Summer By The Sea

She pulled up to the curb in front of number 115, a boxy house with a garden so neat that people sometimes slowed down to admire it. A pruned hedge guarded the profusion of roses that bloomed from spring to winter. Each of the roses had a name. Not the proper name of its variety, but Salvatore, Roberto, Rosina—each one planted in honor of their first communion. There were also roses that honored relatives in Italy whom Rosa had never met, and a few for people she didn’t know—La Donna, a scarlet beauty, and a coral floribunda whose name she couldn’t remember.

The sturdy bush by the front step, covered in creamy-white blooms, was the Celesta, of course. A few feet away was the one Rosa, a six-year-old with a passion for Pepto-Bismol pink, had chosen for herself. Mamma had been so proud of her that day, beaming down like an angel from heaven. It was one of those memories Rosa cherished, because it was so clear in her heart and mind. She wished all the past could be remembered this way, with clarity and affection, no tinge of regret. But that was naive, and by now, she had figured that out.

She used her ancient key to let herself in. Pop had given it to her when she was nine years old, and she had never once lost it. In the front hall, she blinked the lights a few times. Out of habit she called his name, though it had been some years since he’d been able to hear her.

An acrid odor wafted from the kitchen, along with a buzzing sound.

“Shit,” she muttered under her breath, clutching the strap of her purse to her shoulder as she ran to the back of the house. On the counter, a blender stood unattended, its seized motor humming its last, rubber-scented smoke streaming from the base. She grabbed the cord—it felt hot to the touch—and jerked it from the wall. Inside the blender, the lukewarm juice sloshed. The kitchen smoke alarm blinked—what good was that if Pop wasn’t looking?

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, you’re going to kill yourself one of these days,” Rosa said, waving the smoke away from her face. She peered through the window and saw him out in the backyard, puttering around, oblivious.

On the kitchen table, a newspaper lay open to the Emily Montgomery obituary. Rosa pictured her father starting his breakfast, paging through the paper, stopping in shock as he read the news. He’d probably wandered outside to think about it.

She opened the windows and turned on the exhaust fan over the range, then emptied the blender carafe into the sink. As she cleaned up the mess, Rosa felt a wave of nostalgia. In the scrubbed and gleaming kitchen, her mother’s rolled-out pasta dough used to cover the entire top of the chrome and Formica table. Rosa could still picture the long sleek muscles in her mother’s arms as she wielded the red-handled rolling pin, drawing it in smooth, rhythmic strokes over the butter-yellow dough.

The reek of the burnt-out motor was a corruption here, in Mamma’s world. The smell of her baking ciambellone used to be so powerful it drew the neighbors in, and Rosa could remember the women in their aprons and scuffs, sitting on the back stoop, sharing coffee and Mamma’s citrusy ciambellone, fresh from the oven.

To this day, the sweet, dense bread was one of the signature brunch items at Celesta’s-by-the-Sea. Butch prepared the dough directly on the countertop with his bare hands, no bowls or spoons, just like Mamma had. Rosa appreciated Butch’s skill at cooking and his exquisite palate, but some subtle essence was missing; she could only put it down as magic. No one could capture that, though Rosa knew in some part of her heart that she would never stop trying.

She went out back to talk to her father. The yard had a long rectangular garden that had been laid out and planted by her mother before Rosa was born. Nowadays, her father tended the heirloom tomatoes, peppers, beans and herbs, happy to spend his silent hours in a place his young wife had loved.

He was seated on a wooden folding chair beneath a plum tree, smoking a pipe. A few branches lay around, casualties of the recent windstorm. He looked up when her shadow fell over him.

“Hi, Pop,” she said.

“Rosa.” He set aside the pipe, stood and held out his arms.

She smiled and hugged him, then gave him a kiss on the cheek, inhaling his familiar scent of shaving soap and pipe tobacco. When she stepped back, she made sure he was looking directly at her, and told him about the blender.

“I guess I forgot and left it on,” he said.

“The house could have burned down, Pop.”

“I’ll be careful from now on, okay?”

