Summer's End (7 page)

“Well”—Ian's voice was brisk—“I'll certainly speak to Joyce about it, but I imagine they brought whatever they will need.”

 

As Phoebe could have predicted, Joyce spurned Amy's offer. She was a social worker, working through the California schools with the Native American Indian population. She posed as quite the earth mother, making wonderful breads and rich, fragrant soups. She wore fading turtlenecks and long peasant skirts with her hair in a single braid down her back.

“I'm fine. You know me, I never worry about what other people think.” Joyce always made a big point of that, how she was such a free spirit. “And we never pick out Maggie's clothes for her.” Maggie was Joyce and Ian's teenager. “We respect her right to have her own taste.”

 

The clothes came late Wednesday afternoon, and Phoebe had to admit that hers and Ellie's were perfect. Hers was a downy black cashmere finished with a satin collar and cuffs. It wasn't a maternity dress, but the bodice had row after row of little tucks that gradually released just below the waist. It fit beautifully and felt like heaven.

“I have never looked this good in my whole life,” she said, as she looked at herself in the mirror.

“That kind of collar does work well on us,” Amy agreed. “I told Hank that we look alike, and he—”

“We don't look alike,” Phoebe protested. Amy had always been the pretty one.

“Of course we do. Our coloring is different, and I primp a whole lot more, but our bone structure is nearly the same.”

Phoebe looked back at herself. With this collar caressing her jaw, yes, for the first time she could see that she looked a little like Amy.

More important to her than her own dress was her daughter's. Ellie was not finding thirteen an easy age, and she would have joined her brother in the river rather than wear a dress that called attention to herself. Phoebe had asked Amy to tell her friend that. Whoever he was, he had understood perfectly. Ellie's dress was black challis with a dropped waist and a skirt of knife pleats. A double row of black buttons was the only trim. It was so quiet that even Ellie couldn't imagine making a fool of herself in it.

“What 'bout me, Mommy?” chirped four-year-old Claire. “What me?”

They were all out in the wide upstairs hall, looking in the full-length mirror. Amy went back into her small bedroom at the front of the house to unpack Claire's dress. She came out, gesturing to Phoebe. “Hank's let us down,” she said softly. “I'm afraid Claire's dress is over the top.”

That was putting it mildly. The little dress was an ornate Victorian fantasy. The skirt alone had a black crinoline, a flounced underskirt, and a lightly ruched overskirt. The seams at the waistband, the cuffs, and the throat were corded. Why anyone would manufacture such a dress in a size 4T was beyond Phoebe. She couldn't imagine anyone ever thinking it appropriate for a child.

“Pretty.” Claire patted the black fabric as if it were a stuffed lamb. “Pretty.
Mine
.”

Claire was currently the youngest of three children, soon to be supplanted by another baby. “Mine” was an important word in her vocabulary. She held up her arms, wanting someone to take her shirt off her. Phoebe stripped her down to her little cotton underpants. Amy dropped the dress over her head, did up the buttons, and tied the sash.

“She looks like a little doll, Mom,” Ellie said.

She did indeed. Claire had Amy's childhood coloring; she was blonde with very fair skin. The black of the dress made her look as if she was made of alabaster.

“If I'd been allowed to wear a dress like that when I was four,” Amy sighed, “I would probably be a nuclear physicist today.”

Phoebe looked up. Amy had pronounced “nuclear” properly, saying “nu-cle-ar” rather than “nuk-u-lar” as did most of the world. That seemed surprising.

She turned back to Claire, who was now dancing and spinning in front of the mirror. The dress was billowing around her. Phoebe wasn't sure what to do. The idea of wearing such a dress to a Midwestern college-town funeral was absurd. But Claire clearly adored it.

She sighed. “I don't know what to do.”

Amy spoke. “If we care what people think of us, then
we don't let her wear it. But if we care about what she thinks of herself, then we do.”

Phoebe stiffened. That was Mother. Mother would have said something like that. Who would have ever thought that she would hear her mother's voice coming from her sister's lips?

And Mother never cared what people thought of her. “Then we let her wear it.”

 

Joyce protested Claire's dress the most. “It's so inappropriate for a child,” she fussed.

Joyce herself was in a plain black business suit with an oxford cloth blouse. Without any accessories she looked unfinished and ill at ease. Joyce and Ian didn't go to church, so their girls didn't have Sunday dresses. Fourteen-year-old Maggie was in a much laundered black cotton skirt and white shirt which made her look more schoolgirlish than her younger cousin Ellie, and Phoebe suspected that Maggie would make Ellie pay for that. Emily, Joyce and Ian's four-year-old, was in her father's arms sobbing because she didn't have a dress like Claire's.

