Chess felt her heart go up in flames, like a ball of gasoline-soaked trash. Her father coughed into his hand.
And then it was Nick’s turn. Chess found it difficult to look at Nick at all, though she could feel his eyes on her. Nick recounted the happiest moments of his late brother’s life: beating Englewood High School in the lacrosse championships junior year, buying his own business, and proposing to Chess at the Knitting Factory in front of a mob of strangers.
Nick had cleared his throat and addressed her directly. “He wanted the whole world to know how much he loved you, Chess.”
She met Nick’s gaze for one atrocious second, feeling confused and betrayed. Had Nick really just said that? Birdie reached for Chess’s hand, and the program for the service that had been resting on Chess’s lap fell to the floor. Her father coughed again. Chess bent down to retrieve the program; blood pounded in her ears. She wanted to run from the church, to weave through the old tombstones of the graveyard until she could find a place to hide.
Nick.
She had remained seated, thanks to the effects of the sedatives and out of a sense of decorum. She didn’t want to embarrass her parents. But when the final hymn played, she beat a hasty retreat out the side door of the church, leaving her parents to make her excuses. She waited for them in the backseat of her father’s Jaguar, whimpering like a child. They submitted when she said she couldn’t possibly attend the reception at the country club, and then, on the way back to Connecticut, her father asked her if she wanted to stop for ice cream. Ice cream? Chess was stunned. Did he think her problems could be fixed with ice cream? But it was early June, the day was hot, and ice cream, she thought, would taste good. So they stopped at a Dairy Queen and sat at a picnic table in the shade. Chess and her two divorced parents in their funeral blacks ate soft-serve cones dipped in chocolate. They didn’t speak-what could they possibly say to one another?-but Chess was grateful for their company. She didn’t know how to feel about anything else, but she knew she loved her parents, and they, of course, loved her.
Chess pulled back the flap of her suitcase to reveal her entire summer wardrobe, neatly folded.
Tate said, “Jesus, you brought a lot of stuff.”
Chess said, “Fuck you.”
Tate looked at her wrist, where she wore a chunky black plastic running watch with so many knobs and dials she could probably use it to land the space shuttle. “That didn’t take long.”
“Sorry,” Chess said.
“You don’t sound sorry. You sound angry.”
“Angry, yes,” Chess said. “My anger is general and not specific to you.”
“But you’re taking it out on me because you can,” Tate said. “Because I’m the one in the room with you. Because I’m your sister and I love you unconditionally and you can say whatever you want to me and I will accept it and forgive you.” Tate stood up and peeled off her wet bathing suit top. “That’s fine. That’s what I’m here for. To be a place where you vent your general anger.” Tate shucked off her bikini bottoms. How long since they had been naked in front of each other? Tate’s body was sleek and muscular. She reminded Chess of a gazelle or an impala. All that contained energy and power. “I’m here for you. If you want to fight, we can fight. If you want to talk about it, we can talk about it. But you cannot alienate me. I love you with hair and without hair. You are my-”
“Only sister,” Chess said.
Tate put on shorts and a T-shirt. “I’m going for a walk,” she said. “Would you like to come?”
“No,” Chess said.
She left, and Chess was glad. Along with anger, she was hosting a hundred other emotions like unwanted party guests-among them sadness, despair, self-pity, guilt, and jealousy. The jealousy had arrived at the moment it became clear that Tate was happy. Tate had every reason to be happy. Tate ran her own extremely successful business; she was, in all ways, her own boss. And she was beautiful now. But Tate’s happiness came from somewhere else; it came from the elusive place that happiness comes from. She could afford to be kind because she wasn’t the one who was hurting.
Chess had never once, in her thirty-two years, been jealous of Tate. It had always been the other way around; that was the direction the river flowed. Chess did everything first; she did everything better. She was pretty and smart and accomplished in a way that caused Tate to give up without even trying. Chess was engaged to be married while Tate had yet to date anyone more than three times since graduating from college. Chess was the bride, Tate the bridesmaid.
The neatly packed suitcase mocked her. Chess shoved the suitcase across the dusty wooden floor to the ancient dresser that had traditionally been hers. Inside, the shelf paper was dried out and curling at the edges; there were mouse droppings that made Chess sigh. This, however, was life in the Tuckernuck house. Everything was just as she remembered it from thirteen years earlier, just as it had been for decades before that. Tate had called the Tuckernuck house “home,” and Chess knew what Tate meant. Every inch of the place was familiar and sturdy and unchanged. Chess knew exactly where she was. Why, then, did she feel so lost?
BIRDIE
When Barrett arrived back with the eight bags of groceries, he caught Birdie fiddling with her cell phone at the dining room table. She was so surprised when she saw him that she gasped and then clutched the phone to her chest. If she had been fast enough, she would have slipped it into her bra.
“Whoa, sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
She didn’t even try to collect herself. She was frazzled, it was hot, they had risen at six that morning, and Birdie had done all the driving. It was nearly five o’clock now and she was beat.
“Is there wine in one of those bags?” she asked.
“The wine is still on the boat,” Barrett said. “I’ll go get it now.”
“Would you?” Birdie said.
“For you, madame, anything.” Barrett smiled at her and she felt herself flush, more out of shame than anything else. Barrett Lee had been back and forth between Nantucket and Tuckernuck dozens of times this week on their behalf, and then Birdie discovered that the poor boy had lost his wife and had two small children at home to raise on his own, and yet he managed to be charming and upbeat. Birdie needed to pull herself together.
When Barrett left to get the wine, Birdie found his check. The repairs to the house had cost $58,600. Birdie had donned her linen suit and driven to the city to Grant’s office to present him with the bills. Since Michael Morgan’s death, Grant had called the house every day-to talk to Chess, to check in with Birdie about Chess. He had gone with Chess and Birdie to the funeral, and he had paid an exorbitant hourly fee for Chess to see a psychiatrist each day. Dr. Burns thought Tuckernuck was a good idea, and hence the repairs to the house were validated. If Chess needed Tuckernuck, then Tuckernuck would have to be fixed up. Right? Birdie wasn’t sure Grant would see it that way; she was confronting him in person to plead her case.
Grant’s office was painted oxblood red. Birdie had picked the color herself nearly two decades earlier when Grant became managing partner. She had picked out all of the appointments in his office; it was amazing, two years after their divorce, how nothing had changed. There were still the photographs of her and the children, and there were still the golf landscapes-Pebble Beach, Pinehurst, Amen Corner at Augusta.
Birdie handed Grant the bills. She felt like a sixteen-year-old. “I’m sorry it was so expensive,” she said.
Grant looked over the bills, then tossed them in his in-box, which meant he would pay them. “Don’t you get it by now, Bird?” he said. “It’s just money.”
Birdie placed the check before her on the dining room table. Barrett appeared with the wine; the bottles clinked against one another. Birdie fetched a corkscrew and two glasses.