Return to Summerhouse (The Summerhouse 2)

“Faith,” Amy said, “I apologize for the interruption. Please continue with your story. What happened when you returned from college?”

“I don’t know,” she said, looking down at her hands. “I mean, I do know, but at the same time I don’t know. I’ve never been able to figure it out. My mother found out where Eddie was going to college so she sent me there too.”

Zoë gave Amy an I-told-you-so look.

“It wasn’t like that!” Faith said. “Eddie and I were as much friends as Ty and I were. In fact, all through elementary school we were a threesome, even if we were a bit odd. Ty said that we covered all the ground from rich to poor. Whatever we were, it worked in spite of all Eddie’s mother could do to break us up. She used to give big birthday parties for Eddie and not invite Ty or me.”

Pausing, Faith smiled. “On Eddie’s sixth bir

thday he was so angry that his mother wouldn’t let him invite us, that he sneaked into the kitchen, opened the door for Ty and me, and we stole the birthday cake. Eddie’s mother was so upset they had to call the doctor to give her a sedative. While she was down, he slipped out and joined us. We ate so much cake we were sick. After that his mother had the parties at restaurants.”

Faith smiled in memory. “But it all changed when we entered high school. Eddie was in the debating society and head of the math club, while Ty had to work after school, and he missed a lot of days because his father often needed him for something or other—we never knew what and Ty never said.”

“And what about you?” Amy asked.

“I’m afraid that I sowed a few wild oats. Mostly with Tyler. He had a souped-up convertible and I had red hair. It was a dangerous combination.”

Amy looked at Faith and had trouble seeing her like that. Now her hair was pulled tightly back, her dress hanging below her knees, and her spine was bent. She looked as though she’d never done anything even remotely interesting in her entire life.

Faith laughed at Amy’s expression. “I was only wild for a while, just the last two years of high school, really. I was sick of being locked inside my house with my mother who never stopped complaining, and, well, I’d learned a bit from all her beauty work.”

Zoë looked up from her sketch. “You’re telling us that you were a knockout.”

“More or less,” Faith said. “I was certainly the best-looking thing in that town.”

“Good for you!” Amy said.

“I calmed down after high school—I had to. I went to the same college as Eddie and that’s where we really got to know each other. We were pinned by the second year and we knew we were going to be married. We didn’t make it official because we both dreaded telling his mother. She’d already picked out Eddie’s bride, a third cousin of his who looked like the horses she loved.”

“So you chose Eddie over Ty,” Amy said softly.

“Riches over love,” Zoë said.

“Actually, I didn’t choose. Ty dumped me.”

“Okay,” Amy said, “now I for sure want to hear every word.”

Faith took a moment to consider. It had been a matter of pride to her that she hadn’t told Jeanne about her first love affair with her hometown’s best-looking dropout. But, like Zoë, Faith hadn’t wanted to go to a therapist. She’d been blackmailed into going because of what she’d done at Eddie’s funeral. Her mother-in-law had pressed charges and Faith was facing time in the local jail and having a criminal record for the rest of her life. It had taken a lot of effort, but she’d finally worked out a deal with Eddie’s mother that if she, Faith, would leave town and get some “help” the charges would be dropped. So Faith rented an apartment in New York, and went to the therapist her mother-in-law told her was the only one she’d accept.

But it hadn’t really worked. From the beginning, Faith had connected Jeanne with Eddie’s mother—and that meant she had to protect herself at all costs.

“All right,” Faith said, “I’ll tell you. I think the relevant part of my life started…” She counted the years. “It’s hard to believe but it was only sixteen years ago. It feels like a hundred. I’d just come home from college and my mother was angry at me because I didn’t have a ring on my finger. I was dying to tell her that Eddie and I were as good as engaged, but I knew she’d tell her first client and five minutes after that, it’d be all over town. Eddie needed time to tell his mother, then keep her from dying of a heart attack.

“I was in my bedroom, unpacking my clothes, when Ty shoved the window up and stuck his head inside. For a moment I couldn’t get my breath because he was even better looking than I remembered.”

Five

SIXTEEN YEARS AGO

“Hey!” Ty said as he shoved the window of Faith’s bedroom up and started to climb inside.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Faith ran toward him, meaning to push him back out, but he was already inside. She looked out the window to see how many people had seen him enter her bedroom. But the big wisteria vine was still there and still covered the view.

“Not bad,” Ty said as he gave her an appraising look when she bent over.

“Stop it!” she said as she straightened up and slammed the window shut. “We’re not in the third grade anymore.”

“I didn’t look at you in that way when we were in the third grade,” he said as he turned away and looked at the posters on her bedroom wall. “If I had, I would have been locked up.”