“Dan? Remember when you were little, how you got scared at night up here?” asked Gwen. “You used to come into my room to look at the lights from town.”
“You’d tell me what each light was and what it meant.”
“That was a game that Scarlet taught me and Tom. We’d sit on the end of the float after dinner, after Libby had gone to bed, and try to figure out every light.”
Danny looked over at Tom. Tom had leaned the broom against the wall. He had always assumed that somehow Tom and Gwen lived separate lives as kids, like mini adults, standing in the doorways of their separate rooms in feetsie pajamas, waving cordially, but never inviting the other in.
Tom gave Gwen a pat on the shoulder. “That’s true,” he said, “but now they have those horrible new floodlights on the ferry landing. You’d think they were expecting the QE2. Maybe that’s what Scarlet was hoping for, that the QE2 would pull into port and take her away.” He looked out the bay window, over the water, to town. Tilting her head back so Danny could see her face, Gwen made a what-the-hell-is-he-saying expression that Danny had seen before, often.
“I think Scarlet was living the dream,” said Gwen, “eventually, anyway.” She squeezed Danny’s shoulder. He was the dream.
Tom picked up a magazine, wiped the dust from the cover on his pant leg, and headed toward the dining room and the door to the porch. “Sure, an elaborate fallacy created by her subconscious, or her conscious mind, depending on the day,” he said, and left the room smacking the rolled-up magazine against the heel of his hand. “You guys can handle the cleanup.”
“Tom?” Gwen called, but they heard the screen door smack shut. Again, Gwen turned to Danny and grimaced.
“You’d think her dying would’ve chilled out his irrational anger,” she said.
“That, or turning thirty-eight,” said Danny.
“Maybe he’s just mad she’s not here to fight with.”
“That drama queen,” said Danny, “maybe he’s just in withdrawal. They hadn’t had a good blowout since my seventeenth birthday. Are you seriously still allowed to storm out of parties after you’re thirty?”
“He didn’t come back for poor Melissa for two hours. Just forgot about her completely. That lady is a saint.” Danny was drawing lines in the dust with his toe.
“I can’t even remember what he and Mom were fighting about.”
“Insurance. Because that is such an emotional topic.” The two of them broke down into a small laughing fit. When they heard Tom drag a wooden chair across the porch, they laughed harder. Scarlet hated when they dragged the furniture around. But then Danny didn’t want to joke anymore. Laughing made him feel like he was too deep in his body, too far away from his skin. He coughed from the dust.
“I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever,” she said. “Finals must’ve been a bitch.”
“Yeah, it’s been tough.” He leaned into her for a second. “I need some water.”
“Oh, crap. She’s back.” Gwen pointed out the window to the backyard. “Flee the scene!”
THIRTEEN
LIBBY
July 7
From where they sat on the porch Libby and Melissa could see Tom at the wheel of the Whaler. He’d just come back from a jaunt, and tied the boat up, but stayed where he was, looking out toward town. The women were in matching Adirondack chairs, their feet propped up on the rail, books lying facedown in their laps. Melissa wore a hat, and her legs looked pale and veined next to Libby’s, which were tanned from hours working on boats and clearing brush from the edge of the wood for the past few weeks. Melissa looked delicate and magical, Libby thought, like a lily or some thin, exotic cat. So unlike her own seasoned self, the salty dog with the tennis body, her hands a little too rough for the country club but too lithe for the lobster boat.
“I can’t believe that those idiots broke the house. I was only gone for an hour.”
“At least they tried to clean up,” said Melissa.
“‘Tried’ being the operative word.” Libby glanced over her shoulder at the bay windows. Through them she could see the hole in the ceiling, a dark patch with pinpricks of light. It made her strangely happy. No one else will want it now. The risk of the offer had been buried under ancient plaster.
“At least it’s not raining,” said Melissa. Libby would rather the house become a mud pit then a fleet of condos.
“Tom has been obsessively listening to NOAA to make sure nothing happens before we can get it fixed,” said Libby. Remy would come tomorrow and start putting it all back together. How much could a roof cost?
“See, he’s not such an idiot. It was on our second date, when Tom told me about you.”
“Really?” Libby scratched the top of one foot with the arch of the other.
“He talked about his little sister, he said he always used you as an example in meetings: ‘Would my little sister like this ad, would this make her buy it,’ like you were the everygirl. I expected you to be in college. And then when we first met, you were only fifteen.”
“That’s surprising, considering Tom thinks he’s in a generation all his own. I wonder why he told you about me. Gwen would have made the better story.”
“There was something incredibly sweet and vulnerable in the way he talked about you. It was the reason I went out with him a third time. I’d planned to end it at two dates, but . . .” Melissa looked down at her husband sitting in the boat as it pulled at its painter, adrift but tethered.
“Lucky for us you saw something,” said Libby, leaning her head back on the chair and closing her eyes against the sun. “I hate to think of the kind of person he could’ve ended up with.” There had been a few casual girlfriends before Melissa, the kind who either oozed all over their mother, trying to make a good impression, or the kind who would attempt to become Libby’s best friend. Both were equally depressing to watch. Melissa always seemed just interested in Tom. She was kind and thoughtful and polite, but clearly felt no pressure for anyone to like her. And so, they all loved her.
