Summer Light: A Novel (14 page)

“This is where you lived with your first wife?” The words just jumped out before she knew they were coming.

“No,” he said, looking surprised. “Then I played for the Blackhawks, and we lived in Chicago.”

“But—” May began. She had a million questions about Martin’s past. But when it came to second marriages, her mother had always counseled the brides to leave the past in the past, not to ask questions they didn’t want to know the answers to, never to invite old loves into new marriages.

“Don’t, May. Let’s not talk about anyone else today. Just us.”

“You’re absolutely right.” She saw pain furrow Martin’s brow, and she thought guiltily of Natalie: his daughter must have loved it here. As much as Kylie did, or more.

He led May inside, and they made coffee on the old black stove. May looked around, noticing the great stone hearth, the natural wood walls, the stunning black-and-white photos taken by his mother. He told her how his father’s father had built the house, raising his own family here and taking Martin and his mother in after Serge had left them to play for the Maple Leafs.

Hockey memorabilia was everywhere: Martin’s first stick, his face mask, pucks signed by his idols, photographs of him skating and scoring from the age of three upward. The sofa back was lined with small pillows done in needlepoint and cross-stitch by Martin’s mother, depicting hockey sticks, a lake scene, a small rabbit, and the gazebo. May wandered through as if the house were a museum, as if everything in it had things to teach her about the man she loved.

“Kylie,” Martin called, after they were all dressed. He stood in the doorway holding a bag of bread he’d taken out of the freezer.

“What’s that for?” she asked.

“For the swans’ breakfast.”

“Mommy and I feed swans at Firefly Beach,” she said, her eyes shining.

“Well, come on. We’ll go down and feed ours. The Lac Vert swans. Let them know we’ve come home.” Lifting Kylie up, he put her on his shoulders. May’s heart swelled to see the expression in her daughter’s eyes as she took the bread he handed her.

“And when we’re done,” he said to May, drawing her close, “I’ll take a ride into town. Maybe I can find someone who’ll issue a marriage license today.”

“Aren’t there rules? Residency?” May asked. “Blood tests?”

Martin’s eyes took on that mischievous glint, and he gave her the sexy half-smile she’d first noticed on the plane. “They might bend the rules a little,” he said. “Because my grandfather used to be mayor and,
eh bien
, because once in awhile it doesn’t hurt to be Martin Cartier.”

May burst out laughing, and Martin looked embarrassed but kept grinning.

“I can’t help it,” he said. “It’s just that in Canada, we really do love hockey.”

“The swans are hungry,” Kylie reminded him, holding onto his ears.

He nodded. And the great Canadian hockey star Martin Cartier headed down the bluestone path to the gently sloping banks of Lac Vert, his shirttails hanging out and the pocket of his jeans torn slightly off, to show Kylie Taylor the proper way to stand near enough the lake to throw bits of bread past the big swans to the babies but not close enough to fall in.

Gazing after them, May found herself wishing Aunt Enid was there to watch them, too.

Martin arranged almost everything. In this part of Canada, people spoke mostly French, and since May spoke only English, the bureaucratic details of elopement were beyond her language skills. So, while Martin obtained the license and found the officiant, May and Kylie set to work baking the cake and decorating the gazebo.

Kylie, as flower girl, took her title and duties very seriously. The morning of the wedding—the Saturday after arriving in LaSalle—she walked through the side yard picking every flower she came across. Daisies, buttercups, gentians, and black-eyed Susans went into the basket she held on her arm. May stood at the kitchen window, mixing butter-cream frosting and watching her daughter, the sweet smell of yellow cake drifting on the breeze.

Later they sat on the dock braiding the flowers into crowns for each of them. They made bouquets of violets and lilies of the valley, and they hung them from the gazebo’s birch rails. Martin had disappeared in the Jeep on a mysterious errand, but May was just as glad: even though she was eloping, she knew it was bad luck for them to see each other before the wedding.

“Mommy?” Kylie asked.

“What, honey?”

“Is it really a wedding if it’s not in a church?”

“Yes.” May smiled. “Are you worried?”

Kylie shrugged as if she wasn’t at all, but then she nodded. “I want it to be real.”

“It will be real, Kylie.”

“I like him, Mommy. You do, too, right?”

“I love him.”

“I can tell. When you’re with Martin, you smile so much.”

“Didn’t I smile before?”

“Not enough,” Kylie said in a low voice. “Would you be marrying Martin if it wasn’t for me?”

“Wasn’t for you?” May asked. The lake had been hidden by early morning mist, but suddenly the sun burned through, turning the surface blue and gold. May squinted, holding her hand over her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I brought you together,” Kylie said, her voice almost too low to hear. “I wanted a father, Mommy. I wanted one so much, and when I saw Martin, I wanted
him
. I picked Martin out on that plane ride and asked him for help.”

May stopped braiding daisy stems. The memory flashed in her mind: Kylie stopping to speak to Martin, smoke filling the plane, Martin rushing to their seats.

“How did you know we’d need help?” May asked.

“She told me.”

“Kylie…”

“I can’t help it. I’m not lying. You asked me, and I’m telling you the truth. The angel girl.”

“Are you sure you saw an angel girl, Kylie?” May asked, always wishing for a simple explanation of why Kylie seemed to take her family’s magic to a different place. “Then it wasn’t a picture?”

“What picture?”

“The one Martin carries in his wallet.”

Kylie stared at May. She started to speak, but then she shrugged. “Maybe,” she said.

