The Summer Hideaway Page 8

  It could be argued that she had, in a way. He had to give her props for that. It was no small feat to pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps, in a single generation going from Flatbush to Fifth Avenue simply by sheer force of will.

  Ross knew all this about his mother because his grandfather had told him. Not to gossip or be mean but to try to give a hurting, grieving boy some perspective with regard to his mother, who had all but turned her back on him after the death of his father. Ross would never understand a person who ran from her past and hated who she really was. But he learned to put up with her paranoia and self-absorption, and his grandfather had, in time, made it cease to matter.

  Ross gazed out the car window at the landscape passing by en route to the city—first the tenements and creaky wooden row houses of the outskirts, the industrial midurban zone of boxy brick and metal buildings, and finally the tunnel leading to Manhattan, vibrant and congested, smelly and full of energy. His mother’s neighborhood, on the upper west side, was a calm oasis of residences with wrought-iron gates leading to fussy gardens.

  Though Winifred had her widow’s benefits from her late husband, she still managed to live beyond her means. Her former father-in-law, George Bellamy, assured her that he was keeping her in the will. Granddad had vowed that as the widow of his first son and the mother of his first grandson, she had earned the privilege.

  After being widowed by her first husband and divorced by her second, Winifred didn’t know what else to do, having never made a career for herself. All the promise her teachers had seen in her, all the promise that had won her scholarships and a coveted spot at Vassar, had served one purpose and one purpose only—to marry well.

  And indeed she had. The Bellamy family was wealthy and influential with roots that could be traced, not to the mongrel rebels who had arrived on the Mayflower, but to the genteel nobles who stayed in England and conquered the world. To Winifred, marrying Pierce Bellamy had been like grabbing the brass ring on the merry-go-round.

  There was a catch, though. Something no one ever told Winifred. Or Pierce, for that matter. And the catch was that certain things couldn’t be gleaned from a book. The finest education in the world could not instruct someone how to marry for the right reasons, or even to know what those reasons were. The best schools in the country could not teach a person to be happy and stay that way, let alone keep someone else happy.

  For now, Ross would let himself be glad he was home. He would be grateful for every day that didn’t involve surface-to-air missiles, sucking chest wounds, evacuation under fire or war-shattered lives. And he would do everything in his power to convince his grandfather to fight his illness rather than give up.

  He dialed his grandfather’s number, predictably getting a prerecorded voice mail message. His grandfather had a cell phone, too, and Ross tried that, as well. It went straight to voice mail, meaning the thing was probably turned off or had a dead battery. Granddad had never quite warmed up to having a cell phone.

  Tonight, Granddad, Ross thought. I’ll find you tonight. Never mind that his mother was going to serve all his unremembered favorites. He would borrow the roadster and drive up to the wilderness camp where his sick and dying grandfather had gone, in the company of a stranger.

  Ross picked up the phone again. He only had a few friends in the city. Educated abroad, then serving in the army, he hadn’t really settled down anywhere. He was ready now, though. More than ready.

  He tried calling Natalie Sweet, whom he’d known since ninth grade and who lived here. Thank God for Natalie. Other than his grandfather, she was probably the person closest to Ross. He got her voice mail and left a message. Then he did the same for his cousin Ivy, and was secretly relieved when she didn’t pick up, since she wept each time they spoke of their grandfather.

  The car pulled up at a handsome brown brick building. It was nominally the place Ross called home. In actuality, he had been moved around so much after his father was killed that he never quite knew where home was. Had it been the Bellamy family retreat on Long Island? His uncle Trevor’s place in Southern California? His grandfather’s apartment in Paris? He had no emotional ties to this particular patch of upper Manhattan, no true anchor, except wherever his grandfather happened to be.

  The doorman, Cappy, greeted him warmly. So did Ross’s mother, to be fair, the moment he walked through the door and Salomé told him Madame was in the living room.

