Mystic Summer

by Hannah McKinnon

  “For a little while it was. But Jane saw a therapist, and my mom stepped in to help. It didn’t last more than a couple of months, and she’s in a great place now.”

  “Since we’re talking about babies,” Peyton interjects, sitting up taller, “there’s something I want to share with you girls.”

  Erika’s the first to ask. “Oh my God. Are you pregnant?”

  Peyton bites her lip, something she does only when she’s nervous, which is rarely. “Not yet.” She breaks into a huge smile, and I can’t help but smile, too. “But we’re trying.”

  We take turns with congratulations and hugs. It’s a mixed emotion: the thrill tangled up with the acknowledgment that our lives are changing, and we’re all heading in different directions. Again.

  “I’m ready,” Peyton says. Her voice is rich with determination, and I can see it in her eyes. “Chad and I have been talking about it for a while. I’m in a good place at work, and we’re all moved in to our new home. If there’s such a thing as a good time, this seems like it.” She looks around at us, gauging our response.

  Erika’s words are generous and immediate. “You’re going to be a great mom.”

  “What do you want, boy or girl?” I want to know.

  “Healthy,” Peyton says without missing a beat. Then she ducks her chin bashfully. “Full disclosure: I do have visions of a pink-and-brown gingham for the nursery.”

  “Ha!” I laugh. “I knew it.”

  “But this is just between us,” Peyton says, wagging her finger. “Chad would kill me if he knew I’d told you guys this early on. So, zip your lips.” She turns to Erika. “And you, young lady, have some work to do. My baby’s going to need a playmate.”

  Erika smiles obligingly. “Where’s the bottle?” she asks, hopping off the bed. “With all this baby and wedding talk, I need another drink.”

  I groan in agreement and hold up my mug.

  “Count me in,” Peyton says.

  Erika holds up a hand. “Hang on. Should you drink if you’re trying?”

  Peyton rolls her eyes. “Do you see Chad in this bed?”

  “Please. Give the girl a drink, or she’s going to start talking baby names,” I warn.

  A look of delight flashes across Peyton’s face. “Well, since you mention it . . . Emma if it’s a girl, and Devon if it’s a boy.”

  I cover my ears. “Make her stop.”

  “Although Reese is a good unisex choice.”

  “That’s it!” Erika grabs the nearest pillow and whacks Peyton. After a cry of faux outrage and a quick adjustment of her ponytail, she jumps up and grabs a pillow of her own.

  There’s a moment of stillness, and then we all fall into it like ten-year-olds at a slumber party.

  Later, as we lie on Erika’s bed catching our breath and absorbing the events of the night, I can’t help but think about the bottom line that Erika was getting at earlier. Cameron isn’t a hero. He’s just a young guy with a child who has had to grow up fast. Who has long outgrown the college memories of an old girlfriend the likes of me.

  It’s almost midnight when I finally tiptoe into my house. Mom has taped ads for several local job openings for me on the fridge, not because she thinks my job will be cut, but just in case I decide I don’t want to return to Darby. Second-grade teacher. Literacy teacher. And a UConn Master of Fine Arts flyer, for good measure. The fridge contents are much less interesting than when we were kids. Mom’s salad fixings, Dad’s Cadbury bars. But standing in the kitchen doorway, I suddenly know what I want. And it’s not in the fridge.

  On the den laptop I type in Saltwater Construction. The site is impressive, from the crisp graphic design to the video tours of past projects. I scroll through Cameron’s work: residential renovations and a historic lighthouse preservation. Instantly, I feel a stab of shame for having lamented his foray into carpentry and leaving marine biology. The guy has talent.

  I look at the clock. It’s twelve thirty. Cameron won’t be walking in the door from a Saturday night with friends. He’ll be long asleep. Or, more likely, waking throughout the night to feed Emory. My phone vibrates on the desk beside me. There are three new texts from Evan. It occurs to me that since coming home, I haven’t gotten in touch with him once. I close the laptop and head upstairs to bed.

  Eleven

  The next morning I awake in my childhood bed. Sunlight streams through the gingham curtains and I roll over, pulling the pillow over my eyes.