May dropped all the flowers on the dock and pulled Kylie into her arms. Kylie clung to her as she always had, like a little tree monkey. May had the same overwhelming sensation she felt every time she smelled her daughter’s hair, felt her arms around her neck. “You don’t have to tell me what you think I want to hear,” she said.

“I know.”

“You sometimes do that with the doctors, don’t you? You’re so smart, you figure out the answers they want before they’re finished asking the questions.”

“I don’t want any more doctors,” she said.

“I know,” May said, reading her eyes, the only place Kylie was never able to fool her.

“What will I call him after the wedding?” Kylie asked, quickly changing the subject.

“Well…”

“Will I call him Martin?” Kylie asked. “Or something else?”

“Like—” May began, but Kylie jumped out of her lap as if she had suddenly turned shy, too embarrassed to go on.

“Mommy, I found a doll in a cupboard.”

“Honey, you shouldn’t be going through other people’s things.”

“I wasn’t. I just wanted to see if anything scary was inside, but there wasn’t. Just a little doll with yellow hair. She’s old, or at least, she’s not new. There’s jelly on her dress, glitter on her face. And she’s missing one shoe. Whose is she?”

“Martin’s daughter’s,” May said quietly, watching Kylie’s reaction carefully.

She sat down next to May, hands on her knees, staring into her eyes. “She died,” Kylie said.

“Yes, she did.”

Kylie tilted her head. She looked more thoughtful than surprised, not at all upset. “We would be sisters?” she asked.

“Stepsisters,” May told her.

“Sisters,” Kylie said firmly.

“Well, almost,” May said, not wanting to get too technical.

“Like you and Tobin.”

“Her name was Natalie.”

“Natalie,” Kylie said. She picked up a handful of daisies. “Can we make a crown for her? Her dolly can wear it—”

May gazed at her. Their dealings with death had been disturbing so far. Kylie had been bereft when May’s grandmother had died. And then they had come upon Richard Perry’s body while hiking around the Lovecraft. One researcher had suggested that Kylie might have second sight, but May didn’t believe in such things. She wanted to keep Kylie as far from the subject of death as possible.

“I don’t think so,” May said.

“Why not?”

“Because,” May began, and wished she could leave it at that. “I know Martin misses Natalie very much. It might make him sad to see you playing with her doll.”

“Please, Mommy,” Kylie said. “I won’t play with her—we’ll just make the crown so she’ll know.”

“So the doll will know?”

“No, Natalie. My almost sister,” Kylie said. “I want her to know I love her. Like Aunt Enid still loves Great-Granny, like you love Tobin.”

“Well, I don’t see why not.” May started to weave together a new bunch of stems, amazed by her daughter’s sense and kindness. It’s really true, she thought as she braided: Love doesn’t stop just because a person dies. Natalie and Martin’s mother will be with us today, and so will my parents and grandmother. She had a sharp pain in her heart thinking about Aunt Enid, alive and alone in Black Hall.

Just twenty minutes later, when the third daisy crown was complete and Kylie had run into the house to put it on Natalie’s doll, Martin’s Jeep pulled into the yard and Tobin and Enid climbed out.

May left the flowers where they were and ran up the hill. Martin stood there holding their bags, grinning when he saw the smiles on May, Tobin, and Enid’s faces.

“Your aunt needed an escort, so I volunteered,” Tobin announced.

“She did,” Enid said tearfully. “She didn’t want me to travel alone.”

“I’m sorry, Aunt Enid,” May cried, embracing her aunt.

“You’re Emily’s granddaughter.” Aunt Enid wiped her eyes. “When was I ever able to talk you into anything?”

“How did you both get here?” May asked.

“Martin flew us up. Then he drove all the way to Quebec City to fetch us,” Tobin explained. “I was planning to fly straight back home, I really was.”

“I talked her into coming,” Martin said, holding May. “I know you wanted to elope, but the closer we got, the sadder I could see you getting.”

“Thank you, Martin.” May reached across her aunt’s shoulder to take his hand. But Aunt Enid eased her arm down.

“Don’t touch each other,” she said, sniffling. “It’s bad enough luck to see each other before the wedding. Don’t go making it worse by having physical contact. Of any kind. Emily would say the same thing. So would Abigail.”

“I’m so glad you’re here,” May said, kissing her. Turning to Tobin, she added, “You, too.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“The family should be together.” Martin’s voice was lower than usual, and he wasn’t smiling. In spite of her aunt’s admonition, May walked over to him.

“I have my aunt and best friend,” she said, “and I think you should invite someone. It’ll be an unconventional elopement—lots of people.”

“I wish Natalie were here!” Kylie exclaimed. “We could both be flower girls, and…”

Martin stiffened. His face changed completely, as if he’d been attacked. His eyes narrowed, and he grimaced.

“Stop,” he said. Everyone looked shocked.

“What’s wrong?” Kylie asked, frowning.

“Don’t talk about Natalie,” he said.

“Martin—” May began.

“She’s been gone a long time,” Martin said quietly. “It’s better that we don’t talk about her, okay?”

“Kylie didn’t mean anything,” May said softly. “I understand your pain, but Kylie’s so happy, excited about the wedding…”

“I’ll show Kylie pictures someday,” Martin said, getting himself under control. “I’ll tell her about…” he paused, unable to say the name. “About Natalie.”

“I just wish she was here.” Kylie’s lip was trembling.

“I know you do,” May said.