Emily and Lisa had never gotten along. The reasons were legion, the foremost, according to Emily, being that Lisa was spoiled. From the beginning the two of them had fought bitterly, and now, twenty years later, had reached an uneasy peace. They barely spoke, leaving Henry and Kenny to act as go-betweens, every visit a diplomatic mission.
Jeff Emily liked. A former offensive lineman raised Methodist by his ex-missionary grandmother in the hinterlands of Michigan (the tip of the mitten, as he said, holding up a massive hand), he was even-tempered and polite. He worked as an administrator in a retirement community, and if Emily wished he were more ambitious, she would always be grateful to him for helping Margaret.
“It’s a shame,” Emily said in bed. “We’re losing the wrong one.”
“You’d never know it to look at them.”
“Oh, I can.”
They had to whisper because of Arlene, plus Margaret was still up, ensconced on the screen porch, waiting for Kenny and Lisa to pull in, maybe right now getting high. Henry could hear Jeff running water directly overhead, and imagined how strange it must be for him. He and Margaret would have to sleep together. There was only the one bed.
For years, calling on an inner censor he’d adopted when she was a teenager, Henry had actively suppressed any vision of them making love. Now he couldn’t summon one to save them.
Who knew what happened in a marriage, what bargains and compromises people struck? He and Emily were opposites in many respects, yet well matched, both of them practical at heart. Jeff had wanted to rescue Margaret, an impulse Henry distrusted. He thought he should be grateful they’d stayed together this long, though that only made it harder for everyone involved. He wanted, above all, to suspend judgment. There was fault on both sides, he was sure, and then felt disloyal to her. Jeff was the one who was leaving.
“Are you reading or are you sleeping?” Emily asked. “Because I’m done.”
“I’m thinking.”
“That’s dangerous.”
“It is.”
“There’s nothing you can do about it tonight.”
“I don’t think there’s anything we can do at all.”
“Probably not, so turn the light out.”
He did.
She rolled his way and gave him a good-night kiss. “Stop fretting, you’ll never get to sleep. I’ll talk to her tomorrow and find out what’s going on.”
She was right. In minutes she was snoring, releasing a subtle whistle with each breath. As so often with Margaret, he felt helpless. He needed to know what he should hope for.
At three, when he padded to the bathroom, Kenny and Lisa’s SUV was sitting in the drive, and in the morning, as he was putting water on for coffee, Sam and Justin were already outside playing croquet, the balls tracing paths in the dew. The day was bright, the shadow of the chestnut swallowing part of the garage. Henry left his cup on the screen porch to give Sam a bear hug, lifting him off his feet.
“All right,” he said, choosing a mallet, “who’s ready to lose?”
“You are,” they said.
He was. He wanted Justin to win, as if to provide him some small consolation. He tried not to make it obvious, but Justin overshot the middle wicket and Sam beat him anyway. From the porch, Emily and Kenny cheered.
By ten everyone was up. Though it was the Fourth, there were still chores to do and errands to run. While Emily and Arlene got started on the potato salad, Lisa and Margaret headed off to Wegmans with a list, leaving Kenny and Jeff and the children to decorate the place. Ella and Sarah paired off, wrapping the tree trunks in patriotic crepe paper while Sam and Justin planted a border of miniature flags along the road. Jeff held the stepladder for Kenny to hang swags of bunting around the screen porch. Watching from the garage, Henry wondered how much Kenny knew, and whether he and Jeff talked. He doubted it.
The woman he was seeing was supposed to be younger, as if that were her whole appeal. A nurse, the two of them working with the same patients, eating in the cafeteria, passing in the halls all day. Where did they go? What did they say to each other? Henry thought of Sloan, their stolen hours, though that had been different. It was hard to picture beefy, red-faced Jeff with his gold-rimmed glasses and thinning hair in the throes of that kind of madness. He’d always been so sensible.
Last night, when Margaret and Jeff had arrived, Henry had shaken hands with him and received the same firm grip as always, as if nothing had changed. “I like the new mailbox,” he said. “Much easier to see.” As they unloaded the car and got the children settled, Henry listened for any extra tension between them but could detect none, just the normal exhaustion after a long drive. Jeff went to bed before she did, not unusual, since he had to wake up at five-thirty every morning. Henry didn’t expect them to fight outright or punish each other with silence, as he and Emily sometimes did, but remained alert for evidence of how they were really feeling. Was it all an act, or had they accepted the inevitable, gone beyond anger?
Lisa and Margaret returned with an enormous load of groceries and horror stories about the crowd at the checkout. Like everyone else, Jeff helped bring in the bags, then disappeared upstairs after Margaret. Henry lingered before the open door as if he was waiting for the bathroom, hoping to catch at least the tone of their conversation, but all he could hear was the drone of the attic fan, and he busied himself putting away the Kleenex and toilet paper. When they came down, Margaret had changed into her bathing suit and jean shorts and they were both laughing at something.
“Maybe next time,” she said.
“Maybe.”
The joke was private, clipped off as they rejoined the group, confusing him further.
It was lunchtime. Following tradition, he manned the grill, doling out hot dogs and burgers, toasting the buns on the top rack. There wasn’t room for everyone in the screen porch, and the children sat in the shade of the chestnut, paper plates in their laps, shooing Rufus until Emily had Kenny take him in the house. Margaret ate only half of her burger and left the top bun. Arlene noticed it too.
