A Week at the Shore Read online

  Mom’s face reflects that. She is relaxed, her green eyes smiling right along with her mouth. Those eyes in that heart-shaped face radiate love. I feel it now in ways I’ve maybe forgotten. She loved me openly. But only when Dad wasn’t around. I’ve imagined every reason why, but only one makes sense. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Only it does not make sense, not based on what I remember.

  “Tom,” my mother hisses with hushed urgency. “Don’t do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Treat her that way.”

  “I’m fine to her.”

  “You’re critical of her. You hold her to a different standard.”

  “She’s a middle child. She lets the others go first. She needs to harden up.”

  “She needs to be loved.”

  “Don’t go there, Ellie. We’ve talked about this. I have three daughters. I love them all.”

  I was ten, standing in the shadows when this conversation took place, and I’ve replayed it hundreds of times since. I have three daughters. I love them all. There were words after that, but I was already slipping away. These were the ones I wanted. For years, I clung to them as proof that I wasn’t a mistake. Even when I tried to retrieve the others, these were the ones I heard.

  Then I left home and became a different person, and the memory shimmered with doubt. Was that challenge on the part of my mother, who rarely challenged my father? Was that deference on the part of my father, who rarely deferred to anyone? Was there an element of rote in their exchange, like the words were part of a script that had to be repeated to be believed? We’ve talked about this. What had that meant? Was it a general statement of parenting, or a specific reference to something unique to these parents?

  Each time I’ve seen my father in recent years, I feel apart, and oh, I know. I’m likely transferring childhood feelings to the present. But then there are those other words, spoken right before I slipped away. At times I think I remember a phrase or two. But it may as well be imagination as fear.

  My mother knew the whole truth. With her gone, it’s impossible to confirm.

  With that thought, I realize that I’ve had enough for now. Now I need Joy. She is my unconditional love, no questions asked.

  Closing the carton, one flap under the other, I turn to leave only to glance past, then return to, the end of the attic that holds things. Most are stacked on and around the high chair in which each of us once sat, in which our children would have sat had our lives not been pulled apart. Crossing there, I can’t resist touching the crocheted crib blanket that is tucked under an oversized bear on the seat of a bouncer. My breath hitches when I spot, half-hidden behind these things, the tiny table and chairs that we used for coloring, and on top of those, a pile of games—Candyland, Monopoly, Sorry! and—omigod, Where In the World is Carmen Sandiego! I loved that game.

  But those memories are for another time. Joy is in town with the grandfather she barely knows, the aunt who’ll be running from kitchen to table and back, and a slew of utter strangers eating bacon and eggs. I’ve dallied long enough. She needs me.

  She needs me? my thoughts mock as I return to my room. Hah! Joy Aldiss is irreverent enough to know how to handle herself. She doesn’t need me.

  I need her.

  * * *

  Quickly pulling on a tank top, shorts, and flip-flops, I grab my camera and trot down the stairs. It’s not yet nine, hopefully early enough to still find Dad at Sunny Side Up staring at the new server. When I’m nearing the front door, though, I hear sounds from the kitchen.

  Backtracking, I peer around the corner from the hall to find a woman at work. The silver hair piled on the top of her head barely moves as she bends to the dishwasher, gathers clean dishes, and straightens, bends, gathers, and straightens. She wears slim jeans and a loose blouse. Her back is to me.

  What had Anne told me about the housekeeper? Not much other than that she is a local and needs the work.

  Not wanting to startle her, I knock on the jamb, then do it louder when my first raps are lost in the clatter of forks and spoons being returned to a drawer. When she whips around, I realize that the white hair is stunning but misleading. Her skin is smooth. She can’t be more than sixty.

  Her eyes go wide when she sees me. She isn’t frightened, exactly, but clearly surprised.

  To put her at ease, I say a cheery, “Hello. I’m Mallory.” When there is no response, I raise my brows. “Anne’s sister?”

  “I know,” she says. Her voice is quiet but, while not exactly hostile, far from warm.

