The Family Beach House (10 page)

The library was quiet, at the back of the house, away from the party out on the front lawn, but Tilda could still hear the distant din and hum of voices and music. Tilda loved Larchmere's library. This room alone seemed to belong in an English country manor, not in a house near the beach. (For the first time Tilda wondered if the decor and atmosphere of the room had been her mother's or her father's decision.) A large, old, colorful but almost threadbare Asian rug covered much of the floor. The wall-to-wall bookshelves were stained a dark brown. The leather sleeper couch was also dark brown. Two high-backed armchairs, one, faded chintz, the other, faded green velvet, settled on either side of the wood-burning stove. A portrait of Larchmere hung over the stove, painted by a friend of her father's long since dead. Black and white, framed photographs, sitting on a large wooden desk, showed Tilda's grandparents, both sets, on their wedding days. Her parents' wedding portrait was in her father's room.

Tilda turned on the lamp that stood on the desk. It had a brass stand and a green glass shade. She angled the shade so she could better see the books on the shelves to the right of the desk. She found what she had hoped to find. There was a Book of Common Prayer in Larchmere's library, as well as a copy of the King James Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Koran. Craig had contributed a copy of the
I Ching
back when he was in college and interested in such things. Tilda took down the Book of Common Prayer. Its red leather covers were clean and the edges straight. No one in the McQueen family could be considered overly religious. Somewhat interested in religions, yes, but not religious.

A minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church had married Tilda and Frank. Frank's parents had wanted them to be married in the Catholic Church, in which he had been raised. But Frank just didn't feel deeply about the religion of his youth. Now, twenty some-odd years later, Tilda couldn't recall the exact words of her own marriage ceremony. They had written their own vows but Tilda had not looked at her wedding book, where they were recorded, for years. Had there even been prayers, in the traditional sense?

She opened the red leather book and found what she was looking for. She read in a soft voice, almost a whisper:

“Matilda, will you have this man to be your husband; to live together in the covenant of marriage? Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health; and forsaking all others, be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?”

There was another version of the vow, and Tilda read that, too.

“In the Name of God, I, Matilda, take you, Francis, to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow.”

If she had spoken those words, it seemed that she would be let off the hook, now that Frank was gone. Why should she feel scared or nervous about meeting another man? Why should she feel guilty about marrying again? She had kept her marital commitment to stay with Frank until one of them died. He had died. She had not.

Tilda closed the book and returned it to the shelf. She knew that the vows she and Frank had written had not mentioned illness or death. Love, of course, respect, and compassion. But nothing about dying.

She turned and walked to the other side of the room, where her wedding portrait was displayed. Someone—her father, she assumed—had put it away when Frank died, probably in an effort to spare her more pain. Which, of course, was ridiculous. Out of sight did not always mean out of mind. Tilda had soon rescued it from a drawer in the desk and returned it to its usual place, propped on a shelf against some of the least read books in Larchmere's library. (In her own home, the portrait hung in the living room, amid graduation photos of her kids, formal family Christmas portraits, and Hannah and Susan's official wedding photo.)

Tilda looked carefully at the photo in its silver frame. How young she had looked—how young she had been! And even skinnier than she was now! And Frank…She had never noticed it before but looking at the portrait now she thought that Frank looked absolutely terrified! The awful thought struck her that maybe he had been unsure of marrying her, hoping for a last-minute escape, a reprieve. Ridiculous. He had probably just been uncomfortable in his tuxedo, scared he would pop a button at a wrong moment, or spill red wine all over his starched white shirt.

His parents were gone now, dead within a year of each other, victims of cancer, about three years before Frank got sick. They had been in their forties when Frank, their only child, was born, a late and a surprise baby, a cherished gift neither had realized they had wanted so dearly. Abundant and unconditional love had helped Frank become the happy person he was, the smile of joy to Tilda's frown of worry. It was sad that such good and generous people, all three of them, had died such miserable deaths. But good didn't mean lucky, or exemption from life's harsher realities.

