Darcy slapped Char’s back, and John escaped to yell at the brother who had just come out of the bathroom. Darcy smiled at the girl but made no move to talk to her. After an awkward few minutes of silence among the women, John and Ben rejoined the group.
“Ready to go?” Ben asked before coming to stand next to his date. She practically launched herself at him.
“Can I take this up front? Is that okay?” Darcy asked John.
“Sure, why don’t you and Char go up front. I’ll hand up some blankets so you’ll stay warm.”
“Great,” Darcy replied and beamed.
She and Char walked back to the front of the boat, made themselves cozy with the cushions and a few blankets from John, and settled in. Cold air blasted their cheeks as they pulled out of the slip and slowly made their way out onto open water. They turned north, and Darcy closed her eyes to take in deep breaths of clean air, catching the occasional whiff of a wood-burning fire. When she opened her eyes, they had left Madeline behind and were approaching another island. John slowed down and pulled the boat into a small bay.
Ben came to the front to weigh the anchor, and Char quickly dashed to the back. Darcy would have suspected Charlotte of trying to give Darcy and Ben alone time, but she knew the truth. Charlotte had no desire to leave her man with a tart.
Ben worked in silence, but curiosity got the better of Darcy.
“Ben? Hi, sorry. Where are we?”
Ben finished his task and came over to sit next to her.
“Why do you always apologize?” he asked after a moment’s pause.
“I don’t know. Because it’s the nice thing to do and the other person expects it?”
Ben seemed to consider that for a moment while she rearranged from sitting cross-legged to hugging her knees to her chest. She needed something solid to hold onto.
“Do you always do what’s expected?” Ben asked thoughtfully.
“I guess so,” Darcy answered, then reconsidered. “Yes and no actually. Sometimes I veer off course, but I generally seem to find my way back to what is expected of me.”
“So, you’re not a rebel.”
Darcy smiled and rested her chin on her knees. “Not in the least. Besides, who would I be rebelling against at this stage? I’m a grown-up now. This is my life.”
“Very true,” he nodded and replied, more to himself then to Darcy.
“Nice boat,” she said after a while.
“Thanks. It’s not mine. It’s my family’s.”
“Goes with the house?”
“Exactly.”
“That’s a pretty sweet setup.”
“We always took it for granted,” he said, shaking his head. “Growing up and coming here every summer. But I guess that’s what kids do. Take the good things for granted and blame their parents for all the things they can’t control.”
Darcy had no response for that. “So, where are we?”
“Raspberry Island. There’s a lighthouse here with nice views of the islands. You should come back. It’s a nice path through the woods.”
Darcy nodded.
“Maybe I should apologize.”
“Did John tell you to apologize?”
Ben sighed. “Yes, but he’s right. I kind of lost track of the day.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” Darcy told him. “But you might want to keep your friend away from John and Char. Char is not amused.”
Ben grinned, and at that he stood and walked back to John.
Darcy sat by herself for a moment trying to gather her thoughts. She wasn’t mad at him about being on a date. Not even with his choice of date. He’d let her down, and yet she couldn’t help herself from yearning for him to lie next to her and point out some of the stars he’d supposedly studied in college.
“Darcy? You coming? Dinner’s ready,” Char called to her from the cockpit.
Darcy blinked back the tears on the verge of spilling from her eyes and followed Ben. Dinner passed in a series of stilted conversations. Whenever John or Char started along one line of discussion, it quickly appeared that Ben’s date didn’t follow, no matter what the topic. Not wanting to be rude, or at least obviously so, everyone finally settled on silence. It did not go unnoticed that Ben’s date continued to drink.
By the end of the meal, Ben’s date excused herself, and Char motioned for a word alone with Darcy.
“Look, this is not turning out the way I wanted.”
“I know.”
“No, not just about that. I had been hoping for at least a moment with John. This is a disaster. I’ve been babysitting all night.”
“I get it,” Darcy sighed. “I’ll keep them in the back. You go enjoy yourself.”
“Thank you.” She sighed.
They returned to the guys. Ben’s waitress was still below deck, as the sun began to set.
“John, can we watch this from the prow?” Char asked.
John smiled and followed her to the catwalk. Darcy pulled one of the chairs over to the edge of the boat and put her feet up on the railing. Ben did the same. They sat in silence as the sun dipped down below the horizon, setting the entire lake on fire.
“Shouldn’t we go check on your friend?” Darcy asked after a while as the sky darkened from pink to lavender to dark inky blue.
“I think she’s sleeping it off.”
Darcy nodded and turned to look back at the lake. The setting was too beautiful to waste with a conversation that might turn to a squabble.
“So, what do you know about stars?” Darcy asked.
He obliged the change of subject by pulling his chair next to hers. They sat nearly touching, their arms mere millimeters away from one another. Darcy resisted the urge to push her chair away.
“That,” he pointed to a cluster of stars, “is something important, I’m sure.”
