Page 23 of Our Last Vineyard Summer

“My entire childhood would have been made happy without you forcing me into those stiff sailor suits every summer. Why does Betsy get to run around in shorts with holes in them?”

Her daughter dropped back onto the couch and began readingLittle Womenfor the millionth time; outside, there was the unmistakable click of a kickstand. Aggie parked her bike and raced up the patio steps, coming in the back door. She offered to make the salad, and as she washed her hands, she said, “Do you know that in France girls play basketball in tournaments, that people come and watch the games?”

Her daughter reached for the head of romaine lettuce, while Virgie pressed her forehead against the kitchen cabinets. These girls were relentless.

CHAPTER TEN

It wasn’t typical for Virgie to pay such close attention to another person’s child, but when she walked Aggie and Betsy to sailing the following morning, she noticed James wasn’t carrying a bagged lunch. She pulled the boy aside, just before the children ran off down the small beach to the teenage instructors. “Honey, do you have anything for lunch today?”

He dug into his shorts pocket and pulled out a mashed-looking peanut butter sandwich. He held it up for her to see, pride shining in his face. “I do.”

“Wonderful.” Virgie found the apple and piece of penny candy she’d packed in her purse, just in case, and she handed it to him. “Here’s a little something more, in case you’re still hungry.”

Wearing the only dress she ever agreed to wear, a faded striped sundress with ties at the shoulder, Betsy waited for James a few paces away. When he caught up to her, they sprinted to their counselors. He had been spending nearly every day at their house, and while the boy was kind and he occupied her youngest daughter, Virgie had started to wonder about his mother and father.

On instinct, Virgie grabbed her car keys, and minutes later, she pulled the station wagon onto the small Chappy ferry. She paid the tender fifty cents for the two-minute crossing and, standing with her back to the driver’s-side door in her navy linen shift dress, Virgie took in the horizon as the boat traveled across the waterway. From this vantage point, she could see her bedroom window, and she wondered what her life would have looked like if she hadn’t met Charlie. She certainly would have married another man within the year, possibly someone she didn’t love but who was well liked by her parents. No, Charlie had been the right fit; the two of them daydreaming from the start that they would make a fabulous political couple, the two of them bonded in the belief that whether you were a woman, a Negro, an orphan, or a war veteran, you deserved the right to an education. Nothing about their lives should surprise her, not the Washington political circles they ran in or the expectations he had for her. What she hadn’t expected was that she would ever wish she was the one sitting behind that big mahogany desk at the Russell Senate Office Building. It was 1965, and women were talking about starting an organization for women that would mimic what the NAACP did for colored people. So why was it so hard for Virgie to make the same demands in her personal life?

The boat bumped against the wood pilings; the ferry moored to the dock. Virgie drove her station wagon past the Chappaquiddick Beach Club and along the curving roadway of the bucolic island, turning down a dirt driveway where a small sign nailed to a tree announced “Sunday.” Her car dipped into a muddy pothole, the springs of the tires squeaking as the car bounced along the road. Virgie couldn’t imagine driving here in winter when snow would make it even harder to pass. She parked in front of a small white Cape Cod with peeling paint, a single propane tank near the front door where there was also a rotted stack of firewood.

Virgie knocked on the front door, holding a tin of biscuits she picked up in town the day before. The volume of the television fellsilent, and a young-looking woman with an older version of James’s apple-shaped face opened the door. She had a bandage taped to one side of her forehead. “Hi,” she said in a timid voice. She couldn’t have been older than thirty. “May I help you?”

Virgie stood straighter. “Hello, my name is Virgie Whiting, and I’m Betsy’s mother. Our children have become friends.”

“I’m Pamela Sunday.” The woman wore an aproned housedress, and while she didn’t move to shake Virgie’s hand, she did open the door wider. “Would you like to come in?”

They faced one another inside the cramped entryway, and Virgie waited for the woman to beckon her deeper inside. When she didn’t, Virgie strode to the kitchen and set the biscuits down on the counter. “They’re from the market in town. I hope you like scones.”

The woman closed the door and yawned. With watery eyes, she smiled. “Would you like tea?”

“I would love that.”

As the woman moved about the kitchen, searching for teacups and matching saucers, Virgie took in the house. There was plastic on the golden velour couch. The room smelled of Pine-Sol and Pledge. There wasn’t a dish in the sink or an empty glass on a table. How nice it would be to live in a house so free of clutter; her daughters left their stuff in every room—a juice glass on the kitchen counter, discarded socks on the living room floor.

Virgie walked to the living room picture window to look outside. From here, she could see the row of houses that lined the harbor across the way, including her own, which was dwarfed by large formal colonials on either side. She turned to Pamela and smiled, thinking the woman looked like Lucille Ball with blond hair. “Do you know that the children flash the back door lights to say good night in the evenings?”

Pamela nodded. “It’s so nice that they’ve become close.” The water was ready, and Pamela poured the tea into a simple teacup with a chipin its rim. They sat at the kitchen table. Pamela pointed outside to an oak tree, large strong limbs twisting out with greenery. “They asked me to borrow two scarves to tie around their heads to play pirates the other day. They’re big kids but still little, right?”

“With two older ones, Betsy feels so innocent in comparison.”

Pamela wrung her hands together and Virgie realized she was nervous. She didn’t know what to do next. Perhaps she shouldn’t have dropped in on her without calling first. “Well, I’m sorry to bother you, but I just felt as though it would be nice to get to know you a little better, since our children are spending so much time. Do you work, dear?”

Virgie was only several years older, but the woman seemed in need of a mother herself.

“I’m a secretary at the elementary school.” Pamela cleared her throat. “Sometimes I pick up shifts at the yacht club as a waitress in summer, but they haven’t needed me.”

“Oh, I don’t think I’ve seen you. What does your husband do?”

“He’s not with us.” On one wall in the kitchen was a single framed photograph, Pamela in a white tailored suit standing beside a darker-skinned gentleman in a gray wool suit with a matching cap; James had a caramel complexion and light eyes like his mother, and Virgie had assumed he was white, though his father, while not Black, didn’t look Italian or Greek.

When she saw Virgie staring, Pamela frowned. “He immigrated as a teenager from South America, Brazil.”

Virgie pretended she was only trying to figure out where the photo was taken, saying as much. “What happened to him?”

“There was an unexpected storm, and no one really knows what happened, but he left early that morning on his trawler, as he always did when he was working. The boat was never found.” The woman’s teacup trembled as she set it down, its bottom chattering against the saucer.

“Isn’t that something awful? I’m very sorry.”

The woman touched the bandage on her forehead, pressing down its edges, her eyes so light they looked faded. “I do my best, but I suppose it’s just not enough sometimes. My husband’s family is from Wisconsin, and they come to visit once a year, but otherwise, it’s us. This is the house I grew up in, but my parents are gone.”

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