  My parents are down in the kitchen. “You came in late last night,” my mother remarks. I don’t remind her that I am no longer sixteen. “Here, I made your favorite.”

  She plunks a plate of blueberry pancakes at my usual seat at the kitchen table. All I really want is to make a small fruit smoothie and then go for a run.

  “So what’s the plan, Stan?” The Paul Simon reference is an old favorite that my dad has used on us for as long as I can remember, but this time I have to force the smile. He sits beside me and digs in to his own plate, which is swimming in a thick puddle of syrup.

  “No plans,” I say.

  “How’s the wedding coming along?” My mother’s eyes are bright at the mention of it.

  “Erika decided on the yacht club, and the menu is pretty much set. It looks like it’s going to work out after all.”

  My mother nods approvingly, pointing the spatula as she talks. “I think it’s wonderful she’s having it here in Mystic. So much nicer for a summer wedding. Her mother must be relieved.”

  My father shakes his head. “Such a lot of money for one day,” he says ruefully. He knows this, of course, having married off Jane already.

  “So what are you and the girls doing today?” Mom asks.

  “The girls are going back to Boston this morning, and I think I’m going to head out for a run.”

  “Already?” my mother asks, turning from the stovetop. “But they just got home.”

  My mom seems to be under the impression that we are all home for summer vacation, as if we’re all still in college. Which makes me wary of staying home too long—I don’t want her to think that just because my circumstances are up in the air at the moment that I’ll be moving back home. “Mom, they have work tomorrow.”

  Her eyes flash hopefully and she points to the fridge. “Did you see what I saved there for you?”

  It’s no use. I shove a forkful of pancakes in my mouth. “I did, thanks. But what’s with the MFA program at UConn? I live in Boston. And I’m a teacher.”

  She lifts one shoulder and smiles. “I know, but you’ve always loved to paint. I still have your art portfolio upstairs in the hall closet. And if things change at Darby, this might be a window for you to open.”

  “Can’t hurt to think about it,” my dad says, swirling the last of his pancake around the plate. “You’re only young once. Before you get tied down to a mortgage and a family, you should consider your options.”

  I love that my parents’ belief in me is as unwavering today as it was when I won second place in the school art show with a watercolor of a cardinal. I can’t think of any friends whose parents are as doggedly supportive; if Erika had ever wondered aloud about going to grad school to study art, her father would’ve had a heart attack. In her house, business was the only way to get ahead, and getting ahead was what it was about. It makes me realize how lucky I am. But we’re well past the years of trying out for talent shows or taking a semester to study abroad. At this point in my life, practicality isn’t something I can afford to shake a stick at.

  I thank my mom anyway, and tuck the brochure into my purse in the mudroom before grabbing my sneakers. Even if I have to be a grown-up, I love the fact that someone else still hears the voice of my childhood.

  Our street is quiet on Sunday mornings, despite the snug houses tucked in side by side. I jog to the bottom of our hill and turn left toward town. River Road is a popular running route that loops outside of the village and along the Mystic River. Across the way to my right is the Seaport, its long woode
n pier dotted by boats. The brackish river water is pungent in the morning air. Rocky outcroppings rise among the wooded hillside on my left. I jog past the dirt pull-off for the Peace Sanctuary Lookout, a spot I climbed regularly as a kid. Just beyond it the woods give way to sloping green lawns, and private homes dot that side of the road.

  My favorite, the historic Edwin Bate House, looms ahead on my left. Mystic is famous for its seafaring past, so historic homes are prevalent. But this one has always been special. As little girls, Jane and I fondly dubbed it “the wedding cake house” because of its romantic white Greek Revival portico. I slow as I pass, noting for the first time that the stately white façade has been stripped of paint. Workers have erected scaffolding on the northern side of the house, where clapboard siding has been removed. I wonder who owns it now.

  After two miles, I turn around and head back toward town. The sound of power tools breaks the morning stillness, and this time I stop at the bottom of the driveway of the Edwin Bate house for a better look. Now its stripped front gives the old captain’s home an air of vulnerability beyond its age. Stained insulation sags from gaps in the clapboards. A worker on a high scaffold tears off a strip of siding, and a wave of protectiveness rises inside me as it falls into a pile of debris with a splintering clatter. The house has been empty for several years, but now my curiosity propels me up the driveway.

