Summer of '69(124)

We have a new house on Nantucket. Wait until you see it.



“Holy moly!” Kirby cries out. “Did you buy this? Is this ours?”

“We did,” Kate says. “It’s ours.”

Blair and Angus pull up behind them in the Galaxie. Blair gets out of the car and closes the door gently so as not to wake the babies. “What is this?”

“This,” Kate says, “is our new house.”

“What?” Blair says. “Our new house?”

David looks at Kate the exact same way he looked at her the first time he saw her—when Kate, newly a widow, had opened the door to welcome in the lawyer who was going to defend her late husband’s life insurance claim. David had later confessed that his knees buckled at the sight of her. I didn’t know God made women as beautiful as you.

“Katie?” he says.

“I bought it,” she says. It’s intoxicating to know that she has done the right thing—not only for herself, but for David, for the children, for her grandchildren.

Jessie says, “Can I pick out my room?”

“Go ahead,” Kate says. Her heart is filling her chest; it’s hard to breathe.

“Wait,” David says. He leads Kate up the walk by the hand and then he scoops her up in his arms and carries her across the threshold like they’re newlyweds. It feels like a fresh start.

How many do you get in one life? Kate wonders.

David kisses her cheek. “Thank you,” he whispers.



The dynamics of Tiger’s family are a lot to learn, but by the time Thanksgiving dinner rolls around, Magee has them figured out. She thinks.

Kate prepares the turkey and assigns Kirby, Jessie, and Magee to tasks in the kitchen but everyone is on an equal footing because no one knows which cabinet holds the plates or whether or not they have a potato masher or which drawer holds the silverware. Kate bought the house furnished, but they’re going to replace what’s here with new things, hopefully by summer.

When they all first arrived here, Kate led Magee upstairs and informed her that the bright, spacious room with two windows overlooking the water would be hers and Tiger’s.

“Think about what color you’d like to paint it,” Kate said.

Magee felt like a newly crowned princess. She lay down across the big white bed and imagined sleeping there with Tiger, maybe even conceiving a child there. Both Tiger and Magee want a passel of kids—four or five.

The dinner menu for Thanksgiving:

Turkey with dressing made from day-old Portuguese bread, which Kate bought from a bakery downtown.

Mashed potatoes. Kate adds sour cream and tops them with snipped green onions. Magee must remember to tell her mother about this. Her mother’s cooking needs some updating.

Scalloped corn.

Carrots boiled in orange juice and topped with brown butter and cinnamon.

Brussels sprouts, roasted in the oven.

Cranberry sauce out of a can, just like at Magee’s house. The pies, pumpkin and apple, Kate bought at the bakery as well. They will be topped with Brigham’s ice cream—vanilla and butter brickle, Tiger’s favorite.

Kate brought linens from home, along with silver candlesticks and ivory tapers. Jessie makes a centerpiece out of gourds and apples. Kate turns the transistor radio to WBUR, which broadcasts classical music. All of this is a far cry from Thanksgiving at Magee’s house. Jean Johnson makes sweet potatoes topped with marshmallows and green-bean casserole with crispy onions and turkey with store-bought stuffing, and because no one likes pie, she serves a Sara Lee chocolate cake. Magee’s brothers always complain about the beans; they skim the marshmallows off the top of the sweet potatoes. The Johnsons eat at the kitchen table just like every other meal, and Magee’s father, Al Johnson, drinks his usual Budweiser from a can. Magee wouldn’t say she dreads Thanksgiving, but neither does it feel like a holiday the way it does here. With three little boys in her house, Magee’s family Christmas is far more festive.

Kate asks Magee to set the table for ten and Magee worries that she will make a mistake. In her studies to become a dental hygienist, she has proved to be good at memorizing—incisors, cuspids, molars—and now she wishes she’d taken a book about table settings out of the library. Wine goblet, water goblet, fork, knife, spoon, dessert fork—all of those Magee can handle. (She actually isn’t sure which goblet is which, so she quietly asks Kirby, who says, “Water goblet is bigger. It goes here.” She places it to the side of the wine goblet. “It’s pathetic that I know that, but Nonny is a Brahmin.”) Magee is glad there aren’t fish forks or soupspoons or cordial glasses.

There is a moment of confusion, however, because Magee counts only nine people who are eating and yet Kate clearly told her to set the table for ten. Is there a guest Magee doesn’t know about? A family member she’s forgotten?

She asks Kate, who says, “We’re setting an honorary place for Tiger, so the chair next to yours will be empty. And look, I got this.” She shows Magee a small American flag on a stand, the same kind that rested on teachers’ desks when Magee was in grade school. “Tiger’s seat will be on the left side, second from the head.”

Magee has a lump in her throat as she sets the flag at the place Kate specified.

At five o’clock, Exalta Nichols—“Nonny,” as she’s known, Tiger’s grandmother—arrives with a man whom Kate calls Bill. Magee isn’t sure who Bill is; she knows Tiger’s grandfather has passed, and Tiger said that Exalta doesn’t have a new husband or a boyfriend, “unless you count Rod Laver.” But it’s quite clear that Exalta and Bill are a couple. He holds her arm as they enter and he helps her off with her coat and he offers to fetch her cocktail. Magee herself enjoyed a glass of champagne in the kitchen as she helped get everything ready; Kate had popped the cork off a bottle and poured glasses for Magee and Kirby and Blair.