Summer Darlings

by Brooke Lea Foster

  Her heart ached. How did you explain to a child that parents could disappoint you? That parents had secrets? Her mother always wore a modest pearl engagement ring, telling Heddy that her father had given it to her. As the story went, they’d conceived before he left for the war, and he’d died overseas. To think Heddy believed that story until she was fourteen and found a stack of letters in her mother’s closet from her father, love letters that became goodbye letters, the last one curt, typed on an otherwise blank sheet of paper: DO NOT CONTACT ME AGAIN.

  Discovering her mother’s dishonesty had soured her and her mother’s relationship. Every disagreement they got in after that—and there were many in her teenage years—led back to the betrayal she felt when she discovered the truth about her father. He was alive! Living on Long Island! Her life suddenly felt like a laughable plot twist on As the World Turns. But when Heddy’s grandmother died of lung cancer, which they blamed on her affinity for Lucky Strikes, she’d written Heddy a short letter: Forgive your mother. She only wanted to protect you. That’s what mothers do. Use your energy to discover something wonderful.

  It succeeded in setting Heddy’s mind straight, and she stopped asking her mother about her father. Well, until a month ago, when she decided to contact him.

  Heddy laid down next to Teddy, so her arm touched his shoulder. “I have an idea. Let’s go camping. Me, you, and Anna. Wouldn’t that be grand?”

  He turned on his side, popped up on his elbow. “But where?” One-on-one attention could always break the boy’s foul mood.

  “The backyard. Then we can always go inside if we get cold or need to do our business.” Heddy chortled at her own idea, sitting up, noting the dog was fetching a stick nearby. Teddy was on his knees now, forgetting about the bleeding, while Anna, lost in her imagination, bundled dandelions.

  “And we can make a campfire,” he said.

  Heddy touched her finger to his nose. “A blazing one.”

  Now that she had his attention, she packed the picnic blanket and thermos into her bike basket, pulling out the simple diamond-shaped Hi-Flier kite she’d found in the garage, looking for the dog to make sure it wasn’t edging closer. She dusted off the kite, walking a few paces away from the children. “Watch me, then you can try.” Heddy took off running in the grass, tossing the kite to catch the wind, which was blowing through the treetops. Anna chased after her, while Teddy watched from afar. But Heddy couldn’t get the kite far enough off the ground to fly. Every time she tossed it, it plunged straight down.

  “I’ll get it,” Anna said, a dandelion tucked behind her ear. But just as she picked it up, the dog galloped straight toward her, all one hundred pounds of his tan, fluffy body barreling at the child. Heddy turned to hunt for its owner, who was approaching with a tennis ball, a bit too leisurely for Heddy’s taste, so she put her arm around Anna’s back. The man looked about her age, and judging from his faded rumpled tomato-red T-shirt, a small bleach stain on the neckline, he’d just rolled out of bed.

  “Barkley, come,” he yelled. “You don’t have to worry. He’s friendly.”

  Biting down playfully, the dog pulled at the kite, pushing it deeper into his jaws before running off with it, his tail wagging. Heddy let go of the kite’s yellow spindle, afraid the thread might snap if she held on to it.

  “Barkley, drop it!”

  The dog took off in the other direction, and the children began screaming, like they were watching a horror film, crowding behind Heddy’s legs.

  “Barkley!”

  The dog stopped, dropping the kite at his paws, cocking his head to the side and panting at his owner. The man ran his hand along his closely shaved crop of hair, striding toward the golden retriever.

  He held up his hand. “Stay, Barkley. Staaaay.”

  Heddy rolled her eyes. Of course the dog wouldn’t heel, the man’s voice was hardly authoritative, coming out like a suggestion. When the stranger was a few steps away, the dog grabbed the kite with his mouth and bolted again.

  She’d seen the man before, but where? She wracked her brain, considering the boys she’d met at school, but no one had those tortoise-rimmed glasses, not that she could remember.

  “Tell them he’s just playing,” he said.

