Summerland: A Novel (39 page)

Al was the one who helped Zoe get to Boston, though at first she refused his help. But Al held firm: “I’m taking you, goddammit, Zoe. You can’t do this alone.” He got her to Mass General; he stood by her side while the doctors delivered the ghastly news. Hobby was still unresponsive. In a coma. There was nothing they could do but wait.

Meanwhile, Lynne and Jordan had sat side by side in the waiting room of Nantucket Cottage Hospital until Ed Kapenash finished interrogating their children. Had the two of them talked? Lynne couldn’t remember. She did remember Demeter’s coming out to the waiting room, pale, shaking, and smelling like vomit.
Lynne touched her all over in a way that she hadn’t touched her in years, checking to make sure she was in one piece.

“Let’s go, Mom, please,” Demeter whispered.

“Yes,” Lynne said. She remembered that Jordan was still sitting, waiting for Jake to emerge. She remembered that his blue eyes tracked her and Demeter, and his mouth opened to say something. But did he speak? And did Lynne say good-bye?

She couldn’t remember. But she must have. She would never have left without saying good-bye.

Another mother might have addressed the issue of the Jim Beam right away. Another mother might have acknowledged—even if only to herself—that the vomit fumes coming off her daughter in the passenger seat did, in fact, reek of whiskey. Another mother might have asked her daughter the simple question, “What happened?” So that at least she would have a baseline to work from.

But Lynne Castle addressed, acknowledged, and asked nothing. Things might have been different if Al had still been with them, but Al had gone with Zoe, so Lynne was left to deal with Demeter by herself, and she was at a loss. Demeter had carried a pillow, sheathed in an aqua pillowcase, out of the hospital. Every so often she would lean over, bury her face in the pillow, and emit a soundless scream. And Lynne thought, She’s in shock. That was what Dr. Field had said. He’d pressed a prescription for a sedative into Lynne’s hand, but it was too late, or too early, to get that filled at the pharmacy now.

At home Lynne said, “Daddy’s gone to Boston. Do you want to sleep in my bed with me?”

Demeter said, “God, no.”

Lynne tried not to take offense at this, but she was tired, and for some reason these words, or perhaps the disgust with which Demeter uttered them, hurt her feelings. She reminded herself that Demeter had never been a snuggler, and that the two of them
didn’t have a touchy-feely relationship. Zoe and Penny have that kind of relationship, Lynne thought—or at least they
did
(God, the first use of the past tense, it was hideous!). She knew that Penny used to climb into bed with Zoe when she was scared or there was a lightning storm, and they always cuddled together on the couch during Patriots games on football Sundays, and they lay next to each other on towels at the beach. Demeter and Lynne just weren’t like that, fair enough, but was it too much to ask for a little physical closeness between them
tonight,
on the very night when Penny Alistair had been killed and Demeter might have been killed herself?

Lynne and Demeter stood at the open door of Demeter’s bedroom. The light was on, the window wide open. Was Lynne going to confront her daughter about her locked door, her exodus, her blatant deceit?

No, not tonight. Outside, the birds were starting to chirp. June on Nantucket: the sun rose at 4:30 a.m.

“Are you going to be okay?” Lynne asked.

Demeter eyed her mother.

Right, Lynne thought: stupid, vague question, too big a question to answer. She narrowed it down a little. “Do you want a sleeping pill?” she asked. “I can give you one of mine.”

“Okay,” Demeter said.

It was something concrete Lynne could do. Something she had to offer. One of her Lunestas. She had asked Ted Field for them back in April, when Al was running for selectman for the fourth time. The stress of local politics, of negative campaigning aimed at Al, of insinuations that he had Ed Kapenash, among other people, in his back pocket—all of this had kept Lynne up at night. Ha! She had worried then, when nothing was wrong. Al had won in a landslide.

Lynne placed the tiny pill in Demeter’s palm, and Demeter dry-mouthed it down. Lynne grimaced. Probably not a bad idea to
suggest that she take a shower and brush her teeth: she stank to high heaven. But as Lynne was searching for the words to gently convey this thought to her daughter, Demeter stepped into her bedroom and slammed the door shut, leaving her mother alone in the hallway.

“Good night, darling,” Lynne said.

