The Last September: A Novel

Ladd’s face settled back into its regular ease, and he raised his hand to signal for the check. I could almost see the mental gesture, a broom in his mind, pushing the Mosses aside.

WE DROVE WITH THE top down in Ladd’s convertible Saab, through the dingy streets of Hyannis, on our way to tell his family about our engagement. The seafood restaurants with lobster traps on the roofs gave way to the grassy, shore-scented highway of Route 6, and then off the highway, passing the increasingly wide lawns, houses farther and farther back from the road until each driveway became its own dusty dirt road. Ladd drove past the one that led to his uncle’s compound, and I found myself turning around in my seat, staring, feeling newly connected to the place.

“Maybe one of these days we can stay with him,” I said. “Your uncle Daniel.”

Ladd looked over at me. The skin across the bridge of his nose looked singed from the boat ride. He placed his hand, palm up, on my lap. I gathered it up in both of mine, regretting my T-shirt and cutoffs.

“Hey listen,” I said. “Can we actually turn around and sneak into one of those guest cottages? I wouldn’t mind changing before we get to your parents.”

Ladd checked his watch—the clock on his dashboard didn’t work—then turned the car around, and we drove back to Daniel’s. There were no cars at the main house other than the blue Chevy pickup that lived there permanently. Preparations for the annual Fourth of July party Daniel would be throwing that Saturday had begun—the round tables and folding chairs had been delivered and were stacked against the detached garage. We parked behind the Chevy and carried our bags down the path to the smallest guest cottage.

We passed an hour or more inside before finally attending to our original mission—showering and changing—so that by the time we walked back down the path the sun had sunk low but was still stubbornly bright in the sky. Refreshed, the two of us were combed and dressed and festive; my engagement ring sat snug in the pocket of Ladd’s Nantucket Reds so as not to give anything away before we could tell his parents. As we headed across the lawn to the car, Ladd’s uncle Daniel called to us from the deck.

The Williams family owned several houses in Saturday Cove, and although Daniel was years younger than his brother he had inherited the best one. It sat on a hill overlooking a beachside bluff. The summer before, when Ladd and I spent a week at his parents’ house, nearly every day found us at his uncle’s, which had its own long stretch of private beach. Now Ladd and Daniel shook hands, and Daniel bent to kiss me on the cheek.

“I left my phone in the car,” Ladd said after greetings had been made and drinks offered. “I just need to go inside and let my parents know where we are.”

Daniel walked inside with Ladd, then returned with a glass of white wine for me. He hadn’t poured a drink of his own. Like Ladd, Daniel was tall, over six feet, which always made me want to stand on my toes, even when I wore my highest heels. I liked Daniel. He had a careful way of being and looking, a mix of intensity and kindness, and the news of how he’d helped Eli had only increased my admiration.

“You happy to be back on the Cape?” Daniel said, in a formal, making-conversation kind of voice.

“Yes,” I told him in the same tone. And for no good reason other than a kind of panic, at being left alone with nothing to talk about, I said, “Ladd and I just got engaged. We’re telling his parents tonight.”