Page 66 of The Summer Club

“I know. And I can’t say it’s any justification for what she did, Cora, but this is what she told me. Her parents felt uncomfortable about her marrying up; they didn’t understand the world she lived in. They didn’t trust it. On some level, they thought she was ashamed of where she came from and that offended them.”

“Doesn’t every parent want more for their child?”

Charley shrugged sadly. “I don’t think they thought of it as more. They were strict Irish Catholic from a tight immigrant neighborhood. Everything they needed in life was within a handful of miles, from the Irish Community Center, to the church, to the grocer. No one left. They just married someone from the neighborhood and started over with the next generation. They saw it as her turning her back on everything they’d worked so hard to give her.”

In that context, Cora admitted it made some sense. Tish’s marriage had left her feeling both estranged from her past and struggling to fit in to her new life.

“My dad’s family was Presbyterian.” Charley laughed. “Not the most desirable arrangement for the daughter of a conservative Catholic family. But she and my father were so in love, she didn’t let it sway her. Together, they had everything they needed. But when he died, so suddenly and so young, I think it left her in complete isolation. She didn’t have the same support and ties from her own family and she’d never felt accepted or a part of his.”

It was unimaginable, to lose your spouse at such a young age. And to then raise a child without a family’s support. “At least she had the means,” Cora pointed out. “You were both taken care of.”

“Maybe. My family may have given materially. But they denied her everything emotionally.” Charley’s expression dimmed. “I was already fatherless. And my father’s family owned everything. Our apartment. Our car. The schools I went to were all paid for by them. To keep me in that lifestyle, she had to give up a lot. She couldn’t move away and start over. She couldn’t marry again. Not as long as I was in their care.

“So she sacrificed. And once I was old enough she wanted me to have an escape. To be free of their control, as she saw it. Which is why she pushed me so hard in school as a kid. Why she tutored me and studied with me and enrolled me in every extracurricular she could: chess, golf, French, violin. You name it.”

“That’s a lot to expect of any child,” Cora said. “We never did that to our kids.”

“We didn’t have to. My mother was preparing me for my future. It was a carefully charted path she gave years of her life to keep me on. And then, I didn’t follow that path. I didn’t go to Yale. I didn’t become a doctor. I think it broke her heart a second time.”

Cora sat back. “Because of me. And the twins.”

“No,” Charley said. “Because I went my own way. I didn’t choose what she’d laid out for me.”

“But didn’t she want you to be happy?”

“Of course. But remember, she’d grown up with nothing, then married into everything. Both came with ties. Her idea of happiness was freedom from all of that.”

Cora laughed, not unkindly. “Yale medical school. God, I wish one of our kids had gone. Then at least we could say it skipped a generation.”

“Yale was my ticket, for her. So I didn’t have to rely on the family name or money. So I wasn’t sucked into the foundation, like my father had been. Like she was, after he died. That’s how she saw things, as strange as it may sound. It was a different generation and she’d lost so much.”

Cora heard the words, but they did not entirely reach her heart. “Charley, you sacrificed too. Not just your mother. Why can’t she see that what you did was for love?” As she said the last part, Cora felt that old rush of shame. Charley had loved her wholly from the beginning. But the same could not be said for her, at least in the beginning. She’d decided to try, out of love for her unborn children. Out of fear of returning to Ohio and living in her father’s shadow. “We all sacrificed,” she said, rising from the table.

“Cora. Don’t walk away in the middle of this, please.”

She had to walk away because she could not look Charley in the eye. Cora had also given up love, just as his mother had. But she could not say that out loud. She never could.

“Cora!”

Charley never raised his voice with her. She halted at the screen door.

“I want to ask my mother back here. I want our family to sit down together.”

It was the worst idea. The kids were just settling. The wedding was around the corner. James would be arriving and the dresses were not done being fitted and there was a rehearsal dinner to throw. “Charley, no. The one thing we all agreed to was to batten down this hatch until the wedding. We promised Sydney.”

“Sometimes promises need to be broken. I think a call is in order. And I want to make it.” His voice trembled with effort to contain himself. She regarded his flushed cheeks, his drawn expression. Charley did not push back on much.

“We’re all together here,” he reminded her. “Who knows when that will happen again. And my mother is not getting any younger. You didn’t see her the other day at the tearoom, but she’s fading, Cora. She’s slowing down, all of a sudden. This trip back has done something to her.”

It was true. Cora had noticed that Tish looked smaller than usual, that first day she swept into Riptide. The fire was still in her eye, but there had been a vulnerability in her gait. A frailness she’d never thought possible. What if Charley was right? Could she really deny them a chance to air their grievances at this stage? “All right,” she relented. “But do you really think you can change her mind?”

Charley held out his hands. “She’s already given the house to Sydney. She’s already spilled our secret.”

Cora couldn’t help but note how Charley called it their secret. It was hers, really, but he’d been the faithful guardian of it all these years.

“Then what?” Cora asked gently. “What good will come of this meeting?”

Charley looked away, across the backyard and over the dunes below. To where the ocean glimmered, just beyond. “My father drowned somewhere out there. On a summer day, while my mother and I were right here. I can’t rationalize what she did, but somewhere, in her bones, she believes this is the right thing to do. Somehow she thinks this honors my father’s legacy. The Darling family name, which meant so much to him. Even if I don’t understand it—or agree with it—this is her wish. Maybe her last. And I think it falls on me to somehow try to respect it.”