The officer clicked his pen and studied her. “He’s familiar with the undertows? They can be pretty powerful down here.”
“Of course,” she said, angered by the question.
“Sorry, I have to ask,” he replied, as if reading her mind. By nightfall on Monday, there was still no word of Arthur. Maggie understood after years of being married to a cop that the first forty-eight hours were critical in a missing person case.
“What about his shoes?” Jess pressed. Maggie nodded. The shoes bothered her, too. She had a difficult time imagining her dad wandering off without his shoes, unless of course he was headed into the water. But Maggie struggled just as much to imagine her dad, a lifetime lover of the ocean, meeting harm in the water. How many times had he gone for morning walks and morning swims in the Atlantic, both here and back home in Maine? The water was like his second home. For him to simply wander in, ignoring high tide and a strong current—all things he’d warned them about constantly when they were children—struck her as implausible. Had he wanted his life to end? The thought snuck up on Maggie as she sorted through the various scenarios, but she tamped it down just as quickly. They just needed to keep looking.
The next morning, Tuesday, the house struggled awake, reinvigorated by fresh coffee and a call from the station that someone had seen an older man ambling around town, looking confused and lost. Maggie felt her hopes surge. The kitchen buzzed with activity, with second-guessing and stories about what they’d say to Arthur once he arrived home safely. Maggie and Mac would insist he move in with them; he’d have no choice. Within the hour, though, the police had located the local man, an Alzheimer’s patient who’d wandered from his senior housing facility. Maggie collapsed in a dining room chair and burst into tears. Gloria came over and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry, honey,” she said. “Daddy’s out there, I can feel it.”
The rest of the day was even more excruciating. Where else could her dad be? Maggie wracked her brain, but the only scenarios she came up with were bad ones. She went for a run on the beach, cooked pasta and meatballs, and set a place for Arthur at the dinner table, as if calling him home. Later, she stood on the deck and gazed out at the ocean, as if she could coax her father’s whereabouts from its rhythms. “Please, please find him,” she whispered into the night, even as she felt her hope dwindling.
So, when the police cruiser pulled up on Wednesday, there was a piece of her that already suspected the truth.
“Mac,” she called softly. “They’re here.” She waited for him to join her before opening the door. She took in the young officer, no more than twenty-five, who stood with his hat in his hands. “Maggie McNeil?” he inquired. She nodded and squeezed Mac’s hand. “I’m so sorry, ma’am,” he said. Maggie fell back against Mac while the officer continued to speak. The rest of the family filed in around them. “A family found your dad washed up on the beach this morning, just a few miles down. He was wearing tan shorts and a belt. Officer McCarthy, who knows Mr. Herington, identified the body.”
And at the words the body, Maggie let out a wail, a sound almost inhuman, and dropped her glass, sending iced tea, ice cubes, and shards of glass scattering across the floor. The officer jumped back, and only when Maggie lifted her eyes did she notice his hand resting on his pistol. His eyes met hers, and he slowly pulled his hand away.
“Sorry, it’s instinct,” he explained.
“Kids, go in the kitchen,” Jess said, shooing them out of the hallway. She returned with swathes of paper towels, a broom, and a trash bag.
“But, Mommy.” Gracie came up beside her. “Is Grandpa okay?”
“Hush,” Jess said and led her back to the kitchen. Max helped Maggie to the deacon’s bench in the entryway.
“Where’s Virgie?” she asked as she settled on the bench, but she could barely get out the words. She realized she was struggling to get air, sucking in quick, short breaths. She placed a hand on her chest. “Can’t breathe,” she wheezed.
Tim appeared with a paper bag. “Breathe in and out. Long deep breaths. That’s it,” he encouraged while she worked to deliver sufficient air to her lungs. Before them, Jess swept up the glass and ice. Nobody spoke.
“Someone,” Maggie began, then held the bag back up to her mouth and inhaled. She pulled it away, exhaling. “Needs to call Mom.” Gloria and Gio were still at their hotel.
“Why don’t I go get her and bring her here?” Tim offered.
