Summer Light on Nantucket

Crushes

crushes

When Blythe woke the next morning, the children were all up, running through the house, talking on their phones, playing video games. It was their second day on Nantucket. It was June, with the normal pleasant temperature hovering around seventy-five, so Blythe put on her favorite shirt in all the world, a large cotton button-down in faded blue, and white shorts.

Aaden was coming for lunch today.

But first, Brooks was arriving.

She’d met Brooks several times before, and she liked him. He was dangerously handsome with blond hair and blue eyes and a slim build. He was on the football team and the soccer team and he was smart, too. He carried himself with a gentle confidence instilled in him from birth. His parents were executives at an international bank, and Brooks had traveled in several countries and spoke three languages, counting English.

Blythe tidied the kitchen. She went into the family room with the television and the couches. Here the large antique cupboard stood, full of board games and playing cards and, on the bottom shelf, sheets, blankets, and pillows for overnight guests. She was certain they would use them at least once more this summer when Holly had a sleepover with her friends. But tonight, and for the next month, Miranda’s boyfriend, Brooks, would sleep here.

Miranda came crashing downstairs, wearing a cropped T-shirt and low-rise shorts that showed off her belly button with its fake diamond.

“Mother! Teddy is still sleeping ! Brooks arrives on the ten-thirty ferry and Teddy will come slobbering down at noon, half-naked, burping, pouring his cereal all over the table!”

Blythe hid her amusement. She knew how important Brooks was to Miranda. How could she not? She’d been thinking of her own first love. She put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders, steadying her.

“Miranda, Brooks knows how guys are. Brooks is staying here for a month, so he’ll see Teddy all the time. But the only thing Brooks will be looking at is you, and you are always beautiful.”

Miranda blinked back her tears. “Thanks, Mom. Sorry I’m such a freak-out. I just love him so much.”

Blythe gave herself a moment of peace before saying, “Everything’s ready for Brooks to sleep in the family room tonight?”

In an instant, Miranda transformed into a monster. She jerked away from Blythe’s hands. “ Mom! We have two guest rooms!”

“I don’t want him sleeping on the second floor where our bedrooms are.”

“That is so insulting ! Do you actually think he’ll come sneaking down the hall to get in bed with me?”

“Miranda,” Blythe said softly, “we’ve discussed this. And you’re so emotional, I’m worried about you.”

Miranda collapsed onto a kitchen stool and sagged over the counter. “I know. I’m sorry, Mom. It’s just, I haven’t seen him for two days and it kills us to be separated from each other.” Her face was tragic when she gazed up at her mother. “I don’t think you can understand the intensity of our feelings. I don’t think you and Dad ever felt like this.”

Blythe was quiet. In truth, she hadn’t felt like that for Bob. She’d loved him, in a way. She’d admired him sometimes, and she’d cared for him. But she’d never loved Bob the way she loved Aaden, and that was something her daughter didn’t need to know.

Blythe changed the subject. “Are you walking down to the boat to meet Brooks? Or do you want me to drive you?”

“ Mom. ” Miranda was insulted again. “I can drive. I have my license.”

“I just thought it might be nice for Brooks to put his luggage in the car and then you can walk into town with him.” Blythe spoke pleasantly, offering peace.

“I don’t know. Maybe that’s a good idea. I know, I’m a mess this morning.”

“I made you cinnamon toast.”

Blythe opened the oven door and pulled out the rack holding two pieces of toast thickly buttered and sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon. She didn’t do this for all her children, and that was the point. Early on, probably after Daphne was born, Miranda had become sullen. Pouty. Disagreeable. Blythe had discussed this with Bob, who had said, “She’s just jealous. She’ll get over it.” After that, Blythe had made it a point to give something special to her oldest child, even if it meant— especially if it meant—not giving the same treat to the other children.

When she talked this over with her friend Sandy, Blythe had said, “I’m probably giving all my children some kind of complex, some emotional issue.”

Sandy had laughed. “You’ll be giving them emotional issues whatever you do.”

—

Blythe had always thought Miranda was more sensitive than her other children. Almost anything could make her burst into tears. If she couldn’t tie her shoelaces or find the blue crayon and if the new baby, Daphne, screamed when her diaper was being changed, Miranda would cry. When she was in school, she’d return home in tears, because some other girl snubbed her or she hadn’t known the answer to a question or she hadn’t been able to control a cough that made the other kids stare at her.

