Relative Love
relative love
Blythe took Bob to dinner with her parents, first making him promise he would not run screaming from the table after he met them.
It was a pleasant, bland occasion. Blythe told them she and Bob were engaged to be married. Her parents replied that they were finally moving to Arizona. They had already had movers pack everything Blythe had left in her room into boxes that were taken to a storage facility. They gave Blythe the keys.
As they pulled away from the house, Blythe said to Bob, “That was very ‘Thanks for coming don’t let the door hit you on your way out.’?”
Bob had stopped the car at the curb and reached over to take Blythe in his arms. “I’ll give you a home and I’ll never kick you out.”
Blythe didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so she did both.
“I love that I can trust you,” she said, hugging him tight.
Back when they were spending their first spring together, they had gone to Nantucket and stayed at Blythe’s grandmother’s house. Now it was Blythe’s house.
That weekend, it had rained, a thunderous soaking daylong deluge of rain, which made sleeping late in a bed with warm blankets especially enjoyable. When they finally rose, they made strong coffee with the sugar and cream Blythe had brought over with a bag of necessary groceries. Mugs in hand, they toured the house. Blythe was slightly embarrassed because the house was so old and eccentric. Some of the bedroom and bathroom doors locked with knob locks, some with ancient hook and eyes, some with small wedges of wood that could be turned to press against the doorjambs. In several rooms and in the kitchen, drawers in dressers or cupboards had become swollen shut from the island’s humidity and couldn’t be opened or could only be shut partway, with some of the drawers sticking out to catch you on the leg at night. The wallpaper in the master bedroom was probably seventy years old and ugly, great swoops of blue flowers tied with extravagant pink ribbons.
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’s entertainment 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 is they ? 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.
—
On their honeymoon, Blythe said, “I want to have three or four children.”
Bob considered this with his lawyerly expression, stroking his chin as 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.
—
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.”
Bob’s sister, Kate, was obviously at their mother’s house, doing all she could to remind Blythe the extent of her reach.
But Blythe could play games, too.
Blythe made her voice dense with worry. “Oh, Kate! Is Celeste all right?”
“Of course, Celeste is all right!” Kate snapped. “Why are you even asking?”
“Oh, thank heavens. I’m so glad. You nearly gave me a heart attack. You sound so worried.” Blythe continued, “How are you, Kate? Thank you so much for getting the house ready for us. It’s so kind of you. I’d love to take you to lunch someday to thank you.”
For a moment, Kate was speechless, an extremely rare state for her to be in, and Blythe gave herself an imaginary point.
“You’re welcome,” Kate said. “So, I guess you’re all here.”
“Yes. I was hoping to speak with your mother.”
“I’ll tell her you’ve arrived.”
Blythe inhaled deeply. She often wished she took fencing lessons. “Could I speak to her for just a moment? I won’t bother her for long.”
The unspoken topic was tonight’s dinner at the opening of the yacht club. Celeste always took Blythe and her grandchildren to dinner the first night the club opened. Before their divorce, Bob had come, too. But now Bob and Teri came later in the summer. Celeste adored her grandchildren and for seventeen years had made the first night on the island their night together, when she could pay attention to them. Blythe knew that Kate hated being left out, even though she lived on the island with her husband, Jack, and saw Celeste all the time and was often treated to dinner by Celeste.
Kate didn’t answer Blythe but called out, “Mom. Blythe’s here. She wants to talk to you.”
“Thank you, darling. I found the shirt you asked for. I put it on the bed. I think there’s a tear in the seam.” Celeste’s voice was distant and then right there. “Blythe! My love! You’re here? And all the children?”
Celeste’s voice had become slightly gravelly with age, but her affection warmed her words.
“Hi, Celeste. Yes, we’re here. The children have already disappeared. Well, Holly’s still here. She’s in her room drawing.”
“Oh, good. Please let Holly know I’d love it if she came over with her novel, because I had an idea about how she could get the sea gerbils onto the land. Maybe there is a land turtle who is obsessed with his reflection in the water and he falls in and the sea gerbils rescue him.”
From the background, Kate snapped, “Mother, you sound insane.”
Celeste continued, “I did think about deer, but they’re too big. Also, rabbits, but I think if one fell into the ocean, he would drown with all that fur. Although, another possibility would be that the rabbit was born without fur, so he was considered a misfit and an outcast, and when he falls in, the sea gerbils immediately love him. He might look grotesque, but then Holly enjoys the grotesque.”
