The Family Beach House (6 page)

Tilda felt her aunt's accusing eyes on her. Adam might have been overtly horrid, but Tilda was at fault, too. She should have stopped her brother; she should have said something to alleviate the assault. Hannah, too, should have said something. Kat should have told her fiancé to shut up. They all should have….

Ruth shook her head. “I'm going to bed.”

Kat followed shortly after.

 

Tilda, Hannah, Susan, and Adam remained on the front porch. The night had grown chilly and Tilda was wrapped in a big gray sweatshirt that had once belonged to Frank. He had kept it in the closet of their room at Larchmere for just such occasions. Tilda saw no reason not to keep it for herself.

She still felt bad about what had happened earlier with Jennifer. She could only credit her ill behavior to the fact that she was still in a bit of shock. The thought of her father being with another woman simply had never occurred to her and left her feeling disoriented.

But her bad behavior wasn't the only thing bothering Tilda. She was annoyed by the fact that she felt jealous on the behalf of her dead mother. Jealous on behalf of a dead person! She couldn't help but think that if her father had to date and—God forbid!—get remarried, he should have done the seemly thing and chosen a woman nearer to his own age. He should have chosen someone who wouldn't feel like a threat to the family unit, someone who wouldn't feel like a threat to Tilda.

Tilda turned to her sister. Maybe admitting to her unworthy feelings might help her get past them. Maybe Hannah could somehow absolve her. “I thought I was a more sophisticated person,” she said. “But I can't help but feel it's an insult to Mom's memory somehow, Dad's dating this much younger woman…. And her being around while we're all gathered for the memorial service…I know it's been ten years since Mom's death but somehow it just doesn't seem right.”

Hannah raised an eyebrow. “You're a tradition-bound person, aren't you? Everything by the book, everything the way it's always been done. You're a lot like Mom in that way.”

“So what if I am? Aren't you even a little bit…upset about this relationship of Dad's?”

“Yeah,” Hannah said. “I'll admit that it…concerns me. Not the fact of the age difference, though. That doesn't seem like such a big deal, not at this point in their lives.”

“So, what then?”

Hannah was thoughtful for a moment before saying, “I don't really know.”

“The status quo is changing,” Susan said. “That upsets everyone initially. Give yourself time to get used to the idea, that's all.”

Craig's ancient red van pulled up to the house then, and a moment later he joined his siblings on the front porch.

“What are you doing back so early?” Hannah asked. “I thought you'd be gone all night.”

“Me? No way. I'm a one-beer sort of guy when I'm driving. Besides, Kirk had to meet someone else later. What did I miss?”

“Uh—” Tilda said.

“Not much,” Hannah lied.

“Actually—” Susan began, but Adam's loudly voiced question interrupted her.

“Is everything all set for Mom's memorial service?”

“Pretty much. I think Ruth handled most of the details.”
I certainly didn't participate,
Hannah added silently.
Not that anyone asked me to help.
She wondered if she should have volunteered, for her father's sake. She felt slightly guilty.

“What about the party?” Adam was asking.

“The caterer is booked,” Tilda said. “I guess Ruth handled the party planning, too.”

Adam nodded. “I thought I'd read something from Ayn Rand at the service. You know she was Mom's favorite writer.”

Of course she was,
Hannah thought. Hadn't Rand said, “The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me”? And hadn't she said something about evil requiring the permission or sanction of the victim? Hannah didn't claim to be an expert on the work and teachings of Ayn Rand but what little she did know she didn't much like. Charlotte McQueen's role model had certainly not been Mother Teresa.

“Mom wasn't as good a sailor as she liked to think she was,” Hannah said abruptly. “I don't mean that to sound harsh, but it's the truth. Frankly, I wasn't entirely surprised when we got the news that she'd had an accident.”

“Hannah!” Susan looked appalled.