It helped that she was beautiful. It helped a lot. Her light brown hair, streaked by the summer sun, was glossy, and she had large turquoise-blue eyes. Sometimes Blythe and Bob would lie in bed and speak in wonder about the gorgeous little girl, how had they managed to produce such a lovely child? As she grew older, she had several close friends, and she was always invited to birthday parties, and wonder of wonders, she made excellent grades, even in math and science, which had been Blythe’s downfall. Miranda could become a model or president of the United States or the scientist who discovered the cure for cancer. Those were the things they said about her, and she’d shrug and look miserable when they said it, and finally Sandy (Lord, what would Blythe have ever done without Sandy?) suggested that they were putting too much pressure on her. They should let her know she didn’t have to be extraordinary, she could be whatever she wanted and she didn’t have to decide that so early in her life, and they would still love her.

Blythe’s second child, Daphne, had been so different. Early in her first year, she turned her head away from Blythe’s breast and drank from a bottle. She insisted on dressing herself. She even insisted, for a few years, on cutting her own hair, even though she went around looking like an orphan right out of Oliver Twist . Her grades were excellent, she had plenty of friends, and her favorite pastime seemed to be pretending she and her friends had been abandoned on an island. At the far end of the backyard, they would collect leaves to stuff into old pillowcases to make beds and scrape the bark off of fallen branches to turn into bowls for collecting rainwater. For Christmas, Daphne asked for field glasses—she called them field glasses, not binoculars—and a sleeping bag and a Swiss Army knife. She wasn’t given any kind of knife, and she sulked until Valentine’s Day. At some point, she decided she would save the world, or at least the animals. She would only wear clothes bought at the thrift shop. She was independent and often critical of her parents, those great consumers, but she still enjoyed snuggling with them on Saturday night, sitting under a blanket, watching a movie, and eating popcorn. (They had to buy an air popper to pop the corn because most microwave popcorn bags were lined with perfluorooctanoic acid and diacetyl and hydrogenated oils.) Daphne was such a serious, studious, brainy child that Blythe was surprised (although she tried to hide it) when, in eighth grade, she brought home her boyfriend Johnny, who was also smart and impossibly handsome, with thick brown hair and slightly hooded eyes that Blythe had once called come to bed eyes, but never did after meeting Johnny. With Johnny, Daphne was lighthearted and relaxed. She was nice and friendly and warm. And, they finally realized, Daphne was also beautiful. Even so, she scorned cosmetics and last Christmas she asked for a subscription to Scientific American.

A year ago, Johnny had moved away. Daphne hadn’t seemed upset, but Daphne held her feelings close.

Their third child was a boy, and Blythe couldn’t decide if Teddy was so relaxed and amiable because of all the coddling and attention he got from his sisters or if he was simply an easygoing kid. He had dark hair, dark eyes, and a lanky build. He was a soccer star at his school and excelled in English as well as science. He had many friends, including friends-who-were-girls, and occasionally girlfriends, but nothing serious. He was only thirteen. Blythe didn’t worry about him, although she knew from one of the other mothers that the boys had tried smoking for a week and then gave it up, probably because they were too busy to remember to do it.

And finally, Holly, a surprise, like the sunniest day in the spring. She was happy in a crowd or alone in her room. She was almost a doll or a pet to her older siblings. If she cried, someone rushed to console her. Miranda loved dressing her, Daphne loved reading to her, and Teddy loved teaching her to play softball. When she was left alone, she happily went to her room to play or color and now to write her graphic novel, which Blythe considered a sign of creativity, except that sea gerbils were creepy. Was she raising a female Stephen King?

For now, she focused on her first child, who had eaten only a few bites of cinnamon toast.

“Thanks, Mom. I’m not hungry. I’m just so excited to see Brooks. I don’t want anything to go wrong.”

Blythe was swept through with love and sympathy. First love was so hard. “It will be fine.”

Miranda said, “Sorry, Mom. I’ll try to be better.”

“Good. Here. Take the keys. Why don’t you drive there and I’ll drive home?”

“Cool. Thanks.” Miranda took the keys with the blue whale key chain. “Oh, wait. He’s coming on the Hy-Line. I want to be on the dock when the ferry arrives and there’s never any place to park.”

Would they stand in the kitchen all day, unable to decide who would drive? Blythe felt like she was caught in a television comedy.

Blythe said, “I’ll drive.”

They rushed to the car. Blythe drove while Miranda, in the passenger seat, took a call from Brooks, who said the high-speed passenger ferry had arrived and the crew were putting out the landing ramps.

“Oh, I won’t be there when he gets off the boat!” Miranda cried.

