Page 48 of Summer Light on Nantucket
What should she do about Teddy?
He should have a man to talk to. Was it a problem for Teddy that he had three sisters and no brother? That his father figure was out of the house and not around to deal with problems? She would have to discuss this with Bob. Bob didn’t like being strict or handing out discipline, but he was going to have to at least talk with Teddy.
Could she talk about Teddy with Brooks?Shouldshe? Brooks was a seventeen-year-old male, so he would have insight into the moods and emotions of a thirteen-year-old boy. On the other hand, Brooks wasn’t yet an adult. Maybe it wouldn’t be proper for her to involve Brooks with Teddy’s problems. Or, more accurately, with Blythe’s problems because of Teddy’s actions.
Other thoughts tumbled down on top of those thoughts, like heavy boulders in a landslide. Maybe this was the wrong time for her to become involved with a man, to bring a new man into her children’s lives. But what aboutherlife,herhappiness?
Was she sex-starved, narcissistic, or simply perimenopausal? Did she have her own hormones flooding her system and drowning her judgment? Blythe worried that her common sense was trapped in a spaghetti-like maze. Right now, sea gerbils were the good news.
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The next morning, Blythe woke early, full of worry and hope.
Her phone pinged. Lazily, she reached for it on the bedside table. “Hello?” Her voice was husky. She needed coffee.
“Good morning, Blythe.” It was Aaden.Aaden!His voice was the background music to her adolescence. Hearing it now, over the phone, transported her back to those early days when they first fell in love and thought they’d be together forever. Sneaking a kiss behind their locker doors. Raking leaves together and diving into the pile, holding each other and laughing, gold and ruby leaves caught in their hair, on their sweaters, on their jeans. Snowy-night phone calls when a storm iced the pavements to slickness and she or Aaden had winter colds and they croaked to each other for hours about their love. The spring afternoon when they had taken their terrifying SATs and exploded out onto the elementary school playground to scream as they zipped downsmall people’s slides and Aaden pushed Blythe’s swing so high in the air she thought she could fly away.
The evening when Aaden told her he was going to Ireland for college.
Now, it was a future neither one of them had imagined. His voice was the same velvet voice she’d heard for so many happy months so many years ago.
“Could you have breakfast with me? Something has come up and I have to fly to Dublin today. I’ll be back, but I want to talk to you before I go.”
“Um, sure, I guess.” She sat up in bed and tossed her covers aside.
“I’ll pick you up in ten minutes.”
“Please make it fifteen.”
She quickly showered and dressed. All the children were in bed, Teddy snoring, Daphne reading, Holly tapping away on her laptop, and Miranda whispering on her phone.
Blythe left a message on the blackboard telling them where she was going and when she’d be home and they should get their own breakfasts.
Aaden arrived in Arnie’s ancient station wagon with wood paneling. Blythe saw him and slipped out the front door, waving as she walked to the car.
He leaned over and kissed her cheek. She inhaled his Aaden aroma, a mix of mint and musk, which she’d always laughingly called “Irish Spring.”
They talked lightheartedly about the weather, the traffic congestion, the sharks beginning to circle the island. At the restaurant, they placed their orders and settled back with their coffee.
“You look great, Blythe,” Aaden said. “Salt air is doing you good.”
Blythe thanked him and kept her gaze on her coffee, protecting herself from his charm.
She didn’t look at Aaden, but stirred her coffee, as if she hadn’t already stirred it. Now that he was here, so near her, she wasconfused. She’d been attracted by him the night they had dinner and attracted yesterday to Nick. She felt unbalanced, emotionally dizzy.
“You said on the phone that you’re leaving.”
“I’ve got to go back to Ireland. For a week or so. But I’ll return to Nantucket as soon as possible. Arnie has invited me to stay with him whenever I want.”
“I’m glad we got to catch up,” Blythe told him, as if she didn’t care if she saw him again.
“Whoa.” Aaden frowned. “Blythe. I’m going to see you again. Absolutely. It might be ten days instead of a week, but I will return and I want to spend time with you. Lots of time.”
Blythe lifted her eyes. She did love looking at the man. He seemed even more handsome now, with flecks of gray in his hair. His voice was as seductive as always.
She still loved him. She would always love him, in a way. But would she ever trust him? Really, the situation was impossible. He would never leave Ireland and she would never leave her children.
“Aaden, don’t hurry back because of me.”