  Winifred hugged him close, and her arms felt taut and strong around him. When she pulled back, tears shone brightly in her eyes. “I’ve missed you, son.”

  Tall and slender, she maintained her looks with regular visits to salons and spas. Her hair looked polished, her makeup perfect, despite the tears. In her own needy way, she did love him.

  “I’m so relieved to have you back, safe and sound,” she added.

  “Thanks,” he said, taking a seat by a window that overlooked a manicured park, crisscrossed by pathways. “A little something I brought you,” he said, handing her a flat jar with a colorful label. It was caviar from the Caspian Fish Company Azerbaijan. “Slim pickings in the souvenir department.”

  “Thank you, Ross. You know I love caviar.”

  “Sure. I want to hear all about Granddad. What’s going on?”

  She reiterated the words that had brought him racing across the globe: glioblastoma multiforme. Grade four—which meant rapid progression. Refusing treatment. “He said he wants to make the most of the time he has left,” she explained, her voice tinged with indignation. “And then what does he do? Hires some woman who is obviously after his money, and goes looking for some lost branch of the family. I think it’s complete and utter nonsense.”

  Ross wasn’t sure what she was referring to as complete and utter nonsense. George’s diagnosis or his reaction to it? His quest to reconnect with his brother or the fact that there were other Bellamys in the world?

  “Did you know anything about Granddad’s brother?” asked Ross. “Did Dad?”

  She waved a hand in dismissal. “Pierce knew about the brother. It was no secret. It was simply a fact. George had a brother and the two never saw each other or spoke.”

  “And you didn’t think there was anything wrong with that?”

  “It’s not my place to judge. Nor is it yours. I always assumed they had gone down separate paths. Your grandfather was an expatriate until he retired a few years ago, and his sons are…Why, I scarcely know where anyone is these days. It’s easy to lose track.”

  “Uncle Gerard’s in Cape Town, Uncle Louis in Tokyo and Uncle Trevor’s in L.A. It’s not rocket science, keeping up with family members. Something else must have happened.”

  “He’s being a foolish old man,” Winifred pronounced. “That’s what happened. I don’t know if his lack of judgment is caused by the cancer, or if he’s simply old and foolish. I hope he’ll listen to you, Ross. You’re the only one who can reason with him. He’s acting out of panic, going with a strange woman to a strange town when he should be here, with us,” his mother said, her voice taut with insistence.

  Ross felt a surge of pity. Yes, she was self-centered. But she and Granddad shared a common bond. Ross and his grandfather were perhaps the only ones in the family who understood that Winifred was terrified of another loss, and it wasn’t all about the money.

  Once a year, on the anniversary of Pierce’s death, Winifred would go to the war veterans’ cemetery in Farmingdale on Long Island. There, she would weep as she lay a wreath at the unadorned headstone that was indistinguishable from all the others there, in the endless rows, except for the name chiseled in it. Each year she was joined in this ritual by her father-in-law, who would visit from Paris or wherever he happened to be working.

  “He’s a selfish, foolish old man to do this to his family,” she repeated.

  “Oh, that’ll bring him rushing back,” Ross pointed out.

  “I would never tell him that.”

  “Sometimes you can sense someone’s opinion without having it ex
pressed directly.” He paused. Then something made him ask, “Did you ever really know Granddad, Mom? Did you love him, or did you love the way he took care of us after Dad was killed?”

  “Don’t be silly. The two are inseparable.” Then she burst into tears. “Of course I loved him. What on earth do you take me for?”

  Ross touched her shoulder, knowing this was a rare glimpse at his mother’s closely guarded heart. She patted his hand and moved away from him. The two of them had never been at ease in one another’s company. Ross felt too restless to sit still. “I’m going to drive up and find Granddad. If I leave now, I can beat the rush-hour traffic out of the city.”

  “You just got here,” said Winifred.

  “Come with me,” he suggested.

  “I couldn’t,” she said. “I have too much on my schedule.”

  Ross didn’t let himself comment about that. “I can stay for dinner,” he conceded. “Then I need to borrow the car.”