Blythe concentrated on weaving through the traffic. The Hy-Line docked at Straight Wharf, which was always crowded in the summer, when the Stop & Shop parking lot and Lower Main Street were jammed bumper to bumper with cars and trucks and taxis making their way along the narrow streets to pick up or drop off passengers.

They reached Main Street.

“I’ll go meet him there, Mom!” Miranda tried to jump out of the car but had forgotten to unhitch her seatbelt and was jerked back against the seat. Struggling, she unfastened it.

“I’ll be somewhere in this chaos,” Blythe said. “You can have Brooks load his luggage in the car and then show him the town.”

“Thanks, Mom. I love you, Mom!” Miranda freed herself from the seatbelt and raced away.

Miranda ran off. Blythe joined the line of cars snaking into the Stop & Shop parking lot—in the summer, no vehicles were allowed on the pier. She was in front of Jewel of the Sea, ready to do another pass, when she saw a blur of color.

“Open the trunk, Mom!” Miranda yelled.

“Hello, Mrs. Benedict!” Brooks yelled, and shoved his luggage into the minivan before being tugged away into the crowd by Miranda.

—

As she drove home, Blythe did a mental checklist of where each child would be today.

Miranda would be prowling the town with Brooks.

Holly had biked over to Carolyn’s, sent a shot of her friend’s new puppy, and texted that now she was at Celeste’s. She’d be coming home later with Carolyn, and Carolyn’s mother had agreed to let Carolyn sleep over at the Benedicts’ that night. Holly had hidden her sea gerbil books because she didn’t want Carolyn to think she was weird.

Daphne had biked over to the Maria Mitchell aquarium, where she was volunteering for the summer.

Teddy would go to the yacht club with his friends.

And Aaden was coming to lunch.

As she entered her house, Blythe felt all bubbly and excited, like a bottle of champagne shaken up. She was going to see Aaden again.

This morning, she’d made a chicken salad from two of the packets of cooked white meat chicken she’d brought down, with crisp cuts of celery and onion mixed with mayonnaise, salt, and pepper. She seldom drank wine at lunch, but she put a bottle of Whispering Angel in to chill because she thought she might need a glass of wine so she didn’t have a heart attack simply from being near Aaden.

Yesterday at the yacht club, he had looked really good. He’d always looked really good, but now he wasn’t a teenager, he was a man.

He’d been kind to Holly. Many adults simply ignored children as they spoke with the parents. But Aaden had been kind. He had always been kind.

He was divorced. She was divorced.

Suddenly she wanted to look through her high school yearbooks, but they were all at home. She had no photos of him on her phone, and why would she? High school was a long time ago. But her memories were crystal clear and they made her heart race.

She set the table on the back porch. With the long lush yard stretching to the neighbor’s lacy wall of evergreens, she and Aaden would be able to talk unreservedly, without the intimacy of an enclosed room. She spread a retro tablecloth, white with red cherries falling everywhere, and used the real plates instead of the dishwasher-safe plates she’d bought when the children were young. Those plates were of different colors, and slightly scratched but still sturdy even though the children used them as Frisbees.

Should she pick some of the tulips to put in a vase on the table?

No. This was not the beginning of a high school romance or the beginning of any kind of romance. This was simply lunch.

Whisking up to her bedroom, she changed into a blue sleeveless sundress. Sandals. Pulled her hair back in a low ponytail. She took out a white gold Celtic trinity knot necklace and clasped it at the back of her neck. Aaden had brought it to her that last Christmas, that late January. Instead, that day, they broke up.

The truth was, she had known since their first kiss that she would love him all her life, but she had never believed they would spend their lives together. She brought her hand to her necklace and held the small knot between her fingers.

Her phone buzzed and someone knocked at the front door. She hurried down the stairs so fast she thought she might trip and break her heart. No, no, not her heart, her head. Her emotions were flooding through her.

“Aaden!” Blythe hurried to answer the door.

“Hi.” He seemed almost shy, standing there in a red rugby shirt—red always was the best color for him—holding a sheaf of daffodils in his hand.

Blythe felt completely giddy at the sight of him. He was so real, thick dark hair, intense dark eyes, as handsome as he’d been in high school. She wanted to inhale him.

Aaden said, “I know it’s past daffodil time, but every yard had tulips and I thought roses might be too sentimental.”

Blythe regained her wits as she took the flowers. “Such complicated decisions to make! Thank you. Come in. Follow me. We’re eating out on the back porch today.”

She sensed Aaden glancing around the rooms as she stood at the kitchen sink filling a vase with water. It was cluttered, it would always be cluttered, but it was a good, solid house. Comfortable.

