The Last September: A Novel (8 page)

Daniel walked inside with Ladd, then returned with a glass of white wine for me. He hadn’t poured a drink of his own. Like Ladd, Daniel was tall, over six feet, which always made me want to stand on my toes, even when I wore my highest heels. I liked Daniel. He had a careful way of being and looking, a mix of intensity and kindness, and the news of how he’d helped Eli had only increased my admiration.

“You happy to be back on the Cape?” Daniel said, in a formal, making-conversation kind of voice.

“Yes,” I told him in the same tone. And for no good reason other than a kind of panic, at being left alone with nothing to talk about, I said, “Ladd and I just got engaged. We’re telling his parents tonight.”

Daniel smiled. The polite, obligatory stance disappeared. He had dark blue eyes like Ladd, and his hair had grayed in a distinguished, silvery way. “I’m happy to hear it,” he said. “I hope you’ll get married here.”

At first I thought he meant Cape Cod, but as he gestured at the deck I realized he meant this spot, his house. It made me worry that I shouldn’t have said anything, upset the natural order of the announcement, without even consulting Ladd. My face felt a little hot, and I wished I hadn’t left my sunglasses on the dashboard of Ladd’s car. It was such a magnanimous offer, but saying “thank you” would feel like accepting. Which wasn’t exactly my place.

“Sylvia and I were married here,” Daniel said, graciously ignoring my silence. “I suppose Ladd’s told you about Sylvia?” I hesitated before nodding. “You remind me of her,” Daniel said.

Again, I wished for sunglasses. I searched my brain for a reply. Before I found one Daniel said, “Would you like to see a picture?”

He walked through the sliding glass door, which Ladd had left open. I thought he was going to bring the picture back to me, but he paused in the doorway long enough for me to realize I was meant to follow him. So I did, trying to remember a framed portrait hanging over a fireplace from my previous visits. Instead Daniel stopped by the main stairway and opened the single drawer of a small occasional table. We could hear Ladd’s voice as he talked on the phone, coming from the kitchen.

“Look,” Daniel said.

He handed me a small leather envelope. I opened it to see a head-and-shoulders picture of a young woman with hair dampened by the ocean. The blue sky stood behind her, and though I couldn’t tell whether she wore a bikini or a maillot, I could tell from the straps she was in her bathing suit. She was very fair and freckled, with narrow eyes the pale blue of a Siberian Husky’s. She had a strong jaw, and short blonde hair. She looked athletic and patrician. Apart from age and the geography of the moment, I couldn’t pinpoint anything the two of us had in common. Still, since he’d just compared us, it seemed wrong—self-congratulatory—to say that she was pretty. So instead I said, “She looks so young.”

“She was young. This was taken a few years before she got leukemia, before we were married. She was only twenty-eight when she died.”

“That’s terrible,” I said, as if hearing the story for the first time. “I’m so sorry.” Not able to bear the brief silence that followed, I added, “My father died of leukemia when I was five.” Actually my father had died of Hodgkin’s lymphoma. As the words left my mouth, I realized Ladd might have told Daniel this, and my face reddened over the small lie. It would be splitting hairs to correct myself now. Daniel reached out and took the picture from my hands. He studied it for a moment, then snapped the envelope shut and returned it to the drawer.

“I took all of the framed pictures away,” he said. “The first few years after she died they used to take me by surprise. I’d come around a corner finally feeling normal and then there she’d be, staring out at me from the top of the bookshelf. Now I keep pictures of her in drawers around my houses, so I can look at them when I want to. I thought of this one when I saw you standing out there on the deck. She was very sweet, Sylvia. And very smart. Layered. Always thinking.”

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

Daniel nodded, staring over my head toward some unknowable point. There was a sadness there that made me like him even more; it made me want to reach out and pat him on the shoulder, though of course I didn’t. I wouldn’t have used the word
sweet
to describe him, but everything else he’d just said about Sylvia also applied to him. And I supposed there was a sweetness, too. A kindness. The sort of man who stepped in and helped when help was needed. When he brought his eyes back to mine, I blinked and looked away.

“It was a long time ago,” he said, polite, excusing me from the need to comfort him.

AT THEIR SUMMER HOUSE,
Ladd’s mother—Rebecca—stood in the doorway, holding the screen door open.

“Darlings,” she scolded, as if Ladd hadn’t called. “We expected you hours ago.”

