The Beach House (37 page)

“With the lovely Matt?”

“We’re just friends,” Daniel says quickly.

“I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.” Daff looks away then looks back at Daniel with a grin. “But he is lovely, and there’s nothing wrong with being just friends.”

“Unless one of you wants more.”

“Which one? You?”

Daniel looks sheepish.

“So what’s the problem? It seems like he adores you.”

“He wants a relationship and he doesn’t think I’m ready.”

“Are you?”

“I don’t know. He thinks I’m too new to this, that I need to play the field before I settle down, and if he gets involved he’s going to get hurt.”

Daff nods thoughtfully then shrugs. “It doesn’t sound unreasonable.”

“I know.” Daniel sniffs. “It’s just damned hard, and it gets harder every time I see him.”

“Because you just want to jump his bones?” Daff laughs.

“Jump his bones?” Daniel barks with laughter. “Well, yes. I guess.”

“So . . . babysitting. Jess should be back in about half an hour. I think that’s a wonderful idea. She adores Lizzie and Stella, and she’s responsible. That could be just what the doctor ordered this summer.”

“That’s what I thought. Do you want to phone Bee and talk to her about it?”

“I will. Just as soon as Jess gets back and I talk to her.”

“Real babysitting?” Jess is dubious. “For
money
?”

“Of course,” Daff says. “Nobody’s asking you to work for nothing.”

“The girls already adore you,” Daniel says encouragingly. “Lizzie asked me yesterday if you could be their new big sister.”

Jess’s eyes sparkle with delight.

“I spoke to Bee,” Daniel said, “and she said she was thinking, if you were interested, of offering you a job, Monday to Friday, every afternoon for four hours.”

Jess almost squeals with excitement as Daniel turns to Daff to explain, “Bee’s writing again, and although her dad wants to look after the girls while she’s working, she thinks it’s too much for him, given his health.” He turns back to Jess.

“Bee will be in the house, so it’s really just playing with the girls. Taking them to the beach or the lake, looking after them while she works. She’s thinking of five dollars an hour.”

Jess does a quick mental calculation. “A hundred dollars a week?” She gasps. “Are you serious?”

“Absolutely,” Daniel says.

“Oh my God!” Jess starts to jump around, grabbing her mother in excitement. “That’s so much money! I never had a proper job before!”

“Is that a yes?” Daniel is unsure.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Jess says. “When can I start?”

Daff laughs along with her, loving seeing her daughter in such a good mood. It is like having the old Jess back, the real Jess; and babysitting is a wonderful idea—she wishes she had thought of it herself.

She turns as she hears the crunch of gravel outside, and sees Michael walking across the driveway to the car. She wants to run out and talk to him, but he has been so distant these past couple of days that she now feels awkward about seeing him. She knows that something must have happened, something has changed.

Last night she sidled up to him in the kitchen, and asked him, in a low voice so no one else could hear, whether he was coming to her room later.

“I’m not feeling so good,” he had replied, barely able to meet her eyes. “Not tonight, I think.” He had quickly looked away, moved off, busied himself somewhere else, while all the disappointments of her youth, those teenage letdowns, the number of times she had had her heart broken, came flooding back as she stood there trying to understand what could possibly have changed.

It has been an extraordinary afternoon for Bee. She had driven her father into town, stopping along the way as he pointed out sights, showed her where he used to play as a child, told her stories he hadn’t thought about for years.

They went to the museum, where he showed Bee her ancestors and a painting of her grandmother Lydia, who looked exactly like Bee. He told her everything he could remember about his childhood. He barely took a breath, there seemed to be so much to say. The more he talked, the more memories came flooding back, Bee eagerly drinking them in, asking for more.

The cranberry flats, the Sankaty lighthouse, his school, their church.

Everett was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. He saw a number of people he hadn’t seen for almost forty years, but he knew them, and he also knew there was a very good chance of them dropping down dead from a heart attack were he to remove his hat and glasses, allow them to see his true identity.