Ian had the nerve to suggest that Claire not be allowed to wear her dress. “Emily is so upset that it's going to make the day difficult for everyone.”

“It's Mother's funeral,” Phoebe said tightly. “The day is going to be difficult whatever a pair of four-year-olds wear. You had your chance. Amy offered to get clothes for Joyce and Maggie and Emily.”

“We didn't think she was going to make such a production out of it.”

“You didn't think
Amy
was going to make a production out of something? For God's sake, Ian, how long have you known her?”

They had never bickered like this before. It was because Mother wasn't there. With Mother around there had never been anything to bicker about. If she had approved of the dress, Ian would have never questioned it. If she had sniffed at it, Phoebe would have never allowed Claire to wear it.

They were on their own.

 

The church was full, and it was a big church, built in the days when people went to church every Sunday. All of Eleanor and Hal's friends came as well as most of the administration. Many of Phoebe and Giles's friends from Iowa City came too. Ian's high school friends and their parents came. It made a difference, all those people coming, showing that they cared.

Amy had no friends there. In fact, Phoebe hadn't even thought about Amy having friends until she saw the altar flowers—dozens and dozens—no, there were probably hundreds of them—of tulips of such a very dark purple that they seemed black. Their pale green stems arched under the weight of the dark blossoms and fell in graceful curves over the white marble urns.

Amy's friends had had them shipped directly from a grower in Holland. They were the most extraordinary flowers anyone had ever seen; they were unique, assertive, even majestic. Mother would have loved them.

 

And now, a year and a half after Mother's funeral, Dad was bringing another woman home.

Phoebe had understood why he had decided to take a leave of absence for the spring semester. “It's been a year,” he had said. “I'm still living exactly as I was when
your mother was alive. I need to get away for a while, force myself to develop some new routines.”

Who would have thought that the new routines would include another woman?

Dad said that Phoebe and Giles would like her, this Gwen person, that she was organized and feminine.

“Feminine?” Phoebe demanded of Giles. “Since when did Dad ever care about that?” Her mother had not been remotely feminine, and to Phoebe the word smelled of frivolity and girlishness.

She called her brother to tell him that Gwen was coming to Iowa.

“We could have anticipated this,” Ian said heavily. “We should have expected that women of a certain age would be all over him. It should not be a surprise.”

Phoebe shifted the phone to her other ear. What crap that was. Ian had been just as surprised as she. But he liked to think he could anticipate everything. If you could anticipate something, you could control it, and Ian liked that.

Getting along with Ian and Joyce had been difficult this year. Phoebe wanted to badger him, startle him.
This is serious, Ian. Giles said they might get married
.

Married…another woman in Mother's house, taking Mother's place in the duplicate bridge club, using Mother's heavy silver trays, coming up to the lake in Mother's place.

It didn't bear thinking of.

 

Hal's house was rented for the semester. Phoebe urged him to bring Gwen to stay in Iowa City.

“Thank you for offering,” he said. “But you know how crazy things get.” The weekend of the senior music
majors' recitals was crammed with department receptions and parties hosted by parents who wanted to meet favorite professors. “We probably need to stay in town. Everyone's offered to put us up, but I think we'll just stay in the Holiday Inn. Can you meet us there?”

The Holiday Inn in Lipton was a Holidome. The rooms ran around a central indoor courtyard that had a swimming pool, a ping-pong table, and little redwood terraces separated by planters. Phoebe called her father's room, but no one answered. “They are probably waiting for us in the bar.”

“The bar here is pretty dark,” Giles said. “Your father is likely to be at one of the tables by the pool.”

Phoebe turned, and the moment she did, she saw her father walking toward them, smiling, his hands outstretched.

He led them toward the pool. At a glass-topped table sat a woman who stood as they approached. She had smooth blonde hair cut to her chin. She was slender without seeming fragile.

“Phoebe.” Her voice was low and melodic. Her handshake was firm, her eyes were direct. She wasn't shy.

She was wearing lemon-colored silk, a pleated skirt with a scoop-necked shell under a crepe blazer. The silk and the crepe were exactly the same color, and there was not a single suitcase wrinkle in the silk. She had pearl earrings and a pearl bracelet. Her nails were polished a very pale rose. There was no telling how old she was.

Phoebe couldn't imagine her at the lake.

They all sat down. Gwen's spine barely touched the chair; her shoulders were back but relaxed. That's how Amy always sat. Phoebe forced herself to sit up straighter. Hal signaled for the waitress.

