Page 90 of Summer Light on Nantucket

What?Blythe bit her lip to keep from barging into their moment ofconnection with a barrage of questions. “You love him,” she repeated calmly.

Daphne lifted her face to Blythe’s. Tears welled in her eyes.

“Mom, I love him. I love Lincoln and he can never love me.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Blythe put her hands to her own lips to keep herself silent.

“I mean,” Daphne began, and then her words spilled out, as if they’d been pressing up against her heart for days, “I mean, we all know Lincoln is gay, but he’s never beenwithanyone, and he’s never talked about it and this summer, we were sitting on the beach and the sun was setting and no one else was around, and Lincoln said, ‘I’m glad you’re here now,’ and smiled at me and I felt so much love from him to me. It was real, like sunshine, it made my heart swell till I knew it would burst out of my chest, and I kissed him. I thought that was what he wanted. I kissed him. He was so warm and real. But he didn’t kiss me back. I mean, I could feel that he wastoleratingmy kiss. Like he didn’t want to hurt me or embarrass me because he does love me, he told me he loved me, but not likethat.”

Daphne was crying so hard, a bubble of mucus swelled out of her nose, and any other time, they would both have laughed at that. Now Blythe rose, went inside to take the box of tissues off the counter, then returned to the porch and put it in front of her daughter.

Daphne blew her nose heartily. “I was so embarrassed I wanted to die. I said, ‘Sorry,’ in this icky weak squeak of a voice like a dying mouse. I wanted to run away and never see him again. I’m such a dork. But he was nice. He said nice things. We talked about it, him being gay and how hard it can be even now when gay isn’t supposed to be a problem.”

“Loving anyone can be painful,” Blythe said quietly. “Remember how sad you felt when Johnny moved away.”

Daphne scoffed. “I didn’t feel likethisabout Johnny.”

“Okay. Lincoln is special. And you can still love him, just not in a boyfriend-girlfriend way. He’s a good guy. A wonderful guy.”

“I know. We talked about it. We agreed to not let it change us. But one day he said he’d had a bad night and his older brother had some skunk, that’s what Gordon calls it, and we tried it. It’s relaxing, Mom. It makes my heart hurt less.”

Blythe sat quietly for a very long time, sorting through her thoughts, wondering how to say the right thing.

“I don’t know why it works this way, Daphne, but I think sometimes we must accept the pain. Let our heart hurt. Be brave. Not hide. I mean, everyone gets hurt and sometimes it’s not even by another person. It’s like…like how we feel on a crisp October morning when we look up and see that the leaves are turning scarlet. It’s so beautiful, and it stabs us in the heart. It hurts so much. Not forever, though. We get used to it, and the air grows cooler, and we have hot chocolate with marshmallows and chili and Halloween candy.”

Daphne grinned. “Mom, you always go for the food.”

“Okay, then, we have cozy bulky sweaters and flannel shirts and warm houses and puffy comforters to sleep under at night.”

“On the moors, the sumac and poison ivy turn scarlet,” Daphne mused. “You put pots of yellow or orange chrysanthemums on the front and back porches.”

“Indian corn on the doors.”

“But now is still summer,” Daphne said, and once again, she sounded bleak.

How can I help her?Blythe wondered.

“Most people love summer.” Blythe studied her forlorn daughter.

Daphne was a reader. A thinker. And she wanted to care for the planet.

Blythe put on her teacher voice. “I want you to find four books about the environment in the library. I want you to read them and summarize them. I want you to write four separate essays of at least a thousand words. And you cannot use AI.”

“Mom.” Daphne rolled her eyes in exasperation.

“You have to do it,” Blythe said. “It’s your punishment for smoking and not telling me where you really were all this summer.”

“You’re weird, Mom.” Daphne almost smiled.

“You have no idea,” Blythe shot back.

Daphne smiled. “I’m going to get dressed and go down to the library. I’ll get lunch at the snack bar.”

“Wear a raincoat,” Blythe advised. She knew that Daphne was old enough to figure out that she should wear a raincoat in the rain, but Blythe also knew that in the language of motherhood, “wear a raincoat” meant “I love you.”

“I will. And I won’t smoke. At least not today.” Daphne grinned and headed up the stairs.

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