Chapter Seven Lily
The Summer House is a boutique hotel and restaurant only a fifteen-minute walk from our home.
On the property is a series of small suites in the style of cozy cottages.
As a child, I thought the ivy-covered structures looked like houses for fairies.
A beachside bistro under a peaked white tent and swimming pool are located down the cliff side, nestled into the sand dunes.
It’s Rose’s favorite spot on the island, and we always come here for special occasions: birthdays or celebrations or after the end of a particularly challenging day.
A few hours after the mysterious renter’s arrival, we walk up to the restaurant.
There’s a squat white building with green trim and a candle-lit porch.
Guests are stretched out on the lawn chairs.
A little girl in a pink dress is blowing bubbles out of a plastic tube.
Everything is bathed in a soft orange light.
Rose was uncharacteristically quiet on our walk over. We haven’t talked about the strange situation with the new renter yet.
“How was your meeting today?” I ask once we are seated at the old wooden bar. “It was a session with a client?” After the renter appeared, she immediately left. I want to ask her what the deal is with him, but this seems a safer question for now.
Around us are empty white-clothed tables, but we always prefer to eat here, right by the grand piano.
The musician is playing an acoustic version of “Tiny Dancer,” and a bartender who looks about my age is mixing cocktails a few feet away.
I watch the silver cylinder shake as he tosses it over his shoulder.
“No,” Mom responds, refolding the napkin on her lap. “It was with the real estate office downtown.”
“The real estate office?” I’m confused.
“Yes.” Rose clears her throat, brushing stray strands of hair behind her ears. “It was about an opening on Federal Street. There’s a small upstairs office space available for rent above a boutique.”
“What?”
“You know I’ve always talked about opening my own private practice, and I’ve been thinking now could be a good time.”
“Oh my gosh, MOM,” I screech, slapping my palms against the table. A fork clatters next to me. “Mom, this is amazing. This is so exciting. How was the place? I want to see it. Have you told your office yet? When are you thinking of starting? What would the rent look like?”
“Lily-pad.” Rose smiles. “Slow down! I haven’t made a decision yet. I’m just exploring options. But yes, I’m thinking it would be great to have the practice up and running by September.”
The idea fills me with a sort of ecstatic glee.
This has been a long time coming. Rose has worked as a therapist my entire life, but I know she’s wanted more autonomy and control.
She was thinking of starting her own practice before Lottie got sick again, but then with the caretaking and renovations to the cottage, it became unfeasible.
I take this to be a sign of her healing process, a way to finally move forward.
“And how about you?” Rose asks. “How’s the job search going?”
Like that, my revelry extinguishes. “The job search will begin tomorrow. Officially.”
My plan this weekend is to print out flyers and offer my photography services across the island: weddings, graduation photos, engagement shoots, whatever. I’ll be there. Maybe I’ll even try to start a new art project again.
And if all else fails, I can always ask for my college summer job at the sweatshirt store back.
“Wow, congratulations,” I repeat, forcing the last thought away. “This is really amazing.” I hold up my water glass to cheers her.
“Now,” I continue. “When are we going to talk about what happened with the renter?”
“Do we have to?” Rose hides her face in her hands.
“Yes.”
“Okay,” she sighs. “That was Tommy—I mean, Thomas—Wentworth. He’s an old friend of mine.”
“Just a friend?”
“Well, no. I suppose he was more than a friend.”
“He certainly seemed like more than a friend.”
“Okay, yes.”
I raise my eyebrow to signal for her to keep talking.
Rose sighs. “I met him here, on island, the summer I turned eighteen. We fell in love, but I was going off to college and my father didn’t approve.
Tommy was a few years older than me and had already been accepted to the Coast Guard Academy.
He was staying here at the station by Brant Point.
I knew he was going back to the academy in the fall, and then he had five years of service after.
It would be incredibly difficult for us to stay together. ”
“So, what happened? You broke up when the summer ended?”
“We tried to stay together, but I was persuaded to break it off. I thought I was saving us both from a long-distance engagement. I thought… well, I guess I didn’t realize how rare it was, you know?”
This surprises me. The Rose I know is quiet and self-sacrificing, but she certainly isn’t weak. I’ve never known her to care what anyone thinks. I feel an overpowering emotion I can’t quite place. “Who told you to break it off?”
“My dad,” she sighs. “He wrote me a letter demanding I end it. He said we were too young and that I would be destroying my life. He said it was silly to attach myself to someone who was going to be away for so many years.” She pauses, rolling her eyes.
“And also, that he didn’t come from ‘the right sort of family.’ ”
Another thought crosses my mind. “Wait, did you say ‘engagement’?”
“Yes, we were engaged for a few weeks.”
“A FEW WEEKS?”
A sophisticated-looking woman glances up from her table with a scowl pulling down her wrinkled lips. She’s wearing a black dress with a matching black sweater, making her look vaguely like a nun.
“Sorry, sorry,” I say in a quieter voice. “What happened?”
“He knew I was nervous about being separated for so many years, so in September, he asked me to marry him. He wanted me to know he was serious.”
It’s then that I recognize the emotion I’m feeling.
It’s betrayal. I can’t believe I’ve never heard this story before.
We cut a deal early on to be honest with each other.
Growing up I told Rose everything, and I thought she told me everything in turn.
My hopes were her hopes. Her heartbreak was my hometown.
We were a team. We made decisions together.
I guess I never grew out of that feeling. It seemed that mysterious, invisible line that separates one person from another didn’t exist for us. Now I realize I was wrong about that. I can’t help but wonder what else she’s been hiding.
“So, you broke up that summer and never spoke again?” I ask.