  Rolling my eyes in a duh kind of way, I smile. “Pictures going up the stairs.”

  “You haven’t changed,” she says, but I realize she’s not talking about the pictures. She remembers me from the past.

  And isn’t this awkward? She is vaguely familiar to me, like Joey DiMinico was yesterday, but I can’t place her. He’s my contemporary. This woman is closer to my parents’ age.

  I grimace, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. You are…?”

  “Lina Aiello,” she says and, for the first time, I hear the trace of an accent, so faint that it would appear only when saying something learned in childhood from a parent with a stronger accent. Fully a third of Westerly is of Italian descent, immigrants brought here generations ago to help quarry granite. When the quarries closed, they became a vital part of nearly every aspect of the local economy, fully assimilated even as they stayed close to their church, the saint from the Italian town where their forebears were born, and their soppressata. Thanks to Italian friends, I knew what the Feast of the Seven Fishes was about. I remember sneaking pizzelle home, hiding it in my bedroom, eating little bits each day. Thanks to those joyous Christmas Eves, I knew the potential of family warmth.

  “Aiello?” I repeat, scouring my memory until I feel a warm suspicion. “Danny?” I ask with a smile, because if the memory is correct, it is pleasing. Danny wasn’t a close friend, certainly not close enough for me to be invited to his home. But we shared a love of American literature and coffee chip ice cream at Gendy’s, so we got along well.

  Lina’s eyes move over my face. It’s like she’s looking for something, though, for the life of me, I don’t know what.

  “How is Danny?” I ask.

  “He’s fine.”

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Teaching English.”

  I clap in delight. “Perfect. He was made for that. Will you give him my best?” I might have liked a nod, but she is still searching my face. I wait for her to speak. When she doesn’t, I raise my brows again. This time, my smile is forced. “Is … something wrong?”

  Very quietly, she says, “You look like your mother, is all.”

  “My daughter even more so. You’ll see her, I’m sure. It’s like seeing a ghost.” Truth be told, now that I say the words, Lina Aiello is the pale one, clearly unsettled by me.

  Time to leave. I start to turn, then stop. It strikes me that if this woman is here every day, she could be a help. “I haven’t seen my father in a while. How’s he been?”

  “Fine,” she replies.

  “Does he talk to you?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Anything of substance?”

  “No.”

  I take a different tack. “Do you clean his room?” When she nods, I tip my head and, like I’ve just thought of it, ask, “Have you ever seen a gun there?”

  Gentle as I’ve kept my tone, her eyes are alarmed. “A gun? No.”

  “Not on a bookshelf or in a drawer?”

  “I’d never open a drawer. That’s not my business. I dust, is all.”

  Her alarm could be guilt, if she’s protecting Dad, but my gut says that’s not it. Her response to this feels more spontaneous than the guarded one she’s shown up to now.

  “Okay,” I say easily. “I just wondered. He’s confused sometimes, so a gun is the last thing he should have. If you see one, will you tell Anne?” She nods but says nothing, and that’s my cue. “Nice to meet you,” I say and add a gen
uine, “Thank you for helping around here, Lina. It’s much appreciated.”

  Heading out the front door, I pause at my car. On one hand, I could drive. That would be fastest, and I’m so late already that I’m surprised Joy hasn’t texted to make sure I’m alive. On the other hand, it’s barely a ten-minute walk down the hill. Since the road is the only way to the square, if Dad and Joy are heading home, they won’t get past me. If I walk, I get exercise. If I walk, I get the Bay Bluff experience.

  So I pull on my ball cap and sunglasses, thread the Nikon over my shoulder, and set off at an easy jog. The air is warm, the breeze grazing my skin. This isn’t the kind of day that gnarled the scrub pine with its twisted form at the very top of the road; that would be one where an angry wind spewed seawater in the name of rain. This day is hazy but kind, and how not to stop to memorialize that pine? As many times as I’ve photographed homes with man-made topiaries in glorious display at the front, this shaping is Mother Nature’s doing.

