Summer of '69(107)
This is so unexpected, Jessie doesn’t know how to arrange her expression.
“And then I felt guilt, like an ocean wave crashing over me, a really powerful wave, the kind that knocks you down and fills your nose and mouth with burning salt water. Because…” Kate laughs sadly. “I can’t believe I’m telling you all this. I should stop.”
Yes, Jessie thinks. Stop. Stop! But somehow she knows Kate isn’t able to stop.
“I felt guilty because I had lied to Wilder. I hadn’t contacted a lawyer and I didn’t plan on divorcing him. I would have moved to Nonny’s temporarily, then we would have worked it out. I only said what I did in order to upset him.” Kate pauses, thinks for a minute, then says, “The only person in the whole world who knows the truth is Bill Crimmins.”
“Mr. Crimmins?” Jessie says.
“I called him on Nantucket and told him what happened. He got on the ferry and made it to our house by midnight. He fixed it.”
“Fixed it how?” Jessie asks. Her hands are numb, her lips are tingling. She will never, ever be the same. Nothing matters anymore—not Pick, not the Tree of Life, not Anne Frank discovered by the Nazis and dying in a concentration camp. Her mother lied about Wilder Foley’s death. He killed himself because of something Kate said. And Mr. Crimmins knows.
“He just fixed it,” Kate says. “He made it look like an accident.”
“Dad?” Jessie asks.
“David was the main person we were trying to fool,” Kate says. “And the insurance company, of course, because they wouldn’t have paid a settlement for a suicide. And I wanted to hide the truth from my friends and neighbors. When they heard Wilder killed himself accidentally while cleaning his gun, they felt sorry for us. That is a tragedy. Suicide, however, carries a stigma. I couldn’t bear to pass that legacy on to the children. So, only Bill knows. And now you. I’m trusting you with this secret, but I will not burden you with it. If you want to call the authorities right now, call the authorities.” Her eyes are shining with tears. “It might be a relief. You have no idea what kind of hell it has been living with this for so many years. I waited each day to be punished. Because no one gets off scot-free, Jessie. And when they called up your brother, although the rest of the world might see that as random bad luck, I knew that Tiger was being drafted because of me. And he’s likely going to die.”
“Mom,” Jessie whispers. “Please don’t say that.”
“It’s my fault,” Kate says forlornly. She lays her head on the table, and finally, the tears fall. “It’s my fault. I drove Wilder to his death.”
Jessie remembers seeing the destruction that the Bonneville caused after it crashed through the front window of Buttner’s. The damage had seemed irreparable. And yet, Buttner’s window had eventually been restored to brand-new, better than brand-new. So, too, with Kate’s earth-shattering confession. Kate cries for a while; Jessie hands her some tissues, Kate wipes her tears, then heads back over to All’s Fair. When Jessie checks on her a while later, Kate seems happier. She suggests that they go to the beach, just the two of them.
“It’s the nineteenth of July,” Kate says in a completely normal voice. “And we’ve barely been.”
“What about Dad?” Jessie asks. She tries to keep her voice steady but right now her world is hanging on her father’s arrival. Her mother must know Jessie would never call the authorities to turn her in, but Jessie is going to tell her father. She hates that Kate and Mr. Crimmins set out to fool him. He needs to know the truth.
“He’s arriving on the three-fifteen,” Kate says. “If we leave here by eleven, we can still get half a day.”
Jessie is afraid if she declines, her mother will think it’s because she’s horrified by the secret. Jessie is horrified by the secret. For sixteen years, her mother has been lying to everyone. And now Kate is being punished—no, they are all being punished, because Tiger was sent to Vietnam and might come back in a body bag.
The incomprehensible thing is that Jessie still loves her mother as much as ever, maybe more. Jessie remembers only too well how she agonized that week when she thought Nonny’s necklace was gone forever and how that guilt was like a load of gravel in her gut, grinding away, weighing her down. What must it have been like for her mother keeping the secret from Nonny and David and her own children all these years? No wonder she felt lonely.
Jessie will tell David, and David will confront Kate, and although things will then be messy, the truth will be out and Kate will feel better and maybe Tiger will be saved.
“Okay,” Jessie says. “I’ll put my suit on.”
“I’ll make sandwiches,” Kate says.
“Mom,” Jessie says. Kate stops. They look at each other and this is the make-or-break moment, Jessie can feel it.
“No mustard,” Jessie says.
The day turns out much better than Jessie would have thought such a day could. Kate and Jessie go to Ram Pasture. Exalta tried to wrangle an invitation but Kate said, “I’d like some time alone with Jessie, thanks, Mother.” The beach is practically deserted. The sun is warm but not overbearing and because Exalta isn’t there, Jessie gets to sit in her chair, a Sleepy Hollow, which did not get its name by accident. Jessie falls asleep in the sun but her mother remembered the Coppertone so Jessie doesn’t burn. When she wakes up, she and Kate take a swim. The water is cool and refreshing and cleansing somehow. When they climb out, they eat their sandwiches on their towels. Jessie has ham and cheese on lightly toasted Portuguese bread with butter and some nice lettuce and pickles, and it’s the best sandwich she has eaten all summer if she doesn’t count the BLT Pick made for her on the first day.