Mom shrugs noncommittally. “It wasn’t like that.” She takes a deep inhale. “Anyway, a few years later, I met your father, and the rest is history.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
We linger in the silence for a moment, both lost in our own thoughts. After a beat, I dare to ask another question. “So, what did it feel like to see him again today after all those years?”
Sometimes, after a long day of my mom seeing clients, I like to imagine I’m a therapist for her, the one person to whom she can complain, let go of the clinician’s practiced neutrality.
“Horrible.” Rose lets out a choked little laugh. “I don’t know. I just can’t figure out how this is possible. How did he not remember Lottie’s address? And I mean, what’s going to happen the rest of the summer? He’ll bring his wife, his kids, to our house? The cottages aren’t exactly far apart.”
Actually, I think but don’t say, they’re attached.
“What makes you think he’s still married?”
“He had a ring on his finger,” says Rose. “You’ll notice those kinds of details once your friends start getting engaged.”
I give her a look. “Start to get engaged?”
Rose leans in, cupping her chin in her right hand. “I’m sorry. How are you feeling about Henry?”
“Horrible,” I repeat. We both laugh, but the sound is false, hollow, like canned laughter on a sitcom track. “I don’t know. It doesn’t feel real.”
“Neither does this.” Rose puffs air out of her cheeks.
“Well!” She claps her hands together. “We’re a fun bunch, and we haven’t even ordered dinner yet.
” She starts to stand, wringing her fingers around the napkin before smoothing it out, placing it carefully folded on the wood of the bar.
“I’m going to the bathroom, and when I get back, we can talk about happier stuff. How does that sound?”
“Sounds like a plan,” I agree, but the truth is that I have more questions, many more questions.
While she’s gone, I try to imagine a younger version of Rose and the renter I met today.
I picture them falling in love, Nantucket like a character actor setting up the scene: all blue and purple hydrangeas, dappled sunlight through old oak trees, swollen brick sidewalks, hot sand dunes, tall seagrass, shingled houses with white trim and crawling flowers.
Families riding by on matching beach cruisers.
Doorframes expanding in summer heat. Everywhere you turn looking like an advertisement for a better life in a higher tax bracket.
I can see it. I can see Rose younger, happier, and there’s a part of me that’s guilty.
She’s always insisted she doesn’t regret anything, but it couldn’t have been easy raising me alone.
I wonder how her life would have turned out if she had married this Thomas Wentworth.
Would they have kids? A family of four, perhaps?
It sounds strange, but I want that for her. I want her to have the life she planned for, even if it were to mean a life where I did not exist.
I’m so lost in my thoughts, I don’t notice the bartender approaching.
“Excuse me,” he says. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I couldn’t help but overhear that you’re looking for a job.”
When he smiles, I notice a row of white teeth.
The two front ones are slightly longer than the others.
It’s goofy but not in an unattractive way.
He has curly, deep brown hair and strikingly blue eyes, the kind that are almost navy around the irises but Gatorade blue at the center.
They’re shadowed by thick, bushy eyebrows.
I nod, taken aback. “Yes, I am.”
“We’re not hiring here anymore, unfortunately,” he says.
“But I have another day job where I give tennis lessons at Great Harbor Yacht Club a few days a week. I know we’re in desperate need of a check-in person at the front desk.
The pay is decent, better than retail, and the staff is fun.
If you’re interested, I can put in a good word. ”
There’s an appealing quality to him, a combination of confidence and sheepishness.
He looks trustworthy, his fingernails nervously tapping against the counter.
His nose is slightly too big for his face, and there’s a compelling asymmetry to his features.
Beauty can be bland, so perfect your eyes practically skip right over it, but the flaws, the crooked imbalance, always make me want to linger.
It is beauty you can hang your hat on. For the second time this trip, I wish I had my camera or something to sketch on.
“That’s amazing, thank you. That’s so generous of you, really. Um, sure, that would be great.”
“Awesome.” His face splits into a full grin. The expression reveals two deep-set dimples in either cheek. “Can I have your number then? And I’ll text you what my boss says.”
He hands over his phone. It’s thick and boxy, and there’s a large crack in the middle of the screen, which has begun to chip off in small parts.
To my mortification, just as I’m entering my number, Mom returns from the bathroom.
The stool scrapes loudly against the ground as Rose takes a seat, leaning over to look at the phone.
“What’s this?” she asks, humor in her voice. “Did you make a little friend while I was gone?” Rose winks at the bartender who, to his credit, smiles confidently back, unfazed by the teasing.
“This is…” I hand the phone back to him. “I’m sorry, this is so rude of me. I didn’t catch your name.”
“You can call me Theo. All my friends do, and apparently, we’re little friends now.”
He addresses me when he’s speaking but, at the end of the sentence, turns to wink at Rose, who immediately throws her head back laughing.
“You’re funny,” she says. “I like you.”
“Thank you,” says Theo. “I like you, too, but I think I might be a little too young for you. Do you happen to have a daughter who looks remarkably similar to you?”
Rose roars with laughter again, slapping her knee and almost spilling her water in the process.
“Okay, enough,” I say.
Theo and Rose share a wry look, both giggling like little kids conspiring together in class behind the teacher’s back.
As they laugh, I can’t help thinking again about this mysterious Thomas Wentworth character again. I’ve never known my mom to be anything but steadfast, collected and disciplined and selfless. Today, talking about Thomas, she seemed different. She seemed… vulnerable.
What are the odds this man from her past would return like this—living directly next to us for the entire summer?
Henry’s face appears in my mind, floating up to the surface and blocking everything else out almost like it was summoned.
My past may be doomed, but that doesn’t mean it’s too late for Rose. And unlike Rose, I know it’s never really over.