Page 73 of Summer Light on Nantucket

Blythe started to insist that Miranda come eat. She hadn’t even told Miranda about Celeste and the hospital.

But Miranda needed her time, her space. “I’m going to my room for a while. I don’t want dinner tonight.”

“Just rest,” Blythe said.

Miranda left to go to her own room. Blythe looked at her bed, which she had made so neatly this morning. She always liked to return to her room after a busy day to find her smooth, unruffled bed waiting for her. Now it was in a swirl of sheets, summer quilt, and discarded wet tissues.

She wished she could smooth her daughter’s grief away as easily as she smoothed her quilt.

In the kitchen, Blythe fixed herself a drink, pouring vodka and tonic over piles of ice. She took a sip and held the cold glass to her neck, cooling her maternal rage.

She was shocked to see how late it was. Almost eight o’clock. She was too upset to cook dinner, and by now, the children had probably eaten at the snack bar.

She decided to make a large fruit bowl with chunks of watermelon, grapes, peaches and pears. Long ago she’d discovered that slicing food helped keep her thoughts focused on what she was doing, and good thing, too.

“That looks yummy, Mom,” Holly said.

Blythe jumped a little. “I’d forgotten you were in the family room, sweetie. Are you hungry?”

“I ate some cereal.”

“Let’s both have some fruit,” she told Holly.

While they were eating, Teddy and Daphne came home. They’d had dinner with friends but served themselves fruit and joined Blythe and Holly at the table. Everyone talked about poor Celeste, and the shock that Holly had had, seeing her beloved grandmother like that. Blythe called the hospital as she sat at the dinner table. Phones during meals were strictly verboten for all the family, but this was an extenuating circumstance. Blythe wasn’t sure she could pull together the energy to stand up.

“Celeste is doing well,” she told her children after talking to a nurse. “She’s sleeping now. Kate has gone home and the nurses don’t think we should visit Grandmother tonight. She needs to sleep.”

Daphne asked, “Where’s Miranda?”

“She’s sleeping, I think. She’s had a busy day.” Blythe took a moment to decide how much of Miranda’s heartbreak she should share. Not now, she thought. Not so soon, while it’s an open wound.

But she remembered what Miranda had suggested.

“I’ve decided that it’s too complicated to have Brooks sleep in the family room. We need to be able to watch television and he needs his privacy. Let’s take his stuff up to the funny little bedroom.”

Holly looked worried. “Is it okay if we touch his stuff?”

Blythe smiled. “Of course. He’s living here and touching our stuff all the time.”

“He’s not touchingmystuff,” Teddy said, and for no reason at all, everyone laughed.

They went into the family room and each person chose a load of Brooks’s belongings. Teddy carried his duffel bag and backpack, both bulging with clothes. Daphne and Holly took his bedclothes and pillow up to the small room and dumped them in the middle of the small twin bed.

“Should we make his bed?” Holly asked.

“He’s a big boy. He can make his own,” Blythe decided. She worried a little about how much pleasure she felt at moving his stuff to the little room. He would probably be glad to have the privacy.

When they were through, Blythe invited the children to join her watching a new movie being streamed on television. They’d seen it before, and it was funny, perfect for tonight.

The kids pulled the plump ottomans over and all four of them huddled together on the sofa with their feet sticking out of the light cotton blanket they always used for watching television.

Blythe wished Miranda would come join them. She thought of going up to ask her but decided not to. Miranda’s sorrow wouldn’t let go of her so soon.

It was almost ten o’clock when Brooks came home. He stopped in the doorway of the family room, looking confused.

Blythe hit the pause button on the remote.

“Hi, Brooks!” Holly called. “We’ve put your stuff in the little room upstairs.”

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