Summer House (27 page)

She got a late start. It was almost dark, and she had to content herself with the time-consuming matter of giving all the plants plenty of water. Her mother-in-law did not possess a watering can, so Anne found an old metal bucket, filled it at the outdoor spigot, and carried it to the flowers. By the time she’d soaked them all thoroughly, darkness had fallen, and suddenly she realized she’d missed the evening meal with her in-laws. In the kitchen, she washed her hands and prepared herself a plate of cold ham and potato salad, which she enjoyed with a glass of wine. Then, pleasantly exhausted, she brushed her hair and went into the living room to join Mr. and Mrs. Wheelwright by the large standing
radio. They all listened to
Fibber McGee and Molly
,
Jack Benny, and, finally, the last broadcast of the day’s news.

The day’s physical exertion had tired her, and for once she fell asleep easily, dreaming of sunny petals, emerald leaves. The next day she woke full of exuberance and plans. She pulled on her loose trousers, buttoned up a camp shirt, tied a scarf around her hair, and hurried downstairs and out the door, not bothering with breakfast or even coffee. All the plants waited for her, grouped together by the mudroom door, some of them already in bloom, others, like the sunflowers, still growing, their green stems and leaves vibrant in the sunlight.

She spent a good deal of time considering how she wanted to group them. All in one color massed together? But perhaps a mixture of colors would be more gay. She had never gardened before; she’d never had the interest. Her mother was her father’s right-hand man at the stockyards and limited her gardening to paying a gardener who mowed their expansive lawn. Sometimes Anne’s father sent his wife flowers, and then the heady fragrance of roses drifted through the house, and when they had dinner parties, guests often brought bouquets, and when they had buffet dinners or more formal parties, Anne’s mother ordered elaborate arrangements for the table, but Anne had thought no more of those plants than of the vases holding them.

Now in full sunlight, she realized how very satisfying it was, working with flowers. The crumbling soil was warm and soft against the palms of her hands, and each plant appeared so singular, flowers and stems and delicate white angles of roots. She filled the terra-cotta tubs with soil, then carefully tucked in the plants, pressing the soil flat, ascertaining that the plants were standing happily on their own, not tipping sideways. She watered the flowers. Then she bent to heave the first tub up so she could carry it into the hedged garden. She was shocked at how heavy the tub was. She could lift it, but only by using all her strength, and carrying it was awkward.

She persevered. She stepped through the high arched opening cut into the privet hedge and stood for a moment on the slate
path, surveying the interior of the hedged garden. Honestly, she thought, could her mother-in-law have been more boring? It was like standing inside a room with no roof and three high green walls, the fourth wall being the back of the house with its large windows. Near the house, on the slate patio area, a few deck chairs were set out, but that was the only sign of human habitation. Charity Wheelwright had decreed three long rectangles of privet, one inside the other, the outer wall eight feet high, the ones inside only four feet high, and, in the very center, a marble sundial. Slate of various colors, roses, grays, browns, had been painstakingly laid to be flat and even for walking around the hedges and into the center to observe the sundial. Somehow Anne’s mother-in-law had contrived to make nature boring.

Well
,
Anne thought
,
she would liven things up! All
morning she lugged the tubs and pots into the hedged garden, setting them here, and here, and here, wherever she saw a spot that cried out for brightening. As she worked, she hummed to herself, feeling very industrious and diligent. The war was over. Soon Herb would be coming home. She would get pregnant! She would walk around theses slates, holding her toddler’s hand, and she would say, “See the pretty flower,” and, “No, don’t touch.”

When she returned to Boston, she found Stangarone’s Freight Company just as chaotically busy as ever. Gwendolyn Forsythe barely said hello before handing her a pile of bills of lading to be double-checked, noted, and filed. After work, she would join the other girls in the office for drinks and dinner and sometimes a movie: Abbott and Costello made them laugh, and
The Lost Weekend
,
starring Ray Milland as an alcoholic on a four-day drinking binge, made them cry, and Bing Crosby made them happy, and John Wayne made them feel safe. The days flew by, and yet Anne was restless—and, she realized one morning, she was also oddly anxious. She couldn’t figure out exactly what it was she was so worried about. The war was over. But she was full of dread.

At the end of August, Anne took a long weekend and traveled to Nantucket. It was Charity Wheelwright’s birthday, and Anne
knew she was expected to help celebrate the occasion. She bought an expensive set of Chanel perfume and talcum powder and wrapped it prettily and stashed it in her overnight bag. The ocean was as calm as a sheet of glass as the ferry trundled from Woods Hole to Nantucket, and the sun blazed high in the heavens. This is not such a terrible fate, she assured herself, to be forced to spend a long weekend on a beautiful island. Charity Wheelwright is not Satan, she reminded herself. However snotty and critical she was, she had raised Herb, and Herb was a wonderful man.

Norman Wheelwright met Charity at the ferry. He did not hug her; he wasn’t that kind of man. He did smile and extend his hand. “Welcome back, Anne.” He picked up her overnight bag and carried it to the car.

As he drove home, he asked Anne for details about her work at Stangarone’s. “It’s kind of interesting,” he said, “that Herb is in Germany, receiving supplies, and you’re in Boston, helping send them.”

It was one of the kindest things either of Herb’s parents had ever said to Anne. It made her feel linked with Herb and accepted by his family.

