Summer's End (18 page)

Holly and the ice skater had the door open, and the cabin was all light and warm. The skater took the girl out of Nick's arms right away. Then he squatted down by the sofa and let the little dude climb off by himself. He rubbed a hand over his windpipe. He supposed it would uncrush itself sooner or later.

“Where are we going to put everyone?” Holly asked. “Can some of the kids share a bed?”

“They don't need to be in a bed,” Ellie said. “They can sleep on the floor, just so long as they don't get cold.”

She suggested spreading one sleeping bag out in front of the fire, lining all four kids up, and dumping a bunch of blankets on them. And wonder of wonders, for what had to be the first time in recorded history, three adults listened to a teenager and did exactly as she said. She was real confident, not one bit mousy. Nick was impressed. Knowing how to put a bunch of little kids to bed might be pretty dorky, but it was better than not knowing anything at all. And it was quite awhile before any of the three grown-ups remembered to ask where Maggie was.

 

Nick slept fine the rest of the night. It was weird to wake up to the morning light and to feel that he was halfway rested.

He lay still for a moment. The cabin was quiet. He had slept out on the enclosed porch in the upper bunk of Jack's bed. The porch was low and the ceiling was just a few feet over him. It was all flat and close, and the bed had a railing on the side, and suddenly it all felt too much like a coffin.

He rolled over and swung himself to the floor.

Jack's bed was empty, all neatly made. Jack didn't seem like the make-your-bed-every-morning kind of guy, but he was. He never left crap lying around either. Nick supposed it came from having a father who was in the military. Apparently the military turned a person into a neat freak. Nick jerked the blankets off his bunk, but he couldn't get them to lie smooth. He flung the blankets back and started with the sheet. Even then it was tough because of not being able to get to the other side of the bed. What a display of talent—he couldn't even make a stupid bed.

He went into the main room of the cabin. The blankets that the little kids had been sleeping on were all folded up and piled on the sofa. Holly's room was empty too, and both those beds were neatly made with bedspreads that were made up from little squares of fabrics—patchwork quilts, he guessed they were called. He crossed through the little kitchen and pulled open the screen door.

He had to squint. The sun was bright, the sky clear. The only signs of the storm were a few little puddles on the ground and the twigs that had snapped off the trees. Their leaves were still fresh and green.

He could hear a thin grinding sound coming from the road, starting and stopping. He guessed it was a chain saw. A tree must have fallen across the road. He had never used a chain saw. He supposed it might be pretty cool if you knew what you were doing because those things could really rip, but of course he didn't know what he was doing, so he was bound to cut his leg off.

The psychologists and the sociologists never talked about that, did they? How the disintegration of the nuclear family unit was leaving a whole generation of America's youth unable to use chain saws.

By now he was almost at Aunt Gwen's cabin. He
heard a whistle, then someone calling his name. He looked up. Jack was on the roof of the bunkhouse. “A couple of shingles worked loose last night. Why don't you come up and help me?”

There was a ladder propped up against the bunkhouse. Nick climbed it and stepped onto the roof. The tree had already been cleared away—Jack would certainly know how to use a chain saw—and a square of roof about four feet by three feet was exposed. Jack had a bunch of tools in his tool belt, and a couple of flat packets of new shingles were stacked at his elbow. He already had one line of new shingles installed; they were brighter than the old ones.

“We were lucky. None of the beams were broken, and Hal had some new shingles,” Jack said. “So this won't take any time at all.”

“I hope you aren't counting on me for well-informed aid,” Nick told him. “I'm clueless about all this handyman stuff”

“That's okay. I'm hoping to drag this out as long as possible. I'm hiding out from the logging crew. Some trees fell across the road, and the others are out clearing them away. Do you hear how the saws are always starting and stopping? I'll bet you anything that they are discussing where to make every single cut. It's going to take them forever. They're probably following parliamentary procedure.”

Nick didn't see what was so bad about that. There was nothing else to do up here. Why shouldn't people chew the fat endlessly if they wanted? So long as they didn't involve him, that is.

But clearly it bugged the hell out of Jack. Nick watched him work for a while, his hands flashing quickly between staple gun and hammer. “Are you sure there isn't something you need me to be doing?”

“With this? It's nothing,” Jack said as if that were obvious, as if Nick could look at this activity and see that it was easy. “But as long as you're up here, why don't you fill me in on this shoplifting stuff?”

