The Family Beach House (15 page)

Sunday, July 22

Tilda was still out of sorts the morning after the party at the Ogunquit Museum. That awful Louise Sherman! But by the time she got down to the beach and began to walk along the waterline, sneakers in hand and pant legs rolled up, she felt calmer. Better. The water was very cool. She found a piece of a sand dollar (she had never found a whole one, except on a visit to South Carolina) and put it in her pocket.

About a quarter of the way to Wells, Tilda stopped to chat with a local man named Wade Wilder. He was a retired contractor who loved to fish, which was what he was doing now, as he did every morning. The interesting thing about Wade was that he hated to eat fish. He was a strict meat and potatoes kind of guy. So he either threw his catch back into the ocean or gave it to a friend or passerby.

“Anything today?” Tilda asked, looking up at Wade's friendly face. He was very tall, probably, Tilda thought, close to six feet five inches, and very thin.

Wade smiled down at her. “Nope. Not yet, anyway.”

“How's Molly's mother doing?” Molly was Wade's wife. Her mother, who was well into her eighties, lived with them. Lately, Tilda had heard, she had been failing.

“Not so good,” Wade said with a shake of his head. “Had to put the old girl in a nursing home just yesterday. Broke Molly's heart but it was time.”

“Oh, I'm so sorry,” Tilda said. “I hope she'll be happy there. Well, at least all right.”

“Not much choice about it now. I'll tell her you said hello, if you like.”

Tilda said that yes, she would like it if Wade gave her greetings to his mother-in-law, and she resumed her walk, leaving Wade to catch and release to his heart's content.

Wade's story made her think. Presumably, her father, Bill, would die before his younger sister, Ruth. Maybe. If Tilda inherited Larchmere, there was a good chance that in time she would become her aunt's primary caregiver. Then again, even if she didn't inherit Larchmere, as the oldest niece it might very well become her duty to care for an aged Ruth. Adam certainly wouldn't. There was no question there.

The idea had never occurred to her. Of course, she would never abandon her aunt but it might be difficult to care for her from South Portland if Ruth insisted on staying at Larchmere…. Tilda cringed. She felt guilty for even considering her aunt as a problem to be solved. Besides, knowing Ruth, she would probably live to a fine old age and quite independently, too.

Not like Frank. Near the end he had announced, several times, that he had had a good run. It would bother Tilda that he could think that way. After all, he was dying before he could see his children graduate from college. He was dying before he could have a midlife crisis, before he could lose his hair, before he could need bifocals! Never had the indignities of middle age seemed so precious to her.

But to her objections he would answer, how many guys could say that they had married their dream girl, had two great kids, worked at a job they enjoyed, owned their own home…? Tilda had blocked out Frank's rationalizations. She had argued with him, too.

“But you'll never get to see your grandchildren,” she had said. “We won't get to grow old together.”

“Those things are lousy, Tilda,” he had admitted, “especially the fact that I don't get to grow old with my best friend. But what's it going to get me to dwell on what I can't have? I don't have the time to be miserable and angry. I just don't. I want to die with some peace of mind, with some dignity. So, please, let me do that.”

Those conversations had been coming back to Tilda a lot lately. For Frank, dying with dignity had meant dying without kicking and screaming. It had meant going gently into that good night, refusing to rage against the dying of the light, Dylan Thomas be damned.

Maybe because of what she had experienced with Frank, Tilda was no longer afraid of death and dying. At least, she didn't think that she was, not in the way she had been before Frank's illness and death. She wondered if this lack of fear was a good thing or a bad thing. She wondered if it was a sign of resignation, of giving up on life, or a sign of maturity.

What was it, exactly, that most people feared about dying? Tilda often thought about that. Was it the process itself that scared them, the anticipation of pain and discomfort, the mental anguish of knowing that your time was up and that you had not accomplished half of what you had intended to accomplish? Was it the anticipation of the emotional trauma involved in taking leave of loved ones? Was it the anticipation of the grief surrounding the loss of favorite habits and haunts, of the changing seasons, of holidays, even of the first satisfying sip of coffee in the morning?

