Page 45 of Summer Light on Nantucket

Bob had told her she should focus on their own children. He was making enough money, God knew, for them to live on.

Blythe had snapped that money wasn’t all their children needed. When had Bob ever helped any of the kids with their homework? Or attended a recital or soccer game?

Bob had reminded her that he was involved in a legal suit against acompany that had dumped toxins into Boston Harbor and did she want him to stop working?

Of course not, Blythe said, but Bob wanted to buy a sailboat to moor on Nantucket. Blythe didn’t enjoy sailing and thought it wasn’t right for the expensive boat to be bought with their family income. But, she continued, if she taught, she could help support the family.

Bob had snorted with laughter. With her teacher’s salary? And what about him? When did she ever supporthim? Sure, she made all the meals and picked up his dry cleaning, but when did she ever ask about his work? When did she ever initiate making love?

Blythe went out and bought a sexy pair of crotchless lingerie and appeared in the den late one night when he was watching the Red Sox. She’d wrapped a robe around her in case the children woke. She made a dramatic appearance in the den, tossing her robe off and posing seductively against the door.

Bob looked at her and gave her the first sincere and loving smile he’d given her in months.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he said sadly, as if he were consoling a child with a hurt finger.

Insulted, hideously embarrassed, Blythe had raced back to her bedroom, ripped off the rather uncomfortable outfit, wrapped it in newspaper, pulled on the robe, and taken the lingerie out to the trash barrel. When she returned to the house, she hurried up the stairs, went into their bedroom, and locked the door.

That night, Bob had slept in the guest room. After that, he slept there so often that the kids asked about it. He told them he’d wrenched a muscle in his back and needed to sleep alone.

A few nights later, they’d talked again, seriously, about their lives. Bob told her she loved the kids first, him second. He’d said that she’d been beautiful in the Victoria’s Secret lingerie, but that kind of sex wasn’t what he wanted, and besides, her C-section cut had showed, and all he could think about was the night Holly was born.

“We have the children,” Blythe had reminded him. “Are we supposed to be wildly passionate lovers, too?”

Bob had taken her hand. “Maybe not. But I would really like to have a wildly passionate lover before I die.”

“Maybe we can’t have everything we want,” Blythe told him sadly.

“Maybe not. But I’d like to try.”

That night, they hadn’t made love.

They’d spent hours with a marriage counselor. They’d tried not to fight in front of the children. They’d been much nicer to each other when they decided to divorce. When they told the children, they spoke honestly but not angrily. The children were confused for a while, and upset, and worried. That was the worst thing about divorce, Blythe thought, your children were caught in between.

But here they were, on Nantucket as they had been every summer, and three years after the divorce, they were all comfortable with the situation. It was an enormous plus that Bob spent much more time with his children. It helped that Blythe had the Nantucket summer house. When Bob and Teri spent a few weeks on the island at his mother’s house, the children stayed there, too, often racing into Blythe’s house for a forgotten sweatshirt or lost earring. Blythe loved how the children moved easily between the two houses. She was glad Bob was happy with Teri, and she hoped that someday she’d meet a man she could be glad to spend time with, although she had her doubts that that would ever happen.

It was miraculous, Blythe knew, that Celeste and Blythe remained close friends. When all the kids were off somewhere, Blythe would make iced tea or, if the time was right, a fizzing vodka tonic with lots of crystal-cold ice and slices of lemon. They would sit on the back porch and talk about the garden, Celeste’s bridge club, and, sometimes, Teri.

One late afternoon, when it was uncomfortably hot and humid, definitely vodka tonic time, Celeste had said, “I have to give Teri credit. She’s a lovely girl, and good with the children. But sometimes she acts as if I’m one hundred years old. Also, she doesn’tread.Shehasn’t readanything.When I asked her if she’d like to borrow my copy ofBelovedby Toni Morrison, Teri said, and I quote, ‘I’ll just wait and see the movie. I’m an addict of romantic movies.’ ”

“She makes your son happy,” Blythe had reminded her ex-mother-in-law.

Celeste had lifted an eyebrow. “And you’re happy without him.”

“I am.” Blythe had glanced down at her left hand, free of any rings. “And your son is happy without me.”

“Mom!”

Blythe’s memories were interrupted by Holly.

“Hi, Mom, I’m in a hurry. I’ve got to change clothes and go to Grandmother’s,” Holly called, thundering up the stairs to her room.

Blythe followed, a load of clean laundry in her arms. “Will you be gone long?”

“I don’t know,” Holly said. “I promised Grandmother I’d come over this afternoon to help make cheddar crisps for a small get-together she’s having this evening.”

Blythe leaned against the door, watching Holly whirl around the room. “Areyouinvited to this small get-together?” Blythe asked.

“Not as a guest, which—no thank you. She’s only having four or five friends, but she asked if I would pass around the goodies, you know, like a caterer.”

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