Return to Summerhouse

  It hadn’t been easy for him to persuade Amy to agree to go to Maine. They didn’t usually argue—his father said it was because Stephen let Amy make all the rules—but this time they did.

  “I do not want to go to some faraway state and spend weeks with a bunch of women I’ve never met. Women you heard about through a therapist.”

  She made the last word sound like “witch doctor.”

  Stephen was determined to not let her wear him down so he stood his ground. “You cannot stay here in this house alone while the boys and I go camping.”

  “Then I’ll go with you.”

  That idea horrified Stephen so much that he’d taken a step back from her. His reaction set Amy off into the tears that were always near the surface these days.

  He threw up his hands in futility. “Amy, other women would kill for this chance. You get to get away from us and this house that you work on like a galley slave and you—”

  “Is that what you think of me? As a…What did you call me? A galley slave?”

  “You’re not going to twist this around so I’m the villain. I think this is a good thing for you to do.”

  “I don’t know these women and neither do you. Who knows what they’re like? They’re in therapy. For what? Murder?”

  “Amy, calm down. It’s true that we don’t know them, but Jeanne does and she—”

  “And I guess you know this Jeanne person?”

  Stephen thought back to their luncheon and the two subsequent phone conversations and he couldn’t help smiling. For all that she was old enough to be his grandmother and as wide as she was tall, there was something sexy about her. When his secretary heard him laughing on the phone she had raised her eyebrows.

  “What does that smile mean?” Amy asked, advancing on him. “That’s a sex smile, isn’t it? There’s something more going on with you and her than just therapy, isn’t there?”

  Stephen stopped smiling. “How did you guess? I’ve been having an affair with Jeanne Hightower for weeks now. Great sex. She likes my sword the best. And the tall leather boots.” He left the room before Amy could say another word.

  That argument had been a turning point. That night Amy put on her prettiest lacy nightgown and snuggled up against him. They hadn’t had sex in weeks. But Stephen knew what she was doing and he was having none of it. It took all his resolve but he’d moved away from her and gone to sleep. Never before had he turned down her invitation for sex.

  The next morning Amy got up early and made them breakfast. She didn’t say much during the meal, and it had been a solemn occasion. Usually, the boys were talking on top of each other and kicking each other under the table, but that morning all four of them had been quiet.

  As Stephen left for work, Amy told him she’d go to Maine. It had been a victory for him, but he hadn’t liked being a bully to make her do what he wanted her to.

  Since she’d told him she’d go, she’d done everything she could to get out of her promise, but Stephen remained steadfast. He saw how she was pretending to be more cheerful, but he also saw how she would stand and look out the kitchen window for half an hour at a time. He had known her all his life and he’d never seen her like this. When her mother died six years ago, Amy had mourned then moved on, but since the miscarriage she seemed to have stepped back from the world.

  Stephen couldn’t see how a few days at a summerhouse in Maine with some strangers would help, but he had no other ideas. Every day, Amy seemed to move deeper inside herself. Slowly, he seemed to be losing her.

  And he knew that if he lost Amy, he’d lose his life. She was his life. She had been everything to him for his entire life, through kindergarten, elementary school, high school, college. She had always been there, always with him. When they were six, one day over milk and cookies, she’d said, “Let’s get married right after we get out of college. I want a big wedding, and I want three children: two boys, then a girl. Okay?” Stephen had nodded in agreement. They had never talked about it again but it was exactly what they’d done.

  The only flaw in the plan had been the miscarriage, and with the break in Amy’s perfect life she seemed to have lost something that she couldn’t get back.

  Now, he had to work to keep from giving in to her. He knew that if he said yes, why didn’t she forget about Maine and go camping with them, Amy would explode in happiness. She’d throw herself at him for a moment, then she’d bustle around to hurry and get everything and everyone ready. Amy the dynamo of energy, happiest when she was organizing people. Their pastor once said that he didn’t know if he could run the church without Amy.

