Elin Hilderbrand - 28 Summers

“If Dad says it’s okay for you to stay on Nantucket, I’m not going to argue,” Mallory says, and this placates Link. He puts his earbud back in.

But Fray will never okay it, Mallory thinks. She has nothing to worry about. Her time with Jake is safe.

Fray okays it.

“What?” Mallory says. She and Link are home now, home sweet home; it’s August on Nantucket, the weather is glorious, the water is cool but not cold, and Mallory swims enough to make up for her lost month. She goes to Bartlett’s Farm for corn, tomatoes, blueberry pie, broccoli slaw, a bouquet of peach lilies. Baseball has already become a distant memory.

“He said I don’t have to if I don’t want to,” Link says. “He thinks maybe Christmas will be better. We’re all going to Hawaii, I guess.”

Mallory says, “It’s my first Christmas without my parents, but yeah, Hawaii sounds great. Have fun.”

“Mom,” Link says, and he grabs Mallory around the middle and squeezes her the way he does when the subject of Senior and Kitty comes up. “You can join us.”

Mallory laughs through her tears. Yes, she’s crying again, for the umpteenth time. Her parents each had their idiosyncrasies. But now she sees that they were her anchors. They were there— Kitty with her tennis and her dreams of British royalty, Senior with his pragmatic worldview. Both of them were perplexed about Mallory’s partnerless lifestyle not because they disapproved of it but because they loved her and wanted her to find someone.

Mallory calls Fray. In the fourteen years that they have been co-parents, she has never spoken to Fray in anger. But today, yes. Today, she is loaded for bear, as the saying goes.

“You told Link he didn’t have to come?” she says by way of greeting. Fray didn’t answer his cell so she has ambushed him on his office phone. She sends his secretary, Mrs. Ellison, a large bag of vanilla caramels from Sweet Inspirations every year at Christmas specifically to ensure this kind of emergency access. “What the hell?”

“He doesn’t want to come,” Fray says. “He was away all summer playing baseball and now he wants to see his friends. I was thirteen once. I get it.”

“Don’t you want to see him? ” Mallory asks. “You’re his father . Don’t you want to put your eyes on him, have the birds-and-the-bees talk, introduce him to his sister?”

“His sister has turned the household upside down,” Fray says. “Anna has postpartum depression. She’s a mess, so she’s getting help, and I’ve hired someone to be with the baby full-time. This isn’t a great summer for me, Mal. Frankly, I was relieved.”

“Relieved,” Mallory says. Postpartum depression is serious; she can’t argue with that. Poor Anna. Mallory shouldn’t send Link out to that kind of fraught situation.

“It’s not forever,” Fray says. “I told Link we’d take him at Christmas.”

“That’s very nice, but that plan leaves me alone at Christmas, and I just can’t handle that this year,” Mallory says.

There’s silence. Fray clears his throat. “That hadn’t occurred to me. And I’m sure Thanksgiving will be difficult for you too.”

“I need Link at the holidays,” Mallory says. “The holidays are mine, August is yours. That’s how we do it. That’s what works.”

“But not this year,” Fray says. “I’m so sorry.”

Link isn’t going to Seattle for a month, but what about for two weeks? Or a week? Or just over the long weekend before school, Labor Day weekend? By Labor Day, Anna might be feeling better.

“It’s too far for a weekend trip,” Link says. He sounds seventy years old, Mallory thinks. He sounds like Senior. “Besides, I want to go stay with Uncle Coop over Labor Day weekend.”

“Uncle Coop?” Mallory finally gets a clear breath.

“The Black Keys are playing at Merriweather Post Pavilion,” Link says. “I was hoping maybe Uncle Coop would take me.”

Mallory goes online and buys two seats, row C center, for the Black Keys at Merriweather Post on Saturday, August 30. Link texts all his friends to brag. Mallory steps out onto the deck and sits in her spot in the sun; the boards have two worn-down ovals where her butt cheeks have rested so often for the past twenty-one years. She runs through the reasons this is a good development—Link gets to see his favorite band live in concert, he’ll get some quality time with another male role model…and he will not be here on Nantucket.

Mallory calls Cooper. She has a momentary panic that he already has plans that weekend.

“Hey, are you free Saturday, August thirtieth?” she asks.

“Hey, Mal,” Cooper says. His voice is flat. His natural pep and charm have diminished since Kitty and Senior died. So another benefit of sending Link is that it will cheer Cooper up—win-win-win! “Yeah, I am. Why?”

Mallory uses a measured, concerned-mom voice rather than a snake-oil-salesman voice. Link doesn’t want to see Fray, so he’s staying on Nantucket instead; Mallory wanted to surprise him with something special after his incredible performance in Cooperstown and so she was hoping Coop would be willing to host Link over Labor Day. He wants to see the Black Keys at Merriweather Post. Mallory already bought two tickets, row three.

“I probably put the cart before the horse on the tickets,” Mallory says. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m psyched about the concert,” Coop says. “The concert’s not the problem.”

“Okay?” Mallory says. “What is the problem?”

“The problem is, I know what you’re doing,” Coop says. “I know what you’re doing, Mal.”

Mallory focuses on the sparkling surface of the ocean, the waves turning, turning, turning. “What am I doing?”

“You want me to say it? You want me to say it? Fine, I’ll say it. You’re getting rid of Link.” He pauses. “So you can be alone over Labor Day weekend. I know about you and Jake, Mal.”

Is Mallory surprised to hear this? Yes. Yes, she is. She wants to throw her phone into the water.

Jake told Mallory years ago that Cooper seemed off—maybe sour, maybe indifferent. They didn’t get together anymore. Mallory wasn’t concerned by this. People grew apart. Adults had busy lives. Hell, Mallory now sees Apple only at school and maybe once or twice over the summer because Apple is married with nine-year-old twins; she’s busy . Cooper has such a tumultuous personal life that he might not have evenings to spare, especially with Jake back and forth to Indiana.

But now.

“Coop,” she says.

“I don’t want to be a party to your deception,” he says. “It’s the adultery I object to, yes. But also, Mal, he’s using you.”

“No,” she says.

“He has Ursula,” Coop says. “You have…nobody. It kills me thinking about you spending most of the year by yourself, waiting for him to return. You’re like one of the sea captain’s wives, standing on your widow’s walk. It’s heartbreaking.”

“It’s not like that,” Mallory says. Mallory had relationships with JD, with Bayer, with Scott Fulton—and she had relations with Fray. She has hardly been alone all these years, but she never found anyone she loved or even liked as much as Jake and she didn’t see the point in settling.

She has always felt she has agency in her relationship with Jake. She was the one who decided, that first summer, not to turn it into something bigger. If she had, she’s sure the relationship would have ended, maybe even ended badly, and Jake would be nothing but a name from her past. As unconventional as their romance has been, Mallory believes she made the right choice.

She isn’t famous like Ursula; she isn’t a scene-stealer. She’s just a person—a good person, she has always believed. To Coop, it must seem like she has zero integrity, but where her relationship with Jake is concerned, Mallory would argue she has nothing but integrity. She has never taken more than her share. Their weekends together have a certain purity; they aren’t dirty or mean-spirited. She’s not trying to fool herself; she knows it’s wrong. But it’s also right.