“I told you back when Ken died,” she said calmly. “I was in India on business, sourcing fabrics. I couldn’t get a flight that would get me to back to the States in time for the service. I sent you a card and flowers. What else could I have done?”
Bonnie didn’t reply immediately.
Carol sighed. “Be honest, Bonnie. You didn’t really miss me at the funeral. How could you have?”
“I did miss you,” Bonnie insisted. “I needed my sister at my side. I had Judith and Nicola and Julie and Scott and friends and neighbors and Ken’s family, but not my sister. The one person who—”
“Who what?” Carol asked.
“Nothing,” Bonnie said fiercely. “Nothing.” Abruptly, she got up from the chair. “This is not over,” she said. “The matter of Ferndean.”
Carol remained perched on the arm of the couch as once again her sister ran off. What was it Bonnie had been about to say? “The one person who mattered.” Could that have been it? But why? How could Carol have mattered above all others at that moment of crisis in Bonnie’s life? Surely, Bonnie’s daughter and her niece, and possibly even her cousin, were closer to her than her virtually estranged sister?
But maybe that was it, Carol realized with an uncomfortable sense of shame. Carol was Bonnie’s sister. She had known Bonnie from almost the first moment of Bonnie’s life. Carol Ascher was the only other person alive who remembered what their childhood had been like in Ferndean House; she was the only other person who remembered Shirley and Ronald Ascher as Mom and Dad. The sibling relationship was a primary one. That was a fact.
Suddenly, Carol felt terribly weary. It was a kind of weariness that had been coming upon her in the past few months. She had meant to see her doctor before heading north to Maine, but she hadn’t. She wasn’t sure why. Anyway, she was probably just run-down; selling her business had taken an unexpected emotional toll. That was all.
She rose from the arm of the couch. She decided to lie down, to allow her body and her mind to relax so that she would be ready for the next encounter with her sister.
Because there would be another one.
Chapter 11
Nicola had gone to her aunt’s house, where she found Julie and Bonnie at the kitchen table, drinking coffee. Her cousin looked haggard and unkempt. She barely replied to Nicola’s greeting. But Nicola persisted.
“How is Sophie doing at her job?” she asked.
“Fine,” Julie said.
“Does she get along with her fellow counselors?” Nicola pressed.
Julie shrugged. “I guess.”
Nicola shared a glance of concern with her aunt. She had always liked Scott, thought him a decent guy, and to find that he was just like the majority of men—shallow, careless, prone to putting their sexual needs and desires above all other concerns . . . It had taken Nicola weeks before she could hear Scott’s name without experiencing a rush of anger and moral self-righteousness.
More difficult had been figuring out how to deal with Julie, what to say to her, how to act. Nicola had asked her aunt for guidance.
“Julie doesn’t want advice from any of us at the moment,” Bonnie had said. “What she needs is for us to simply be there, to listen, to give her a hug.”
So, with some effort, Nicola had put her anger with Scott out of sight; certainly it would do Julie no good to witness it. And, Nicola had a generous heart. She knew no one was perfect; certainly she wasn’t. Besides, sustaining negative emotions was exhausting; it made you feel sick; it made you look ugly. All you needed to do was to look in the mirror when you were feeling angry and you would see the negative emotions made visible.
“Have you seen your mother yet?”
Julie’s question took Nicola by surprise. She hadn’t expected her cousin to be at all concerned with what was going on in the family.
“No,” she said.
“I’m sure she wants to see you,” Julie went on mildly.
Bonnie’s face went red. “Since when have you taken Carol’s side?” she demanded of her daughter.
Julie took a sip of her coffee before answering. “I haven’t,” she said. “I’m not on anybody’s side.”
“I just don’t see what’s in it for me,” Nicola said. So much for having a generous heart, but since when had her mother considered her daughter’s needs and desires? Not in a very long time, if ever.
“I don’t think that Nicola should feel compelled to see her mother if she doesn’t want to,” Bonnie stated.
