Just When You Think
just when you think
The next morning as she was drinking coffee on the porch, Blythe heard someone come down the stairs. If it was Daphne, she knew she had a hard time ahead. Blythe vowed to be calm, logical, and wise when she spoke with Daphne about what Miranda had said.
It was Daphne.
“Hi, Mom,” she said, as she stepped out onto the porch.
“Hi, Daphne. Want some coffee?” Now that she was face-to-face with Daphne, Blythe’s fury rumbled volcanically in her chest. She couldn’t stand it that this child of all her children had lied to her. Suddenly angry, she said, “Or would you rather have some wacky tobacky?”
Daphne burst out laughing. “Wacky tobacky? How old are you?”
Blythe patted the cushion on the wicker sofa. “I agree. That’s a stupid way to talk about a serious subject. Sit down. Here. Daphne, have you been smoking pot?”
Daphne sat, ducked her head, and shrugged. “Yeah, a little.”
“Have you really been going to nature walks every day?”
Daphne stared at her hands with their unpainted, chewed-up fingernails. “Most of the time.”
“What about the times you don’t go on nature walks?”
“I don’t know. Nothing. I just hang with Lincoln.”
“And you smoke pot.”
“Not always.”
“Does Lincoln’s mother know?”
Daphne glared at Blythe. “What? No! Please don’t call her, Mom. Lincoln has enough to deal with.”
Softly, softly, Blythe thought. “How about you? Do you have enough to deal with?”
“Oh, you mean the death of the entire planet isn’t sufficient?”
Blythe took a moment. “I think you’re troubled by more personal matters and I wish you could talk with me about them.”
“Mom, please. I’m fine.”
“But are you?”
Emotions flickered across Daphne’s face like light through prisms.
Blythe put her hand on her daughter’s arm. Lightly. Not controlling but caring. “What’s going on?”
Daphne muttered, “Nothing, Mom. Everyone my age smokes now and then.”
“Have you been smoking back home? When you were at school? Like, in the bathrooms?”
Daphne shook her head. “No.”
“Did you smoke last summer?”
“No.”
Blythe was used to stubborn adolescent one-syllable responses. She folded her hands in her lap and waited patiently.
Daphne tilted her head down so far she almost fell over. “I love him,” she whispered.
What? Blythe bit her lip to keep from barging into their moment of connection with a barrage of questions. “You love him,” she repeated calmly.
Daphne lifted her face to Blythe’s. Tears welled in her eyes.
“Mom, I love him. I love Lincoln and he can never love me.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” Blythe put her hands to her own lips to keep herself silent.
“I mean,” Daphne began, and then her words spilled out, as if they’d been pressing up against her heart for days, “I mean, we all know Lincoln is gay, but he’s never been with anyone, and he’s never talked about it and this summer, we were sitting on the beach and the sun was setting and no one else was around, and Lincoln said, ‘I’m glad you’re here now,’ and smiled at me and I felt so much love from him to me. It was real, like sunshine, it made my heart swell till I knew it would burst out of my chest, and I kissed him. I thought that was what he wanted. I kissed him. He was so warm and real. But he didn’t kiss me back. I mean, I could feel that he was tolerating my kiss. Like he didn’t want to hurt me or embarrass me because he does love me, he told me he loved me, but not like that. ”
Daphne was crying so hard, a bubble of mucus swelled out of her nose, and any other time, they would both have laughed at that. Now Blythe rose, went inside to take the box of tissues off the counter, then returned to the porch and put it in front of her daughter.
Daphne blew her nose heartily. “I was so embarrassed I wanted to die. I said, ‘Sorry,’ in this icky weak squeak of a voice like a dying mouse. I wanted to run away and never see him again. I’m such a dork. But he was nice. He said nice things. We talked about it, him being gay and how hard it can be even now when gay isn’t supposed to be a problem.”
“Loving anyone can be painful,” Blythe said quietly. “Remember how sad you felt when Johnny moved away.”
Daphne scoffed. “I didn’t feel like this about Johnny.”
“Okay. Lincoln is special. And you can still love him, just not in a boyfriend-girlfriend way. He’s a good guy. A wonderful guy.”
“I know. We talked about it. We agreed to not let it change us. But one day he said he’d had a bad night and his older brother had some skunk, that’s what Gordon calls it, and we tried it. It’s relaxing, Mom. It makes my heart hurt less.”
Blythe sat quietly for a very long time, sorting through her thoughts, wondering how to say the right thing.
