Guests of August

by Gloria Goldreich

  ‘What did you tell him?’ Tracy asked.

  ‘Annette told him that they weren’t going to get divorced because there was no room in our basement for anyone to live there and then we all laughed and Matt went to sleep and Annette and I went for a walk. We’re both kind of fed up with the way they’re acting. First our mom’s mad, then our dad’s mad, but it’s Matt we’re really worried about.’

  Tracy had liked him for worrying about his younger brother, for his honest acknowledgment that their parents’ separation would be a matter of indifference for him and for Annette. They will be off to college next year. The days of their childhood dependency are over. If their parents do divorce (and Tracy doubts that they will) the twins will not be devastated the way she was, the way Richie was when their parents split.

  They had been little kids then, years younger than Matt, when they listened to their parents’ inevitable pre-divorce conversation.

  ‘We both love you very much and we always will. We will always be a family,’ Simon had said while Charlotte had smiled and nodded.

  There had been no tears and each of them had received a gift. A stuffed lamb for Tracy who had, within the hour, torn a leg from the wooly white body and tossed the stuffing all over her room. Richie had received a beautifully crafted toy plane which he tossed from the window of their car the next day. Young as they were, they had made their statements. They would not be bribed into believing a lie. They would not be a family, not ever again.

  Unlike Annette and Jeremy, she and Richie have no reservoir of familial memories to sustain them. Yes, she does vaguely remember ringing the damn bell at the inn, a meager droplet of remembrance that neither renews nor refreshes. She sips the lemonade, grimaces at its tartness.

  ‘Would you mind pouring a glass for me?’ Simon asks his daughter. ‘And perhaps Liane and Wendy would like some.’

  He stands, smiles at them and makes introductions, always a skillful host, an accomplished mediator, accustomed to navigating his way through uneasy situations.

  ‘Charlotte, I don’t think you ever met Liane Curran and Wendy Templeton. They’re August regulars now, have been for the last couple of years. But that, of course, was after your time.’

  The words fall flat, their hidden implication apparent. He flushes at the awkwardness of the phrasing. But how else could he have put it?

  Your time, the years of our marriage when this inn was our shared vacation spot, when you yourself were a veteran guest of August, a role that ended when our marriage ended.

  Such words, he decided, would be best left unsaid.

  But Charlotte smiles without embarrassment. She holds out a hand to Liane and then to Wendy, automatically appraising each woman with her fashion editor’s eye, registering clothing and make-up, recognizing that Liane’s turquoise necklace and earrings are costume jewelry and that Wendy’s filigreed bracelet is crafted of fine silver. She notices that Liane wears a wedding band, that Wendy’s fingers are bare, and she toys with her own gem-studded ring, purchased at a very expensive jewelry shop the day her divorce from Simon became final.

  ‘I’m really pleased to meet you,’ she says graciously. ‘I take it you’re the mothers of those adorable boys who can’t wait to ring the lunch bell.’

  She smiles, inviting them to like her. Liane and Wendy force themselves to smile back.

  ‘The dark-haired boy in the very dirty overalls is my Donny,’ Wendy replies.

  ‘The cute redhead is Matt Edwards. I think you might remember Susan and Jeff Edwards – he’s a surgeon and she’s a translator. They were here when we were.’

  Again Simon flushes. Again he has blundered into the forbidden territory of their fissured past.

  ‘Yes. I do remember them,’ Charlotte said. ‘They had twins. You kids used to play together.’ She smiles at her son and daughter.

  ‘Actually, we still play together, sort of,’ Tracy says mischievously, and her brother looks at her warningly.

  ‘So they still vacation here. And they’ve had another child.’ Charlotte says this with some wonder, as though surprised that a marriage has actually survived through all these years, that a third child has been born. ‘And a redhead at that.’

  ‘The blonde one is my son Cary.’

  Liane shades her eyes and stares across the lawn to the playground where the three boys are pelting each other with fallen leaves. She turns and her eyes rake the path that leads to the lake.

  ‘Simon, have you seen Michael?’ she asks.