  “Maybe if you kept your dog on a leash I wouldn’t have to tell them anything.” Who walked a dog without leashing it? The dog pranced by the man—a college boy, she decided, spying his boat shoes—but when he dove at him, Barkley ran in a circle. Then, taking a different tact, the stranger sat cross-legged in the grass, placing the tennis ball at his feet. The dog ran right over, dropping the kite and lapping his wet, pink tongue around the fuzzy ball.

  “Good boy.” The man attached the leash to the dog’s black collar, decorated with musical notes.

  “Sorry about that.” He looked over the kite, which was dripping with saliva, and smiled. “Should still work—no tears.” He handed it to Heddy, forcing her to wipe a long glop of saliva against her pocket.

  “Lovely.” She knew the sarcasm was snotty, but she didn’t care. The man wasn’t holding the dog tight—and he licked Anna’s cheek, a whiff of rancid breath in her face, which sent Anna clawing at Heddy’s legs. “You need to leave now,” Heddy said.

  “This is a public park.” The man yanked the dog backward, awkwardly spitting his words. “And he’s just a dog.”

  “Well, then we’ll leave.” The wind lifted her bangs off her face as the kids followed her to the other side of the field, where dense swaths of beach reeds lined the space. Heddy threw up the kite and ran into the wide-open lawn, but it plummeted. She tried again at the top of the hill, hoping if she ran down, she’d get it in the air. It fluttered in a wind gust for a few seconds, then dove back into the grass. Her heart thudded.

  “That dumb dog ruined everything,” said Teddy, barefoot and sulking. He was the quitting type; Heddy was always trying to keep him interested, keep him focused.

  “We barely tried. Have some patience, Teddy.”

  “Let’s play tag instead.” Anna took off running toward the pond.

  There was a tall sycamore tree near the park’s ornate wrought iron entrance, and she noticed the man tied his dog there and was coming toward them. What now? When he was close, he pointed to the kite, saying rather nicely, almost like he was apologizing, “You may have more luck if you have the kid hold it.”

  Now that he wasn’t acting annoying, he looked handsome but not too handsome, tall but not too tall, his features angular and strong but not overpowering.

  “I’m sorry?”

  He picked up the kite, holding it with two hands up to the sky. “It’s just, if the wind is behind the kite, it can’t push it up.”

  “What are you, the kite police?”

  What made him attractive, she thought, was how inconspicuous he was—that nothing on his face stood out, well, except perhaps, the laugh lines at the corners of his eyes and that mellow smile he’d just plastered on his face.

  The man pushed his round tortoiseshell glasses up on his nose. “I have an idea.” He looked down at the grass as he walked, and she followed, since he was the only one offering any help. “Okay, now let out your line, a real lot, and walk backward.” She unraveled the wiry string, the kids watching the scene with interest. “I’m going to hold it up. You’re gonna run when I say go,” he said, taking a baseball cap out of his back pocket and putting it on.

  She recognized him then. He was the man at the ferry in the “H” sweater. A bachelor. The bachelor everyone was angling for.

  He was staring at the smooth length of line, and when it started to pull slightly from the force of the wind, he sputtered: “Go!” Heddy took off running, tugging at the spindle as the kite pulled away from her. The line went slack, and once again, she felt the thud of the kite against the ground. She sighed.

  He scratched at his head. “You have to, well, you have to hold the spindle up as you run.” He pulled up the neck of his tomato-red T-shirt and wiped at his mouth. He was sw
eating, his cheeks an exasperated crimson. He seemed different from the guy throwing the football on the ferry dock. Around his friends, he’d been bolstered with self-assurance and seemed like he could talk to anyone, but here in this empty field, he didn’t seem very confident at all.

  “Can you two please make yourself useful?”

  Teddy’s hands were on his hips and he was shaking his head in disbelief, something his mother did all the time.

  The man gave Teddy a double take. “Don’t be like that, kid.”

  Anna had given up watching and was rolling down the hill on her back.

  “Then get the kite in the air,” Teddy demanded.

  The man looked at Heddy with something close to pity, at least that’s how it felt, or maybe it was just her realizing she would have to take the abuse of this snot-nosed kid for the rest of the summer.

