by Mia March
“That’s exactly why the Meryl Streep character stayed in The Bridges of Madison County,” Isabel said, still staring out at the night. “Because she knew her husband, her children, would never be able to get past it. I guess Edward just didn’t care if I could or would or not.” She broke into tears, and June and Kat glanced at each other again and jumped up, going over to the balcony. They stood on either side of Isabel, Kat touching her hand for a moment, and June letting out the breath she’d been holding for a half hour.
“This is crazy, but Edward’s affair, how you found out about it, reminds me of how I felt when Lolly told us about the accident,” June said. “When something happens that you never imagined, that you can’t imagine, you’re just so shocked for a while that you can’t process it.”
Unless it wasn’t such a shock to Isabel. June knew that sometimes wives were blindsided, and sometimes they knew but managed to stay in denial. She had no idea what Isabel’s marriage was really like.
“I was like that on the drive up here,” Isabel said. “In total shock. It was how I was able to drive in the first place. But when it hit me, that it really happened, the anonymous note, finding Edward walking out of that woman’s bedroom, his expression—and how things had been between us lately, more than lately, I guess… it all hit me and I broke down and stayed at some motel and just cried all night and most of the next day until I had to turn up here.”
“And as if what you were going through wasn’t enough, wham,” Kat said. “My mom’s announcement.”
Isabel covered her face with her hands for a moment. “I don’t even know what to focus on. Every time I think about Edward, I’m suddenly thinking about Lolly. And then I’m back to Edward, then Lolly.” She took a deep breath and let it out, braiding and unbraiding her long hair over her shoulder. “He’s not asking me to get past it, anyway. He said he loves this woman. I’m sure he would have told me he’s going to file for divorce, but I hung up before he probably had the chance.”
Kat sat back down on her bed. “I can’t believe this. June is right about what a complete shock it is. You and Edward have been together since I was ten years old.”
“A week after we moved into the inn,” June said.
“And now, Aunt Lolly… I know Lolly and I were never very close. But, Kat, your mother is—” Isabel took a deep breath. “She just means a lot to me.”
“Me too,” June said. “She looks so much like Mom, too, doesn’t she, Iz?”
Isabel didn’t say anything. Maybe mentioning their mother wasn’t the thing to say right then. June always thought one of the reasons Isabel stayed away from the inn—from Lolly, June, and Kat—was because of what Isabel had said to her mother the last night they’d ever seen her. June knew Isabel had never forgiven herself. And that argument had happened here at the inn, in the first-floor hallway. June knew the way everything hung in the air here. Pain. Grief. Loss. Years of it.
Kat walked over to her desk and sat down on the chair, leaning back and staring up at the ceiling. “I can’t believe any of this. Any of it.”
They were silent for a few moments, the only sound from the front lawn, the crickets and cicadas, some people outside, heading back from the harbor.
“So tomorrow, we’ll work out a schedule of taking over Lolly’s duties,” Isabel said, turning around and heading to the bed under the dormer window. “She may be very weak and sick from chemo and unable to do much.”
June nodded. “It was amazing how talkative Lolly was after the movie. And just think, she almost left right after. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her go on like that.”
“I was surprised too,” Kat said. “I mean, she can be opinionated, but watching the movie, talking about it, all the different points of view—and then what it led to,” Kat added, glancing compassionately at Isabel. “She really opened up. I hope it continues.”
“I’ll bet it will,” Isabel said. “Meryl Streep is her favorite actress and she’s seen all these films before. They all must mean something to her—represent different times in her life. I got that feeling, anyway, from the way she’d look away or out the window sometimes.”
“She’s complicated, huh?” Kat said.
June smiled. “Complicated and tough.” June glanced at Isabel. “Are you okay with taking over Lolly’s duties? It’ll be a big change for you.”
Isabel stared at her. “Because I don’t work?”
