties Beach, and enormous pizzas from Sophie T’s, and probably Sunday dinner at Celeste’s. But this was Brooks’s first night here.

Blythe entered her kitchen, the funny old kitchen they’d never gotten around to renovating. It had red tiles on the floor, supposedly to look like bricks, and a wide double porcelain sink and cupboards with flowered knobs put on by the previous owner, and a new refrigerator, stove, and microwave. The ugly cousin in the kitchen was the rolling dishwasher that sat in the corner and had to be pushed over to the sink and hooked up to the faucet with a long black hose and to the electric socket with a long black cord. Blythe had considered getting a new dishwasher installed with the hoses directly connected to the sink, but the kitchen would have to be completely torn apart and rearranged, and there had never been time.

She didn’t mind. Nantucket cherished its history and the buildings, streets, and houses that had come with it. The room was small, and it certainly didn’t have an island, but she didn’t mind that, either. There was enough room for a wooden table under a window where two people could sit, eating breakfast or helping to peel potatoes.

She brought out the large casserole dish from the cupboard and began opening tin cans of tuna fish. It was fun to make this retro dish that she could remember her own mother and grandmother serving.

She realized she was singing as she worked. She stopped for a moment and gazed out the window.

She was happy because she’d seen Aaden.

But more than that, she was happy because at last she felt free tobehappy.

The first couple of years of her divorce had been hard on the children. Bob had moved out. They sold their big house in Arlington andBlythe bought a smaller one in the same school district. They’d talked together with their children, explaining that their lives would be different, but better. The kids went through a period of slamming doors and yelling fiercely critical remarks at Blythe and Bob. After a while, everyone settled down.

Sometimes in those first months, Blythe would hear Miranda crying while she took a bath with the bathroom door locked. Teddy became obsessed with throwing things in the backyard—sticks, plastic bottles, shoes—until Blythe had a basketball hoop put up on the garage door. She gave Teddy a basketball, and that had really seemed to help to use his turbulent energy. Holly had regressed a little, finding the baby dolls she’d packed away in the attic and tending them. She would wrap her babies in blankets and rock them, singing softly to them, saying, “It’s okay. Shh, now. It will be all right.” Daphne had been angry. She had a passion for justice and lots of energy fueled by her emotions, but no place to use that energy.

In October, when the weather was bright and crisp and the leaves were beginning to turn, Blythe rallied her four children and forced them to hike with her up the unfortunately named Gibbet Hill. She confiscated their phones and sang old camp songs that embarrassed them so much—it wasn’t the songs, it was their mother’s singing—that they promised not to complain if she would promise not to sing. Afterward, she took them for cheeseburgers and ice cream and felt victorious as she saw her children eating heartily.

Every weekend that fall, Blythe went climbing. Often the children had better offers. Overnights. Parties. Time with their father and Teri. Most of the time, only Daphne joined her on the hike, and as the weeks passed, Daphne’s fury diminished. Blythe felt better, too. She saw how her daughter was beginning to notice what was along the trail. Blythe would stand gazing in awe at a maple blazing with red leaves, and Daphne would kneel at the tree’s trunk, studying a mushroom—or was it a toadstool? Blythe began to explore websites, looking for the best parks. She bought Massachusetts field guides that describedwhere and how to find turtles, bugs, frogs, and snakes. She was only slightly surprised when Daphne saved her allowance and boughtThe Secret PoolandThe Secret Bay.

But, Blythe thought, this wasthisyear. A new year. A newsummer.Anything could happen. Anything had already happened—Aaden was on the island.

And so were her children, and their friends. Holly was having Carolyn for a sleepover tonight, and Miranda would stay home to have family dinner with Brooks on his first night on the island. Other than tonight, who knew when they’d all be together at the table. Blythe had released her children and herself from the rule of eating dinner together every night. The four didn’t exactly roam wild on the island, but every day was different, with friends meeting at the lawn at Children’s Beach for a game of soccer, or to see an extravagant animated epic movie on the big screen at the Dreamland, or a rainy day with board games and popcorn and apples for dinner.

She hummed as she worked, wondering if she’d have time before dinner to call Aaden and deciding she’d do that and make a plan to meet him later on Straight Wharf.

She took a foolish moment to brush her hair and apply fresh lipstick before sitting on the side of her bed and calling him. She got his voicemail.

“Aaden, it’s Blythe. Would you like to meet later at the gazebo at Straight Wharf? We could check out the yachts.”

Around five-thirty, the children stormed back into the house, talking, arguing, kicking off their sneakers, staring at their phones, and the Great Tracking In of the Sand began. It would take place every day for the entire summer. In earlier years, when the children were young, Blythe had made herself crazy trying to sweep up every sneaky tiny grain of sand that came in on the children’s shoes, clothes, and skin. Blythe made rules: Take your shoes off at the door. If you’ve been swimming, go around to the back, drape your towel over the porchrailings, and use the outdoor shower before you enter the house. That helped. But nothing could prevent shifty bits of sand from making it into the house to lie on the floor, on the sofas, and, finally, in the sheets.

Well, she wouldn’t worry about that today. She had other things to think about.

Miranda and Brooks arrived, both of them with sunburned cheeks and noses.

Blythe kissed her daughter. Miranda was glowing, and not only from the sun. Blythe pulled Brooks in for a hug. Miranda had told her how lonely Brooks was, how a housekeeper named Mrs. Jones took care of Brooks when his parents had to go abroad. Mrs. Jones was nice, and a reasonably good cook, but she wasn’t a motherly type, more of a formal person.

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