Summer Friends (22 page)

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Authors: Holly Chamberlin

BOOK: Summer Friends
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“See? You've got a full staff ready and waiting. So, you promise you'll look at that calendar soon?”
“Yes,” Delphine said after only a moment's hesitation. “I will. I promise.”
Maggie grinned. “Pinky swear?”
It took a moment for Delphine to grasp the reference, to remember. She smiled.
“My own words are coming back to bite me,” she said. She held out her pinky. “Okay, pinky swear.”
37
1983
 
“No more nukes! No more nukes!”
The chanting was growing louder, more frenzied by the moment. Though the autumn night was chill, Delphine felt herself begin to sweat. She could barely see Robert, up on the makeshift stage, bullhorn in hand. Suddenly, the crowd around her surged and for a brief but terrorizing moment she felt her feet lift off the ground. She was being moved against her will. She was being carried without her consent by people who were strangers to her, people who were increasingly becoming out of control. Voices were rising in anger. She heard a girl scream. In the next moment her toes touched the ground and in a surge of animal instinct she managed to turn around and begin to claw her way through the press of bodies, yelling, “Get out of my way!” and, “Let me go!” She fought her way back through the crowd of protestors, back toward open space, all the while aware of Robert's voice booming through a bullhorn, calling for order, demanding a return to calm.
She tripped over a stray branch and fell, skinning her knees all the way through the thick fabric of her pants. She struggled to her feet and continued to run, harder than she had ever run before. She didn't care about nuclear weapons. What did nuclear weapons have to do with her, with a girl from a small town in Maine? She ran into an alley between two of the college buildings and skidded to a halt on wet brown leaves. She leaned against a brick wall and tried to catch her breath. She thought she might be having an anxiety attack. This could not be her life. Running away, hiding like a fugitive . . .
There was no way she could go back there. Later that night, Robert would want to know what she had thought of the rally. She would have to lie to him, maybe tell him she had been forced to go home because she'd come down with a migraine, though she had never had one before. Maybe she would say she had gotten suddenly sick to her stomach, something she'd eaten for lunch hadn't agreed with her. Because how could she tell him the truth, that in one flash of insight she had known that she didn't belong in his world, in the world he was entering with such energy and courage? That world was too frightening, too uncertain, too volatile, too not the world in which Delphine knew she needed to live.
But she loved him so much, she wanted to marry him, to have children with him someday; she wanted to grow old with him. She owed him the truth. She owed him the chance to argue with her, to persuade her, to come to a compromise with her. Maybe if she admitted to being afraid that her life might be subsumed if she fully entered his world he could help her to not be afraid, he could help her to adjust, to learn, to understand, to stand strong and preserve her identity against his.
No. She knew she was not strong enough to withstand him. Robert was like a force of nature. If she told him the truth, her truth, he would talk her out of believing it, and she would be forever lost. She would have to lie, at least for a while. She would have to buy some time. She would have to work up the courage to leave. Slowly now, her knees stinging where she had skinned them, Delphine pushed off the wall and made her way back to her dorm in the chilly dark.
The next morning the local papers would hail Robert Evans as a true leader. One paper even went so far as to label him a hero. College administrators would hail him for getting the excited crowd back under control and for organizing the protest in the first place. Halting the proliferation of nuclear weapons was a worthy cause and few would argue with that fact. Robert had accepted Delphine's lie—a migraine—without suspicion and was extremely solicitous of her health, glad, too, that she hadn't been badly hurt when the crowd had gotten temporarily out of control. Skinned knees would heal. Maggie, too, had offered to bring her tea and aspirin and a wet cloth, whatever would help.
For Delphine, Robert's and Maggie's care and concern was like a torture. Once they each had left the dorm room she turned her face to the wall, embarrassed to have run away, ashamed to have lied to the two people, aside from her family, she loved the most, the two people who most loved her. The pressure inside her was building. Something would have to be done, and soon. She just hoped she could find the necessary courage to do it.
38
“Knock, knock.”
Delphine looked up from the computer screen. “Hey, I didn't expect to see you out here, especially not so early on a Saturday morning.”
“Sorry.” Maggie stepped inside the office. “I woke up at six and couldn't get back to sleep. I had breakfast, went to the gym, and here I am. Am I in the way?”
“Nope. I'm just finishing up these accounts.”
“Where is everybody?” Maggie asked. “I didn't see any cars out front.”