“Yes, that’s true. But I wish we were in the same spot. I miss Herb. I wish he’d come home.”

“Well, we should be grateful he wasn’t redeployed to the Pacific. And he’s doing important work, Anne. Necessary work. They’ve got to maintain order in Germany. The fighting’s over, but the world will never be the same as it was before.”

Anne nodded, feeling not chastised but certainly sobered. She was being selfish, yearning for Herb this way, wanting him back
now.
But her life and certainly her marriage seemed to be on hold; she was treading water and all she had to show for it were the days of her life drifting past.

Norman Wheelwright turned off onto the long white gravel drive, and Anne’s heart lifted. How odd, she thought, because nothing about her mother-in-law brought a song to her heart. It’s my flowers! she realized. She couldn’t wait to see all those beautiful, cheerful, fresh flower faces. Especially she longed to see the
sunflowers, those flagpoles bearing bright banners of yellow. The moment the car stopped, she jumped out, raced across the gravel, and through the entrance in the hedge.

There was the patio, next to the house, shaded by the hedge walls. There were her pots and tubs
—

Her hand flew to her bosom. The containers were just as she’d left them, but the plants in them were thin, unformed, and scraggly She hurried from pot to pot, bending over, touching the thin, unhealthy leaves, searching for signs of petals and finding none. She stuck her fingers into each container. The soil was moist. But the flowers looked sickly, deprived, failing. Tears sprang to her eyes. What had she done wrong?

“You should have used plants meant for shade,” a voice said.

Anne jumped. Turning, she saw Charity Wheelwright standing there, crisp in a pale blue dress and pearls, her hair tidily smoothed back into a chignon. She was smiling, just a little, and her expression was triumphant.

“Plants meant for shade?” Anne echoed.

“I thought you knew. You were so keen to garden. I thought you knew that many plants will not thrive in the constant shade of a hedged garden.”

“No,” Anne admitted sadly, “I didn’t know that.” She felt like a fool. Worse, she felt guilty—all those lovely plants, destined to struggle for the sun and not find it, and fall ill, fail, and flounder.

“Pity,” Charity Wheelwright said. “All that work for nothing.”

Summer

Eighteen

C
harlotte lounged
at the stern of Coop’s catboat, her face lifted to the sky as she watched the light dwindle and the stars, one by one, twinkle on, as if someone up there were walking through the heavens, lighting them like candles. In the soft evening air, the harbor waters spread around them in a gleaming quilt of indigo, while fishing boats and sailboats sped toward the distant shore, stitching ivory lines through the water with their wakes.

It had been two weeks since Oliver’s wedding, and for all that time the family had existed in peace. Their father had relented, giving Teddy another chance. Teddy had stayed sane and sober, driving off to work every morning, showered, shaved, and whistling, returning immediately after work for a swim or sail or to accompany Suzette as she waddled off for what Nona called “a constitutional” after dinner. When their father and the Bank Boys came down for a long weekend, Teddy remained respectful and polite, although on Sundays, his day off, he disappeared, driving Suzette around to show her the island and keeping out of his father’s radar. Their mother also seemed
to be avoiding Worth, but perhaps it only seemed that way. Helen was so busy with committee work.

“You look relaxed,” Coop said. He was lazily steering them back to his dock. He wore only swim trunks and an ancient pair of deck shoes that flopped open where the toes had worn through. The summer sun had bleached silver streaks in his blond hair, and Charlotte smiled, thinking how much a woman would have to pay a hair salon to get just that perfect effect. He was very tan, and his green eyes flashed like bright gems in his face.

“I am relaxed,” Charlotte agreed. She wore her old one-piece black Speedo and flip-flops, and she’d pulled her hair back into a ponytail to get it off her face and out of the wind. This was the third time she’d sailed with Coop, and she knew by now that like most men he preferred to be in complete control of his boat. Sometimes people liked it if she moved to do something—change sides to balance the boat if it was heeling too much, or adjust the centerboard—of her own accord. But she had quickly seen that if Coop wanted her to help, he’d tell her. Her father was like that. She jokingly called him Captain Bligh.

As they glided toward Coop’s house, Nona’s house also came into view, with its ridiculous Ionic columns and unused front door. Lights were on in the living room and in some rooms on the second floor, and the light was on in Suzette and Teddy’s room in the attic. From here, floating gently on the safe and increasingly shallow harbor waters, Nona’s house looked blessed. Radiant.

Coop followed Charlotte’s gaze. “How many of your relatives are there right now?”

Charlotte laughed. “The truth? I don’t even know. The Bank Boys come and go all the time, and so does Mee.”

“Man, I wish that woman would grow up and use her real name. I can’t stand calling her
Mee.
Makes me think of a cartoon mouse. Or a little kid. It’s not cute anymore, it’s just embarrassing.”

Charlotte chuckled. “Well, Coop, if you ask her out, I’m sure she’ll change her name to anything you like.”

Coop turned his glance to Charlotte and let his gaze linger on her. “It’s not Mee I want to be with.”

Charlotte felt herself flush, and she was grateful for the evening darkness that covered her. She supposed this could be considered their third date. Certainly it was the third time she’d spent an evening sailing with him, and now, as before, she was languorous with pleasure—although the icy gin and tonics Coop had brought in a cooler for their sail around the inner and outer harbor no doubt deepened her easy mood.