But Julie was no longer engaged in the conversation. She took her coffee cup and wandered into the backyard.
Nicola took her aunt’s hand. “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “How did it go with my mother?”
“I told her I thought I had a right to Ferndean.”
“You do.”
“Carol doesn’t think so. She said my hard work for the family doesn’t necessarily translate to my having the right to live there as I please.”
Nicola felt her blood boil. “How dare she,” she muttered.
“I told her you’re thinking about joining the Peace Corps. I told her she couldn’t stop you.”
“Why would she want to stop me? I’m sure it doesn’t matter to her what I do with my life.”
“It matters to me.”
Nicola reached for her aunt’s hand. “I’ll never abandon you, Aunt Bonnie,” she swore.
“I know. And I’ll always be here for you.”
“Together forever,” Nicola said, her voice husky with emotion. “Like family should be.”
Chapter 12
Julie stared down at the trash container. It was full. The bag needed to be tied up and brought to the garbage can out back. It was already starting to smell.
Julie closed the lid of the container. She would get to it later.
She wandered out of the kitchen and found herself in her office. The only place to sit was her desk chair. The armchair in which she used to spend hours reading was buried beneath piles of old newspapers and dirty clothing. Julie sat at her desk. When was the last time she had done any real work at it?
She couldn’t remember.
Her aunt probably never suffered depressions and anxiety and self-loathing, she thought. Not a woman like Carol Ascher.
Unlike Nicola, Julie had no reason to refuse to see her aunt; still, she was glad she hadn’t yet encountered her. Bonnie Elgort’s glamorous, big-city sister would understandably want nothing to do with the mousy, pitiful wreck Julie Miller had become. Julie had grown up with her mother telling stories about Aunt Carol that rarely portrayed her in a good light. For the most part, Julie had listened without comment, though secretly she had often wished she could play a small part in her aunt’s exotic world of travel and beauty. It was only when Nicola had been sent to live in Maine that Julie’s opinion of her aunt took a nosedive from which it had not fully recovered.
Julie sighed. The office was depressing. It made her think of how little she had accomplished since . . . since she had learned of Scott’s affair. She got up from the desk chair and went into the den, where she lay down on the old plaid sofa. She wanted to sleep. It was as close to oblivion as she could get. As Julie shifted into a more comfortable position, she caught sight of the basketball trophy Scott had won in high school. MVP. He was so proud of that achievement. Julie had always been touched by his pride. Every week, for all the years of their marriage, she had polished the trophy until it shone. Now the sight of it on the shelf over the old stereo brought back every painful and humiliating moment of the past months.
The first sign that something might be wrong had come on Julie’s birthday back in March. Scott had given her a funny card. That was odd. Normally, he gave her a sentimental card. They had gone out to dinner at their favorite Italian place, but Scott had been distracted and distant. Every few minutes he had glanced around the dining room, as if he was expecting someone. When they got home, Scott made an excuse for not coming straight to bed. When Julie fell asleep around midnight, Sc
ott still had not come up to their bedroom.
The distracted and distant behavior continued for another week before Julie felt sure that something was going on. Scott had a history of infidelity. Could it be that he had reverted to his old ways? Julie felt sick even considering this possibility. A wife was supposed to believe in her husband. To trust him unconditionally. Love was patient and kind.
But love also rejoiced in the truth.
So, Julie began a search for evidence.
There were no shirts stained with lipstick stuffed in a drawer. No matchbooks from local hotels hidden in a pocket. No torn hotel receipts at the bottom of the trash.
But Scott continued to live an almost parallel life to that of his wife, so Julie turned to her dearest friend. Agnes Sexton lived with her husband, Prescott, and two small children on a small but thriving dairy farm on the outskirts of Yorktide. Prescott had inherited the farm from his uncle and ran it with an unprecedented efficiency and business savvy. Aggie, for her part, kept the domestic ship afloat, no small task.
