“I don’t mind waiting,” said Christine Cabot. “Jonathan’s out on the boat all day. I have nowhere to be. Apparently it’s a gorgeous day for a sail, although honestly I’ve never learned to read the wind.”
Rob set his teeth together. It was a perfect day for a sail: southwest breeze of fifteen knots, seas of a foot and a half, temperature resting comfortably right around seventy-eight. He thought of A Family Affair and his heart ached.
When the girls got cranky he told Mrs. Cabot he’d be back and he took them for lunch at a restaurant on the other side of the lake. He invited Mrs. Cabot to accompany them, but she pulled an exquisitely wrapped sandwich from her elegant handbag and declared that she was going to take it down to the dock to get a taste of al fresco dining in her new home.
At the restaurant they sat on the deck, at a table inadequately shielded from the sun by a striped umbrella, and Rob thought about the bottle of sunscreen he’d forgotten to pack, which led him to think about all the sunscreen he’d forgotten to apply to the girls since Eliza had been gone. He stared out at the glass-smooth lake and thought about the vast number of sunburns for which he was personally responsible.
He watched Zoe and Evie work their way through their lunches. Zoe was eating a Caesar salad with blackened haddock, which he knew would make Eliza happy, and Evie had ordered a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which he knew wouldn’t. Rob had the lobster stew. He studied the cocktail menu. There was something called the Sebago Perfecto: Patrón Silver tequila, Grand Marnier orange liqueur, sweet-and-sour mix, and lime. It looked like something Deirdre Palmer and the other ladies at the club would drink, which made him think about Eliza, which made him think about Charlie, which made his heart seize with sorrow. When the waitress came to check on them, he ordered a beer.
“That lady is nice,” said Zoe.
“The waitress?”
“No, the lady at the house.”
“Mrs. Cabot.”
“Right. She gave us candy.”
“She did? When?”
“When you were talking to the guy.”
“Oh,” said Rob.
“Peppermint Patties,” confirmed Evie. “My favorite.”
Then he said, “Did she seem happy?”
Evie squinted at him and pulled off a small section of her sandwich, squeezing it until the jelly squirted out. Rob thought about stopping her but didn’t, and he and Zoe both watched, a little entranced, as Evie repeated the performance until the entire sandwich had been torn into pieces. Then Evie said, “She seemed regular. Is regular happy?”
“It is for a grown-up,” said Zoe philosophically.
They were all silent for a moment, soaking in the sun or the atmosphere or their own grim thoughts. After a time, Zoe said, “When is Mommy coming home?”
“Soon.” He noted that she said Mommy, not Mom, when normally she said Mom all the time now. Eliza had told him once that she’d be devastated when Zoe stopped saying Mommy; Eliza herself had lost her mom before she’d gotten to that point.
“Soon?” said Evie.
He remembered that when his children were small they had no real concept of time—you could say that something was happening tomorrow and they’d forget all about it by the time tomorrow came, or they could dredge up a three-week-old promise and want it fulfilled as though it had just been made.
“How soon?” asked Zoe.
“Very soon,” said Rob. “She’ll be home for your play, Evie.”
“For good?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe.”
Evie sighed and said, “Brain cancer is bad, right?”
Rob cleared his throat and opted for honesty. He said, “It’s not good.”
“Is he going to die?”
Rob considered his younger daughter, her little snub nose, her wide brown eyes, her smooth skin. He’d always believed the truth was better than the not-truth. He said, “Yes.” And then he amended it: “We’re all going to die someday.”
“But is he going to die soon?”
Rob looked out over the lake: the Songo River Queen II was making her slow and mighty voyage. Off to the right he could see a giant water trampoline with bodies bouncing off it. Traffic moved by on the Causeway, and a red pontoon passed out of sight. “He might. We really don’t know.”
Evie took a drink of her Shirley Temple and said, “Is Mommy really sad?”
“She is.” Rob nodded. “Yes, she is.”
“Of course she is, dummy,” said Zoe. “Aren’t you going to be sad when Daddy dies?”
Evie squinted at him and put a French fry in her mouth. She chewed it thoughtfully and said, “Definitely. I’m going to be heartbroken when Daddy dies.”
“Okay,” said Rob uneasily. “Maybe we change the subject to something happier?”
“I don’t see why,” said Evie. She shielded her eyes and regarded the lake. “If what’s happening is sad.”
She was wise beyond her years, that one. Wise beyond her years.
“Are you sad?” Evie asked. “About Grandpa?”
“Of course I am,” Rob said. He thought about the first time he’d gone up to Little Harbor with Eliza, and how Charlie had taken them both out on the Joanie B. He’d felt like a pansy, the way he’d first reacted to the smell of the bait, but if Charlie thought the same thing he didn’t let on.
“I remember when he came to my class for show-and-tell,” said Zoe.
“He did that for me too,” said Evie. “Lots of times. With the two lobster traps, wooden and metal.”
Then the waitress brought Rob’s beer, and Rob’s phone began to ring.
“Mrs. Cabot,” he said to the girls, glancing at the screen. “Hurry and finish up your lunch.” He drank half his beer in one gulp.
“I see her!” said Zoe delightedly. “Mrs. Cabot! We can see Cabot Lodge from here, right, Daddy? At least the dock.”
Rob hadn’t noticed this. Because of the way his chair was angled he’d been fixing his gaze on the western side of the lake, but Zoe’s seat faced the eastern side. He pivoted in his chair and, yes, there it was. The dock extending into the lake like a finger. A figure at the end. He squinted. Was the figure holding a phone?
“That’s funny,” said Zoe, “that she’s calling you. When we can see her. She must really want to talk.”
———
“Rob. We got a problem.”
Rob had barely stopped the car when Ruggman approached.
Rob reached first for levity. “Don’t hold back, Ruggman,” he said. “Don’t waste time with all the niceties, all the small talk.” He laughed; Ruggman didn’t.
“No, Rob, I’m serious. We got a real problem.” Ruggman cleared his throat. Ruggman was always clearing his throat, and his throat never sounded clear.
“Just since I left for lunch?”
“Just since you left for lunch.”
Rob took a deep breath and felt a chunk of lobster threaten to rise up in revolt. “Tell me.”
“Landscaper was here, getting the final sizes for the patio and the walkways. He says that where you want to put the patio we gotta get state approval.”
“We what?”
“He said that because of the slope of the land, they’re gonna have to fill in, adjust the grade, and anytime you do that around here you need state approval.”