Page 29 of The Summer Club
“For who?” she cried. “For that trollop?”
“Mother!” Charley looked so pained for an instant she almost felt bad for him. But what could he be thinking? Brilliant, sensible Charley. And after all those years of hard work. The private schools. The tutors. The isolated whole of her life living in the shadows of the Darlings, giving up any chance of happiness for herself, all for Charley. So he could have it all. So he could be it all. And now… this girl.
He crossed the room and faced her, his expression full of worry but also something else. Already, he was unrecognizable to her.
“Nothing is going to change. All of our careful plans are still going to unfold. Just as we’ve always hoped.” He pecked her cheek. “I promise.”
Everything did change. Charley did not go to Yale that fall. Instead, he deferred and married Cora. They moved into a small apartment in the city, quietly arranged by Morty’s parents with hushed tones and urgent whispers. Having been largely disowned from her own family, Cora had no family of her own to count on. Tish remained in her own place on the Upper East Side, alone. On Thanksgiving Cora gave birth to not one but two babies. Morty’s parents sent a stuffed giraffe from FAO Schwarz in their place; Charley’s shotgun wedding to a pregnant woman had caused quite the scandalous ripple through their circles. As for Tish, it took her two days to visit the hospital.
She arrived empty-handed and unrested, there for one answer only. She got it the moment she looked at her son: Yale was all but forgotten.
Now on the other end of the phone, she hears Charley let out his breath. Her sweet, brilliant Charley who gave up his dreams to raise another man’s children. Who has given all of himself to a woman. A woman who had seemed destined to deprive him of a child of his own, until ten years later (blessedly), Charley could call himself a real father. Just as Tish had lived all those years alone without her Morty, raising her son as a single mother in the shadows of the Darlings, so too had Charley. Despite her best efforts and most valiant fights, history repeated itself. She has to make him understand that Riptide is the last piece they have of Morty. That he built it for them and found happiness there, with them. That he would want Charley’s child to have the same. Maybe now, finally, Sydney can uphold some part of the dream Tish had all those years ago. “I am going to stay a few days,” she tells her son. “I know how angry you are. But someday you will see.”
“This can be undone,” Charley says. “You can come back to the house and undo all of this.”
Tish thinks about this. She is honoring Morty’s memory. She may be old-fashioned, but these modern families create all kinds of havoc. Who pays for college? Who inherits? Haven’t she and Charley rescued Cora and her twins and provided enough already? As she was raised, family is blood. And Sydney is the only real family.
“Mother, it would help us all if you fixed this.”
Cora, Tish thinks. It would only help Cora get out of the fire she has found herself in. A fire of her own making. Tish has kept her secret all these years. Charley has already sacrificed the life he was meant to have, for her.
“No, I’m afraid that’s not going to happen,” she tells Charley. “What’s done is what should have been done years ago. I’m at Chatham Bars Inn, in the Mooncusser Cottage. You’re welcome to visit me here.”
Cora
When they came up from the beach, it was clear the kids had been out. Hugh’s car was parked in a different spot on the seashell driveway. There was a pile of kicked-off flip-flops and sandals strewn across the entryway’s sisal rug. A sign that used to bring joy to her heart because it meant everyone was home—under Riptide’s roof—together for a few weeks of summer fun. Something that seemed harder and harder to accomplish each year they grew older and further apart, busy with their own lives. But now, here they all were, during what should have been a joyous start to vacation, and there wasn’t sight nor sound from any of them.
Charley set the picnic basket on the butcher block island and began emptying its contents. Six uneaten sandwiches, ruined. Three plums, bruised from being toted around. An unopened wedge of cheddar. Cora tore off the cellophane wrapper and broke a piece off. Hell, she may as well enjoy it before it spoiled.
“Any sign of them?” Charley asked, listening overhead for footsteps or sounds of movement. Over the years Riptide had been built up and added on to, but the cottage was still cozy enough and the pine floors creaky enough that it was always easy to tell where people were.
Cora shrugged. “What’s the difference? None of them are speaking to us.”
“Oh, honey.” Charley came around and rested his hands on her shoulders. Cora leaned back against his chest. A solid chest, a chest she had lain her head on for many decades. Charley was so dependable, always. “Give it time. Riptide has a way of washing away the hard stuff. My dad always said so.”
Cora had heard this before. She’d never met Morty, but Charley referred to him so often it sometimes felt as if he’d been with them all along. To her, Morty had always sounded almost too good to be true. A privately educated and successful businessman from a powerful family who had fallen in love with a first-generation, working-class Irish-American woman, against his parents’ wishes. A man who despite all material wealth preferred the simple life with family over all else, and had gone against the grain of his parents’ expectations to live a life that afforded them that. The fact that Cora had not met Morty made her sad. But the fact that he left Charley at such a young age was far sadder. Sometimes Cora wondered if Charley remembered his father through his own boyhood experiences or from the stories told by Tish. Memory was a funny thing; sometimes the things we thought we experienced firsthand were really just stories told or suggestions made to us at a young age by others. In her smaller moments, Cora wondered if that were the case with Morty, who as far as she could tell had achieved near sainthood in his wife’s and son’s views. He was just a man, after all. As human and flawed as the rest of them.
But then she would reprimand herself for even doubting her husband’s rose-colored memories. Look at the evidence! Charley Darling, salt of the earth despite his affluent upbringing. Gentle and kind and true. He certainly didn’t get any of that from his mother.
As she watched him put away the remains of the picnic, there was the sound of footsteps on the stairs and Cora brightened. Molly appeared on the landing. “We’re having company,” she said. “Mom sent me down to help.”
“Company?” Cora asked. She turned to Charley who shrugged. “Who’s coming?”
Molly tugged the fridge open and stared at its contents. “Don’t know. Some guy, I think. Mom said to pull out the cheeses.”
“Some guy.” Cora glanced at the wedge of cheddar that certainly did not look appetizing enough for company. “Well, I can’t say I had anything planned for dinner. But I suppose we can dig something up.”
At that moment the kitchen came to life. “Don’t worry, Mom. We’ve got it under control.” Martin pecked her on the cheek as he passed. “Molly, why don’t you grab the cutting board from the pantry. The big one.”
Hugh followed. He looked about the kitchen, right past his parents. “Someone needs to mix some cocktails.”
The front door closed with a slam. It was Sydney and Andi. “That would be you. But don’t think mixing a few drinks will get you out of making dinner.” Andi sailed past them with overloaded bags of groceries and set them on the island with a thunk. Her sister followed suit.
Cora watched her daughters unpack. “My. What’ve you girls got there?”
Andi kept her eyes on the food, but at least she was speaking to her. “Corn from the farm stand. Clams from the pier. Oh, and two bottles of wine.”
Hugh looked up. “That’s my girl.”