Julie would never forget that day at Sexton Farm, the day her world began to fall apart.
“I think something’s going on with Scott,” she said when the two women had taken seats at the kitchen table, a pot of coffee and a plate of freshly baked muffins before them. “I mean, I think he might be having an affair.”
“Why?” Aggie asked, stirring her coffee. “Have you found evidence?”
“No,” Julie admitted. “But he’s been acting differently. There have been a whole bunch of little things. Like every Friday night Scott brings home two large pizzas, but last Friday and the week before he showed up empty-handed. He laughed it off, saying that work had been insanely busy and he just spaced.”
“Mmmm,” Aggie said.
Julie shook her head. “Why do you keep stirring that coffee?”
Aggie put her spoon on the table. “The thing is,” she began, “a few weeks ago I ran into Katie Essex. She mentioned that she had heard from a reliable source that Scott was spending time with someone not his wife. Honestly, I completely dismissed it as being one of Katie’s nasty little lies. You know what a troublemaker she can be. Besides, she couldn’t even name the woman Scott was supposedly seeing, or her so-called reliable source.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Julie had demanded, her hands tightening on her coffee cup.
“Because there was nothing to tell,” Agnes said fiercely. “Just a nasty rumor. Scott loves you. He adores you. It can’t be true.”
A roaring began in Julie’s head. Her best friend in the world had betrayed her. “I can’t believe this is happening,” she said thickly. She rose abruptly from the table, grabbed her bag from the back of the chair, and strode toward the kitchen door.
“Julie, wait,” Aggie cried, pushing back her own chair and rising. “I’m so sorry. Look, maybe there’s nothing at all to the rumor. Maybe Scott’s acting differently because like he said he’s under stress at work.”
Julie whirled around. “Why are you defending him?”
“I’m not!” Aggie protested. “It’s just—”
But Julie was already out the door. Since then, she had ignored her friend’s texts, e-mails, and phone calls. Aggie was sorry. She was full of remorse.
Julie didn’t care.
Julie sat up on the sofa and rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands.
She had spent the hours after her visit to Aggie in an agony of indecision. Maybe, she thought, she should just stop worrying. After all, lots of men had affairs and after a while their marriages went on much as they had before. Didn’t they? Or was that a lie, meant to convince a betrayed wife that if she just waited a bit like a good girl all would be well?
It was several days before Julie was able to confront Scott directly. She had made sure that Sophie would not be home by suggesting she spend the night at her friend Anabel’s house, if it was all right with Anabel’s mother. It was.
She made dinner as usual. She and Scott took their customary seats at the kitchen table. “I love this dish,” Scott said with a smile, ladling a heaping portion of the chicken casserole onto his plate.
Julie let him eat for a few minutes. She herself had no appetite. Finally, she could stay silent no longer.
“There’s no easy way for me to ask this question,” she said. “Are you having an affair?”
Scott put his fork onto his plate. He looked directly at Julie when he spoke. “Yes,” he said, not at all defiantly. “But I’ve decided to end it. Now. Tonight. I’ll call her. I’ll send a text if you’d rather I not talk to her.”
This was the second memorable moment that would come to define the collapse of Julie’s happy world.
“Who is she?” she asked. Her voice was steady.
Scott hesitated. “Laci Fox,” he murmured after a moment.
Julie’s stomach lurched. Laci Fox was a notorious flirt and had been known to sleep with married men as often as not. How could Scott have betrayed her with such a person? It was despicable. It was tired and clichéd.
“Who else knows?” Julie asked. What she meant was, had Scott bragged to his friends at work about the affair? She had never known him to be a braggart, but maybe she had never really known anything about the man she had been calling her husband for almost twenty years.
“No one,” he said.
“Don’t be ridiculous! Aggie heard a rumor weeks ago. By now everyone in Yorktide must know you and Laci Fox have been carrying on.”
Scott flinched. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s all I know what to say right now.”
“Why did you do it?” Julie asked. She wondered if it was a stupid question.