  ‘No. Actually, I was going to go off and look for him,’ Simon says. ‘I wanted to talk to him about some developments.’ He turns to Charlotte. ‘Liane’s husband and I have been working on a business project,’ he explains, and Nessa wonders irritably why it is necessary for him to offer her any explanation at all.

  Liane stares at him. She wants to ask him if he was able to contact Mark Templeton, if the promised venture capital is still a reality, but she fears his answer. A new anxiety grips her. Where is Michael? She remembers the bitter set of his mouth, the fear that dulled his eyes when they spoke after breakfast.

  ‘He hasn’t been around all morning?’ she asks.

  ‘No. At least not out here. He may be in your room.’

  ‘Yes. Probably. It was nice to meet you, Charlotte. Please excuse me. I really must find my husband.’

  She walks too swiftly to the inn and races up the steps to their room. Even as she thrusts the door open, her throat dry, her heart hammering, she knows that Michael is not there. The bed is empty. His laptop is neatly placed on his pillow. She opens it, clicks on to her own email, fearful of what might appear, but the screen is blank and that, too, she sees as an ominous portent.

  The group on the lawn is reconfigured. Nessa and Wendy sink into the chairs that Richie has brought over. Paul and Annette, their hair dampened by their morning swim, their glistening bodies wrapped in brightly colored beach towels, pause on their way up to change for lunch.

  ‘Hey, Charlotte,’ Paul says and holds his hand out to his father’s first wife. He follows his mother’s example, easy, unstressed acceptance. Charlotte has always been a peripheral presence in his life, almost a surrogate aunt who remembers his birthdays and sends him gifts on the holidays. He is untroubled by her arrival.

  ‘Hey, Paul.’ Charlotte is fully conversant with the shorthand language of the young. She acknowledges Annette as well.

  ‘You probably don’t remember me. I knew you when you were a little girl. How are your parents?’

  ‘Fine,’ Annette says automatically. She looks up at the inn’s veranda where Susan stands alone. ‘There’s my mom.’ She wonders where her father is and hopes that he has not gone to see Polly Syms. Of course, he is only being kind to her but still it’s stupid for him to do things that upset her mother.

  ‘I’m looking forward to seeing your parents at lunch,’ Charlotte says, and the two young people nod and hurry in to change into dry clothing.

  ‘Paul,’ Simon calls after his son, ‘did you guys see Michael Curran down at the lake?’

  Paul wheels about, thinks for a moment and says, ‘Yeah. Hours ago. He went off in a canoe. Did you see him come back, Annette?’

  ‘I wasn’t paying any attention,’ she says and laughs.

  Together they continue up the incline.

  ‘You’re not worried about Michael, are you?’ Nessa asks.

  ‘No. Of course not. But I have some news I want to share with him.’

  They do not ask about the news, just as they did not question the reasons for the departure of Andrea and Mark Templeton, cognizant as they are that there are parameters of privacy in their small vacation community.

  ‘Is Daniel around?’ Wendy asks. ‘I guess he’s upstairs. His bike is here so I assume he arrived back intact.’

  ‘Actually, he went off somewhere,’ Simon says uneasily.

  ‘Not on his bike?’ Wendy is surprised.

  ‘I lent him my car.’ Charlotte smiles, inviting approval of h
er generosity.

  ‘I see.’ Wendy’s answer is perfunctory and she asks no more questions. She has no right, after all, to monitor Daniel Goldner’s comings and goings.

  Tracy and Richie register, with malicious amusement, that Laura’s presence, her accompanying of Daniel, has not been mentioned. They are not surprised, inured as they are to their mother’s skill at subterfuge.

  It is, at last, time for lunch. The three boys march across the lawn proudly ringing the heavy bell, each taking a turn, and the guests drift into the dining room. Annette is relieved to see that her parents enter together although her mother is deep in conversation with her Aunt Helene while her father is listening attentively to her Uncle Greg. Still, they are together, and she knows for a fact that her father did not go to visit Polly Syms. He spent the morning with Jeremy at the used bookstore down the road where they picked up at least three Isaac Asimov titles, a passion that father and son share.

