Page 11 of Our Last Vineyard Summer

He was like a piece of tape always looking to get stuck to something.

The sun blanketed her as she emerged from the sea, calling to the boy, “I’ll teach you to swim, young man.”

He shielded his light eyes, curious to her since his skin was bronze like a penny. On either side of his back were two knobby shoulder bones. “But… the waves.”

She beckoned him. “It’s wise to respect the ocean, but you shouldn’t let fear stop you from doing the things you want to do. I’m terribly afraid of heights, but I’ve taken elevators up the tallest skyscrapers just to see the view.”

His eyes filled with wonder. “Have you been to the top of the Empire State Building?”

“I have.” She smiled, nudging him toward the sea. “Do you want to hold my hand?” James reached for it, and she wrapped her fingers around his.

Even if she didn’t know what to do about Charlie or her column, she knew how to help this boy. She wondered then if avoidance was the key to a happy life; if she should simply pretend that the column meant nothing to her and return to her status quo as a senator’s wife, the mother of three beautiful, smart girls. Still, something niggled at her, a sense that Charlie had struck her like a match, igniting an angriness that had been tamped down inside her.

As the first wave crashed toward them, Virgie lifted James up over her head, feeling his abdomen tense in her grasp. But then they wereout in the deeper part of the ocean, treading water, Betsy showing James how to go over a wave or dive headfirst into it.

You can’t let fear stop you from doing what you want to do.It was Charlie who taught her that. Charlie who had every right to discount himself as a serious contender for the U.S. Senate when they’d walked onto stages holding Louisa’s tiny hand and Aggie in her arms, Virgie’s belly rounded to a ball, and closer to election day, Betsy in a pram. But she’d seen him time and again, how he could convince people he was worth listening to, how he never let the fear of losing stop him from trying, like that time in Buffalo when he’d entered a rally with six people in attendance, but he’d given the same rousing speech he’d give if there had been six hundred. Well, her column had shown her that people liked what Virgie had to say too; that maybe Charlie wasn’t the only one worth listening to.

But she was fearful. She was fearful of the way Louisa was tossing her head back and laughing at something one of the teenage boys had just said.

“Right here, James. Dive with me. NOW.”

When all three resurfaced—Virgie, Betsy, and the boy—they splashed each other. It was a good lesson. You had to be braver than anyone believed you to be.

But Virgie wasn’t brave enough to leave Charlie, not over some selfish need to feel like she was some big important writer. That was silly of her. Charlie needed her, he’d always needed her, and she couldn’t let him down simply because she adored writing a column for housewives. Then again, she couldn’t ignore what he’d done to her, and she wouldn’t pretend it didn’t bother her. Of course it was going to bother her.

Virgie tuned in to the roar of the ocean, the roar building inside her—and she moved away from the children and pulled herself under the surf, screaming with her mouth closed until her lungs were out of air. Bursting to the surface, tasting the salt on her lips, she thoughtof the myriad bouquets of flowers she would arrange and place in every room without worrying about disturbing Charlie’s hay fever. She thought of Charlie grimacing at a house full of kids when the girls and their friends shuffled in after school; how she was always keeping everything quiet and tidy and poised for him to comfortably slip back into a picture-perfect family life; but how those hours were never a true reflection of what she thought a happy householdshouldlook like: chaotic, loud, joyful. How he hated eating spaghetti, but without him, they could eat it every night. How she didn’t have to put on a pretty dress and apply mascara every morning, how she didn’t have to pretend to be engrossed in everything he was saying—because sometimes she was so bored to tears that she’d sip her crisp glass of chardonnay at the dining table and think of sentences forming paragraphs, paragraphs forming ideas for articles that would rearrange themselves in her mind. More than cooking spaghetti and making bouquets though, Virgie could see that there was another way to quell the bitterness pooling inside her. She would finally do all the things he didn’t want her to do. Bigger things. Things she couldn’t even think of right now, treading water in the deep. He would regret his decision to take away her column; she would stick it right back to him and stop considering his opinion since he’d so openly stopped considering hers.

The solution wasn’t to ignore what he’d done. The solution was to punish him for it.

CHAPTER SIXBetsy

Edgartown

1978

Carole King played on the turntable, the smell of garlic and lemon wafting through the screen windows. Virgie spooned spaghetti and clams into mismatched bowls, while Louisa carried each serving out to the patio, where Betsy finished setting the wrought-iron table with a pitcher of water and napkins. Sometimes Aggie was so preoccupied with mothering that she barely noticed what they were doing, like now, as she held the baby in one arm while trying to tie a daisy-patterned bib around Tabby’s neck. The toddler used her tiny fingers to separate strands of plain pasta.

After making sure everyone had what they needed, Virgie took her seat, passing around Kraft shaker cheese. She arranged a yellow legal pad beside her plate, and while each sister slurped, moaning in delight at the nostalgic flavors, they listened to their mother chatter on about what they needed to do to sell the house. Her hand trembled as she scribbled names beside the tasks, and it was then that Betsy could see that her mother projected a brave face, but this wasn’t going to be a simple matter of packing up and moving.

“We need to clear the shelves of all the dishes and random coffee mugs and simplify the cupboards.” Her mother sopped up the broth witha piece of garlic bread. “Then we’ll get rid of anything expired in the pantry, so no one knows how filthy we live.” They all pretended to laugh, knowing their mother was such a stickler with expiration dates on food, it bordered on compulsive. Virgie put her head in her hand, her fingers pinching the smooth triangle below her collarbone, the skin splotchy and red. “Oh yes, and I have to go through Dad’s files, too, for the Senate Library.”

“I’ll do it, Mom,” Louisa said, pressing her hand on top of her mother’s, and it was like a tightness in her mother’s fingers visibly loosened. Betsy thought:What a suck-up!

“Thank you, honey. I appreciate that.”

Betsy shot Aggie a pinched look to see if she thought the conversation strange—their mother giving them a to-do list without details of when the house was going on the market.

“Mom, you still haven’t told us what happened. Why do we have to sell the house?” Aggie plucked a rogue piece of spaghetti off Tabby’s frilly dress.

Louisa lowered her fork. “You did say you would tell us at dinner.”

Virgie’s face had that distant look, as if she were taking in their image like a deep breath. “I’ll never forget how good you girls are being to me. I love you all so much.”

“I love you, too, Mom,” Aggie said.

“Me too,” said Betsy, and they all looked to Louisa, who smiled warmly.

“Ditto.” That Louisa was here for the week and not rushing back to the firm meant something to Betsy, and she was certain it meant something to their mother too. “So, what is it? Why are we selling?”

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