  I’m met with the burning smell of a power saw cutting through fresh pine. The stately national historic registry placard inscribed Captain Edwin Bate has been removed from the front entrance, and for a beat I imagine the house like a lost pet without its ID tags. The workers don’t seem to notice me as I head up the stone walkway. I pause at the front door, which someone has left ajar. “Hello? Is anyone inside?”

  It’s been years since I’ve been in this entryway, the farthest I’ve ventured into the house, when we trick-or-treated as kids. The high ceilings of the foyer are painted a pale blue, and the doorways leading into the main rooms off the giant entryway are tented in plastic. But the grandeur of the house rings through, despite the sawdust and debris of construction.

  I’m half-tempted to keep going, but outside there is a sudden crash. I step back out, glancing nervously at the scaffold. Dust rises from a newly dropped pile of siding. As I stand there looking at it, one of the guys hauling it away catches sight of me. “Can I help you?” he shouts.

  I shouldn’t be here. So, I offer him a quick wave and head down the front steps. I slip between two big vehicles in the driveway, glancing quickly at the logo on the door of one of the trucks as I jog by. Saltwater Construction, the words encircling a bold compass rose. I halt, a fresh plume of curiosity rising.

  The worker is still watching me from the front yard. “Hey,” I shout back to him, feeling bolder now. “Where’s Cameron Wilder?”

  “Not here,” he shouts back.

  I raise my hand once more before breaking into a run toward home, muttering to myself, “And neither was I.”

  Before the day is over, Jane calls. I’m out on the back porch, with a book, an iced tea, and a bottle of dark pink nail polish.

  “So, I hear you’re home! What’s new? How’s summer going?” Jane’s voice is suspiciously melodic, and her house is suspiciously quiet in the background.

  I lean back into the lounge cushions and admire my still-wet Watermelon Juice pedicure. “Well, considering school ended forty-eight hours ago, so far so good.” I pause. “What’s up, Jane?”

  She lowers her voice to a desperate whisper, all pretense of polite inquiry abandoned. “You have to come over.”

  I sit up. “What’s wrong? Is it one of the kids?”

  “No. It’s me. And my sanity. Toby’s firm is going on their annual summer golf trip to Newport. And I’m going with him.” She says the last part as if she’s running away.

  “Next weekend?”

  “Tomorrow. I need your help.”

  I put the brush back in the nail polish. “You can’t be serious.”

  “As a heart attack, Maggie. Think full cardiac arrest.”

  This is not like Jane. Sure, she has lured me home in the past to help out with the kids so that she and Toby could snag a brief getaway or a night out. But that was with a polite week of advance notice. Tailed closely by adulation, good-natured cajoling, and subsequent bribery. She cannot expect me to sacrifice my first days of summer. “Jane. No way. School just ended. I haven’t even had time to locate my flip-flops. And you want me to babysit the kids for how many days?”

  “Yes. Yes, that is exactly what I want. And it’s only three days.”

  “What’s going on?” I have my own problems to deal with this summer, and as much as I love my nephews and niece, I’ve got an apartment to find and a job hanging in the balance. Babysitting three kids for three days is hardly the retreat I came home for.

  “What’s going on?” Jane echoes me in a tone somewhere roughly between exhaustion and hysteria. “How much time do you have?”

  Never enough, I think to myself. “Just tell me.”

  “Randall has boycotted potty training. As in, he’s launched a total potty prohibition. He will not go. At all. Anywhere. Until he cannot hold it anymore, at which point he whips off his pull-up diaper, usually in public, and aims. Today he stripped down and peed all over the library rug. Right in the middle of Mommy and Me story time.”

  I can see where this would be upsetting. But I am not sold. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “And then there’s Lucy. Who is teething. She’s been up crying all night and all day. And now she wants to nurse twenty-four–seven.”

  “Jane, that sounds awful, it really does, but my plate is kind of full at the moment, you know?”