  Glasses to my head, camera to my eye, I bracket my shots, then move around the tree and take several more. The exposure is tricky. With the sun rising from the ocean behind me, it is a matter of shadow and light in extremes. Inspired, I tilt the screen, raise the camera over my head, and shoot the pine against the lighter green of the ground foliage, perhaps not as dramatic as the silhouetted shots, but a more realistic rendition. Unable to resist, I return the camera to my eye and move in for several close-ups of the twist of a branch.

  I could spend hours with this pine alone. Realizing that, I shoulder the camera with a vow to return and resume my jog. It’s an easy downhill stretch. Near the bottom are two driveways that lead to homes on the side of the bluff. There used to be a single mailbox at each, but the lower one now has three. I’ll have to ask Anne about that.

  I’ll also have to ask her about Lina Aiello—well, not about Lina, per se, but about whom else I might run into. I’ve been gone a long time. If Anne can refresh my memory, I might be able to recognize some of the people I see and avoid the awkwardness I felt with Lina. I’ve forgotten how small Bay Bluff is.

  As soon as I round the curve in the road, the square appears, and I slow to a walk. The parking lot holds a smattering of compacts, SUVs, and pickups. The Volvo is likely parked behind the eatery; Anne would have driven to work, not only to get there quickly but to avoid tempting Dad with wheels. As I approach, another pickup appears, this one with the logo of a construction company. Two men climb out and head for the yellow beacon of Sunny Side Up. They’re barely at the door when it opens and a family of four explodes from inside, two children breaking into a run, like they’d been caged and are suddenly free.

  Shouting their names—Liam! Ava!—their parents run after them. I watch for only a second before spotting Jack Sabathian and his dog.

  Chapter 9

  They are at a picnic table on the edge of the square. The man sits on its top with his elbows on splayed knees, while the dog sits on the bench seat with its short, sandy-haired body pressed to his leg. As I watch, Jack tightens the leash while the children pass.

  I consider what to do myself.

  Still running? he asked me last night. If I were, I would study my phone like I was checking a crucial message and make for my sister’s shop as if I hadn’t seen him there at all. But that would be ridiculous, with Jack now the only human in the square. Giving the picnic table a comfortably wide berth, I circle to the front. Both heads follow me around.

  Jack is wearing mirrored sunglasses, so I can’t see his eyes. I do know they’re gray, but what shade? While his nose is blade-straight, his body solid, and his opinions either for or against with no room for doubt, his eyes can go darker or lighter, harder or softer, iron to pewter to dove. They are a paradox, the only part of him that lacks absolutism.

  Well, there is his hair, I concede. Despite the occasional strands of gray in his beard, I see no gray on his head. In a nod to memory, its chestnut is perpetually streaked, more so under the June sun, and while it is inches shorter than it was, it still has enough length to form waves. That hair is the devil’s lure.

  I focus on the dog. “Smart move, the leash,” I remark.

  Jack is stroking the dog’s ear, drawing it between forefinger and thumb with soothing repetition. “It’s for his own protection. Kids can be lethal.”

  “But there are always kids here. It’s the way of the square. So why bring him?”

  “Training. He’s learning that not everyone is a danger.” He takes off the shades, drops them on the table, and adds with what I see now is amusement, “Want to give him a pat?”

  My hands are busy, one holding the camera strap on my shoulder, the other wiping sweat from my neck. Sweat is trickling between my breasts as well, but I’m not going there with Jack so close. “Thanks, but I’m good. Maybe another time.”

  His eyes chide me. “Let him get to know you. Your daughter wasn’t afraid.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “You are.”

  I’m about to deny it. But why? “Okay. I am. I’m used to goldendoodles, cockapoos, and cheagles. They’re all smaller.” But we both know the problem isn’t size. Jack’s dog is smaller than many of the designer breeds my friends have in New York. “There’s something about the way he’s tugging on that leash.”

  “He wants to sniff your hand. Don’t worry. He just had breakfast. He won’t eat you until that’s worn off.”

  “Good to know,” I say, but those bloodshot eyes are begging for something, and I do feel for the poor thing.

