“Oh, Bess,” Cissy says. “Don’t give me that look.”
“It’s not what…”
“I did confess to your father, in a bumbling sort of way, but he said he didn’t want to know. And he had plenty of his own … Listen, sweetheart, Dudley is an amazing father.”
“Amazing? I wouldn’t go that far.”
“A great father. But he’s a god-awful husband. I won’t go into details. But you and I, we have more in common than you’d guess.”
Bess nods. She thinks of everything behind the veil of cheery Christmas cards and whimsical summer homes. Long-term affairs, in one example. Hookers, in another. A lifetime spent in the closet, if what’s been said about her grandfather is true.
“Cis?” Bess says. “Your father. Grandpa Sam. It wasn’t just alcoholism, right? Because I heard … and Evan said something … and I saw this article … was he…”
“He had a lover, yes,” Cissy says, curtly, even for her.
“And he was…?”
“He was.”
Bess nods again, though Cissy is not looking in her direction. Even so, they are on the same page.
As if choreographed, the two women lean into each other. They are silent for some time. In the distance a siren howls. A gaggle of voices passes by, nurses clucking about this and that. “I was, like, oh hell no!” one says. Her cohorts titter in response.
“Mom?” Bess whispers. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. I’m proud of you, Bess. For so many reasons.”
Bess sits up.
“I’m ready to go,” she says. “Are you?”
“Sweetheart, they want you to stay the night. You lost a lot of blood. And your fever…”
Fever? They hadn’t mentioned a fever. They must be worried about an infection.
“Oh. Okay,” Bess says, slumping again.
She hadn’t envisioned a night in the hospital. On the other hand, she doesn’t have a home to return to. That a hospital is her best option is almost soul-crushing.
“Where are you going to stay?” Bess asks. “Not Cliff House. Promise me, Mom. I won’t be able to sleep a wink. And you can’t do that to me in my precarious state.”
“Fine,” Cissy says, and sets her mouth into a hard line. “No Cliff House. I thought mothers were in charge of guilt trips?”
“Where are you staying?” Bess asks. “I need specifics, otherwise I’ll completely stress out.”
“You don’t trust me?” Cissy asks.
“Not one hundred percent, no.”
Cissy’s eyes skip toward the window, to where Chappy’s truck waits below.
“Cis?”
“Oh, Bess. Don’t worry about your old mom. I’ll just stay across the road.”
59
The Book of Summer
Mary Young
June 20, 1945
Cliff House
This will be my final time at Cliff House.
When talking bittersweet, it is admittedly stronger on the bitter end. The home is beautiful and peaceful, perched atop the cliff as it is. You can almost forget what’s happened to the people coming into and out of it.
Looking back through this book, I’m almost surprised to see that I was once Mrs. Philip E. Young, Jr., and that’s all there really was to me. Now I’m a second lieutenant in the army and have spent the last year moving about Europe. We deployed to France last July, my unit arriving to Normandy on the first of August, weeks after my husband lost his life. When we arrived they’d all been cleared out. The dead were buried, the severely injured evacuated to England. And so they relocated us to the Siegfried Line, where our services were needed in devastating amounts. We’ve also been in Belgium, Luxembourg, and a few other places besides.
Now I’m in Sconset, a world away in a manner I couldn’t have fathomed twelve months ago. My stay is temporary. I’m on furlough, here to visit the last of my former family. It’s strange to think that there is nothing binding me to them. Alas, this home and the people who’ve lived in it will forever hold a special place in my past.
Soon I’ll say good-bye to the last remaining Young, the vivacious Ruby Genevieve. That is, Ruby and a baby girl named Caroline, recently come into this world. Ruby calls her “Cissy,” which is usually short for “sister.” A curious thing for an only child, a sole girl, without a brother for miles.