“I don’t know why it works this way, Daphne, but I think sometimes we must accept the pain. Let our heart hurt. Be brave. Not hide. I mean, everyone gets hurt and sometimes it’s not even by another person. It’s like…like how we feel on a crisp October morning when we look up and see that the leaves are turning scarlet. It’s so beautiful, and it stabs us in the heart. It hurts so much. Not forever, though. We get used to it, and the air grows cooler, and we have hot chocolate with marshmallows and chili and Halloween candy.”
Daphne grinned. “Mom, you always go for the food.”
“Okay, then, we have cozy bulky sweaters and flannel shirts and warm houses and puffy comforters to sleep under at night.”
“On the moors, the sumac and poison ivy turn scarlet,” Daphne mused. “You put pots of yellow or orange chrysanthemums on the front and back porches.”
“Indian corn on the doors.”
“But now is still summer,” Daphne said, and once again, she sounded bleak.
How can I help her? Blythe wondered.
“Most people love summer.” Blythe studied her forlorn daughter.
Daphne was a reader. A thinker. And she wanted to care for the planet.
Blythe put on her teacher voice. “I want you to find four books about the environment in the library. I want you to read them and summarize them. I want you to write four separate essays of at least a thousand words. And you cannot use AI.”
“Mom.” Daphne rolled her eyes in exasperation.
“You have to do it,” Blythe said. “It’s your punishment for smoking and not telling me where you really were all this summer.”
“You’re weird, Mom.” Daphne almost smiled.
“You have no idea,” Blythe shot back.
Daphne smiled. “I’m going to get dressed and go down to the library. I’ll get lunch at the snack bar.”
“Wear a raincoat,” Blythe advised. She knew that Daphne was old enough to figure out that she should wear a raincoat in the rain, but Blythe also knew that in the language of motherhood, “wear a raincoat” meant “I love you.”
“I will. And I won’t smoke. At least not today.” Daphne grinned and headed up the stairs.
—
Humidity fell over the island like a sticky net. All the children left for the beach. Blythe spent the day shopping for groceries and bread, chatting with Sandy on the phone, and making a slow cooker dinner. She was happily folding laundry when her phone pinged.
Aaden.
She checked the caller ID. She let his call go to voicemail. She leaned against the dryer and listened to his message.
“My darling, I’m flying back to Dublin. I’ve got piles of work to finish. Please, come to Ireland. You know there’s a reason fate has brought us together again. I want to make my future with you. I know you will love Ireland. Please come soon. Please call. I love you.”
Blythe stood for a long while, staring at the small rectangular piece of technology that allowed Aaden to speak to her from across the miles. She didn’t understand how it worked, her magic phone that also took pictures. In a way, it was like her own mind, which now as she sat quietly brought up scenes from the past so vividly her body responded. Remembering her high school days with Aaden brought a pocket of pleasure to her days.
The front door slammed.
Her remembered world vanished.
Blythe knew who had come in from the pace of the footsteps. She knew there was something wrong.
“Teddy?”
“Yeah, Mom, it’s me, I’m going upstairs.”
Blythe rose and went into the hall. “Teddy. Stop. Look at me.”
Heaving an enormous sigh, Teddy glared at her from the stairs.
“You’ve been fighting,” Blythe said.
“No big deal.” Teddy went up two more steps.
“It’s a big deal to me if my son comes home with a bloody nose and a bruised cheek. Come down here right now and talk to me.”
Teddy slumped down the stairs and into the hall. He wouldn’t meet Blythe’s eyes.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Teddy growled.
At times like these, Blythe was sorry Teddy didn’t have a brother. She’d watched enough football to know that for most men, if not all men, an urge to hit something or someone was woven into their DNA. Maybe she had some of that DNA pop up when she was around Kate.
“Were you at the club?” she asked.
“No. At the beach. Jack Winchester shoved Scarlett under the water.”
“So?”
“So I tried to get him off her, and he hit me. But Scarlett came up for air.”
“Was Azey there?” she asked.
“Yeah.” Teddy grinned. “He took a video.”
“He took a video?” Blythe nearly fainted. How the world had changed!
“So if Jack tells his mom I started it, we’ve got proof that Jack was being mean to Scarlett.”
“I’m shocked.”
“I’m not always the one who started the fight,” Teddy said.
“I never thought you were.” Blythe took a moment to think. “I’m sorry you’re hurt, but you know where the first aid kit is.”
Teddy didn’t look at her, but she could see how his face brightened. How he got it that she trusted him to take care of himself. How she didn’t see him as a baby anymore.
She heard him thud up the stairs to the children’s bathroom.
He would be fine. Thank heavens Azey had been there.
