But the gifts were unnecessary. “You don’t need to
bring something every time you come,” she told him the
day he brought the flowers.
“It’s as much for me as it is for you.” He saw her puzzled look. “If I tell you why, you’ll think I’m an idiot.”
“I doubt that.”
He shrugged. “Okay. There’s this thing I do. It’s like
a personal daily goal. You’re going to laugh.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
Nathan cocked his head. He wasn’t sure he believed
her. He told her anyway. “I try to do three things every
day. Three good things. Bringing you flowers to brighten
up a construction site…” He gestured toward the bouquet
of yellow roses that Lane had temporarily placed in the
sink. “That counts as one. So for today, I only have two
left. See? It’s for me. Selfish.”
As promised, Lane didn’t laugh. “Not selfish. Sweet.”
She thanked him and hoped he wouldn’t notice that she
had left the bouquet gently resting upright in her sink
because she didn’t own a vase. And why would she? A
person who never bought or received flowers didn’t need
a vase.
Nathan did notice, though, and while he didn’t say
anything about it, the next day he came, his gift was a
vase, a tall glass cylinder with small etchings of birds
flying up one side. “One good deed down,” he told her.
“Two to go.”
The day he arrived with a gift of art supplies for
Henry, she insisted he stay for dinner. He accepted and
then gave her a quick a preview of the gift, a sketch pad
of cold-press artist-quality paper, a plastic sleeve of short-handled brushes, a sample palette of watercolor paints.
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Lane opened the palette and looked at the half-
inch dots. “Ultramarine violet, PV-fifteen,” she read.
“Lightfastness one.”
“Transparent and nonstaining.” Nathan pointed
to where it said that. “Professional quality. Which he
deserves.”
“Thank you. He’ll love it.”
“Hope so. I wanted to get him something special. To
make up for all the people stomping around. Don’t worry,
I didn’t go overboard. The sample palettes are cheap. And
there’s a lot more paint on those dots than you’d think.
Artists need samples. Pigment changes from one company
to the next. No one should commit to a tube before they
know what they’re getting. Like that yellow ochre there.
Some yellow ochre’s opaque, some’s transparent. Ochre
is a prehistoric color. Did you know that?”
“Were you an artist in a previous life?”
“No. I was a lot of things in a previous life, but never
an artist.” He looked sheepish. “It’s possible I spent more hours than I’d like to admit watching videos of watercolor artists last night.”
“For Henry?”
He nodded. “And for you.” He shook his head. “That
came out wrong. I don’t mean—”
“Of course,” Lane said. “I didn’t think you did. I’m
not in a place where—”
“Me neither,” Nathan said. He took a breath. “Let’s
start over. What I meant to say was, I’m here for you and
Henry, as a friend.” He nodded as if he was happy to have
gotten that out of the way.
“I’m glad you are.” Lane smiled and in the quiet that
followed, thought about how she and Nathan had at least
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that in common. Neither of them wanted a relationship
and neither of them wanted to say why.
“Hey Henry,” Nathan said. “How’s it going?”
Lane turned and saw Henry standing at the threshold
of the kitchen. “I got you some watercolor paints. Want
to see?”
Henry nodded.
“It will be half an hour till dinner’s ready,” Lane said.
“If you two want to go into the living room and try out
those paints, there’s time.”
“You’re allowed to paint in the living room?” Nathan
asked as he followed Henry out of the kitchen. He whistled.
At Nathan’s request, Lane brought them two glasses
of water for their brushes. She stopped to watch for a
moment while they settled in at the small art table near
the back window of the living room.
“Check this out,” Nathan told Henry. “If you move
your brush through the water in a figure eight, it comes
up clean. See? Amazing, right?”
Henry, eyes bright, smile wide, nodded.
“Okay, my liege,” Nathan said in the voice of one of his knights. “What dost thou think about these blues?”
Henry smiled and Nathan switched back to his own voice.
“Hmm. I want a blue sky, a night sky. So I can make
stars. I watched someone do that on a video. She painted
a dark-blue sky and then she cleaned her brush—figure
eights—and then she dipped her brush in white paint and
flicked it. Like this.” He tapped his dry brush to show
what he meant. “Tiny white spots sprinkled all over the
paper. Stars. Think I should try it?”
Henry nodded, and checked to see if his mother was
nodding too, which she was.
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“So which blue?” Nathan asked. “Cobalt or
ultramarine?”
Henry pointed at one of the dots.
“I agree,” Nathan said. “Ultramarine is perfect.”
h h
h h
Over dinner Lane told Nathan what Henry already knew.