I’ve come to meet Cissy, and to embrace Ruby one more time. There’s nothing left for me here but sorrow and the burn of sad regret. It’s best to bid the place and its memories farewell. I’ve asked the former Miss Mayhew to pop in on the girls every once in a while, to see that they’re getting along. Though she’s not a Miss anymore. You’re either getting or losing a husband because of this war, all of it happening in such haste.
Well, Cliff House, you’ve been a treat, and you’ve housed a great many people and lives. Now it’s up to you and Ruby to stand strong against the wind. Take care of each other, won’t you?
Forever and always,
Second Lieutenant Mary Young
60
RUBY
June 1945
“Holy crumb,” Mary said as Mrs. Grimsbury set the tea service before them. “She’s an active one, isn’t she?”
They were on the veranda. The sun was high; the clouds were sparse. The Atlantic glimmered like a blanket of blue diamonds. Meanwhile, atop the flagstone, Cissy pattered about on hands and knees, pulling up on an end table here, a piece of outdoor art there.
She was only six months old.
“Yes she’s quite active,” Ruby said, flushed with pride. “Gives me a run for my money all the livelong day. She’s wanted to get up and go since she popped out. She has this spirit, you know? A little ball of soul. It’s like she knew exactly what I needed.”
As if she understood, or perhaps because she did, Cissy peered up at her mother and gave a wide, one-tooth grin as the ocean breeze kicked around her wispy white hair.
“I’m not surprised,” Mary said. “Not in the slightest. You are blessed.”
“She’s a miracle,” Ruby said. “Through and through.”
Every mom believed her babe a miracle, and why not. But for Ruby it had the added punch of being true. There were the doctor’s initial warnings:
“You’re not equipped to carry to term.”
And the later warnings, too:
“It’s only a matter of time. Five months, six at the outside.”
Then the blood last fall, at five and a half months in, the difference having split. Ruby was alone, no one to help, not a single person on whom to call. Never mind the absence of Sam, a hurricane bore down on New England, cutting off Nantucket and therefore Cliff House from the rest of the world. Ruby could only lock the doors, close the windows, and pray. By God, it worked.
The bleeding stopped and Ruby carried to term. Cissy was early, tiny and mighty, which would sum up not only her birth but all the days to follow.
“Are you getting by all right?” Mary asked, and took a sip of tea.
For a moment Mary closed her eyes and smiled, reveling in the respite from her life, and in tea that didn’t taste like lawn clippings. This sort of escape was the very purpose of Cliff House.
“Oh sure, we’re swell,” Ruby said with some sway. “Mrs. G. is a big help, a saint really. And Daddy left me plenty of money. Though I maintain Grimsbury herself has been the biggest gift of all.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it,” Mary said with a sigh. “To your father’s service.”
“Golly, he wouldn’t have minded a lick,” Ruby said. “The European theater needed you more. Daddy was nothing if not practical.”
“That’s true, but nonetheless…”
“I can hear him right now!” Ruby squeezed her waist with both hands and put on a grumpy face. “What is Mary doing at my funeral? An army nurse tending to a dead body when there are plenty of live ones who need her care?”
Mary chuckled softly.
“That does sound like something he’
d say.”
They did not mention the other funeral she’d missed, that of P.J., her husband. Mary had only just arrived in France when his body was sent home. To secure a furlough on such short order would’ve been a helluva feat. But Ruby got the sense, had had the sense for a while now, that Mary left her marriage in spirit long before P.J. left in fact.
“I have to say, you do look lovely,” Mary said. “Cliff House does, too.”
“Thank God it survived the storm.” She glanced at Cissy. “Thank God we all did. But the property’s a tad ragged now. The damage isn’t obvious but I find a new crack or divot every day. I swear the yard is smaller somehow.”
Mary squinched toward the cliff.
“Hooey,” she said. “The estate is grand as ever. And so are you. I see you’re faring splendidly, just as you told me.”
“Yep, me and Cissy.” Ruby reached down and lifted the girl to her lap.
The gesture felt like nothing. Miss Cis was whisper-light, always a new astonishment to Ruby, given all her mettle and grit.