Now it was August, and the worst was behind them. Hobby had woken up from his coma, Penny had been properly buried, the Randolph family had moved halfway around the world. Demeter had defied all odds and honored her commitment to work at Frog and Toad Landscaping. She got up and went to work five mornings a week. She was never late. She was the color of toast and she had, most definitely, lost some weight.

But something still wasn’t right. Demeter was less forthcoming than ever. She rarely spoke unless spoken to, and half the time, when Al or Lynne asked her a question, she gave a nonsensical answer and broke into giggles. And yet Lynne was afraid to dissect this behavior because Demeter did, in fact, seem happier than she had seemed in a long, long time. She was working and bringing home a weekly paycheck, she looked good. She had made some friends, she said, on her crew. A girl named Nell. A boy named Coop. A man named Zeus.

“Zeus?” Lynne said. “That’s an interesting name.”

“ ‘Gods and goddesses in the front,’ ” Demeter said, and then she giggled.

Lynne wondered if Demeter had started a relationship with one of the men on her crew. Maybe this Coop, or this Zeus. Zeus was more likely, Lynne thought. An older Hispanic man with a wife all the way down in Central America—to him, Demeter would seem young and ripe and lush.
Too
young, though. Lynne couldn’t stand to think about it.

It crossed Lynne’s mind that Demeter might be doing drugs
either before or after work. Because, to be honest, her whole demeanor was altered. She was a different kid. All of her angry, bitter, resentful, woe-is-me attitude seemed to have disappeared, and in its place was this vacant insipidness. Demeter used to be an avid reader. Her marks in school weren’t great, they were just-getting-by, but she always read very good books, both classic and contemporary. But had she read a single book this whole summer? Lynne didn’t think so. Lynne wasn’t naive, she knew that landscapers were famous for smoking marijuana, and she also knew that Demeter might not have the resolve to say no. She was a perfect target for peer pressure, wanting so badly to be accepted and to fit in. Lynne had gone so far as to sniff her daughter’s clothes before she stuffed them into the washing machine. They smelled like sour sweat but not smoke. Later she extended her olfactory investigation to the inside of Demeter’s Escape, where her nose was overpowered by the smell of breath mints and piney air-freshener and something else that was sickly sweet but unidentifiable—until she pulled a black, rotten banana out from under the passenger seat.

Lynne didn’t find any signs of marijuana. But there was something—
something
—going on.

Demeter had been through one hell of an ordeal this summer. She had lost Penny, who was as much of a friend as she had had, and she had lost Jake too. Hobby was still alive, thank God. Lynne kept tabs on him through the grapevine; it seemed she was always talking to someone who had just seen him in town or out for a quiet dinner at 56 Union with his mother. Lynne learned that he was out of the wheelchair and onto crutches and making excellent progress, but that Coach Jaxon had finally come to terms with the fact that he would never play football again. It was just too dangerous. Hobby was apparently spending lots of time with Claire Buckley, which was good, Lynne thought. Claire was a nice girl.

Lynne wished she had gotten all this news about Hobby from
Zoe herself, but Zoe was incommunicado. Lynne had arranged dropoff meals at the Alistair house for six weeks after Penny’s funeral but Zoe had never called or written to say thank you. Not that a thank-you was necessary; Lynne certainly hadn’t scheduled the meals because she wanted gratitude. She had done it because it was one stupid, paltry thing that she and the other women in the community could do—offer food so that something healthy and delicious would be on hand whenever Zoe got her appetite back. Lynne had also left several messages on Zoe’s voicemail, she had lost count of how many, four or five, but these had gone unreturned. She had tried to tread lightly, saying, “Hey, Zoe, it’s me, just checking in, no need to call me back, just wanted to see how you’re doing, thinking of you.” So Zoe had managed to make it out to 56 Union for dinner with Hobby, but she hadn’t been able to call Lynne back? Lynne was—or had been—her best friend. Lynne had to assume that status had been altered in Zoe’s mind. Perhaps Zoe couldn’t bring herself to talk to her for the same reason that she’d slapped Jordan in the hospital waiting room: a firewall of anger. She had lost a child, and they hadn’t.

She had lost a child. Lynne couldn’t pretend to know what that felt like.

They had all been through one hell of an ordeal this summer.

