No more chances to say, Remember when? The road blurred before him. He blinked and gripped the steering wheel tighter.
He drove on, into the morning.
By ten o’clock he had reached Bass Harbor. By eleven he was aboard the Jenny B, his face to the wind, his hands clutching the ferry rail. In the distance, Shepherd’s Island rose in a low green hump in the mist. Jenny B’s bow heaved across the swells and Chase felt that familiar nausea roil his stomach, sour his throat. Always the seasick one, he thought. In a family of sailors, Chase was the landlubber, the son who preferred solid ground beneath his feet. The racing trophies had all gone to Richard. Catboats, sloops, you name the class, Richard had the trophy. And these were the waters where he’d honed his skills, tacking, jibbing, shouting out orders. Spinnaker up, spinnaker down. To Chase it had all seemed a bunch of frantic nonsense. And then, there’d been that miserable nausea….
Chase inhaled a deep breath of salt air, felt his stomach settle as the Jenny B pulled up to the dock. He returned to the car and waited his turn to drive up the ramp. There were eight cars before him, out-of-state license plates on every one. Half of Massachusetts seemed to come north every summer. You could almost hear the state of Maine groan under the the weight of all those damn cars.
The ferryman waved him forward. Chase put the car in gear and drove up the ramp, onto Shepherd’s Island.
It amazed him how little the place seemed to change over the years. The same old buildings faced Sea Street: the Island Bakery, the bank, FitzGerald’s Café, the five-and-dime, Lappin’s General Store. A few new names had sprung up in old places. The Vogue Beauty Shop was now Gorham’s Books, and Village Hardware had been replaced by Country Antiques and a realty office. Lord, what changes the tourists wrought.
He drove around the corner, up Limerock Street. On his left, housed in the same brick building, was the Island Herald. He wondered if any of it had changed inside. He remembered it well, the decorative tin ceiling, the battered desks, the wall hung with portraits of the publishers, every one a Tremain. He could picture it all, right down to the Remington typewriter on his father’s old desk. Of course, the Remingtons would be long gone. There’d be computers now, sleek and impersonal. That’s how Richard would run the newspaper, anyway. Out with the old, in with the new.
Bring on the next Tremain.
Chase drove on and turned onto Chestnut Hill. Half a mile up, near the highest point on the island, sat the Tremain mansion. A monstrous yellow wedding cake was what it used to remind him of, with its Victorian turrets and gingerbread trim. The house had since been repainted a distinguished gray and white. It seemed tamer now, subdued, a faded beauty. Chase almost preferred the old wedding-cake yellow.
He parked the car, grabbed his suitcase from the trunk and headed up the walkway. Even before he’d reached the porch steps the door opened and Evelyn was standing there, waiting for him.
“Chase!” she cried. “Oh, Chase, you’re here. Thank God you’re here.”
At once she fell into his arms. Automatically he held her against him, felt the shuddering of her body, the warmth of her breath against his neck. He let her cling to him as long as she needed to.
At last she pulled away and gazed up at him. Those brilliant green eyes were as startling as ever. Her hair, shoulder length and honey blond, had been swept back into a French braid. Her face was puffy, her nose red and pinched. She’d tried to cover it with makeup. Some sort of pink powder caked her nostril and a streak of mascara had left a dirty shadow on her cheek. He could scarcely believe this was his beautiful sis ter-in-law. Could it be she truly was in mourning?
“I knew you’d come,” she whispered.
“I left right after you called.”
“Thank you, Chase. I didn’t know who else to turn to….” She stood back, looked at him. “Poor thing, you must be exhausted. Come in, I’ll get you some coffee.”
They stepped into the foyer. It was like stepping back into childhood, so little had changed. The same oak floors, the same light, the same smells. He almost thought that if he turned around and looked through the doorway into the parlor, he’d see his mother sitting there at her desk, madly scribbling away. The old girl never did take to the typewriter; she’d believed, and rightly so, that if a gossip column was juicy enough, an editor would accept it in Swahili. As it turned out, not only had the editor acquired her column, he’d acquired her as well. All in all, a practical marriage.
His mother never did learn to type.
“Hello, Uncle Chase.”
Chase looked up to see a young man and woman standing at the top of the stairs. Those couldn’t be the twins! He watched in astonishment as the pair came down the steps, Phillip in the lead. The last time he’d seen his niece and nephew they’d been gawky adolescents, not quite grown into their big feet. Both of them were tall and blond and lean, but there the resemblance ended. Phillip moved with the graceful assurance of a dancer, an elegant Fred Astaire partnered with—well, certainly not Ginger Rogers. The young woman who ambled down after him bore a closer resemblance to a horse.
“I can’t believe this is Cassie and Phillip,” said Chase.
“You’ve stayed away too long,” Evelyn replied.
Phillip came forward and shook Chase’s hand. It was the greeting of a stranger, not a nephew. His hand was slender, refined, the hand of a gentleman. He had his mother’s stamp of aristocracy—straight nose, chiseled cheeks, green eyes. “Uncle Chase,” he said somberly. “It’s a terrible reason to come home, but I’m glad you’re here.”
Chase shifted his gaze to Cassie. When he’d last seen his niece she was a lively little monkey with a never-ending supply of questions. He could scarcely believe she’d grown into this sullen young woman. Could grief have wrought such changes? Her limp hair was pulled back so tightly it seemed to turn her face into a collection of jutting angles: large nose, rabbity overbite, a square forehead unsoftened by even a trace of bangs. Only her eyes held any trace of that distant ten-year-old. They were direct, sharply intelligent.
“Hello, Uncle Chase,” she said. A strikingly businesslike tone for a girl who’d just lost her father.
“Cassie,” said Evelyn. “Can’t you give your uncle a kiss? He’s come all this way to be with us.”
Cassie moved forward and planted a wooden peck on Chase’s cheek. Just as quickly she stepped back, as though embarrassed by this false ceremony of affection.
“You’ve certainly grown up,” said Chase, the most charitable assessment he could offer.
“Yes. It happens.”
“How old are you now?”
“Almost twenty.”
“So you both must be in college.”
Cassie nodded, the first trace of a smile touching her lips. “I’m at the University of Southern Maine. Studying journalism. I figured, one of these days the Herald’s going to need a—”
“Phillip’s at Harvard,” Evelyn cut in. “Just like his father.”
Cassie’s smile died before it was fully born. She shot a look of irritation at her mother, then turned and headed up the stairs.