  But Stephen knew that Amy’s happiness wouldn’t last long. By the time they got to the campground she’d be staring out the window, her mind only half on what was going on around them.

  And, of course, there was the horror of a camping trip with Amy. Cleaning fish was not her idea of fun. Campfires scared the wits out of her, and he didn’t want to think about her lectures on what could be crawling inside a sleeping bag. No, camping was for him and the boys. No bathing, no shaving, no eating anything that was remotely good for them. Last year he’d won the belching contest but he feared his youngest son might win this year. He meant to practice on the drive to the campground. He and the boys were going to buy one each of every cola they could find and see which one produced the most gas. The big contest would be on their last night out. The winner got the plastic vomit that was hidden at the bottom of his backpack.

  No, he didn’t want Amy with them on the camping trip. But if she was at home, with no reason to get out of bed, he’d never enjoy himself.

  “All packed?” he asked cheerfully. Amy gave him a pleading look, but he ignored it. “Dad should be here soon to take you to the airport.” His father said that Stephen would cave if Amy shed even one tear at the airport, so someone other than his son had to drive her there.

  “Yes,” she mumbled in such a sad voice that Stephen almost gave in to her. But he squared his shoulders, picked up her suitcase, and left the room. Amy scuffled along behind him.

  Amy said nothing on the way to the airport with her father-in-law. She knew from long experience that she wouldn’t get anywhere with Lewis Hanford. When she was four, he’d watched her and Stephen playing in the sandpile and he’d said to her, “You’re as bossy as they come, aren’t you?” Amy’d had no answer for that so she’d just blinked up at him. He was a tall man, with broad shoulders and a hard, flat stomach. She didn’t know it then but he’d played semipro football until an injured knee had sent him home. He wasn’t the easiest man to live with, nor were his three eldest sons who were just like him.

  Amy looked up at the man, utterly unafraid of his size or his gruff manner. “Stephen and I are going to get married.”

  Lewis looked at his youngest son, the incredibly beautiful, blond Stephen who had a temperament just like his mother’s. He was always in a good mood, always happy, very easy to get along with. “I think you two will do very well together,” Lewis said, then went into the house. Neither he nor Amy spoke of the matter again. To them, it had been settled that day.

  Now, in the car, she confronted him. “I’ll never forgive you for making Stephen send me away,” she said under her breath.

  “Add it to the list you already have against me.”

  “That list fills up a roll of paper that is now too heavy for me to lift.”

  She knew how to get to him and he smiled. “You’ll be fine,” he said gently. For all of their arguments over the years, he loved her as the daughter he’d never had. His three eldest sons had all married and divorced and their lives were now full of exes and steps. But Amy was a person who made up her mind and never swayed from her decisions. And she was still unafraid of him.

  “Oh, so you’ve met these women who have to go to a therapist for whatever horrible things have happened in their lives.”

  “Like losing a baby?” he asked softly.

  Amy turned to look out the side window. “I didn’t go to
anyone for that.”

  “But you should have.”

  She looked back at him. “Like you should have when Marta died?”

  “Yeah, I should have,” he said loudly. “I should have gone to talk to someone instead of drinking myself into a stupor every night for a year and trying to run my truck into a tree.”

  “All right,” she said in a tone meant to calm him down. “I was willing to go talk to someone—” His look made her backtrack. “Okay, so maybe I wasn’t willing to talk about what was a very private matter to me, but going to spend time in a house with strangers…I don’t see how that will do me any good.”

  “‘Spend time,’” he said. “You make it sound like you’re off to prison. What do they sell up in Maine?”

  “Sell? I don’t know. Lobsters. Blueberries.”

  “You better bring back some food. Stevie and the boys will be full of the junk they’re taking on the camping trip and they’ll need something good.”

  “If you’re trying to make me angry, you’re succeeding.”

