Heat Wave

by Nancy Thayer

  Not that they were obsessive about cooking. Sometimes Carley would drop by to find Annabel curled up on a sofa, reading. “I can’t put this book down!” she’d say. “We’ll have to order takeout tonight.” Annabel and Russ were voracious readers. They attended all the lectures the library and museums gave. They loved art, too, and covered the walls of their house with works by island artists. They were involved in politics, and attended town meetings faithfully. The high school plays brought them out for at least one performance and often more. They were right there in their lives. They were not trying to get anywhere else; they weren’t competitive or envious; they were that rarest of human creatures: genuinely happy people.

  Of course, they had started off with more than many people ever had. They had each inherited an old Nantucket mansion. Their lives grew out of the island history like a flower from a new dawn rose, climbing, blossoming, part of a thick twisting stem deeply planted in the island’s sandy soil, and proud to be in that sandy soil.

  The Greenwood house that Annabel had grown up in—the house where Carley had made her home for the past thirteen years—was a rambling old wooden structure with a definite summer feeling about it. The redbrick mansion Annabel and Russ lived in was the more formal Winsted home. Behind the house, the large yard was walled with redbrick fifteen feet high, making the garden a private enclosure, a little Eden few people ever saw. Here Annabel grew her vegetables and flowers, and played with shaping privet bushes into whimsical shapes, one of her favorite pastimes. Inside, the rooms were large and high-ceilinged, with fireplaces, most of which worked, silk drapes pooling on the floor, and comfortable sofas and chairs mixed in with antique pieces. Like the ones at Carley’s home, the kitchen and bathrooms were ancient, floored with ceramic tiles, fitted with claw-foot bathtubs that would have been delightful if the porcelain weren’t almost worn through. Both houses required endless vigilance and maintenance, and endless amounts of money.

  The first time Carley entered the Winsted house, she didn’t notice the paint peeling from the walls or the faded ancient Oriental rugs. She thought the metal kitchen cabinets with the inset sink, considered “modern” in the 1940s, were charmingly old-fashioned. She didn’t see the cracks in the plaster around the fireplaces or the way the bookshelves, overburdened with books, leaned dangerously sideways. The house had such a quality of excellence and experience and age. It felt like a wise house, a comforting house, a house that had witnessed holiday festivities and political gatherings and the solemnity of birth and death, and had stood at attention, with pride, through it all.

  Carley loved the idea of the way the Winsteds lived. She wanted to be casually elegant, too. She yearned for Annabel and Russell to like her. She could imagine spending time with Annabel, learning so very much from her.

  The older Winsteds seemed pleased by Carley that first night Gus brought her home. Certainly they charmed her, asked her questions, laughed at her slightest attempt at whimsy, treated her with gentle warmth.

  As they drove away from his parents’ house, Carley glanced shyly at Gus. “I think they liked me.”

  “Of course they liked you,” Gus replied. “Who wouldn’t?”

  She smiled contentedly.

  Then Gus said, “Although they wouldn’t like it if I got too involved with you.”

  “Really? Why not?”

  “Because you’re not an islander. Not ‘one of us.’ ”

  “Does that really matter?”

  “You’d be surprised how much it matters.”

  Carley chewed on her lip. She was already worried about something that could be a real problem between them. This made her feel even worse. She decided to wait a few days to tell Gus. She wanted to be sure.

  3

  • • • • •

  She hadn’t been on the birth control pill. The truth was, she’d been fairly naïve sexually. She’d had one serious boyfriend during high school, and no one since then. She hadn’t planned to hook up with anyone on the island. She hadn’t planned to get serious. She hadn’t planned.

  Apparently, the first condom Gus used when they were together was old. By the time Carley went to be fitted with a diaphragm, she was pregnant. It was almost impossible to believe. She wasn’t frightened or sad or happy or anything at all. Just confused.