  ‘And he found a really old copy of Molière plays in French that he bought for Mom,’ Jeremy tells Annette. ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’

  She nods, recognizing the importance of Jeremy’s question. They are, both of them, in search of small reassurances that the strain on their parents’ marriage has eased, that all will, in fact, be well. They are Matt’s older siblings, charged with the responsibility of offering him the fairy-tale ending, that they will all live happily ever after.

  Wendy and Donny join Liane and Cary at their table. Liane is very pale but very careful to protect her son from the gathering darkness of her apprehension.

  ‘I’m sure Michael’s all right, Liane,’ Wendy says softly when the boys are engaged in a passionate argument about the conclusion of the last Harry Potter book. She does not want Cary to worry about his father, but she does want to reassure Liane who jerks forward whenever the door opens, whenever the phone at the reception desk rings, an invasive sound that can be heard in the dining room.

  ‘Of course he is,’ Liane agrees. ‘He often goes off by himself.’

  That is not true, but she finds it a comforting allegation.

  ‘And,’ she adds, reassuring Wendy in turn, ‘Daniel probably needed to get something at the outlets.’

  ‘Maybe the lady he was with wanted to go shopping,’ Cary suggests helpfully, having overheard his mother’s words. He is tired of arguing with Donny, who has only read the Harry Potter books once while he has read each of them twice and the very first one three times.

  ‘What lady?’ It is Liane who asks the question while Wendy sits very still and lowers her fork, heavy with chicken salad, on to her plate. Her appetite is, quite suddenly, gone.

  ‘The lady he drove away with,’ Cary replies.

  Wendy and Liane look at each other and then turn away, unwilling to trade fears, to share painful doubts, to ask Cary (and Donny, of course, who must have seen ‘the lady’) any questions although their minds are awash with them. Was the lady pretty? What color hair did she have? Did she and Daniel seem glad to see each other? They are wise enough to remain silent. These are not questions that one asks young boys.

  ‘She looked like a nice lady,’ Donny adds unhelpfully.

  The two mothers are grateful when Nessa swoops down on their table. She is in her charismatic teacher mode, an exuberant pied piper in a diaphanous loose orange dress, a paper tiger lily crowning her untamed hair, Matt, Paul and Annette trailing behind her. She is organizing a scavenger hunt and Paul and Annette are heading up one team, Helene and Greg the second. And there are prizes. Great prizes.

  ‘Are you guys in?’

  Of course they are in. They dash after Nessa on to the lawn where Greg is already clashing away on cymbals improvised from frying pan lids purloined from Louise’s kitchen.

  ‘I’m going down to the lake,’ Liane says quietly to Wendy. ‘I’ll row all the way across. And if I can’t find him I’ll have to speak to Louise.’

  ‘I’ll go with you,’ Wendy volunteers.

  ‘You know, Michael can’t swim,’ Liane says. ‘Isn’t that crazy? He never learned how to swim.’

  Wendy does not reply. Liane does not expect her question to be answered.

  Together they walk at a swift pace down to the lake, breaking into a run only when they can no longer be seen from the lawn. They are out of breath when they reach the dock. One of the three canoes is gone as well as one of the shabby orange life jackets that hang on hooks over the rough fencing that Evan built. Wendy does not mention the absent life jacket but she takes it as a good sign. A man in search of death would not strap an inflatable orange jacket around his body. But she does not say this to Liane because she knows that at this point no words will reassure.

  They themselves don the life jackets and then they select oars and heft the heaviest of the row boats into the water. Wendy pushes it further out and Liane pushes it free of the dockside mud. Wendy leaps in. They each take an oar.

  Surprisingly they are both accomplished rowers and well matched. The boat moves smoothly and swiftly across the dark sun-ribbed water. They row directly to the opposite side of the lake, the usual route for guests of the inn who know that the Abbots have water rights only to that particular area.

  ‘Should we dock it and look around?’ Wendy suggests.

  ‘No point. There’s no canoe.’ Liane’s reply is curt. ‘Let’s cut across and row east. Not much there. Mostly bogs. But let’s try it.’