No doubt for some the fear of dying involved a spiritual concern regarding the afterlife. What if there was no afterlife and you had spent your entire life banking on the belief that there was something better and happier after death? What if there was an afterlife and you had spent your entire life banking on the belief that there was nothing after death, no reward and no retribution?

Big questions for which Tilda had no answers. Maybe nobody had the answers.

On the way back to the parking lot, and walking higher up on the beach in the softer sand, she passed behind Wade. He would be there for hours and he would be back the next day and the one after that. She wondered if Wade was afraid of dying and almost immediately thought that he was probably not afraid of anything.

Before slipping into the driver's seat of her car, Tilda performed her own daily ritual and scanned the summer sky. But there was nothing.

 

“There's Sarah's car. Down by the turn.”

“You can see that it's her car?” Tilda asked, squinting and making out only a glint of metal. They were on the front porch of Larchmere. “Boy, your eyesight is good.”

Craig shrugged. “Guess I take after Dad.”

Sarah Wilder McQueen, driving a Honda Odyssey, pulled up the drive a few minutes later. She was there for the memorial service. Tilda and Craig knew that but neither was sure that Adam did. Yet. Their brother's divorce had been acrimonious, though Sarah's conduct throughout had been an awful lot more mature than Adam's. Which was interesting, given the fact that she was the one being left for a mistress who, shortly after the divorce was made final, disappeared from the picture. No one but Adam knew what had happened to her and no one wanted to ask.

Sarah parked her car, got out with her travel bags, and with a wave, walked toward Tilda and Craig. Over time she had lost some of her sharpness and urban chic but was still an attractive woman, now forty-five. Compared to her ex-husband's young fiancée, some might judge her a bit old and worn. Not that Sarah was the sort of person to dwell on the importance of appearance. Her only remaining vanity was a visit to her hair stylist every two months for a color touch-up. Gray hair was the one concession to age that she would not make.

For all of Kat's physical perfection, Craig thought, watching his former sister-in-law, Sarah was the sexier woman. Difference attracted Craig, not the standard. Uniqueness, a real individuality, those were attractive qualities in people. Like Sarah's recent habit of wearing colorful, oversized beads (several strands at once) and consciously dorky glasses. The beads and glasses suited her.

Sarah greeted Tilda and Craig and together, the three went into the house. “So,” she said softly, “what's Adam's fiancée like? I've heard a bit from the kids but I'd love to know your opinions.”

“See for yourself,” Craig murmured.

Kat and Adam were coming from the living room. Both stopped short at the sight of Adam's ex-wife standing in the front hall. Tilda realized that Kat must have recognized Sarah from photographs. Neither said a word.

Sarah stepped forward, hand extended. “Hello, Adam,” she said, but she turned toward Kat. “And you must be Kat. It's nice to meet you.”

Poor Kat. She looked completely baffled by the situation. Sarah kept her hand extended and a smile on her face until finally, Kat extended her own hand and blurted, “Your children are very nice.”

The brief, awkward handshake over, Sarah said, “Yes, I know,” and stepped back to join Tilda and Craig.

“Why don't I take your bags to the cottage,” Craig said. “You can get settled and come back to the house for something to eat.”

Sarah thought his suggestion a good one and together they left the house, her bags in tow. Tilda noticed Kat slip away upstairs. Adam looked apoplectic.

“What is she doing here?” he hissed.

“Ruth invited her.”

“What the hell for?”

Tilda sighed. “Just because you divorced Sarah there's no reason for the rest of the McQueens to ignore her. She's still a part of this family, Adam. You made her a part when you married her and had the children.”

Adam frowned. Tilda wondered if he thought a frown made him look important. “I'm going to have a word with your aunt about this.”

No doubt you will,
Tilda thought.
But it won't do you any good.
She went off to the kitchen. Sarah liked tea. Tilda thought she would put out a selection of tea bags and local honey. She didn't mean to eavesdrop. But after a moment or two she heard two voices in the hall, Adam and Sarah. She had not expected Sarah back at the house so quickly.