Now, what had she been doing before Teddy came home? Blythe’s mind had become like one of those Escher staircases that never go anywhere. She was accustomed to being spontaneous in the summer, but this summer was more complicated than usual. Celeste, Teri, Miranda, Brooks, Teddy, Nick, Aaden.
Aaden.
Oh, what a puzzle. It was exhausting.
She went to her bedroom, took a shower, put on a sundress, and called to check on Celeste. Kate told her Celeste was still sleeping. Blythe offered to take her place to give Kate a break. Kate politely refused. Teddy had gone, leaving a scribble on the blackboard: Kayaking maybe. Daphne was on a nature walk.
Holly had fallen asleep in front of Loud House.
Blythe went out to the back porch and settled on the wicker swing, curled up with a pillow behind her back and a novel in her hand. She couldn’t concentrate. She worried about Teddy. She worried about Celeste. She worried about Miranda. She even worried about Teri. Bob used to criticize her for what he called “pre-worrying” about things that hadn’t happened yet.
Focus, she told herself. She needed to center her mind. She should prepare for teaching in this technological age. She opened her phone and read about common changes in grammar and punctuation. When she read the example of why commas were needed, she laughed.
Let’s eat Grandma.
Let’s eat, Grandma.
When Nick returned to the island, he called Blythe.
—
“Let’s drive out to Great Point,” he suggested. “Boston is so hot and humid and the traffic is jammed and everyone’s cranky. I want fresh air.”
Blythe agreed and packed up a cooler of food and drink and a tote filled with beach towels and sunblock.
He picked her up in his Bronco and headed out to Wauwinet. They stopped at the Trustees of Reservations’ gatehouse to let air out of the tires and trundled past the handsome Wauwinet hotel and onto the soft sandy road leading to Coskata and Coatue. The farther they went, the wilder it got, the landscape swept clean of buildings, the ground thick with beach grass growing next to beach roses twined with poison ivy. The air was sweet and as clear as crystal.
Nick gunned the engine when they arrived at the steep dune dividing ocean from harbor. They flew up the hill and suddenly they were at the end of the world. All they could see in any direction was dazzling ocean and deserted sand. A long stretch of beach extended for miles over the narrow slip of land leading to Great Point, where Nantucket Sound met the Atlantic Ocean in a great clash of waves. Gulls swooped and argued, and oystercatchers, tiny manic birds with long orange beaks, scurried back and forth at the water’s edge.
Blythe said, “Welcome to heaven.”
Nick grinned and focused on keeping the bucking Bronco fixed in the tracks already cut into the deep sand. The closer they came to the point of land where the tall white lighthouse stood, the more seals they saw in the water. Along the shore, fishermen were casting their lines. Finally, they followed the curve of sand to a calmer stretch of beach and Nick brought the Bronco to a stop.
“That was a crazy ride!” Blythe said. “You were really wrestling with the steering wheel. You deserve a beer and a sandwich.”
Nick turned toward her. “Sounds good.”
She unbuckled her seatbelt and moved closer to him. He wore a T-shirt and board shorts and had impressive muscles everywhere, and as he undid his seatbelt, a giant wave of desire crashed over her. Her eyes met his and he reached out to pull her to him, and they kissed.
His stomach rumbled and they both laughed.
“I am so hungry,” he admitted. “I’ve had nothing but coffee so far. I was in too much of a hurry to get here.”
“I’ve got lots of food for you,” Blythe told him. She was glad his stomach had rumbled, interrupting what was almost the best kiss she’d ever had in her life, because she wasn’t ready for more than a kiss, especially not out here with bros in trucks racing past and families gathered together having cookouts on the beach nearby.
They spread the blanket near the water. Blythe handed out sandwiches, chips, and iced tea, with chocolate chip cookies in a Tupperware bowl and red grapes in another. The breeze was perfect today, just enough to cool them off and tease the edge of the blanket, but not so strong it blew sand in their food.
“We’ve got company.” Blythe pointed to a group of seals who had stationed themselves in the water right in front of them. As they watched, the waves rolled, bobbing the animals up and down.
“What’s a group of seals called?” Nick asked.
“My favorite name for that is a bob of seals.”
Nick laughed. “It’s cool that you know that.”
“I’ve spent every summer of my life on this island, first when my grandmother lived here, and after she passed, with my children.”
“Bob must have been there some of the time,” Nick said. “Speaking of bobs.”
Blythe hesitated. “Yes, Bob was here for almost fifteen years. He’s here often, with Teri, at Celeste’s house.”
“Your children are lucky.”