“Would you like a glass of wine? Lemonade? Ice water?” She was proud of herself because her hands weren’t shaking.

“A glass of wine would be lovely. And maybe ice water, too.”

“Same.” She poured the wine and filled tumblers with ice and water, handed his to him, and led him out the back door. “You sit there. I need to be closer to the door to get the food.”

Aaden sat, set his glasses on the table, and swept his eyes over the yard. “You’ve got a beautiful garden. A beautiful home.”

He was older, and somehow more perfect. Laugh lines at his eyes. A touch of gray in his hair. How did he stay so handsome over twenty-five years?

“It’s all mine,” she told him. “My grandmother left it to me. I’m sorry you never got to come here when we were in high school. You always spent your summers in Ireland.”

“And I’m sorry you never got to visit me in Ireland. Although, there’s still time.”

Visiting him in Ireland? That was more than she could deal with right now. “This house is our second home. The children have come here every summer of their lives.”

“Lucky kids.”

“Yes.” Blythe studied his face. “And you have been living in Ireland?”

“Not completely.” He took a sip of wine. “Eileen, my ex-wife, and I had an apartment in Boston. Since the divorce, she’s kept the house in Ireland and I have the apartment here.”

“Where are your daughters?”

Aaden chuckled. “In Europe. Their grandfather, Eileen’s father, gave them the money to spend a year traveling the continent. Like students, mind, not living in posh hotels.”

“How wonderful.” Blythe wondered if she could ever be so relaxed about any of her children wandering loose in Europe.

“The truth is, the girls needed to get away from Eileen and me. They told us—our daughters told us—they couldn’t live with us because we were dull and uninspiring.”

Blythe threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, Aaden! Aren’t daughters the worst ? They are so critical and cruel! Miranda, my oldest, told me that I’ve become ‘intolerably earnest . ’?”

Aaden laughed, too, and it was a laugh Blythe remembered, rolling out like kettle drums, rumbling and strong.

“Ah, well,” he said, “that’s probably true. How do we raise children any other way?”

“I suppose you’re right. Miranda is almost seventeen. She thinks she’s discovered sex, which is nothing old people like me could have any idea about…” Blythe gazed down at her hands. She wore no wedding ring. She’d taken it off three years ago, wrapped it in tissue paper and bubble wrap, and carried it up to the attic to store in her grandmother’s old jewelry box.

Now she murmured, “Sex. Love.”

Aaden said, “What they don’t know is that you and I invented it.”

Blythe met his eyes and a shiver of memory passed through her. “I suppose it feels like that for every couple.”

“No,” Aaden said. “It doesn’t. What we had was unique. Is unique.”

Blythe glanced away. Aaden could say things like that because he was Irish, but she was hopelessly a New England colonial, probably with strands of Puritan in her DNA.

“Aaden—”

“Hel-lo-o!”

The front door slammed. Footsteps raced down the hall to the back door, and Bob’s sister, Kate, appeared, stepping out onto the porch with the enthusiasm of a showgirl jumping out of a cake.

“ Oh! ” Kate nearly elevated into the air in her pleasure at finding Blythe with a man. “I didn’t know if you were home but I saw your car in the drive and thought I’d take a chance.”

Blythe was so full of words she wanted to say, none of them pleasant, that she went completely numb.

Aaden rose and held out his hand. “Hello. I’m Aaden Sullivan. An old friend of Blythe’s.”

Kate studied him as she allowed her hand to be enfolded in Aaden’s. Kate was pretty, Blythe realized, with her brother’s dark coloring and her body tuned by years of exercise classes.

Blushing, Kate told Aaden, “I’m Kate Barnes. Her sister-in-law.”

“ Ex -sister-in-law,” Blythe said.

Kate didn’t pay attention to Blythe. She seldom did.

“I need to borrow Blythe’s slow cooker.”

Blythe ducked her head to hide a smile. Slow cooker. The words recalled the languorous, measured way Aaden’s hands had slid over her body.

Kate took that moment to say, “Oh, you’re having lunch. Blythe makes the best lunches. She can make normal meals look expensive.”

Okay. That was enough of Kate’s insults veiled in compliments. “I’d invite you to join us, but I haven’t seen Aaden since high school and we have a lot to catch up on that would bore you terribly.”

“Oh, well, of course, I’ll come back another time. I know where you keep your slow cooker. I’ll get it on the way out.”

Kate walked reluctantly back to the door, ears perked like a hunting dog in case one of them said anything to her, and when they didn’t, she slowly left the porch and went into the kitchen.

