Page 87 of The Book of Summer

Bess barks out a laugh.

“That is the first time anyone’s ever accused me of being worried about my clothes. I wear scrubs for a job. Pajamas, basically.”

Evan doesn’t respond, and with a soft and careful tug leads Bess back into the kitchen and down the hall.

“I should at least put on a bra,” she insists, trying not to think of her hand, or how firmly it is being held.

What would Ball Cap think?

“I couldn’t rob Cissy of her hard-earned reputation for eccentricity,” Bess adds.

“All right, princess.”

Evan drops Bess’s arm, which falls to her side and then hangs there awkwardly.

“Go find your coveted brassiere and meet me outside by the truck. This field trip shouldn’t take long but it’ll be worth the time.”

35

Thursday Afternoon

“A graveyard,” Bess says, following Evan through the Mount Vernon Gate and into the oldest section of Prospect Hill Cemetery. “To get my mind off the loss of my beloved family retreat, you’ve brought me to a place that is the very symbol of death?”

“Earthly demise,” he says. “That’s all it is. Come on.” Evan takes her hand for the second time that day. “You need to tell a certain someone what’s happening. And then say farewell.”

They head west, toward the Soldier’s Turn.

“How do you know where we’re going?” Bess calls, trying to keep pace, trying not to get caught up in a bramble and find herself facedown on the final resting spot of some Eliza or Ebenezer.

“I come here quite a bit,” Evan says. “So I know my way around.”

“Wow… That’s, um, odd.”

Evan pauses, partway between a Joy and a Pigeon. If Bess isn’t mistaken, his cheeks are slightly flushed. Probably because of the wind, which is growing stronger by the gust. According to her weather app, today they can expect gales of up to forty miles per hour.

“I like the history of this place,” Evan says. “All of the island’s founders are buried at Prospect Hill. Right here we have the Honorable David Joy, who was an abolitionist. And then there’s Lucy Sturtevant Pidgin, M.D.”

Bess leans forward, squinting. A female doctor born in 1850. She hadn’t known there was such a thing.

“Across the path is Charles Robinson,” Evan continues. “He was the first developer in Sconset. You know that footbridge over Gully Road?”

Bess nods. Anyone who’s spent more than a day in Sconset has used it. Bess must’ve a hundred times. With college friends or island friends, on summer nights they’d walk the full way from Cliff House to the Summer House piano bar and back again, both ways over Gully Road.

“He built that bridge,” Evan says. “Come on, let’s keep going.”

He directs Bess onward, past the families Luce and Cartwright and Wyer and Macy. They spy a Folger, a Murphy and, yes, a Hussey or three.DULCE ET DECORUM EST PRO PATRIA MORI,Bess sees on one headstone. Thanks to Choate, she knows her Latin and her Roman poems, too.“It is sweet and glorious to die for one’s country.”

“This poor lady,” Evan says, pointing to Sarah C. Gardner. “Died soon after giving birth. She was depressed, apparently, and confined to the ‘child bed.’ She escaped from her nurse and ultimately drowned.”

“God, how sad,” Bess says, thinking of Sarah C. Gardner and the others, too.

So many women plus all those menLOST ATSEAorLOST ATWAR. And the children and babes—in the ground before they had a chance. The ache of sorrow tightens across Bess’s chest.

Soon they pass by the Starbuck Gate, two large pillars holding up a rusty scroll. Bess hesitates at one gravestone. It’s thin, white, and rectangular, with clumps of moss growing beneath it.

“‘While briefly in life’s book we are,’” Bess reads, “‘Death shuts the story of our days.’ Well, that’s cheery.”

“It’s also true.”

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