“Look, Adam,” she was saying, “I just talked to Cordelia. The kids want to stay with me in the guest cottage.”

“Absolutely not. That's ridiculous.”

“No, it's not ridiculous. Cordelia said they feel—uncomfortable.”

“Are you saying they don't like Kat?” Tilda, in the kitchen, flinched.

“Keep your voice down, Adam. What I'm saying is that the situation isn't ideal for them.”

“No way. The kids are mine this weekend, Sarah. That's the law. You want to take it up with a judge, be my guest.”

Sarah paused before answering. Tilda imagined her sighing in frustration. “Don't be an ass, Adam. You know I don't want any more legal wrangling. But Cordelia and Cody are unhappy being with you and Kat. And I'm not saying anything bad about your fiancée. She seems like a very nice young woman. But they would rather stay with me in the cottage. You'll still spend time with them. I'm not spiriting them away to Argentina. We'll just be in the backyard.”

“What made you say Argentina?”

“Nothing. I don't know. I saw a PBS special the other night. Come on, Adam, let the kids stay with me in the cottage.”

“All right.” His tone was begrudging. “But I'm making note of this occasion. I deserve time with my children. I have rights.”

“Yes. Thanks. Now I'll go and get them packed up.”

Tilda heard Sarah's footsteps, retreating. She prayed that Adam would not come into the kitchen. He would know for sure that she had overheard his capitulation and he would be angry. Her prayer was answered. A moment later, she heard the front door slam.

Tilda and Dennis were spending the afternoon in Kennebunkport. Tilda was glad to be away from Ogunquit for a while, and the prying—or simply curious—eyes of her longtime neighbors. Small towns provided a strong sense of community. They also, at times, were stifling.

She had chosen to wear a pair of off-white chinos and a fitted black linen blouse that had once belonged to her mother. She had found the blouse among her mother's wardrobe and, though Tilda rarely wore black, had saved it for herself. She had not worn it until now. She wasn't sure why she was wearing it.

Susan, upon seeing her sister-in-law preparing to leave the house, had asked her to wait a moment. She had run up to her room and returned promptly with a multistrand bead necklace in lime green. “Put this on,” she ordered. “It will really make your eyes pop and it's a perfect contrast to the black.” Tilda had protested, saying that she wasn't used to wearing that sort of jewelry, by which she meant anything costume and funky. But Susan had insisted and Tilda was glad about it. Dennis had complimented her the moment she had fetched him at his house. He said she looked vibrant.

They had stopped at a quaint, old cemetery (it was not hard to find one in New England) and were wandering along the crooked aisles of battered and worn headstones. The grass had been recently mowed and at a few of the newer graves (still a half or full century old) there were small vases of flowers.

“I find it heartening,” Dennis said, “to see how people so wanted to remember their loved ones. There's something soothing about these old cemeteries.” Dennis turned to her. “I'm sorry. Maybe I shouldn't have said that.”

“No, no, I agree actually,” Tilda said. “Maybe it's the fact that they're so old…. We're so removed from the people buried here…and yet, we're so connected. All these years later, and that baby there, Constance Morrison, is known to us somehow. She lived for only a month but almost two hundred years later we're bearing witness to her life.”

“Yes, that's exactly what we're doing, bearing witness.”

Tilda smiled at Dennis. She was amazed to find that she could talk about important, even personal things with a man who was virtually a stranger. The experience made her feel a bit hopeful, even happy.

“Are you a superstitious man?” she asked then.

“I don't think that I am, though I don't make it a point to walk under ladders. Why?”

“Well,” she said, “it's funny, but not long before Frank got sick I suddenly found myself thinking, totally out of the blue, that my life was too good, almost perfect, and that something bad was bound to happen.”

Dennis nodded. “I suspect lots of people have experienced that kind of moment. Most adults know that nothing lasts forever. I'm not sure I'd call that being superstitious.”