  “I don’t want you to worry,” she told Gus. “I—I can deal with this.” Actually, she hadn’t thought how she would deal with it. It still didn’t seem real; it seemed as if, once she left the island, this fantasy land, and set foot on the mainland, the real world, her pregnancy would vanish.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t deal with it,” Gus said. “Maybe we should get married.”

  “Married? My gosh, Gus, we hardly know each other.”

  “Yeah, but I like what I know,” he told her. “We seem to get along awfully well. And the idea of having a family appeals to me. I’m ready for it. It will give me gravitas.”

  Well, she thought, I never thought I’d marry a man who said gravitas. The entire situation seemed dreamlike, as if she were trying on a life like a dress she might decide to buy, or not. She was not passionately swept off her feet by Gus. She liked him a lot. She thought she could come to love him. She thought his immediate response to her announcement of pregnancy indicated that he loved her, even though he hadn’t said as much.

  “What will your parents say?” she asked.

  Gus winced. “It’s not going to be easy. But we’ll do it together, Carley. We won’t back down.”

  Later in their marriage, Carley would wonder if Gus married her as proof that he was not controlled by his powerful, charismatic parents. Was she his rebellion? His glorious revolution? Certainly, until Cisco’s birth, there was dissension in the family.

  Gus invited his parents out to dinner. This was unusual. Annabel loved to cook, and Nantucket restaurants were crowded and expensive in the summer. Also, Gus was a partner specializing in real estate in his father’s legal firm, along with Gus’s best friend Wyatt Anderson, so his father knew exactly how much money Gus made. His parents would be just as likely to chastise him for wasting money as to praise him for taking them out.

  Carley thought Gus’s intention was to break the news to his parents in public, where they wouldn’t cause a scene, although Annabel and Russell were never the sort to make a scene.

  They went to The Languedoc. They were dressed conservatively, the men in blazers and ties, the women in summer dresses. Annabel wore pearls. Carley wore fake pearls. Carley pulled her long brown hair to the back of her neck in a puritanical bun.

  Gus waited until the waiter had taken their dinner orders and brought them more wine before dropping the bomb. “Mom. Dad. Carley and I are going to get married. We’re going to have a baby.”

  Annabel responded by turning her head to one side, as if she’d been slapped. She cast a meaningful look at her husband.

  Russell remained jovial, as if this were a trivial matter. “Well, well. Gus, this is a surprise. You and Carley haven’t known each other very long—”

  Annabel interrupted. “And Carley doesn’t know the island at all. Do you, dear? I mean, you’ve never been here in the winter. Perhaps you think it’s all pleasure and parties on the beach, but believe me, we have long, lonely, isolated winter months. Even people who’ve grown up here, who love the island, find it difficult.”

  Smoothly, Russell took up the argument. “Even though it seems we’re wealthy, we’re not, really. I suppose you could say we’re house poor. I mean, what I’m trying to say, what I’m sure Gus has told you, is that we’re not like a lot of people who fly off to some Caribbean island for a month or so in the winter to get some sunlight. We’re stuck here on this windy stretch of sand all during the coldest months—”

  Gus interrupted. “Carley knows that. I’ve told her all that. She’s not a dunce and she’s not a fortune hunter or whatever you want to call it. We love each other, and we love the idea of raising a family on the island. She’s met my friends. They lov
e her. I’ve taken her through the house. We’ve talked about fixing it up—Carley has wonderful ideas. She can do much of the work herself. She can paint. She can hang wallpaper.”

  At those words, Annabel went white. “The house.” She put her elegant hand to her chest, as if her heart hurt. “Gus, that is my family’s house. It’s historic. It should be restored by someone with knowledge and the proper skills.”

  “Come on, Mom, it’s a wonderful old house, but it’s not Monticello. You and Dad promised it to me when I got married. I’m getting married. Carley and I will raise our children there.”

  Annabel turned to her husband, her expression a silent cry for help.