“Good idea, honey.” Jess glanced up from the floor, where she was now wiping up iced tea, and when her gaze met Tim’s, her eyes filled with tears. “Thanks.” Maggie knew that when Tim showed up at Gloria’s door, as anomalous as thunderclouds on a perfect summer day, her mother would understand immediately what his presence meant.
“Where’s Virgie?” she asked again, resting the paper bag in her lap. Mac scanned the entryway.
“I’ll go look.” He left the room while the officer stood by the front door and stared down at his hat, worrying the brim with his thumb. Maggie wondered if this was the first time he’d had to deliver such news on his watch. An odd numbness dropped over her, as if the scene playing out before her was from a surreal film and not her very real life. “Officer . . . I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“Olsen,” he confirmed. “Todd Olsen.”
“Officer Olsen,” she tried again. “Do we know anything else?”
He looked at her searchingly. “There doesn’t seem to have been any foul play, if that’s what you’re asking. On the face of things, it looks like a drowning. An autopsy report would confirm that for you, of course.” She nodded, and her gaze settled on the kids, who hovered in the kitchen just beyond earshot. When Lexie caught Maggie’s eye, she spun around and coaxed the other children outside.
It felt like only a matter of minutes—though it couldn’t have been, that wasn’t possible—before Gloria burst through the front door. “It’s just like him!” She rushed to Maggie and collapsed beside her, grabbing her arm. “Leaving us like this with a dramatic exit that we have to figure out for ourselves.” She sounded angry between sobs, wronged. “How could he?”
Maggie was momentarily stunned. Her mother was faulting Arthur somehow? As if his death were a personal slight against her? She blew into her bag again, then rested it in her lap. “Mom, I don’t think Dad planned this.”
Gloria turned to her, her bright blue eyes wide and rimmed with pain. Tiny red lines wove across the whites. Maggie could see eddies of wrinkles underneath. “Of course not,” Gloria said now, and shook her head as if she’d been in another world and was only now settling back down to earth. “Of course not,” her mother’s voice repeated, falling to a whisper.
Mac stepped back in the room. “I found Virgie. She’s okay. She just wants some time alone. Taking a walk on the beach.” He rested his hand on Maggie’s shoulder. “Why don’t we all move into the living room? Wouldn’t that be more comfortable? Officer, can I get you something to drink?”
And with that, they filed into the room that would become the headquarters for all things Arthur over the next two weeks. There was a police report, an autopsy that confirmed drowning, and several phone calls with insurance companies and Arthur’s attorneys back in Maine. There was also the heartbreaking work of letting the kids know. Luke and Teddy were too young to understand, really, but Maggie and Jess tried to explain that Grandpa was in a better place now.
“But where is heaven?” Luke demanded. “Can we see it? How did Grandpa get there? On a rocket ship?”
So many questions, and Maggie didn’t think she was equipped to answer them. But she tried: “Far, far above the clouds. No, we can’t see it, but Grandpa can see us from heaven. He might have taken a rocket ship. No one really knows how you get to heaven.” She thought they were fair, honest responses. She liked the image of Arthur traveling to heaven on a rocket, red flames streaking across a star-studded sky.
The thing that nagged at her the most, though, was the autopsy report. She st
ill had a difficult time believing Arthur had drowned, no matter what his clogged lungs might suggest. He was a strong swimmer, he knew the ocean’s currents. It didn’t add up in Maggie’s mind. But Mac had told her to let it go. Her dad hadn’t exactly been himself the last weeks. Who knew why he waded into the water that day? Perhaps something had caught his eye. Maybe an undertow had wrapped him in its waves and caught him unawares. What Maggie really wanted to understand most was this: Had Arthur willingly given himself up to the sea? Had he known his mind was going and, thus, wanted to end his life? The thought dogged her, and, of course, on its heels came a swift kick of guilt. If she’d been more attuned to Arthur’s situation, if she’d listened more carefully, she might have been able to prevent such a tragedy from happening in the first place.