“What? I'm just being honest. Mom had a large opinion of herself and her talents.”
Much like Adam,
she added silently. “Not that she deserved to die as she did…”

“What are you talking about?” Adam said. “Mom was a fantastic sailor. I've always thought there might have been foul play.”

Craig barely controlled a grin. “Then why didn't you say anything at the time? I don't remember you demanding an investigation. Hercule Poirot over here.”

Adam made no answer.

“Besides,” Hannah said, “she was with a friend when the accident occurred. Carol Whitehouse had absolutely no reason to want Mom dead. Really, Adam, since when have you had an imagination?”

Tilda rose abruptly from her chair. “I'm going to bed. It's been a long day.”

“And we know you like to be on the beach at dawn. I don't know how you do it.”

Tilda just shrugged and went upstairs to her room. The truth was that the critical talk about her mother had upset her. On some level she knew that her mother had not been the warmest or most obliging person but she didn't really want to dwell on that knowledge. She preferred to follow the words of St. Thérèse of Lisieux: “When one loves, one does not calculate.” And, Tilda would add, one does not judge. At least, one should try not to judge.

Still, she wondered about emotional cowardice. Selective memory could be a good thing—it was a survival tactic—but it could also be a bad thing, especially when it blocked out a truth that might help you evolve to learn a new and better survival tactic.

Tilda brushed her teeth in the hall bathroom and returned to her room. The only windows looked out on the side lawn. If you leaned out you could see the ocean to the left, but Tilda never bothered. It was enough to know the ocean was there, fully and spectacularly visible from the front rooms and porch.

It was not the best bedroom in the house—that was reserved for her father, of course, who had shared the room with his wife—but it was Tilda's favorite because it was the room in which she and Frank had always stayed when visiting her parents. At first, Jon and Jane had joined them, sleeping on air mattresses or in sleeping bags on the floor. Later, the kids had moved to their own rooms, sometimes to the library couch.

Charlotte had decorated each bedroom in keeping with clean and casual beachfront style, reserving formality and elegance for the dining room and, in a more English country house vein, the library. The walls in Tilda's—and Frank's—room, for example, were painted white, as were the replacement wide pine floorboards. A braided rug in tones of peach, green, and yellow sat on either side of the bed. The sheets, pillowcases, and lightweight summer blankets were white, trimmed with a peach-colored border. The two wooden dressers were painted the color of bells of Ireland. On the wall were hung three small watercolor seascapes done by a local artist Charlotte had patronized until her interest had waned. The room felt airy and light and peaceful. Frank had always been afraid of somehow dirtying it beyond repair. He wouldn't even bring a cup of coffee upstairs after breakfast. Tilda thought he had been a bit afraid of her mother. Well, a lot of people had been a bit afraid of or intimidated by Charlotte McQueen. But Tilda had only learned about this after her mother's death.

She opened the dresser drawer in which she kept her nightgowns and underwear, and pulled out a thin flannel nightgown. Something came with it and dropped to the floor. Tilda turned on the small lamp atop the dresser and squatted. It was probably a stray penny. But she saw nothing so she reached under the dresser and felt around. (The floor, she noted, was dust free. Ruth and a team of professional housekeepers kept Larchmere in an immaculate state.) Her fingers found the unknown object, something small and round, but thicker than a coin and decorated with raised scrolling. She stood and looked at it. Her heart beat painfully. It was the missing button she and Frank had searched for so diligently. How had it gotten into her drawer? How had it escaped their notice?

Tilda slumped on the edge of the bed, the metal button in her palm. It had fallen off a sweater Frank had inherited from his father. It was the last of the original buttons; all the others had been lost while the sweater was still in the possession of the elder O'Connell.

She closed her fingers over the button. That sweater had meant so much to Frank. When they couldn't find this last original button she had replaced it with one matching the other, newer buttons. And she still had the sweater. It was one of the things she would never throw out or give away. Jane sometimes wore it around the house. It probably made her feel close to her father.