Blythe and Aaden sat in amused silence as Kate banged and clanged pots around until she found the slow cooker and walked down the hall and out the front door.

“Sorry about that.” Blythe took a sip of wine, and then another. “She’s Bob’s sister. My ex-sister-in-law. I don’t hate her, but she’s always sneaking around, trying to catch me doing something awful, although I can’t imagine what that would be, with four children around.”

“She’s jealous,” Aaden said. “It’s obvious.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. She’s married to a perfectly nice husband, and she has two children in college.”

“You’re beautiful,” Aaden said.

“I’m older.” Blythe raised her eyes and allowed him to see her face, wrinkles and all. “I’ve had four children. I love them like crazy, but they’re exhausting.”

“How are your parents?”

“Oh, dear.” Blythe laughed. “They’re fine. They live in Arizona now and yet they’re somehow still exhausting, too. How are your parents?”

“My father has passed on. Mother spends time playing cards with her friends and telling everyone in the family what to do.”

“And your business?”

“Still flourishing. Over the years we’ve downsized, had to lay off employees, but truth to tell, most of them were so old they were ready to retire. The internet has opened a whole new group of customers, and our younger staff is genius with technology. Also, Ireland has had quite the boost from the film industry— P.S. I Love You, Leap Year, Wild Mountain Thyme. And now from streaming. We’re fine. Tell me about you.”

“No, wait. Tell me about your family first. Your wife. How did you meet her? Is she Irish?”

Aaden leaned back in his chair. “Ah, I wish I still smoked. Eileen Kelley. Gorgeous as a movie star, wild as a Kerry Bog Pony. Flaming red hair. Eyes as green as shamrocks. A mouth on her pretty as a rose to see, rude as a sailor when she gets mad. Different from you, Blythe. So different. Eileen has a bit of the Irish Traveller in her. Doesn’t enjoy being settled. Dances like a whirlwind, faster than a wave in a stormy sea. And she sings like an angel come down from heaven. When she sings, you want to catch the breath of her and make it into jewelry.”

Blythe was both fascinated and wounded. When she was in college, she’d been rule-abiding and studious. The wildest she’d ever been was when she loved Aaden, and she’d loved him then like the sea needing the sun, craving his presence, glittering only in his radiance. She’d never been as wild as a Kerry Bog Pony.

She wanted to wish something terrible on Eileen, this woman Aaden had loved so fiercely, this gorgeous, singing, angelic woman, but she was too aware of karma to wish anything really terrible on her, not death or even an accident, so she wished that Eileen Kelley Sullivan had bad teeth.

Across the table from her, Aaden looked amused. “What are you thinking?”

Blythe said, “I hate her.”

Aaden threw his head back and laughed, his irresistible rolling thunderous laugh. “Ah, Blythe, you’re wonderful.”

Blythe shook her head. “I’m an idiot.” She rose. “I’ll get our lunches.”

Aaden reached out and put a hand on her arm. “No. Wait. Let me tell you more. Sit down.”

Blythe sat.

“Eileen drinks and sleeps around. She’s never satisfied. Her parents live in Kerry and they told me when I first met her that I’d never be able to trust her. I laughed at them. And Eileen was a good wife and a good mother, but after a while she got bored. The company’s headquarters were in Dublin, still are, that’s a two-hour drive from Kerry, and once our daughters were away in school, Eileen took to driving back to Kerry for the weekend, and then the week, and she said she was staying with her parents, but after a while I learned she was staying with a man instead. To be honest, for a few years I was glad she was away. I had an affair.” Aaden shook his head. “Patricia was, well, she still is, English. Proper English, an earl in her family, a solicitor who was married to a solicitor, all shirts tucked into her expensive skirts and pearls around her neck. It was the difference from Eileen, I think, that attracted me. I think I attracted her because she thought I was wild. Ha. I’ve always wished I could see Eileen and Patricia in a room together for fifteen minutes.” He sighed. “So that’s the story.”

Blythe said, “I hate Patricia, too.”

Aaden laughed, and Blythe found herself laughing along with him, and for a moment, there on the back porch with its white railings and porch table covered with a cherry-sprinkled tablecloth, with the bright sun and the full promise of a new day spread around them, for a moment she and Aaden were together again as if they’d never been parted.

Quieting, Blythe took a sip of wine. “ Now I’ll get our lunches.”

Aaden said, “No, woman, you stay put. You tell me about you.”

“The whole story? It’s not as colorful as yours.”

