Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Spring 1976
V ictor had his choice of graduate school. That was no surprise to anyone, not after his sterling grades during his senior year, his tremendous letters of recommendation, and his remarkable internship in Boston during the summer between his junior and senior years. That was the summer when Esme and Victor had finally fallen in love, the summer that had changed everything.
Esme still hadn’t returned to Nantucket Island. It terrified her that she’d separated herself so much from her island home. Will I ever return?
That spring, Esme quit the bakery in Boston and moved to his college town to be close to him. She still planned to go to Rutgers in the fall and told anyone who would listen that this was her intermediate year before she took her studies to the next level. Some of Victor’s friends took her seriously; others did not. But Esme didn’t care. She got a job working at a restaurant just off campus, feeding starving students who didn’t tip very well, and she baked for Victor, went to the movies with Victor, and fielded Victor’s moods. Esme knew that Victor’s moods resulted from his father’s moods, that Jeremy Sutton demanded far more of his children than they sometimes knew how to give. Esme told herself, Be patient with Victor. He loves you. And you love him. Love means patience. Love means kindness above all.
But in mid-April of that semester, Victor slammed the phone back into its cradle and glared at her. Esme got up from his kitchen table and held her elbows. What had happened? Had she done something wrong?
This came out of nowhere because they’d just had the most remarkable day. They’d spent all afternoon in a garden, picnicking, kissing, and talking about their future. They wanted children. Buckets of children. They promised each other they would try to move back to Nantucket. They wanted the world but also that chaotic ocean, rolling bluffs, and sandy beaches.
“Who was on the phone?” Esme asked although she guessed it was Victor’s father. It was always Victor’s father when he got like this.
“You can’t think it’ll all happen like that,” Victor said to Esme.
“What will happen?” Esme asked.
Victor licked his lips and placed his hands on his hips. “Rutgers. Everything.” He tugged his hair with frustration. And then a smile crept over his face.
Whiplash, Esme thought. She was getting used to it by now. Sometimes his violently changing moods reminded her of Fran.
“I got into Harvard, baby,” Victor said now.
Esme threw her arms around him with a shriek. “Harvard!” She covered his face with kisses. So many kisses. “Harvard! My gosh! You genius, you!”
Victor grinned and wrapped his arms around her. “I know. I’m so overwhelmed. My dad is so happy with me—for the first time ever—and I don’t know what to make of that.”
“Just lean into it,” Esme told him softly. “Just enjoy it.”
Victor sniffed and leaned back. His eyes were dark again. “I just don’t know how you’ll go to Rutgers. I’ll be at Harvard, Esme. I’ll need you at Harvard.”
Esme’s heart darkened. She watched the visions she’d built of her freshman year bleed out through her mind’s eye.
“You’ll be so busy studying,” Esme said. “You’ll hardly think about me.”
Victor raised his eyebrows. “Are you saying you’ll forget about me, too? I thought we were in this for the long haul.”
“We are,” Esme insisted. “We’re in this forever.”
Victor glared out the window. A storm brewed on the horizon, and lightning flashed through black clouds.
“I need you there, Esme. I can’t do Harvard without you. I can’t do any of it without you,” Victor said softly. “It’s going to be so painful. So difficult.” He waved his hand. “You always know how to calm me. You know how to restructure my notes so I can make sense of them. Heck, sometimes I think it should be you in my shoes. Going to college. Going to Harvard. But in four years, I’ll be a psychiatrist. And soon, we’ll be married. We’ll be ready to start a family.”
Esme felt her heart heavy with the weight of two different paths: the one of intellectualism and the other one of love and family.
Most women never have to make this choice. Most women know intuitively that love and family are right for them.
“Can I think about it?” Esme breathed.
Victor’s eyes were like crystals. “You need to think about whether you want to be with me?”
“No!” Esme felt as though the room was spinning. She fell back from his embrace and touched the counter. “I want to be with you. I just thought you understood that I wanted to pursue my career, too.”
“That was before, Esme.” Victor snapped his hand across his thigh. “That was before Harvard. Everything is different now.”