  Jack’s voice comes low and coaxing. “Make his day, Mallory. Let him know you won’t hurt him.”

  Trusting Jack because, well, because I do, I extend a hand. Guy sniffs it, looks at me with those woeful eyes, and then, apparently having sent his message, loses interest. Putting his jowly muzzle on Jack’s thigh, he closes his eyes.

  “Looks like I made a big impression,” I remark.

  “That’s the best kind,” Jack replies and lifts a tall coffee to his mouth. His palm covers most of the lid, while his long fingers splay over the front. I raise my sunglasses to my cap, but the logo stays the same.

  “Starbucks?” I ask in mild disbelief. Bay Bluff prides itself on homegrown coffee. It prides itself on fresh burgers and in-house chips. At least, it used to.

  He takes a drink, then says, “There’s one near work.”

  Which raises another issue. The Jack Sabathian of old would have slept late unless the house was burning down. Granted, in this chapter of his life, he is a professional with a practice to run. Still. “You work weekends?” I ask, but redundantly. His scrub top is dark green and still pressed despite spatters of something fresh in the area of his abs. Studying them, I wince. “Those look ugly.”

  “It was,” he says. “A family cat was hit by a car. I got the call at five this morning and did what I could, but I’m not sure she’ll survive. My partner is with her now. I’ll check back later.” He sounds like he’s trying to be matter-of-fact, but that groove on his forehead says he’s discouraged, which puts me to shame. Sure, he could have changed his shirt before being seen in public by people who have just eaten breakfast, though it is in the nature of Jack to make statements. Still, criticizing bloodstains earned by a lifesaver? Shallow, Mal. Shallow.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He squeezes my elbow so unexpectedly that by the time I realize what he’s done, his hand is back on Guy’s head. He frowns and says a quiet, “I understand that some pets have to be outdoors. By definition, a barn cat is an outdoor cat. But this isn’t a barn cat. She’s a longtime pet that goes in and out of the house at will. That’s asking for trouble. Dogs, fine,” he says, running a hand along the pit bull’s sleek flank. When the dog opens its eyes and smiles—I swear, it does—he smiles back. “They have to be walked. But cats are safer staying indoors. The alternative is inviting trouble.” His smile fades. “Lately it’s been coyotes. The small animals they grab are often found dead or close to, in which case the
best I can do is put them out of their misery. Or they’re not found at all.” He presses his lips together and inhales through his nose. Exhaling, he says, “Then it’s just wondering what happened.” Ashy eyes meet mine. “Guess I’m the expert at that, right?”

  His rancor isn’t what it was yesterday, but I know he’s thinking about Elizabeth. My presence has to be bringing it back.

  “You were right, what you said,” I grant him by way of apology. “I can’t imagine what that’s like.”

  He isn’t surprised that I’ve followed his thoughts. We were always on the same wavelength, Jack Sab and me. Still, I’m startled when he says, “I’m sorry about your mother. She shouldn’t have died that way. It must have been hard for you, being in New York.”

  Funny. My first thought when I learned that my mother had died was to call Jack. Joy was too young to understand, and my friends didn’t know my mom. Jack did. He knew that I loved her with the kind of love that never, ever died. Most anyone could guess that. At the same time, I blamed her for things I didn’t understand. Only Jack knew that. But we were enemies by the time she died and couldn’t talk. I’m not sure we can now, either. So I simply wrap my arms around my middle and nod.

  “Did you ever ask—” he started.

  “No.”

  “She never explained—”

  “No. We should have had all the time in the world, but she was here one minute and gone the next. Who knew that would happen?” I look around, seeking comfort in the sun-soaked glory of the square. Tables are clean and waiting—glass-top rounds outside Small Plates, square-top woods at The Deli, long picnic tables, like Jack’s, fronting the Clam Shack. The door to the bookstore has just opened. Another car pulls into the lot with the crackle of tires on gravel. I smell the sea and bacon, and it is rich to me in the way of childhood memories. But my mother’s childhood memories were elsewhere.