  Russell cleared his throat. “Perhaps there is some other way to resolve this. Perhaps a sum of money—”

  Gus’s voice growled out low and threatening. “Don’t you dare.”

  Both Russell and Annabel drew up, clearly startled at their son’s tone.

  “This is your grandchild we’re talking about,” Gus reminded them. “This dinner is meant to be an announcement and a celebration.”

  Annabel tried to smooth the troubled waters. “If you are happy, Gus, then so are we. It’s just that it’s all happened so fast.”

  “I am happy, Mom,” Gus assured her. “Happier than I’ve ever been in my life.”

  Carley and Gus married quietly and settled into the Greenwood house like a pair of nesting birds settling into an enormous drafty box. Carley and Gus hung wallpaper and Gus painted while Carley sewed up curtains for the baby’s room. They went to movies and parties with friends. They bought furniture, they bought pots and pans, and Gus’s belt tightened from eating Carley’s delicious food.

  Then Carley went into a long, difficult, agonizing labor and gave birth to their first daughter, Cisco. Carley was no longer the unmotivated drifting airhead of her family. She had her own family. She was the wife of a lawyer, the mother of a baby girl, the chatelaine of a historic house, a member of the Winsted clan, and a resident of an island thirty miles out at sea.

  When Cisco was born, Annabel and Russell took one look at her tiny face and melted with love. In the hospital, holding the infant, they both wept tears of joy. Later, Annabel brought over a variety of gourmet casseroles for Carley and Gus and joyfully did endless loads of baby laundry while Russell went to the pharmacy and the grocery store.

  One morning while Carley was tucked up on the sofa with the infant sleeping in her arms, Annabel curled up in the chair opposite and gazed upon mother and child, her face radiant with adoration.

  “You are a clever girl,” Annabel praised Carley. “I’ve never seen a more beautiful child in my life. Carley, please forgive me for being so damnably mean when we first heard you were pregnant. I had no idea how much I would adore this little child, and you brought her to us.”

  “Thanks, Annabel.” Carley shifted on the sofa, trying to get comfortable. “I had no idea how much I’d love her, either.”

  “She’s just so completely bewitching.” Annabel leaned forward, love-struck.

  Carley chuckled. “I don’t suppose your opinion has anything to do with the fact that Cisco has the black hair and eyes and pale skin of the Winsted clan, does it?”

  Annabel pressed her hand to her chest in mock surprise. “How could you suggest such a thing?” she teased lightly, then admitted, “Of course it does. I’m wild about Russell’s coloring, and thrilled that Gus has it, and over the moon that my granddaughter has it.” She cocked her head and offered brightly, “I do think Cisco has your nose.”

  After that, Carley and Annabel became comrades, devoted to the baby, satellites revolving around the sun that was Cisco. When Carley was pregnant again, she and Gus learned from the ultrasound the baby was female. When they told Russell and Annabel, Carley sensed the very slightest moment of disappointment that the baby was not a boy. At once, Annabel lightened the atmosphere, crying out, “Oh, thank heavens! I have so much fun buying little-girl clothing!” And when Margaret arrived, she and Russell both adored the new girl as much as they adored Cisco.

  Annabel was a forceful personality. Yet over the years, Annabel managed to be available for emergencies, parties, little treats and surprises, without ever intruding on Gus and Carley, without ever attempting to manipulate or steer their lives. Carley sensed this took some amount of self-restraint on Annabel’s part, and she was grateful.

  4

  • • • • •

  Gus had died, quickly, one evening in his office. The small law firm was housed in a handsome old brick Greek Revival house on Centre Street. Russell usually walked there from his brick home a few blocks away on Main Street, stopping to chat with shopkeepers along the way. It was a fifteen-minute walk for Gus from his house, but it was cold the day he died, so he’d driven. When he hadn’t come home for dinner that terrible night, Carley had called Russell, who had returned to the building and found his body.

