Trish looks at me for a long time, not blinking, and takes another healthy sip of her manhattan. “Give me a few minutes,” she says. “Let me call his attorney.” She stops. “He does owe you, and I’ll make sure they know that.”
As she walks away, I take a sip of my drink, and my head grows light. The world seems to fall away in sections right in front of my eyes—the walls of the restaurant first, followed by the tables, then the waiters and the diners, before the buildings outside slip into the ground, leaving me alone with only the sound of my heartbeat in my ears.
What am I doing? Trish is right. I could be making the biggest mistake of my life.
“Well,” Trish says, walking back to the table startling me, “Nate doesn’t want you making a big deal to the university, especially with his tenure review coming up and since Evan is a student there.” Trish winks. “I might have made it seem as if you were going to storm into the chancellor’s office or call the student newspaper if you didn’t get your way.” She continues. “And Illinois is a dual classification state. As I told you before, it separates marital property from separate property. Your parents left you the cottage. It’s yours legally. It’s separate property. It’s not Nate’s. So he has no rights to it.”
She continues. “But the mortgage on your Chicago home is in both names. It’s marital property. Illinois is an equitable distribution state, but equitable does not mean equal, or even half, but rather what the circuit court considers fair. The court divides the marital estate without regard to marital misconduct.”
“Where are you going with this?” I ask nervously.
She smiles. “You have a deal. Nate will continue to give you two-plus years of support, only until Evan graduates. But he now wants two-thirds of the cash from the sale of the Lake Forest house.”
I begin to protest, but Trish holds up a hand. “Hear me out. I can contest that, and chances are you’d likely get a fifty-fifty split of the home, if not more, but then they could contest the level of Nate’s support, and I know how much that means to you moving forward. It extends your runway, gives you a little more time to get the plane off the ground.” She continues. “And Evan goes to school free because Nate works there, so they have that in their back pocket to argue against the level of support.”
I take a deep breath as Trish takes a seat.
Trish raises her glass. “Cheers!” she says. “I still think you’re crazy, but I’m so proud of you, Adie Lou.”
“Thank you,” I say, the gravity of what just occurred hitting me with full force. “Cheers back,” I add, taking too big of a drink.
“And I’m sorry,” Trish says. When I look up, her eyes are filled with love. “For not asking how you were really feeling more often. For not being there for you. For not seeing that your marriage wasn’t fine. For...” She hesitates. “Well, everything. You’re taking a risk, and that is admirable. I envy and adore you, Adie Lou.”
I reach across the table and take my friend’s hand in mine, and give it a big squeeze.
“Thank you,” I say.
“To no regrets,” Trish says, before adding, “Promise me one thing?”
“Okay.”
“Just watch out for the roses,” she replies.
TWO
“Hi, Mom.”
I am always taken aback when I hear my son’s voice. I still expect him to sound like he did when he was a boy—high-pitched, singsongy, begging for me to hold him or help him—instead of the baritone that booms forth from his six-foot-two-inch, nineteen-year-old body.
“Lose my number?” I tease. I’m on my cell phone, sitting in my Volvo, which is packed with boxes from my office. It’s amazing how a career that can consume every minute of your life becomes insanely irrelevant the very moment you leave to follow your passion, I think. “It’s been a while.”
“I’m sorry,” he replies.
I move on cautiously because I don’t want to worry Evan. “I have some news.”
“I heard already,” he says, cutting me off at the pass. “Dad told me.”
Of course he did, I think, annoyed.
“Oh,” I say, bracing myself. “What did he tell you?”
“You want the sanitized version?” he asks.
I laugh so Evan thinks his father’s actions don’t bother me, but it sounds hollow.
“Dad said you’d sort of, well, lost it, and that you were quitting your job, moving to Saugatuck and turning the cottage into a B and B.”
“That’s the sanitized version?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he laughs. “Believe me.”
“Well, I actually quit my job today,” I say. “I’m sitting in my car trying not to freak out.”
