Summer People by Brian Groh

into Ellen’s bedroom to answer.
    â€œHello, is this Nathan?” a man asked.
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œThis is Glen Broderick.”
    Nathan imagined the pensive, blond boy, idly stroking the water, then he remembered a more recent photo of Glen he’d seen on top of Ellen’s piano in Cleveland. In the photo he was a hearty, middle-aged man with a dark, mountain-man beard, standing with his arm around his mother’s shoulder in a field of waist-high wildflowers.
    â€œI wish we could have talked sooner,” Glen said, speaking in a hushed, gently masculine manner, as if reading Nathan a bedtime story. “But things got kind of hectic here toward the end of June. We thought Ralph was going to take my mother, and then when he couldn’t make it, we hoped one of my cousin’s sons was going to go with her. And when that fell through, and your father mentioned you, by that time it was just a few days before Allison—my wife—and I were getting ready to take this trip to Alaska.”
    Nathan said, “Oh, well, I’m glad things worked out the way they did.”
    â€œYou and Mother have been having a good time?”
    â€œI think so.”
    â€œWhat have you been doing since you arrived?”
    â€œWell, we’ve been down to the Alnombak club to watch tennis, and we’ve taken some drives, sat out on the porch. We’re supposed to go to a cocktail party this evening.”
    â€œOh, that’s great. Whose party?”
    â€œBill McAlister’s,” Nathan said.
    There was a low grunt of acknowledgment. “Mother asked you to take her to this party?”
    â€œWell, I showed her the invitation and she expressed an interest in going.” Nathan waited, but there was a deafening silence on the other end of the line. “Is that a bad idea?”
    â€œIt’s not a…” Glen took a deep breath. “Yes, I think it probably is a bad idea.”
    â€œOh.”
    â€œDo you think you could find something else for you and my mother to do this evening?”
    â€œWell…I don’t know,” Nathan said, with an awful, nervous laugh. “I mean, I think she kind of thinks she’s going to this party.”
    â€œWell, just see what you can do, Nathan. My mother has had a pretty rough go of it these last couple of years, and I’d like to see this summer…I’d like this summer to be relaxing for her.”
    â€œOkay,” Nathan said slowly, glancing down at the sport coat he’d begun to think made him look gallant. Not attending the party would mean he would have to take it off, tell Ellen she’d changed dresses for nothing, and probably settle down with her for several more hours in front of the television. “So this guy Bill is not a good person?” Nathan asked. “Somebody told me he was the one who rescued Ellen when she had her accident with the car last year.”
    â€œHe was, but he was also…He and my mother got to know each other pretty well after my father died, but my impression is that Bill is just kind of a roguish character. I think he and his wife are estranged, but they’re still married, for one thing, and I just think it would probably be a lot more peaceful and enjoyable for Mother—and for you too, I would guess—if we could limit the number of upsetting things she has to contend with this summer.”
    Nathan sighed, “Okay.” He wanted to ask Glen more about the car accident and the relationship between his mother and Bill, but it was clear Glen did not want to give him more details, and Nathan did not want to pry. He had a vague understanding of the conversational etiquette of the affluent—based mostly on Victorian costume dramas he’d seen on television—and he knew that in genteel society, you were supposed to let the unspoken remain unspoken.
    â€œGreat,” Glen said, evidently relieved not to have to talk about the subject any