Page 33 of Songs of Summer

Truth be told, if Bea made it clear that she wanted no contact ever again, Veronica might feel a sense of relief. The long years of sending birthday and New Year’s messages and compulsively checking her email for Bea’s response would be done. As would beating herself up in the middle of the night when her mind ran back to the decades-old inciting incident, or what she remembered of it at least. She was high as a kite half the time back then.

In the years since their mother’s death, Veronica had contemplated giving up on Bea multiple times, but her promise to her mom to heal their rift kept her from doing so. Maybe when both her parents were dead, she would stop torturing herself and accept that her sister was living a happy, fulfilled life and had no room in it for Veronica and her baggage.

Yes, she doubted Bea had any genuine interest in reconciling. She blinked back tears at the thought of it.

Veronica had been so happy to receive the wedding invitation, she’d immediately begun dreaming up all the scenariosof seeing Bea again after so long. Her sister cursing her out from her neighbor’s roof was not on the agenda. She questioned whether Bea was unraveling, or if it was merely her presence that drove her mad.

It hadn’t always been this way. For most of her young life, there was no one V would rather be with than her sister, and Bea seemed to feel the same way. V looked up to Bea, listened to whatever music she did, watched the same shows, and pinned the same images ripped from teen magazines onto her bedroom walls. Sometime before the lifeguard incident, when Veronica had started to come into her own, her body catching up to her long legs, things started to sour between them. Yes, Veronica was experimenting with anything and anyone, and Bea, who was far more conservative and prudish, had no problem letting her know what she thought of her unfettered ways. Even more than hating her for what she did with the lifeguard, Beatrix not liking her really messed with Veronica’s self-esteem. She remembered one fight in particular when Bea’s retort broke her heart. Bea, the person she had spent her life looking up to, had screamed, “You and I are nothing alike, not one single bit.”

Shep’s favoring of Bea when they were kids—always joking that V was Caroline’s child and Bea was Shep’s—didn’t help either. He said it was based on appearances, but anyone could see that Bea and Shep had a bond that exceeded physicality. V’s shrink thought it was the reason she had so many sexual partners when she was young—she was constantly seeking male approval. Despite this, she never brought his favoritism up to her dad, and now he was too old for her to hurt him with the accusation and make him feel regretful about their relationship. Besides, she didn’t know if shebelieved her shrink’s psychobabble on the subject. It was more likely that she was just a horny teenager.

Veronica Silver was never well liked by the other girls or, later, women. Their men were constantly gazing at her, grinning at her, and finding her every word amusing as if she were brilliant. The women who’d heard the stories about her steered clear. It was one of the reasons she had moved clear across the country: to start fresh.

Bea’s husband, Paul, would arrive tomorrow, and Veronica had no idea if that would make things better or worse. She wondered what he was like. It went without saying that she had done a Google search on him, but it didn’t provide much information beyond the fact that he was a Harvard-educated math professor from Queens, New York. She imagined him as nothing but a stereotypical number nerd, a perfect match for her academic sister.

The two siblings silently knocked about the house, pretending not to wake Shep, even though they were both sure that his ailment was total BS. Shep had that town doctor wrapped around his ninety-three-year-old finger. Regardless, they were both happy for the silence, interrupted only when Shep summoned them—ringing an old bike bell like a lunatic until one of them appeared in his doorway. The first time he did it, Bea leaped out of the way, as if a bike was set to mow her down in the middle of their living room. The two sisters burst into laughter, just like they had when they were children. It gave Veronica hope.

That was it for communication between them until four o’clock, when Bea gleefully announced, “Cocktail time! I’ll make us two mojitos!”

Shep had taught Bea how to make cocktails when she wasa kid. When their parents entertained, he would send Veronica around to take orders like a cocktail waitress, and Bea would whip them up. They were ten and six years old: parenting at its finest.

“Make mine a virgin,” Veronica responded. She would have liked nothing better than to tie one on with her sister, but she was sober, and there was little in life that meant more to Veronica than her sobriety.

“I’ll have one,” a voice bellowed from the bedroom.

“Not a chance,” Bea mouthed to her sister, laughing.

“Two thumbs down, Daddy,” Veronica yelled back.

“One middle finger up!” Shep retorted, leaving them both in hysterics.

There was no doubt Shep was wearing a wide and winning grin after hearing them laughing together. He surely believed that his plan had inspired a ceasefire. It was merely a Band-Aid, though. As with any ceasefire, if nothing is resolved, you revert to war.

When Veronica picked up the empty bowl of chicken soup that one of Shep’s lady friends (as he called the gaggle of widows who flocked to him) had brought for dinner, he made a funny request.

“Go ask Ben to get the old movies down from the attic.”

“Our old movies are still in Ben’s attic? That’s weird.”

Their mother had been a minimalist and Shep was a hoarder. When they’d moved from the old house to the new one, Shep secretly put half the stuff she had relegated to a dumpster back in their attic. Their old attic. When Ben bought the house from him, Shep ridiculously suggested that half the attic remain his, and Ben didn’t bother objecting.

“Yeah, well, it’s my house,” Shep argued now. He had no patience for explanations.

“It’s not your house, Daddy. Ben bought that house from you a dozen years ago.”

“Just get the movies. I want to see your mother.”

Ben, it turned out, had done this dance before with Shep and was happy to fetch the stack of 16mm reels from his attic along with the old projector. In the end, they turned it into an evening activity and he and his wife, Addison, joined them.

Shep sprawled out on the Eames recliner draped in an afghan that Caroline had crocheted years earlier. He sipped a mug of tea (bourbon) while inhaling the crackly old footage of Homeowners’ Games, summer birthdays, camp shows, and beach days.

They all went to sleep that night steeped in memories and melancholy for what could have been. V had little doubt that had been Shep’s plan all along. How many moments together had they missed recording due to their long-standing rift? Memories never made; photographs never taken.

And although on that night her sister laughed and cried along with her at all the right moments, bathing in the beauty of the once-happy family of four, Veronica doubted it would make much difference in the light of day.

She was right.

Track 18

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