Elin Hilderbrand - Summer People

When David answered the phone, she said, “Hi, it’s me.”

“Me?”

“Bethie,” she said. Flirting with him already. “How’s Piper?”

“Two centimeters dilated, ninety percent effaced,” David said, sounding like a doctor himself. “She’s as big as a house. I mean, huge. I can’t believe this is my little girl. I just can’t believe it.”

“Yeah,” Beth said. They were silent a minute, listening to the static of the cell phone. “You’ll call us as soon as…”

“As soon as,” David said. “The doctor said any time now. How long are you staying?”

“We’re staying until Piper has the baby,” Beth said. “That’s why we came, after all.”

“Right,” David said.

“Has she… changed her mind about adoption?” Beth asked.

“No.”

“So, how will it work, then?Will they come get the baby? Take the baby away?”

“There’s a procedure, yes. The people from the agency are professionals, Beth. They’ve met with Piper and gone over the range of emotions she can expect. They give her twenty-four hours with the baby, then she signs a document and the baby goes. Piper made it clear that she and Garrett want to name the baby, and that’s allowed.”

“She and Garrett want to name the baby?” Beth asked.

“Yes.”

Beth took a deep breath of the shockingly cold air inside Horizon. The house felt stingy without any heat. They were all going to spend the night on air mattresses and sleeping bags in front of the fire. Roast hot dogs, that kind of thing. It would be fun for about three hours.

“I don’t know if I’m going to be able to handle this, David. Watching some stranger carry away my grandchild. How about you?”

He sighed. “Oh, Beth. I’ve lived with this decision every day for the last nine months. I’ve had to deal with people coming up to me on the street, telling me how irresponsible I am as a parent and Piper is as a person. She lost two of her closest friends, she says the kids at school stare at her all the time, and her teachers treat her differently, too. They treat her like she’s stupid. But she’s not, of course. She got into BU and BC, and was wait-listed at Harvard. Her grades are the best they’ve ever been and she’s going to college, just like she said she was going to. But it’s been hard. I guess you haven’t had to give it much thought while you were in New York.”

There he was, using the same old refrain- I had to live with the pain while you were away . God, this was a bitter man. But no, that wasn’t quite right. He had a point; she was lucky. She had always been able to lead a double life; she had always been able to escape.

“I gave it a lot of thought,” she said. “I thought of it every day.”

“Did you,” David said. “Well, I bet Garrett didn’t tell his buddies. And I’ll bet you didn’t report it to his teachers. In fact, I’ll bet no one in New York knows why you’re mysteriously off to Nantucket this week.”

Where was all this anger coming from?“Not true,” Beth countered. “My therapist knows.”

“Your therapist,” David said. He breathed forcefully into the phone, then chuckled. “God, I need a therapist. We’ll see you at the hospital then, Bethie?”

She was grateful that he used the nickname. “Okay.”

She hung up the phone and stared at it for a moment, wishing that the conversation had gone better, that there had been some kind of connection between the two of them. This was the man she fantasized taking to brunch in Soho?

It was true that none of the kids had acknowledged the real reason they were here. On the ride up, Marcus and Winnie perused the Colgate catalog and admission packet line by line, trying to figure out what Marcus’s freshman year might be like. (“It sounds cool,” Winnie concluded. “It sounds cold,” Marcus corrected her.) Garrett drove the entire way and didn’t take his eyes off the road except to collect money for tolls. Now, all three kids stampeded into the house with bags of groceries-a pile of Duraflame logs and every kind of junk food imaginable. This was a camping trip for them. Winnie and Marcus braved the icy staircase to the beach because they wanted to check out the ocean, and Beth sent Garrett to the basement to switch on the water heater. When he came back upstairs, she said, “I just spoke with David on the phone. He said any day now. He said he’s going to call us.” God, even she couldn’t say it: Piper is due any day now. He’s going to call us when the baby is born.

Garrett’s face was wooden, expressionless. “Okay, thanks.”

Beth touched his shoulder. He pulled away. He was so foreign to her. In six months, he would leave for Princeton and she would never know him again, not really. Such was the sadness of sons.

That night in Horizon was unlike any Beth had spent there. Because of the cold, she supposed-the cold changed things. For a few years, when Beth was in college, she had arrived in early May, when the house was chilly and damp. She kept the fireplace lit and walked around in her grandfather’s Irish fisherman’s sweater and jeans and thick socks. But those days didn’t come close to this kind of cold-a cold that required the Newtons to sleep in fleece jackets inside their flannel-lined sleeping bags in front of the fire. Winnie and Garrett brought the same gear they wore to Hunter Mountain-Bodnar ski jackets and Patagonia microfiber pants. Marcus had to make do with layers-T-shirt, long-sleeved T-shirt, sweatshirt, a fleece that he borrowed from Beth when the leather jacket he brought grew stiff and almost cracked.

They got a fire blazing, and when the sun went down they roasted hotdogs, made popcorn in an old-fashioned popcorn maker, and Beth got the stovetop working where she warmed up cider. They all took showers-Beth was the last one in and her hot water conked halfway through. She dried off as quickly as she ever had in her life and jumped back into her clothes.

They arranged their sleeping bags lengthwise so that everyone’s head faced the fire. Winnie and Marcus were in the middle, Beth and Garrett on either side. The kids talked about school mostly, and college. Beth drifted in and out of the conversation; her mind was consumed with her conversation with David and with her own discomfort. She interrupted them.

“Tomorrow,” she said, “we’re checking into the Jared Coffin.

” Before they could protest or cheer (Garrett and Marcus were all for it; Winnie liked things just as they were, cozy like this), the phone rang.

Piper was in labor.

“Her water broke right in the middle of The West Wing, and now her contractions are a minute and a half apart,” David said. “We just got to the hospital a few minutes ago. You can either come now-it might mean a long time waiting-or I can call you when the baby is born.”

Beth looked at the kids. Even Marcus’s expression was that of the keenest interest. They would never sleep, that much was clear.

“We’ll come now,” she said.

Compared to Horizon, the hospital was positively tropical. Beth shed a layer of clothing before they reached the admitting desk.

“Which way is labor and delivery?” she asked.

A nurse directed them upstairs. Standing in the elevator, Beth squeezed Garrett’s hand. He squeezed back.

“It’s going to be okay, honey,” she said. “Babies are born all the time, every day, all over the world.”

“I know, Mom,” he said.

The elevator opened on the second floor and they followed signs. Beth was hurrying, though she, who had been in labor for eighteen hours with the twins, knew how long it could take. They came upon a pastel-colored waiting room filled with overstuffed sofas and chairs. The kids flung themselves all over the furniture-yes, it was more appealing than sleeping on the floor of that icebox. There was a woman on one of the couches reading a copy of Martha Stewart Living , and she looked up, alarmed at the invasion. She was very attractive, with honey-colored hair tied back in a braid. The woman looked them over, no doubt wondering what they were doing there-this was a maternity ward, not the common space of a college dorm. The woman opened her mouth to speak.