His mother frowned at Ladd as she kissed him but then smiled at me and kissed me on both cheeks, not air kisses, but sincere and motherly ones. I smoothed my hair off my forehead as I walked past her to Ladd’s father, Paul, who gave me a hug. He didn’t hug or kiss Ladd but shook his hand warmly, then thumped him on the back. Even though Ladd’s parents seemed genuinely fond of me, the bulk of my contribution to the evening had already taken place—showering, putting on a dress, combing my hair, and saying hello. Before long I would be basking in their good wishes and excitement. My own one-parent household was much lighter on enthusiasm than Ladd’s. I always enjoyed the congeniality of his family but never quite knew how to respond in kind.

The next morning when I came downstairs wearing my engagement ring, Ladd sat with his mother at the wide oak table in the kitchen. They both looked toward me with the sort of startled, blank faces that told me I’d interrupted a private conversation. I knelt down to pet their little dog. His mother—better at rearranging her face than Ladd—pushed back her chair and smiled. I thought that she looked a lot more like Sylvia than I ever would. She was tall and fair and raw-boned, like she’d stepped out of an Andrew Wyeth painting. I imagined Ladd’s mother, going out to play tennis, or to a party, while Sylvia watched Eli and Charlie. And then later, the brief period they’d had as sisters-in-law. Part of me wanted to ask her what Sylvia was like.

“Good morning, Brett,” his mother said with genuine warmth. If she ever wondered why her only son wasn’t marrying a woman who freckled after a long day of wind surfing, she never did a thing to show it. “Can I pour you some coffee?”

“I can do it,” I said, giving the dog one last pat and standing up. I moved apologetically toward the coffeepot and poured the steaming liquid into the mug that sat there waiting for me. I stood against the counter for a few minutes, waiting to see what conversation they would invent, to continue.

Ladd tapped the spot next to him at the table, and I sat down. He said, “We can’t go to Uncle Daniel’s beach today. They’re getting ready for the party tonight.”

“It looks like rain anyway,” his mother said, and as if on her command gentle drops began pattering against the window. We all looked in that direction as they increased their speed.

“You two should go into Chatham,” Rebecca said. “Shop. Walk around. Have lunch.” The rain picked up. We could hear it on the roof, three stories above our heads. Ladd’s mother clucked her tongue. “I hope it clears up in time for Daniel’s party.”

OBEDIENTLY, WE WALKED DOWN
Main Street in Chatham, huddled in our raincoats. Ladd and I stared through the rain-streaked windows, not buying anything, not even entering shops except for Cabbages and Kings, the bookstore. Finally we found ourselves walking past the slew of stores and restaurants, past the quaint, restored homes off Main Street, and on the beach—not the tamer bay side of Saturday Cove but the wide Atlantic ocean, roiling with waves nearly as large as we’d seen on Nantucket. Despite the fact that it was the Fourth of July weekend, and the streets of Chatham had been crowded, we had the beach nearly to ourselves if we didn’t count the many seals resting out on the sandbars or the one man who stood in the water with a young child of indeterminate gender on his shoulders. He had valiantly rolled up his jeans and waded into the waves, presumably to get a better look at the seals. Ladd and I watched as the child extended a chubby, raincoated arm, damp fingers pointing.

“That’ll be me and our kid one of these days,” Ladd said. He pushed off his hood and let the rainy mist gather in his hair. Ever unoriginal, I did the same. Ladd put his arm around my shoulders. I stared up at his face—strong-boned like his mother’s—and thought how I admired his willingness to commit, to look ahead, to
be
with me, minus any of the personal guardedness I had seen in other men.

“So,” he said, in a different tone. It sounded businesslike, and aware of an unpleasant task ahead. “I was talking to my mother this morning. About the wedding.”

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“Nothing’s wrong.” Ladd’s eyes flickered a tiny bit, ever so slightly unnatural. “Everything’s perfect. It’s just my family, it’s stupid, but, I can’t get married without a prenup.”

A small laugh burst from my throat and Ladd frowned a little. I realized it annoyed me that he was still looking out toward the water, instead of at me. Did he always do this? Look away in the most important moments? Is that why he’d missed the fact that I counted his money against rather than for him?

“A prenup,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “A prenuptial agreement.”

“I know what it is,” I said.

“It’s just a formality.” I could feel his arm tense behind my neck, the fingers slack over my shoulder. His words marched out in the manner of someone who’s planned a conversation ahead of time. “My mother signed one.”