“I suppose they are. What did you and Brielle do in the summer?” As she spoke, she could sense how Nick reacted, his tense shoulders relaxing, his mouth curving in a slight smile.
“We went to France every summer,” Nick told her. “Brielle’s family lived outside Paris. Her friends and relatives were scattered all over France, and some lived in Switzerland or Spain.”
“Wow! Your children are lucky!” Blythe said. “Did Brielle have brothers?”
“Only sisters. For three generations, her family had only girls. They thought it was a miracle that we had two boys.” Nick’s face lit up as he spoke. “They were all great skiers, and we spent some time in Paris, of course, but so often we were up in the mountains on skis.”
“Somehow when I think of France, I envision only topless beauties on the beach at Saint-Tropez or drinking Pernod on the Left Bank.”
Nick chuckled. “There was that, of course.”
“Do you still go to France?” Blythe asked.
Nick shifted on the blanket, wrapping his arms around his knees and gazing out to the sea where the sun sent silver winks.
“I haven’t. Not since Bre died. The boys are busy with their lives. I could stay with some of Brielle’s cousins. We’re still in touch. But…I haven’t gone. And really, I don’t want to. I’m happy hiking up Mount Washington.”
They were quiet for a moment.
Blythe’s heart was flipping back and forth and her mouth went dry, but she managed to say, “I’d like to try hiking with you up Mount Washington.”
“Would you?” Nick sounded very pleased.
“I would. But, Nick…I don’t mean to rush things between us—”
“Oh, you can definitely rush things between us.” Nick shifted positions so that he was facing her.
“I like being with you,” Blythe said.
“I like being with you,” Nick answered. “I hope we can be together often when we’re back on the mainland.”
Blythe cleared her throat. Was this the right time to do this? She plunged ahead.
“I should tell you I have another man in my life.”
“Do you mean Bob?”
“No, although, of course, Bob will always be around because of the children. But this summer, actually, the same night I met you at the yacht club, I ran into my high school boyfriend. Aaden Sullivan.” Blythe kept her gaze on the sand as she spoke.
“I hadn’t seen him for years. Decades. We were madly in love in high school, and I thought we’d be together forever. But his family is Irish and their business is in Ireland, and he left to go to college in Dublin. It kind of broke my heart.”
“You hadn’t kept in touch at all?”
“No. I was sad and angry and confused for a long time. Decided I would never ever fall in love again, and all through my college years, I never did fall in love. Secretly, I decided to be celibate.”
“And yet, you have four children.” Nick’s voice was light.
“Yes. I met Bob and we married and had a good life. We lived in Boston and came here every summer. We wanted children, and we have really lovely kids.” Blythe paused. She was trying to decide how to approach a delicate subject sideways.
“I’ve spent some time with Aaden here on Nantucket. He’s divorced, and his daughters are grown, and he’s CEO of his family’s company. He’s still as charming as ever.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Nick said.
Blythe laughed. “He has an office in Boston, but his home is in Dublin, and he wants me to visit.”
“Ah.”
“The thing is,” Blythe began, and stopped speaking. “It’s one thing to believe in love here in this Nantucket summer paradise. It is a quite different thing to risk loving. ”
“You’re going to take a chance with Aaden?”
“No, no, that’s not what I mean. I’ve been thinking about this, a lot. What Aaden and I had when we were in high school is different from what we could have now. And I have changed. What I want is not the dramatic highs and lows of high school love. I’m watching Miranda go through that right now, and it reminds me of how I felt when Aaden left. I don’t want to be charmed. I don’t want to be delirious and infatuated.”
Nick’s gaze was steady on her face. “What do you want?”
“I want…” Blythe lifted her chin and met Nick’s eyes and said, “I want to go hiking on Mount Washington.”
Nick smiled. “Good. Because I would love to take you up there and kiss you on the top of that mountain.”
Blythe was breathless, but in a good way. “Well,” she teased, “I’ve enjoyed kissing at sea level.”
Nearby, a group of children ran back and forth at the edge of the sand, yelling and gesturing at the seals. The seals were not impressed. The afternoon sun blazed down on them all, and country music drifted from a truck parked a few yards away.
He placed his hand on Blythe’s, enveloping her in his touch. They kissed, awkwardly at first, with the sand shifting beneath them.
“Look, Mommy, those people are kissing!” a child yelled, and the entire gang went crazy with laughter.
Blythe pulled away. “I guess this is a no-kissing zone.”
Someone was cooking hot dogs on a tabletop grill and the aroma made Blythe’s mouth water.