“And of course we have Mrs. Grimsbury, too,” Ruby added. “It’s funny, my entire life I was surrounded by boys, nothing but men every which way. Rough-and-tumble rascals, Wyatt and Topper and P.J., though him less so.” She smiled. “Your husband was definitely the most gentlemanly of the three.”
“Not a high hurdle,” Mary said with a wink.
Ruby sniggered, recalling her sister-in-law’s old grievances. Yes, indeed, Topper was handsome as the devil. Acts like the devil, besides.
“All those men,” Ruby said, “and now I look around and it’s only the women who endure.”
Mary set down her teacup, nodding grimly.
“Do you ever talk to your old friend Hattie?” she asked.
“No, God no,” Ruby said.
She wondered if Mary had seen the article. Probably not, having been overseas.
“That’s quite the ardent response,” Mary said as a ripple of discomfort passed over her face.
“I didn’t mean it like that. She’s a journalist. Hadn’t you heard? Quite a success from the looks of it.”
“How nice,” Mary said primly. “And what about Sam?”
“Sam?”
The name was an arrow straight to the chest.
“Yes, Sam,” she said. “Have you spoken?”
Mary appeared so much the same. The gray, the plainness. Ruby could almost hear her old friend-come-traitor Hattie R. You know Mary joined the army because it gave her an excuse to wear all that beige. Yet, somehow the gal had new sparks. Like a certain directness, a drive to get to the nut of things in one swift move.
“There’s been no contact at all,” Ruby answered. “Not since the day Sam left. I wouldn’t even know where to find him, or what to say if I did. He has no idea about Cissy.”
She thought of the items packed away. Sam’s suits, pressed and wrapped and relegated to the guesthouse. Their wedding china, boxed up and shoved on to the linen closet’s highest shelf. She’d stored scads of crystal and silver, too, gifted to them for parties they’d never host. It seemed cruel to throw out such considerate presents, but all those pretty things were too painful to allow among the everyday.
“Really?” Mary’s eyes widened. “He doesn’t know about Caroline? Don’t you think he should? She’s his daughter.”
“Maybe.” Ruby shrugged. “I don’t know. He sent me a postcard, way back, after he read about Daddy’s death. It was postmarked Manhattan and I came within an inch of hiring a PI to track him down. I was alone and distraught and starting to miscarry, or so I assumed. Then the storm hit and all communication went down. When we came out on the other end, I decided to let that dog lie.”
“And his parents?” Mary asked. “Surely they know.”
Ruby shook her head.
“They don’t either. Rather, they might, depending on your view of the afterworld. Both passed in the last year.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yes, it was properly awful.”
Ruby didn’t admit to the details. Sam’s mother died of a heart attack. His father, a gunshot wound to the head. He couldn’t face life as a widower, or as the father to one son killed in battle, and a second son who wasn’t allowed to battle anymore.
“Would you care to contact him?” Mary asked. “Sam? Now that Caroline’s arrived? Whatever he’s become, he would want to meet his daughter. He loved his family. He’d love her.”
“The man was not short on love, giving or receiving.”
Ruby set Cissy down and grabbed a cigarette. She offered one to Mary, who waved her away.
“I quit ages ago,” she said. “As it happens, smoking would be a great habit to have when you’re at war. I often regret that unforeseen bout of healthfulness.”
Ruby laughed.
“Are you truly ready?” Mary said. “To surrender the idea of a genuine family?”
“I’m not sure that I have a choice. And some days I do want Sam here, with us. Yet others I think, to hell with him. We are a family. She and I.”
Ruby took a big old smack of her cigarette.
“A girl should have her father, if she can,” Mary said.
“I don’t disagree,” Ruby said, thinking of her own. “But even if I wanted to find him, I wouldn’t know where to look.”
Mary nodded slowly and let her eyes drift out to the grass beyond.
“I’ve been keeping track,” Mary said after some time. “Of Sam. Just in case.”
“What?!” Ruby gasped.