It was what he always said when Rosa worried about him. It didn’t help, but neither did arguing with him. She studied his face, noticing troubled shadows in his eyes, and knew it had nothing to do with the blender. “You heard about Mrs. Montgomery.”

“Yes. Of course. It was in all the papers.”

Pop had always been addicted to reading the newspapers, usually two a day. In fact, Rosa had learned to read while sitting in his lap, deciphering the funny pages.

He took her hand in his. He had wonderful hands, blunt and strong, callused from the work he did. His touch was always gentle, as though he feared she might break. “Let’s sit. Want some coffee?”

“No, thanks.” She joined him in the shade of the plum tree. He seemed…different today. Distracted and maybe diminished, somehow. “Are you all right, Pop?”

“I’m fine, fine.” He waved off her concern like batting at a fly.

This wouldn’t be the first time he’d lost a client. In the forty years since he had emigrated from Italy, he’d worked for scores of families in the area. But today he seemed to be particularly melancholy.

“She was still so young,” Rosa commented.

“Yes.” A faraway look came into his eyes. “She was a bride when I first saw her, just a girl, younger than you.”

Rosa tried to picture Alex’s mother as a young bride, but the image eluded her. She realized Mrs. Montgomery must have been just thirty the first time Rosa had seen her. It seemed inconceivable. Emily Montgomery had always been ageless in her crisp tennis whites, her silky hair looped into a ponytail. She wore almost no jewelry, which Rosa later learned was characteristic of women from the oldest and wealthiest families. Ostentation was for the nouveau riche.

Mrs. Montgomery had lived in terror for her fragile son and had regarded Rosa as a danger to his health.

“I wonder how she died,” Rosa said to her father. “Did any of the obituaries say?”

“No. There was nothing.”

She watched a ladybug lumber over a blade of grass. “Are you going to the service, or—”

“No, of course not. It is not expected. She doesn’t need the gardener. And if I sent flowers, well, they would just get lost.”

Rosa got up, pacing in agitation. She walked over to the tomato bushes, the centerpiece of the spectacular garden plot. In her mind’s eye, she could see her mother in a house dress that somehow looked pretty on her, a green-sprigged apron, bleached Keds with no socks, a straw hat to keep the sun from her eyes. Mamma never hurried in the garden, and she used all her senses while tending it. She would hold a tomato in the palm of her hand, determining its ripeness by its softness and heft. Or she would inhale the fragrance of pepperoncini or bell peppers, test a pinch of flat leaf parsley or mint between her teeth. Everything had to be at its peak before Mamma brought it to the kitchen.

Rosa bent and plucked a stalk of dockweed from the soil. She straightened, turned to find her father watching her, and she smiled. His hearing loss broke her heart, but it had also brought them closer. Of necessity, he had become incredibly attentive, watching her, reading every nuance of movement and expression with uncanny accuracy. His skill at reading lips was remarkable.

And he knew her so well, she thought, her smile wobbling. “Alex came by the restaurant last night.”

Pop’s eyebrows lowered, but he didn’t comment. He didn’t have to. Years ago, he had thought Alex a poor match for her, and his opinion probably hadn’t changed.

“He didn’t say a word about his mother,” she continued. That was when she felt a twist of pain. He’d been drinking last night because he was hurting. Surely his friends must’ve realized that. Why had they simply left him? Why didn’t he have better friends? Why did it matter to her?

“Well.” Pop slapped his thighs and stood up. “I must go to work. The Camdens are having a croquet party and they need their hedges trimmed.”

Rosa removed his flat black cap and kissed his balding head. “You come up to the restaurant tonight. Butch is fixing bluefish for the special.”

“I’m gonna get fat, I keep eating at your place all the time.”

She gave his arm a playful punch. “See you, Pop.”

“Yeah, okay.”

She stepped through the gate and turned to wave. The expression on his face startled her. “Pop, you sure you’re doing all right?”

Instead of replying to her question, he said, “You shouldn’t mess with that guy, just because he came back.”

“Who says I’m messing with him?”

“Tell me I’m wrong, Rosa.”

“Don’t worry about me, Pop. I’m a big girl now.”

“I always worry about you. Why else am I still here on this earth?”

She touched her hand to her heart and then raised it to sign I love you.