Victor’s male friends wanted to take him out drinking to celebrate. Esme retreated to her little studio apartment a few blocks away and lay in bed with the covers pulled up to her chin. It was only seven in the evening, far too early to sleep, but she was exhausted, strained from long hours at the restaurant and long hours of tending to Victor’s moods. She suddenly felt as though she needed to hash this out with someone. She needed to ask for advice. But she had no friends beyond Victor’s here in his college town, and her friends from high school were mostly married off and tending to children.
That was when Esme thought of her father.
Esme hadn’t seen Thomas since Christmas. It had been a difficult one, one of shadowed rooms and twisted words. There hadn’t been much food nor many gifts exchanged. Esme had escaped back to Boston as quickly as she could, taking more shifts at the bakery than anyone could possibly manage. It had been bizarre to think I need to get off Nantucket immediately. But it was what had filled her mind until she’d reached her Boston apartment and wept.
Esme dialed her parents’ house and counted the seconds till Fran answered. Esme’s stomach felt sour.
“Your father isn’t here right now,” Fran said. She sounded snippy. But she always sounded snippy these days.
“Will he be home soon?”
“I don’t know that,” Fran said. “I don’t keep tabs.”
Esme remained quiet. A part of her yearned to stay on the phone and listen to her stepmother’s breathing. Another knew that Fran was apt to strike at any moment.
Here it was. “We need to know about your marriage plans sooner rather than later,” Fran said. “It’s uncouth that you’re living in this college town, waiting around for Victor. There’s no telling what he’ll do. People are talking, Esme. They think Victor will leave you, just like Hank did.”
Esme felt the knife twist. She stewed in the shame of that horrific summer when Hank had left her.
She thought, I can’t go through that again. It will kill me.
“I’m going to attend college this autumn,” Esme said. “I’m going to pursue English literature. Maybe I’ll even be a librarian one day. A proper one for the Book Club.”
Fran snorted. Esme could picture her in their kitchen, perhaps with a glass of wine, watching the water roll up onto the sand.
Esme ached to see the ocean again.
“You have to be realistic,” Fran said. “Victor will be surrounded by gorgeous women at the university. Undergraduate women who are much younger than you. Men are apt to leave you at any moment when other women make themselves available to them.”
Esme dropped to the ground so the phone cord was pulled to its greatest length. Victor says he needs me at Harvard. Does that mean he’ll leave me the second somebody else offers him the same? What if Fran is right?
Esme didn’t want to make any decisions out of fear. But she reasoned that life was a terrifying bungee jump into the ether. And sometimes, you had to make sure you were tied to something just to ensure you didn’t wind up in disaster.
“Just tell me you’ve heard me,” Fran said. “Tell me you’ll listen to reason.”
Esme sighed into the phone. “I heard you, Mom.” She then got up and put the phone into the cradle without saying goodbye.
That night, Esme let herself into Victor’s house with the key he’d made for her and sat up, waiting for him to return from his big celebration with the boys. Some others had also gotten into Harvard, and joy for their futures shimmered around them as they bolted inside to find Esme at the kitchen table with a glass of wine. Victor seemed to have forgotten their argument from that afternoon. He wrapped his arms around her and carried her around the kitchen, singing songs. The other men sang along.
When Victor put Esme back on the ground, she gazed up at him and wondered, Will he look at me one day and think I’m too old for him? Will he look at me one day and regret everything we’ve built?
But instead, Esme said, “I’m coming with you.” She set her jaw. “But only if we’re engaged to be married.”
The kitchen erupted with laughter, with joy. A few of Victor’s friends got out pots and pans and banged them with wooden spoons. They were apt to wake up the entire neighborhood.
Victor couldn’t wipe his smile from his face. He cupped both of Esme’s hands in his, then bent to one knee and gazed up at her. Esme thought, not now. This isn’t the time. But then again, she supposed it was now or never.
“Esme Rainer, will you honor me by making me the happiest Harvard graduate in the world?” Victor asked. “Will you marry me?”
Esme imagined herself on the Harvard campus. She imagined herself striding through the grand halls and sitting beneath ancient oaks and humming with intellectuality with Victor’s colleagues. Just because he’d been the one to get into Harvard didn’t mean she couldn’t reap the rewards of living just off Harvard’s campus. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Esme smiled her bride-worthy smile and said, “I will.”
And that was that.