“Shoplifting?” What was he talking about? “Who's been shoplifting?” How could you shoplift here? There were no shops.

“I thought that you had; that was why your mother and grandmother had sent you here. Some sort of shoplifting charges.”

“Jesus, is that what they told you?” Nick raked both hands through his hair, squeezing his scalp. “
Shoplifting?
” Two guys that he sort of knew had gotten picked up last week for that, but he hadn't had anything to do with it.

Jack nodded. “At least that's what your mother told Holly.”

Nick tilted his head back. Wasn't that just like the two of them? To dump all their problems on someone else and then not even tell them?

Jack had stopped working. “So that's not it. You didn't steal.”

“No…I mean, yes, of course I have. But I've never been caught.” Everyone stole. That was part of being a teenager. “And I probably won't be.”

“So?”

Nick's first impulse was not to tell him. But to equate Brian with shoplifting…it was such an insult. And he didn't want Jack thinking he was the sort of idiot who got caught shoplifting. He shrugged and spoke. “One of my friends offed himself a couple of days ago.”

“What?” Jack stopped working. “You…you don't mean suicide, do you?”

“The funeral would have been yesterday. Those bitches wouldn't even let me go.”

“Suicide? A friend of yours committed suicide?” Jack was now looking all major-issue worried.

Nick waved his hand. “Look, it's not a problem. I'm not going to toast myself. Brian was sick, man. He knew it, there were a couple of us, we all knew it. It was like he had cancer or something. He used to joke about shaving his head so he would look like he was in chemo.”

God, it had made him so mad. That Val and Barb thought that this was like a cold, something he could catch. It wasn't. None of them had a clue what it was to be Brian, to have that black weight pressing down all the time. This wasn't something Brian had done on impulse; it wasn't a stupid teenage prank. He didn't do it because of a fight with a girl or bad SATs. Maybe that was why some kids commit suicide, but this had been in the works for years.

He'd been cool; he had done it while he had been in the hospital. That was one thing he had said. “Be sure that I do it so my mom doesn't have to find the body.” You weren't supposed to be able to kill yourself in a psychiatric ward, but Brian always said he had ways. Nick didn't know what he had done. If Val knew, she wasn't telling him…like it would give him ideas or something.

Jack was still looking at him with all this grown-up concern. “I'm okay,” Nick assured him. “I did not come up here to kill myself. Val and Barb just flipped out. They couldn't handle it, so they sent me up here. Look, I know you wish I were on Mars. But trust me, I'm not going to kill myself.”

Jack was shaking his head. “I can't believe they weren't straight with us.”

“Oh, believe it.”

“Then I really think you should tell my mother and Hal.”

“Why? Don't they have enough on their minds, wanting everyone to get along?”

“Secrets aren't going to help.”

Nick supposed he had a point. Val and Barb loved secrets. They were constantly keeping things from him or each other. That in and of itself suggested how bad the secrets were.

So reluctantly he agreed. He would tell Aunt Gwen and Hal. He would do it at lunch.

He thought it might be hard, getting the two of them alone, but everyone decided to eat outside, and Gwen and Hal took their food to a pair of lawn chairs that had been put off to the side.

“Jack tells me that Mom and Gran”—the only time he ever called Val and Barb “Mom and Gran” anymore was when he was talking to Aunt Gwen—“have concocted this story about shoplifting to explain why they sent me here.”

“We don't care why you're here,” Aunt Gwen said. “We're just glad you are.”

From anyone else that would have sounded like total bullshit. But Aunt Gwen could say an incredibly dopey thing like that, and it would almost seem true.

“What is the real reason?” Hal asked.

Nick had not been able to figure Hal out. He was like this crystal mountain—there were no cracks, no fissures or ledges for you to grab hold of, no way to start figuring him out. That wasn't good. Grown-ups had too much power. A kid's only chance was to figure out where the weak spots were.

Or maybe it was just that Hal was a dad, and dads were one thing Cousin Nicky didn't know too much about.

So he couldn't figure out what to do except launch into his little tale of woe and destruction. Halfway through the first sentence Aunt Gwen gasped and started to say something, but Hal put his hand on her arm. They stayed quiet, and so Nick ended up telling them a whole lot more than he had planned. Finally he saw what Hal was doing—being quiet so he would ramble on—and he shut up.

“It seems like such a terrible waste,” Aunt Gwen sighed, “a young person killing himself.”

