Page 27 of Summer Light on Nantucket

“Oh, dear.” Blythe laughed. “They’re fine. They live in Arizona now and yet they’re somehow still exhausting, too. How areyourparents?”

“My father has passed on. Mother spends time playing cards with her friends and telling everyone in the family what to do.”

“And your business?”

“Still flourishing. Over the years we’ve downsized, had to lay off employees, but truth to tell, most of them were so old they were readyto retire. The internet has opened a whole new group of customers, and our younger staff is genius with technology. Also, Ireland has had quite the boost from the film industry—P.S. I Love You, Leap Year, Wild Mountain Thyme.And now from streaming. We’re fine. Tell me about you.”

“No, wait. Tell me about your family first. Your wife. How did you meet her? Is she Irish?”

Aaden leaned back in his chair. “Ah, I wish I still smoked. Eileen Kelley. Gorgeous as a movie star, wild as a Kerry Bog Pony. Flaming red hair. Eyes as green as shamrocks. A mouth on her pretty as a rose to see, rude as a sailor when she gets mad. Different from you, Blythe. So different. Eileen has a bit of the Irish Traveller in her. Doesn’t enjoy being settled. Dances like a whirlwind, faster than a wave in a stormy sea. And she sings like an angel come down from heaven. When she sings, you want to catch the breath of her and make it into jewelry.”

Blythe was both fascinated and wounded. When she was in college, she’d been rule-abiding and studious. The wildest she’d ever been was when she loved Aaden, and she’d loved him then like the sea needing the sun, craving his presence, glittering only in his radiance. She’d never been as wild as a Kerry Bog Pony.

She wanted to wish something terrible on Eileen, this woman Aaden had loved so fiercely, this gorgeous, singing, angelic woman, but she was too aware of karma to wish anything really terrible on her, not death or even an accident, so she wished that Eileen Kelley Sullivan had bad teeth.

Across the table from her, Aaden looked amused. “What are you thinking?”

Blythe said, “I hate her.”

Aaden threw his head back and laughed, his irresistible rolling thunderous laugh. “Ah, Blythe, you’re wonderful.”

Blythe shook her head. “I’m an idiot.” She rose. “I’ll get our lunches.”

Aaden reached out and put a hand on her arm. “No. Wait. Let me tell you more. Sit down.”

Blythe sat.

“Eileen drinks and sleeps around. She’s never satisfied. Her parents live in Kerry and they told me when I first met her that I’d never be able to trust her. I laughed at them. And Eileen was a good wife and a good mother, but after a while she got bored. The company’s headquarters were in Dublin, still are, that’s a two-hour drive from Kerry, and once our daughters were away in school, Eileen took to driving back to Kerry for the weekend, and then the week, and she said she was staying with her parents, but after a while I learned she was staying with a man instead. To be honest, for a few years I was glad she was away. I had an affair.” Aaden shook his head. “Patricia was, well, she still is, English. Proper English, an earl in her family, a solicitor who was married to a solicitor, all shirts tucked into her expensive skirts and pearls around her neck. It was the difference from Eileen, I think, that attracted me. I think I attracted her because she thought I was wild. Ha. I’ve always wished I could see Eileen and Patricia in a room together for fifteen minutes.” He sighed. “So that’s the story.”

Blythe said, “I hate Patricia, too.”

Aaden laughed, and Blythe found herself laughing along with him, and for a moment, there on the back porch with its white railings and porch table covered with a cherry-sprinkled tablecloth, with the bright sun and the full promise of a new day spread around them, for a moment she and Aaden were together again as if they’d never been parted.

Quieting, Blythe took a sip of wine. “NowI’ll get our lunches.”

Aaden said, “No, woman, you stay put. You tell me about you.”

“The whole story? It’s not as colorful as yours.”

“How could it be? You’re not Irish.”

She nodded her head. “I went to university. Lived in a dorm. Had a wonderful time. Made decent grades. Made some good friends.” A memory struck her. “After midterms or finals, a bunch of us would go to a bar and celebrate. We drank too much. We laughed too loud. We made fun of our professors. We told terrible jokes. We flirted withevery man in the bar. We drank a lot and stood on our table and sang ‘My Heart Will Go On’ from the movieTitanicwith heartbreaking passion even when we weren’t in a relationship.”

“Didyouever stand on the table and sing?”

Blythe laughed. “Oh, Lord, I did.”

Aaden said very quietly, “I wish I had seen you.”

Blythe said, “I wish you had, too.” She glanced at him quickly, a challenge. “Maybe I would have taken your eyes off your Eileen.”

For a long moment, Aaden didn’t speak.

Then he said, “Ah, no, Blythe. I’ve heard you sing, and you’re a terrible singer.”

Oh, he’s good,Blythe thought. “Damn, Aaden, you’re right.”

He reached across the table and took her hand. She leaned forward and closed her eyes, giving in to the sensation of his strong, familiar, never-forgotten hand.

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