  “Try one more time,” the man blurted at her. “But hold the spindle higher.” She took off running again, right on cue, her hair coming loose from her ponytail. The line seemed to unravel from the spindle, and the wind tugged at it, carrying the kite up into the sky with a whoosh. She watched it climb over them, unraveling the taut thread in whatever direction the kite pulled, airborne and sailing with the wind.

  “You actually got it up, mister.” Teddy ran under the kite, chasing its nimble twists and turns, and Anna jumped up.

  “Higher, higher,” Anna called.

  Heddy grinned, thankful the man helped rescue them from disappointment. “Thanks. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  He mumbled something—she assumed “you’re welcome”—as he continued to watch the kite dance in the cloudless blue sky.

  “I’m Heddy.” She stepped closer, careful to keep the kite steady in one hand as she outstretched the other.

  “Sullivan.” He shook her hand quickly, then pushed his hands in his pockets. “It should stay up now.”

  “I didn’t think it would be so hard to fly.”

  “You always take this much abuse from Team Williams?” His five o’clock shadow gave him the look of a man on holiday.

  “Some days are better than others,” she laughed. “So you know them? Teddy, come take a turn.” She carefully handed him the spool, and the child smirked with satisfaction, feeling like a big boy.

  “The kid. He doesn’t mean to be so rude.” Sullivan stared at Teddy, the way a parent did when they saw themselves in a child.

  Heddy raised an eyebrow. “And how would you know?”

  He blushed. “Just remember that at some point he’ll be a grown man embarrassed by all the things he said to his babysitters over the years. Like I am.” Sullivan averted his eyes, like the sight of her might set off something unexpected. He hadn’t looked at her on the ferry that day, either, at least not directly.

  “I’m sure you weren’t that bad. So, what, are you on the kite team at school or something?” She knew it was ridiculous, and still, she’d said it.

  “Nah, I like to play with gravity.” He pushed his glasses up higher on the bridge of his nose and shrugged. “Physics major.”

  Well, that explains it, she thought. The guys in her science classes in high school were just like him: slight and jittery, terrible at making conversation, their pocketed plaid shirts and glasses a reminder of how much time they spent thinking about theorems and experiments Heddy didn’t care to understand. She wondered about those boys sometimes, how they’d look if they took off their glasses, stopped looking so square.

  “Is babysitting your intended career?” he asked.

  “Gosh, no. Lit major.”

  “Lit, huh? Well, you have a nice way with them.” He rubbed his palms together, perhaps a nervous tic, and when their eyes met, she smiled at him, and he finally smiled back before looking away.

  “Well, thank goodness for physics,” she said. “These two were ready to ditch me.”

  The dog tangled himself in the sycamore and barked. Behind him, a white pickup pulled up to the post office across the field, a surfboard popping out over the tailgate. Even from there, Heddy could see Ash Porter open his door, and since she had on the Dior sunglasses Jean-Rose had lent her, she didn’t have to hide her glances at Ash. He was standing next to his truck in loose white shorts, a collared short-sleeve shirt with a thick vertical black stripe on either side of the buttons, a straw fedora on his head. He was sifting through a few letters.

  “You don’t want to date a guy like him.” Sullivan rubbed the palm of his hand with the other.

  Heddy thought it curious he even noticed the truck. She cleared her throat. This guy had something to say about everything. “What do you know of him?”

  “I told you already: a fool’s paradise,” he said. So he remembered her, too. But when she glanced at him, to confirm he was toying with her, his expression turned up blank.

  There was someone else in Ash Porter’s passenger seat. She had squinted to see who, but the blonde sat low in the seat. The truck zoomed away, leaving Heddy standing there, sucker punched. Of course Ash had a girlfriend. He probably had several.

  The dog barked again, louder this time, pulling on his leash in the direction of the kite. “Heddy, I can’t keep the kite up!” Teddy yelled, as it plunged down.

  She went to him, placing the kite back in Teddy’s hands, but labored to remember how to get it back in the air. “Sullivan, wait. How do I know where the wind is?”

  Sullivan, who had started toward his dog, turned, seeming to like that she was asking. “Watch the line. It will jiggle. Hey, there’s a carnival on Friday. Maybe I’ll see you there.”