  “Thank God I caught you,” said Natalie Sweet, exiting the taxicab. “Your mother told me I could catch you if I hurry.”

  In the remote parking facility where the car was stored, Ross set aside the car keys and opened his arms. She launched herself at him. They clung together for long moments and he inhaled the bubblegum-sweet scent of her hair. She was his best friend, and one of his oldest. He and Natalie had met at boarding school in Lugano, Switzerland. They had both been scared, skinny kids with mad skills at skiing and families that were far, far away.

  Leaning back a little, he lifted her off the ground. “I’m glad you caught me.”

  “Welcome home, soldier,” she said, and her voice in his ear was as welcome as an old favorite song on the radio.

  “Thanks.” He set her down. “You look fantastic, Nat. The writing life agrees with you.”

  She laughed. “Making a living agrees with me. See how fat and sassy I am?” She perched her hands on her hips.

  “You look great.”

  She had always been pretty—to Ross, anyway. Not a classic beauty; she had typical girl-next-door good looks, with the wholesome appeal of a loaf of freshly baked bread.

  “So things are working out at the paper?” he asked.

  “I’ll tell you all about it in the car.” She grinned at his expression. “That’s right, soldier. I’m coming with you.”

  “I don’t remember inviting you.”

  She indicated a slouchy-looking weekender bag on the pavement. “You didn’t. But you’re going to need me and we both know it. We’ve got the Vulcan mind link up and running, right?”

  In secondary school, they’d both been closet fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation, a crazy dubbed version that aired on the Italian national station. To this day, he still remembered how to say “Live long and prosper” in Italian.

  “Look, it’s really good of you,” he said. “But I’m driving upstate by myself. It’s not a pleasure trip.”

  “Haven’t you figured it out by now?” she asked, giving him a slug in the arm. “I’d rather have a rotten time with you than a great time with anyone else. So we’d better get going, or we’ll get stuck in traffic.”

  “You’re not coming.”

  “Why would you waste valuable time in an argument you’re going to lose?” she asked.

  “Damn. You are one huge pain in the ass.”

  A few minutes later they were in a thick but moving line of traffic leaving the city behind, block by tattered block.

  “Thanks for letting me tag along,” Natalie said. “This car kicks ass.”

  He’d never argue about his mother’s taste in cars. The Aston Martin roadster drove like a carnival ride. He could barely remember the last time he’d driven anything that didn’t involve both hands and both feet simultaneously.

  “You didn’t give me a choice,” he reminded Natalie.

  “I love George. You know I always have, and I want to do what’s best for him under the circumstances.”

  “That’s why I need to see him,” Ross said. “To figure out the circumstances. I can’t go by what my mother reported to me. According to her, he’s suffering from dementia. His judgment is impaired. He might be a victim of some predatory nurse.”

  She reached across the console, touched his arm. “I’m so glad you’re back, Ross. I want to hear what it was like over there,” she said. “When you’re ready to talk about it.”

  “Yeah, I’m not really there yet,” he said, knowing the trauma of his deployment was still too fresh to discuss with anybody—including himself. Eventually he would need to talk about his time overseas, describe the things he’d seen and done.

  Just not now. Everything was all too fresh. It was very, very strange to consider that only hours ago, he’d still been in the military. Only days ago, he’d been embroiled in a life-or-death firefight, and still bore the healing scratches of that final battle. He felt as though he’d been plucked from one world and set down in another. Not that he wasn’t grateful, but he hadn’t quite adjusted.

  During the long, intermittently scenic drive upstate, he thought about the more immediate issue. His was a messy, screwed-up family—more than he knew, apparently. No wonder Granddad had taken off. Maybe he’d gone in search of a less screwed-up branch of the Bellamy family.

  “Well, when you’re ready, so am I,” said Natalie.

  “I’d rather hear about you, Nat. So you say work is good?”