“Maggie, girl,” Mac said to her the night before they would close up the summer house. “Why do you insist on carrying everyone’s troubles around with you?” He cupped her face in his hands and stared into her eyes, like she did when she wanted something to register with the kids. “This is not your fault; you understand that, right?”
She nodded slowly, reluctantly, big tears pooling in her eyes.
“Repeat after me,” Mac ordered. “Arthur’s passing is not my fault. It was his time.”
She swallowed, hard. “Arthur’s passing is not my fault. It was his time.”
Mac dropped his hands and hugged her. “There, now, my sweet girl. Let it go.”
They both knew, of course, that it wasn’t so easy, but for the time being, she let her husband hold her tightly while she remembered what it felt like to be loved deeply, without judgment.
Maggie pulled the front door shut, turned the key, and handed it to Sophie to return to its hiding spot behind the shed. A shudder swept over her. Coming back to the summer house would never be the same. Would it hold too many sad memories, she wondered, for them to return next year? The kids piled into the car with their iPods and pillows, and Virgie, who’d already returned her Mini Cooper on the Cape, climbed into the passenger seat. Mac had already headed back to Windsor in Arthur’s old Buick this morning, and Jess, Tim, and the kids had packed up a few days ago. Maggie studied the house one last time as they backed out of the driveway, as if trying to memorize its every detail. “Good-bye, house,” she said, a mantra they’d recited each summer since the kids were little. In the back of the car, Arthur’s ashes were safely collected in a blue ceramic vase that was cradled between towels. Though they’d had a small ceremony at the beach house, her father had requested in his will that his ashes be scattered out to sea in Maine.
And so it would be.
They’d dismantled the pier, emptied the pantry, drained the pipes, and turned off the water. The raccoon crate sat empty in the shed. Maybe next year, Luke said wistfully. Maggie had thrown sheets over the furniture and drawn the shades. She wondered momentarily if her dad’s ghost would haunt Pilgrim Lane. Would Arthur continue writing mysteries, even in death? Perhaps, she thought, she should leave at least one chair open for him, one with a view where he could sit and write. She knew it was silly, but in the master bedroom, she’d pulled the sheet off the armchair that faced out on the ocean. It was a lovely spot to write.
As they pulled off the dirt road onto the highway, Maggie peered over at Virgie, who was already fast asleep. Arthur’s death had been particularly hard on her baby sister—she’d been closest to him. But in the last week, Virgie had settled into a quiet, moody place, not unlike that of a teenager, and so now Maggie tiptoed around her as well. She reminded herself that Virgie was dealing with a lot, not least of which was her own upcoming doctor’s appointment in Boston. Fortunately, they’d been able to reschedule it for the first week in August.
Maggie sighed. She was trying so hard to do right by everyone. Everyone wanted a piece of her, and the lengths she would go to for each and every one of them were impossible to measure. Her family was her whole world, her orbit. And yet, increasingly, she felt as if she were letting them all down. As if what she were equipped to give would never be enough. Maybe she was crazy to consider bringing another child into their home. She could barely manage with the ones she had.
She was beginning to understand, though, that all her love couldn’t protect the ones she loved. Not forever. Not always. Perhaps that was what the summer house had been trying to tell her with its creaks and groans this year. Each time Maggie attempted to negotiate a truce between the kids, between Jess and Tim, or Gloria and Arthur, it was as if the house was laughing at her. You think you can fix this? Think again! Every time she picked up a stray flip-flop, a forgotten towel, an empty glass, the house knew her attempts at order were for naught. Just wait till you see what happens in the kitchen! It seemed to smirk. The Book of Summer was lost forever. Arthur was gone to them forever.
Life is about change, Mac had said at one point during the week, and Maggie had brushed him off. I don’t need platitudes, she’d quipped. But her fervent desire for this summer to be like every other one had gone up in flames. Maybe her husband was right: maybe change didn’t necessarily mean disaster. Maybe the mess of life was the very thing she was supposed to enjoy instead of always fighting it, trying to impose order. The universe was trying to tell her something—was it, perhaps, to let go? She bit the quick of her fingernail as she drove along, debating her own battling emotions. When The Book of Summer was destroyed in the fire, she’d felt as if her own right arm had been lopped off. But really, wasn’t it just a silly book? The memories on paper were the same ones that she, Mac, and the kids carried around in their hearts already. She could re-create the book, maybe even start a new one.