  They turn the boat, rowing more slowly now, scanning the water, looking toward one side of the lake then scanning the other, leaving no expanse unobserved. They know what they are looking for. Canoes are light enough to float. Even overturned canoes are not easily submerged.

  Wendy, quite suddenly, rests her oar in the lock and carefully gets to her feet, her hand shading her eyes as she points forward.

  ‘Look,’ she shouts excitedly, and Liane’s heart sinks.

  ‘What? What?’ Her voice rises in panic.

  She turns and follows Wendy’s gaze. There, on the surface of the lake, balanced on a rim of sunlight, floating downstream, is a glistening aluminum paddle, stamped with the Mount Haven logo.

  ‘Michael must have rowed in this direction,’ Wendy says as the shining paddle drifts from their view.

  They do not speak as they raise their oars with a new urgency, intent now on moving with as much speed as they can muster. Within minutes they are in sight of an islet, an improbable rise of land in the heart of the lake, perhaps an artifact of the ice age when water rushed over the land to form this waterway leaving only this small patch of greenery. It is covered with wild shrubbery and shaded by an ancient dwarfed tree, a thick-leafed arboreal survivor. The aluminum canoe rests on its muddy shores, its shining hull entangled in an overgrowth of roots and trailing vines. Their hearts pounding, they row closer, their eyes raking the meager landscape for a sign of life. But all is still. There is no sound, no movement. Fear grips them. They row closer and suddenly the silence is pierced.

  ‘Here. Over here!’

  They lift their eyes and see that it is Michael Curran who stands on the shore, waving them forward.

  ‘Michael. Oh, Michael!’ Liane says. Her voice is but a whisper. ‘Thank heavens. Thank heavens.’

  Tears streak her face and she has difficulty controlling the tremor of her hand as she grips the oar and follows Wendy’s rhythmic pace. Within minutes they have reached him; within seconds he has stepped through the muddy waters that rise to his knees and inched his way into the rowboat and then into his wife’s outstretched arms.

  ‘But why are you crying?’ he asks in honest puzzlement as they reverse course and head back to the Mount Haven inlet.

  ‘We thought – I thought …’

  She hesitates, unable to give voice to the darkness of her imaginings. She cannot tell her husband, who now looks so endearingly young, his thick-lensed glasses vanished, his hair matted with leaves and his lips stained blue, that she had thought him dead, drowned, gone from her life.

  ‘What happene
d, Michael?’ Wendy asks. It is safe enough for her to ask the question. She has no vested interest in his answer.

  ‘I took the canoe out. I just wanted a small getaway from my damn computer, a little exercise, a little quiet. I was tired of waiting for a phone call, an email from Templeton. So I took the canoe and paddled out here. I was tired, saw the island or whatever this is, and decided to give myself a rest. So I pulled in and while I was getting out of the canoe the damn paddle drifted away so here I was, marooned. I don’t know for how long because I wasn’t wearing my watch. But I didn’t worry. I had water in the canteen, and I kept cramming blueberries into my mouth. These damn bushes are full of blueberries.’

  He grins ruefully at his own ineptitude, at his small adventure gone wrong.

  ‘You were gone for hours and hours,’ Liane says softly. ‘I didn’t know what had happened to you. I didn’t know what to think.’

  ‘And so you thought …’ He hesitates over the words to come and looks at her in disbelief. ‘You actually thought that because of that damn project, because Mark Templeton is probably pulling out, I’d do something drastic?’

  He is pleased to have dredged up the word ‘drastic’. It is safe enough. It encompasses and avoids.

  She nods, both shamed and relieved to be thus exposed.

  ‘Liane, would I do that to you? Would I do that to Cary? Never. Not now. Not before. Not ever.’

  She shakes her head, acknowledging what she should have always known, what she should always have appreciated. Her husband, her Michael, is a man of commitment, of responsibility, a man who works hard and has, through the years of their marriage, survived disappointment, hers and his own. ‘Before’, he had said, and she understands what he meant by that. The years and years before these August weeks just past when hope and recognition had coalesced and ignited the love she had not known she possessed.