“Sweetheart, they want you to stay the night. You lost a lot of blood. And your fever…”
Fever? They hadn’t mentioned a fever. They must be worried about an infection.
“Oh. Okay,” Bess says, slumping again.
She hadn’t envisioned a night in the hospital. On the other hand, she doesn’t have a home to return to. That a hospital is her best option is almost soul-crushing.
“Where are you going to stay?” Bess asks. “Not Cliff House. Promise me, Mom. I won’t be able to sleep a wink. And you can’t do that to me in my precarious state.”
“Fine,” Cissy says, and sets her mouth into a hard line. “No Cliff House. I thought mothers were in charge of guilt trips?”
“Where are you staying?” Bess asks. “I need specifics, otherwise I’ll completely stress out.”
“You don’t trust me?” Cissy asks.
“Not one hundred percent, no.”
Cissy’s eyes skip toward the window, to where Chappy’s truck waits below.
“Cis?”
“Oh, Bess. Don’t worry about your old mom. I’ll just stay across the road.”
59
The Book of Summer
Mary Young
June 20, 1945
Cliff House
This will be my final time at Cliff House.
When talking bittersweet, it is admittedly stronger on the bitter end. The home is beautiful and peaceful, perched atop the cliff as it is. You can almost forget what’s happened to the people coming into and out of it.
Looking back through this book, I’m almost surprised to see that I was once Mrs. Philip E. Young, Jr., and that’s all there really was to me. Now I’m a second lieutenant in the army and have spent the last year moving about Europe. We deployed to France last July, my unit arriving to Normandy on the first of August, weeks after my husband lost his life. When we arrived they’d all been cleared out. The dead were buried, the severely injured evacuated to England. And so they relocated us to the Siegfried Line, where our services were needed in devastating amounts. We’ve also been in Belgium, Luxembourg, and a few other places besides.
Now I’m in Sconset, a world away in a manner I couldn’t have fathomed twelve months ago. My stay is temporary. I’m on furlough, here to visit the last of my former family. It’s strange to think that there is nothing binding me to them. Alas, this home and the people who’ve lived in it will forever hold a special place in my past.
Soon I’ll say good-bye to the last remaining Young, the vivacious Ruby Genevieve. That is, Ruby and a baby girl named Caroline, recently come into this world. Ruby calls her “Cissy,” which is usually short for “sister.” A curious thing for an only child, a sole girl, without a brother for miles.
I’ve come to meet Cissy, and to embrace Ruby one more time. There’s nothing left for me here but sorrow and the burn of sad regret. It’s best to bid the place and its memories farewell. I’ve asked the former Miss Mayhew to pop in on the girls every once in a while, to see that they’re getting along. Though she’s not a Miss anymore. You’re either getting or losing a husband because of this war, all of it happening in such haste.
Well, Cliff House, you’ve been a treat, and you’ve housed a great many people and lives. Now it’s up to you and Ruby to stand strong against the wind. Take care of each other, won’t you?
Forever and always, Second Lieutenant Mary Young
60
RUBY
June 1945
“Holy crumb,” Mary said as Mrs. Grimsbury set the tea service before them. “She’s an active one, isn’t she?”
They were on the veranda. The sun was high; the clouds were sparse. The Atlantic glimmered like a blanket of blue diamonds. Meanwhile, atop the flagstone, Cissy pattered about on hands and knees, pulling up on an end table here, a piece of outdoor art there.
She was only six months old.
“Yes she’s quite active,” Ruby said, flushed with pride. “Gives me a run for my money all the livelong day. She’s wanted to get up and go since she popped out. She has this spirit, you know? A little ball of soul. It’s like she knew exactly what I needed.”
As if she understood, or perhaps because she did, Cissy peered up at her mother and gave a wide, one-tooth grin as the ocean breeze kicked around her wispy white hair.
“I’m not surprised,” Mary said. “Not in the slightest. You are blessed.”
“She’s a miracle,” Ruby said. “Through and through.”
Every mom believed her babe a miracle, and why not. But for Ruby it had the added punch of being true. There were the doctor’s initial warnings:
“You’re not equipped to carry to term.”
And the later warnings, too:
“It’s only a matter of time. Five months, six at the outside.”
Then the blood last fall, at five and a half months in, the difference having split. Ruby was alone, no one to help, not a single person on whom to call. Never mind the absence of Sam, a hurricane bore down on New England, cutting off Nantucket and therefore Cliff House from the rest of the world. Ruby could only lock the doors, close the windows, and pray. By God, it worked.
The bleeding stopped and Ruby carried to term. Cissy was early, tiny and mighty, which would sum up not only her birth but all the days to follow.
“Are you getting by all right?” Mary asked, and took a sip of tea.
For a moment Mary closed her eyes and smiled, reveling in the respite from her life, and in tea that didn’t taste like lawn clippings. This sort of escape was the very purpose of Cliff House.
“Oh sure, we’re swell,” Ruby said with some sway. “Mrs. G. is a big help, a saint really. And Daddy left me plenty of money. Though I maintain Grimsbury herself has been the biggest gift of all.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it,” Mary said with a sigh. “To your father’s service.”
“Golly, he wouldn’t have minded a lick,” Ruby said. “The European theater needed you more. Daddy was nothing if not practical.”
“That’s true, but nonetheless…”
“I can hear him right now!” Ruby squeezed her waist with both hands and put on a grumpy face. “What is Mary doing at my funeral? An army nurse tending to a dead body when there are plenty of live ones who need her care?”
Mary chuckled softly.
“That does sound like something he’d say.”
They did not mention the other funeral she’d missed, that of P.J., her husband. Mary had only just arrived in France when his body was sent home. To secure a furlough on such short order would’ve been a helluva feat. But Ruby got the sense, had had the sense for a while now, that Mary left her marriage in spirit long before P.J. left in fact.
“I have to say, you do look lovely,” Mary said. “Cliff House does, too.”
“Thank God it survived the storm.” She glanced at Cissy. “Thank God we all did. But the property’s a tad ragged now. The damage isn’t obvious but I find a new crack or divot every day. I swear the yard is smaller somehow.”
Mary squinched toward the cliff.
“Hooey,” she said. “The estate is grand as ever. And so are you. I see you’re faring splendidly, just as you told me.”