The Family Beach House Read Online Free PDF Page A

had bought at an antique shop in Kennebunkport. She had also enjoyed collecting expensive linen table settings—cloths, runners, placemats, and napkins. These were kept in a large, low credenza, on top of which was displayed a Murano glass bowl Charlotte had purchased while traveling in Italy with an expensive tour group one summer. It had never occurred to Tilda to ask her father for a tablecloth, or vintage milk glass creamer and sugar bowl set, or the set of sterling silver napkin rings her mother had bought in a SoHo gallery in New York, as a memento of her mother. Tilda’s own home furnishings were of a much simpler and less fine sort and she felt that her mother’s possessions would be very out of place in her own relatively humble South Portland home.
    The family gathered around one end of the oval-shaped dining room table, Bill and Ruth, Hannah and Susan, and Tilda. Percy kept a close eye on the meal from the top of the credenza. If it bothered anyone that a very furry cat chose to be in the vicinity of food, no one had the nerve to complain about this to Ruth. (If Charlotte were alive, however, Percy would have long since been banished from the dining room.)
    â€œLook at us,” Hannah said. “We could be a print ad for L.L. Bean.” It was true. Hannah was wearing chinos, white boat sneakers without the laces, and a coral colored, lightweight cotton sweater. Susan wore a chino skirt, blue boat sneakers, and a striped linen big shirt tied at the waist. Tilda had changed into fairly new, tan chinos and a lemon yellow cardigan over a matching T-shirt. Bill wore a blue Oxford cloth button-down shirt tucked into pressed chinos. Only Ruth looked urban and out of place, in black linen slacks and a crisp, tailored, very white blouse with the starched collar turned up. Around her neck she wore a bold silver disc on a black silk cord. Her flats were also black silk. She could have been off for luncheon at MOMA in New York City.
    Ruth reminded them—not that anyone had forgotten—that Adam, his new fiancée, and his children were due to arrive the next day.
    â€œI’m dying to meet Adam’s fiancée,” Tilda said. “I can’t imagine what she’ll be like.”
    Hannah laughed. “Oh, can’t you? I’ve got a pretty good idea. At least, I know she’ll be a whole lot younger than Adam.”
    â€œThere’s nothing necessarily wrong with that,” Ruth commented, with a look at her brother. Bill, busily eating, did not seem very interested in the women’s speculations.
    â€œOf course not,” Susan agreed. “But it won’t be easy on Sarah if Adam marries someone much younger.”
    Ruth, who had remained close to her nephew’s ex-wife, shook her head. “I wouldn’t worry about Sarah, if I were you. She’s not the sort who’s easily thrown by such trivia.”
    â€œBut,” Tilda said, “she will be concerned about what kind of person is going to be her children’s stepmother.”
    Ruth nodded. “Of course, as well she should be. Still, she won’t be able to prevent Adam from marrying whomever he pleases.”
    Hannah, who was feeling impatient with the talk of Adam’s soon-to-be wife, took it upon herself to move on to the topic she and her sister really wanted to discuss. “So, Dad,” she said, with false casualness, “speaking of relationships, Ruth tells us that you’re seeing someone. Romantically, I mean.”
    Bill looked up from his plate and blushed. His embarrassment embarrassed Tilda. But he didn’t seem in the least bit ashamed, and that angered her. Her anger, irrational, further embarrassed her. She reached for her wineglass.
    â€œWell, as a matter of fact I am,” he said.
    Now that the subject had been introduced, Hannah didn’t know what else to say. She looked helplessly to her sister. Tilda shook her head. Plenty of thoughts were racing in