“So when did you know that he was the right one for you?”
Libby figured that with someone like Tom there must have been a sign, a large manila tag hanging from the back of one of his shirts, like a forgotten dry cleaner tag, that read, “Your Soul Mate.” How else could she have known? She wished it worked like that, that everyone came with a tag. Life would be so much simpler with labels like “Friend,” “One-night Stand,” “Work Acquaintance.” She could avoid so much confusion, so much trouble, trying to turn one thing into something it wasn’t.
“You mean besides the first time he brought me here?” They laughed.
“I think this place is Patricia’s favorite thing about me too.”
“Shut up. That girl would walk over hot coals for you, Lib. She’s probably already done it.”
Two years ago at the Omega Center.
“Pretty crazy talk on the Fourth, about the house,” said Melissa.
Libby could practically feel Rafe Phillips’s hot breath on her neck.
“We just keep the ship afloat. As always. Fix the roof.” Libby jabbed a thumb behind her toward the windows and the great room and the Ping-Pong table now covered with a drop cloth to catch the constant dust that sifted down as the wind changed. “At least it’s early enough in the season we should be able to get it done this summer. So my inheritance goes back into the house. Where else would it go? Tom might be ready to cash out, but that’s not happening.” Libby switched the cross of her feet on the rail, the backs of her bare heels clunking the wood emphatically.
“You know Tom and I aren’t always of one mind, right?”
Libby wanted to kiss her, not in a romantic way, in a thank-God-I-have-an-ally-on-the-inside way. She reached over and squeezed Melissa’s forearm.
“This place is beyond money. It’s a natural wonder. There is no market value for that,” said Melissa.
“Just three million.” Libby said it quietly.
Melissa took off her
hat and smacked Libby in the chest with it. “Don’t even say that shit out loud. Denial is a very real strategy with Tom. You’ve got to be careful or he’ll have you all packed up and on the next ferry.”
“And then you’d have to divorce him.” Libby said this with a chuckle. Melissa put her hat back on and sank back into her chair.
“Actually, our trips up here always made me feel closer to you guys than to Tom. He retreats when he’s here. Like the way he is when he looks at sailing charts. Like he’s already out on the water thinking about channels and harbors, even when he’s sitting there with you on the porch.”
“I know,” said Libby. “Most of the time he’s out on the water. Dad got the Whaler when Tom turned fourteen, and they went out in it all the time. Then, I guess, Tom hit puberty and it wasn’t cool to tool around with your dad anymore. By the time he was sixteen he practically lived on that thing. But once he went to college he came up a lot less, and the boat”—she said this rubbing her hands together nefariously—“went to me.”
“I won’t tell him you said that.”
“Sometimes it’s better to keep him in the dark,” said Libby. “Ignorance is bliss, right?”
He was better off not officially knowing about Patricia, for instance, better off not having his fears confirmed. And she was better off not being plagued by his fraudulent statistics about unmarried women dying young, about raising babies to be gay, about STDs, as if it weren’t the mighty cock that was the fountain of burning, itching, and all things rashy.
Melissa closed her eyes and leaned her head back on her chair. The shadow from her hat fell dark over her eyes and nose, but the red of her lips seemed to be bleeding into her skin, blotchy like she was about to cry.
“You okay?” Libby asked.
“It didn’t happen here, realizing he was the guy.” She opened her eyes and looked down at Tom still sitting in the boat, working knots through a stray line. “It was one night, after your Aunt Kathy’s fiftieth birthday, the night of that insane snowstorm with everybody housebound. We were walking home through the snow, down Mass Ave. He didn’t say anything in particular. We’d had a great time at the party. It was late, no one was around. The snow was up to the tops of our boots, and it was falling slow and straight, not that sideways crap that stings your eyes. We were gossiping about your cousins and which of the new girlfriends were going to last.”
Libby could tell Melissa wasn’t looking at Tom anymore, but out over the water, through seasons and years to streetlights glowing orange in the snow.
“He held my hand inside his coat pocket because I had forgotten my gloves. And I thought, life doesn’t get better than this. That was it.” Melissa shrugged.
Libby couldn’t help wondering if life could be better—better for her, better for Melissa—though she was pretty sure that, for Tom, this was as good as it would get. Libby went inside now, the chill of the wood floor and the shadowy interior making her shiver. She got them each a glass of iced tea and carried them back out to the porch.
“Have you thought about talking to Tom about Patricia?” Melissa asked. She downed half her tea in two long swallows.
“I know which side he’s on; I’m just not ready for a political debate. He’ll want to talk me out of it, tell me it’s a phase.”
“He’s not the most progressive guy in the world, I’ll give you that,” said Melissa carefully. “But he might surprise you.”
“Yeah, I don’t think surprises are his strong suit.”
“He just wants you to be safe and happy. When we were deciding about having kids, he told me the story about you almost drowning at Bar Island. He said that was the day he realized he wanted to be a father. His paternal instincts just kicked in. He worries about you. At the end of the day, he’s your big brother. Worrying’s in his contract.”