I pictured a young Rebecca in some plush Boston office, leaning over a shining oak desk, her blonde hair pulled off her high forehead. Doing what needed to be done. Practical woman, dressed just right.

But that’s not me, I thought. I wasn’t practical, or well dressed. I wasn’t that kind of person. For the first time in years I did something I’d assiduously trained myself not to do: I thought of Charlie. Obviously his family wasn’t as wealthy as Ladd’s. But no matter how much money Charlie had, I knew he would never do this, ask me to sign a document, ask me to prepare for the end of something before it even began.

I could have told Ladd that his money didn’t interest me. I could have expressed surprise that he didn’t know this until now. I could have gotten angry, and refused. Instead I just said, “Okay.”

“What does that mean?” His voice sounded not so much tense but released from tension. He’d come here braced for battle and maybe now he could move forward with it.

“What does okay mean?” I said.

“Does it mean, okay, you’re listening? Or okay, you’ll sign it?”

“I’ll sign it.”

I could feel his arm relax, then stiffen, as if he didn’t quite believe it could be that easy. “It’s not me who wants it,” he said, too fast, not himself. Embarrassed at the premature outburst. “It’s them. It’s not even them. It’s just the machine. I know we don’t need it.”

It would have been nice if he’d said that first. My gaze remained outward, toward the seals. I could feel the tension rising again in Ladd, his arm twitching as if he wanted to remove it from me. He was sticking to his side of the script. But I didn’t know what my lines were. The words that felt most natural—any kind of argument—might ruin everything.

He said, “It’s very standard.”

I knelt down and picked up a small gray stone, then flung it, hard as I could, toward the water. It skittered, disappointing, just short of the breaking waves. Because I’d already peered down that rabbit hole, I went ahead and thought that Charlie would never say something like that,
It’s very standard
. Then I reminded myself, Charlie would never ask me to marry him in the first place. He’d never even asked for a second date.

“Okay,” I told Ladd. “That’s fine.”

A full minute passed. We watched a seal roll sideways off its rock. I could see its sleek head, bobbing in the water, staring at us. I took a step toward it, and the seal disappeared, under water. The rain picked up, not just misting but steady and torrential. Without speaking or putting our hoods up, Ladd and I ran up the beach, to the slick sidewalks, back toward town.

On the drive to Saturday Cove, sunlight slanted rays onto the pavement, making the puddles of water look like puddles of gasoline, streaked with black and violet. Clouds began to disperse. Ladd’s knuckles looked red and chapped on the steering wheel. His hair was soaked and slicked back, his jaw set and irritated.

“I don’t see why you’re angry,” I finally said, as if I weren’t angry myself. “When I said I’d do it.”

“I’m not angry.” His teeth set the barest bit, biting back the emotion he couldn’t contain or admit to. I sympathized with the struggle, and wanted to run my finger over the sunburnt skin across his cheekbones.

But I didn’t. Instead I said, “This is good news for your uncle’s party. The sun.”

Ladd’s face settled into a kind of relief, his eyes widening back to their normal size. He reached across to close his hand around both of mine. His hands were big enough for that.

“Yes,” he said. “It’s good news.”

I NEVER GOT AROUND
to asking the reason Ladd’s father hadn’t inherited Daniel’s beach house. Maybe he didn’t want it? The house he did have was significantly larger than the one that belonged to his younger brother. I suppose to make up for the fact that it wasn’t on the beach, it had a swimming pool—a long, gleaming swimming pool, with a diving board, surrounded by white lounging furniture. I had never seen so much as a leaf floating on the surface of that pool, and I had never seen anyone swim in it. Late afternoon before the Fourth of July party, I stood staring out through the French doors at that pool. Ladd was their only son, and as Daniel had no children, there were no cousins. It would be up to me, then, to give the pool the life it needed. I tried to rearrange the placid scene before me, fill it with splashing children, the diving board always quivering.

From the staircase, I heard footsteps: definite, male, not Ladd’s. I didn’t turn, though I knew it was rude. Ladd’s father stood there quietly and I imagined I could feel joy emanating from him. Ladd had delivered the news, how easy it had been. Not the barest whimper of objection. When I did turn around, he wouldn’t say a word about that, but just say my name, and tell me I looked pretty. What else does a man say to a woman dressed up for a party? What else does a man hand to a woman who’s agreed to marry him but a gold pen to sign a legal document?