Page 60 of Summer Light on Nantucket

A few days later, Celeste phoned.

“Tomorrow night is Family Night at the club. Open-air buffet dinner. Sandy’s friend Nick Roth is performing out on the patio, so little kids can run around on the grass. I’d love it if you’d go with me, and any or all of your children.”

“What a great idea!” Blythe already planned to attend because Nick would be performing. “I’ll be there and I think most of the kids will want to go. Let me pick you up.”

“Lovely,” Celeste said.

The next evening, Blythe fetched her ex-mother-in-law at five—Family Nights started early because most of the club’s sun-exhausted little children needed early bedtimes.

“Don’t you look lovely,” Celeste said as she slipped into Blythe’s van. Blythe wore a blue-and-white striped sleeveless dress with a lightcerulean-blue silk shawl. Celeste had given her the shawl for her birthday a few years ago, and it slid against her arms like summer air.

“You do, too,” Blythe said. Celeste was wearing a blue and lavender caftan and dangling earrings of coral and turquoise that set off her dark eyes. Blythe had given Celeste the earrings last Christmas.

“Miranda and Brooks have gone to another party,” Blythe told Celeste, “but Teddy, Daphne, and Holly played tennis this afternoon. They promised to reserve a table for us.”

“I’m glad,” Celeste said. “It’s always such a crush.”

When they arrived at the club, Blythe had to park in the back lot because the main parking lot was full.

“Oh, dear,” Celeste said. “I hope they have enough tables for all of us.”

Blythe glanced at her ex-mother-in-law. It wasn’t like Celeste to worry like this.

They walked through the clubhouse and out onto the patio, saying hello and waving at friends as they went.

“Oh, look!” Celeste said. “The clever darlings!”

On the far side of the patio, near the small outdoor stage, Daphne, Holly, and Teddy sat at one of the larger round tables.

“You are geniuses to get this table,” Blythe said.

“Because of this, I’m leaving you all my money in my will,” Celeste promised.

Celeste said this every time her grandchildren did something extraordinary, so they had heard it many times before. Blythe realized how this made her children become used to the fact that their grandmother was mortal, while at the same time, because she said it so often, it seemed that Celeste would never die.

Across the lawn near the clubhouse, large outdoor grills and picnic tables were set up. Teddy went with Blythe to fetch drinks for everyone—tonight it was all self-serve. Blythe convinced Teddy to choose water for himself and his sisters, reminding him that a sugary drink nowwould weaken the taste of his food. Teddy agreed, probably because they were in public. While Blythe prepared vodka tonics with ice and a slice of lime, Teddy concocted three glasses of soda water with a slice of lime, a slice of lemon, and a cherry for himself and his sisters.

As Celeste and Blythe enjoyed their drinks, the three kids wandered off to see their friends, but soon they all joined the line of hungry people waiting to fill their plates with hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, corn on the cob, and fresh fat sliced tomatoes.

Blythe saw Sandy and her husband sitting with Nick and another woman Blythe didn’t recognize.I don’t like her,Blythe thought, surprising herself. How could she dislike a woman on sight? Was shethatinterested in Nick? For a moment she couldn’t concentrate enough to eat.

“Is everything okay?” Celeste asked.

Blythe turned her attention to Celeste. “Of course. I can’t get over how delicious all this is.”

She talked local gossip with Celeste for a while, and when she noticed a man join Sandy’s table and bend down to kiss the woman Blythe already didn’t like, she suddenly felt happier.

By the time everyone had finished their strawberry shortcake, the buffet tables had been taken away and a stool and a mic were set on the stage. Some children flopped down on the grass. Teddy, Daphne, and Holly stayed at the table, licking their spoons.

The head of programming for the club, Janice Allen, welcomed everyone and introduced Nick. He thanked her, settled on the stool, adjusted the mic, and began to sing.

“Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish Ladies,” Nick sang out and continued singing the old sea shanty about sailors leaving Spain to sail to England.

From the very first moment, Nick’s voice was clear and strong, and as rich as rum, as sweet as honey. History seemed to flash over Blythe as he sang. She could almost see the sailors roaring as their boats rolled and reared over the stormy seas, wave-drenched men heaving onthe ropes to the rhythm of the songs. Her hands flew to her chest, as if her heart were about to burst and she needed to protect it. This happened to her often when choirs sang Easter hymns or even when a soloist sang the national anthem at the beginning of a football game. She’d forgotten the power of one voice, the rise and fall of melody, the enchantment of strange words—“Haul up your clewgarnets, let tacks and sheets fly!”—which conjured up visions of older worlds, wilder seas.

Next to Blythe, Celeste was wiping her eyes.

“Mom!” Teddy said. “That’s the theme song to SpongeBob SquarePants.”

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