“Maybe not,” she said. “I know that until that moment I'd never considered myself a superstitious person. Well, Frank would have argued otherwise! Anyway, I got the bad feeling one day while I was walking the path around Back Cove in Portland. I was kind of daydreaming as I was walking, admiring all the colors of the marshy land and the herons among the grasses, and the ducks in the water close to the shore. The weather was perfect. I remember the air feeling very soft and fresh, and the sky being very clear. There were a few clouds but they were the light and puffy kind, nothing threatening. And then, bam, it hit me like a slap to the face. My life was too good, everything was too good, and it wasn't going to last much longer.”

“Maybe you intuited a message from the universe. Don't laugh,” Dennis said quickly, though Tilda had no intention of laughing. “I'm serious. Or maybe deep down a part of you sensed that Frank was sick. You said you were very close. It could happen, a subconscious knowledge.”

“Yes,” Tilda said, “maybe.” But whatever the cause of that revelation or intuition, it had taught her one big lesson. Nothing good could come of perfection. Nothing good could come of perceived perfection, anyway. If nothing could be better, than everything could be worse.

They continued to stroll through the cemetery. They noted particularly interesting headstones and the occasional grandiose family mausoleum. Her mother was buried in the McQueen family plot in a cemetery in York. Her father was to be buried there someday, too. But what if he married Jennifer? Would that change everything that had been planned?

“Frank was cremated,” Tilda said suddenly. “My kids and I scattered his ashes off the cliff on Marginal Way.”

“But he's still remembered.” It was not a question, but a statement.

“Oh, yes. On his birthday last year the kids and I had a little party in his honor. You're told to do that kind of thing, you know. Celebrate the life of the one who's died. You're supposed to remember as a way of getting past grief. I baked his favorite cake. Duncan Hines chocolate cake with vanilla icing from a can.”

Dennis smiled ruefully. “I wish I could say that I still celebrate my ex-wife's birthday. But that's another way a divorce is different from death. At least, in my case. I don't hate my ex-wife—I don't think I've ever hated anyone—but I certainly have no desire to celebrate her life. Not even at first, when I still actually missed her.”

“She hurt you. Frank didn't hurt me. It's not like I could blame him for dying. It's not like he did it to wound me.”

“Yes,” Dennis said. “I'm sure you were wounded by his passing but it's not as if he intended that. It's all about intention.”

Tilda smiled. “Are we intending to get something to eat?”

“Of course! What are you in the mood for? I'm pretty flexible when it comes to feeding time.”

“I would love a crab roll. And some fries.”

“Done and done.” Dennis grinned.

 

It was a beautiful evening after a perfect summer day. (They deserved as many perfect summer days as they could get, Hannah had remarked. It was compensation for the long and lousy winters Mainers had to endure.) The sky was clear and a few early stars were visible. Hannah and Susan decided to take a drive to Nubble Lighthouse. Sitting on tiny Nubble Island close to the rocky shore of the mainland, the picturesque, red and white lighthouse, built in 1879, was probably the most photographed lighthouse on the coast of New England. Check any gift shop in Maine and you would find its image on postcards, mugs, coasters, even T-shirts.

Craig came out of the library as they were preparing to leave. Hannah thought she had never seen anyone look so obviously lonely. She wasn't used to Craig looking anything but…fine.

“Where are you guys headed?” he asked.

“The Nubble Lighthouse,” Susan said. “I know, how clichéd, but it's so beautiful.”

“Why don't you come with?” Hannah suggested.

“Yeah, do.”

Craig hesitated. “Are you sure I'm not going to be in the way? Three's a crowd and all.”

“Craig,” Susan said, taking his arm, “we're an old married couple. We're not going to make out.”

“We're not?” Hannah said, feigning huge disappointment.

“Hilarious. Now, come on.”

Craig shrugged. “Sure, thanks.”

The drive to the lighthouse was uneventful; they passed only one car pulled to the side of the road by the police. Hannah parked the car in the gravel lot and the three got out into the night.