  “I’ll be sure to say hello,” she said. He shaded his eyes from the sun, like he was debating saying something else, but then he turned and continued to his dog, still barking from the tree.

  * * *

  Ted grilled flounder over charcoal that evening, and for the first time since she arrived, they ate dinner on the porch all together, the picnic table covered with a white linen tablecloth. Crickets chirped a chorus from the bushes, while citronella candles burned their unmistakable scent. The dinner started with small talk, but the children wouldn’t stay in their seats, particularly Teddy, and both parents grew so aggravated that they yelled more than talked.

  “Anna!” Jean-Rose got up from the table, grabbing the child’s hand away from her ketchup. She had painted her white sundress with red circles. “Heddy, do something about this. Oh, Anna.”

  Heddy’s fork clattered when she dropped it on her plate, and she wiped clean the child’s fingers with a cloth napkin. Ted took a swig of his beer, slamming it on the table, which made her jump. His jaw was tense with anger, and she thought of her priest, how when he was particularly rapt, his veins bulged with fury.

  “Eww, you’re bleeding,” Teddy chanted. Then Anna threatened to wipe a ketchup-soaked finger on Teddy, and someone spilled milk, Heddy couldn’t remember who, and it soaked Ted’s lap, making him push backward out of his seat.

  “God dammit.” He wiped away a sheet of milk with his hand.

  Jean-Rose put her hand over his. “Ted, they’re children.” But her voice was abrupt, and the outburst was unexpected, like a balloon pop. Heddy saw fear in Jean-Rose’s narrowed eyes.

  “Jesus Christ, Jeannie. You need to see to it that they behave.” He threw his napkin and it landed at his feet, a man-child having his own kind of fit. “If you weren’t too busy playing tennis to teach them some manners—”

  “If you could teach your son how to be a man.” Jean-Rose dabbed at her mouth.

  Heddy watched Ted’s eyes bulge, like a squeeze toy. He gripped his hands behind his back, holding his wrist so tight he must be hurting himself. Heddy wondered why he wouldn’t let his hand go, what he might do. She went back through the conversation looking for clues to explain his anger, but there were none. Perhaps something was going on at work.

  Heddy wiped up the milk, while Ruth cleared the table of dishes. The air was charged, the way it got when an accusation was lobbed and no one kne
w where it would land next. The children hid under the table, Anna plugging her ears and humming.

  “You’re paranoid.” Ted stormed into the house, Jean-Rose downing her gin and tonic. She stood and swayed, Ruth grabbing an elbow to steady her.

  “Put them straight in the bath,” Jean-Rose’s mascara was going runny in the corners of her eyes, “but not together. Teddy is too old for that.”

  “I don’t want her to give me a bath.” Teddy crawled out from the tablecloth, stepping into a cloud of smoke from his mother’s newly lit cigarette. Anna hummed louder.

  “Nonsense.” Jean-Rose pushed his back toward the door. Harder than Heddy would have liked.

  “I won’t do it.”

  “Teddy, not now. Go upstairs.” The boy inched closer to his mother, like he wanted her to cradle him—Heddy knew, even big kids needed hugging—but Jean-Rose shooed him off.

  Anna ran inside like she was running from a monster, darting up the stairs past her father, who was coming down in fresh white slacks. Heddy felt like she was witnessing something private, something that should be playing out behind closed doors. No one had raised a voice since she’d arrived, and now the landscape seemed to shift all at once, and she thought maybe that’s what happened in a marriage. A couple could be happy sometimes, and miserable others, but something greater kept them together, although she’d yet to figure out what.

  Outside, Ted’s voice was muffled: “I’m going out.”

  Heddy’s step quickened up the stairs when she heard a glass shatter against something, the side of the house, the car, she wasn’t sure. She rushed the kids into the bathroom and turned on the tub faucet, thankful for its thunderous rush of water; it was what she did back in Brooklyn when her mother and grandmother fought about money. But when she turned, neither child was with her.

  “Teddy, come in here,” she called to the boy from Anna’s room. Heddy checked under the bed for them, finally finding Anna sitting in a laundry basket in her dark closet. “What are you doing?” She lifted the child out, rubbing her small back.