Page 44 of The Summer Club

“Huh.” Charley had mentioned that Tish grew up in the smaller city of Yonkers, the eldest daughter of a large Irish family. “I know her family was working class.”

Charley rolled his shoulders back. “Through and through. First generation too. Can you imagine coming from that background and being thrust into my grandparent’s blue blood world?”

She’d always thought of it as being transported, rather than thrust. More of the fairy-tale variety. “So it wasn’t easy, I take it.” Still, what did this have to do with them?

“Apparently, it was a lot harder than I thought. My grandparents were very controlling about where she could live with me and how she would raise me, once my father passed. They’d never really accepted her into the family. But then they were forcing her to live a certain way.”

Cora could imagine that was a difficult time, but it had no doubt afforded Tish and Charley a certain lifestyle. “Yes, but I would think it came with some benefits. From what you said of her own family, it doesn’t sound like they had the means to support a widow and her son. All of your mother’s wealth, I assume, came from your dad’s side. And let’s be honest. There was a lot. She’s lived quite the extravagant life.”

“She has,” Charley allowed, his shoulders sagging. “So have I.”

His face clouded and she turned to him. “What’s wrong?”

“You asked why my grandparents would do that,” Charley said. “Why they’d impose expectations and rules about how my mother lived.”

“So?”

“It was because of me.” He let out a long breath. “I should have known.”

“Oh, Charley.” This was the heart of the matter, for him. And she could see it filled him with guilt. “How could you know? You were just a child. A child who’d just lost his father! What could you have done about any of it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I could’ve talked to my grandparents. Reasoned with them. Defended my mother.”

Cora shook her head. Tish had really done a number on her poor husband at the tearoom. “Charley, you were five years old at the time. How the adults around you behaved is on them, not you. Don’t you, for another instant, go down that path. Please.” She grabbed his hand in hers. “Whatever sacrifices were made, that is part of a parents’ job. It should in no way place you in a position of guilt.” What she did not add was that whatever suffering Tish Darling apparently endured, it could not have been as terrible as Charley was fearing. His mother lived a life of luxury most could only dream of! A city apartment overlooking Central Park. Travel around the world. Car services. And always, a gilded roof over her head and the trappings of society in her closets. No, Cora’s heart would not bleed for her.

As Charley looked glumly out onto the water, Cora thought about her own childhood. Working-class in the Midwest. Only child of two parents who were not college educated. And under a roof with a very controlling man of yesteryear notions about a woman’s place in the world. Talk about enduring. Cora had escaped all of that by going away to Vassar and, later again, by agreeing to marry Charley. Becoming pregnant with the twins was nothing she’d planned or wanted as a student, but without any support from her family back in Ohio, she’d made sacrifices of her own. Sacrifices she could easily argue were just as great as Tish Darling’s. And all without throwing ill will in the direction of any other person; without placing blame or pointing fingers. Or victimizing herself. The same could not be said of Tish. Her whole life since Cora knew her, she’d focused her laser-like ire in her direction. Blaming Cora for everything that ever went awry in Charley’s life.

Hugh startled her, interrupting her thoughts with a sandy hand on her shoulder. “Mom? Did you hear me?”

“What?” she turned abruptly, shielding her eyes from the sun. Martin and Hugh stood beside her beach chair.

“We’re going for a swim. Want to come?” She looked up at her tanned and trim son and his partner. At their warm expressions. Then at Molly, who joined them.

“It’s going to be, like, freezing cold. But I’m dying of heat. So I’m going in.”

Cora smiled. “Bracing! That’s how it feels on a hot day, but once you sink in… oh! The heavenliness.”

“So you’re coming then?” Molly asked.

“No, dear. You go ahead. I’m having myself a little sunbath.” She watched as the three of them trudged down to the water’s edge. Martin went in first, brave soul. Then Hugh. Molly waded in one inch at a time. “Go on!” Cora shouted down to them, but they probably couldn’t hear her over the ocean. The sun flickered off an incoming wave. The sea spray doused them all when it crashed at their feet.

This is the result of the sacrifices I’ve made, she thought, watching the two generations of her family playing in the water. She glanced at Sydney, who appeared to be sound asleep on her beach towel in her peach bikini. Already her hair was going golden in the sun. Then at Andi, who’d set her book down in her lap to watch the others. Everyone was having a good time. Finally.

She turned to Charley, who appeared to have momentarily settled down with all his motherly guilt, because his head rested against his beach chair, his mouth slightly agape. He snored quietly. Cora adjusted his fishing cap so that the shade it threw covered the pink tip of his nose. Charley was her rock. And she’d come to love him, dearly, if in her own quiet way.

The day she’d hung up the phone on her father in the dormitory common room was the same he’d punched out Robert Townsend, across campus in their own dorm. But she hadn’t known that yet.

She was sitting on the edge of her bed, still crying when there came an urgent knocking on her door. Robert! had been her first thought. He’d come to his senses; he’d changed his mind.

Swiping tears from her cheeks, she checked her hair quickly in the mirror and hurried to the door. Her face fell when she opened it.

There, glistening with rain under the garish fluorescent lights of the hall, stood Charley Darling. His expression was desperate.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. It was then she saw his hand, fist still clenched, red with blood. “Charley!” She grabbed it. The knuckles were grazed raw, the skin split beneath them. “What happened? Did Robert do this to you?”

Charley shook his head. “Marry me, Cora.”

“Excuse me?” He must have gotten hit in the head. “You’re talking nonsense. Come in. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

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