Home for the Summer

by Holly Chamberlin

  Over thirty years after Tony’s passing the completed panel had been sent off to the organization’s headquarters along with an application form, a letter from Phil about Tony, and a photograph of Tony before he got sick. Today, Tony’s friends would finally see his panel as part of a completed quilt on display at the public library in Congressville, Maine.

  Bella reached for a tube of mascara and, looking into the mirror over her dresser, began to swipe it on her lashes. These days when she looked into the mirror she saw a very different person from the one she had seen there the previous spring. A happier person. Bella exchanged the tube of mascara for a tube of lip gloss; after applying it she slipped the tube into her bag. Jewelry, she thought. She would wear the silver hoop earrings her mother had given her for her eighteenth birthday last month and the matching silver necklace that had been a gift from her grandmother and George.

  I’m a happier person, Bella thought as she fastened the chain around her neck, and a wiser person. Just before Bella had walked away from counseling the previous spring, Colleen had suggested she make a list of the positive qualities she had discovered in herself as a result of the trauma. The point of this exercise, Colleen explained, was to help the survivor realize she had a necessary role in life. But Bella had come up blank. Who could possibly find her necessary, the stupid sister and ungrateful daughter of the two most wonderful people in the world?

  But shortly after returning to Warden the previous August, Bella had decided to give this exercise another try. This time she decided to list the good qualities she had discovered in herself during the summer in Yorktide. For one, she believed that she had genuinely helped Clara in some small way and the experience had taught her that if she focused less on wallowing in her own pain she would find the capacity to help relieve the pain of others. In January she had joined a local support group where she co-led discussions intended to help young people who had recently lost a close family member. The experience was fulfilling in ways that only a year ago Bella never would have thought possible.

  Second, she had accepted her mother’s relationship with Jack Tennant—they were getting married next year—and that meant she had matured. Third, Bella’s friendship with Phil had deepened; he had trusted her enough to share the story of his own journey through loss and beyond and that meant that Phil believed she had something to offer him in return. Finally, Bella had found the courage to ask forgiveness from Kerri. She hadn’t hurt Kerri purposely, but she had hurt her. Having Kerri back in her life was something for which Bella was seriously grateful.

  Bella was also seriously pleased that she had done well in school this year and that she would graduate with a decent GPA. She had been accepted at a small college with a good reputation in Vermont and planned to spend the summer co-managing Wainscoting and Windowseats while Phil traveled through Italy. She would live with Ruby and George in the house on Kinders Lane. That house—well, that house with her grandmother in it!—was the heart of their family.

  As important as doing well in school, Bella had found the courage to get her driver’s license. She wasn’t terribly comfortable behind the wheel, but neither was she terrified and she figured that since everything in life changed, it was likely that one day she would be comfortable driving and maybe even come to enjoy it. It was what Ariel would have wanted for her sister.

  Ariel’s locked diary was tucked safely in the top drawer of Bella’s desk. Sometimes when she looked at the diary she remembered the time Clara had urged her to break its lock and that memory opened the door for lots of other memories of the strange weeks she had spent with Clara Crawford.

  Clara’s parents had contacted Bella shortly after they brought their daughter home to Whimsey Corner. They had thanked her and let her know that Clara was getting professional help. There had been no further contact and Bella was fine with this. She and Clara had only bonded because they were grieving. There had never been any real compatibility between them. Over time they might have found more prosaic things in common, like a preference for ranch-flavored potato chips or an abhorrence of wedge shoes, but maybe not. She had learned nothing about Clara but the fact that she was in pain. And Clara had learned nothing about Bella, either, aside from the fact of her grief. Bella wondered if years from now they would even remember each other’s name and if it would matter.

  “Bella! Let’s go. We’ve got a two-hour drive ahead of us.”

  Bella glanced one last time in the mirror and, liking what she saw, she dashed to the door of her room. “Coming, Mom!”

  * * *

  “I had this weird thought,” Bella said when they were about twenty minutes from their destination.

  Frieda glanced at her daughter in the passenger seat beside her. “Weird in what way?” she asked.

  “Weird as in it probably won’t happen. I thought that maybe my grandfather would show up at the exhibition today.”

  “You’re right,” Frieda said. “It probably won’t happen. But I’d bet he’s thinking of Phil this morning.”

  In fact, Frieda thought, she was sure her father was with them all in spirit, as he had been at Christmas when everyone had gathered at the house on Kinders Lane. Bella had tasted her first eggnog and hated it; George had managed to blow a fuse due to his too-enthusiastic decorating scheme; Jack had been suffering a bad cold that left him only half-aware of the festivities going on around him. Ruby had sliced her finger with a knife whose handle was slippery with goose grease and Frieda had fallen on a patch of ice and for weeks had had the bruises to prove it. In spite of these calamities, it had been a perfect few days because they had all been together. “Minor disasters don’t deserve the name disasters,” Ruby had announced as they gathered around the kitchen table for dinner on Christmas Eve. “Obstacles to perfection make life more interesting.”

  Steve had called Christmas morning to wish everyone a happy holiday.

