Summer By The Sea

Cassandra shuffled over to her kitchen and bustled with a plastic grocery bag on the counter. The front half of the cottage was one big room—a combination art studio/library/kitchenette and seating area. A stereo on one of the shelves played a jazz song from the thirties or forties, sung by a woman with an emotional, raspy voice. Sam felt unsettled by the unfamiliar environment and the strange new revelations his daughter had given him.

Cassandra brought over a snack for Lucy.

“Blueberry cake!” Lucy said, excited.

Sam remained standing, not sure what to say.

“Cassandra gave me The Witch of Blackbird Pond to read,” Lucy told him, her tone serious again. As she contemplated him, that studious look came over her and she turned silent once more.

He instinctively touched the doorjamb. “What’s The Witch of Blackbird Pond?” he asked Cassandra.

Cassandra smiled at Lucy. “Shall you explain the story to your dad, or should I?”

“It’s an old story,” Lucy said, settling the plate on a table beside her. “It’s a novel about a teen who has to travel to a new place in the 1600s, and it isn’t anything like what she’s used to, and she gets upset because she doesn’t fit in. So she runs away and meets a kindly Quaker lady who lives by herself on a pond, and she takes her in and feeds her blueberry cake and lets her play with a kitten every time she comes to visit.”

He just stared at Lucy. “So you’re saying you’re upset when you come to see me, and that every time you visit Cassandra’s you eat blueberry cake and play with a kitten?”

She rolled her eyes. “No. It’s not literal, Sam.”

But there had to be some truth to it. And Cassandra appeared to be watching him closely. He wasn’t sure he liked the scrutiny.

It bothered him that his neighbor seemed to know more about his daughter than he did.

But he shook the feeling off. Decided to get right to it. Giving Cassandra his charming smile, the one that usually got him places with women, he said, “Lucy’s mom is going to be away for the summer. It looks like she’s going to be staying with me for a couple months.”

“Yes, I heard that from Lucy last week,” Cassandra said noncommittally. “You must be very excited.”

The back of his neck tightened. He’d momentarily forgotten that his neighbor had known about the change of plans before he had.

But he kept smiling. Folding his arms, he said quietly to Cassandra, “I am excited that she’s here. In fact, I’m resigning as a lifeguard supervisor in order to spend as much time as possible with Lucy.”

As he said it, he knew it was the right thing. Years ago, he’d never expected he would one day have the privilege of living with his only child. Maybe this summer was a gift to him.

But evidently, Lucy didn’t think so. Her face drooped as if he’d dropped a depressing bit of news on her. He felt his own sadness in the hollow of his breastbone.

Outside, the new lifeguard recruits were being drilled. Wind sprints.

Cassandra took her cane and thumped her way across the room. Picked up a paintbrush from a jar on the table. Based on the chemicals and rags spread on a piece of newspaper, she appeared to have been cleaning her painting implements when he and Lucy interrupted her.

Lucy was gazing down at the cat in her lap, stroking his black fur, saying nothing.

It hit Sam, all at once, that while he’d thought he and Lucy were doing okay together all this time, they really weren’t. Lucy was as remote and detached from him as anybody he’d ever known.

He’d lived this way for years. On the surface, he welcomed his daughter to his home two Saturdays a month. They did something interesting and fun together—a movie, a trip to a marine wildlife reserve or a museum, a visit to his brother’s house where she played with her two cousins’ electronic toys to her heart’s content.

But always she ended the visit at Cassandra’s cottage. He’d considered Cassandra a warm grandmother figure to Lucy, filling a role that was missing in Lucy’s life, but it was becoming clear to him that Cassandra had been more to her than he’d realized.

Cassandra connected with Lucy. He didn’t.

He was a piece that didn’t fit in Lucy’s story.

And he didn’t want that to be true any longer.

He glanced back at Cassandra and caught her studying him. She relinquished the brushes and slowly made her way back toward him. Thump, thump, thump.

“Isn’t this usually the week that you take a backpacking vacation?” Cassandra asked him softly. “School got out yesterday.”

“It did.” He tried to keep the bitterness from his voice. “And I cancelled the trip yesterday.”

“Because Lucy needs you.” Cassandra said it as a statement and not a question, and he gave her a short nod. He wasn’t even attempting the charming smile anymore.

“Where were you going this year?” Cassandra’s voice was very low, meant as a conversation between two adults, with Lucy left out of it.

He frowned. “To Scotland. Hiking.”

“Ah, with the Scottish lassies.” She exhaled.

The older woman couldn’t know. Nobody did. It was his own personal secret. The day after school let out, every year, Sam chose a different place in the world to escape to, alone. Someplace interesting to him. And there, wherever “there” was, he nearly always met a woman, though they never exchanged last names. For a week they would get closer, and it was intimate, yet anonymous. That vacation lasted him for a year. For the other three hundred and forty-odd days, he lived his life separate, detached, not really opening himself to anybody. Not even, he realized now, his own daughter.

“This is a small town,” he said to Cassandra, falling back on his old excuse. “A bad idea for a single male teacher to...” To date, and therefore to provide gossip for the mill, he was going to say. But he didn’t want to get into it in front of Lucy.

“Hmm.” Cassandra left it at that. “Your job is very important to you,” she finally said.

He shrugged. Honestly, teaching was interesting and it was a paycheck. That was about it.

Cassandra glanced sharply at him as if reading his mind. “I meant being a lifeguard.”

He blinked. It was true, he looked forward to his lifeguard job all year. He liked the keeping-people-safe aspect of it. He liked sitting in his chair, looking out over the ocean and feeling calm and at peace with the world.

“Well, yes, it’s a good job. But my daughter is more important to me. I’ll take care of her, Cassandra, you don’t have to worry about her being here all the time while you have work to do.”

“Please, Dad!” Lucy interrupted. “I don’t want you to quit your lifeguard job to take care of me!”

She’d called him Dad, not Sam.

He felt himself grinning like a fool.

“Cassandra says you’re really good at what you do.” Lucy continued. “She says you’re the only lifeguard trainer she’s ever seen who teaches the lifeguards how to meditate to stay calm. And you show them the best way to return lost children to their parents. And...to defuse tense situations.”

That was the most Lucy had said to him in a long time, and Cassandra smiled sheepishly at him. “Your lifeguard station is right in the line of sight of my workspace. I’ve been listening to you lead morning training sessions for years.”

Cassandra had obviously been talking him up to his daughter, and he appreciated that. “Thank you, Cassandra,” he said quietly.

She folded her hands and slid a sideways look at him. “I wonder if you could do a favor for me this summer.”

“Oh?” He felt his smile tightening.

“It’s nothing to worry about,” Cassandra hastened to explain. “I have a young houseguest coming here from the West Coast, on sabbatical from her demanding job. She’s looking for someone to tutor her in meditation. I wonder if you could teach her some techniques?”