  Carley had already fed the girls and sent them off to their rooms. She’d been mildly anxious about Gus but more pissed off that he’d be so late for dinner. She paced the house, waiting for Russell to call. Instead, there was a knock on the door.

  Carley found her father-in-law standing there, pale, confused.

  “Gus.” Russell could scarcely speak.

  Behind him, a police car pulled up to the curb and the police chief, a friend of the Winsteds, stepped out.

  “Heart attack,” Russell gasped.

  Her first reaction was a rush of adrenaline, a frantic sense of dread and urgency, a need to move, as if she could still prevent it if only she did something. She wanted to push Russell aside, to rush down to the office, to get to her husband.

  “I’ll go to the office.” She tried to pass Russell, who blocked the doorway.

  “Honey, we’ve already phoned an ambulance and the coroner.” Russell stood very straight in his suit and dark wool coat, but he was trembling.

  Carley bit her lip to hold back her anger. Gus belonged to her and her daughters! How dare Russell—her thoughts derailed. Oh, her daughters, whose father was gone! She slammed to her knees with terror.

  Kellogg, the police chief, approached through the darkness into the light of the front hall. His uniform and grizzled face provided a welcome sense of authority. Bending, he took Carley’s shoulders and gently helped her stand. “I’m sorry, Carley. This is a terrible thing. Let’s get Russell inside. Let’s all have some brandy.”

  Numbed, grateful to be told what to do, Carley led Russell into the living room. They sat on the sofa while Russell spoke about finding Gus dead at his desk. Chief Kellogg brought them each a glass of brandy. Carley could only stare at hers.

  “Mommy?” Cisco and Margaret had come downstairs and stood in the doorway to the living room, looking curious and so vulnerable in their pajamas that Carley’s heart broke for them.

  Cisco asked, “What’s going on?”

  “Oh, girls …” Carley set her glass on the coffee table and walked over to her daughters. She knelt before them, taking their hands in hers. She looked into their deep, beautiful eyes, their ebony Winsted eyes. Their father’s eyes. “Daddy died. He had a heart attack. He was in his office. Your grandfather found him. Chief—”

  “No!” Cisco wrenched her hand away from her mother’s. “I don’t believe you! I want to see him! Where is he?”

  Chief Kellogg answered, his voice low. “He’s at the hospital now.”

  “Let’s go there!” Cisco’s eyes were wide. “Maybe they’ve done CPR.”

  Russell rose from the couch and approached his granddaughters. He bent toward them. “Cisco. Honey, I found your daddy. I saw him. I called an ambulance and the police. They did try to resuscitate him. They tried all possible means.”

  “Mommy.” Margaret’s high voice trembled. “I don’t want Daddy to be dead.”

  “I know, sweetheart.” Carley pulled Margaret against her. Her younger daughter was crying, obviously frightened and confused, but also seeking and receiving the consolatio
n of her mother’s embrace. Cisco, Carley feared, was going into shock. Her fists were clenched, and her jaw shuddered.

  Carley looked at Chief Kellogg. “Could we phone Dr. Kunadra and ask him to come over?”

  Kellogg nodded once, abruptly, and pulled out his cell.

  Russell offered, “Cisco, come sit with me.”

  Cisco didn’t move. She couldn’t seem to move.

  Kellogg said to Carley’s father-in-law, “Russell. We have to tell Annabel.”

  “Dear God.” Russell’s face sagged. He staggered backward, just slightly, and Carley reached out for him.

  “Cisco, take Granddad’s hand,” Carley quietly demanded.

  Cisco’s paralysis broke. She took Russell’s hand and led him into the living room. Carley followed, settling on the sofa, holding Margaret on her lap, and wrapping her free arm around Cisco.

  “Shall I go get Annabel?” Kellogg asked.

  “I’ll go,” Russell said. “I have to be the one to tell her. Then we’ll come back here.”

  “I don’t think you should drive,” Kellogg warned. “I’ll take you.”

  Russell looked at Carley and the girls.