But he wanted to. Oh how he wanted to. Arthur Worth. Goodness, how old he has got, his hair now entirely white, his face leathery from the sun, the same twinkling blue eyes. Sally McLean. Remember how beautiful she had been? They had played together in kindergarten, he had loved her from afar throughout elementary school. Now she is large and dowdy, barely recognizable were it not for her wonderful voice which, judging from the brief conversation he overheard her having in a store, hasn’t changed at all.

“You didn’t have a crush on her!” Bee said in delight as they left the store. “No!”

“I did,” he confessed. “She was my first love, and she was a tiny slip of a thing, so beautiful. Long, silvery blond hair and big green eyes. We all loved her, every last one of us.”

“Don’t you want to talk to her?” Bee asked.

“I do,” he said. “I want to talk to all of them. Arthur Worth was my best friend for years. We were roommates at school. He taught me how to fish. I have spent my life missing him, but I need to be re-introduced slowly, if at all. I suspect people will find out, eventually, however hard we try to keep it a secret, for Nantucket is not known for being good at secrets. I imagine most will have a similar reaction to Nan’s. They will hate me for it and they will be furious.”

“Even people who loved you?”

“Nan loved me once upon a time,” he said slowly. “It doesn’t seem to mean anything now.”

They get home and the girls are in heaven. Jess has played with them, given them piggyback rides for hours, has even fed them.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I can’t cook so I gave them peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner.”

“That’s okay.” Bee smiles. “It’s entirely my fault. I had no idea we’d be gone for such a long time. How was it? Were they good?”

“They were amazing.” Jess beams.

“Girls? Do you want Jess to come back tomorrow?”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” they chorus, dancing around Jess and flinging their arms around her legs as she giggles. “We love Jess!”

“Dad, will you stay here while I drive Jess home?”

“Of course,” he says with a smile, and Bee and Jess head out to the car.

Michael sits at the bar in the Tap Room, nursing a beer and watching the television numbly. He knows he ought to say something to Daff, tell her what he heard, tell her that he knows she and Mark Stephenson are somehow working together and she is getting a cut of this deal. He just doesn’t know how to.

What kind of person would do that? How could he have got it quite so wrong again? He thought his days of choosing women who were bad for him were over. He was just beginning to congratulate himself on having found someone so real, so normal, so honest and calm, before he heard that furious, whispered conversation.

If someone is dishonest, withholding from the beginning, what hope is there for an honest relationship, and what can a relationship be if it doesn’t start with trust?

He shivers at the thought of what he has revealed these last few nights, lying in bed with Daff into the early hours, telling her all the things he hadn’t thought to tell anyone for years, his feelings about his father, now he’s discovered he’s alive.

He can’t keep running away, this much he knows. He tried to run away from Jordana and look what happened. At some point he’ll have to deal with this. He knows she’s watching him, a look of sadness and confusion on her face because she feels him withdrawing, and she doesn’t know he knows.

He’ll deal with it soon.

Just as soon as he can.

Bee loves the mornings when she wakes up first. Most mornings she is woken up by footsteps pounding down the hall, and a yell of “Mom! She’s being mean to me, Mom!” Not what Bee needs to hear first thing in the morning. Unsurprising that she has a tendency to start her day off on the wrong foot.

Those days when she wakes up first, to peace and quiet, and can pad down to the kitchen and make herself a fresh cup of coffee, set the table for breakfast, sip her coffee as she reads over what she’s written the night before, that is perfection, the perfect way to start the day.

She was up late last night, scribbling notes about what her dad told her, not wanting to forget a thing, and she sits down at the table this morning, rereading, making sure she hadn’t forgotten anything.

The girls come in, and she gives them bowls of Rice Krispies, cracking four eggs in a pan as she sends Lizzie to go and get Poppa.

“He’s sleeping,” Lizzie says, coming back to the kitchen.

“Okay, darling. There’s one extra egg, then.” The girls fight over who gets the extra egg.

“He must be tired,” she says to the girls as they clear the table. “Poppa never sleeps in like this. I’ll go and wake him up.” And she goes to his room.

“Dad?” she says quietly. “Time to get up. Coffee’s ready and you missed breakfast. Dad? Dad?”