She nearly dropped her smoke onto Cissy’s head.
“Just in case,” Mary repeated. “It’s not that difficult to learn such things, with my position in the armed forces.”
Ruby looked at her cross-eyed. What kind of dirt could an army gal gin up on a guy booted from the navy?
“I know some folks in intelligence,” Mary added.
Unbeknownst to Ruby, Mary had met an intelligence officer here and there and even engaged in a brief fling with one. But most of her intelligence on Sam Packard came from a plucky news reporter in Manhattan who made it her job to keep tabs on him.
“Okay, then,” Ruby said and cleared her throat. “Is he well?”
“Relatively speaking,” Mary explained. “He was in San Francisco for a while, then hanging around the Seven Seas locker room in San Diego. Last check had him in New York City staying at the Sloane House YMCA and drinking—a lot—at the Pink Elephant in Times Square. ‘Well’ might be a subjective term, but he is alive and, er, active in whatever city he lands.”
“Wow,” Ruby said. “Wow.”
She could find him. If she wanted to. Of course, whether she wanted to was the very question.
Ruby craved her old life and her old Sam, no question. More than that, she longed for a real family, since the vagaries of Ruby’s woman parts meant Cissy would be an only child. And Ruby knew from experience that a life without siblings was a lonely one. The least she could do was give her sweet sprite a dad.
“Whaddya think?” Mary asked. “Want me to track him down?”
“Maybe,” Ruby said, and glanced at Cissy. “Maybe. It’s just too damned hard to decide.”
* * *
They stood on the bright white driveway, two bags at their feet. Mary had on her full dress uniform: a light beige skirt, a darker beige jacket. A taxi rumbled on the street.
“Thanks for coming,” Ruby said, and gave her a squeeze. “It means everything that you’d take a furlough just to see me.”
“I had to meet little Caroline,” Mary said. “She’s even more precious than expected. Plus, I needed one more Cliff House hurrah.”
Ruby smirked, wondering when there’d ever been a hurrah with the broad to start.
“I’ll miss the old house,” Mary said.
“Miss it!” Ruby quacked. “What do you mean? You can always come back. Always! When I picture this place, I see you inside. It’s yours as much as mine.”
The skin between Mary’s
brows became pinched and tight.
“But Ruby,” she said in her measured Mary tone. “P.J. is gone.”
“You’re still family though! You’re still a Young!”
“For now, though I’ll likely change my name.”
“You will?” Ruby balked. She shook her head. “I don’t give a rip. You’re still family to me.”
“Aw, Ruby.”
Mary patted her arm. The wet sock, dry dock back on the scene. Ruby gave her a hard glower in return. When it came to human connection the woman was a dang boomerang.
“Still family?” Mary said. “I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, even including when I actually was family.”
“And I think that’s the meanest thing you’ve ever said!”
“Okay.” Mary sighed. “I didn’t realize … I didn’t expect you to have this vociferous of a reaction.”
“Vociferous!”
“Listen, we’ll keep in touch. I’ll swing by Cliff House whenever I can.”
“That’s all?” Ruby said. “That’s all you have to say for yourself? Our relationship, everything we’ve been through? It ends here?”
Squinting, Mary contemplated the home, eyes skimming the windows, then following the line of the privet hedge.
“I loved your brother,” she said at last. “Very much. But in the end you were the best thing about this place.”
Ruby’s crab shell began to crack.
“Kind or mean,” Ruby said. “Pick a side.”
“Lovely girl, I’ll be back,” Mary said. “If for no other reason than to see your face.”
Mary had promised to return, but whether she truly meant it, Ruby would never know. The two women would keep in regular contact over the years, but Mary would never again set foot on the white-shelled drive.
She planned to, or so she said, but it was a great trek from France, where she eventually settled after marrying a French soldier. Then there would be kids and dogs and money stretched thin, and so in France Mary stayed. Ironic, after all the comments she muttered about the continental Hattie Rutter that summer of ’41.
The Book of Summer Page 33