June felt her cheeks burn. Yes, that was exactly what she meant, but she hadn’t meant to say it, hadn’t meant to be unkind. Not now. “I just mean that none of us, Kat included, is used to running the inn and taking care of guests. Remember that obnoxious family from last Christmas? They rang bells! More tea. Do you have softer hand towels? Can you do anything about the smell of the ocean? So fishy. It drifts up, you know.”
Kat laughed. “The only reason I got through their visit is because they went nuts over my baking. The one who wouldn’t take off her heels, even for a hike, told me I should start my own baking business and she’d make huge orders. I couldn’t stand those ladies, but they did give me some confidence. Still, I wanted to take that little bell of theirs and flush it down the toilet.”
June tried to picture Isabel Nash McNeal on her knees in front of a toilet with a scrubbing brush and Ajax. Her sister had a housekeeper who not only cleaned their four-thousand-plus-square-foot home twice weekly but cooked most of the meals and froze them with labels and reheating instructions.
“I’m sure I can do what’s necessary,” Isabel said, and June could tell her sister was stung by their perception of her. But Isabel wasn’t exactly used to catering to others, including Edward, since he’d liked to pay people to do that. Then again, June knew that Isabel regularly volunteered as a grief counselor, and if Isabel’s words and expression could soothe a woman who’d just lost her husband of thirty years, surely Isabel could handle a few vacationing guests. No matter how thoughtless or obnoxious.
“I guess you can take the little room when June and Charlie have to go back to Portland,” Kat said to Isabel. “Or I can switch with you. I might like having that old childhood room of mine. Before everything changed, you know?”
“I might as well just tell you,” June said, pulling out her own yoga pants and a T-shirt from her suitcase. “I’m staying a few weeks at least. The Portland Books Brothers is closing. And the lease on the apartment goes with it. Jobless and homeless.” Jobless and homeless when she had a child to raise. Pathetic.
“You’re not homeless, June,” Kat said. “This is your home.”
June got up and walked back over to the balcony and stared out at the harbor, following a midnight cruise boat as it moved through the dark water. The Three Captains’ Inn wasn’t home. June had lived at the inn, had this bedroom, for five years, and it hadn’t felt like home. But she wasn’t about to say that to Kat. “I’m quite the superstar, aren’t I? This is the second time I’ve come running back here with my tail between my legs. I’ll have to take Henry’s offer of a job at Books Brothers. I’m exactly where I was seven years ago.”
“Same place, maybe,” Kat said. “But you can’t possibly be the same person. You’ve been living in Portland. Raising a child on your own. And you’re a superstar to Charlie.”
June let out a sigh and stared at the stars. She’d never forget standing right here, twenty-one and pregnant, the father of the baby nowhere to be found, her beloved parents gone, her older sister hundreds of miles away. Not that she’d have turned to Isabel anyway.
“June, when you got pregnant, did you ever think of not keeping the baby?” Isabel asked.
June whirled around to face her sister. “What is that supposed to mean? That I shouldn’t have had Charlie, that I should have given him up? That it was irresponsible of me then and shows even more so now that I don’t have a job or a home of my own?”
Isabel’s fa
ce turned red for a moment. “No, God, June, I didn’t mean it that way at all. I just asked because…” Isabel bit her lip.
“Because?” June prompted, glaring at her sister.
“Forget it. We should all get some sleep.”
“Because why,” June repeated. Hard.
Isabel glanced down at her wedding ring and twisted it. “Because I always thought I wouldn’t know how to be a mother, someone’s mother. I just wondered if you worried about that too when you found out you were pregnant.”
“Oh,” June said, her anger and that same old sense of shame whooshing out of her. “Of course I did. I was only twenty-one and a senior in college. I went from caring only about my term paper on Middlemarch to being responsible for a baby. By myself. But, you know what? Even back then I didn’t doubt I’d be a good mother. It’s about love and taking care of the baby and doing what you have to. I knew I’d do all that. I was just scared.”
