This year we’re staying a week longer in Deer Isle—five whole weeks. We had to give up our round house because the owner wouldn’t rent for that long. But the new place is set right on the harbor in Stonington and from the photos, it looks ideal. We’ll have a different post office and a different dump this year—significant changes in our simple island existence.
Sitting on top of a hill, the redone farmhouse really does look picture perfect. And once we get inside and the door slams behind us, we can see that everything is very clean and tidy. “It’s tight,” as Roy puts it. The owner had rebuilt it as a retirement home, but when his wife died suddenly last fall, he decided to rent it out instead, and stay in his other house up the road. The kids run upstairs ahead of us. The large master bedroom has a spectacular view of the harbor. And the sheets and blankets are all brand new. But when I see the kids’ room, I start to worry. It was supposed to have twin beds, not a double. How will Eli and Eva ever cooperate enough to share one bed? The third bedroom is small with two insubstantial cots that don’t look very inviting. And my father and Leon are supposed to visit the week after next. There’s no deck, not even a porch. And there are no screens on the windows, as if they’re not meant to be opened. We’ve left our city world for the outdoors of Deer Isle, and that’s not what’s here in this sealed off house.
I try not to be disappointed as I forage through the kitchen cabinets, to see what kinds of pots and pans there are. The owner’s wife must have been a baker because there are plenty of muffin tins and measuring cups. The kitchen table, I notice, is made of nice wood, but it’s meant to seat exactly four, perfect for a retired couple, but not for us. My mind goes to long summer dinners laughing with guests, and my heart drops a little more. We’ve made a mistake. “We liked the other house better!” the kids shout out. “Why can’t we go back there?”
Roy finds some extra leaves to expand the table, and we find some additional dining room chairs scattered around the house. “Let’s go to get something to eat,” he says. “In the morning, we’ll go to the hardware store to find some screens for the windows.” Roy’s right, after the nine-hour drive, we’re too exhausted to do anything about the house now. We go out to pick up some milk and orange juice for the morning, and luckily the pizza restaurant is still open for dinner.
In the morning we discover the benefits of the easy ten minute walk into town. There’s a market, the post office, and a homemade ice cream place. The owner of the house lends us a big log table that he doesn’t use. He tows it down the road for us, so we can have lunch outside. Eli and Eva befriend the eleven-year-old girl who lives next door. Eva loves the neighbor’s long blond hair, and she’s happy to play catch with Eli, too. Maybe we’ll have an idyllic month in Maine after all. As Roy and I unpack, Eli and Eva and the neighbor are already setting up a croquet course on the lawn.
The kids are eager to get to the Lily Pond, and once the day gets warm enough, we’re on our way. I leave Eli, Eva, and Roy on the banks of the pond. Slowly I wade in up to my waist before I begin to swim. This first swim in the pond is a big deal, after the disquiet that marked the end of last summer when the man drowned. For the first couple of minutes, I keep my head above the surface. Once I dare to submerge my head, the bubbles make a thundering sound when I breathe. I can feel my heart beating. I pass my old landmarks—the rounded gray rock and the spotted, pointy one. When I get to the swinging rope, still hanging there from years past, I turn back. I’ll wait until next time to go all the way to the big yellow rock on the right. It hasn’t been a relaxing swim, but I’ve done it. I breathe in the Maine air.
Roy leaves for New York, the kids start camp, and I begin to swim daily as though I’m on some kind of a mission. Each swim seems to get progressively longer and better. Yesterday was pure delight, the air warm and calm.
Today it’s so beautiful I decide to get to the pond a little early, leaving extra time for an even longer swim before I have to pick up the kids at camp. Maybe I’ll even make it all the way to the other side. No matter what, I want to swim until I’m really ready to turn back. Once I’m out in the middle of the pond, it’s breezier than I’d expected. But still it’s lovely. I survey the beauty of the trees and rocks along the shore. It’s familiar now, but as always strikingly beautiful. Then suddenly, with no warning, there’s another swimmer, stroking strongly and moving diagonally across the pond, and I can see that it’s a matter of only a couple of minutes until we intersect. I can’t figure out where he’s come from. I definitely did not see him enter from the round gray rock on the left, or further out by the swinging rope.
As we approach one another, I quickly glance around and see that there’s no one else in the water. I try to remain cheerful and give the usual nod hello between strokes, but the man does not respond to my gesture. He’s now close enough for me to get a fairly good look at his face, and I can see that the top of his forehead is a little caved in. I keep on swimming and try casually to switch from my usual breaststroke to the sidestroke, so I can keep an eye on him. I wish him back to land, although I still can’t figure out where he came from, or his destination point.
I’ll turn back, I tell myself. If something is going to happen to me, it’s better to be closer to the beach where other people might see me. I switch back to breaststroke, so I can swim faster, but mostly I keep my face above water, to keep track of the man. Finally I see him get out of the pond. He climbs onto the round gray rock, and I’m pretty sure he’s looking right at me. He slowly puts on long pants, a belt and shoes, not the usual pond attire, and walks off into the woods, out of sight at last. Still I’m eager to get back, increasing my speed and sputtering in the now choppy water. When I get to my towel, I have plenty of time. But I put on my shorts right away and drive over to the camp, and wait for the kids in the parking lot.
That night, I dream that I see the man in town. His head looks less bent in than it did in the pond. And this time, he raises his eyebrow at me, like he’s saying hello.