“Hal has told me that you're both lawyers,” Gwen said
pleasantly. “My daughter Holly is a lawyer. She works for Brand, Whitfield in New York.”

Brand, Whitfield. Phoebe knew all about Brand, Whitfield. It was big; it was important; it was white. Their clients were bigger and whiter still. She loathed firms like that. That's why she was in legal services; she wanted everyone, not just the rich and the white, to have a voice and to have legal protection.

“Your daughter must work hard,” Giles said to Gwen.

“She does. What about you, Phoebe?” Gwen was speaking to her. “Are you able to keep your hours part-time?”

Phoebe didn't want to answer. Gwen was too well groomed, too poised, too glossy. Phoebe didn't like her.

You should be sitting here, Mother
.

But of course if her mother had been alive, they wouldn't be here. Mother hated places like this, the plants artificial, the air all chlorine-scented and stuffy.

“Of course she can't,” Hal answered. “Our society does take advantage of women who want to work part-time. Many of them work far more than they are paid for.”

Her father had answered for her. Phoebe felt herself flush. Ian and Amy were the ones who were supposed to cause problems, not her. She was the oldest, the helpful one, the one Mother and Dad could rely on.

“It's my own fault,” she said.
Just think of her as someone you're meeting at a party, as someone you might never see again
. “I could say no.”

“What are your cases like?” Gwen asked.

Phoebe answered, and then they moved on to talking about children. Gwen made the conversation easy. When it was over, when they were getting up to go to the
recital, Phoebe realized that Gwen had said nothing about herself.

That had never happened with Mother. Mother had always been the center of attention. She hadn't demanded it; she hadn't forced herself on people. She simply had been so interesting. Everyone who met her wanted to know more about her. She had such wonderful stories of growing up in Hong Kong and Bermuda, of staying with her parents in lavish hotels in Monte Carlo, using only room service because they were out of cash, waiting for money to be wired from home.

Mother, please…when are you coming back?

 

A person did not get to be general counsel of a large public university by being full of hot air. Even to his own wife Giles Smith did not puff off opinions or predictions unless he was very confident. And indeed, shortly after returning to Washington following the senior recitals, Hal Legend called his children to say that he and Gwen Wells were getting married.

Jack Wells, Gwen's son, heard this news in Kentucky. When he was working, Jack wore a beeper clipped to the waistband of his frequently muddy jeans. He didn't often see his mother's phone number flash across the beeper's little screen—she rarely disturbed him in the middle of the day—so whenever she did beep him, he went directly to his truck and called her on his mobile phone.

Jack had his own business, moving houses. He didn't move families and their belongings; instead he moved the actual houses, jacking them up onto flatbed trucks and sending them down the highway.

His organized, methodical sister had been skeptical about this latest enterprise of his. “Jack, you do everything at the last minute. You can't run a client-based business like that. You'll drive all your customers insane.”

She had a point. He wasn't one to rush out and attend to every little detail months ahead of time. He had learned that about himself when he had owned a hardware store in Wyoming, which was what he had been doing before Kentucky. He wasn't lazy; he simply liked doing things at the last minute. He could focus better, think more clearly when things had to be done immedi
ately. He became more resourceful, he made better decisions. One way to create such urgency was to fight fires—before he had had the hardware store in Wyoming, he had been on a county fire-fighting force in Virginia—another was to procrastinate.

He soon learned that there was still another—signing contracts with a tight deadline. He had built this business on his willingness to work fast. If clients wanted number-every-nail, historic-preservation-quality work, if they wanted perfection, they went to someone else. But if they just wanted the thing done and done fast, if they themselves had already procrastinated far too long, they went to Jack Wells. Jobs that seemed impossible to everyone else always sounded like a lot of fun to him.

So it was not usual that Jack had a fair bit to do today. All the permits, the police escort, everything involved in moving a mid-nineteenth-century farmhouse across three Kentucky counties, were set up for day after tomorrow, and the house wasn't close to being ready. People would have to be working nearly around the clock to stabilize the house, jack it up, get it on the wheels.

They were right on schedule.

“Hi, Mom. It's me. What's up?”

“Lovely things. Hal and I have decided to get married.”

“Whoa, doggies…” Jack shifted the phone to his other ear. “You're getting married?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head. He had just gotten his mind wrapped around the fact that his mother was dating. Now she was marching down the aisle. He had always figured that was how he himself would get married. He'd meet somebody who would set off the right bells, and three
days later they'd be married. He didn't know when it would happen—he was twenty-eight already—but he certainly hadn't expected that his mother would get to it first. On the other hand, her life had been pretty calm and orderly for the last few years, and even though she never picked the newspaper off the front porch without combing her hair first, she liked having a fair bit of mess and noise swirling around her. What was the point of being a lighthouse on a perfectly smooth, sandy shore?