She rolled down the window, letting the Cape air fly through her hair, feeling summer. It had been a long, difficult month. And it occurred to her that yet another thing was different about this summer: for once, Maggie couldn’t wait to get home.
AUGUST
Jess
Jess sat at her desk, wading through the piles of paper that had long ago outgrown her in-box, an inevitable consequence of taking vacation time. Much could be tossed, but some, such as special requests from parents for the new school year, needed attention. When she’d asked her mother-in-law if she could watch the kids for several days in August, Eleanor was more than happy to oblige. “I’ve been wondering when I’d get my grandkids back,” she teased, as if Jess and Tim had stolen them away from her for the month of July. Jess wanted to get through as much as possible before she left for Maine in a few days to help her sisters pack up Arthur’s house.
On her desk were scattered piles of thank-you cards and little gifts from students. Things had been so crazy at the end of the school year that she hadn’t properly had a chance to sort through any of them before leaving for vacation. There were funny cards (Bart Simpson, in particular, was popular among the boys this year), heartfelt notes, and even a few cards from parents, thanking her for taking a particular child under her wing. Jess flipped through a few more until she saw one addressed in a familiar cursive: Ms. Herington, Best Principal, Mentor, Friend Ever!! The exclamation points were dotted with hearts. Jess’s own heart lifted when she saw the handwriting. She ripped open the yellow envelope and pulled out the card, an exquisite Chinese symbol hand-painted on the front. Over four years, Jess had watched Tamara grow from a hesitant, soft-spoken teenager into a thoughtful, dedicated young artist. She was the first girl in their school to be admitted to the Rhode Island School of Design, and on a full scholarship.
Jess ran her finger over the design, delicate black shoots of ink on white parchment paper that reminded her of two stars suspended in the night. She opened the card and read:
Dear Ms. Herington,
I painted this design for you because it’s the Chinese symbol for Friendship. You’re a best friend, a mentor, and like a mom to me. Thank you so much for everything you’ve done—without you, I wouldn’t be on my way to college!
Love, Tamara
P.S. Come visit me at RISD! You can sleep on m
y floor!
Jess felt herself well up with emotion, then laughed when she read the postscript at the bottom. She propped the card up on the shelf behind her desk. Perhaps she would frame it. It was a good reminder of why she was in this job, even on the toughest, most frustrating days. She turned back to open a few of the colorful gift bags dotting her desk. There were an assortment of new mugs (always mugs!), framed pictures with students, summer scarves in cheery prints, and a beautiful Pandora bracelet with a small cupcake that made her smile. She’d shared a love of cupcakes with the president of the student council; this was the girl’s token of appreciation. Jess wrapped the bracelet around her wrist and fastened the clasp.
It felt odd to be sitting at her desk now with the distance of a few weeks. Last she was here, she was rushing to finish everything she needed to before vacation: filing last-minute teacher evaluations; trying to confirm hires for next year; listening to teachers’ concerns about everything from a lack of supplies to lack of parental involvement. At the time, she’d half listened, wondering if, when she returned to this place, her marriage would still be intact. A few weeks ago, she honestly couldn’t say. But now, she felt as if she could look across her desk with fresh eyes. She was here because she believed in herself; and now she knew with certainty that her husband did, too.
On the morning that Arthur had set out for his walk, she’d been curled up against Tim in bed while he slept. She was looking out the window, thinking about how strange the past month had been. She’d gone from not wanting to share a room with her husband to wanting him by her side all the time. It was a little like noticing the boy you thought was a nerd sophomore year returning in September, tanned, no longer wearing glasses, and suddenly a catch for junior year. The summer sun, the long conversations they’d had since that day on the beach, had all worked to melt the icy ball that had formed between them during the past year.
The Summer of Good Intentions Page 20