Her own parents had never been close with the O'Connells. They had little in common and met only once or twice a year at some celebratory occasion, like Jon's or Jane's birthday or Thanksgiving or, very rarely, at a July Fourth barbeque at Larchmere. Tilda had always thought the O'Connells, Margaret and John, found Larchmere too grand, maybe even intimidating. Maybe it was Charlotte they found “above their station,” maybe Bill, too. Tilda had done her best to make her in-laws feel welcome at Larchmere but her best, she was afraid, had not been quite enough.

“There you are.”

Tilda turned toward the door. She had not heard it open.

“You're being missed out front,” Hannah said. “Tessa Vickes wants to talk to you about her book group. She's a little tipsy though, so don't expect much literary insight.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Are you okay? You were thinking of Frank, weren't you?”

Tilda smiled halfheartedly. “Guilty as charged. I'm sorry.”

“First, stop saying you're sorry. Second, come back outside. Maybe you should get a little tipsy, too. You've got that melancholy look on your face again.”

“Alcohol will make me feel sadder than I already do. Plus, I haven't eaten much all day. I'd probably fall down.”

Hannah sighed, feigning exasperation. “Well, all right, there's strawberry shortcake.”

Tilda felt enormous and sudden relief that she had this person in her life, that this person, with her good heart and her tousled red hair, loved her. “Thanks, Hannah,” she said, though words were inadequate to express what she felt. “I'm really glad you're my sister.”

“Oh, come on.” Hannah grabbed Tilda's arm and tugged her toward the door. “I hate when people get all sentimental on me. Besides, Tessa is waiting. You need to talk to her before she falls to the ground!”

Friday, July 20

It was the morning after the barbeque. Though tired from staying up too late the night before, Hannah had come with Tilda for a walk on the beach. She felt she needed some exercise after all she had eaten at the party. Frank had been the Grillmeister, no doubt, but Bobby wasn't shabby, either. She defied anyone to pass up one of his burgers. (There had been hot dogs, too, in addition to the chowder and lobster and steamers and corn and strawberry shortcake. And beer.)

All morning, and prompted by her reading in the Book of Common Prayer in Larchmere's library, Tilda had been thinking about her colleague Bea Harris. Bea taught geometry, had one young daughter, and was recently divorced. According to Bea, the whole mess was her husband's doing. He had cheated. He had used money from their joint account to take his mistress on vacations. He had broken Bea's heart and her spirit. Bea claimed that she had it much harder than Tilda, who had “only” had to deal with death, not with betrayal.

“Let me ask your opinion,” Tilda said to her sister. They had walked about a quarter mile down the beach in silence, until now. It was almost nine-thirty (they had come out late in deference to Hannah) and the beach was filling with people lugging chairs and coolers and Boogie Boards and kites. “Who do you think suffers most—someone who's lost a loved one to another person or someone who's lost a loved one to death?”

Hannah raised her eyebrows. “That's a big question. I'm not sure I can say. On some levels all loss is equal, I suppose. All loss is hard to bear. What do you think?”

“I think,” Tilda said, “that you can qualify or quantify loss only theoretically. I don't think that loss as experienced can, or should, be qualified or quantified.”

Hannah nodded.

“I think that the intensity of a particular loss can be determined only by the person experiencing the loss,” Tilda went on. “I'm sure that for particular people the loss of a grandparent might be far harder to bear than the loss of a parent. It all depends on the individual and her circumstances.”

“I guess I'd have to agree,” Hannah said now. “But what brought up this happy topic?”

Tilda told her about Bea. Hannah agreed that the woman had no right to judge the size or the weight of Tilda's loss or to compare it to her own. But to be charitable, and Tilda always tried to be, Bea's words had probably come from a deep and dark chasm of pain. There was a very good chance that Bea had not really intended to wound her friend; there was a very good chance that someday she would regret speaking as she had. Emotional pain made one do and say terribly hurtful things. It was to be expected and understood and even, if possible, forgiven.

“Chances are you didn't want your husband to die,” Tilda said now, musingly. “Chances are you didn't want him to go away. I won't say that I don't feel angry with Frank and at—at the universe, I guess, for allowing this to happen, for allowing Frank to die at the time and in the way he did. But I'm not angry with Frank—or the universe—in the same way I would be if he'd left me for another woman because of some ridiculous midlife crisis.”