And for a little while, anyway, she’d survived by living in something of a fantasy world—waiting for John Smith to come for her. Seven years ago, when she’d first returned to Boothbay Harbor, newly pregnant and carrying a baggie of saltines everywhere she went, she’d sit out here on the balcony and daydream about John walking up the cobblestone path, dropping down on one knee, and asking her to marry him as she stood bathed in moonlight. But he’d never come, of course. Wherever he’d been going, the independent, seeking, traveling guy hadn’t wanted her to be a part of it, hadn’t asked her along on his journey, as Clint Eastwood’s character had to Meryl Streep’s. Because The Bridges of Madison County was a movie, a romantic movie, and not real life.
Except for the part about the four days. That was real to June. She’d fallen deeply in love with John in two days.
“I’m trying to imagine having a baby now, and I’m twenty-five, four years older than you were, June,” Kat said. “There’s no way I’m ready for all that responsibility. I have to hand it to you.”
“Me too,” Isabel said.
June glanced at both of them, touched by what they’d said. She reached into her tote bag for her body lotion, the scent of lilacs filling the room as she rubbed cream on her dry elbows and knees and slid under the soft quilt on her belly so she could look out at the harbor.
“I was just thinking how hard it must have been for you,” Isabel said, slipping into her own bed. “I know, I know, you’re probably going to say I’m sounding condescending. But I just mean that I realize now how alone you must have felt. I… know what that feels like now. Not that I’m comparing being a young single mother with— You know what I mean, right? I—I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you at all, June.”
June glanced at her sister, who was staring at the ceiling. She did usually accuse Isabel of being condescending. “I’m glad you’re here now.”
Isabel gave something of an awkward smile and turned out the lamp on her bedside table. “Well, good night.”
“Good night,” Kat said, turning out the main light.
“I’m just going to check on Charlie for a sec,” June said, slipping back out of bed. Only once she was in the dimly lit hallway did she realize she’d been holding her breath again.
June, Charlie, Lolly, Isabel, and Kat sat around the big table in the kitchen, the early-morning sunshine lighting the room. It was six thirty. Lolly had reminded June and Isabel last night that the dining room was open for guests’ breakfasts from seven until eight thirty, so the family would need to eat beforehand—and not to bring up the C-word in front of Charlie until Lolly and June decided when and how to tell him.
June bit a slice of bacon and buttered Charlie’s freshly baked corn muffin, her heart heavy. Her son had such little family. And now he stood to lose his great-aunt.
“Guess what?” Charlie said, looking around the table, his green eyes bright and happy. “My mom is going to find my dad and my grandparents so I can fill in my family tree! It’s for my day camp project and due on Wednesday.”
All eyes turned to June.
“Mom, are you even going to be able to find out anything by Wednesday? That’s in four days.”
Her stomach knotted. “Well, sweets, I might not be able to find out about your father’s side of the family by Wednesday, but we can all help fill in my side of the family tree, and we can write your counselor explaining that we’re working on the other side.” And that Charlie wouldn’t be finishing out the remaining week of camp, after all. She’d talk to Charlie about that over the weekend.
“Will I get an F on the project?” Charlie asked, hand paused midway to his mouth with bacon.
June felt tears prick the backs of her eyes.
“First of all, there are no grades for camp,” Isabel said. “Camp is definitely not school. And second, all families are different, Charlie,” she added, her gaze soft on her nephew. “Right? There’s no wrong answer when it comes to a family tree. Some families have lots of relatives and some just have a few. But you’re lucky because you have all of us in this room.”
Thank you, Isabel, June beamed silently across the table as she caught her sister’s eye.
“That’s right,” Kat said. “You have all of us. And we all love you.”
Charlie smiled and counted each person at the table. “I have Great-Aunt Lolly and Aunt Isabel and Cousin Kat—and my mom. That’s four different kinds of relatives to put on the tree!” A dog barked and Charlie jumped up. “That’s probably Elvis wanting me to play fetch. Can I go, Mom?”
