Page 22 of The Summer We Started Over

The sound of the door knocker startled them both.

William wore old sweatpants and a flannel shirt. Barrett wore yoga pants and a T-shirt.

It was odd, Barrett thought, as the police, in their uniforms, entered their house, odd that she and her father were dressed so casually for this important event, a visit from the police.

Stearns had had a fatal accident on his motorcycle speeding on the Taconic Trail. No one was with him. No one else was involved.

—

Barrett and her father called Eddie. She drove home from New York that night. The three of them wandered aimlessly around the house, making tea, pouring Scotch, setting the glasses and cups down untouched.

William called Dove. He asked her to come live with them in the Williamstown house.

Dove let out a bark of a laugh. “In the house where Stearns grew up? Next door to the house where my family was evicted? Oh, no, please don’t ask that of me.”

Dove sounded odd when she told William that she thought yes,Stearns would approve of cremation and scattering of his ashes over the Taconic Trail. She sounded like a bad actress reading a part.

Eddie and Barrett called Dove on speakerphone. “Then we’ll drive over to Troy. We don’t want you to be alone now.”

“My uncle and aunt are here,” Dove replied. “They flew in from Colorado. They’re helping me…get organized. I’m going to live with them in Denver.”

“But the baby!” Barrett protested. “Our baby!”

“I need to start over, Barrett.” Dove sounded sad but sober. “I need to get away from so many difficult things. I love you all, but it’s too much. The past is too much. I want to start over fresh now that my baby is here.”

“But what about us?” Eddie asked, choking on her tears.

“I don’t know,” Dove replied, and her words seemed weighed down with heavy stones, so that she hardly could speak.

The memorial service was short. Dove did not attend. She was in Colorado with her aunt and uncle. Their mother did not attend. She emailed William that she couldn’t bear it. But several of the men who worked in the computer company came, driving over the winding treacherous Taconic Trail, wearing suits and wool overcoats. Several of Stearns’s school classmates attended, and many of the high school teachers. Later, William, Eddie, and Barrett climbed Mount Greylock on a blustery, cold day and released Stearns’s ashes into the wind.

“It’s strange,” their father confessed as they were driving home, “all my life I’ve told my students they would find consolation in their reading. But I’m unable to read now. I stare at the television. I go for walks. But I can’t read!”

“Words,” Barrett said bitterly. “You think words can explain everything.”

Her father said, “No, Barrett. I know they can’t.”

five

Standing in the Nantucket kitchen, Eddie thought how a person can never know what a day might bring or how quickly life can change. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. A therapist had told her that she couldn’t change the past, but she could live more thoughtfully in her present.

Opening her eyes, she found herself staring at a shelf of self-help books that had been her mother’s. Why were they here? Their mother and father were divorced. Sabrina was with another man.Shehad obviously helpedherself. Her father had obviously unpacked these books three years ago when they moved to the island. He wouldn’t ever look at them. He should get rid of them. He should—

Eddie had a brilliant idea. Such a wonderfully practical idea that she wanted to applaud herself.

She hurried back to her father’s study. William sat frozen, elbows on the desk, head in his hands.

“Daddy,” she said gently. “I have an idea.”

William lifted his head and smiled at Eddie. “Tell me about it.”

“We should turn the barn into a used bookstore.”

Her father frowned. “You’re just trying to move my books out of the house.”

“True. I am. Now listen. We can put up shelves in the barn and you can organize your books and clear out some room in the house.”

William pushed away from the desk, rose, and stretched his back. “Eddie, no one will buy my old books.”

---