That Nantucket Summer (eBook)

Doreen Burliss (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
298 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-9861095-3-4 (ISBN)

Infos

While cleaning out her father's home, Nic uncovers a box of old secrets revealing her mother's secret, bohemian summer in Nantucket. After being invited to Nantucket Island with her new boyfriend for a big family wedding at Galley Beach, Nic's worlds collide as she follows an obscure trail of paintings and unexpected friendships that reveal a buried past. Nic risks the biggest love she's ever known to unravel the mystery of her mother's choices that long ago Nantucket summer.

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While cleaning out her father's home, Nic uncovers a box of old secrets revealing that her happily-ever-after parents had actually separated after high school, and that her mother had a secret bohemian life on Nantucket one summer. Serendipitously, Nic is invited to Nantucket Island with new boyfriend, Cade Swain, for a big family wedding at Galley Beach. Divorced mom of two college kids, Nic is both excited and anxious about staying with the Swains who are descendants of original settlers of Nantucket. The island's fabled history in juxtaposition with her mother's shocking truths turns Nic's life inside out. As her worlds collide, Nic finds herself juggling sorrow over losing her dad, the realization that her parents were once teenagers themselves, and more tequila and ros than she bargained for. Following an obscure trail of paintings and unexpected friendships, Nic risks the biggest love she's ever known to unravel the mystery of her mother's choices that long ago Nantucket summer.

Textauszug

Chapter Three

Realtors like wolves lined up at the door — finally her father’s house was ready to be shown in its best, least-cluttered and de-personalized light. It would sell fast, they’d said, and be gone from her forever. On her last drive home from her dad’s Nic pressed a tear away and looked over at the box of old letters sitting next to her that they’d found at the bottom of their mom’s hope chest. She and Enzo hadn’t had the luxury of time to sit with them, or any of the piles of catalogued years, to laugh and cry and say, remember this?

The drive back from her dad’s Maine house was an hour most days, but summer traffic piled up at the least expected times. She’d talk herself out of worrying what Snoopy might be getting into and crank the only station that came in clear. It was always country. Carrie Underwood’s “Two Black Cadillacs” came on and Nic burst out laughing. Her dad had had two relationships since her mother’s passing, and thinking back to his recent service, it had given her a misplaced chuckle when she’d pictured more than one woman showing up — would they take turns laying a red rose down? Share a crimson smile and walk away?

Sorry Dad! So disrespectful. Shit.

She also begged the universe on a regular basis for Cade’s firm’s Back Bay bridge project to wrap up in time. She knew he had a solid project manager, but he could never fully relax thinking he should be on-site. The last thing she wanted was for him to have to leave the island to handle some crisis on the job. From what little he’d shared about his mother, it wouldn’t be a recipe for success being left alone with her.

Contemplation circled as the miles sped past. Orphan, Nic thought, she was now an orphan. Did that even apply to grownups? (Did actual grownups say grownups?) Her parade of thoughts marched along to the country songs. She’d punched the radio off when Tim McGraw’s “Live Like You Were Dyin” came on. Please. he’d been through all this brutal loss before losing her mom nine years ago. Was she going to love deeper? Speak sweeter? She sure as hell wasn’t going any number of seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu. Christ. Sorry again, Dad! Fuck it, he was gone. He couldn’t hear her swear, burp or scold her for that third glass of wine anymore. Would she go off the rails now? Jesus.

Nic felt bipolar half the time, bouncing between the heaviness of losing her father and that summer’s-around-the-corner high. And let us not forget guilt. Guilt for feeling even remotely joyful about anything. Tri-polar? Human beings were so tortured. Why couldn’t they be as guilelessly euphoric twenty-four/seven like dogs?

Dogs…Snoopy. What would her velvety white and black forty-pound labradoodle be up to? She figured the groan of the garage door would tip him off and she took the stairs two at a time. She heard him careening to the door as per usual and was careful not to knock him out opening it. Kisses first, and stand-up hugs — that were technically, apparently, bad behavior. But that Nic loved more than any single thing. And, if anything, encouraged. As if she was going to go about setting things down on the counter first, as prescribed, before greeting him. What kind of heartless bullshit was that? She looked quickly around for a heap of shredded paper, annihilated reading glasses, dumped tote bags. Nothing?

“Who’s mommy’s very good boy?” she said accepting more kisses and high hugs before sitting heavily on the couch. Next to what could only be the soggy, illegible detritus of a jury duty summons and a five-dollar bill.

CanNOT be mad at him. Cannot. It was her own fault. Crate-training, blah, blah, blah. He became a puddle of rejection in the crate. She couldn’t do it. Laying her head back, she closed her eyes while Snoopy spilled over her lap. In that foyer of sleep, where she felt open to any potential super-natural goings-on, she looked for her father. A sign, a bird, a whisper, anything to let her know he was still somewhere.

