Page 64 of The Summer Club
As such, he helps her as she lowers herself gingerly onto the driftwood. Jonathan seems reluctant to let go of her hand, so she gives him a look she knows he can interpret even behind her oversized sunglasses. After all, it’s what they agreed to.
“Very well, then, Mrs. Darling.” He points to the opening in the seagrass by the steps they just came down. “I will be right over there, should you need anything.” He pauses. “Anything at all.”
“Jonathan?” she says.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Go away.”
He smiles and turns for the stairs.
This stretch of private beach is perfect. The narrow strip of sand is empty, save for a few small dinghies, overturned. Tish stares at the metal hull of the one closest. It reminds her of the underbelly of a whale. She wonders how a man could cling to it if his boat overturned in a storm. There seems nothing to hang on to. Nothing to save you. “I’m here, Morty,” she whispers aloud.
The ache starts at the base of her skull and Tish steels herself against it. It’s what happens every time she thinks of that day, as the gates of memory open. She turns to the sea, so calm today. The undulating surface glassy, the waves so timid they barely ripple onto the shore.
It had started out just like this, that summer day. Tish will never forget it. They’d awakened early, the sunrise dancing at the edges of their bedroom curtains. Tish wanted to roll over and sleep some more, but she sensed her husband awake beside her. It was how Morty got on mornings he planned to take the Whaler out to fish. By sunrise she could feel him practically humming next to her with childlike anticipation. As if sensing the energy, young Charley trotted into their room and leapt atop their covers. Morty sprang up and caught him, tucking Charley’s sprawling limbs together and pulling him in, a little wild animal. Their little animal, hair sun-bleached and skin bronzed from a whole Cape Cod summer. Tish laughed as she watched them wrestle in the covers. In one week they would close up the cottage for the season and head back to the city. Their summer had been so idyllic, Tish didn’t want to go.
She’d made an early breakfast of waffles and bacon and, as she stood at the stove, she watched through the screen door where Morty and Charley stood on the patio. The tackle box was open on the picnic table, a congregation of bobbers gathered on the wooden surface. Morty was showing their son how to string a fishing rod.
“The water is calm today,” Morty remarked when they came in to eat. “Like glass.” Tish would never forget those words. She knew he’d already been down to the beach to check it out. Mornings he fished, her husband headed down to check the tide before he even poured a cup of coffee, so excited was he to climb into the new Whaler they’d bought the summer before. With custom wooden seats. And the name Charley painted across its stern. “Unsinkable!” Morty liked to tell everyone he could. The thirteen-foot boat was Morty’s pride and joy. Fishing was his diversion on the Cape and recently he’d started to bring Charley along with him. Tish loved that Morty was teaching Charley. But that morning was the weekly children’s story hour at Eldridge Library and Tish was bringing Charley. After, when story time was over and Morty had returned with his daily catch, they’d meet back at Riptide for lunch before heading to the beach for a family swim. It was as busy as their summer days got. It was perfect.
After breakfast, she packed Morty a snack. A joke between them, as Tish liked to remind him he did little more than sit and float for a few hours. But she never sent him off emptyhanded, and so that morning she wrapped three dill pickles in wax paper, along with a small wedge of cheese and a handful of crackers. When Morty kissed her goodbye in the kitchen, he stopped in the doorway and came back for one more; she would always remember that fact too.
Story hour was entertaining. The children’s librarian sang a song using teddy bear puppets. Afterward, Tish and Charley lingered in the children’s section and checked out two picture books that they would never return. When they came outside, to her surprise the day had completely turned. Tish glanced skyward. Dark gray clouds tumbled past the First Congregational Church steeple. Wind whipped the hem of her dress. “I’m cold,” Charley said, pressing against her knees.
“Let’s get you home.” For a beat, Tish thought of Morty out in the boat. But he was a skilled fisherman and he knew to keep his eye on the horizon when on open water. By the time they got home he’d probably be waiting for them.
It was hard to keep her eyes on the road as she drove home to Riptide. Overhead, it seemed as if the sky was skating past. Main Street emptied quickly as shoppers hurried to their cars, and as they neared the Orpheum Theater, the first pelts of rain hit the windshield. By the time Tish pulled up to their cottage the rain was coming down in silver sheets.
“Morty?” she shouted as she raced through the front door with Charley in her arms. To her surprise, there was no sign of his return.
She set Charley down and hurried to the rear bedrooms—but both were empty.
At the kitchen window she peered out through the storm, certain he’d come running up the beach path at any moment, but it was empty. He was probably still tying up the Whaler down at the cove. Morty could be fussy about his new boat and gear, especially with a storm coming in. No matter. She put the kettle on the stove for tea.
An hour later, however, there was still no sign of him. The storm had not slowed, as she’d hoped, but picked up. Wind gusts whipped against the windows, shaking the walls of the cottage with each blast. Rain thundered against the panes.
“Mommy,” Charley whimpered, following her from room to room. Tish picked him up and held him close. Even within the small confines of the cottage, she could not stop pacing.
“It’s okay, sweet boy,” she murmured. “Daddy will be home soon.”
Over the course of the hour the sky had turned from charcoal to an eerie green hue. Tish had spent enough time by the coast to know this was not a good sign. She kept checking the back window for signs of Morty: a flash of yellow slicker running up from the beach. But there was nothing but beach grass blown sideways and rain. Endless sheets of rain. A slow panic began to pulse through her.
There was no phone in their cottage. She thought of the Nickersons, up the street. They were year-rounders and she knew they had one. But what to do with little Charley?
“Charley, I need you to stay here,” she said firmly, kneeling to look straight into his eyes. She did not want to leave him alone, but neither could she imagine running up the street through the storm with him.
To her relief, he did not howl in protest, but sucked his thumb worriedly. She tucked him on the couch with one of his new library books and his stuffed ducky. “I will be right back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail!” she promised. “No matter what, you stay inside.”
Geared up in raincoat and galoshes, she went to the front door. “Be a good boy,” she reminded Charley one last time. But no sooner had she opened the door than it blew back on its hinges. Tish stumbled backward. Water blasted inside the cottage. Her umbrella collapsed inward.
It took all her force to close the door, shutting out the storm once more. Once done, she stood dripping, staring in disbelief at the puddle of water around her feet. There was no way she could get to the Nickersons’. Charley started to cry. Tish felt she might too.
For what felt like hours, they waited. When the lights flickered and then went out, Tish lit the kerosene camping lamps Morty kept hanging on the kitchen wall. She pulled Charley onto her lap and they read the library books, over and over again. By dinnertime, when Morty had still not returned, she dumped milk and cereal into two bowls with shaking hands.
“For dinner?” Charley asked.
“Just eat,” she snipped. Then, more gently, “It’s a treat. When the power goes out we get breakfast for dinner.”