  “Good. I like you angry better than weepy.” He stopped in front of the departure area of the local airport.

  “I still don’t see how my Stephen could be related to you.”

  She waited for him to reply but he just sat there. Obviously, he wasn’t going to help her with her suitcase. Again she thought how Lewis and his three eldest sons were Neanderthals. Stephen opened doors for women, carried anything that weighed more than their handbags, and sang in the church choir. Lewis and the “boys” smashed beer cans on their foreheads.

  She got out, opened the back, and hauled her heavy bag out. Before she closed the door she said, “Ever think that maybe Marta came to her senses and Stephen isn’t yours?”

  When Lewis looked at her with fury on his face, Amy gave him a sweet smile and slammed the door shut. He took off so fast she had to grab her hand back.

  She went into the airport to start the long security check.

  Two

  When Amy at last landed at the Bangor airport, a driver was waiting for her, holding a sign with her last name on it. “That’s me,” she said, smiling.

  He was an older man with gray hair and he didn’t smile back. Instead, he looked her up and down as though trying to figure her out.

  Amy’s face turned red and her body rigid. She was sure that he knew she was a guest of a therapist, a person who dealt with disturbed people. What would she say when he asked her what she’d been sent there for? If she told him that she’d never even met the therapist, would he believe her? Of course not!

  As they went past the ticket counter, Amy thought about running toward it and getting on a plane home. The thought of seeing her father-in-law’s smirk and her husband’s disappointment held her back.

  I can do this, she told herself. She was a grown woman, thirty-two years old, and she could handle this. She would be able to get through it.

  “Jeanne said I was to give you this,” the man said as she got into the backseat of his black Town Car.

  Amy took the envelope and opened it as he shut the door. It was a single sheet, with a photo of a very cute little house at the top, then a few paragraphs about its history. She scanned the text. The house was built by a ship’s carpenter in 1820 and lived in by only two families before Jeanne Hightower and her husband bought it in 1962. Using old photos, they had restored the house to look as original as possible.

  At the bottom was what Amy was interested in. In the year 2000 Jeanne had lent the house to a patient of hers to use for her fortieth-birthday celebration, and the woman had invited two friends to join her. The extraordinary success of that weekend on the lives of all three women had encouraged Jeanne to extend the invitation to other people. She added that two years ago the house had been remodeled so there were now three bedrooms instead of two.

  “More room for other insane people,” Amy muttered.

  “Yah?” the driver asked as he looked at her in the rearview mirror. It was that sound that only someone who has lived in Maine all his life could make. “You all right?”

  “Yes, fine, thank you,” Amy said. “Tell me, do you pick up all the women who visit Mrs. Hightower’s house?”

  “Mostly, I do. Some of them drive.”

  “So she lends the house out a lot, does she?”

  “No more than needs to be, I guess,” he said.

  Amy wanted to ask if the people were screaming lunatics, but didn’t know how to say that politely. She looked back down at the paper in her hand. It didn’t tell much else, just that there would be some food in the house, but the guests were encouraged to walk or drive around town and find things for themselves.

  Amy looked out the window but she was too nervous to really see anything around her. The little town looked old and she was sure that if she were there with her family, she’d think it was adorable. They passed several little shops where she thought she could buy souvenirs for the boys. She’d look for something educational.

  Or bloodthirsty, she thought. That’s what they’d really like. She wondered if they sold pirate gear in the stores. Didn’t Stephen say something about a sword? Maybe she’d get one for him. And maybe she’d go to a bookstore and buy herself half a dozen novels, stay in her room, and read them. When enough time had passed, she could go home—and rave about all she’d seen and learned.

  The man stopped the car in front of a lovely little house that dripped gingerbread. Amy itched to get her camera out and take photos to show the boys. Behind her the driver put her bag in front of the door and Amy gave him a five-dollar tip. He nodded toward her, still no smile, and said, “Keys under the mat,” then left.

