He slams the screen door behind him. My mother watches as he melts into the darkness. A moment later, the smell of burning logs wafts through the trees. “Today is hard enough,” my mother says. “It’s the twenty-fifth anniversary of what happened. Reid doesn’t need you to make it worse, Charlie. Frankly, neither do I.”
It doesn’t feel good when Reid and I argue, even silently, and I know it’s my fault he’s upset. Still, I’m not ready to let the conversation go. “Sometimes it seems as though none of it happened,” I say.
My mother touches a scar on her neck. “Not to me. Or Reid. It’s with us every day.”
It takes all I have not to apologize and let the conversation fade away. Instead, I ask, “How did you and Dad meet?” and sit in silence, waiting for a response.
My mother continues her game, the snap of each card resonating through the night as she works through the deck. When I’ve almost given up on getting an answer, she says, “Mark and I met at Burkehaven. Paul’s parents hosted a party at the start of the season for the kids from town, plus the kids from around the lake. It must have been 1981, and I was in high school. Hadley would have been going into the seventh grade.” My mother stops playing solitaire, caught for a moment in the memory. “We listened to Rick Springfield and Blondie. Your father hovered at the edge of the party, hanging out with AndreaHaviland, though she was Andrea Powell then. The two of them, they were inseparable. I assumed they were sweethearts.”
Hadley appears at the doorway, wine in hand. “Lucky you had me,” she says. “Don’t forget Isaac and Paul. They were the other pair, always sneaking off, concocting some secret plan. Your mother and I showed up, these two awkward girls from the next cove. We didn’t know anyone.”
My mother smiles. “But I had my fearless sister at my side. She stepped right into the fray, and soon enough everyone knew who we were. After that night the six of us formed a little gang, Hadley and me, Paul and Isaac, and Andrea and your father. We did everything together.”
I picture them, the summer air close, the music playing, the beginning of something unknown. Not one of them could have guessed where these new friendships would lead.
Paul comes to Hadley’s shoulder, wiping his hands with a dish towel. “You’re talking about Mark again?” he says. “Now I really need to head home.”
“Let’s stay on memory lane,” Hadley says. “We can fill in details, see what Jane forgets. Mark—your father—he was cute. We forget that about him. I was the one who wanted to say hello.”
“You were a kid,” Paul says.
“I’d have been twelve that summer,” Hadley says. “Paul, you and Mark would have been fourteen. And you’d have been sixteen, Jane. You all seemed old, but I think I was the one who chugged a Schlitz!”
“Iknowyou smoked a cigarette,” my mother says. “Because Dad smelled it on you when we got home, and guess who had to hear about it for the rest of the summer.”
Hadley waves a dismissive hand. “It was a good night.”
“It was,” my mother says. “One I’d live all over again in a heartbeat.”
Hadley catches my eye. “That would be a good line for the podcast.”
And with that, it’s as though my aunt pulls the needle from the nostalgia turntable and the music comes to a screeching halt.
My mother slams down the deck of cards. “A podcast, Charlie? Like the ones you make for the radio station? That’s why you’re asking all these questions.”
Hadley gulps her wine. “Oops,” she says, in a way that makes me wonder if she blew my cover on purpose.
“Thanks a lot,” I say.
My mother’s eyes flare as she turns on her sister. “How long have you known about this?”
Hadley holds up her hands in surrender. “This isn’t about me, Jane.”
“Hadley didn’t know till right before dinner,” I say. “She heard me recording. And I was planning to tell the rest of you.”
Paul steps into the room. “Did you record us tonight?”
“You’d have to sign consent forms first,” I say.
“No one’s signing anything,” my mother says, turning on me as I catch a glimpse of how she must react on a construction site when someone on the crew forgets who’s boss.
I wish I could go back a few hours in time and confess to my plan, though if I had, I doubt I’d have learned even the small details that came out tonight. “I should have told you what I was doing,” I say.
“You should have,” my mother says. “Now I don’t know if I can trust you.”
She storms into the house and disappears upstairs. I feel awful, sick to my stomach from seeing my mother so betrayed, and at being the source of her betrayal.
“Well, that’s that,” Paul says, gathering his things to leave. “Nice job there, Charlie.”
