The Summer Cottage by Susan Kietzman Page A

other night than in the back seat of Rick’s car. She looked at her watch. Maybe they could go to the late show.

C HAPTER 9
    2003
     
    “D id Charles ever treat you like that?” Pammy and Helen were back at the house, sitting on the porch with their bare feet up on the wicker coffee table in front of them. They had talked about Thomas and Charlotte, briefly, and now were back to Pammy and her quest for the right man. Claire, at the other end of the porch, in the preferred sitting area, was still sleeping. The sisters talked in quiet voices.
    “I was lucky with Charles.” Helen took a sip of water from one of the glasses she had filled in the kitchen and brought to the porch for Pammy and herself.
    “Why can’t I be lucky? Why am I a forty-three-year-old woman wondering who my next boyfriend will be? I always thought boyfriends would be irrelevant after my twenty-fifth birthday.”
    “City life is different.”
    “Helen, there are lots of married people in Manhattan.”
    “I know. But they must have met elsewhere. I don’t think anyone meets and falls in love there.”
    “Bill and Donna met in the city.”
    “Exception to the rule. Think of another example.” Pammy hesitated. “See?” said Helen. “What you need is country life. Then you can meet and marry the local doctor or dentist.”
    “Don’t kid me.”
    “I’m not. Move out of that ignominious city. Leave the entrapments behind and start again.”
    “You can’t start anything at forty-three,” said Pammy, wondering if she could.
    “I’m going to,” Helen said, patting her sister’s hand. “I just can’t decide between chess and ice hockey.”
    Pammy laughed. “Let’s go into the kitchen,” she said, getting up from the couch. “I brought some fabulous stuff from the bad city for dinner.”
    “Normal or gourmet,” said Helen.
    “Very normal, very good.”
    “I’ll be there in a moment,” said Helen, glancing at her watch. “I’m going to wake Mom. She’s been asleep for almost two hours.” When Pammy left the porch, Helen stood and walked the several steps to her mother’s chair. She watched her for a minute, looking as she sometimes did for clues to her longevity. There were none any different from those of the weeks and months before, from when Claire had decided to stop the chemotherapy treatments so that, as she said, nature could take its course. Her hair was beginning to fill in, curlier than before, and the color had come back to her face. She looked healthier now than she had in the midst of her treatments. But Helen knew better. The cancer had spread, as the doctor had prognosticated, leaving Claire with a life expectancy of weeks, maybe months, instead of years.
    It was shortly after this discussion with the doctor that Claire decided a summer family reunion was in order. Well aware of Helen’s attempts at getting her siblings together, of the declined holiday invitations to Thanksgiving and Christmas in Stonefield, Claire decided to take control of the situation. What, she wondered, would make them want to reunite? Since family unity didn’t seem to be enough, Claire wondered if she could do something that would force them to gather, other than die. Once she had asked herself that question, it wasn’t long before she came up with an answer. If they want to be included in my will, Claire told Helen over tea on Mother’s Day, if they want a share of this cottage, they will come to the shore for a long weekend over July Fourth. Upon hearing this, Helen didn’t talk to her mother for a day and a half. When she did talk, she said, “It’s a mean, idle threat.”
    Claire’s eyebrows moved up an inch. “I can assure you it’s not a threat, Helen.”
    “Well, it sure is mean.”
    “I’ll grant you that,” said Claire. “But a little bit of meanness, with good intentions behind it, builds character. Life is not all rose gardens and pleasant moments. It can be difficult and disappointing and frustrating and,