Tilda opened her fingers and looked again at the button. She wondered if it could be a sign from Frank. It wasn't an eagle, it wasn't the sign she had asked for, but it was odd that it had so suddenly appeared after all this time missing. Tilda tried to believe that the button itself meant something. But it was no use. If this was a message from Frank she failed to understand it. She got up and put the button back in the drawer with the other nightclothes. She turned out the light and went to bed.

Wednesday, July 18

It was the newlywed couple again. Tilda, on Ogunquit Beach for her morning walk after a restless, dream-filled night, was momentarily surprised at their presence so early in the day. It was barely seven o'clock. She wondered why they weren't sleeping in after the big celebration. But young love had boundless energy. She did remember that.

The woman's hair was now in a simple ponytail; gone were the flowers and curls. She was wearing a pink sundress and white, flat sandals. Her husband was in khaki shorts and a bright, Hawaiian style shirt. They looked clean and neat and happy. They were holding hands.

They must be staying in town,
Tilda thought.
So this is where they're spending their honeymoon, pretty little Ogunquit.
No doubt their suite looked out over the ocean. Maybe they would return here every year on their anniversary. Maybe someday they would come with their children. It was a pleasant thought and it made Tilda feel sick with loss.

She remembered a line from
The Dante Club,
by Matthew Pearl. She had read the book while Frank was ill. The line had struck her forcefully then and had come back to her time and again since Frank's death. A character is confronted with the murder of her husband and, in the author's words, the woman “knew in an instant what it meant to be a widow, what an ungodly jealousy it produced.”

How right that was! Through no fault or desire of her own she had been kicked out of the enviable club of married people, and relegated to the club in which no one wanted to be a member—widow.

Gone were all the “companionable endeavors” she and Frank had enjoyed—those comfortable habits every couple shared. Doing them alone seemed unbearably sad. For a while Tilda thought she would have to find some new habits or go mad. Ordering a pizza from the small, old-fashioned shop down the block, and eating it in the living room, sitting crossed-legged on the floor at the coffee table, while watching a Will Ferrell movie (they'd seen
Anchorman
three times) was no longer possible. Without Frank, it was a miserable experience. The rug chafed her legs, the pizza was too chewy, and the movies weren't funny.

The thing was that she still loved Frank. But could you love a dead person, someone who has died? Could she say, legitimately, that she still loved Frank? Or was it the memory she loved, the memory of Frank, not the actuality, which was a scattered handful of ash…. Tilda blinked hard. What a macabre thought! How disgusting, revolting, really. But the question remained. Just because Frank had died, must her love for him be dead, too?

Of course not,
she thought, almost angrily. Let the philosophers determine the fine points of expression. She loved Frank and she always would, whether he was present in body or in spirit. Tilda looked up into the early morning sun. No eagle.

She looked back at the newlywed couple. They had stopped and were hugging. The bride rested her head on her husband's chest and he kissed her hair. The last thing on that young bride's mind, Tilda knew, was the thought of her husband's dying and of her being left alone.

Somewhere she had read that every year around eight hundred thousand women in the United States were widowed. That was an awfully big number but only the year before had there been the first national conference addressing the state of widowhood. Tilda had not gone to the conference though she sometimes wondered what would be different now if she had. Anyway, why hadn't anyone been paying attention to all of those women until now? All of those sad and lonely women.

The newlywed couple was walking again. The husband, keeping stride, bent down to pick up a rock or a shell. And suddenly, Tilda had an overwhelming desire to rush up to them, to grab their hands and warn them that their happiness would not, could not last. She wanted to urge them to cherish each other while they could. She wanted to help them and she wanted to hurt them. She wanted to be a memento mori, a reminder of death. She wanted to force them to share some of her pain by confronting them with the dark fact of ending, of nothingness, of being alone and bereft.

Of course, she did not rush over to the newlyweds, to congratulate or to warn or to admonish. Instead, she cut her walk short and headed back to Larchmere, ashamed of the urge to blight the happiness of an innocent young couple, ashamed of her “ungodly jealousy.”