She walks over to the bed and starts to shake as she looks down at the inert figure lying there, his eyes closed, his last breath having left his body some hours before, in the middle of the night.

“Dad?” Bee starts to cry. “Dad? Daaaaaaaaaad!”

Daniel puts the phone down, stands still for a few seconds, then takes a deep breath, knowing he has to be the one to tell Nan.

He looks through the window and sees her, bent over in the vegetable garden, pulling weeds out and placing them in a plastic bag next to a trug filled with peas. Jess is sitting on the grass next to her, laughing as she chatters away, shelling the peas into a large bowl from the kitchen which is balanced precariously on top of her crossed legs.

Daniel walks out through the back door and trudges wearily over to the garden, filled with sadness at the loss of a man he has always liked enormously, a man who has been, in many ways, more of a father to him than his own.

He hates being the bearer of bad news, but he would have to either tell Michael who would tell Nan, or tell Nan himself. Telling her himself feels cleaner, somehow, easier this way.

“You look ghastly.” Nan looks over the fence at Daniel with a smile. “Nothing can be that bad, my darling.”

“Nan, can we go somewhere and talk?”

Nan’s face turns pale. “Why? What is it?”

“I . . . I need to talk to you.”

“What is it? Who’s been hurt? Is it Michael?” Her voice rises in panic.

“No.”

“Tell me, Daniel.” She pulls herself up straight, steeling herself.

“It’s Evan . . . Everett,” he says. “He had a massive heart attack last night. The ambulance came quickly but there was nothing they could do.” His face is a mask of sympathy; he doesn’t know how to break this sort of news, nor how Nan will take it.

Nan nods slowly. “So this time he is truly dead?” she asks, her voice devoid of all emotion.

“Yes.” Daniel nods. “This time he is dead.”

Nan bends down and lays her clippers neatly next to the trug, straightening up and placing a soft hand on Jess’s head, almost as if to steady herself, yet there is no expression on her face, no sign of any sadness at all.

“I’m going inside,” she says softly. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Nan, are you okay? Shall I come with you?” Jess has jumped to her feet.

“No, child.” Nan looks at her. “I shall be fine. It just wasn’t what I expected to hear.”

“I’m so sorry, Daniel,” Jess says awkwardly, not knowing what else to say. “How’s Bee?” she asks, once Nan has disappeared into the house, the pair of them watching her go. “And the girls?”

“The girls don’t really understand,” Daniel says. “Bee’s a mess. I’m going over there now. Maybe you could come and watch the girls, or give Bee a hand, just make sure they’re all okay.” He doesn’t think that Jess is only thirteen, too young to be given this sort of responsibility, and Jess is eager to help.

“Of course.” Jess jumps up and carries the bowl into the kitchen, scampering up the stairs to find her flip-flops, which are somewhere under an enormous pile of clothing in her room.

“Did you tell your mom we were going?” Daniel asks when she comes back down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

“No. I don’t know where she is,” Jess says.

“She’s on the back porch,” he says. “Reading.”

Jess runs out through the living room doors and startles her mother. “Bye, Mom.” She bends down and kisses her mother. “I have to go and look after the girls. We just heard that Bee’s dad, Nan’s old husband, died last night, and Daniel and I are going over there to see them. Love you,” she calls, disappearing around the side of the house, leaving Daff open-mouthed in shock.

Not because of the news, not because of Everett, but because her daughter spontaneously kissed her, and told her she loves her. Something she hasn’t done for
years.

She sits for an hour, replaying it over and over again in her mind, a tear of gratitude rolling slowly down the side of her face before she gets up to wander inside.

Daff knocks on Nan’s door, waiting a few seconds before knocking again.

“Yes?” Nan’s voice is soft.

“Nan? It’s Daff. I’ve brought you a cup of tea.”

“Come in, sweet girl.” Daff pushes open the door to see Nan sitting on the window seat and looking out to the ocean.

“I heard the news.” Daff places the cup and saucer down on a low mahogany table. “I’m so sorry.”