  “Are you with friends, Dad?” Frieda had asked worriedly.

  “I’m not alone,” he told her. “Don’t worry about me, Frieda. Please. Just hug your mother for me and give Bella a kiss and be sure Phil knows I was asking for him. Tell Jack he’s got the best gal ever and say hello to that George fellow, too.”

  When Frieda hung up there were tears in her eyes. Tears of gratitude for all the love she possessed—including the love of Aaron and Ariel. Love, after all, never died with the death of the loved one. It just transformed into something greater than it ever had been.

  Frieda continued to speak to her father on a fairly regular basis and back in April, around the time of Bella’s birthday and the anniversary of the accident that had taken Aaron’s and Ariel’s lives, Frieda and Bella had received a box—no return address—that contained a delicately beautiful wooden sculpture of a mother and child embracing. With it was a brief note: I thought I’d try my hand again.

  It had taken a lot of courage for her father to revisit his art, just as it had taken Frieda a lot of courage to embrace love once again. She and Jack were planning to wed the following summer, after which Frieda would sell the house in Warden and buy a new home with Jack in Yorktide. Bella had accepted this development with grace and maturity, though Frieda knew there must be a part of her daughter—as there was a part of her—that still felt a bit tentative about their new reality.

  The new reality, Frieda thought. Life without Aaron and Ariel. Another anniversary of their deaths had come and gone. Frieda and Bella had paid an early-morning visit to the cemetery, where they reminisced about the good times all four had shared as a family. Afterward they had gone for a long walk through the Arnold Arboretum and then on to lunch at their favorite Italian restaurant, where they had toasted the memory of their loved ones. It had been a simple, quiet day, one without trauma if not entirely free of melancholy.

  Frieda glanced down at her iPhone; GPS told her they were only moments away from the library. My new reality, she thought. Life with the addition of Jack, my father, and new friends. Upon her return to Massachusetts a
t the end of the previous summer, Frieda had made a conscious effort to meet new people, people who hadn’t labeled her as a grim reminder of mortality. When she did run into her former friends around town they met with perfect politeness but little warmth and that was fine by Frieda. Neither Maddie nor Eva had ever managed to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. People did what it was in them to do, Frieda had realized, and you could ask no more of them.

  “There’s Jack’s car,” Bella noted as Frieda brought the Subaru to a stop outside the impressive library. “And Phil’s, but I don’t see George’s Volvo.”

  Frieda turned to her daughter. “I know I’ve said this before, but thank you for encouraging Phil to do this.”

  Bella shrugged. “No problem. He’s my friend. Besides, he taught me everything I know about wainscoting.”

  * * *

  “I wonder how many hours a day you spend looking at that thing.”

  Ruby shrugged. “Two or three tops.”

  George was behind the wheel of his Volvo, and Ruby, seated next to him, was paying far less attention to the passing scenery than she was to the ring on her left hand. When she had accepted George’s proposal last August she had insisted she didn’t want an engagement ring—“I don’t want us wasting our hard-earned money on something so frivolous”—but George had finally convinced her to pay a visit to Cross Jewelers in Portland. “They’ve been around since 1908 and are totally reputable,” he told her. “Come on. At the very least it’s an excuse for a road trip.” Once she was in the store Ruby Hitchens’s frugal soul had dashed out the back door, allowing her to succumb at long last to the allure of precious metal and stones. After some deliberation she chose the Lady Captain’s ring, one of the jeweler’s most popular designs. George chose the Sea Light Wedding Ring in hammered yellow gold.

  “It’s fun spoiling you,” George said later, when they were sipping champagne at the Top of the East, Portland’s only rooftop bar. “You’d better get used to it.”

  Ruby had reached for his hand. “George,” she said, “you’ve been spoiling me in the best possible ways since the day we met.”

  “Where are we having lunch after the viewing?” George asked now. “I know virtually nothing about Congressville.”

  “I found a nice little bistro not far from the library,” Ruby told him. “Now that I’ve got all this free time on my hands I told Phil I’d handle picking a place and making a reservation.”

  And the reason Ruby had time on her hands was because she had retired after her sixty-fifth birthday in February. Which wasn’t to say she was idle. When she wasn’t volunteering or leading passionate discussions with The Page Turners or taking long walks on Ogunquit Beach, she was planning her October wedding at York Harbor Inn and enjoying every moment of it. “I could do this professionally,” she told Phil one afternoon after she had successfully negotiated a deal on the flowers from Pretty Blossoms. “You’re forgetting one thing,” Phil pointed out. “The Bridezillas.” Ruby’s sudden enthusiasm had come to a crashing halt. “Oh. Right. Them.”

  “Is Phil all packed and ready to go?” George asked.

  Ruby laughed. “He’s been packed for weeks.” Phil had hired a manager who, with Bella, would run Wainscoting and Windowseats while he spent the summer in Italy, soaking up the culture, basking in the heat of the Mediterranean sun, and enjoying magnificent meals. “I hope this morning won’t be too much of a trial for Phil,” Ruby said as they crossed the Congressville town line. “Making the panel had its difficult moments.”

