Page 10 of The Book of Summer

“Whoa,” Bess says, craning, peering over the flood of cardboard in the room. Cissy is standing but Bess can only see the top of her face, that curly and wild hair. “Dad wasn’t kidding. He did send over a ‘few’ boxes. It looks like a recycling facility in here.”

“What he sent were movers,” Cissy says. “Which I refused. But they graciously left behind their supplies.”

“Well, this is a mess,” Bess says as she kicks a path through the room. Most of the boxes are gallingly weightless.

She leans in to give her mother a kiss.

“Should I ask them to come back?” Bess asks. “The movers? This is a pretty big job for a couple of unskilled gals.”

Bess thinks of the rest of the home. Five thousand square feet filled with nearly a century’s accumulation of knickknacks and personal effects. It’d been decades since Cliff House opened and closed with the seasons. This is a year-round place now.

“Who are you calling unskilled?” Cissy balks. “I was on the committee to move the lighthouse, you know.”

“Yes. I know. We all do.”

“And movers? Please. I’m not letting a bunch of strangers manhandle my belongings. Since when are you afraid of a little elbow grease? You’re losing your good New England hardiness and it’s breaking my heart.”

Cissy flings a box into the corner.

“So,” she says. “How did you sleep?”

“Great!” Bess chirps, on reflex, though it’s a lie.

The bluff might’ve diminished but not the power of Cliff House, it seems. Something about the musty-salt scent of the rooms causes the magic to stick to Bess as surely as grains of sand are perpetually glued to her feet and toes. The place can make you forget what’s really going on. Why didn’t Bess return before now? Before it was almost too late?

“See?” her mom says. “Cliff House is as safe and peaceful as it’s always been.”

“But Cissy…”

“Not to fret, though! I’ve already begun packing, like the dutiful girl that I am.”

“Major red flag. You haven’t been dutiful a day in your life.”

“You kids never give your old mom any credit.”

Bess shakes her head.

“So where should I start?” she asks, hands on hips. Bess scans the room and within seconds spots a familiar object just out of reach. “Hey! Is that…”

As she leans, a sharp pain rockets up Bess’s side. She pushes through it in order to get her mitts on a scrapbook perched at the far end of the table. Cramps surge through Bess’s midsection as she lifts the book. It must weigh twenty pounds at least.

“The Book of Summer!” she says with a grin.

Bess rubs the crocodile-embossed cover. Dust sticks to her fingers.

“Hello, you wonderful relic.”

The Book of Summer is as old as Cliff House itself. From the first day of the first season, Sarah Young asked visitors and family members to record an entry, tell a brief tale of their Cliff House stay. It’s a tradition as important as the view, or the once-great lawn, or the bunk rooms upstairs. As a girl, Bess loved combing through the paragraphs and photographs and the mementos tucked inside. Most people only signed their names, but even now, whenever Bess misses Grandma Ruby, she knows she can find her in the pages of summer.

“Ah, yes,” Cissy says, wrapping a set of blue-and-white ginger jars. “The book, the book. The famous book.”

Bess peels back the brown and crackled cover to find the inaugural entry, dated July 11, 1914, penned by Sarah Young herself. Bess’s eyes scour the page, though she does not need to read the words. She memorized them long ago.

Even my wildest dreams didn’t dare look like this.

Never could I have pictured the shingled, rambling novel of a home or me, reclined on its veranda, belly big as a stove. As massive as I’ve grown I am but a speck on the wide expanse of patio, to speak nothing of the yawning lawn behind it, or the boundless ocean beyond. The great Atlantic reaches farther than my imagination ever could. At the horizon the heavens bow to meet it, as if to say “you take it from here.” This must be what forever feels like.

Philip says Cliff House is for me but I see it otherwise. The home is not mine but a gift, to me and all who follow. We will hand it down to the next generation, and they the generation after. Our memories, our marks, our moments, they will linger for a while and eventually fade away, to make room for the new, just as it should be.

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