“How could it be? You’re not Irish.”

She nodded her head. “I went to university. Lived in a dorm. Had a wonderful time. Made decent grades. Made some good friends.” A memory struck her. “After midterms or finals, a bunch of us would go to a bar and celebrate. We drank too much. We laughed too loud. We made fun of our professors. We told terrible jokes. We flirted with every man in the bar. We drank a lot and stood on our table and sang ‘My Heart Will Go On’ from the movie Titanic with heartbreaking passion even when we weren’t in a relationship.”

“Did you ever stand on the table and sing?”

Blythe laughed. “Oh, Lord, I did.”

Aaden said very quietly, “I wish I had seen you.”

Blythe said, “I wish you had, too.” She glanced at him quickly, a challenge. “Maybe I would have taken your eyes off your Eileen.”

For a long moment, Aaden didn’t speak.

Then he said, “Ah, no, Blythe. I’ve heard you sing, and you’re a terrible singer.”

Oh, he’s good, Blythe thought. “Damn, Aaden, you’re right.”

He reached across the table and took her hand. She leaned forward and closed her eyes, giving in to the sensation of his strong, familiar, never-forgotten hand.

The front door slammed. Footsteps came down the hall.

“It’s just me again!” Kate yelled. “Do you have any cinnamon?”

Blythe and Aaden quickly withdrew their hands and sank back against their chairs.

Kate came out on the porch, raving with indignation. “Do you have any cinnamon? I have to have it for this ridiculous recipe I’m taking off the internet for a beef stew and I have to add cinnamon and cloves, plus I’m supposed to use lard or clarified butter !”

“I brought cinnamon with me from home,” Blythe said. “But I’ll want it back. I often make cinnamon toast for the children on rainy days.”

“Fine.” Kate scanned the table. “Haven’t you eaten yet? Good Lord, it’s after one o’clock.”

Kate went into the kitchen. A moment later, she called out, “Where do you keep your spices?”

Blythe rose. “I’ll show you.”

She went into the kitchen, opened a cupboard, and found the glass bottle of cinnamon.

Kate said, “It would be easier to find if you had a spice rack like a normal person instead of keeping them hidden on a shelf.”

“You’re welcome,” Blythe replied sweetly.

Kate followed Blythe back out to the porch. “I’ll give you a spice rack.”

“I don’t want a spice rack.” Blythe sat in her chair and picked up her wineglass, giving Kate a visual hint that she needed to leave.

“You need a spice rack.” Kate spoke to Aaden, as if he were a referee. “Blythe is a person who always has spices around.”

Aaden smiled politely. “I’m not surprised.”

Blythe didn’t argue.

“Well, I have to go.” Kate waited for them to ask her to stay, then went through the back door, and trotted down the hall. The front door slammed.

“Well,” Blythe said, “there’s a passionate woman for you.”

“She’s frighteningly passionate,” Aaden said.

“Now I’ll get our lunches.” Blythe rose.

“I’ll help,” Aaden said.

Together they went into the kitchen, which was shady and cool after the sunny day outside. Blythe handed Aaden the basket with the crusty baguette in it and carried out the two plates nicely set with chicken salad and sliced tomatoes sprinkled with basil.

As they sat, Aaden asked, “Sorry, but do you have any cinnamon? I always put some on my chicken salad.”

“Sorry,” Blythe told him. “All out.”

They smiled at each other, and it was as if years had never passed between them, as if they were there together, fully, profoundly, everlastingly together, as they had been when they were young. As if during all the years they had lived they had still carried their love like the breath of their bodies and the poetry of their souls.

Blythe broke the spell. “Kate’s husband is a real estate broker. Nice, but boring. He would never argue with Kate. And my ex-husband, Bob, Kate’s brother, often comes to Nantucket with the children to stay with his mother over Easter holidays or Thanksgiving. He’ll be here with his girlfriend later this summer. Celeste, his mother, is completely wonderful. I truly love her and trust her, and my children adore her, love spending time with her.”

“Where did you meet Bob?”

“In Boston. At a graduation party. You know how it is. Spring. Set free. Finally starting our real lives. We met and talked…” Blythe leaned her cheek on her hand and went quiet. After a moment, she said, “I really did love him, in a way. I know he loved me, in a way. We both wanted a home and children, and we wanted to stay in the Boston area. I met his family. I got my teaching certificate, he got his law degree. We got married. We had four children and got divorced a few years ago and that’s that.”