It’s a hot and steamy day, not at all like Maine. Eli’s been up for most of the night with a stomach bug, so he’s staying home from camp today with me. Between the heat and Eli’s fever, I haven’t slept much either. We play cards and doze off. Eli wakes up from a nap, and on the table next to him he sees an old New York Times that hasn’t been thrown out yet. He snatches it, thinking he’ll find the Yankees’ score. “You won’t find it there,” I say. “It’s last Sunday’s paper.” Then I count the days since last Sunday, trying to figure out today’s date. It’s Danny’s birthday, I realize. That’s probably why Ted called me earlier this morning to say hello.
“It’s August ninth,” I say aloud. “Danny’s birthday.”
“Danny was your brother.” Eli has by now become familiar with this fact. It’s part of the information I’ve slowly been parceling out to him over time. “He was twenty-two when he died,” he says with authority. And I nod back.
“How did he die?” Eli asks. We’ve never gotten this far before. Groggy from the heat, I’m dimly aware that he’s just asked me the question I’d be waiting to answer for his whole life. And now all of a sudden, it’s my turn to tell him.
“Well, something went wrong with his brain,” I hear myself say. This is real. No longer the words I’d rehearsed. “He had a kind of sickness in his mind,” I tell Eli. “He actually killed himself. It’s a very, very unusual thing,” I tell him slowly, trying to somehow protect him. “It will probably never happen to anyone you know.” I wonder whether my words can possibly make any sense.
“What did he do?” Eli is clearly engaged. He wants to know more. “How did he kill himself? Was it with a gun?” Of course this is a predictable part of the conversation. Eli wants details, but for some reason I hadn’t anticipated that.
“No, with a knife,” I hear myself say. “He stabbed himself.”
“In the heart?” asks Eli.
“Well, sort of near the heart.” I know I must be truthful despite my aversion to what I’m saying. “It was really a very, very weird and unusual thing,” I repeat. “His brain was not working right when it happened. It was a type of sickness.”
“If he hadn’t done that, would he have died anyway?” Already Eli is far beyond my simple explanation, asking the very question I have asked myself infinite times.
“He might have,” I answer. “Or he might have just been very sick for the rest of his life. Like I said, his brain wasn’t working right.”
“Was he sick for a long time?”
“Well, sort of yes. On and off for a couple of years. But before those years he was a really wonderful brother. Forty-one years ago, when Danny was born, I was six years old. He was my adorable baby brother. And he grew into a very funny and remarkable person, a wonderful friend. I loved him very much.”
“I wish Danny were still alive,” says Eli. “I wish I knew him.”
“Me, too,” I say. “I think a lot about how much he would have loved you and Eva, and how much you would have loved him.”
“He would be my uncle,” Eli says.
“He’s still your uncle,” I say.
“Will that ever happen to me? What happened to Danny?” asks Eli.
He’s asking me exactly what I want him to know. “Never,” I say adamantly. “That would be impossible.”
I try to explain that what happened to Danny happened because his brain made him be in a lot of pain. And what he did made everyone else in a lot of pain, too. “It was the saddest I’ve ever been in my whole life,” I tell him. I feel my tears coming, but I don’t let myself cry. I leave out how scared I was, and how many years it’s taken me to separate myself from the violence and the misery of it, how it’s a wound that will never go away completely.
“I’d never do that,” says Eli.
“I know.”
Eli stares hard at me. He now knows something very new and different, and he’ll have a lifetime to process it, and to think of more questions. This conversation had to happen.
“We can talk about this more some other time,” I say as we return to the game of Go Fish we’d begun before his nap. “When you get older.”
Roy returns to us for the last weeks of August. We’ve adjusted to our house on the harbor. It’s noisy in the early hours of the morning when the lobster boats go out, still not the ideal spot we imagined. But we like it here. The kids finish camp, and spend the days running outdoors and swimming. I’ve taken any number of beautiful swims myself. Sometimes I’ve made it just short of the other end of the pond. But that no longer seems particularly essential.
Roy’s even found out about a beautiful house that may be available next summer. It’s set in a lovely cove, and it’s right up against the water. From the inside when you look out, the ocean reflects through the old glass window panes, like a dream. If I’ve ever had a dream of a summer house in Maine, maybe it’s this.
By the end of the month, I know it’s been a lovely summer. The kids have been happy and free. Eli has seen hummingbirds and a great blue heron, and Eva has made necklaces out of shells. With weather unusually warm for these regions, the days have been long, lasting right through into the fading light of the evening on the water. We’ve discovered new beaches and trails, and we’ve wallowed in old haunts.
Knowing how sad I’ll be to leave this place for the fall, I tread slowly into the Lily Pond for my last swim in the pond this year. So much has changed this summer. Over the past Augusts, and past years, I’ve labored so hard to find the way to grieve for my mother and at last I’ve come to know that it’s my grief for Danny that holds that key. I’ll never reconcile with the reality that Danny had to die, but I think I can accept the mystery of it, that I’ll never know for sure whether it could have been different. Danny’s death has now become part of my family legacy. In all of its havoc and violence, I’ve passed the fact of it along to Eli, not as a secret to be hidden, but as something to know and to live with. My mother no longer holds the knot of Danny, and of all the deaths before his. And with this I am now free to feel her imprinted in my mind, just as she was—strong, determined, and fearful—the mother I knew, the mother I longed for.
I absorb the calm and the beauty of the pond as though I might be able to store it for the year ahead. Once we’re back at home, I’ll find the time to tell my children that their grandmother died swimming on the other side of the world. Stroking through the fresh, cool water, watching the movement of the ripples all around, I swim my final laps of the season.