“That sounds like good news,” he said. “I mean, if you aren't pregnant. You aren't having to get married, are you?”

“No, Jack.” His mother's laugh was soft. She was used to his sense of humor. “I don't have to get married.”

“That's a relief. So when is all this happening?”

“We don't know yet. Sometime soon. Before June. Hal has a summer place in Minnesota, and he likes to get there in June.”

“A summer place? You're marrying into a family with a summer place?”

Military families didn't have summer places. They couldn't afford to.

She laughed again. “Actually, a cabin would probably be a better description. I think it's on the primitive side. Hal says I'm to urge you and Holly to come up for a while.”

“We will be there. In fact, we think it's really cool that you're going to be Amy Legend's wicked stepmother.”

“That's less funny, Jack.”

“Holly and I think it is.”

That had been weird, finding out that not only was their mother dating, but she was dating Amy Legend's father. Jack had never had any dealings with celebrities.
He had always assumed that it would be pretty tedious. You would be wildly curious about them, but wouldn't know what questions were all right to ask, while they wouldn't know a thing about you and probably were very happy with that state of affairs.

Oh, well, that was a bridge that didn't have to be crossed yet. Mom had already said that Hal apparently saw his famous daughter less than she would have expected.

They talked a bit more. Jack told her to tell him the minute she set a date and then slid the phone into its cradle, but instead of going back to work, he stayed in the truck.

His sister would call within seconds. He knew that. It was absolutely guaranteed. If he didn't answer, she would beep him and beep him and beep him until he called her back, which would end up taking more time than if he just waited.

He turned on the radio, and as if by cue, the phone rang.

He picked it up. “You must have auto-redial,” he said pleasantly.

“Of course I do,” Holly snapped.

Jack picked up this morning's 7-Eleven coffee cup and unrolled the window to dump out the rest of the coffee. His sister was going to be okay about this. She wasn't afraid of change any more than he was. She just needed to let off steam.

Holly lived in New York City and worked at one of those killer eighty-hour-a-week law firms. She was doing great there, but whenever she mentioned a man with any warmth and Jack thought that maybe she was finally getting something that might someday resemble a personal
life, he would find out that this man was happily married and much senior to her, a mentor, not a boyfriend.

And for about the four hundred millionth time in his adult life, Jack thought that Holly would have made one hell of an admiral.

The navy had been their dad's life, and he had wanted Jack, his only son, to follow in his footsteps, something that said only son had considered exclusively in his nightmares.

A military career and Jack would not have been good companions. At best his career would have been very short; more likely his mom and sister would have been baking cookies and visiting him in the brig. He probably would have done well enough during battle. He had, after all, loved fighting fires. There was nothing like being inside a burning building to get you focused. There was no time to think, to ponder options; you had to rely on your training and your instincts. You made your decisions in a heartbeat and then you acted. You couldn't look back, couldn't question yourself.

But the United States did not conduct its foreign policy with any regard for Jack Wells's mental health. The country seemed to like keeping its soldiers and sailors out of battle, and the rest of a military career Jack was not cut out for. He hated routine; he couldn't stand following pointless rules; he wasn't organized; he wasn't punctual. He had little or no respect for people who sat behind desks and told people who weren't behind desks what to do. The only thing worse than taking orders from a person behind a desk was
being
the person behind the desk. Jack had learned that at the hardware store in Wyoming.

His sister, on the other hand, was organized and punctual; she knew how to set goals and meet them. She could
do the same thing day after day; she could sit behind a desk for hours on end; she could return phone calls. To Holly there was no such thing as a “pointless rule.” She would have overcome whatever obstacles she encountered at the Naval Academy; she would have been the one that the armed forces trotted out every time Congress debated the role of women in the military.

But it had never occurred to their father to encourage his daughter to join the navy.

Big mistake, Dad. One of your biggest. You had one kid who could have made you proud
.

At the moment Holly was thinking about Mom. “What does she think she's doing?” she demanded. “Why do they need to get married? Why doesn't she just live with him for a while?”

“Live with him, Holly?” Jack crumpled up the 7-Eleven cup. “Remember who you're talking about. This is our mother, Mrs. Admiral. Admirals' wives don't run around living with people.”

“If they want to keep their dependent benefits, they do,” Holly shot back.

