Elin Hilderbrand - 28 Summers

He doesn’t wait for an answer. He just lets them in, one by one.

Cooper.

Fray.

Leland.

Jake.

Everything is okay, she thinks. They’re around the harvest table, their faces glowing from the flame of one votive candle. Cat Stevens is on the stereo: I’m looking for a hard headed woman.

Everything is still okay.

Cooper is overcome; she can see that. She feels guilty about leaving him like this; first their parents, now her. She hopes he finds someone new, someone who will stay. He kisses her forehead.

She says, “In my next life, I’m going to be cool like you.”

“I hate to tell you this, sis,” he says, his voice breaking, “but you’re already cool.”

“Now you’re lying.”

“I love you, Mal,” he says, and then he disappears out the bedroom door.

Fray is next. He roams the room, hands stuffed into the pockets of his very expensive jeans. He’s jittery; too much caffeine, probably. All that coffee.

“Mal,” he says. “Come on, Mal.” His voice is pleading, as though she has the power to change what’s happening here.

“Thank you,” she says. It’s funny, right? Peculiar funny and funny -funny that they got drunk at Cooper’s second wedding and Fray eased up her ballet-slipper-silk sheath and in that impulsive moment, a lark for both of them, she ended up with the greatest treasure of her life. Their son.

He kisses her cheek and then he too goes out the door.

Leland takes Mallory’s hand. Mallory is furious with Leland; she wants to scream. She still has one last fight in her. What she says is “Hi, Lee.”

She doesn’t say: You are my best friend, the best friend of my life.

She doesn’t say: I need you to keep an eye on Link. Please, Lee, fill my shoes. You, Apple, Anna. He’s going to need all three of you.

She doesn’t say: Go win Fifi back. You can do it. You deserve to be happy.

“Are you angry?” Leland asks.

There are so many reasons to be angry: the duck confit and lamb shank, brunch at the Elephant and Castle, the rooftop thing at Harrison’s, “suggestible…a follower,” Leland’s Letter .

“Disappointed,” Mallory says, and after a beat, Mallory and Leland grin like the crazy girls they were on Deepdene Road.

Leland bends down and squeezes Mallory so tight that it hurts and then she, too, leaves the room.

How had Jake described it so long ago? The dog that chased the cat that chased the rat.

Everything is still okay.

Jake is there. He’s there! Mallory can smell the browned butter sizzling in the pan before he makes the omelets. She can see him standing on Tuckernuck, their provisions at his feet, wondering if Mallory is ever going to pick him up or if he’s supposed to know where to walk, how to find her. She can hear him reading his fortune aloud: Practice makes perfect .

Between the sheets, she says.

“Are you going to leave too?” Mallory asks.

“No,” Jake says, and he pulls the chair right up next to her. “If it’s okay with you, I think I’ll stay.”

Let’s go back a few days to St. Louis and the top-secret task Jake assigned to Avery Silver.

An acoustic guitar? Avery thought. Where am I going to find an acoustic guitar? But St. Louis was a Mississippi River town and therefore a music town. Avery used her personal assistant, Google, and in less than five minutes she had rented a Yamaha Dreadnought-whatever-whatever-whatever for a hundred and five bucks for the week and guess what—the place delivered.

Now Jake pulls the guitar out of its case and slides the strap over his head and shoulder. Mallory makes a noise. He looks over. She’s laughing.

“No,” she says. “Are you…”

“Yes,” he says, sounding way more confident than he feels. He had to double-check the chord progression, but once he saw it, everything came flooding back. Jake closes his eyes, and suddenly, he’s a college senior again, sitting on the end of Cooper Blessing’s bed with the phone next to him and Mallory on the other end of the line, waiting to hear if he’s any good.

He’s far more nervous now than he was then.

He strums the D-minor chord, then G, then C. It sounds okay.

He whispers, “This is for you, Mal. My hardheaded woman.”

And he begins to sing.

While all the adults are with his mother, Link steps out back to get some air. He takes in the vista: the pond, the rugosa rose, the flash of amethyst irises through the reeds, the swans paddling side by side like a long-married couple. Nantucket Island in June.

Mallory wants her ashes scattered on the pond. The ocean, she fears, will carry her away, and she wants to stay right here.

Suddenly, Link startles; he’s just seen, sitting in the passenger side of one of the rental Jeeps in the driveway, a girl with dark hair and deep brown eyes. She has the car window down and is unabashedly staring at him. Link stands up a little straighter. He strides over. “Sorry, I just saw you there. I’m Lincoln Dooley.”

“Bess McCloud,” she says. “I’m Jake’s daughter. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Okay,” Link says. “Wow.”

Bess eyes his T-shirt. “Do you go to South Carolina?”

“I just finished my sophomore year,” he says.

“I just finished mine too,” she says. “I go to Johns Hopkins. What’s your major?”

He’s afraid to tell her it’s political science. That would be weird, right? When her mother is running for president?

He shrugs. “Political science.”

“Hey!” she says. “Mine too!” She gazes past him, at the ocean. “I’ve been stuck with my parents in hotels and conference centers for weeks. Do you think it would be okay if I walked down to the beach? Is there a path?”

Link opens the Jeep door and offers Bess McCloud his hand. What did Sabina tell him? Fill your cup .

“There is,” he says. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

Get Elin Hilderbrand’s sizzling summer read SUMMER OF ’69 here

Acknowledgments

Let me start with a story. As many of you know, I write two novels a year and I’m the mother of three. I also do over forty speaking engagements and book signings per year. Back in October 2019, I was on tour promoting What Happens in Paradise. It was a “short tour”—nine events in eight days. I had two events to do in Houston on the same day, the first of which was an eight a.m. talk to a book group in a private home. I arrived in Houston from St. Louis at one in the morning, and I’m not going to lie: I considered canceling, not only because I wanted to sleep but because, while I was on that tour, I was also finishing this book. I texted the organizer of the book group and she told me that there were two women who were driving to Houston from Rockport, Texas—nearly four hours away—just to see me. Now, listen, I’m neither a saint nor a hero, but on hearing this, I decided I couldn’t cancel.

The women’s names were Sabina Diebel and Gloria Rodriguez. Sabina Diebel was an RN hospice case manager. When I spoke to her, she told me that she’d had to take time off work to come to the book group but that her supervisor had been excited for her to “fill her cup.” Hospice care is so emotionally draining that it’s important for caregivers to do the things in their free time that bring them joy. All of this went immediately into the book, as you know. Thank you, Sabina, and thank you, Gloria, for making the drive. The book is better because of you.

To all of my readers who have made sacrifices to meet me in person—driving long distances (one man in St. Louis drove his mother five hours to see me!) and getting babysitters and missing other commitments—thank you. I’m humbled and honored. Meeting you is what fills my cup.