  She stood there for a moment, hesitating before she entered. If the key was under the mat, that meant she was the first one there. If she was going to leave, this was the time. She could pull her bag behind her, call a taxi, and go right back to the airport. Then she’d—

  Thinking what she’d do next was the hangup. Go back to Stephen and admit she’d chickened out?

  Bending, she pulled the corner of the mat up and looked under it. No key. She lifted the whole thing and was looking all around the tiny porch when the door opened.

  “Are you the other one?” said a young woman, early twenties, who had on lots of eye makeup, black nail polish, and glossy black hair. “I thought I heard a car but when no one knocked…” She trailed off and stood there looking at Amy, who was still holding the mat in her hand.

  “I assume you’re also one of Jeanne’s Crazies,” the girl said slowly, as though she had to enunciate every word.

  It was all Amy’s fears put into one sentence. “I…I’ve never met her,” was all she could mumble.

  “Really? Come on in and I’ll tell you all about her.”

  Amy hesitated. Did the entire tiny town think of them as “Jeanne’s Crazies”?

  “Come on,” she said again as she held the door open wide. “We don’t bite. We might give you electric shock treatments, but no biting.”

  “You’re scaring her,” said another voice, and Amy looked past the first woman to see an older one, probably in her early fifties, coming from inside the house.

  “Please come in,” the woman said, moving to stand in front of the first one. “I’m Faith and this is Zoë. I’ve only been here a few hours, but I’ve already seen that she has a sense of humor that is an acquired taste.”

  “Me?” Zoë said, grinning.

  Faith took the handle of Amy’s suitcase and started wheeling it toward the back of the house. “I hope you don’t mind that we decided on rooms before you got here.”

  “We cut cards for them,” Zoë said.

  Amy looked at Faith questioningly and she nodded. “You’ll be happy to know that you won the new room, which has an en suite bathroom. Zoë and I share a bath.”

  Amy hardly had time to look about the house at the mix of antiques and used furniture. It was all lovely but looked a bit worn. She got the idea that the house had had some hard use in
the last few years. For a moment she had a vision that some kind of therapy went on in the house. Was this a sort of rehab house where they’d be awakened at four A.M. and made to go hiking?

  “This is fine,” Amy said when Faith opened the door to a pretty little room done in rose-patterned chintz. It was exactly to Amy’s taste and she hoped it would help her survive the next few days.

  Turning, she looked at Faith. “I think I can manage now.” The woman had her salt-and-pepper hair pulled into a bun low on the back of her neck, and she wore a flowered cotton dress with a little white collar. She looked sweet and lovely. Amy wondered if she was a mass murderer.

  “Sure,” Faith said slowly. “Let us know if you need anything. We thought we’d have dinner together. About six?”

  “I have a bit of a headache so I might stay in,” Amy said.

  Faith couldn’t cover the frown that passed across her face, but then she smiled. “Sure. If I don’t see you any more, have a good night.”

  “I don’t like her,” Zoë said. “I mean, I really and truly don’t like her.”

  She and Faith were at a local seafood restaurant. Before them were plates full of clams and lobster, and to one side were huge sheets of glass that allowed them to see the beautiful Maine coastline. A wooden pier ran out into the sea.

  They were an incongruous pair. Zoë, with her shiny black hair, gobbed-on makeup, and her layer of black clothes ranging from leather to lace near her throat, made people do double takes. Faith drew no attention from anyone. She was shorter, rounder, and had a bend to her back that made a person think she’d spent her life bent over—which she had.

  “I don’t think you should judge her so harshly,” Faith said. “Jeanne said that all three of us had been through a trauma and she thought we’d be good for one another.”

  “Speaking of that,” Zoë said, as she dipped a piece of lobster in warm drawn butter, “what is your trauma?”

  Faith smiled in a way that let Zoë know she wasn’t telling anything. “We agreed to wait until we were all together, then we’d talk.”