“She’s too thin,” she said in the kitchen. “I don’t think she looks good.”
“Don’t tell her that,” Emily said. “She’s worked so hard.”
“It can’t be healthy.”
“I think she looks fine,” Henry said in her defense.
“I thought she looked fine at Christmas,” Arlene said.
“Little pitchers,” Emily warned as the boys thundered down the stairs in their swim trunks and water shoes, Jeff following them out with an armload of towels. She waited till they could see him crossing the lawn. “He looks like he’s lost a few pounds.”
“I think so.”
It was possible. Henry couldn’t tell. At Christmas he’d missed signs that seemed obvious to both Emily and Arlene, and again he felt slow, as if he hadn’t been paying close enough attention.
Their chores done, the young people were going out on the boat. He’d filled it with gas and blown up the big triangular inner tube, untangled the towrope. He helped Kenny get the engine started and everyone piled in. The girls were leggy in their life jackets, the boys’ foreheads smeared with sunscreen. They barely all fit, Kenny and Jeff taking the captain’s chairs, Lisa and Margaret in back with the boys on their laps. Emily wanted a picture, and as they waited, holding their smiles for her, their eyes hidden behind their sunglasses, Henry thought that no matter how nicely it turned out, they’d remember it as the last summer they were all together.
“I’m going to take another just to be safe.”
They groaned.
“Shush,” she said. “Thank you. All right, be careful.”
“Have fun,” he said like an idiot.
Without them the cottage was still as a painting, only a white butterfly fluttering around the lilacs. In the lull, he gave the window frames a coat of primer, taking his time, using two brushes that were different widths. Later, he knew, Emily would ask him why he couldn’t wait and let the children do them, as if he were impatient, when it wasn’t the case. He just needed something to concentrate on. He stood at his workbench, cleaning his brushes with turpentine, the scent intoxicating. The day was heating up, cicadas shrilling in the trees. Distorted by imperfections in the glass, powerboats roared up and down the lake. Normally this was his favorite part of Chautauqua, everyone off enjoying themselves, taking advantage of the place. Emily and Arlene were busy in the kitchen, and, guiltily, knowing he shouldn’t succumb to the urge, he glanced back at the door to make sure no one was coming, opened Kenny’s old mini-fridge and grabbed a can of Iron City.
He cracked it and guzzled a long first draw, as if he were parched. It was fizzy and cold in his throat, and he let out a foamy burp, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. He could see himself and stopped as if caught. There was no need for secrecy. When Margaret was sober, she encouraged them to drink around her, as if welcoming the test. He would have a beer at cocktail hour and another with dinner, but right now only this breach, illicit and private, could quench his craving, and like a pledge being initiated, he emptied the can in three gulps, crushed it in his fist and buried it deep in the trash so no one would know.
He wanted another but held off until they’d docked and showered and Emily sent Ella out to the porch to take drink orders. Lisa and Arlene were having wine, Kenny a beer. Jeff abstained as always, asking for ice water as if in solidarity with Margaret. Why was he even there? Beer in hand, Henry wondered if his girlfriend drank, and thought of Sloan sitting up in bed with a cigarette and a jelly glass of scotch, telling him shocking stories about the girls at her boarding school. After she moved to New York, they never spoke again, a limbo that still puzzled him. If nothing else, Jeff and Margaret would always have Sarah and Justin to connect them. In some way, it seemed unfair.
“How’s the home?” Henry asked innocently.
Jeff seemed surprised by the question, looking to Margaret as if it were a trap. “Good. Busy.”
“There’s no shortage of us old folks.”
“No, that’s right. We’re actually expanding. I’ve got a lot of new hires I’m training.”
“I’m surprised they let you take a week off.”
“I’ve been there long enough. They know this is our vacation time.”
The phrase was self-incriminating. Henry left it alone.
“The problem is,” Margaret said, rescuing him, “he’s built up too many vacation days. They want him to take them.”
“Well,” Arlene said, “we’re glad you could make it.”
When Margaret had first announced that they were getting married, Jeff had come to him like a supplicant, needing his blessing. Now Henry thought he should have to formally ask permission to leave her. An apology—was that what he wanted? Some explanation. The porch was no good. He’d have to get him alone. Maybe golfing.
After dinner, when dusk had fallen and bats flitted between the trees, Kenny lit sparklers for the children, who ran about the lawn, swinging them in wild circles, drawing arcs that lingered on the eye. Later they all gathered on the dock to watch the fireworks across the lake at Midway. Each year the display grew gaudier, prompting Arlene, inevitably, to wonder how much the park had spent. The night was cool, the stars sharp. On the bench, in their sweatshirts, Henry and Emily huddled for warmth. As the first volley bloomed, an orange chrysanthemum bronzing the water, she took his hand. Kenny and Lisa were snuggling under a blanket, the boys and girls paired off as they had been since arriving, while Margaret and Jeff sat side by side. Jeff had his arm around her, his hand cupping her waist. When he turned to whisper something, she leaned in, bowing her head. With a thump like a mortar, another shell went up.
“Did you see them?” Emily said in bed.
“I saw them.”
“I don’t know what’s going on. I was so busy today I didn’t have a chance to talk to her. Who knows. I don’t think she does.”
“I certainly don’t,” Henry said.