Page 11 of Summer Light on Nantucket
The sink in the master bedroom dripped constantly, steadily, turning the white porcelain into stained rust. The beautiful antique mahogany dining table that seated twelve stood on a wide-board floor that ever so faintly slid downward. Fat old books supported the legs at the far end of the table.
“This is a wonderful vacation house,” Bob told Blythe, hugging her from behind, his chin resting on the top of her head. “I’m glad we won’t have to stay with my parents or my sister.”
Their first trip to the island, they arrived at nine in the evening. Bob told his parents they were staying at Blythe’s house and would come over after breakfast the next day. They’d brought sandwiches and chips and an expensive bottle of champagne. The house was chilly because of the rain, so Bob made a fire in the living room fireplace and they discovered that excellent champagne and potato chips went well together.
That evening, he warned her about his sister. Kate was happily married to Jack, with a son, Chip, four, and a daughter, Melissa, two. Jack was a real estate broker. Kate belonged to clubs and boards and committees. They lived in a handsome mansion on Upper Main, not far from their parents’ large, picture-book Victorian.
Bob loved his sister, he stressed, but said she was bossy, nosy, and ambitious. Although they shared a history of growing up together, he found it tiring just being around her. She had to be right about everything. She could argue until you fell off your chair in exhaustion.
“She sounds a bit scary,” Blythe said.
“She is a bit scary,” Bob said. “But she’ll love you.”
Blythe wasn’t so sure.
Bob’s mother was completely wonderful. When Blythe first met her, she couldn’t stop smiling. Celeste was striking, with her stormy dark hair webbed with silver and her dark eyes deep with secrets. She was a hugger, a kisser, a toucher, and when she embraced Blythe on their first meeting, a slight perfume-scented breeze drifted past, and it was so much like the fragrance Blythe used that Blythe immediately felt at home. Celeste was the kind of mother Blythe wanted to be.
Celeste was, as she confessed, a book addict, and in order to have a decent meal occasionally, her husband, Bob’s father, bought the groceries and made the dinner, usually grilling outdoors. The weekend they were there, Celeste did cook, because it rained constantly, and it turned out that she was an excellent cook, serving roasted salmon and vegetables. When she brought the strawberry shortcake, served on gold-rimmed antique Spode china, she also set a can of Reddi-wip on the table, because, she said, everyone enjoyed putting on their own whipped cream, swirling it into towers and peaks. Blythe wondered if Spode china had ever been paired with canned whipping cream before, and she suddenly and completely adored Celeste.
Celeste liked Blythe, too, which over the years became a problem for Bob’s older sister, Kate. Kate was energetic and athletic, a first-rate sailor, golfer, and tennis player. She was the head of the yacht club’sentertainment committee and sat on the boards of dozens of other town committees. She was a do-gooder, full of ideas, and she seemed to run on an innate fuel of competitiveness. She was driven to be first and best, and Blythe admired her, but found her overwhelming and exhausting.
Blythe and Bob wanted to be married on Christmas Day, but Kate strongly vetoed that idea, saying that it wasn’t fair for her brother to kidnap Christmas.
“And think how it will ruin the holiday if you and Blythe get divorced!” Kate had cried.
How insulting!Blythe had thought. As if Blythe and Bob would ever get divorced.
Later, when they were alone, Blythe took Bob’s hand in hers.
“Are we making a mistake? They say not to marry the rebound lover.”
Bob looked crushed. “Who isthey? And I certainly don’t consider you my rebound lover.” Grinning, he said, “I wasn’t actually celibate during college.”
“I guess I wasn’t, either. But I never was serious with anyone. I was a very determined student. When I wasn’t in class, I volunteered at a daycare center.” She flashed on memories of college men who were dangerously good-looking, and men who were brilliant and boring. She’d guarded her heart very carefully.
Bob and Blythe were married on Nantucket on New Year’s Eve. They honeymooned in Costa Rica. Blythe’s parents came to their wedding. They stayed with Blythe in the large old house her grandmother left her. They were amiable and generous, and they returned to Arizona where Blythe’s mother recovered from the damp air.
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On their honeymoon, Blythe said, “I want to have three or four children.”
Bob considered this with his lawyerly expression, stroking his chinas if he had a goatee there. “I want a big family, too! But maybe three? Four is a lot.”
“Bob, I was an only child. I really would like four children, but if it means that much to you, I’ll settle for three.”
“Three children,” Bob said. They did a high five.
Bob’s father was a lawyer, although, as Holly once said, not the kind people hate. Bob followed in his footsteps, joining the Boston branch of his father’s firm. With the whopping big check his parents gave them for a wedding present, they were able to buy a house in one of the tree-lined suburbs of Boston, where they lived with their growing brood most of the year.
In the summer and often at Christmas, the family stayed on Nantucket in the large, light-filled house that was now Blythe’s. From the house, they could bike or walk to town or bump down the cobblestone lane to South Beach Street and the Jetties tennis courts, the Sandbar restaurant, and the long, wide expanse of golden beach gently sloping to the clear waters of Nantucket Sound.
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And now here Blythe was, in her beloved Nantucket house, where she would once again sleep alone in her queen-sized bed as a cool night breeze drifted through an open window.
First, though, Blythe wanted to call Celeste, to tell her they were here and would be available for dinner tonight. She stretched out on her bed and opened her phone, eager to talk with her beloved mother-in-law.
Someone answered in a haughty voice. “Benedicts’ house.”
