Elin Hilderbrand - Summer People

Marcus was the first one to come down.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” he whispered. He was wearing the same white oxford cloth shirt he’d worn the day they arrived-Beth didn’t recall seeing it at any other time this summer. She closed her eyes and remembered opening the door to their apartment in New York and finding Marcus there, wearing this shirt, carrying his black leather duffel bag, which now was packed and waiting at the bottom of the stairs. The son of Constance Bennett Tyler, convicted murderer. But he was more than that, as Arch had promised. This was a fine young man- smart, considerate, good in a way that so few people were good anymore. When Beth opened her eyes, she realized how much she would miss him. He had become like a third child to her.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Beth asked. She wasn’t quite sure what she meant by that-all she knew was that she wanted to make the rest of Marcus’s life easier for him, as easy as his days on the beach here had been.

Marcus wondered if Winnie had said anything to Beth about the five hundred dollars, because her words sounded like an offer of money. But he’d already made up his mind to get a job as soon as he returned to Queens. He sat down at the kitchen table and let Beth pour milk on his cereal. “There’s no way I can thank you for this summer,” he said. “This summer saved me.”

“Oh, Marcus.”

“It gave me peace. And it gave me love.”

“Well, you gave us things, too, you know,” Beth said. “You gave us yourself.”

“That doesn’t seem like much in comparison,” he said.

Except it was. At that moment, Beth understood that Arch hadn’t invited Marcus to Nantucket for only Marcus’s sake. Arch had invited Marcus to Nantucket for all their sakes-Beth’s, Gar-rett’s, Winnie’s-so they could learn from him about character. About how to rise above.

“You have to promise to come see us,” Beth said. “You have to promise to let us know how you’re doing.”

“I will.” He dug into his cereal with gusto. All summer, Beth had loved to watch him eat because he was so enthusiastic about the food she put in front of him. She remembered with an ache in her throat the way he’d tied the bib around his neck before eating his first lobster. It was going to be a huge loss to have him leave their midst. She would wonder about him all the time; she would worry.

“We’re coming back here in March or April, when the baby is born,” she said. “Just for a week or so. Will you come back with us then?”

“I don’t know if Garrett wants me here,” Marcus said. “He might just want family.”

“Marcus,” Beth said. “You are family.”

Marcus smiled, gracing the room with his dimples. Beth could tell he felt as she did-that as long as there was a bright spot on the horizon, they might make it successfully through today.

“Sure,” he said.

And so they went: out to the car, which was packed to the top, once again. Garrett sat up front and Winnie and Marcus climbed in the back. Beth stood in the front door-first looking at the car and then turning and looking at the empty house.

“See you in the spring,” she said.

She locked the door and tucked the key under the mat.

The scene at Steamship Wharf was as chaotic as one would expect for Labor Day weekend. The standby line was twenty cars deep. Beth was grateful for her reservation. She pulled into a spot for ticketed cars and let the engine idle. They still had a few minutes before boarding.

“Do any of you want to use the bathroom before we get on the boat?” she asked.

No response. In her rearview mirror, she saw Winnie asleep on Marcus’s shoulder. Garrett was in outer space somewhere, and who could blame him?

A few minutes later, the car in front of theirs inched forward in anticipation. Beth herself was exhausted-she wanted to get the car onto the boat, then pull a pillow out of the back and sleep for an hour. The drive home was always so draining, followed by the torturous business of delivering Marcus to Queens, then unloading all of the stuff from the back of the car and hauling it onto the freight elevator of their building. How would she ever make it through the day?

Finally it was her turn to go. A steamship worker with a grizzled beard motioned her forward. Just before Beth drove up the ramp onto the boat, she saw David’s van and then David himself sitting on the bumper. Wearing khaki shorts, a green polo shirt, the flip-flops, sunglasses. Grinning at her, he lifted his coffee cup in her direction-a toast.

There was no point in analyzing why she felt so happy to see him or how touched she was that he found time in his day to see them off, or how safe she suddenly knew she was-there was someone in the world who cared for her, who probably even loved her, and who would be here on island, waiting, the next time she returned. For now, David was what she needed most: he was her friend.

She decided not to wave; she didn’t want the kids to notice him. He wasn’t there for the kids, anyway; he was there for her. Beth did put down her window and turn her face in his direction. She wanted to give him something to hold on to while she was gone-the memory of her smile, warmed by the summer sun.

T he most amazing aspect of life, Beth thought, was the way that time passed-the days, the months, one following the next without slowing down or stopping for tragedy or triumph.

They returned to New York and-how else could she say it?-resumed their lives. It took two weeks for Beth to readjust to New York, but then one day she woke up and realized everything was back to normal. The laundry was done, the apartment had been cleaned, the last of the Nantucket bread and tomatoes had been consumed-now the kids were devouring bags of apples and gallons of cider, almost faster than Beth could buy them. Winnie had her first physics quiz and she rattled off formulas in a cheerleader’s chant. Garrett had his first soccer game at the end of the week, plus his application for Princeton was due soon, if he wanted to qualify for early admission. One night, Beth found him in Arch’s study on the phone-odd, because he normally took calls on the cordless in the kitchen. He was sitting at Arch’s desk doodling on a legal pad, and with his head bent, he looked so much like Arch that Beth caught her breath, inadvertently announcing her presence-she had planned to slip out of the room unnoticed. But Garrett looked up and saw her and she asked, “Who are you on the phone with, honey?” The typical response whenever she asked either of the kids this was, “None of your business,” but this time Garrett moved his mouth away from the receiver and whispered, “Piper.”

Beth stood in the doorway for a beat. She wanted to ask, How’s she feeling? How’s the baby? What does the doctor say? She wanted to talk to David. The phone line led directly to Nantucket, and although she was now back in New York, Beth yearned to transmit herself there. Instead, she nodded and closed the door.

Winnie started her senior year at Danforth a changed woman. She was no longer the naive goody-goody spoiled brat child of privilege whose life had been torn apart by the untimely death of her father, she was no longer a girl who thought it was okay to wear her father’s Princeton sweatshirt as though it were a mourning band or torture her body by denying it food. And she was no longer a virgin, physically or emotionally.

While it was true that her relationship with Marcus changed- there was no way to keep up the intensity of their friendship when they lived apart-it ended up being okay for both of them. Winnie’s time was occupied by school. She nurtured the friendships that she’d all but ignored as of March sixteenth, and she tried to foster friendships with one or two of the African American kids at her school, although she soon realized that just because these people were black did not mean they had an excellent character like Marcus. Winnie did her best to eat as much as she could and three afternoons a week she worked out in Danforth’s weight room as she prepared for the upcoming swim season. She was going to surprise everyone on her team by trying the butterfly this year.