Evan laughs. There is a pause that worries me, but then he says quietly, “I’m proud of you, Mom.”
This time, his words stop me cold, hit me so hard I feel as if I just might break down and cry. “Thank you,” I say, my voice wobbly.
“I didn’t want to lose Cozy Cottage either,” he says. “It’s part of our lives. It’s who we are. I can’t imagine my life without it. Dad never liked it, I know, but us...” Evan stops, and his deep voice cracks. I instantly remember watching a rerun of The Brady Bunch as a kid, an episode in which Peter Brady’s voice cracks when he sings a solo. Evan continues. “Thank you for saving it,” he says with emotion. “Some people don’t get the beauty of a summer cottage, but the magical campers do, don’t they, Mom?”
My heart leaps into my throat. Evan is repeating the words my dad always said to me when Nate refused to recite the rules.
“Oh, Evan,” I say. “You remember.”
“How could I forget?” he says, before suddenly asking, “But why, Mom? What prompted all this?”
How can I sum up a lifetime of wonder, love, loss, mistakes, heartaches, precious moments and wasted time to a nineteen-year-old? I think. How can I explain what happens to adults when they do what is expected, take the path of least resistance, playact through life?
“You know, Evan,” I begin, “I feel like I need a new start. In my previous life, I would have fretted about quitting my job, and Nate would have grabbed a calculator to figure out lost income and what this would do to our retirement. But I’ve thought too long about health care plans and 401(k)s, and doing what everyone else wants and expects, and squeezing into a way of life that doesn’t really fit who I want to be.”
I stop and take a deep breath. “To be honest, I only have about four hundred months in my life’s checking account if I live into my eighties, and that, for once, seems more important than what’s in my retirement account. I want to do something meaningful and courageous, something that makes me deeply and achingly happy. For once, I want to hold my breath, close my eyes and jump.”
For a long moment, Evan doesn’t speak, and I think I have lost my reception or he’s hung up, but then he says in a voice that sounds as if he is that little boy I used to hold in my arms, “Then jump, Mom. And I’ll be there to catch you if you fall.”
“Oh, Evan,” I say, before covering the phone to muffle my sniffles.
“The fall can’t hurt any worse than the one you just had, can it?” he asks. “You know, Mom, I get it. I really do. It’s not easy to be on a campus where everyone knows Dean Clarke is your father, and that his new girlfriend isn’t much older than his son.” He stops. “I know I get free tuition, and that’s huge, but sometimes I feel like I need a new start, too.”
In the midst of my pain, I realize I’ve trivialized my son’s, and forgotten that he is still more boy than adult. I believed he was sheltered at college, but he really is living at ground zero.
“Then jump,” I say. “And I’ll be there, too.”
“Thanks, Mom,” he says. “So, when are you headed up to the cottage? I’m assuming you want to get all the permits in hand and have all the renovations done before Memorial Day, so y
ou can take advantage of high tourist season, right?”
My heart stops. Suddenly, it hits me that I’ve just quit my job and need to start a business and renovate the cottage in three months.
“You’re insane,” I think I’m saying to myself.
“You said it, Mom,” Evan laughs, “not me.” He hesitates. “A bunch of the guys were planning on driving to Florida for spring break next month, but now I think I should drive to Saugatuck and help you.”
“Evan, no,” I say. “You need a break from college and from all this stress we’ve put on you. I couldn’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t ask, Mom,” he says. “I want to.”
I cover my cell again with a trembling hand. “Thank you,” I say. “It will be a lot of work, and...”
Suddenly, music blares so loudly that my eardrum aches. A song I know—REM’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”—is playing.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“We have to start getting ready for our annual Around the World Party,” he says. “Every room in the fraternity house is decorated as a different city or country, and a theme drink is served.”
“Sounds fun,” I reply. “Like margaritas in Mexico, or wine in Paris?”
