“You here for long?” she asked, shifting the weight on her feet. She hoped the eagerness didn’t register in her face. After all, he had a career. He had gone to Colgate, then onto law school. (Gran liked to gossip, it kept her busy, and when it came to Simon, Ellie had been all too happy to listen.)
“For the summer,” Simon replied, and Ellie felt the smile widen on her face.
The whole summer! And it was only May!
He glanced back over his shoulder into the crowd and then looked at her in apology. “I have to go, but…this was nice, Ellie. Really nice. I’m glad you’re here.”
She could only nod in response as she watched him turn and walk away, his shoulders broad, his nut-brown hair curling at the nape of his neck like it did when they were just teenagers. And somehow, Evening Island didn’t feel so lonely after all. In fact, it felt just as wonderful as it had all those years ago, when it was the one place she could be where anything felt possible.
Chapter Three
Hope
Hope stared at the dish towel that was hanging from her husband’s bathroom hook and forced a calming breath. She would bet anyone five bucks that a bath towel (a thick, soft, embroidered bath towel) was currently hanging from the handle to the dishwasher at this very moment.
She reached out a hand and snatched the thin, flimsy, white dish towel from the hook and tossed it into the laundry basket, which was already spilling over with sheets, endless white undershirts that Evan seemed to change three times a day, and of course, the girls’ tiny clothes, most of them in various shades of pink.
Once, there had been a time when she could stare at those little clothes for hours. When she marveled in folding each floral-printed blouse, and ironed each and every pink cotton dress. She always dressed the girls in coordinating clothes but never matching. They were fraternal twins, but they looked enough alike to be mistaken for identical, with their honey-colored loose curls and big green eyes. She wanted them to each be unique. She wanted to foster their individuality. She wanted to give them all the opportunities her mother had never instilled in her.
And yet, despite her best efforts, she feared that she was slowly becoming her mother.
It had started with the house. A giant suburban thing that was far too much trouble to clean, and even when they’d hired a housekeeper to come once a week, still required some elbow grease for the sake of her own dignity. Then there were the neighbors who seemed to never run out of one-upping each other at the playground at the end of the block. Hope wouldn’t have minded so much if she’d found one true friend in the mix, or if Evan was around more often, or if the girls weren’t currently attempting to eat the piles of dirt that they had used to “bake” pies in the backyard playhouse that Hope had once found so charming (and yes, she actually tended to the flowers in the pink window box).
She dropped the laundry basket and flung open the window, hollering down at Evan, who was relaxing at the patio table with a coffee in one hand and the newspaper in another, “They’re eating dirt! Stop them! They’re eating dirt!”
Had this been her, she would have reacted as swiftly as one would in, say, a house fire. But Evan just raised an eyebrow, seemed to adjust to his surroundings for a moment, as if just now remembering that the twins were in the yard and that he was supposed to be minding them while she squeezed in a shower that didn’t even leave time to shave her legs, and then slowly folded his paper, set it on the teak wood table surface, and stood. And stretched.
Hope narrowed her eyes as she tightened her grip on the windowsill.
Had this been Hope, she would have snatched the trays of dirt from Rose’s and Victoria’s hands and immediately stripped them down, led them to the house, and carried each girl up to the bathtub. But Evan decided to use his words.
Four-year-olds didn’t respond to words.
Summoning every last bit of patience she could manage, Hope abandoned the laundry basket and went downstairs, out the back door, and stood on the patio, barefoot and shivering with her wet hair. Or maybe she was shaking. It was, after all, a warm day for May.
Evan stood on the patio, barely in hearing distance from the playhouse, calmly telling the girls to please stop playing in the mud.
The girls, of course, did not listen. Chances were, they didn’t hear either.
Hope waited to see if he would do anything more, but, turning to see her, he sat back down at the table and picked up his newspaper.
Hope’s eyes darted to the girls and back to Evan. The unspoken words were clear. She would have to be the one to take action.
Only what course of action?
“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” she blurted, not even conscience of what she was saying. But there, the words were out. They’d been said. She couldn’t take them back. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to.
Her heart sped up a little, but Evan didn’t react to her announcement. The girls continued to slap mud into plastic bowls and then attempt to feed each other with matching spoons.
Oh, for crying out loud! She stormed over to the twins, took the mud-filled bowls and spoons from their hands, led them by the wrists to the garden hose, and turned on the spigot. Her freshly laundered clothes were now covered in mud as they wriggled in protest and tried to slap her legs.
Evan watched from a safe distance.
“Can you help?” she asked as Rose tried to dash off the moment she peeled the once-white dress over Victoria’s head.
“You’re just going to hose them off?” he asked, setting down the paper with what appeared to be great reluctance.
“Do you have a better idea?” She stared at him. She was aware, she realized, that she was challenging him.
Evan did not have a better idea. He sighed, heavily, and then urged Rose to “go back to Mommy.”
Through gritted teeth, Hope hosed the girls off, thankful that the water was not very cold at all, and then brought them into the house for a proper bath. When she had them dried, clothed in fresh, coordinating outfits, and seated in front of an educational cartoon show with a healthy snack of carrots and apple slices, she added their dirty dresses to the laundry pile.
Evan was still reading the paper when she returned to the patio. Had he not heard? Not cared? Not believed her? The lack of response fueled her, made her realize that she had meant it. Every word. She couldn’t do this anymore!
“I could have used a little help,” she said, folding her arms over her chest.
“It seems to me that you have it all covered.” He gave a little smile at his double entendre and she glanced down at her pants, which bore the marks of dried, splattered mud.
“This isn’t funny,” she ground out.
He frowned at her. “You know I’m heading to Singapore in the morning. I need a little time to relax after that party yesterday.”
“And I don’t?” Her eyes widened in surprise.
He shook his head. “Please. You love those things.”
“No,” she said, realizing that it was true. “I don’t. That party was work. A lot of work.” And she had done more than ninety-nine percent of it, too, from the carefully chosen cotton-candy-colored paper stock with the gold font for the invitations, to going to three different stores to track down glitter-filled balloons, to having the truly genius (or crazy?) idea of putting a horn on that pony’s head. She had stayed up until midnight putting together the favor bags, allowing for extra just in case some unexpected siblings tagged along. She had then woken at three, because she remembered that she had forgotten to buy strawberries for the smoothies, and then she hadn’t been able to fall back asleep, so she started on the cake. Of course it was homemade. From scratch. And she had stood with a piping bag, her hair slipping from its bun, sweat on her brow, watching tutorials on the internet for piping the perfect trim on the perfect pink-frosted cake!