Blythe studied Aaden’s face. “You were gone. You were living in Ireland . ” Sighing, she gazed at her plate, the little hill of chicken salad, the nicely cut tomato, the crisp lettuce. The plate, Portmeirion china, part of the set she’d bought when she inherited this summer house. For a moment, none of it seemed real.

Lifting her head, she remembered. “I raised the children and did substitute teaching. Bob worked hard, enjoyed his work at the Boston branch of his father’s law firm, and we were both caught up in bringing up the children. We were good parents, but failures as husband and wife. After a while, we were like a couple who see each other when they’re running a company, and they go to separate places to sleep at night.”

Aaden said, “I’ve read that we live too long, and that’s why so many people get divorced. When people died at thirty or forty, they didn’t have time to change their lives.”

“Oh. Sad. They didn’t get to see their grandchildren.”

“Tell me about your children.”

She counted her children off on her fingers. “First, Miranda. Beautiful. Turquoise eyes. Light brown hair. Almost seventeen. Madly in love with a guy named Brooks who’s staying with us for a month. Miranda’s angry because I’m making him sleep in the family room, on a different floor from the bedrooms.”

“They’ll find another place,” Aaden said.

“Maybe, but it won’t be where my other three and I can hear them. Next, we’ve got Daphne. Fifteen. Dark hair, dark eyes, braces, and glasses, my poor darling. She’s brilliant and she’ll be just as gorgeous as Miranda, but right now she’s extremely serious about the state of the world. She’s volunteering for the Maria Mitchell Natural Science Museum this summer.

“Next, Teddy. Thirteen. Oh, he’s wonderful. Kind, thoughtful, funny…I worry about him, though, because the divorce hit him hard. And Bob’s father died, so Teddy tries to spend a lot of time with Celeste, his grandmother. He’s very uncomfortable about Teri, Bob’s girlfriend. She’s young and sweet, but she embarrasses him. Teri’s very demonstrative with her affection. Sits on Bob’s lap, nuzzles his neck, that sort of thing. When Teri hugs Teddy, he looks mortified. Basically, though, he’s a happy kid.”

“And number four?”

“Holly, you met her last night. Eleven. Sweet girl. Lives in her own world. She’s artistic, and her art teacher told me she’s talented. So that’s my four.” Blythe paused to take a sip of her wine. “Now. It’s your turn. Tell me about your daughters.”

“Ah, yes, my beauties.”

Aaden dabbed his mouth with his napkin but missed a small spot of chicken between his mouth and his nose. For some reason, it made Blythe feel close to him.

“Shannon and Aisling. Eighteen and seventeen. They might as well be twins, they’re together all the time, both as gorgeous as their mother. The good thing is they both are planning to take over Awen someday, and they want to update our knitwear and jewelry. Shannon has become a fine weaver and Aisling has learned all about the business side of things. They’re traveling now, getting ideas, and getting away from me and Eileen. We’re divorced, we are, but Eileen has become…not unstable, but unreliable. She was one of the managers of the gift shop in Kerry, but since the divorce, she doesn’t always show up and sometimes when she does, she’s in one of her…flamboyant…moods.”

Blythe murmured a neutral “Oh.” She didn’t want to be unkind, but she did enjoy hearing that Aaden’s ex-wife was a problem.

“How are your brothers and sisters?”

“Well, let me think. You know Donal, my older brother, escaped from the family long ago and has his own construction business in Boston. Niamh, my younger sister who adored you—”

“Oh, sweet Niamh.”

“You gave her one of those American Girl dolls—”

“Kathleen! And I gave her all sorts of accessories—”

“Niamh worshipped you after that, and my mother did, too.”

“I always liked your mother. She was so warm and loving and nothing fazed her. Remember when your little brother, Joe, was at the dinner table—he was about ten—and he asked me if I knew there was a one-eyed sex monster in the neighborhood, and I said, no, and he closed one eye and grinned at me. He was so cute.”

“Ma hit him over the head with a magazine for that.”

Blythe laughed with Aaden. Then she turned serious.

“Shouldn’t you be in Ireland in the summer?” she asked. “For your business?”

Aaden chuckled. “I’ve got a foreman, Del, for the textiles, who’s been with me forever, and an impressive young woman, Nora, for the shop. I needed to visit Awen’s Boston office, and I haven’t had a vacation for years and years, and when my friend Arnie invited me to Nantucket, I couldn’t turn it down. I’m glad I came.”

“I don’t believe I know Arnie.”

“Arnie McDougal. He’s a great sailor. Plus, he’s divorced.”

“Oh, dear, is it only you two old bachelors roaming around his house?”

