In Gloucester, Bea and Gerald walk together down Main Street, heading for the water, the sun melting their ice cream cones faster than they would like, Kathleen and Jack up ahead with Rose. I like her, Bea says. I didn’t think I would. But there’s something of William in her, isn’t there? A fire, an intensity?
Gerald nods. She’s very passionate about the things she’s interested in, that’s for sure. He grins, and Bea has to look away. There are moments now when he looks quite a bit like William. She has a thing about the Kennedys, he says. It drove William crazy. But she campaigned for JFK tirelessly. She’s not just some silly housewife. I’ll be interested to see what she does now. You know, in terms of work. It’s wonderful, isn’t it, Bea says, how all these women are entering the workforce.
It’s a beautiful early fall day, the ocean a deep velvet blue, the whitecaps skimming across the surface. Bea takes a deep breath in. I rarely get to the sea, she says. This isn’t Maine, but it’s pretty close. Gerald nods. William brought the children up here all the time, he says. I think he felt it was as close as he could get.
The children have run ahead to a statue of a fisherman, and Rose waits for Bea and Gerald to catch up. We were just talking about Maine, Gerald says to Rose. I think he came here as a stand-in, of sorts. He loved that place, Rose says. There were times I thought that he felt that loss almost more than the loss of your father.
Did he ever take you there? Bea asks, knowing the answer but curious to hear how she responds. Once, Rose says, a long time ago. We stole a boat and broke into the house, for God’s sake, drank the people’s whiskey. Ate some ice cream that was in the freezer. Slept in their beds! Gerald laughs. Such a William thing to do, he says. Jesus. I’m glad he never told my mother about that. Still, I’m jealous you were there. I’m starting to forget it. I’ll wake up, late at night, and I can’t remember how the living room looked or which path to take through the forest.
Rose made a face. I didn’t much like it, Gerald, and you know me, I made sure William knew that. He wanted to buy it back, and I told him that was a stupid idea. But, who knows? She turns and faces Gerald, ignoring Bea completely. Would that have made him a happier person, do you think? If he still had Maine? There’s a raggedness to her voice, a desperation. Bea wants to tell her no, that William was just one of those people who can’t ever quite find happiness, no matter what. But she waits for Gerald to answer, curious to hear what he’ll say.
Gerald puts his hands on Rose’s shoulders and looks her straight in the face. Rose, he says quietly. William was always searching for the next thing, you know that. Maine wouldn’t have helped. The children did, though. They helped to keep him in the present. You can’t take this on. You mustn’t. He had a good life. Rose nods. I know that, she says, but it’s hard not to wonder.
She turns to Bea. When did you last see him? she asks, and Bea can tell that she’s been wanting to ask that, that she’s been wanting to know who she was to William. When you left after the war? Bea feels the blush rising through her throat. She steals a look at Gerald, not sure what he knows either.
No, she says quickly, knowing that she’ll lie if she gives herself a moment. I saw William in London, just after their father died. Gerald shakes his head, his mouth a thin straight line, and, looking at the ground, kicks a cigarette butt into the street with a fierceness that surprises Bea. I knew it, he says, and his voice is cold. I asked William, later, and he said he didn’t see you, but I knew he did. I knew he couldn’t go to Europe and not see you. Yes, Bea says. But he didn’t plan on it—in fact he planned most definitely not to see me—but then your father died and he had a few days before the ship sailed and so he came to London. She can see Rose thinking and remembering.
I was pregnant with Kathleen then, Rose says, and Bea nods. Yes, she says. He told me. He told me all about you. About how excited he was to get married. About how nervous he was to be a father. She gestures to Kathleen and Jack, who are waiting for them by the statue. And it looks to me, she says, as though he—as if the two of you—ended up doing a great job.
All three of them wave at the children, and they start to walk toward them. Rose grabs Bea’s upper arm. But since then? she asks. Did you see him after that? Again, Bea feels her desperation. No, she says. We wrote a few letters over the years. I heard more often from Gerald and Mrs. G.
Later, back at William’s house, Gerald, Rose, and Bea go into the small garage to pack up all the painting supplies and canvases and load them into Gerald’s car. Bea doesn’t want to look at the paintings, so she focuses on boxing up the supplies. Under a bag of oil tubes, she finds a sketch of a man and a woman dancing and realizes it’s the same man and woman in her painting at home. The unsigned canvas Mrs. G had sent a few years earlier. Of course it wasn’t painted by Mr. G. And she finds another drawing of a clock in a train station, realizing with a start that it’s Victoria Station, the last place she saw William. I’m happy to have a garage again, Rose says. But if you find any drawings with the kids, you’ll bring those back, yes? Those I would like to keep. But painting after painting of a blue sea is something I can do without.
Before they leave, Kathleen leads Bea upstairs to show her their room. This is my bed, she says, and Jack sleeps here. In between their beds is a small rag rug in shades of red and blue. Do you two talk to each other at night? Bea asks. Do you tell each other stories? Sometimes, Kathleen says. Sometimes I have to throw things at him to make him stop snoring. She laughs. Her openness is so like Gerald’s. But the best nights were when Daddy would come in, late at night, after we had been asleep forever, and kiss us each good night on the forehead. I’d always pretend I was asleep until he kissed me. Then he’d lie down on the floor right here between the beds and tell us a story and then he’d go to sleep, too. I’d give him my extra pillow.
Bea nods, not trusting herself to speak. She looks around the room. On the dresser stands the Mickey Mantle bobblehead doll. Oh, she says, startled. It’s Mickey Mantle! Then she turns to Kathleen, her eyebrows raised. Where did that come from? Is that allowed in a Red Sox house? Kathleen grins. That Gregory grin. Daddy gave it to Jack. He said we have to learn to love our enemies. Your father, Bea says, not looking at Kathleen, was a very wise man. She touches the bobblehead just enough to make him wobble, the head moving back and forth.