“Jackie and Dave Junior are up at the farmers' market in Portland. Lori's in the house; her dad dropped her off. She's working on another wreath. They should sell nicely in the fall. My father's at the diner and my mother took some meals to Mr. Kneeland on Karfoil Road.”
“Who's he?” Maggie asked.
“Right, you wouldn't know him. He's a native, about eighty now I'd say. He lost his wife a few years ago and the poor man's been getting frailer by the minute. A bunch of the locals share the work of checking in on him every day, bringing his meals, doing some housekeeping. I go over when I can, which is not very often. I should really get better about that.”
“I'm sure there are plenty of other people around to take care of him,” Maggie said.
“One more never hurts.”
Maggie just shrugged. “How's Kitty?”
“Fine. Cybel took her to the animal park in York. She's been going on and on about it since one of the kids on her street went last week. I wanted to go along, but, well, these accounts don't balance themselves. I'll try to take her again before the end of summer.”
Maggie brushed some dust off the seat of the folding chair and sat. She had learned not to wear white to the farm. “Delphine, can I ask you a question?”
“If I say no you'll ask it anyway.”
Maggie laughed. “Probably. Why didn't you ever have kids? You're so good with them and you've got a built-in babysitting service right in your own family.”
Delphine closed the file on which she was working and frowned. “I don't know. Well, that's a stupid answer.”
“I'm sorry. We don't have to talk about this, especially so early in the morning.”
“No, it's okay,” Delphine said, swiveling in her chair to face Maggie. “I guess that growing up I never really had a burning desire to be a mother. I don't know why. And then, when I was with Robert, honestly, the thought of having children with him was something so far in our future it almost didn't seem a real possibility. I think if things had worked out between us, we would have had a family. But I don't really know.”
“I don't think Robert has any children, either,” Maggie said. “None that I've heard of, anyway. I did read once that he's divorced.”
“A lot of men in his position would probably have abandoned kids all over the globe. But Robert isn't that kind of person. At least, he wasn't when I knew him. He respected the idea of family and he was nothing if not responsible.”
“Yes. So, what about after Robert, when you came back here? Did you ever think about having a child then?”
Delphine shrugged. “Well, after Robert, I guess I thought that when it was the right time or when the right things were in place, I would probably have a child.” Delphine paused and gave a halfhearted smile. “But time just passed, and I got older and the right man, whatever that means, just didn't show up, or maybe he did and I didn't recognize him. And then, I met Harry and he certainly didn't want any more children, so . . . Here I am. Aunt Delphine.”
“But is that enough,” Maggie asked, “to be an aunt?”
Delphine shrugged. “It's had to be. There's no point in bemoaning what isn't.”
Maggie wasn't so sure she agreed. “Delphine,” she said, “you're so good to other people. You're always there when someone needs you. Haven't you ever wanted things for yourself, things only for you? Haven't you ever been selfish, just once, done something that was only for your own benefit?”
Yes,
Delphine thought,
I have been selfish, once. I went off to college. I was away from my family and from the farm for four years. I fell in love. I had my chance. And once is enough. It's had to be enough.
When Delphine didn't answer, Maggie said, “You never got the chance to travel or to be wild and crazy or to—”
Delphine interrupted. “No one forced me to come home after college,” she said. “I chose to. And I was welcomed.” She laughed. “Really, Maggie, it's not so bad when the people you love, love you back.”
“Of course not. It's just . . .”
It was just, Maggie thought, that the motives behind the Crandall family's welcome seemed pretty selfish. Of course Charlie and Patrice wanted their daughter back home. They wanted her free labor. Delphine had made service and resignation her motto.
“Would you prefer that I be miserable?” Delphine asked with a smile.
“Oh, don't be silly. But it would make me feel better if I could be one hundred percent sure that you really were happy, if I could be sure you didn't have regrets.”
Delphine looked briefly down at her hands, folded in her lap. When she looked up again, Maggie thought she saw a trace of tears in her eyes. But maybe not.
“I never said I don't have regrets,” Delphine said. “Everyone has regrets. If a person says she has no regrets about something she did or didn't do, she's lying. It's just that I don't dwell on the past.”
“As simple as that?” Maggie said.
“Yes.”
But Maggie wondered if it was. Delphine seemed to want to erase or ignore or deny the past, or parts of it, rather than not dwell on it. And here she was, dragging Delphine down memory lane and forcing her to remember every little bump along the way.