“Well, maybe the first,” he says. “Wine in Paris is a little fancy for fraternity guys. Josh and I are turning our dorm room into New York City and serving Long Island Iced Teas.”
“Be careful,” I say. “Those are strong.”
“I know, Mom,” he says. “That’s the point.”
“Well, I like the old-school music.”
Evan laughs. “It’s tradition,” he says. “I love tradition.”
My heart nearly explodes when Evan says this.
“The old-timers started the party in the ’80s,” he continues, “and that was the song that kicked it off. Can’t change it.”
“You know I’m an old-timer, right?” I ask. “I know that song. I danced to that song. Made out to that song while dancing...”
“La la la la la,” Evan sings loudly, as he always does when he doesn’t want to hear something I have to say.
“Well, I better let you go,” I say over his singing. “Have fun.”
“You, too, Mom,” he says. “You deserve it.”
“Remember to call me, okay?”
“Okay,” Evan says. “I’ll talk to you soon about coming up for spring break.”
“Bye. I love you.”
“Me, too,” he replies, suddenly yelling, “Mom?” in the phone before I hang up.
“Yeah?”
“What’s the first rule of the summer cottage?”
“Leave your troubles at the door,” I say, smiling.
“Let’s both remember that,” he says. “Oh, and, Mom? Don’t sit in the car and cry like you did when I started kindergarten, and grade school, and middle school and high school and college?” He is laughing.
“How did you know that?”
“Mom,” he sighs, “the whole school knew.”
“I get emotional sometimes. It’s nothing to apologize for,” I say. “And I promise. I won’t. I’m getting stronger every day.”
“I know you are,” he says. “Bye, Mom.”
“Bye, honey,” I say.
I hit end on my cell, think of how proud I am of my son, glance in the mirror at my former life in the trunk of my car, and then lower my head onto the wheel of my Volvo and weep just like I did on Evan’s first day of kindergarten.
THREE
As soon as I round the bend from Chicago to Michigan, I see a wall of clouds over Lake Michigan. Half of the sky is bright blue, the other half is steel gray, as if Mother Nature has hung a banner announcing, Nightmare Ahead!
Lake-effect snow. My hands immediately tighten around the wheel.
I see a Pure Michigan billboard, touting the beauty and landmarks of the state, and laugh.
Lake-effect snow is Pure Michigan, I think, my former ad exec coming out, but I don’t see any billboards touting that.
Without warning, the world goes from clear skies to total blizzard. I slow the car, tighten my grip even more and turn on my headlights. Lake-effect snow is not just snow, it’s as if the winter skies have opened up and are weeping centuries of frozen tears upon the earth. Within moments, the highway is covered and slick, and trucks and cars are moving at a snail’s pace. My heart is thumping like a jackhammer, and I immediately lament my life change.
How could I have forgotten that winter lasts longer than summer, fall and spring in Michigan? Combined! What have I done? My earnings season will be shorter than the one my parents had to grow tomatoes on the back deck.
I crank up the defroster and crack a window, realizing my near hyperventilation is fogging up the entire car. And then, from the depths of nowhere, I laugh, crazily, like a madwoman.
How long has it been since I’ve been this nervous, excited, uncertain? I wonder. It’s a shock to the system. And it feels good.
I find REM’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” on Pandora and play it on repeat—singing at the top of my lungs, the lyrics taking on new meaning between the snow and my new adventure—and I don’t realize I’ve made it to Saugatuck until I see the painter’s palette, the sign that has marked the entrance to town forever as a welcome beacon, lighting the sky, the name of the town and each paint color twinkling.
Saugatuck is renown as an artist lover’s haven—known as the Art Coast of Michigan—filled with galleries galore. I used to paint with my mom on the bluff overlooking the lake.
“Don’t paint what you see,” she used to tell me. “Paint what you feel.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do with my life now, Mom,” I say to the sign.