  “It will be an emotional experience, that’s for sure,” George said. “But we’ll be there to support him.”

  Ruby nodded and thought of those who would not be present on this important occasion. Phil had sent a note to Tony’s parents informing them of what he had done in memory of their son and inviting them to the opening day of the exhibition. The Worthingtons had not replied. And Ruby had informed Steve of the exhibition, but she was highly doubtful she would ever come face-to-face with Steve Hitchens again.

  Still, further progress had been made. Not long after Christmas Steve had asked if he might speak with Bella. Bella had readily agreed. “He’s nice,” she told her mother and grandmother after the first call. “And his voice sounds kind of like yours, Mom, only deeper of course. Oh, and he asked if it would be okay if he had a recent picture of the three of us. He gave me a post office box number.” So they had duly sent a few of the photos taken at the Christmas holidays.

  Steve had also asked Ruby if he might call Phil, who did not so readily agree. “I feel so protective of you, Ruby; you know that,” Phil had told her. “I feel my talking to Steve would be a betrayal of the bond you and I share.”

  “Talk to him if you want to, Phil,” Ruby told him. “Or don’t. But I shouldn’t be a factor in your decision.”

  In the end Phil had agreed to accept a call from Steve, if only, he told Ruby, for the care Steve had shown Tony all those years ago.

  “How did it go?” Ruby had asked afterward.

  “I was unexpectedly moved,” Phil admitted. “Whatever emotional walls I had constructed to keep from feeling anything warm toward him just fell apart the moment I heard his voice. The memories. . . ”

  “Yes,” Ruby had said, placing her hand on her old friend’s arm. “The memories.”

  “It’s true, isn’t it?” Phil had replied. “Love is love is love.”

  George turned onto Foyle Boulevard and Ruby spotted Frieda, Jack, Bella, and Phil standing on the steps of the imposing library building midway down the street. “Looks like we’re the last to arrive,” she said. “I’m not sure why, but it’s important for Phil that we all go in together.”

  George parked the car alongside Jack’s and together he and Ruby joined the others on the library steps. Frieda and Jack were holding hands. Bella was standing close to Phil, who wore a purple flower in the lapel of his charcoal-colored suit jacket.

  “The big moment has finally arrived,” Ruby said after she had greeted everyone.

  As Frieda, Jack, George, and Bella moved toward the library doors, Phil put a hand on Ruby’s arm. “It can’t be,” he murmured.

  “What is it, Phil?” Ruby asked. “Do you feel all right? You look like you just saw a ghost.”

  “Close enough.” Phil nodded toward an old black Cadillac that was just pulling up along the curb. A moment later an elderly couple began to emerge. “I’d recognize that car anywhere. It’s the Worthingtons. Tony’s parents. They didn’t respond to my invitation. I thought . . . I didn’t think they would come.”

  Ruby watched as the elderly couple made their way toward the library. When they were at the foot of the stairs, Mr. Worthington raised his hand in greeting and Mrs. Worthington offered a tentative smile. “Love is love is love,” Ruby whispered to her dear friend. “We can’t ever forget that.”

  Please turn the page

  for a very special Q&A

  with Holly Chamberlin!

  Q. In Home for the Summer you touch on drug addiction, a topic all too often in the news. What brought you to build this issue into the story?

  A. Though I have in no way delved into the heart of the topic—this is after all a novel and not a scientific study or a social treatise—I did want to glance at the current problem of prescription drug abuse and its relation to heroin use. The prescribing and the abuse of opiates is a complicated issue and one I’m not qualified to speak to other than to present in the character of Clara one particular example of a person in a weakened psychological state who is vulnerable to people more concerned with making fast cash than with the sustaining of human life. And I want to be clear that I in no way blame the victims of these dealers. Besides legislation what is needed most is compassion.

  Q. You tackle another difficult topic in this novel, namely the sudden loss of a close family member. How much did you draw on your own experiences in this regard?

  A. So far, in my own life I’ve been exceptionally lucky. While it’s true that
my grandparents are gone and that two dear uncles and a wonderful aunt passed away at relatively young ages, both of my parents, my stepmother, and my brother are still here with me. As always, I researched the loss of a spouse/parent/sibling to gain insight into the experience. After that it’s down to empathy and a sympathetic imagination to create a story that rings at least partially true both for those who have experienced a similar tragedy as well as for those who have not. Every situation is different and grief has as many shapes as there are people on this planet, but hopefully I’ve managed to get it right for Ruby, Frieda, and Bella.

  Q. This is not the first novel in which you present several generations of a family interacting closely. Why does this dynamic interest you?

  A. I’ve always been drawn to relationships with people either significantly older or younger than me and I think that has a lot to do with the fact that I grew up in a family that socialized across the generations. I can’t get my head around the idea of spending quality time with only people my own age. Boring! And unnatural.

  Q. An important character in Home for the Summer is said to have lost his life partner to AIDS over thirty years before the opening of the novel. Why did you choose to make Phil’s and Tony’s experience a part of this story?