Hannah laughed. “The person experiencing the midlife crisis wouldn't call it ridiculous. It's probably all too real and awful for him, or for her. Why else would an otherwise sane and reasonable person disrupt his or her life so entirely, which is usually what people suffering a midlife crisis do? Look at all those cheating, adulterous male politicians who have been in the news these past few years. Every one of them made a public fool of himself. Which is why we laugh at them at the same time we're praying like mad that it will never happen to us.”

“You'll never have a midlife crisis, Hannah,” Tilda said. “You're too smart and levelheaded.”

Was she really? Wasn't she having a midlife crisis at that very extended moment—debating whether to start a family or to—to what? To run away? “Let's hope so,” she said with false cheer in her voice.

They walked a bit farther in silence, each occupied with her thoughts.

“I don't know how to ‘create the conditions for affection,'” Tilda said suddenly. “I read that phrase recently, in a book, in a novel by Alexander McCall Smith. Do you know him? Of course you do. Everybody does. It's a good phrase. It struck me very forcefully. With Frank, it was so easy, right from the start. Our relationship came so naturally. I didn't have to create anything. Neither did he. It took almost no effort to fall in love, to get married.”

“Maybe that can happen again,” Hannah said. “Maybe another relationship can come naturally. If you, what was the phrase—‘create the conditions for affection'—which I take means to be open to other people. To be open to possibilities, to be imaginative.”

“But can you really be open when it's a choice? I mean, can you force yourself to be open to others? It sounds very hard. I stumbled onto Frank all those years ago. And I was so young. Now…now I have to decide to be willing to stumble onto someone. That's very different, isn't it? You don't intend to stumble. You just do.”

“I don't know.” Hannah shrugged. “People seem to be stumbling on purpose all the time if you believe the claims of eHarmony and Match.com and all those other dating sites.”

“I can't meet someone online,” Tilda said firmly. “It seems so…I don't know. It's just not me.”

“You are so old-fashioned. How do you do it? How do you survive in the twenty-first century?”

“I do just fine, thank you,” Tilda said. “I use the Internet. I do my banking online. I just have—preferences—for getting to know people.”

“Well, all I know is that you can't go on like some, I don't know, some medieval widow who shuts herself up in a convent for the rest of her days. You have to live your life.”

“Why?” Tilda countered. “No, really. Why can't I just—I don't know, endure life?”

“You're right,” Hannah said. “You could choose to endure life rather than to live it, but how self-pitying is that? And doesn't it seem like a crime against—I don't know, life itself—to choose the path of least resistance? Life isn't one of those novels where it's noble and romantic to waste away, to pine for the man lost at sea or whatever. Not for me, anyway. And I don't think it was for Frank, either. Not the Frank I knew as my brother-in-law. And as my friend. The last thing he would want is for you to be a martyr to his cause.”

A martyr to Frank's cause! That doesn't sound very appealing,
Tilda thought. That sounded like something the narrator of “The Raven” would do, martyr himself to the cause of his dead loved one. She did not want to be a martyr!

“Let me ask you something,” she said now. “When you met Susan, did it feel right immediately? Did it feel natural to be together, right from the start?”

“Well, you have to remember we'd been set up by a mutual acquaintance,” Hannah said. “At least someone thought we'd be compatible, so we had a pretty good shot of success going in. So, yeah, there was definitely immediate attraction. I don't know about ‘natural,' though. I was a nervous wreck. Can you be natural and nervous at the same time?”

“Sure. Of course. I remember the very first time I saw Frank. I hadn't met him yet, but just the sight of him across the classroom made me want to throw up.”

Hannah laughed. “Well, there's the basis for a good relationship! Vomit!”

“Very funny. You know what I mean. I was just immediately attracted and immediately felt all funny inside.”

“I know,” Hannah conceded. “If you don't care, you can't be nervous. Well, on that note, I have to get back to the house. Mother Nature—Ms. Natural herself—is calling.”

They hurried back to the parking lot and Tilda's car. Just before Tilda got into the driver's seat, she scanned the horizon. Nothing.