“Or his genetics,” said Libby. “This is one of those rare times when he’s way too much like Scarlet.”
“She was definitely one opinionated lady.”
“Is that a nice way of saying bigoted?” Libby snorted. “Patricia wasn’t exactly her favorite person.”
“Really? I always thought they got along well,” said Melissa. “Two fiery ladies laughing and scratching. At Gwen’s birthday they spent the whole time in the kitchen talking about remodeling bathrooms and costume jewelry.”
“Limited exposure. That was the key with Scarlet. That and never bringing your business under her roof.”
Melissa began to say something and stopped.
“Why would my almost drowning make Tom want a kid?” said Libby. “You would think it would do the opposite.”
“Do you remember it?” asked Melissa.
“What?” Libby held a hand up to shade her eyes and turned toward Melissa. “Well, yeah. I just froze up, couldn’t swim, and then my dad pulled me out.”
Only ten years old, she had thought her father was kidding when he told her to get used to the cold, early-June water by wading in a tide pool. Like a baby. So she ran fast and hard, jumping from the edge of the whale-shaped rock that stuck way out into the cove. Libby had seen the water closing over her head, the floor of the cove so much deeper than she had realized. The water so cold she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move her arms; she could only watch, looking up past seaweed and rocks, all browns and yellows and black greens, up to the surface—white, broken, and choppy. She saw the whale rock high and gray, she saw her father, in an arc, dive off of it. She felt the pull of the water against her as he swum her to shore, and the rough pile of the towel against her cold, blotched skin.
“Your father?”
“Yup, dove right in and saved me. Quite an exciting day.” It had been humiliating. Clearly, she couldn’t jump in like the big kids did, from rocks and floats and ferry landings. Frail and pathetic, she needed her father’s warnings and savings. Maybe the universe had punished her for her pride, for her rebellion. This taught her she was better in boats than in the water, on top rather than in; skimming the surface, not plumbing its depths. She would leave all the jumping and diving to Gwen.
“Tom remembers it a little differently,” Melissa said. “You should ask him about it.”
“Tom, always the revisionist. He probably thinks I hate the water now.”
“I’d think it would put you off swimming.”
“Nothing could put me off swimming, just jumping in.”
“Tom and I went skinny dipping here once. It was disgustingly hot one August, and you all were at some fair. We went right off the float in the middle of the day.”
Libby sat up and looked incredulous. “Really? Tom? In the middle of the day?”
“He used to be different,” said Melissa.
“God, I think of him as always being the same.”
Libby stretched and picked up her book. Melissa looked down at the water, toward her husband still sitting in the Whaler.
That night was a bit chilly. They had their cocktails and hors d’oeuvres in the rug room. Tom and Danny were arguing in the kitchen over steak temperatures while Gwen and Melissa stared at the sunset through the arched window. Libby was laying a fire.
“Please,” said Gwen to Melissa, “it would be so beautiful. Your curves against the arcs of the bed in the nursery. We’ll take the sheets off. That ticking. Those old mattresses, the sagging, the buttons, the stains contrasting with your pale skin. It would be so French, in a sort of dusty garret style.”
“Why not?” Melissa shrugged her shoulders up to her ears, and they stayed there for a minute.
“Oh, oh, great,” said Gwen, obviously surprised Melissa didn’t need more convincing.
“Have you ever posed for her, Bibs?”
Libby stood up from the hearth, the fire already catching. She dusted her hands on her pants.
“My entire adolescence. Her senior thesis was basically child porn.” Libby had wandered from room to room in their creepy basement in Cambridge wearing nothing but a wreath of Christmas lights. Gwen had to order her to stop
laughing so she could get the shot.
“You were seventeen; I wasn’t exactly corrupting you.”
“Have you ever posed for someone before?” said Libby. Maybe Melissa had been one of those honor students who put themselves through school by modeling for the life drawing classes. What secret lives did Melissa live before Tom?
Tom walked into the room with a drink in his hand and slumped down in the leather chair.
“Tom, guess what?” said Gwen.
Libby saw Melissa look at Gwen and slightly shake her head.
“How’s dinner coming?” said Libby quickly.
“I don’t care if we have freaking fish sticks for dinner. I’m done.”
From the kitchen they heard Danny call, “It’s cool, I’ve got this. Where’s the fire extinguisher? Or a bucket of sand?”
FOURTEEN
GWEN
July 8
The nursery faced northeast, which meant to catch the light they needed to work in the morning. Early. So at seven they barged in and shuffled Danny off to Gwen’s bed. His sleeping bag around him like a pelt, he looked like a cave man just ousted from his cave.
“The muse strikes,” she explained. “No way around it.”
“You’re a jerk,” he croaked. But he went, trailing his sleeping bag tail behind him. Gwen would’ve felt bad for him if she thought he’d stayed awake even five minutes after crawling into her bed.
After giving Melissa a few minutes, Gwen knocked on the nursery door and opened it a crack. “You decent, soon to be indecent?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” said Melissa. “Come on in.”
“Nice outfit,” said Gwen. Melissa wore a thin and faded hospital robe.
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