Darcy started giggling. “I’m disappointed. I thought you’d be able to at least wing it and make something creative up.”
“Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not feeling very inventive tonight.”
“Can’t you at least point out the North Star?”
“Probably. But we’re facing south, and to face north we’d have to turn around and witness whatever is happening up front.”
Darcy’s eyes grew wide. “Oh please no.”
She didn’t need to turn her head to see his grin, she could hear it. Darcy fought hard to ignore the fluttering of butterflies in her stomach. She was sitting so close to him that his heat warmed and relaxed her. She turned to look at him, trying to think of something to say, at the same moment he turned to her. They head butted each other. Hard.
Darcy instantly pulled back and put a hand to her head to feel for a bump. She couldn’t feel anything yet, but there might be something the next day. Ben started laughing uncontrollably. In her embarrassment, she couldn’t help but laugh nervously along with him. Ben pushed back her hand and put his own up to her forehead. His fingers lightly grazed her scalp, gently prodding.
Lowering her hand to her lap, she remained still at his ministrations. The chill in the night air snaked over her, contrasting with his warm breath on her face. Frozen under his palm, she caught Ben’s gaze. His hand slid down from her forehead to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. If I lean forward, will he kiss me?
“Don’t go falling in love with me, Darcy,” he whispered as he dropped his hand away from her face.
“I should say the same thing,” she said pertly, turning away to shake her hair and tuck it back behind both ears.
Ben winked at her playfully. “Okay, let’s go round up the crew and get back.”
“Sounds good,” Darcy agreed taking a deep, shaky breath and glad for an excuse to put space between them.
Chapter Six
“Honey, what are you doing here?” Ben’s mom asked, as he stood on her doorstep bright and early two days later.
“I told you I’d be coming up. I wanted to see how everything is going. How you’re getting settled in.”
“Come in, come in, I don’t want to talk on my front porch all morning,” she teased, opening the door as wide as she could.
Ben squeezed past his mom and closed the door behind him. Standing in the portico of the grand old house, he quickly surveyed the front parlor to his side. The settees had been removed and the vitrines filled with delicate little objets d’art pushed against the wall to make room for the hospital bed. Books sat in heaps, stacked from floor to the height of the bed along one side.
“I wish you’d let me get you a TV,” Ben grumbled.
He wanted to make her comfortable and keep her entertained. To reduce her social schedule as dramatically as she’d had to, Ben could only imagine how she filled her time. Ben frowned. He hated these feelings.
“You know I’d hate that,” she rolled her eyes.
“You could watch your movies?” Ben offered.
“I can still read, darling. The cancer hasn’t metastasized that.”
Ben froze. He hated saying the word or even hearing it spoken aloud.
“Come on. I have some coffee on, would you like some?”
“Where’s the nurse?”
“Still getting settled in, I have her upstairs.”
“Should she be so far away?”
“It’s fine. I have a call button on the bed.”
“Should you be on your own? Shouldn’t she be with you at all times?”
“Ben, don’t be tedious, darling. I’m allowed to do as much as I feel capable of. Hospice is about living and enjoying the end. I’m not tied to the bed or hooked up to anything.”
Ben nodded slowly and followed his mom to the kitchen. She still moved as sprightly as ever, giving no hint of her condition. In fact, how well she looked had been part of the initial problem when trying to convince his brothers to give up on hospital care. For fifteen months, she’d been fighting lung cancer after never having smoked a single cigarette in her entire life. After all the drugs and chemo failed to stop the disease from attacking more of her body, Ben saw some of the sparkle go out of her.
His mother had always been the most glittering, sparkling person he’d ever known. She’d had seemingly endless energy. She raised five boys alone after his father’s early death, ran her family’s charitable foundation, sat on the board of several nonprofits, and had a full social calendar of both the boys’ and her own events. He’d never known her to sit still before her diagnosis.
She’d been determined to fight the disease and had made no secret of her absolute horror at the idea of leaving behind her boys before seeing even one of them get married and have babies. She never complained and did not let anything affect her schedule or her commitments. Until one day, she suddenly had. She’d accepted the end. But it took several more months of practically living at the hospital before Ben had been able to see what she saw.
The fight with his brothers had been ugly. Old wounds had been reopened, conflicts resolved in boyhood revisited, and every dirty secret exposed. They were all scared of her dying and each handled it in his own way. The younger brothers had accused him of wanting to kill her for his inheritance. A laughable accusation considering that he’d had full access to his trust fund for the better part of a year, while the others had at least three to go before getting theirs, but a serious statement nonetheless.
John finally had stepped in as the oldest and her medical power of attorney to let Ben take her out of the hospital. He hadn’t agreed with the plan either. But John couldn’t stand to see the way her dying threatened to tear their family apart. He wanted to preserve their relationships.
“Help yourself,” she told Ben.