Finally, Celeste took a breath.
Blythe smiled. She loved the connection between her youngest child and Celeste. “I’ll tell Holly that, Celeste. Would it be okay if she comes over this afternoon to talk with you?”
“Of course! I’d love that! Also, we have reservations for the yacht club at seven.”
From the background, Kate called, “Mom! Is this the shirt you mean?”
Blythe rolled her eyes. “I’ll let you go, Celeste. See you tonight.”
“Goodbye, darling.”
Blythe waited until she’d ended the call to burst out laughing. Poor Kate! Her husband, Jack, had grown pompous and pudgy. Their daughter was in college and playing tennis, and their son was traveling. Kate didn’t seem to have a special best friend on the island. Blythe wasn’t surprised. Kate was hard work. Blythe pitied her helplessly irritating sister-in-law but she could never show it.
Shaking off thoughts of Kate, Blythe went into Holly’s room, and sure enough, there her youngest daughter was, sitting on her bed, carefully drawing on her sketchpad.
“Hey, sweetie,” Blythe said, sinking down on the end of the bed. “I just spoke with Grandmother. She would love it if you came by this afternoon. She has an idea about your novel.”
Holly looked up at her mother, her brown eyes worried. “Mom, Daphne said the rising seas are going to flood the island and wash out all the beaches and destroy the town.”
Blythe pulled Holly into a hug. “Daphne’s right. But the thing is, it will happen gradually, over hundreds of years. The sea won’t reach our house, or Grandmother’s house, or Aunt Kate’s, for a long, long time. Some of the buildings on the coast will have to be moved. But change is natural. Human beings are resilient.” She could sense her daughter’s tension. “Maybe this is something the sea gerbils can help with.”
Holly turned, her face glowing. “You’re right. I hadn’t thought of that.” Gathering her sketchbook and pencils, she said, “I’m going to Grandmother’s now.”
“Don’t stay too long. We’re going out to dinner at the yacht club tonight.”
Next, Blythe called her best island friend, Sandy. Sandy taught art in the elementary school in Williamstown, and her husband, Hugh, was an art history professor at the college there. They had twin daughters who didn’t give a fig about art because they were competitive athletes. At thirteen, Lara and Anne played baseball, soccer, tennis, and basketball. In the winter, they skied and skated. On Nantucket, they swam and sailed and belonged to a tennis team at the yacht club.
“I don’t understand where they came from,” Sandy often said. Sandy got motion sick on a boat or in a car and had terrible hand-eye coordination. Hugh could sail but preferred not to.
“Sandy,” Blythe said happily when her friend answered her phone. “We’re here!”
“Come over! Now!” Suddenly whispering, Sandy said, “Help me. We’ve put up the badminton net.”
“I’ll be right there,” Blythe promised, laughing.
Sandy’s house was only a few blocks away, and the walk was blissful. Blythe strode along brick sidewalks past huge houses with widow’s walks and cupolas. Many of the homes had a flowered wreath on their front door, or flags from Ireland, Canada, Japan, whatever country their guests were from. The music of a Chopin nocturne drifted out from an open window, and as Blythe strolled past, beneath the shade of a majestic old maple, she remembered that the composer died when he was thirty-nine.
Chopin was in the last year of his life when Sandy’s Greek Revival house was built in 1849. Would he have traded his eternal fame for a longer, less creative life?
Blythe laughed at herself. Such foolish thoughts she had when she was on the island.
“Blythe!” Sandy exploded from her front door, running like a young girl to catch Blythe in an exuberant hug. “Come inside. We’ll sit in the living room. The little darlings have given up on me and gone down to the club.”
“How are they?” Blythe asked as she went up the wide steps and into the expansive house where every room was a different color and paintings and hooks waiting for more new pictures decorated the rooms. Blythe settled on a sofa.
Sandy sat next to Blythe. “Energetic. How are you ? You look wonderful.”
“I’m good. Well, tired. The drive from Boston to the Sagamore Bridge went okay, but getting over the bridge took forever.”
“I always thought Sagamore was an unfortunate name for a bridge,” Sandy remarked. “I really don’t want to be on a sagging more bridge.”