  “Work is great. The world of sports journalism is my oyster. I had a big break last year—a piece on an up-and-coming baseball pitcher in the New York Times Magazine. My blog has a big following and I’m working on a book. Oh, and here’s something I bet you didn’t know. It’s our twentieth anniversary.” She touched his arm again, giving him a squeeze. It felt…unfamiliar. People in his unit didn’t touch.

  “No shit.” He draped his wrist over the arch of the steering wheel. “I’ve never kept count. You mean we met twenty years ago?”

  “Yep. And it was hate at first sight, remember? You totally made fun of my braces.”

  “You made fun of my haircut.”

  “It’s a miracle we lasted five minutes together, let alone twenty years.”

  They had been forced to work together on a school project. The two of them came from completely different backgrounds, although that hadn’t been the cause of their mutual dislike. Ross was an adolescent train wreck, grieving the loss of his father. He came from a family that had money—had rather than made. There was a difference.

  Natalie, on the other hand, had been a scholarship student. Her parents were missionaries working in an East African principality that tended to erupt with military coups every few months.

  The two of them had teased and fought their way into a genuine friendship. Their bond came from their shared pain; they were both kids who had been set aside—Ross by his mother, who could not abide the thought of having to raise him alone, and Natalie by her parents, whose humanitarian ideals left no room for their daughter.

  Reverend and Mrs. Sweet believed they were meant for a higher purpose than merely being parents to a gifted but awkward girl.

  “That officially makes you my oldest friend,” she declared.

  “Same here. So we’re both old. When are you going to marry me?”

  “How about never?” she asked. “Does never work for you?”

  It was a running joke with them. They had struggled through dating woes in high school and commiserated at Columbia, where they’d both gone to college, she to study journalism, and he, aeronautics. On a single, ill-conceived night, fueled by too many boilermakers, they had lost their virginity to each other. They’d figured out then that they could never be together as lovers. The delicate alchemy of their friendship didn’t transform itself into passion, no matter how hard they tried.

  “That’s not enough for me,” she’d said. “Or for you, either. We’re forcing this, and we shouldn’t need to. When it’s right, we won’t have to force it.”

  He’d teased her about ha
ving a secret wish to be a psychoanalyst. He hadn’t disagreed with her, though.

  As for Natalie, she always claimed her boyfriends didn’t work out because Ross had filled her head full of unrealistic expectations. She’d been serious about one guy awhile back; some musician. Like all the others, it hadn’t worked out.

  Every time she broke up with a guy, Ross would accuse her of holding out for him.

  “You’re killing me here,” he said to her. “How many rejections can one guy take?”

  “From me? The sky’s the limit, dude. What’s your hurry, anyway? Most guys I know run the other way when it comes to marriage talk. You sound like you’re in some kind of race to settle down.”

  “It’s not like that,” he said. “It is that.” Especially after what he’d seen over there. “I’m tired of being alone, Nat,” he said. “I want to be someone’s husband. Someone’s dad, eventually.”

  “Because you lost your own dad at such a young age,” she said softly.

  “You’re probably right, Dr. Sweet. The happiest time of my life was when I was little, with my dad.”

  “And now you want to recapture that by becoming a dad yourself.” She fiddled with the radio, stopping on a mellow Ingrid Michaelson song. “Hate to tell you this, but it probably doesn’t work that way. I wish it did, because you deserve it, Ross. You deserve some woman who will light you up for the next fifty years, and a bunch of kids to worry about.”

  “Don’t forget the house with a white picket fence,” he said, chuckling. “And the dog. I’ve never had a dog.”

  “Okay, now you’re getting greedy.” She fiddled with the radio dial again, this time opting for some rock song he didn’t recognize, with shouted lyrics. “It’s about damn time.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, turning down the volume.

  “You’re always looking out for somebody else. It’s about time you wanted something just for you.”

  “What I want,” he said, “is to help my grandfather. To figure out what’s really going on with him.” He told her what he knew of his grandfather’s condition.