Page 59 of The Summer Club

Cora hauled herself upright. “I said get out!” she screamed. Her ears rang as she did.

There was the click of heels and the whoosh of the door and, just as quickly, Cora was alone in the room, the rattling of her heart the only sound in her ears.

Fearing she would be sick, Cora searched left and right for the pink plastic bin the nurse had left. It was nowhere.

Instead, she sank into her bedding. Tish was gone. The babies were tucked away in their nursery. And she was safe from her mother-in-law’s rage. Breathe, she told herself.

Her pulse had finally slowed when the door opened again. Cora startled, ready for her. Ready to fight.

But it was Charley. He smiled softly. “You’re still awake?”

Cora opened her mouth, but her lips were like sand, the words too hard to choke out.

“Here, let me pull the shades,” he said. Charley crossed the floor and the room fell into darkness. “That’s better now, isn’t it?” He turned to her and rested a hand atop her sweaty brow. His face fell. “Darling, you feel hot. Should I call a nurse?”

Cora shook her head, unable to tell Charley what just happened. “No, just some water.”

Charley hurried out to the hall and came back with water. And a nurse. He was so nervous, so doting. As the nurse went over her vitals, Charley fretted by her bedside.

“I’m fine. Really,” Cora insisted.

When the nurse left, Cora sipped her ice water under her husband’s watchful gaze. She realized then she could not tell Charley. Not then. Maybe not ever.

What Tish said had lodged in her heart and she braced herself against it. But she could not deliver the same blow to him; not after everything he’d done for her and the babies.

“Are you sure you’re feeling all right?” he asked, taking her hand in his.

Cora looked into his hazel-gray eyes. “I’m sure.”

No, she would not speak of the dark things his mother had unleashed on her. What Tish had hissed in her ear that day was odious. But far more odious was the thought that had stayed with her ever since: What if all of it were true?

Andi

It was almost a gibbous moon, and gentle light spilled through her bedroom window. Her walls were splashed with it. Across the wooden floorboards was more. Andi sat in bed, knees tucked to her chin, staring at the amber glow surrounding her. It was otherworldly, like something out of a fairy tale. As was the thing she was about to do.

It was after midnight, and she was sneaking out of the house. If such a thing could be said of a forty-four-year-old single mother on vacation with her family. But it was true. Her parents were asleep and none the wiser, down the hall. As were Martin and Hugh, who’d turned in early that night. Sydney’s doorway had glowed with lamplight as she talked late into the evening with James, their bedtime ritual, but now her doorway was dim too. And it signaled to Andi that it was almost time. As would the clink of a pebble against her window, any moment now.

Andi pulled her knees tighter to her chest and tried to will her heart to slow while she waited for it. It was the most exhilarating thing she’d done in decades. Seconds later, there was a sound outside. Then silence. Andi strained to hear. And just when she’d dismissed it as a nocturnal animal, there was the stony plink of pebble against siding. She leaned forward and slid her window open as high as it would go. Below, in the shadows, something moved. Nate Becker stepped forward and he too was cast in moonlight. Andi laughed out loud. “This is crazy!” she half shouted and half whispered.

“Yes, it is. Now get down here.”

They laughed the whole way down the beach path, side by side, the sand cool beneath their bare feet. The leaves of the rosa rugosa glowed like silver and when the path ended they tumbled out onto the beach below. Andi halted.

“What is it?” Nate asked.

She was almost out of breath, but that wasn’t the reason. “Look,” she said, pointing to the silvery ocean ahead. Then turning slowly, to the dunes they’d just run through. And finally, up overhead. A few stars on the edge of the moon still twinkled. “I want to take it all in.”

Nate stepped closer and took her hand in his. “That’s nice.”

Andi looked up at him. “You’re pretty nice yourself, Nate Becker.”

For a beat they locked eyes. Andi laughed, nervously. “Where’d you hide that beer?”

Nate slipped a small canvas cooler off his shoulder. “Want one?”

“Maybe two?” she joked.

They sat at the high-tide mark, just beyond the stretch of seaweed and shells. “Tide’s coming in fast tonight,” Nate observed, cracking open two bottles and handing her one.