“The important thing is that we’re here.” Blythe stretched luxuriously. “Another Nantucket summer.”
“So, are you going to dinner at the yacht club with Celeste tonight?”
“Absolutely. I’ve already spoken to her. Will you be there?”
Sandy studied her nails and casually said, “Yes, Hugh and I will be there, too. We’re taking a friend to dinner, Nick Roth. I don’t think you’ve met him yet. He’s a widower. Nice guy. Handsome, too.”
Blythe groaned. “Please, not another fix-up. At least let me get my bags unpacked.”
“When do Bob and Teri get here?”
“Not for a few weeks, I think. Truthfully, I’d be glad if they arrived tomorrow. I’d send Miranda over to stay with them and Celeste.”
“What’s up with Miranda?”
“She’s in love with a guy at her school. Brooks Tillingham. Brooks. Why does that name make my teeth hurt? He’s a nice guy and a star athlete. Captain of the football team. He sails, plays tennis, and is more handsome than he should be. I mean he knows he’s handsome. He uses it.”
“Miranda is beautiful,” Sandy says. “Don’t forget that. No guy could be more handsome than Miranda is beautiful.”
“Yes, but…Miranda is so obsessed with him. I’m afraid he’ll break her heart.”
“Oh, Blythe, remember. We all get our hearts broken in high school.”
“I certainly did.”
“The wrestler.”
“Yes. Aaden Sullivan.” Saying his name sent a thrill through her. “I thought we’d be together forever. When he broke up with me, I was crushed.”
“But you recovered. And if Brooks dumps Miranda, she will, too.” Sandy rose. “Let’s get some iced tea.”
Blythe followed her friend into the kitchen and then, a glass of iced tea in hand, out to the back deck. Sandy’s garden was beautiful—a work of art. Blythe drifted along the flower beds with Sandy, admiring the deep purple iris, the clusters of pansies with their sweet faces, the clematis sweeping up and over the picket fence, the petunias spilling from window boxes, and roses, deep blood-red roses, everywhere. The hydrangeas were just waking up from winter and the cold spring.
“This is luscious, Sandy. An overabundance. I don’t know how you do it. Do your girls help weed and water?”
“Are you kidding? Flowers bore them. Look, they’ve set up the badminton net at the far end of the yard, and they’ll be complaining all summer that it’s so far away and they have to walk through ‘all those plants’ to get to it.”
Sandy sat in a pale blue patio chair and Blythe took the red one.
“I’m finally getting to the part of my life where I feel at home,” Sandy said. “My twenties were so confusing. I thought I’d study art in Paris. Live in a garret, bike everywhere with a baguette in my backpack, drink at Deux Magots. Then I met Hugh and entered another stage of life. Then the twins. It was so hard, the hardest thing in my life, those first few years when they were babies. God, all the nights I was up with them with a flu or croup or a tummy ache. It seems like years I walked with a child attached to each leg. Now they’re thirteen, and obsessed with sports, and I can take a breath.”
“Just wait,” Blythe warned. “Once their hormones really hit, you’ll wish they were toddlers again. I’ve taught seventh and eighth grade, so I thought I was prepared for teenagers, but when it’s personal, it can be grueling.” She laughed gently.
“Are you worried?” Sandy asked.
“For my kids? Of course. Also, I’ve been asked to teach full-time in our local middle school next year.”
“You told me you enjoyed substituting there.”
“Yes, but that’s a completely different job. If I teach, I’m responsible for the kids learning something. I’d have to upscale my skills with technology. Girls are carrying their phones in their bra straps. Guys are playing video games in class. How much are they going to learn about what a comma is or Catcher in the Rye ?”
“I’m completely certain that if you decide to teach full-time, you’ll do a fabulous job. You always have.”
“Maybe.” Blythe stared down into her iced tea, as if to find the answer there.
After a moment, Sandy asked, “How’s Daphne?”
Blythe smiled. “She’s my rock. Wrapped up in her plans to save the world. She’s already gone over to Maria Mitchell. I’m glad she’s obsessed with environmental causes. She is scrawny. She eats well, but she hasn’t filled out yet.”
“And the others?”
“Holly is still sweet and easy. Teddy—he’s thirteen. He’s got hair on his upper lip and probably elsewhere, but I give him his privacy and hope that Bob tells him how to be a man. Shaving and deodorant and all that, whatever turns boys into men.”