Elvis was the neighbor’s gentle yellow Lab. He’d been just a puppy when June had moved into the inn fifteen years ago. Now he was up there in dog years, sweeter than ever, and still loving to chase sticks.
“Make sure it’s Elvis and not that stray who came into the backyard last night,” Isabel said. “I went out to get some air, and a white mutt with black ears came over and put his chin on my foot. He looked friendly, but you never know.”
Charlie ran over to the door and pushed aside the curtain. “No, it’s Elvis.”
“Go ahead, sweetie,” June said. “Stay in the yard, though, okay? And remember, it’s very early, so not too noisy.”
When the door closed behind him, Lolly said, “He’s getting so big.” She said it so quickly that June knew she didn’t want questions about her diagnosis. Or how she was feeling. Lolly looked more like herself today in a soft, black tank top, white gauze skirt down to her ankles, and her red, crab-dotted flip-flops, her silky, shoulder-length, gray-blond hair in its usual braid.
“And more handsome every day,” Kat said, clearly picking up on it too. “He’s such a good, sweet boy. What a doll.”
“He looks just like his father.” June stared at her plate, where she’d been pushing around eggs for the past five minutes, ever since Charlie had brought up his father. The family tree. “How am I going to find a man named John Smith after seven years when I couldn’t find him then?”
“All you can do is try.” Lolly took a sip of orange juice. “Narrow down what you can. If you can’t find him, it’s just something Charlie will have to accept.”
June felt herself bristle at Lolly’s typical comment. Accept. Accept. Accept. “It’s not fair. He has to accept never knowing his father, never meeting him, because I picked a guy looking for an easy mark.”
“From what you told me about John Smith back then,” Isabel said, pushing her own scrambled eggs around, “that doesn’t describe him at all.”
June wouldn’t have thought so, either. It had amazed her that a guy with the most common name in the United States of America could be the most original she’d ever met. They’d had two incredible dates, the kind of dates where you feel there’s no one else in the world but you and him, and you talk about everything, you laugh, you look into each other’s eyes with the crazy surety that you’d found what all those love songs are about. They’d met in a bar on th
e Upper West Side of Manhattan near Columbia, where she’d been with two girlfriends, and he’d been sitting at the bar and overheard her mention Maine, where he was from, too—Bangor, a city two hours north of Portland—so they’d started talking and hadn’t stopped. He was taking off a year from college (he’d been at Colby) to backpack around the country. He was beautiful, almost ethereal, so pale, with dark green eyes and dark brown hair. She’d never seen a guy as beautiful as John. He was supposed to leave for Pennsylvania and the Liberty Bell the next day, but he’d said he’d postpone it as long as she’d go out with him. On their second date, the next night, June, a virgin, had ripped off her own clothes and then his.
And as the cliché went, she never saw him again. They’d made romantic plans to meet for lunch—she’d bring the drinks, he’d bring the sandwiches—at the Angel of the Waters statue of the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park. As she sat there on that stone bench in her red peacoat and scarf with her two bottles of water and two chocolate chip cookies from her favorite bakery, she’d been thinking that she finally understood what everyone was talking about—what her sister, Isabel, had always been talking about when it came to Edward, who hadn’t been so smug back then. June had never felt this way about a guy before, two dates or not. He’d been her first—in every sense of the word.
By one o’clock, when he still hadn’t shown up, she gave him the old benefit of the doubt; he hadn’t spent the past three years in New York as she had; maybe he’d gotten lost on the subway over, maybe he was lost in the park. But as she waited, biting her lip in the November wind, rubbing her gloved hands together because she was getting so cold, she began to realize he wasn’t coming. He had one of those prepaid drugstore cell phones, but he could only make calls, not receive them. So she had no phone number to call and he hadn’t called her. By three o’clock—two hours later—she’d finally gotten up. As she’d walked toward the beautiful steps, she thought she saw him at the top, but it wasn’t him, and her heart sank so painfully that she burst into tears.