Family dinner two nights in a row was probably too much to hope for. But since it was Memorial Day weekend, Beth thought a nice barbecue wasn’t a lot to ask. Apparently, she was wrong. Stephanie was out—heavens knew where. Ethan was home, of course. Lauren was holed up in her room, and Howard was on the grill with enough hot dogs and hamburgers for a dozen people.
Beth stepped onto the deck, shielding her eyes from the sun.
“Why did you get so much food?”
“I invited the Kleins and the Carters.”
There was no point asking why he hadn’t told her. They’d barely spoken all day. They couldn’t agree on a plan for the summer. They couldn’t talk about the house. They couldn’t talk about money. Thirty years into their marriage, everything was suddenly a conversational landmine. And she didn’t know how to fix it. There she was, in the middle of her life, and she had never felt less capable.
With company coming, she had to change out of her yoga pants. Her mother would have been appalled by the “athleisure” state of dressing these days. Even at the beach, her mother had greeted every day with full makeup and her hair done, wearing linen pants and a matching top.
And, really, it was the gradual but absolute slide into everyday casual that had been the undoing of their family business. Beth should have put up more personal resistance, but it was just so damn easy to be comfortable.
Beth stood on the bedroom deck and looked down at the pool. Today, Howard, happily grilling, seemed more like the man she loved and the father the girls adored and less like the adversary she’d been living with the past few months. She knew it had been difficult for him to lose the store, and not just because of the financial implications. It was his family business. He’d never considered another career because the store was his duty. It wasn’t easy; it wasn’t glamorous. But he’d shown up, day in and day out, for three decades.
If only he hadn’t gone behind her back with a second mortgage on their home!
Beth headed up the stairs to warn Lauren they were having company. As expected, Lauren was less than thrilled.
“Mom, I just feel the walls closing in on me here. Stephanie wants to stay a few weeks, and I know it’s not technically my house, but it is my home and I just can’t deal with her twenty-four/seven.”
Beth sat on the bed. This was what happened when you waited for the right time to talk: you got backed into a corner.
“Well, sweetheart, I have some good news and some bad news.”
Lauren looked at her sharply. “What is it?”
“I’m going to stay here for the summer too. I can be a buffer between you and Stephanie.”
“You and Dad are staying all summer?”
Beth hesitated. “Yes.”
“Why? You never spend the summer here. I mean, I don’t want to be a brat. It’s your house. It’s just…” She looked out the window hopelessly. “I’m used to being here alone. I need to be alone.”
Just rip the Band-Aid off, Beth told herself. “I want to spend the summer here with you because…” She paused, probably more dramatically than she should have. But really, she needed a moment. Once she said it aloud to Lauren, it would become real. “It’s our last summer with the Green Gable. We have to sell this house.”
By four in the afternoon Matt still hadn’t heard back from Craig. But the woman renting out the room told him he could stop by and see it before six.
“You’re late for a rental this season,” she said over the phone. “But lucky for you, I’m late to the game myself.”
Matt parked in her driveway and noted a wooden stairway on the side of the house leading to the upper floor. He hoped the room was decent because he liked the location.
He rang the front doorbell. No response. He rang again. When there was still no answer, he wondered if the bell was broken and knocked. Still nothing.
Fighting annoyance, he walked around to the back of the house, passing the wooden stairs and a deck overlooking the bay. He could hear music playing. Nina Simone?
A woman was bent over a table painting a plank of wood with a wide brush. She seemed to be in her sixties and had cocoa-colored skin and a short salt-and-pepper Afro. She wore a blue smock and lots of beaded necklaces in reds and corals.
“Um, Ms. Boutine?”
Startled, she dropped her brush. “Can I help you?”
“I’m Matt. We just spoke on the phone about the room?”
“Oh, heavens. I lost track of time. And I have a party to get to!” She wiped her hands on the smock and held one out to shake. “Henriette Boutine. You can call me Henny. Follow me.”
She took him back to the side of the house.
“Are you an artist?” he said.
“It’s more of a craft,” she said, leading the way up the steps to a door on the second floor. “This stairway is an add-on. When my son finished college, he ended up back here for a year, and my late husband built this entrance for his privacy—and our sanity. But my son’s on the West Coast now and my husband passed, and here I’ve been, stuck with this eyesore staircase. But now it’s coming in handy. The Lord works in mysterious ways, right?”
“True,” Matt said. She opened the door to a large bedroom with a view of the bay. The space was decorated with eclectic bric-a-brac—a mason jar on the nightstand filled with shells, framed sand dollars on the wall, a smattering of wicker baskets. The sleigh bed was full-size and topped with a navy-blue comforter. Up above, a gently whirling ceiling fan. Behind the bed, a wooden sign in multiple hues of blue that read COTTAGE RULES: SAND. SUN. FUN.
He looked around for space to work and was pleased to see a small wooden desk in the corner.
“What do you think?” said Henny.
“The nightly rate is as listed?” he said.
“Yes. But I have to tell you, a couple is coming over tomorrow to see the room. So if you want it, I’m just letting you know it might not be available after tomorrow for about a week.”
“I would need it for about a week too.”
He glanced at his phone, willing Craig to call. If Craig came on board, his expenses would be covered. He didn’t want to front the cash so early, but he also didn’t want to lose the place. As was his habit, he took the gamble.
“I’d like it.”
“Really? You’re my first renter. I didn’t think this whole thing would work. My friends think I’m crazy to be doing this.”
Matt smiled politely.
“Here are the keys. The door will lock behind you automatically so be sure to take them with you. I need the first night paid as a deposit.”
He handed over his debit card and she plugged an adapter into her phone to swipe it. “Isn’t technology amazing?” she said.
“Okay, well, I’m just going to settle in for now. Thanks, Ms. Boutine. It’s a really nice place you’ve got here.”
“Please, call me Henny. And yes, it is a nice place. So give it a good rating or whatever it’s called on the web. That’s the way to build business. Or so I’ve read. Enjoy your stay.” She closed the door behind her.
Matt unpacked his Canon C100 and set it on the desk but left his backup sound pack in his bag. Hopefully, he’d get funding to pay a local crew and he wouldn’t need it.
He pulled out his laptop and booted up his Rory Kincaid folder. He opened the interview he’d done with one of Kincaid’s high-school coaches, Roger McKenna.
“And that was the thing about Rory,” the coach said, folding his arms behind his head and sitting back in his office chair. Above him was a framed photograph of Rory’s team the year they’d won the state championship. “It wasn’t just his reflexes or his speed. It was his absolute calm under pressure.”
Matt nodded. He’d heard the same thing from the coach at Harvard and from members of Rory’s battalion.
He fast-forwarded to the footage of the gym. Lower Merion High School had just under fourteen hundred students in any given year and every kind of team and extracurricular club you could imagine. From what he understood, LM, as it was commonly called, offered the quintessential all-American high-school experience.
Rory’s retired jersey, number 89, hung framed next to a maroon-and-white banner that read RORY KINCAID. PA STATE CHAMPIONSHIP 2005. MCDONALD’S ALL-AMERICAN. GATORADE PLAYER OF THE YEAR.
While Matt’s camera guy got B-roll of the gym, Coach McKenna had gotten choked up.
“I still can’t believe it. What a waste,” the coach said. “What a goddamn waste.”
The simple statement hit Matt in the gut. It was exactly how he felt about his older brother. After 9/11, Ben had dropped out of Syracuse University to enlist. Three years later, they’d lost him.
What a goddamn waste.
Maybe, if Matt managed to pull off the film, Rory’s death—and his brother’s—wouldn’t be a total waste.
His phone rang, startling him. He looked at the screen.
Craig Mason.