Their move out of the house—the newest problem, a
crack in the waste pipe, meant demo in the foundation,
which meant it was going to be a construction site for
months—was not going to be temporary. Lane decided,
with Henry’s agreement, that it was time for a fresh start.
The problem was where.
“Are you open to a crazy idea?” Nathan asked them.
“Maybe it’s more a seize-the-day idea. A try-something-
radical idea.”
Henry was vigorously nodding his head so Lane said,
“Sure.”
“I have a place. A summer place. I haven’t been there
in years. Long story why. Doesn’t matter. Point is, I’m going this summer. For a goodbye summer. To get the place
ready to sell. It’s way past time to sell.” Nathan stopped, took a breath, and continued. “You should come. I’ll be
in the main house but there’s also guesthouse. Nothing
fancy. Not big. But perfect for two. It’s on a pond. My
opinion? Most beautiful spot in the world. Spectacle Pond.
On Martha’s Vineyard. Ever been there?”
Lane and Henry shook their heads.
“We used to spend summers there. Well, technically
only my ex and my son did. I’d come in August for two
weeks, if I was lucky.” His face shifted. “Leo, my son—he
just turned twenty-five—spent…” Nathan closed his eyes
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and did the calculation. “Fifteen summers of his life on
that pond. Best fifteen years I ever had.”
T
his was the first Lane had heard of a son. She was
about to ask Nathan where his son was now, where did
he live, what did he do—but she stopped herself. If he
hadn’t mentioned his son, there was a reason. If he wanted to share the reason, he would.
“The pond is like a secret. Totally tucked away. Lots
of people on the Island don’t even know it’s there. My
ex wasn’t crazy about the location. It was too rustic for
her. She wanted to be where the fancy lawn parties were,
not where the injured birds of the world came to nest.”
Lane saw that Henry was confused. She imagined him
picturing a pond filled with injured birds. “Did your wife mean actual injured birds?”
Nathan shook his head and smiled. “She meant a
certain kind of person. People who went through tough
times and came out the other end wanting a different
kind of life. A quieter life. Ruth was a very stiff-upper-lip type, not one to complain, but she let me know life was
too slow for her there. She’d see one amazing sunset and
think, Okay. Who needs to see another? I suspect you’d feel differently.”
“Maybe,” Lane said.
“The guesthouse is right on the water. But like I
paying here. It would be perfect. Stay all summer, take
your time figuring things out. You ever swim in a pond
so clear you could see to the bottom?”
Eyes wide, Henry shook his head.
“You should try it sometime,” Nathan said. “Why not
go? Figure out your next move there. Who knows? You
might fall in love with the Island. You wouldn’t be the
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first one. More I think about it, more I think the crazy
thing would be to not go.”
“I don’t know,” Lane said. “Moving to a place I’ve
never even seen a picture of? Sounds pretty crazy.”
“You’re right. I’ll bring you a picture. I’ll bring you
a box of pictures. Pictures of the pond and the house and
the Rec Center. There’s about a dozen houses around
the pond. There’s a day camp for kids at the Rec Center.
There’s a farm at the end of the road where you can get
fresh eggs every day, if you get down there early enough
before they’re all gone. Okay, maybe it’s a little crazy. But maybe a little crazy isn’t that crazy.”
Lane agreed to look at the pictures and left it at that.
h h
h h
The crazy continued the next afternoon when Dana
showed up at the door, unannounced. “Hear me out before
you say no.” She bustled in with shopping bags. “I just
got off the phone with Nathan. I told him I’m sending
you two out for dinner on me. He said you won’t go.
He said you’d rather stay home with Henry. I told him I
didn’t think he should speak for you.”
“He shouldn’t,” Lane said, following Dana to the
dining room, “but he’s right.”
Dana hoisted the two shopping bags onto the table
and started emptying them. “These books are for Henry.
Have you been to the bookstore yet? It’s the best book-
store in the world and I’m not exaggerating. They picked
these out. All I told them was Henry is six and adorable
and brilliant and that’s all they needed to know. Listen,”
Dana said. “Nathan told me you’re moving and I feel awful
about it. I mean it’s not my house, but I am the one who
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talked you into living here. Least I could do is treat you to a dinner out with Nathan. You’ll have more fun with
him than with me. Anyway I’m going to have dinner here,
with Henry. Look what I got for him from the art store.
Have you been there yet? I have no idea how she stays in
business.” She lifted out a box of markers from one of the bags. “Monica—who owns the art store—she says kids
love these.” She read from the box. “Ninety-six Markers.
Dual-tip brush. Blend pad for mixing.” She put the box
down. “Monica said when she was Henry’s age, she would
have fainted from joy to get a box of markers like this.”