“You haven’t seen Arnie McDougal’s house. Out in ’Sconset. Massive. He’s got a housekeeper and caretaker living there year-round, keeping up with things. Whenever he comes, Janice turns into a cook. Tim is a great jack-of-all-trades, and if we go sport-fishing, Tim comes along and deals with the fish. Cleans it and all, so we can eat it fresh that night.”

“You’re a lucky man,” Blythe said.

Aaden gave her a long, serious look. “I am now.” He reached out and took her hand.

Blythe’s heart took a bungee jump. She knew this hand so well, yet it seemed like the first time he had touched her.

She asked, very quietly, “But your home, your real home, is in Ireland, isn’t it?”

“That’s true, yes. But I have an apartment in Boston. And I think you’d enjoy visiting my ancient house in Dublin.” His eyes were dark.

“Aaden…”

“MOM!”

The front door slammed.

Teddy came dashing down the hall and out to the porch. His friend Eric came right behind him. They were both wearing tennis whites and Red Sox baseball caps. They smelled like the ocean and the things swimming in it. Teddy had hair on his legs. She couldn’t keep from glancing at Eric’s legs in shorts instead of jeans. No hair.

Teddy skidded to a halt. He looked at Blythe. He looked at Aaden.

“Hi,” Teddy said to Aaden, and before Aaden could respond, Teddy said to his mother, “Eric and I are biking out to Surfside and we’re taking all the bananas and two water bottles and the box of Cheez-Its.”

“Hello, Eric,” Blythe said.

“Hello, Mrs. Benedict,” Eric said politely.

“Teddy…” Blythe softly touched Teddy’s shoulder. “I’d like you to meet my dear old friend, Mr. Sullivan.”

Aaden rose and held out his hand. “Hello, Teddy.”

“Hello, Mr. Sullivan. This is my friend Eric.”

Teddy shook hands with Aaden and then Eric shook hands with Aaden. The boys waited as if they were poised at a starting gate, eager to race out, away from the adults.

Blythe smiled at them. “Be careful. Mind the lifeguard. There might be sharks in the water.”

“Cool!” both boys yelled.

“Okay, bye!” Teddy yanked his friend’s arm. They disappeared into the kitchen where they made rustling noises as they gathered their provisions. Then came the pounding of their feet on the floor and the slamming of the front door.

“They’re animals,” Blythe said.

Aaden leaned back in his chair. “Ah, they’re gorgeous. I remember those days, when I was a new teenager and still young enough to spend the entire day outdoors. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.”

Blythe smiled at the memory of him as a teenager. His hair was shaggy and curly, no matter how often he had it cut, and his nose was sunburned and peeling.

Aaden’s cell buzzed. He slipped it out of his pocket, checked it, and mouthed to Blythe, “I have to take this.”

Blythe carried their plates and wineglasses into the kitchen to give him some privacy.

Soon Aaden followed with their utensils. He opened the dishwasher and put them in their little basket.

“Aaden, you don’t have to do that,” Blythe said.

“It was very strenuous, but I managed anyway. Anything to impress you, Blythe.” Aaden straightened and stood close to Blythe, and inside the kitchen, in the cool shade, he seemed bigger than he had been on the porch, and more substantial.

“Sorry. Work. Listen, Blythe…” Aaden moved closer. He bent forward and kissed her mouth.

Her knees went weak. She said, “Aaden.”

He stepped back. “I’d like to kiss you more, but the truth is, I’m wary of your front door opening and closing again.”

He’d made her laugh. He always could. Blythe gazed at him in wonder. “You are real. This is real.”

“Yes. When can I see you again?” Before she answered, Aaden said hopefully, “Tonight?”

“I don’t think so. It’s our second day here and Miranda’s boyfriend just got here. I’ll figure out everyone’s schedule and call you.”

They walked to the door together.

“Thanks for the lunch,” Aaden said.

Blythe paused. She hoped Aaden would surge forward and press her against the wall with hungry kisses. He would have, once. But they weren’t teenagers now. They had families. Responsibilities. They had to go slowly.

“Thanks for coming,” Blythe said. “And thanks for the flowers.”

Aaden left. As he went down the sidewalk, he turned, looked up at Blythe, and waved.

Blythe watched as Aaden walked away, along the brick sidewalk, past the hedge shaped like a whale, past the house with the blue door and the widow’s walk, past the house with the Mercedes convertible sitting next to the Range Rover in the driveway. Then he turned the corner and was out of sight. She wanted to sink down onto the steps, lean back on her elbows, and remain right there, in the air where Aaden had been.