“This wasn't something he was going to outgrow. It didn't have anything to do with how old he was.”

She ducked her head almost as if she were apologizing.

Hal cleared his throat. “We're going to have to trust you on this one, Nick. We have no way of knowing if you really are okay.”

“I'm fine.”

“I hope you would tell us if you weren't.” Hal didn't sound like he expected Nick to do that…which was shrewd of him. “And I do think your mother and grandmother were wrong not to let you go to the funeral.”

Nick jammed his hands in his pockets, knotted his fists.

Everyone—the counselors at school, his various therapists, everyone—was always saying that he had to accept responsibility for his own life, saying that he couldn't blame others. When he would try to give them the picture—not because he was excusing himself, but because he thought they had to understand how mind-bogglingly silly Barb and Val could be, how pointlessly frittering they
were, all caught up in their little head games of guilt and reproach—the reaction was always the same:
I'm sure they meant well…we're here to talk about you, not them
.

It was so frustrating because he could never get anyone to agree with him. That's all he wanted was—for someone else to acknowledge what he was living with. But no one would admit that they were jerks. Even Aunt Gwen, who had to know, who had to
see
, would never breathe one word of criticism about Barb and Val. Everyone was always pretending that Barb and Val were models of responsibility and maturity.

But here this Hal fellow, who couldn't know the half of it, had said it flat-out, no quibbling.
They were wrong
.

That was cool.

Suicide. Phoebe couldn't believe it. Her father had drawn her aside to tell her about Nick's friend.

“It's hard to assess how Nick really feels,” Hal said, “but he's not ready to listen to any criticism of his friend. Right now he doesn't want to hear anyone questioning his friend's decision.”

Suicide. Another death.

Gwen joined them. Phoebe could hear herself saying all the right things, about depression sometimes being a fatal illness, about the rapid advances being made in treating it, about the shame, the waste—but that wasn't what she was thinking. Inside her a horrible, selfish monster was shrieking.

How dare anyone bring these problems to the lake?

It was an awful thought. She hated herself for it.

This will ruin everything. We're supposed to be happy up here
.

Giles not getting to share a cabin with the kids, and now this. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair.

There's a child who is dead. And his mother…her pain
…And she could only think about the lake. What was wrong with her?

“Nick knows that we're telling the adults,” Gwen was saying, “but he says that he'd rather Maggie and Ellie didn't know.”

“That's fine,” Phoebe murmured. “Kids don't need to know everything.”

“I've already told Amy, Jack, and Holly.” Gwen spoke softly. “I'll tell Joyce or Ian as soon as I have a chance.”

It didn't sound as if Gwen was looking forward to that. “Shall I do it?” Phoebe offered…not that she wanted to. If
she
had reacted badly, God only knew how Joyce and Ian would be.

“No, I don't mind.”

The two of them were standing in the road at the end of the driveway, waiting for everyone else to assemble for an afternoon hike. The day was cool after last night's rain, and no one was very interested in swimming, so Gwen had suggested a hike instead.

Gwen planned activities. Yesterday they had taken a boat trip across the lake to have a tea party at the campground; last night there had been family charades. The kids had had a Jello-eating contest at lunch today. Now they were going on a hike, and this evening there would be a campfire. Gwen wrote up a schedule every morning.

She had said over and over that everything was voluntary, that each person should do whatever he or she wanted. And Phoebe believed her; Gwen was not going to force anyone to have a good time.

Except her own children. Gwen clearly expected Holly and Jack to participate in everything. They were to stick to the schedule; they were to be good sports.

And Phoebe was not about to indulge herself at their expense. If they had to be good sports, she would be one too. Even when she was aching to stay home and read,
even when the craving for a book was a throbbing behind her eyeballs and an itching in her palms, she went along. She knew that if she excused herself even once, Joyce and Ian would never do another activity for the rest of the vacation.

Each activity was fun, Phoebe was willing to admit that, and the kids were having a marvelous time, but at moments in the midst of all this organized summer-camp activity, she missed her mother so much that she wasn't sure she could stand it.

The hike today was a color chip hike. Once everyone had assembled, the two little girls passed out paint-chip cards that Gwen had picked up at the hardware store last time she was in town. She had chosen natural colors, earthy browns and pale leaf yellows, every shade of green. They were each given a card and told to find something along the trail in that color.

