Elin Hilderbrand - Summer People

Beth adored the trappings of motherhood: the pacifiers, the wooden blocks, the Cheerios underfoot, the darling outfits (always matching boy/girl outfits until the twins went off to kindergarten.) She loved Sesame Street and playgrounds and Pat the Bunny and even nursing the kids when they had earaches and the chicken pox. Other mothers complained, secretly, that kids took up so much time, that they left the house a mess-fingerprints on the TV screen, and yes, Cheerios underfoot-that they sucked the intelligence out of everyday life. These complaints baffled Beth. She didn’t have a job outside of the home, maybe that was it, but she never expected Winnie and Garrett to appreciate Chagall or Bizet at age three. She didn’t care that they took all her time-what, she wondered, could she possibly be doing that would be more worthwhile?

As the kids grew, life got more interesting. There were friends and multiplication tables and soccer. Trips to the dentist, to the Bronx Zoo, to Wollman Rink for ice skating every Christmas Eve. Then high school-advance placement classes, soccer team (Garrett), swim team (Winnie), phone calls, proms, learner’s permits.

Beth loved it all. Yes, she did.

But when Arch died, one of the many, many things that changed was the way she felt about her children. It wasn’t that she loved them less-if anything, she loved them more. Especially since they were dangerously close to leaving home; a year from now, they’d be headed for college. What Beth felt was just an occasional sense of relief-when they walked out the door in the morning to go to school, for example. Dr. Schau assured her it was perfectly normal: Beth was alone now, her job was doubly hard. She’d lost not only her husband but her coparent, and so all the duties she once shared with Arch now fell to her alone. It was perfectly normal to feel relief at escaping the pressure, if only for a little while.

Beth ran all the way to Madaket, the hamlet at the western tip of the island. She stopped at the drawbridge that looked out over Madaket Harbor and drank her bottle of water, slowly, cautiously, to avoid getting cramps. There were sailboats and redand-white buoys bouncing gently in the breeze. Beth was dripping with sweat. She worried that she’d come too far and wouldn’t make it home.

But the way home was into the wind and that cooled Beth off somewhat, and the water helped, and she allowed herself to think about the dinner that night. David Ronan was going to set foot in her house for the first time since August 31, 1979, when Beth’s father threw him out. That morning was such ancient history, such a drop in the ocean by now, and yet it caused Beth’s chest to contract with guilt. The best thing was to have this dinner and put the past behind them.

Beth made it all the way back to where the road turned to dirt before she had to stop and walk. She judged it to be almost two o’clock and she was parched. The Evian bottle had a quarter inch of water left, enough to get the dusty film out of her mouth. She’d run eleven or twelve miles. She felt light, clean, and completely spent.

A car rumbled up behind her, a horn beeped. She stepped into the tall grass to let the car pass, but when she turned around, she saw it wasn’t a car and it wasn’t passing. It was David Ronan in his Island Painting van idling there in the road, window down.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.” Beth wiped her forehead. Well, here was the worst possible luck. She was slick with sweat and coated with dirt and certainly she stank to high heaven. Not to mention her hair. “Are you… working out here? You have a job out here?” Her teeth were gritty.

“No, actually, I was headed to your house. I need to talk to you.”

“Oh, really? Why?” Though Beth feared she knew: Rosie didn’t want to come to dinner. And who could blame her? Especially with Arch gone. It would be a sadly uneven equation; Beth had considered this numerous times since leaving the Stop & Shop on Tuesday.

“I didn’t think it was fair to show up tonight without telling you something first,” David said. “There’s something I have to explain.”

Beth looked nervously in both directions. No one was coming. She remembered from their conversation at the store that there was something David wanted to explain, but she hadn’t even let herself venture a guess. And now here was David tracking her down because clearly whatever it was couldn’t wait.

David motioned for her to come closer, which was not something she was particularly anxious to do. But she obeyed and stood only inches from his open window. She glanced into his van: it was messy with clipboards and newspapers and a couple of wadded-up bags from Henry’s. He was listening to NPR. Then Beth caught sight of something on the dashboard-a yellow stick-’em on which a single word was written “Beth.” Her name was stuck to his dashboard right where he could see it. Her name.

“Rosie’s not coming to dinner,” David said.

As Beth suspected. A host of indignations rose in her chest: Rosie was being childish, jealous, unreasonable. But she said, simply, “Oh?”

David turned down the radio and squinted out the windshield. His sunglasses hung around his neck on a Croakie. He wore a blue chambray shirt and navy blue shorts, the same black flip-flops. Beth was amazed at how clean he looked even though he was in the painting business. He was the owner, of course; Beth was pretty sure he didn’t go near any actual paint.

“Rosie left,” he said.

“What?”

“Rosie left. She left me and the girls.”

Beth pushed the lock button of David’s door down, then pulled it back up again. She heard an approaching engine and saw a car coming toward them.

“Oh, shit,” she said.

The other car slowed to a stop, waiting for Beth to move, but she could do nothing more than grind the soles of her Nikes into the dirt and will the road to swallow her up. She should never have asked David for dinner. She should have let him go on his merry way and forgotten all about him. She should have kept him safely in her past where he belonged-yet now, here he was, most definitely occupying her present. Right now-and tonight, without a wife.

“Shit,” Beth said again. The driver of the other car hit his horn then shrugged at Beth as if to say, What, exactly, would you like me to do?

“Will you get in?” David said. “Please? So we can talk?”

“Get into your van?” She tried to swallow but the inside of her mouth was like crumbling plaster. “Don’t you have work?”

“Work can wait. Hop in.”

Beth saw she had no choice. She ran around and climbed in the passenger side. She discovered a bottle of water hidden underneath The Inquirer & Mirror. This was a very small positive.

“Mind if I have a swig?” she asked. “I’m dying of thirst.” “Help yourself.” David said. “Sorry I don’t have anything stronger.” He started to drive. “Shall we go to your house?”

“No,” Beth said. “No, no. Let’s… well, let’s drive around or park somewhere.” She was sorry as soon as she said “park somewhere,” because it brought back memories of when she and David had parked at the beach right up the road and made love in the sand. “Let’s drive around.”

He stepped on the gas and Beth appreciated the cool wind through her window. She finished the entire bottle of water, trying not to panic. Trying not to think of Garrett. Trying not to bombard David with questions, the most obvious being, Why didn’t you just tell me at the store?

“So,” David said.

“So,” Beth said. “So Rosie left. Are you going to tell me what happened?”

“She moved to the Cape after Christmas. She said the island was suffocating her. It was too small, too limited, and suddenly after eighteen years of living here, not at all what she wanted. And she said I was emotionally cruel.”