The Color of Water in July (24 page)

EPILOGUE

S
EVEN YEARS LATER

Jess leaned against the door frame in her sunny kitchen, cradling the phone in the crook of her neck, listening carefully and nodding, asking the occasional question while looking out the kitchen window at the sunlight playing on the surface of the lake. The window was open, and a white-cotton gauze curtain ruffled slightly in the mild summer breeze.

“What time did they start? Have you had any bleeding? When’s the last time you felt the baby move?”

At the faint sound of a beeper buzzing on vibrate mode, Jess looked down at her waist where her beeper was clipped, pushing the buttons and scribbling a phone number on the paper in front of her, all the while murmuring listening sounds and nodding.

“It sounds like time for you to head in . . . I know, I know,” Jess said, her voice soothing. “Yes, I’ll come to the hospital as soon as you get there. Don’t worry. You know I promised you that.”

Jess scribbled a note that she left on the kitchen counter:
Gone to the hospital. First labor. Might be long. I’ll try to be there by seven.

Driving in, she was a few minutes late, her hair still damp from the rapid hospital shower. About an hour ago, she had delivered her patient’s healthy six-pound baby boy. She caught sight of the Wequetona gates, the painted sign, the trim row of trees. Even after all these years, Jess still got a funny feeling when she drove past the Wequetona gates. She didn’t drive through them anymore. Of course, the conservancy had opened a new roadway, which led around the back of Wequetona Club to a widened gravel parking lot. Down along the left side, there was a massive row of arborvitae towering up, over eight feet tall. The trustees had insisted on planting them when Journey’s End was no longer part of the Club. Straight in front of her, the cottage looked exactly the same as ever though—except for the sign, which read:
L
ITTLE
T
RAVERSE
C
ONSERVANCY
H
EADQUARTERS.
P
INE
L
AKE.

Inside, of course, everything looked completely different. The walls to the downstairs bedrooms had been taken out, so that now the whole first floor, except for the kitchen, was one enormous meeting space. There were massive lines of track lighting everywhere. The lights blazed down on the banks of chairs. From the kitchen, the scent of percolating coffee wafted out, and there were tables set up with red-felt tablecloths, covered with pamphlets about conservation and petitions to sign. She caught sight of the framed
Town & Country
cover; it showed the front of the cottage looking better than it ever really had looked—red-white-and-blue bunting, bright geraniums, and borrowed brand-new wicker, with the caption
The Other Kennebunkport
emblazoned across the front. She smiled for a minute, thinking of Russ. Last she heard, he was still in New York and had gotten the coveted editor’s job at
Architectural Home.

Inside the main conference room, she was pleased to see that people were still milling around and not yet seated. She was shocked, though she shouldn’t have been, to see how elaborately everyone else was dressed. Jess saw a number of Wequetona people, not surprising, she guessed. It was funny. Even though they lived just down the road year-round, they almost never ran into the summer people. There was Toni Barnes dressed in a butter-colored linen sheath, holding a plastic cup filled with white wine and a little green cocktail napkin, talking to . . . someone . . . Wasn’t that Philip Cartwright? Over in the corner, Jess saw a tall, thin woman, slightly stooped, who might have been Martha Whitmire—hard to tell since so many of those women looked alike, and with her back to Jess, over near Martha, she saw a gaunt figure in a navy-blue blazer, a small bald spot glowing faintly on the back of his head, probably Phelps.

It took a moment for Jess to see Daniel. As always, it was like she felt his presence before she really saw him, felt that momentary clutch, even still, after all this time. He was standing in the corner wearing jeans and a sage-green hand-knitted sweater. She could see several people clutching his new book—
Soo
Tales
:
A Canoer’s Story
—standing in line, waiting for him to sign. Jess saw that he had seen her, saw the flash of white teeth, the little piece of a smile. Clutching his hand, sucking on her fingers, there was Maggie, hair in long black braids, dressed in a tie-dyed T-shirt and her best purple velveteen pants.

“Mommy!” she shouted out, skipping across the weathered floorboards of the old cottage. “You came back!”

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Early in the story, Jess is reluctant to return to Journey’s End. She thinks: “
   This could not properly be called returning. There was no call to feel like this. She was imputing qualities—breath, flesh, blood—to a structure made of pine board, shingle, and stone.”
   Why is Jess so reluctant to return to Journey’s End? Why does she seem to think of the house as a living person?
   
2. How are Russ and Daniel different? Why is Jess trying so hard to convince herself that she is in love with Russ?
   
3. Early in the story, Mamie tells Margaret that she is planning to sell the cottage, but she decides to leave the cottage to Jess. What makes her change her mind?
   
4. Mamie and Margaret are completely different from each other. How does each of them affect Jess’s own personality?
   
5. Mamie calls Journey’s End “
   the final keeper of secrets
   .” It’s striking how much upheaval the family goes through, while the house hardly changes at all. What role does the house play in the life of the family? Is it a good role or a bad role?
   
6. Mamie keeps a secret throughout Margaret’s and Jess’s lives, and she continues to keep the secret even when it means breaking up Daniel and Jess. Mamie calls her story “
   the shaky foundation upon which we had built our family
   .” What do you think of Mamie’s decision to keep her secret?
   
7. At the beginning of the story, Jess seems to feel that she never reached for her dreams. What changed to allow her to follow her passions?
   
8. Daniel and Jess were young when they met, and they fell in love quickly. Do you think this kind of young love can endure? If they had stayed together in the first place, do you think they would have been happy together despite the difficulties they would have faced?
   
9. Chapin writes, “
   I can still call to mind the precise shade of the water that day. I call that summer blue, the color of water in July—all of promise wrapped up in it, and every disappointment too.”
   How does the title of the book tie into its central themes? Do summer things—vacation houses, summer romances—hold a special place in our lives? Why?
   
10. The character of Lila was something of a mystery, and even after the reader discovers what happened to her, it’s still hard to understand. What do you think of Lila as a person? Do you think Mamie did the right thing? What would you do if faced with a similar situation?
    
11. In the end, Jess leaves the Club and donates the house to a nature conservancy. Why did she decide not to keep it? Why did she think that Mamie’s words, “
    Hold on to what matters
    ,” provided the key to her future?
    

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nora Carroll is a pseudonym for #1
New York Times
bestselling author Elizabeth Letts. A former obstetric nurse, Nora Carroll now writes full time. She lives with her husband, four children, and a madcap golden retriever in Southern California.