The clawing on her bare thighs as Snoopy launched off her lap to greet Ben put an end to that. “There’s no food in this house,” came his familiar refrain as he stood in front of the gaping refrigerator.

Salty comebacks jumped to her tongue but she bit them back. “We have eggs, there’s oatmeal, probably some frozen waffles, what are you looking for?” she said before letting her eyes close again. Grief weighed a thousand pounds and was exhausting.

“I don’t know,” came his equally familiar response. She knew without even looking that he’d be checking the expiration dates of everything — pronouncing freezer burn on the waffles and naming the exact amount of time that had passed since the best before date on the eggs. Of course, she LOVED having the kids home from college for summer break, but it was going to cost her — her soundness and at the grocery store.

“Cut me some slack, Benj, and they sell groceries to anyone you know.”

Before she got to ask about any job-updates, he was tapping back texts and out the door with a, “goin to Kelly’s Roast Beef with Joey.” Nic felt bad about being relieved.

She needed to stop feeling bad about stuff.

Snoopy needed a long walk and so did Nic. She loved “unseasonably warm”, you couldn’t help but feel lighter in all ways in just shorts and a t-shirt. And she was one of those people who really did stop and smell the flowers, especially the lilacs that hedged neighbors’ properties along the road. A potent blast back to every May of her life. And Snoopy wanted to sniff everything. It took a while to get a couple of miles in. Your dog should be heeling at your left side on a short leash with slack, keeping stride with you and no stopping, the breeder had told her. What? Okay, so maybe running with him was out, she’d become a walker. He was so damn adorable with all that pounce-sniffing and pretend-hunting, up to his ears in holes. It made him so happy, and she could tell by his jaunty trot how important he felt thinking he was on to something.

She let a happy anticipation sneak in about going to Nantucket. Cade’s cousin was getting married at a fancy beach club and it promised to be a spectacular event. Nic couldn’t wait to see what the fuss was all about. Her parents had always brought them to Maine beaches, never the south shore — she couldn’t imagine them ever taking on Cape Cod traffic. And even though Nantucket was technically part of their home state of Massachusetts, it was a world away. It was a two-hour drive just to Hyannis — in the unlikely event of no traffic — and then another hour on a fast ferry. Nic liked the thought of it taking so much to get there, appreciated that feeling of being completely transported.

But how would it be staying in the family house with Cade’s sister’s family and his parents? That would be some serious togetherness. Nic knew precious little about Cade’s family, figured it hadn’t been necessary or even wise to know too much too soon. After surviving a marriage with a cheating husband, she was allowing herself a guarded optimism at best. But things were getting real, and fast. Wasn’t that another accouterment of loss, exaggerated emotions? She supposed it either brought people together or pushed them apart. Yes, death definitely changed the way you saw things, how you felt them. Which reminded her, she really needed to remember to check in with her kids about losing their Papa, and her siblings — it was their loss too. People say they’re fine, but that’s almost never the whole story.

After their walk, Nic could have easily gotten sucked back into the couch for a nap, the depletion was absolute. You rose to every occasion because it was the only choice; funeral arrangements, the obituary, the need to give yourself over to other people’s tears and memories — and thanking them. That was so important to do.

She had to start thinking about packing, what did people wear on Nantucket? It seemed to carry its own aura, have its own members-only mystery. That’s how people spoke of it, wrote about it anyway. Should she be concerned that Cade had offered to watch Snoopy so she could go shopping?

At least, and through no special efforts of her own, Nic looked good in almost anything she put on, had gotten lucky with her swim in the gene pool. Her ex-husband had always gone on about her smokin body — but since he’d ended up spreading his Brad-ness around, any pride she’d taken in the way she looked was tainted. She’d rather read than exercise, eat steak tips instead of fish, pick pie instead of fruit, and would choose wine over water any day. But she wore clothes well, so there was that. But just what kind of clothes should she be wearing on this island of Nantucket?

This fitting-in nonsense, when did that end?

Would Cade turn into a different person there? Wear whale pants and sport coats, drink gin and tonics, have a higher laugh? How old was old money? And what did that mean exactly? And why was it better than new money? Was it better? Maybe she should stick to Maine…

Cade’s parents had to be getting up there, eighties anyway — how were they both still thriving? She had to stop thinking like that, taking her orphan status so damn personally. John and Prudence Swain… Quakerish? WASPish? She also needed to stop with the judging. It was the fatigue talking, she told herself, that envy of everyone who still had parents. Jesus, was it...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 13.6.2023
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-13: 979-8-9861095-3-4 / 9798986109534