  “Wait, there’s more. Owen. My sweet-tempered, sleep-through-the-night-since-three-months-old, lovable, easy Owen, has suddenly decided that there are trolls under his bed. And he will not enter his room day or night without me. Or get into his bed. For anything. Which includes sleeping.”

  “So where does he sleep?” I ask, scrambling to keep up with the nightmarish images that pop up as fast as Jane can narrate them.

  “Oh, you know. Somewhere in my bed. Depending on where Lucy and her teething rings are sprawled. Or where Randall has not peed in the last two hours. Usually in the spot where Toby no longer sleeps, since he’s moved out onto the living room couch.”

  I let out a long breath. “Jane.”

  “Maggie!”

  I want to help. But rescuing Jane from her offspring in crisis mode is far beyond my “Aunty Mags” qualifications. “I’m sorry you’re going through this. Truly. But if you and Toby are overwhelmed, then how could I possibly manage all this on my own?”

  Jane doesn’t miss a beat. “Tiny white straitjackets, Maggie. Blow horns. Chocolate bars. Whatever it takes.” There is a knocking sound in the background.

  “Where are you?” I ask, suddenly cognizant of the fact that I have not had an uninterrupted and child-free phone call with my sister in the same number of years since her firstborn has been on earth.

  “In my office.”

  I wince. “The toilet?”

  “You’re catching up.”

  “Have you talked to Mom about this?” I’m buying time. And attempting to assemble some footmen.

  “I don’t want to bother her.”

  So, you’re bothering me. In the aftershock weekend since twenty-three nine-year-olds exited my classroom. The very classroom that I may not be returning to. In a city where I have to find a new place to live. I close my eyes.

  “Jane, is there any way Toby can reschedule his trip and help out? This sounds like a family thing.”

  “No! He offered to stay home, but I won’t let him. I need this golf trip.”

  I consider this. “But you don’t golf.”

  “Maggie. Listen very carefully. I don’t care if they’re going boar hunting. This trip is in Newport, where there are beaches and sailboats, and seaside bistros that serve cocktails with names li
ke High Tide Painkiller.”

  The background knocking sound grows, followed by voices.

  “Mommy is busy!” Jane hisses. I can picture the kids and the dog hovering outside the bathroom door. Except for Randall, who’s likely peeing on an antique carpet.

  “Okay, okay. I get it.”

  There is a high-pitched gasp on the other line. “So, you’ll come then?”

  “After the picture you’ve just painted? What choice do I have?” Already a headache is creeping across my forehead. There goes my weekend apartment hunting with Evan. And the intoxicating beauty of the unplanned, unfettered, first weekend of summer nothingness I’d been chasing since last September. “But you owe me big.”

  Jane is instantly restored. “Mags, you’re the best! Thank God. Thank you.” The background knocking has grown to pounding, and I can hear the bathroom lock click open. I collapse back into the recess of the lounge chair cushions.

  Jane’s singsong voice is robust and jovial as she returns to her little charges. “My darlings! Mommy’s back. Guess who’s coming to visit?”

  Twelve

  My single goal for the weekend is for my sister and brother-in-law to return home to find their three offspring accounted for, moderately clean, and mostly dressed. Not exactly reaching for the stars, I know. But so far I have managed to do just what I had hoped for. As an unexpected triumph, I also successfully bathed Lucy after she covered her hair in pureed sweet potato at lunch. While the replacement of Mommy with the aunt hasn’t necessarily won Lucy over, the boys have fallen in line. Owen slept soundly the first night on his cot beside Jane’s bed. I actually enjoyed going to sleep to the soft rumble of his little-boy snores. Randall has only had one “accident,” thankfully outside in the yard. And even Lucy’s teething troubles seem to have diminished.

  Despite my windfall success thus far, Saturday afternoon finds us collapsed across the living room in various states of repose, desperately in need of a new activity. We’ve exhausted the LEGO bin, the finger paints have finally been scrubbed from the kitchen island, and Samson the dog, having been relieved of his dress-up clothes, stares at me from the safety of his bed like he rather wishes we’d all just vaporize. I don’t blame him. While this is hardly the time to get in touch with Cam, suddenly I have the urge to commune with someone who will be as spent as me.