Ben nodded. He filled up one of the delicate china teacups, grabbed a saucer, and followed his mom into the formal dining room. He’d lived nearly his entire life in the grand old house, following Mom’s instruction on proper manners and how to comport himself. Only on vacations to the lake house did the brothers get to live as informally as the rest of the world. In Duluth, they dressed for meals, ate four-course dinners with ridiculous place settings, and behaved politely in a way many people had only seen in period movies.
“How are you feeling?” Ben began.
She blew out a sigh. “This whole conversation is boring me. Can we please talk about something besides my health?”
Ben stared at her blankly.
“How about you?”
Ben shrugged.
“Are you having a good summer with John?”
“So far.”
“Why is it always like pulling teeth to get you to talk? Come on, tell me all about it.”
“There’s not much to tell. It’s weird not to be working.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“No, Mom. Please don’t. I chose to do this and actually it’s been nice.”
“How is John?”
“Good, running around after the next-door neighbor.”
“What?”
“Two women moved in next door. They’re nice. John is crazy about one. I think she’s in law school. He’ll probably kill me for telling you,” Ben said and smiled.
“What about the other one?”
“She’s . . . nice.”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“I don’t know. She’s nice. She works for an auction house and is up in the area looking for estates to sell. She works hard. She’s pretty ambitious, to be honest.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
Ben shrugged.
“I know someone else who is pretty ambitious,” she pointed out.
“Yeah, and look where that’s led me.”
“What? You live a nice life. You own your own home and bought it with your own money, well before the trust fund.”
“I sold that home and I’m on sabbatical.”
“Still.”
“I’ve worked hard for what I have, even with all the advantages I’ve been given,” Ben acknowledged. “But sometimes it doesn’t feel like it has amounted to anything. I had to take a leave of absence to help out my family.”
She squirmed.
“Mom, I’m not mad at you. I’m frustrated that the company made me do that. I hate that there was no middle ground in my life. But now I feel like I’m starting to come awake a bit.”
“And you think this girl is heading down the same road as you?”
“I’m not sure. I think she doesn’t have the luxury of the safety net that I have, so I can understand why she’s working so hard. It’s not just that I see my younger self in her. There’s something about her.”
“You’re interested in her?”
“Maybe? I don’t think I can take it on right now, the responsibility of being with a girl like her. I need to unwind and have fun.”
“It seems like you’ve been thinking about this a lot.”
“I’ve nearly kissed her a couple of times.”
“Oh, Ben. You shouldn’t give up or put your life on hold,” she exclaimed before bursting into a coughing fit.
Ben leaped to his feet, pushing back the Queen Anne chair without any consideration for it or the Aubusson underneath. He rubbed his mom’s back in the circular motions she’d told him were comforting.
“Help!” he called out at the top of his lungs.
The nurse burst into the room and helped him pull his mom to her feet. Between the two of them, the managed to walk her down the hall to the parlor. Ben took a step back as the nurse lowered his mom into the bed in a routine that looked choreographed, or at least well rehearsed.
“Can I help?” Ben asked the woman helplessly.
“Get her a glass of water please.”
Ben nodded, went to the kitchen to fetch the drink, and by the time he got back, she had stopped coughing. He handed his mom the water and sat down next to her. She took a tiny sip, turned to him, and mouthed sorry.
Ben kissed her head in response.
“You know, I should think about selling this stuff,” she said barely above a whisper. She gestured in a gi
ant circle.
“Mom, stop.”
“No, no. I should. It’d be better for me to get it all figured out before . . . I don’t want you boys to argue anymore.”
“Mom, no. This is your home. These are your things. Enjoy them. Don’t worry about what comes next here. That’s for us to do.”
She nodded, took one more sip of water, and handed it to the nurse. She moved to lie down and Ben covered her with a blanket. He kissed her on the forehead, feeling her warmth under his lips. She looked fragile in the institutional bed. It gave him pause and forced him to remember, she was dying. No matter how well she might seem, the end neared.
“I’ll come back at the end of the week to take you to the doctor, okay? If you need me before then you’ll call, right?”
She nodded and Ben turned to leave. He had opened the front door when she called out to him.
“Ben?”
He turned and rushed back into the room.
“What is it, Mom?” he asked frantically.
“What’s her name?”
Ben smiled and rolled his eyes. “Darcy.” He told her. He kissed her once more then left, anxious to put some distance between his emotions and the situation.
- # -
“Yes, of course. Gladly. I’ll be there tomorrow morning. Thank you so much for calling,” Darcy said into the house phone as Char walked into the room later that day.
“Who was that?” Char asked.
“My promotion,” Darcy replied, beaming.
“Huh?”
“That was a lady with a house full of antiques and heirlooms in Duluth. She contacted me personally about selling. If I can land this estate, I’m guaranteed the department head role.”
Darcy jumped off the bar stool she’d been sitting on when Charlotte entered and started dancing around the house.
“Wow. And she just called you? Out of the blue?” Char asked skeptically.
“It’s not totally out of the blue. I have been putting in a lot of face time with dealers and antique shops. I was probably recommended by one of them.”
Tiny Island Summer Page 6