They were not the only ones who had decided to visit the Nubble Lighthouse that evening. There was a family of four, two parents and two children. The children were shouting and chasing each other. The parents ignored them or just didn't care what the kids were up to. Neither looked particularly happy to be there. They stood feet apart from each other, as if strangers. The father's hands were in his pockets.

To the right of the young parents was an older couple in matching, crazy patterned sweaters. The man was taking pictures of the lighthouse while his wife shouted into her cell phone. “What a nice meal we had!” Hannah heard her say. “You and Ralph really should come with us next year. What? I can't hear you—”

Hannah smiled ruefully at Craig and Susan. “Well, so much for a peaceful experience.”

“It's summer,” Craig said. “You can't expect a private experience in July.”

“And not everyone appreciates a beautiful night sky,” Susan added.

A beautiful night sky…“Remember when Dad got that telescope for Mom?” Hannah asked suddenly. “It was huge. I don't think she ever used it. I wonder what made him buy it in the first place. I don't remember Mom ever having an interest in astronomy. Astrology, yes, but not astronomy.”

Craig frowned. “I know exactly why he bought her that telescope. Because Carol Whitehouse had gotten one, some super fancy setup, and Mom just happened to mention it to Dad, who, of course, ran right out and bought an even more super fancy setup for Mom. It was all about one-upping her friend.”

“How do you know about that?” Susan asked.

“I heard Mom and Dad talking one night. And no, I wasn't purposely spying. But once I heard Mom whining about how Carol thought she was so special, blah, blah, blah, well, I just had to stay and listen. For the sheer entertainment value of it all, of course.”

“Poor Dad,” Hannah said. She doubted he had really understood his wife's motives. “What ever happened to that telescope anyway?”

“Adam made off with it.”

“Why?” Susan asked. “He has no hobbies. If it's not related to his job he doesn't care about it. I bet he hasn't read a novel since college.”

Craig shrugged. “It's worth a lot of money. Maybe he sold it.”

They were silent for some time and then Craig spoke again. “Adam might not have hobbies,” he said, “but he's perfect. Tilda, too. They're the perfect children, I mean, at least as far as Mom was concerned. They're both professionals, they both got married, and they both had two children, a boy and a girl. Okay, Adam got divorced but nobody considers that much of a big deal anymore. In some circles it's almost de rigueur. I doubt Mom would have cared.”

“And then look at us!” Hannah said with a laugh. “We're the oddballs, the outcasts. I'm gay and—”

“Married,” Susan interrupted.

“Gay trumps married, I'm sorry to say. And Craig's a wandering minstrel, as it were.”

“Dad doesn't care that you're gay,” Craig said to his sister. “You're golden in his eyes. I'm the embarrassment in this family. I'm the one who makes people lower their voices when my name is mentioned. Oh, Craig McQueen,” he said in an exaggerated whisper, his eyes wide. “He's the troubled one. We don't know what went wrong with that boy.”

Susan swiped his arm. “You two have an inferiority complex. Craig, I'm sure nobody thinks you're an embarrassment. We certainly don't.”

“Thanks, Susan. I appreciate your vote of confidence. But I'm not asking for pity. I've made all the choices that have gotten me here—forty years old and virtually homeless. I must have wanted what I got.”

“But now?” Hannah asked. She looked carefully at her brother. She couldn't read his face; the night was too dark. She couldn't tell if he was really mocking himself or just playing a game.

Craig shrugged. “Now nothing.”

Susan opened the cooler at her feet. “I think it's time for some champagne.”

“You guys really know how to live!” Craig said. Hannah thought he sounded relieved to be off the topic of his unusual life.

Susan popped the cork and poured them each a glass.

Hannah raised her plastic cup. “To us.”

“To family,” Susan said.

“Must we?” Craig asked.

Hannah said, “Yeah. Do we have to?”

“Yes.” Susan looked from her wife to her brother-in-law with that formidable look she reserved for the most stubborn of her family services clients.

Craig sighed. “I know when I'm beaten.”

He and Hannah said, “To family.”