Oh. He couldn't argue with that. Their father had died while on active duty; Mom's benefits had kept her extremely comfortable. But she would have thought through all that. She was one of the most sensible people that he knew. Holly, God love her, was sometimes
too
sensible, but Mom was usually right on target. “Maybe she's got an eye on his grandchildren. She'd take grandchildren over a prescription card any day.”

“Oh, come on, Jack. That has nothing to do with it.”

Jack was not so sure. “She's going to be okay, Holly.”

“But she's moving to Iowa.”

“So? What's wrong with Iowa? Think of all the crappy
places we've lived. Iowa's not going to be a problem for her.”

“I know,” Holly sighed. She was done letting off steam. “I'm sure Iowa will be fine. I'm just being hysterical because we've never met him, because we don't know what's going on.”

No. Holly was being hysterical because
she
didn't know what was going on. She was an older sister, and older sisters like knowing what's going on, they
need
it. Jack, on the other hand, was a younger brother, and he was quite used to never knowing a thing.

But he did know something. If their mother really was throwing herself into a dark hole in the middle of an Iowa cornfield, Jack would build himself a ladder and crawl in after her.

 

It really hadn't been so bad when Dad was out at sea. Mom had always made things fun. Every day was different. Sometimes they had “backward” days, eating hamburgers and creamed corn for breakfast, scrambled eggs for dinner. They had picnics all the time, even in the winter. “Indoor picnics” Mom would call them, and they would eat all over the house, on her bed, in the bathroom. They did lots of projects, making a periscope out of a gift-wrap tube and little mirrors, building landscapes out of papier mâché and plaster of paris, really neat, fun things that you didn't have to clean up every night.

Then the C.O.'s wife would call. The boat was coming in. Mom would come down to school and get Holly and Jack out even if his class was in the middle of a spelling test. There'd be this whole little parade of mothers coming into school to get their kids because the boat was coming in. The office would be full of people waiting to
sign out. The moms would be all dressed up and pretty. Jack could smell their perfume. They had put it on because the boat was coming in.

“Oh, just go, just go,” the principal would finally laugh. She understood. The boat was coming in.

There would be a ton of kids down at the water, racing up and down the long concrete pier, pointing and shouting at the white seagulls. “Don't fall in,” the moms would call out. “Be careful.” But they would be laughing, not really worrying. What could go wrong? The boat was coming in.

It would be a little speck at first. Then it would grow bigger and bigger until he could see the enlisted men on deck, waving frantically. Huge ropes would be tossed onto the pier, and metal gangplanks would clang into place. Men would pour off the boat, and everyone would be laughing and shrieking. Holly and Mom would be on their toes, looking and looking, and then suddenly Dad would be hugging Mom, lifting her off her feet, and then he would scoop up Holly and him. He was so strong that he could lift them both at the same time.

Jack would be bubbling over. Dad was home. There was so much to show him—how he had learned to ride his bike with no hands, how much stronger his pitching arm had gotten. Look, look at this, at how far he could throw, how fast he could run, and how much he'd grown, see that mark on the door, that was how tall he had been, but now,
now
, look at him now.

“Remember,” Mom would caution as they drove down to the pier, “Dad will be tired. It will take him a few days to get adjusted to a regular schedule.”

But Jack couldn't wait. “Do you want to see my new bat, Dad? You aren't too tired to see a bat, are you?”

And Dad always say, no, of course he wasn't too tired. What had put that idea into Jack's head? He'd never be too tired for his kids.

Holly always did what Mom said. She took gymnastics, and even if she had been doing some new trick in the front yard every minute of every day for the last week, she didn't pop out of the car and do it for Dad as Jack would have. She waited a couple days and kind of eased into it. It was like she was pretending she hadn't learned the trick while Dad was gone, that she was doing it for the first time now that he was home.

And maybe because Dad didn't know anything about gymnastics and he did know all about the things Jack did, he never seemed to criticize Holly as he did Jack.

“I'm surprised that your coach doesn't drill you on the fundamentals more,” Dad would say. “It's Buckman, isn't it? I'll talk to him.”

But Jack's coach was
Mrs
. Buckman. Lieutenant Buckman had formed the team, but he was out at sea now. Mrs. Buckman was really nice and all, but she didn't know much about baseball.

Things like that happened all the time around here. Dads would come home and make all these great plans, and just as everything got started, they would ship out again, and the moms would have to take over.

The family had a routine when Dad was home, dinner at the same time every night, Mom and Dad sitting at the table afterward talking well into the evening. There were no spur-of-the-moment outings, no long drives to feed the ducks. “Dad's so glad to be home, Jack. He doesn't want to go out.”