Page 64 of 28 Summers
“Oh,” Mallory says. She’s so unused to hearing this kind of praise from Kitty that she feels nearly uncomfortable. “Thanks.”
“It couldn’t have been easy to have Sloane Dooley and me in the same room. You and Frazier are acting like mature adults, and it’s remarkable how warm and generous you are with his girlfriend. And you are awonderfulmother. Link is such a sweet, good-natured baby, even-tempered and bright, and that’s because of you.” Kitty stops. There’s something else coming, Mallory thinks. With Kitty, there’s always something else coming. “I just wish you would find someone special. I want you to be happy.”
“Oh, Mom,” Mallory says. “Iamhappy.”
Kitty smiles, but it’s clear she isn’t convinced.
An hour later, Link is napping and Mallory and Cooper are sitting out on the front porch with drinks, braving the chilly wind blowing off the water.
“Mom doesn’t think I can be happy without a man,” Mallory says.
“It is curious that you haven’t met anyone,” Cooper says. “You’re quite a catch.”
Mallory doesn’t respond right away. Wine and confessions are the best of friends, so she has to be careful. She wants to tell Cooper about Jake, but she just can’t. The reason their relationship works is because absolutely. Nobody. Knows.
Therewasthat night at Christmas a few years ago when she and Jake broke protocol and danced at PJ’s. Surely Coop picked up on something then? He must be thinking the exact same thing because the next words out of his mouth are “So did I tell you that Jake McCloud moved back to South Bend? And that his wife, Ursula, is running for Congress?”
Mallory nearly drops her wineglass. “What?”
“Yeah,” Cooper says. “And it looks like she might win.”
On August 30, Jake arrives by ferry, though in his postcard, he said she shouldn’t pick him up, that he would take a taxi to the house. Mallory knows this is so no one sees them together.
When he walks in, she hands him a beer. Cat Stevens is on the stereo. The cheese and crackers are ready, burger patties in the fridge, the last hydrangea blossom is in the mason jar next to a single votive candle, and Mallory has placed two novels on Jake’s bedside table:The Lovely Bones,by Alice Sebold, andThe Little Friend,by Donna Tartt.
Everything is the same—except for the basket of toys in the corner and the stray Cheerios underfoot. Mallory finally got Link weaned; he’s spending the long weekend in Vermont with Fray and Anna.
The first kiss is Mallory’s favorite part of the weekend. It’s like taking a long cold drink of water after wandering in the desert for 362 days. Every year she worries that the chemistry will be gone—for Jake or for her—and every year the kiss is hotter and more urgent than the year before.
This year, Jake grabs her ass, squeezes, pulls her closer and tighter, and murmurs into her mouth, “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you.”
Mallory wants to make love, but she stops herself and pulls away ever so slightly.
“Tell me what’s going on,” she says. “South Bend? Running forCongress?”
It was 9/11, he says. Ursula lost coworkers—many acquaintances and one close friend. “Maybe he was more than a friend,” Jake says. “I always suspected that Ursula and Anders had something going on.”
“Oh yeah?” Mallory says. This is the first time Jake has ever hinted that Ursula might have been unfaithful. Mallory hasn’t breathed a word about the nature of her conversation with Ursula at Cooper’s wedding, or even that they had a conversation.
“Doesn’t matter now,” Jake says. “Except that it spurred this decision in Ursula. She wants to make a difference. Change the world.”
Jake and Ursula have bought a home on LaSalle Street in South Bend, a single-family, flat-roofed stucco house on a half-acre lot. Jake has kept his job with the CFRF; he flies around the country raising awareness about cystic fibrosis and lots and lots of money for research. Ursula is nominally employed by a law firm in downtown South Bend, though most of her time is consumed with learning the issues of Indiana’s Second Congressional District and campaigning. The seat has been held for over thirty years by a gentleman named Corson Osbourne, who is now retiring. He was Ursula’s professor at Notre Dame and has given her an enthusiastic endorsement. Osbourne is a Republican, but Ursula is running as an independent.
“An independent?” Mallory says. “Isn’t that a lonely position to take?”
“With both sides fawning all over her?” Jake says. “Hardly.”
Mallory won’t lie: she’s stung that Jake’s life has undergone such a major change and she had no idea. She spends the whole weekend grappling with why it bothers her so much, but it’s only on Sunday evening, after they finish watchingSame Time, Next Year,that she can put it into words.
“Do you not think it strange that George and Doris both have entire lives at home that just sort ofdisappearwhen they get to the inn?”
“Isn’t that the point?” Jake says. “What matters to them is what matters to us: they get to live in a happy bubble one weekend per year.”
“It’s a movie, Jake. The viewer is willing to suspend disbelief. But this is real life.”
“What are you trying to say, Mal? You want to know how I feel about the terms of my mortgage? You want to know who I sit with in church?”
“You go to church?”