“I would really like a beer and a hot dog,” Nick said.
“Would you settle for a turkey club sandwich and a bottle of iced tea?”
“I would, if I can share it with you.”
It was heavenly to sit in the shade cast by the Bronco, watching the seals bob, eating lunch, drinking cold tea. The ocean was dark blue in the glare of the sun. Far out on the horizon a white sail seemed to slide evenly over the waves. High above, a plane drew a long mark white as chalk over the cloudless sky.
Blythe said, “I wonder if someone somewhere thinks that white line is a message.”
Nick said, “Maybe someone in that plane thinks he’s leaving a message.”
She nudged him. “Nice.”
—
Blythe arrived back at her house in the late afternoon, sun-stunned. Being with Nick had been better than drinking champagne, and she sang in the shower, very pleased with herself and with life.
Pulling a cool turquoise caftan over her head, she drifted down the stairs to re-enter reality.
She had a voicemail from Scarlett’s mother.
“Mrs. Benedict, it’s Eloise August. Scarlett’s mother. I’d like to drop by your house and chat with you today if you have a free moment. Please let me know.”
Blythe came back to earth with a thud.
She returned Eloise’s call.
“Is this something we could discuss over the phone?” Blythe asked.
Eloise was blunt. “No. I really need to be with you in person.”
“Come now, if you can,” Blythe said.
Blythe scrutinized the house. It was messy, and it showed signs of lots of people living here, but it didn’t look insane. She made a pitcher of iced peppermint tea.
The knock came on the front door. Blythe opened it. Eloise August was as crisp and controlled as her phone message. White linen pants, white linen shirt, white leather sandals, and lots of gold: watch, earrings, necklaces.
“Hello,” Eloise said as she stepped into Blythe’s house. “Thank you for making time for me.”
“Let’s sit on the back porch,” Blythe suggested. “Would you like some tea?”
“No, thank you. I won’t be here long.” Eloise could not meet Blythe’s eyes.
The two women walked through the long hall and out the back door to the porch. Blythe’s hibiscus and cosmos and roses flourished their blooms from several vases, and Blythe hoped the other woman noticed.
“I’ve come to ask you a favor,” Eloise said. She held up her hand. “I’m sorry, no, wait.” She blushed, well, scarlet. “First, I must give you an apology for my rudeness the first time we spoke. I now realize it was Jack Winchester who has been teasing my daughter. And I’m imploring you to take the video down.”
“Video?” Oh, my God, Blythe thought.
“You haven’t seen it? Azey Phillips took it when Jack Winchester was holding my daughter under the water and Teddy pulled Jack off her. Probably saved her from drowning. Jack took out his frustration on Teddy…you must have seen it.”
Blythe drew in a deep breath. “I saw that Teddy had been hit. He told me about the incident at the beach. I knew Azey had videoed it, but I never thought it would be put on, what, TikTok?”
“It’s on everything. Here it is on Facebook.” She held out her phone. “It’s also on Snapchat and Instagram.”
Blythe took the phone and watched the video. Azey had turned it into a reel, complete with the ominous Jaws theme. It was only twenty seconds long. In full color, Jack Winchester shoved Scarlett’s head underwater and held it there. Another boy—Teddy—thrashed through the water and pulled Jack off. Scarlett surfaced, sputtering. Jack hit Teddy in the face with his fist.
The video stopped abruptly and immediately started over again. And again.
Wordlessly, Blythe handed the phone back to Eloise.
“Suzanna and I have discussed this,” Eloise said. “Another mother told her to check out the video. It’s always painful to believe that one of our darling angels has done anything wrong. Suzanna phoned Azey’s mother and accused him of doctoring the video, or whatever it’s called. Azey doesn’t know how to do that, or doesn’t have the equipment, and Suzanna had to apologize, and then she called me.”
Blythe nodded. “I see. I’ll text Teddy and ask him to get Azey to take down the video. I don’t know Azey’s mother well, but I’ll call her, too.”
“Please. I would appreciate it. I’ve called her, but she lets things go to voicemail.”
“I’m sorry that happened.” Blythe’s thoughts were racing. “Do you have a son?”
“I do not. My husband always hoped for one, but we have two daughters. Our older daughter is, always has been, extremely fortunate as far as good looks go. I know Scarlett will be pretty once her braces are off. And we need to get her contact lenses.”
“I’m grateful that you’ve come to tell me about this,” Blythe said, letting her voice warm with honesty. “ Now would you like a glass of iced tea?”
“No, thank you.” Eloise rose. “I must go see Suzanna. We have a friendship to save.”