As I ease my SUV down the snow-covered lane leading to town, gallery storefronts light the way, giant oils, pastels and watercolors of summer in Saugatuck—Lake Michigan at sunset, the grandeur of the dunes, gardens of purple foxglove, ice-blue hydrangeas and red rhododendrons as big as trees—offering the promise of what’s to come.
What if I offered painting classes at my new inn? I think. Or painting weekends in the fall? City people eat that up.
I pass a historical marker on the way through town. Its history is embedded in my mind, as I used to work summers cranking the chain ferry, one of Saugatuck’s biggest tour attractions. I speak as if I’m back on the chain ferry, reciting memorized lines in a robotic tone to tourists: Saugatuck’s setting has drawn urbanites from Chicago and as far away as St. Louis since the early 1900s. A resort, tourist and cottage culture emerged in the 1880s and exploded in 1910 when a group of artists from the Art Institute of Chicago established the Summer School of Painting on the Ox-Bow Lagoon and when a huge dance hall, called the Big Pavilion, was built on the waterfront. The resulting influx of well-known artists and big-name Chicago architects resulted in a wave of buildings in the Arts and Crafts and Colonial Revival manner. Now, the galleries, the golden beaches and towering dunes, the wineries and U-Picks, and the unsalted majesty of Lake Michigan beckon tourists.
I laugh. How can I remember old song lyrics and things like this from my youth, but can’t remember to take out the trash?
Today, I smile at the quirky resort town, even more beautiful in the snow. Pine boughs are draped in white, and the old-fashioned streetlights make it feel as if Charles Dickens might pop his head out one of the storefronts. I find a parking space directly in front of my favorite coffee shop and hop out. The place is empty, save for a few locals and retirees who are sitting at tables sipping lattes or mugs of hot chocolate.
I order my favorite latte, a Caramel Silk—white chocolate and caramel blended with the shop’s own roasted coffee—and as I wait, I see the owner wiping down tables.
“Dale?” I ask. “Adie Lou—” I stop and have
to force out my married name as if I’m choking on it. “Clarke. Remember me? My parents owned Cozy Cottage?”
“Oh, yeah,” he says, tossing the dish towel over his shoulder and extending his hand. “Good to see you. I was sorry to hear about your parents. Everyone loved them around here. What brings you up this way on a winter’s day? Heard your place was for sale...or already sold?”
“Well,” I start, “it was. And it almost did. But now I’m starting a business here. Turning the cottage into a B and B.”
“Need another one of those like a hole in the head,” cracks an old man in a stocking cap reading the newspaper.
“Don’t mind Phil,” Dale jokes. “Hasn’t seen his shadow since the seventies. That’s why he’s so grumpy.” Dale stares at me. He looks older than I remember, his hair now silver, his forehead lined, like a president you notice has aged significantly by the end of a first term. “That place needs a lot of work, doesn’t it?”
I nod.
He grins, as if he knows a secret I don’t. “Well, good luck,” he says. “Coffee’s on the house today.”
“Thank you,” I say. “But I already paid.”
“Now, that’s how you run a successful business,” Phil laughs in the background. “He always offers when it’s too late.”
“Shut up, Phil,” Dale laughs. He turns. “But he’s right,” he adds with a wink. “Seriously, next one on me.”
“Liar,” Phil says under his breath, before adding in an even more sarcastic tone, “Good luck with that B and B, Bob Newhart.”
I look at Dale, and he nods, giving me the okay. “Shut up, Phil,” I say as Dale laughs again and continues wiping down tables.
“Caramel Silk! Adie Lou!” a barista yells. I pick up my coffee, head back out into the snow and aim my car toward the cottage. As I turn onto Lakeshore Drive, the wind buffets my car, and the snow is no longer falling but flying horizontally. I feel as if the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz might bike over my head at any minute.
Every summer cottage on the lane is dark. Not just dark, but empty. Hurricane shutters have been pulled over the windows, screened porches enveloped in plastic, and trees staked. There isn’t a light on for miles.
The Summer Cottage Page 3