“Is it a race?” Ian asked politely as he took his card. “Or a contest—who has the closest match?”

“Oh, no.” Gwen laughed. “You just do it.”

“We did it all the time as kids,” Holly said. “Mother always kept paint chips in the glove compartment of the car.”

Gwen laughed again. “Of course I did. They were free.”

Phoebe knew about Gwen's first husband and his long tours at sea. “Keeping everyone's spirits up, that must have been hard,” she said to her. “Especially without a lot of extra money.”

“You're right about the money,” Gwen acknowledged.

Mother had had money; there'd always been money for lessons, outings, restaurant meals. They had never had
to think twice about using an extra tank of gas. Perhaps that was why Mother hadn't been as inventive as Gwen about games and such; she hadn't needed to be. Surely she would have been if she had had to be.

“Do we have a goal here?” Ian asked as he took his color chip. He was not being critical. He simply didn't get it.

Gwen shook her head. “No. Unless you count having fun as a goal.”

They all set off down the road. Surprisingly it was Amy who had the best eye for color. “Don't you see that the paint has a little more blue in it than the leaf?” she would say. She would step out into the sun to see the colors better, and the bright light would shine against the fine grain of her skin.

The rest of them would laugh. No, they didn't see it.

“Keep looking at it,” she would say…and yes, when you really stared at it, really paid attention, you could see that she was right.

She was walking between Holly and Jack, obviously having a good time. It was strange seeing her talking and laughing. She was usually so quiet.

“Have you had a lot of art training?” Holly asked her.

“Goodness, no,” Amy answered. “But I have spent my life trying to match sequins to chiffon.”

Phoebe looked at her. She was so graceful. Once you started looking at her, sometimes it was hard to stop. Even in her smallest gestures her arms curved and her fingers arched.

Her fingernails were shorter than they had been last Christmas; they were filed to a square tip and polished with a clear finish. It probably made sense to do your nails like that up here. The clear polish wouldn't show chips, and the flat tips would be stronger. Phoebe always broke a
couple of nails each summer…probably because the only thing she ever did to take care of them was file them while sitting at stoplights, and she never sat at stoplights at the lake.

She glanced at Holly's nails. They were done just like Amy's, clear polish, blunt tips. That couldn't be a coincidence. Amy had probably suggested she do it; Amy had probably lent her the polish. Amy might have actually even done the work. It would have been like a preteen slumber party, all the giggling girls gathering around to do each other's hair and nails.

Doesn't it bother you that Mother's not here? Isn't it ripping your heart out to see each change? It's fine to like Holly and Jack—they're nice people, and Gwen too. But remember why they are here…because Mother is not
.

Ian came up to her, broke into these thoughts.

He must be missing Mother. Surely he was missing their mother.

“Don't worry about the boats tonight, Phoebe,” he said. “I'll do them.”

The boats? It was two in the afternoon. Why talk about the boats now?

Tying up the boats at night had always been her dad's responsibility. Giles had, of course, taken care of his fishing boat, but Dad had gone down every night to be sure that the motorboat was anchored well away from the shore, that the canoes were pulled up on the bank and flipped over. It was important to do it properly so that a sudden wind wouldn't crash the boat into the dock or the shore. And, of course, Phoebe could do it properly.

Dad hadn't minded when she offered to do it the first evening. “That's good of you,” he had said.

But goodness had nothing to do with it. She had to
have something that she was in control of, in charge of. The kitchen had slipped away. They had had chili for dinner last night, and when Gwen had carried Mother's heavy stock pot in from the kitchen and realized that there was no trivet to set it on, who had she looked to for help? To Phoebe—the one who had always been the right hand, the one who knew where the trivets were? No. Gwen had looked at Holly.

“Holly, quick,” she had said. “I need something to put this on.”

But that's my job
, Phoebe had wanted to cry out.
Getting trivets. I am the responsible one, the helpful one. I help Mother, and Ellie helps me. That's how it works
.

But that was also how it worked for Gwen and Holly. Holly was Gwen's first daughter, her right hand. Gwen didn't need two first daughters. So where did that leave Phoebe?

Ian too needed something to have control over. If she felt that Holly was easing into her place, then Ian must feel that Jack was dynamiting his way into his. Projects that Ian and Dad had talked about for years—the gas line to the bunkhouse, checking out the sauna—Jack had done on his first day here. Dad was openly exhilarated about all the work that was getting done. He loved having Jack to hurry things along.

