“Caroline told me you hadn’t spoken in years.” Had she called everyone in the photo?
Deborah nodded, her headscarf moving up and down. “That’s true. She called me because she was concerned about how I might react to seeing the picture without a little warning. I spotted you out on Rabble Point from my bedroom window and thought I’d be proactive. Pretty desolate out there, no? Listen, it’s freezing,” she said. “Do you want to come back to the house?”
I hesitated for a moment.
“Phil’s not home,” Deborah assured me. She went around to the passenger side and got in. I drove us the short distance down the other fork to the long gravel driveway. “Phil told me he’d asked you not to bother me,” Deborah said. “They’re all so worried about my feelings. Honestly, I’m not as much of a hothouse flower as everyone thinks.”
She opened the front door and we trooped inside. The ground had been frozen out on Rabble Point, but I still worried about my boots. “Do you want me to . . . ?” I pointed at my feet.
“No, no, no. Don’t worry, you won’t hurt anything. The house may be all dressed up for the ball, but at its heart, it’s still an indestructible summer place.”
I followed her into the kitchen.
“Hot chocolate?”
My nose was tingly from my ramble on Rabble Point. “Yes, please.”
I sat at the island while Deborah heated the milk. I’d brought my tote bag inside and itched to take the photo out. “Why is Caroline so worried you’ll react badly to the photo?” I asked.
“Do you have it?” Deborah turned from stirring the chocolate on the stove.
“Yes.” I slid the copy out of the bag. She turned off the burner, came to the island, and looked at it.
“Look at us, all so young,” she said. “Smoking like chimneys. We thought it made us look older and sophisticated. But we weren’t like the generation before us who’d endured the Depression and war. They were born grown up.”
Deborah’s manner was laid back, untroubled. As always, it was impossible to read her face, but her voice told me that, if anything, she was amused by the photo, not freaked out. What had Caroline been so worried about that she’d called a woman she hadn’t spoken to in decades?
“When this photo was taken, the world was already changing. We were isolated in our little summer colony in Maine, but by the time we got back to our college campuses in the fall, the world was in flames. We had no idea.” She fingered the photocopy thoughtfully. “Poor, lovely Dan was dead before Christmas.”
“And then you began dating Phil?”
“Not right away. It was much more complicated.”
She turned away to pour the hot chocolate into sleek white mugs. When I brought the cup to my lips, the steam tickled my recently numb nose.
“It would be hard for members of your generation to imagine how completely our coming of age was dominated by the Vietnam War. We didn’t have a professional military that went off and fought for us. The consequences of our war were all around us. Having a draft was what finally turned the public against it and brought it to an end. A real end.” She looked at my solemn face. “I do admire your generation. You’ve managed not to blame your contemporaries who are fighting in your unpopular wars. You’ve kept the blame on the old men who sent them there, where it belongs.” She took a sip of the cocoa, then sighed. “My generation tore ourselves in two. We blamed each other for everything that happened. In many ways, we’re still fighting that war today, trapped in the same old arguments.”
“Is that why they’re concerned about you seeing the photo?” I asked. “Because Caroline thinks it will make you sad to see Dan?”
“It does make me sad. Yes, for Dan and for Madeleine and Howell too. They missed out on so much.” Her sentiments echoed Caroline’s. She fell silent, lost in thought.
“Caroline said her summers on Rabble Point Road were the happiest of her life. She made it sound wonderful. Friendly grown-ups getting together for meals, a roving gang of kids,” I said.
Deborah looked up. “Did she? I suppose that’s what I remember as a little kid. But I have other memories, too, from when I was more aware. Lots of drinking and smoking. Inappropriate flirting among the adults. And more. Not all the dads could spend the whole summer. They were at work in far-off cities. Caroline’s dad was a colonel in the army, stationed in DC. The fathers came up for long weekends when they could, and for most of August. Except Henry’s dad, who was an academic, and Barry’s who was a landscape artist. That’s why Barry’s family came to Maine. And Howell’s, of course, because his dad was so rich he didn’t need to work.”
She took the photocopy in her graceful hands. “By the time this picture was taken, my parents were separated. The family came up for the summer without my father.”
“So your memories aren’t so happy?”