Page 56 of An Island Summer

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She grabbed a bottle of wine from the shelf and placed it into the cart, recounting their time together, but coming up empty as to when they’d ever talked about that dish. “I did?” she asked, racking her brain for even the slightest mention of it.

“It was the first dish you taught John how to make too, remember?”

“No, he taughtme—” She stopped.Wait.Rupert thought he was talking to Hester… right?

Rupert laughed. “He didn’t teach you a thing.Youtaughthimeverything he knows.”

Hester taught Pappy how to cook.

“You okay?” Toby asked, the intensity on his face giving away the fact that he understood what was running through her mind.

“Yeah,” she said, her moments with Pappy in the kitchen making their spiced fried flounder and the peach tartes he liked to make for dessert flashing before her. She pushed the cart toward the checkout, wondering what else Pappy hadn’t told her.

Meghan added garlic and thyme to the oil in her pan and stirred, the earthy aroma of it spilling into the air around them. Then she filled a pot with water, sprinkling in some salt and warming it to a boil.

“So, your grandfather learned to cook from Hester Quinn?” Tess asked, peering over at Rupert, who, after refusing to believe that this was Hester’s house, was walking down the hallway, admiring the brushed glass sconces.

“I had no idea,” Meghan said, chopping the asparagus before Toby distracted her from the conversation when he popped the cork on a courtesy bottle of champagne they’d found in the fridge when they’d gotten there. “Can we drink that?”

“I’m sure it’s fine.” He opened cabinets until he found the one stocked with champagne flutes, and he pulled down three, setting them on the counter and filling them while Charlie looked on from his side. “For a year, I thought he was completely losing it,” Toby said. “And just since you’ve been here, I’m beginning to wonder if anything he says is untrue.”

Meghan smiled, feeling like she’d been able to add something to their lives by her visits with Rupert.

Suddenly, Toby looked around. “Where did he go?”

Tess grabbed her champagne and handed one to Meghan, who turned down the burners to a slow simmer so as not to burn the food while they went to find Rupert. When they located him, he was standing in the master bedroom staring at the safe, not even flinching, as if they’d all been standing beside him the whole time.

Rupert turned to Meghan. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you,” he said.

“Believe me?”

He nodded. “This is definitely your house.”

Unsure of why the room safe would’ve convinced him of this, Meghan nodded anyway. “Would you like to sit out by the pool while I finish dinner?”

“I’d like that,” Rupert said.

“I’ll sit with him,” Tess offered. “You two work on the cooking.”

Meghan took one more look in the empty safe and then went into the kitchen while Tess led Rupert out by the pool. He settled in one of the chairs at the table, the waves of the bright blue Atlantic gurgling in billowing foam behind him. Tess sat opposite him, asking him a question and talking with her hands. Rupert answered, but his face had fallen to that still look he had when he’d retreated inward.

“What was Rupert like before the dementia?” she asked Toby, watching Rupert through the window.

Toby stepped up next to her, his arm brushing hers, the proximity unleashing a pack of butterflies in her stomach. “Gramps was always making us feel good,” he said. “If things went wrong, he found a way to make us laugh.”

Meghan zeroed in on the creases around the old man’s eyes and tried to imagine the smile she’d seen in the restaurant that first night. What it must have been like when his soul was young and alive behind those eyes…

“One time, when I was about twelve, a few kids and I were playing baseball out back of his house and I hit the ball through his window. I felt awful and I ran into the house, explaining how I’d use my chore money to pay him back for fixing it. He laughed and said, ‘I’ve got a better idea.’ Then, he knocked out all the glass, swept it up and took the entire window from its frame. The rest of the day, we played catch through the open space.”

Meghan smiled, imagining Rupert throwing a baseball.

“All day—when we weren’t even expecting it—he’d say, ‘Heads up!’ and out would come another ball.” Toby shook his head, happiness lingering on his lips. “I miss him…” He turned away, his chest rising with a steadying breath. “So. Cooking. Show me what to do.”

Leaving the view of Rupert as he sat outside, Meghan heated oil in another pan, then chopped onions, the slices hissing as she dropped them into the oil.

“You cook like a professional,” Toby said.

He noticed her double-take, but she kept going, adding the garlic and thyme before zesting one of the lemons Rupert had picked out.