“I . . .” Scott shook his head. “I can’t say.”
Julie knew what Scott meant. He no longer loved his wife. He was unhappy. His marriage was an inconvenience. His promise to end the affair was an empty one.
The third nail in the proverbial coffin. From that moment, Julie Miller turned against herself. She didn’t entirely let Scott off the hook, but she now included herself among the guilty.
“I see,” she said. “Well, I guess that’s it then.”
Scott blanched. “What do you mean, that’s it? Julie, our marriage isn’t over; please don’t say that, don’t even think it.”
Julie had no response to her husband’s plea, if that was what it was and not just a bunch of words that had spilled out of his mouth in a moment of panic. The silence between them stretched out. The casserole left in the pan began to congeal. Julie’s throat felt dry as dust, but she couldn’t seem to pick up her glass of water.
“I’ll sleep on the couch,” Scott said after a time. He sounded defeated.
“You can tonight,” Julie told him. “But tomorrow, when Sophie is home, you’ll sleep in our bed with me. I don’t want her to know anything is wrong. She might not have heard the rumors.” But she would soon enough. Nothing stayed secret for long in a small town like Yorktide. Especially not something as titillating as a marital scandal.
Scott put his hands to his head. “What have I done?”
“I don’t know,” Julie had replied. “I really don’t.”
“Julie? Julie, are you home?”
Julie jumped off the sofa. It was Scott. She wanted to run away. But where could she go? She lived here. Scott lived here. They each had the right to be exactly where they were. Until one or the other decided to leave.
“There you are. Didn’t you hear me calling?” He was standing in the door to the den.
She wanted to grab his beloved trophy and hurl it at his head. But that would be stupid. She was always thinking stupid things.
“I heard,” Julie said, lowering her eyes and walking swiftly past him.
Chapter 13
“Darn!” Bonnie cried. She hurried to the sink and ran the cold water over her thumb and forefinger. That stupid old toaster!
No. That stupid old woman, allowing herself to be distracted by an accumulation of depressing thoughts, a l
itany of all that had been going wrong in her world.
Ken’s illness and death. Scott’s affair. Poor Julie’s terrible reaction to her husband’s betrayal.
“I wish I could just hide or go away or . . .” Julie had told her mother the day after Scott had admitted to cheating.
Bonnie had been alarmed. “But you can’t do either,” she said firmly. “You have a child. Julie, we’ll get through this together. As a family.”
“Scott was my family.”
Bonnie had reached out and drawn Julie to her.
“I wish Dad was here,” Julie sobbed against her mother’s shoulder.
“So do I,” Bonnie had whispered. “Every moment of every day.”
And that was still true, Bonnie thought. Especially now that Carol was back in Yorktide to steal Ferndean away from her sister.
Bonnie turned off the water and dried her hand. No real harm done. She didn’t want toast anyway.
The landline rang. It was Judith.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Any word from Carol?”
“No,” Bonnie said. “I feel so hopeless. What can I do? What are my rights? Should I get a lawyer after all?”
“All is not lost,” Judith said firmly. “Besides, Carol will be bored with Yorktide in a few weeks’ time. Be patient, then approach her again.”
Bonnie sighed. “I wish Ken were here.”
“But he’s not. This is a matter for the sisters to handle.”
“Maybe you could help,” Bonnie suggested, a tiny flicker of hope dawning. “You’ve always got along so well with Carol. She respects you. She’d listen to you.”
“Honestly,” Judith said after a moment, “I’m reluctant to get involved. And I refuse to take sides, though I do feel that you have a far stronger claim to Ferndean. Fairness and all that.”
“Please, Judith. You know how Carol is, she’s a bulldozer. I’ve never been able to stand up to her.”
Judith sighed. “I suppose we could meet at my house. I could act as mediator. Not that I’ve ever done that sort of thing before.”
“I really need your help,” Bonnie pleaded. “Promise?”
All Our Summers Page 5