“Is it hard, seeing Bob with another woman?”
Blythe laughed. “To be honest, it’s a relief. A few years ago, I told Miranda that her bad grades were going to make Bob blow a gasket. Teddy wanted to know what a gasket was, so I googled it. I told him, ‘It’s a mechanical seal which fills the space between two or more mating surfaces.’ Teddy had laughed like a donkey at the term ‘mating surfaces . ’ I wondered if that meant our children were gaskets filling the space between me and Bob. It kind of hit home, made me realize how drab our marriage was.”
“All marriages are drab now and then,” Sandy pointed out.
“Yes, but Bob and I were so distant from each other emotionally. We didn’t hate each other, but we didn’t love each other, either. Plus, I didn’t like it that he was never home, never attended a child’s recital or baseball game or doctor’s appointment. We both knew we’d married too young, too fast. Someone said sometimes you have to marry the wrong person to get the right children, and that’s the way we explained it to the kids. After three years, I think the kids are okay with everything. Although I think Teri might be embarrassing with her long bouncy hair and overflowing bikinis.”
“She’s gorgeous, Blythe. The men don’t consider her embarrassing.”
“I know. I do know. And I know she loves Bob more than I could. More than I did. I’m glad for Bob. Do you think men need bolstering as they get older, and women just relax?”
“I think some men need bolstering, but many women do, too. I get what you’re saying, Blythe, but you’re only forty-five.”
Blythe stared into her iced tea for a moment. “I get it that you think I need a man in my life. Sex and love and all that. But honestly, Sandy, I’m just fine right now. I’m relaxed. Well, as relaxed as anyone can be with a houseful of teenagers.”
“Aren’t you lonely? Wouldn’t you like, I don’t know, someone on your side, someone who is interested in you ? Someone to hold you?”
Blythe shrugged. “I can always hug Holly. Oh, I know what you mean, Sandy. You want me to be with someone because you and Hugh are so bonded. I’m just not sure that’s for me. Of course, I cared for Bob when I married him, and I know he loved me, in a way. But we were young. We were a pair, two lost souls finding comfort and—normality. We were together, not alone. Somewhere along the way our lives became all about the children. It’s like our marriage just wore out.”
“Like a tire that’s worn off its tread.”
Blythe laughed. “Yes, just like that. We’d become co-chairs of our family. We’re both happier now.”
“You have to admit it’s unusual for a divorce to be so easy.”
“The hard part was staying together. We shared the children, but we were completely disinterested in each other. Last year when I was talking to Bob’s mother, she told me that Bob was laughing again, the way he had laughed as a boy, full-hearted, happy. She hadn’t heard him laugh like that for years.”
“But what about you? Bob’s got Teri but you’re not seeing anyone. You ought to at least have a fling this summer.”
Blythe leaned over and hugged Sandy. “You’re such a good friend. Thank you for worrying about me. But I’m fine. I’m going to swim and lie in the sun and read every beach read I can find. I don’t have to worry about the kids. Well, I always have to worry about the kids, but they’re pretty independent these days. And you know what? It’s fun watching them grow up. Finding out what it is in life that captures their interest.”
“Maybe this summer someone will catch your interest.”
“Maybe.” Blythe closed her eyes and lifted her face to the sun. She wanted to tell someone about the man kissing Teri. She couldn’t tell Kate. Kate would somehow make it Blythe’s fault. She couldn’t tell Celeste. The older woman didn’t need to deal with something so peculiar and upsetting. But what did it mean? What did it mean for the stability of her children’s lives? Blythe couldn’t get it out of her head.
“What are you thinking about?” Sandy asked. “Or should I say who?”
Blythe opened her eyes and stood. Her foot hit her iced tea glass and knocked it over. The liquid quickly sank into the grass, the ice cubes glittering.
“I was thinking that I should go home and unpack and organize the house,” Blythe said. “Sorry I babbled on so much, but it’s your fault. You asked. Next time I’ll ask about you.”
“I’m not nearly as interesting as you are,” Sandy said.
“That’s not true,” Blythe objected. “You have twins.”
They rose and strolled slowly together through Sandy’s garden and into the shade of the house. They lingered in the doorway, discussing the weather for the week and their plans, and then Blythe kissed Sandy’s cheek and went down the front steps and walked home.