Lane turned and saw Henry peering into the dining
room, trying to see what was on the table.
“Perfect timing,” Dana said. “Come look at what
Auntie Dana brought you.”
Henry inched closer.
“Is Henry allowed to draw while he eats dinner”
Dana asked.
“If he wants,” Lane said. She watched as Henry moved
closer to survey the supplies.
“Great,” Dana said. “Henry, do you think you could
make a drawing using every one of these ninety-six
markers? Wouldn’t that be cool? A drawing with ninety-
six colors in it?” She turned to Lane and winked. “I’ll
be right back. Dinner’s in the car. My life is in my car.”
As soon as Dana flew out of the house, Lane turned
to Henry. “Don’t worry. I’m not going out. I’ll be very
polite. I’ll just explain to Dana that I’d rather stay home and have dinner with you. She can go out with Nathan.
They’ll have a great time. So will we. She can take back
the markers. I’ll get you a box of our own.”
In response, Henry emptied all ninety-six markers on
to the table and began sorting them by shade. Pine green.
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Moss green. Sage. He looked over his shoulder to make
sure they were still alone. “You should go out,” he told
his mother. “I’ll stay with Dana and draw.”
“Who’s got macaroni and cheese?” Dana sang out as
she walked back in. “Henry, bring your markers in the
kitchen. Keep me company while I heat this up.”
Craziest of all, that’s exactly what he did.
h h
h h
In the restaurant, Lane looked at all the photographs
Nathan brought with him and then told him the problem
with his idea. “I’m not saying it doesn’t look beautiful. It does. But I keep jumping from one bad decision to the
next. It’s not fair to Henry.”
“I get that. What I don’t get is, how is this a bad de-
cision? You’re taking him out of school, right? Staying
in the house here makes no sense; it’s a construction site.
You haven’t found another place to go.” He shrugged.
“I’m not usually one to boast but I feel like I came up
with a pretty amazing solution.”
“You did,” Lane said. “I appreciate your generosity.”
“What generosity? I rented you a house that turns out
to be unlivable. I owe you it to make it right.” He picked up the stack of photographs and found the one of the guest cottage. “Look how perfect this is. I’ll never be able to
make this offer again.” He found another photo and held
it up. “Look at the pond. Look how pristine. You love to
swim, right? Imagine swimming in that pond every day;
imagine sometimes you’ll have it all to yourself.”
He had her attention, that was for sure.
“And the day camp? If Henry wants to go? It’s great.
Leo loved it.” He got q
uiet and then shook off a thought.
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“They hold it in this big Rec Center. Like one of those
old-style Adirondack camp buildings. The counselors are
all former campers. They know every inch of the pond
and the Island. They take the kids kayaking, fishing,
clamming. And they do arts and crafts. If Henry wants
to draw all day long, he can do it. No one will mind. It’s totally laid-back.”
A laid-back camp where Henry could fish or draw. A
pond where she could swim alone. They did have to go
somewhere. Maybe the crazy thing would be to say no.
“Only hitch,” Nathan said, “if you want to go, you
should go soon. So you’re there when camp starts. Day
one is when kids make friends. After that, it gets harder.”
“When does camp start?”
“Right after the Fourth. I wish I’d thought of this
sooner. It’s crazy fast, to pack up and move by the Fourth.”
“That’s not a problem,” Lane said. “I can move fast.”
She was a Meckler, after all; the Mecklers could move at
any speed. It was staying that was the problem.
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CHAPTER TWENTY
Marshall stood at the bottom of the stairs and called out,
“Sylvie?” No answer. He walked to the door of the base-
ment and opened it wide. “Sylvie?” Nothing. He forced
open the sticky door to the backyard. This time when
he called, it wasn’t a question. “Sylvie.” Muttering, he
tromped across the carpet and stopped at the side win-
dow, the narrow one they used only when they wanted
to peek out at the driveway.
The car was there. Sylvie was not. Where was she?
She never went anywhere without telling him. “This
is why you have to be careful what you wish for,” he
announced to the empty room. Among the wishes that
often came to him in flashes, and that he immediate-
ly ignored, was that Sylvie would stop reporting every
little move she was about to make. I’m going to the bathroom. I’m going to the laundry room. I’m getting a box of tissues from the pantry. It made him want to scream, although he never would. And now, she was gone without a word.
He tried to think of where else to look and came up
blank. Deflated, he moved to the love seat and sat down,
alone. He looked at the TV. An old stooped man, sitting
on a couch much like his, looked back, slack-jawed. With
a start, he realized the TV was off and the old stooped
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