Page 58 of Drawing Home
God, she was pale. They were weeks into the summer, but anyone who looked at her skin tone would guess it was February.
Outside, Penny sat on the edge of the pool with her legs dangling in the water. “It’s freezing!”
“I have to figure out the heater.” And then Emma thought of the electric bill and decided Penny would have to get used to cold swims or wait for later in the summer when it would heat naturally. Or was heating the pool something she could pay for through the maintenance account the lawyer had mentioned? It was all so complicated.
She settled onto one of the four chaise longues lined up beside the pool and pulled a paperback out of her tote bag. Something felt really odd. Oh yeah—she was actually about to relax.
Penny let out a squeal as she submerged herself in the water.
Emma opened her book and tried to read but realized after turning a page that she wasn’t absorbing a single word. The strangeness of sitting by the pool, looking out at the bay, was having a paradoxical effect. Not only couldn’t she relax, she was flooded with tension.
How had this situation happened? Why had it happened? No matter how many times she told herself to just accept the circumstances, she couldn’t stop feeling like she had to apologize. Last week, an old friend from high school called. She worked as a personal chef to a hedge funder and his wife in East Hampton and had heard the news about the house through the gossip mill. By way of explanation, Emma found herself saying, “I don’t really know why he left Penny the house. Rich people are eccentric. You know that as well as I do.”
On one level, Emma did believe that. Not everything that happened in life made sense, and often the inexplicable things that happened were bad. This, at least, was a positive turn. It was something that could make Penny’s life better and her own too—if she could stop analyzing it long enough to enjoy it.
But then there was the Mark thing.Wasit the house that had lured him back, as Angus so cynically suggested? Penny admitted to Emma that she’d told her father about the house and that he had “seemed really surprised.” Emma felt like saying,Your father is an actor.But she held back. Despite all of her disappointment and frustration with Mark, no matter how negative her thoughts, Emma had promised herself she would not talk badly about him to Penny. It just wasn’t right, and ultimately it wasn’t good for Penny to hear her mother say bad things about her father.
And so what if it was curiosity about the house that had inspired his visit? The important thing was that he was there spending time with his daughter. Yes, it was frustrating to hear Penny talk about him with such glowing adoration when all Emma got was attitude and push-back. But it wasn’t a competition. She was the only real parent, the one who did the hard work day in and day out. Penny might not appreciate that now, but she would understand when she was older. In the meantime, she should have fun with her father. It was harmless.
Emma watched Penny backstroke the length of the pool. Even though Penny was a strong swimmer, Emma felt a compulsion to keep an eye on her, as if she were still a toddler wearing floaties on her arms. But after a few minutes, she allowed herself to close her eyes. How long had it been since she’d really relaxed? Since she had taken a half hour to do absolutely nothing? She heard the gentle lapping of the water, a seagull calling out.
And a loud, grinding sound in the distance.
Whatwasthat?
It was coming from the direction of the bay.
“I’ll be right back,” she called out to Penny, slipping back into her flip-flops. She followed the stone pathway down to the beachfront. As soon as the dock came into view, the source of the noise was immediately clear. A dilapidated, thirty-foot wooden cabin cruiser was tied to the end, and standing at its helm was a sweaty Kyle Dunlap wielding an electric sander. He wore a T-shirt with a whale logo, cargo shorts, and some sort of shoe that was a cross between a sneaker and a boot. She almost didn’t recognize him without his city pallor, his tan accentuated by the fact that his brown hair had turned golden from the sun.
She hurried to the edge of the dock, stepping around planks of wood and scattered tools.
“What is this?” she said, hands on her hips.
Kyle silenced the sander, looked down at the pile of wood at her feet, and said, “That’s teak.”
“No, I mean what isall of this.What are you doing?”
He wiped his brow with his forearm. “I’m fixing this boat.”
“What are you doinghere?”
Kyle put down his sander and walked closer to the edge. “Come on board for a minute so we don’t have to yell back and forth?”
Fine! She stepped onto the boat and he reached for her arm to steady her.
“I’m okay,” she said, pulling away from him. The floor of the boat was a ripped-up mess. They were no longer shouting back and forth, but she was going to end up with splinters. “Kyle, why are you here?”
He glanced back at the house. “Emma, I’m sorry. Bea is convinced the will is invalid. She’s not giving up.”
Emma shook her head. “I’m not going to go around in circles on this. I don’t care what Bea thinks. This is trespassing.”
The boat swayed, and a small metal scraper slid near her feet.
“You’re right,” he said. “I mean, I guess you could just call the cops.”
Yes, she could get Jim DiMartino on the phone right that minute. And he would…what? Arrest Bea when she showed up? Emma could already see the headlines in the local papers. The last thing she needed was more attention. No, she would have to handle this quietly. With a lawyer. How much would that cost her? Too much.
She folded her arms, looking around. “I guess my one consolation is that karma is a bitch—clearly, Cole Hopkins sold you a junker.”
