Page 28 of Summer Light on Nantucket

The front door slammed. Footsteps came down the hall.

“It’s just me again!” Kate yelled. “Do you have any cinnamon?”

Blythe and Aaden quickly withdrew their hands and sank back against their chairs.

Kate came out on the porch, raving with indignation. “Do you have any cinnamon? I have to have it for this ridiculous recipe I’m taking off the internet for a beef stew and I have to add cinnamon and cloves, plus I’m supposed to uselardorclarified butter!”

“I brought cinnamon with me from home,” Blythe said. “But I’ll want it back. I often make cinnamon toast for the children on rainy days.”

“Fine.” Kate scanned the table. “Haven’t you eaten yet? Good Lord, it’s after one o’clock.”

Kate went into the kitchen. A moment later, she called out, “Where do you keep your spices?”

Blythe rose. “I’ll show you.”

She went into the kitchen, opened a cupboard, and found the glass bottle of cinnamon.

Kate said, “It would be easier to find if you had a spice rack like a normal person instead of keeping them hidden on a shelf.”

“You’re welcome,” Blythe replied sweetly.

Kate followed Blythe back out to the porch. “I’ll give you a spice rack.”

“I don’t want a spice rack.” Blythe sat in her chair and picked up her wineglass, giving Kate a visual hint that she needed to leave.

“You need a spice rack.” Kate spoke to Aaden, as if he were a referee. “Blythe is a person who always has spices around.”

Aaden smiled politely. “I’m not surprised.”

Blythe didn’t argue.

“Well, I have to go.” Kate waited for them to ask her to stay, then went through the back door, and trotted down the hall. The front door slammed.

“Well,” Blythe said, “there’s a passionate woman for you.”

“She’s frighteningly passionate,” Aaden said.

“Now I’ll get our lunches.” Blythe rose.

“I’ll help,” Aaden said.

Together they went into the kitchen, which was shady and cool after the sunny day outside. Blythe handed Aaden the basket with the crusty baguette in it and carried out the two plates nicely set with chicken salad and sliced tomatoes sprinkled with basil.

As they sat, Aaden asked, “Sorry, but do you have any cinnamon? I always put some on my chicken salad.”

“Sorry,” Blythe told him. “All out.”

They smiled at each other, and it was as if years had never passed between them, as if they were there together, fully, profoundly, everlastingly together, as they had been when they were young. As if during all the years they had lived they had still carried their love like the breath of their bodies and the poetry of their souls.

Blythe broke the spell. “Kate’s husband is a real estate broker. Nice, but boring. He would never argue with Kate. And my ex-husband, Bob, Kate’s brother, often comes to Nantucket with thechildren to stay with his mother over Easter holidays or Thanksgiving. He’ll be here with his girlfriend later this summer. Celeste, his mother, is completely wonderful. I truly love her and trust her, and my children adore her, love spending time with her.”

“Where did you meet Bob?”

“In Boston. At a graduation party. You know how it is. Spring. Set free. Finally starting our real lives. We met and talked…” Blythe leaned her cheek on her hand and went quiet. After a moment, she said, “I really did love him, in a way. I know he loved me, in a way. We both wanted a home and children, and we wanted to stay in the Boston area. I met his family. I got my teaching certificate, he got his law degree. We got married. We had four children and got divorced a few years ago and that’s that.”

Blythe studied Aaden’s face. “You were gone. You were living in Ireland.” Sighing, she gazed at her plate, the little hill of chicken salad, the nicely cut tomato, the crisp lettuce. The plate, Portmeirion china, part of the set she’d bought when she inherited this summer house. For a moment, none of it seemed real.

Lifting her head, she remembered. “I raised the children and did substitute teaching. Bob worked hard, enjoyed his work at the Boston branch of his father’s law firm, and we were both caught up in bringing up the children. We were good parents, but failures as husband and wife. After a while, we were like a couple who see each other when they’re running a company, and they go to separate places to sleep at night.”

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