So whatever was going on with Demeter, Lynne told herself, would pass. There was no describing how badly she wanted to ignore it. If Demeter could just make it through the summer… things might change once she was back in school… her senior year… things were always great in senior year, so for Demeter they should at least be tolerable. She would be accepted to college somewhere, probably not a top-tier school like her brothers, but maybe Michigan State, where Al had gone. He donated money to MSU, he should be able to pull those strings if needed, and then Demeter would be away at school, and Al and Lynne would
be empty-nesters. There was a way in which the two of them had been born to be empty-nesters. They both had more than enough interests and involvements to keep them busy for the next three centuries. (Although their interest in each other, at this stage of the game, was limited: they had sex only two or three times a year, on prescribed dates—their anniversary, Al’s birthday, and Valentine’s Day—and frankly, even that much was more than enough for Lynne.) Maybe, Lynne thought, her eager anticipation of an empty nest meant that they should never have had children at all.

Demeter’s strange behavior continued. On the night she returned from babysitting for the Kingsleys, Lynne happened to be awake, standing next to the open freezer door, shoveling Chunky Monkey into her mouth. She had been indulging in this kind of late-night stress eating more and more lately, but when Demeter walked in, she hastened to fit the top back onto the carton and shove the ice cream back into the freezer, because what kind of example was she setting?

“Hey, honey,” Lynne said. She positioned her body to block’s Demeter’s view of the sticky spoon on the countertop.

Demeter didn’t respond to her greeting, didn’t acknowledge her mother’s presence at all. She clutched her backpack to her chest and proceeded up the stairs.

“Demeter!” Lynne snapped. Her voice was louder than it ought to have been in the middle of the night—Al was sleeping—but Jesus Christ, she was
sick
of being ignored.

“What?” Demeter said.

“How was babysitting? How were the Kingsleys?”

Demeter let out a shrill, high-pitched laugh that was unlike anything Lynne had ever heard come out of her daughter’s mouth. It made Lynne worry that maybe Demeter’s problem was that she was possessed by the spawn of Lucifer. “Babysitting?” Demeter
said. “At the Kingsleys’? It was awful. It was goddamned fucking awful, if you must know, Mother.” Then Demeter laughed again, and it gave Lynne the shivers.

Two days later Lynne stood in front of Demeter’s bedroom door with the metal pin. Demeter was still at work, and Lynne had been trying to work in her home office as well, but Demeter’s words kept playing through her mind: “It was goddamned fucking awful, if you must know, Mother.” And that demonic laugh. Something was going on, and Lynne intended to find out what it was.

She popped the lock on Demeter’s door as she’d seen Al do the night of the accident. She entered her daughter’s bedroom. She was one of those mothers now, she thought. One of those mothers who nosed around her child’s personal space, one of those mothers who couldn’t be trusted. She had never had to do this with the boys. The boys had been easy to raise; the boys had been a breeze.

Demeter’s room smelled funny. It had been a hot couple of weeks, and Lynne had kept the central air on, so Demeter’s window was shut tight. Sunlight streamed in, and dust motes hung in the air. The bed was unmade. Demeter used only a fitted sheet and a duvet, anyway. Lynne sniffed the duvet. Abominable—body odor, along with whatever cheap teenage scent her daughter used to mask body odor. Lynne rarely cleaned in this room anymore; she had basically been denied access for the past three years, though she did make a point of asking for Demeter’s sheets and towels occasionally. But she hadn’t asked once this summer, and now the whole room smelled of dirty linen. Lynne started stripping the bed right then and there. Something was under the pillow and fell to the floor, and Lynne scrambled to pick it up. It was a paperback copy of
The Beautiful and Damned,
by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Lynne sat on the bare mattress and flipped through the book. Demeter was reading Fitzgerald. Was Lynne worrying herself sick over nothing?

Lynne set the book down on Demeter’s bedside table, next to her water glass, which had a wedge of lime floating in it. Lime in her water glass? That was Zoe’s influence right there. Zoe kept a pitcher of chilled water in her fridge, and it always had lemon or lime slices and sometimes fresh mint and sometimes cucumber slices floating in it, and it always tasted fresh and delicious.

God, Lynne missed Zoe. She wondered what would happen if she just turned up at Zoe’s house unannounced. That was what a real friend would do—go over there and check on her. Lynne would bring her something, maybe a hanging begonia from Bartlett’s Farm or a topiary from Flowers on Chestnut.