Ian had told her yesterday not to worry about the boats.

“It's no bother,” she had said, and after dinner she had gone down to take care of it.

He had tried to stop her. “I said I would do it,” he had called after her. “I'll be there in a minute.”

But Ian wasn't doing anything quickly this summer; his “minute” would stretch out and out. She was done
long before he could get himself down to the dock.

Phoebe could see this going on night after night. The two of them would be in a stupid little competition, who could get down there and tie up the boats, and of course she would always win. It was pathetic.

So after dinner that evening, she forced herself to sit still. The cabin was too warm, and it was noisy, with the kids clearing the table and Holly and Joyce struggling to get the dishes organized. Phoebe couldn't even help them because it wasn't her turn. To help them would be saying to Gwen that she didn't approve of her system of dividing chores, and that wouldn't be right.

It would be cool down by the lake, cool and quiet. The loons would be out, and there might be an evening fisherman trolling along the edge of the lily pads. The water lilies had glossy green heart-shaped leaves that floated on the surface of the lake; the yellow blossoms were tight and cup-like. Soon the green and yellow would disappear as the trees on the west shore cast deep shadows across the water, bordering the lake with dark fringe. It would be peaceful down by the lake, beautiful.

But Phoebe stayed inside. She let Ian tie up the boats.

 

Amy looked at her sister. It wasn't like Phoebe to be sitting, not knowing what to do with herself.

That was Amy's part.

It was as if they had reversed roles up here. Finally, miraculously, Amy was having a good time at the lake. She felt as if she belonged, as if she had a place. She knew what she was supposed to be doing, who she was to be with. And Phoebe was feeling the opposite.

Let me be the one who feels that way. I've felt that over
and over, I don't mind so much; I'm used to it, you're not
.

It was nice to be having a good time, of course it was…but not at Phoebe's expense, not when the lake mattered so much to Phoebe.

Except what could Amy do? Pretend that she didn't like Holly and Jack? Pretend that she didn't think the world of Gwen? How would that help Phoebe?

Phoebe noticed her regard and stood up instantly. “I guess I should go see if Jack needs help with the campfire.”

Jack? Need help building a campfire? Amy didn't think that very likely. “Why don't you go read for ten or fifteen minutes?” That was how Phoebe coped; reading was the one thing, the only thing, she ever did for herself. It was the only way she knew how to say no to other people; it was the only way she could manage to be alone, by putting a book between herself and the rest of the world.

“And we need to be getting the kids into jackets.” It was as if Phoebe had not heard her.

Maybe she wasn't ready to start coping.

Silently Amy followed her out of the cabin. The kids were playing in the drive. A pile of jackets was lying on the bunkhouse steps. Ellie must have already gotten them. She hadn't needed to be reminded. Here she was, fourteen, and she knew what to do. Phoebe would have been like that when she was fourteen.

Is Claire going to grow up like me? In the shadow of this perfect older sister, the one who always knows what to do?

Amy watched as Phoebe touched Ellie on the arm, silently thanking her for getting the jackets. Then Phoebe moved up behind Claire, scooped her up, turning her upside down. Claire shrieked and laughed, her small arms closing around Phoebe's thighs, hugging her.

Amy did not remember her mother ever doing that to her.
Ellie may be as helpful as Phoebe used to be, but Claire will always know that she is loved
.

Amy went down the path toward the log cabin. That's where the fire circle was. Her family had never used it very much. They had always read in the evenings. If anyone wanted to sit by a fire, they had done it indoors.

Gwen had had the kids rake the leaves and twigs out of the circle. Jack and Nick had dragged away the rotten logs and split new ones, arranging them for seating. The older kids would pop popcorn over the fire; the little ones would roast marshmallows.

Jack was squatting in the middle of the cleared space, already at work building the fire. He looked up at her. “Hi.”

“Do you need me to pick up more sticks or something?” she asked. “I don't know the difference between tinder and kindling, but at least I remember the words.”

He smiled. “I'm doing fine.”

“I thought you probably would be.”

Amy sat down on one of the logs. She wrapped her arms around her knees and watched him work. Little wisps of bluish flames were licking up the twigs, and he was gradually adding more small pieces of wood.

Finally he sat back and watched the fire. The first twigs had already burned through, their orange-red embers collapsing onto the dark ashes of older fires.

“Holly told me that you used to be a firefighter.”