And yet Delphine was still here, still talking, answering questions, asking her own. She hadn't walked away again or told Maggie to clear off. That had to mean something, that maybe she did, deep down, want to engage with the past. Or, at least, that she wanted to engage with Maggie in the present.
“Do you want to help me clean the chicken coop?” Delphine said then, standing up and startling Maggie from her thoughts.
Maggie's eyes widened. “Oh, no, thanks, I don't think I could; I don't know how to—”
Delphine laughed. “Only kidding. You'd ruin your manicure.”
“Well,” Maggie said, getting up from the folding chair. “I'd better let you get to that coop. Are we still on for later?”
“Barring any unforeseen disasters, yeah. Meet you there at four.”
39
The Lilac House hadn't changed much since the last summer it had been rented by the Weldons. The lilac bushes growing on both sides of the house were thriving. The enormous pine at the foot of the long front drive had escaped destruction from several major storms. The drive had been repaved, the house repainted, the roof repaired. Other than those basic improvements, the house looked exactly as Maggie remembered it.
Maggie sighed. It was late Saturday afternoon and she and Delphine stood at the foot of the driveway, looking up at the house, now occupied by a family with small children if the evidence of the three-wheeled bikes on the lawn could be trusted. “God, this place brings back such memories,” Maggie said. “I miss those days when we were just kids, healthy, happy, innocent. Do you ever miss them?”
“I don't know,” Delphine said. “I don't know if I actually miss being a kid. I remember the summers we spent together, maybe not as much as you seem to, but . . . I guess today, right now is good enough for me.”
Most times,
she added silently.
“Yes, but the past was idyllic. Really, if life could always be like it was during those summers. I can't remember one rainy day or one bad thing happening. There must have been rainy days and something bad must have happened at some time. But it's all perfect in my memory.”
“‘. . . memories are injected after the fact with subsequent wisdom. Such is the treachery of this path upon which you have so thoughtlessly set me . . .'”
“What's that?” Maggie asked, turning to Delphine.
“Lines from a book, Arthur Phillips's novel
Angelica
.”
“And is that what I've done?” Maggie said musingly. “Barged into your life and set my old and unsuspecting friend on the torturous path of remembering—of reconstructing, of reconstituting—the past.”
Delphine didn't answer that question. Instead, she said, “Do you remember the summer when that fisherman died? We were in our teens. His name was Johnny Boyd. He was married and had two little children under five. It was a freak accident on his fishing boat. It was awful. Everyone was talking about it, even your parents. I remember they donated to the emergency fund his friends started to help his family pay for the funeral expenses.”
“No,” Maggie said. “I have absolutely no memory of that. How terrible for his poor wife. And his children, of course.”
“It was horrible. I'll never forget it.” Delphine turned to face Maggie. “Why do you only remember the good things? Or mostly the good things?”
“I don't know,” Maggie admitted. “Maybe because the good things meant more to me. Maybe I didn't experience the bad things as so bad. I don't know.”
“You're nostalgic by nature. But nostalgia just whitewashes everything,” Delphine said. “Which can be convenient, of course. But it's still a lie.”
“But is it the kind of lie that can hurt someone?”
“Yes,” Delphine said. “I think it is.”
“What, I wonder, is the opposite of nostalgia?”
Delphine thought about that a moment before answering. “I'd say it's appreciating that what you have right now is pretty darn good, even if it's not perfect.”
“I think,” Maggie said, “that the opposite of nostalgia is a refusal to acknowledge that some things about the past were actually better than they are now.”
“That's another one of the ways in which we're different.”
Maggie shook her head. “You're always focusing on our differences. Why can't you focus on our similarities?”
“Like what?”
Maggie rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Like the fact that we're both women. That we're the same age. That we share so many memories. I don't know, like the fact that we love each other? There's a lot we hold in common, Delphine.”
Delphine wondered. Did she, indeed, love Maggie? She knew that once upon a time she had; she had loved and cherished her and knew that without Maggie her life would be terribly diminished, almost unthinkable, really. But now, did she love her now, in the present? She thought that maybe she did. But she wasn't sure she wouldn't be lying if she spoke the words.
The front door opened just then and a young pregnant woman came out onto the porch, carrying a watering can.
“Why don't you ask her if you could go inside,” Delphine suggested. “You could see if anything's changed.”
Maggie shook her head. “No, that's okay. This is enough.”
Delphine smiled to herself. Maggie didn't want pointy reality to burst the delicate bubble of memory. Well, that was okay.
“Come on, then,” she said. “We'd better go before that woman calls the police on us for loitering.”

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