A Summer Affair Read Free Page A

slept under the stars, they had sex with the wild abandon of two twenty-year-olds who had nothing to lose. They hung out with Jason’s brother, Carter, who was a chef at the Galley, and Carter’s girlfriend, Siobhan, who hailed from County Cork. Siobhan wore square glasses and had dark freckles across her pale nose, like pepper over mashed potatoes. Claire fell in love with Carter and Siobhan as well as Jason, and one night she was drunk and bold enough to say, “What if I don’t go to Corning after Labor Day? What if I stay on Nantucket and marry Jason? And Siobhan, you marry Carter, and we raise kids together and live happily ever after?”
    They had laughed at her, and Siobhan told her to piss off—but she, Claire Danner, had been right, and they were now, all of them, Crispins. Ten strong, including the kids. It was storybook—except that it was tough, frustrating, boring reality. Claire and Jason had gone from being two kids with no tan lines and sand in the cracks of their bums to being Mom and Dad, the heads of a minicorporation, the Crispin family of 22 Featherbed Lane. Jason had worked for Eli Drummond for years, and on the weekends he slaved on their own house as well as the hot shop for Claire out back. Then Jason hired four Lithuanian guys and went out on his own. Claire cultivated five clients with erudite and expensive taste in art objects made of glass. She gave birth, in quick succession, to J.D., Ottilie, and Shea. Claire worked erratic hours—after the kids went to bed, before they woke up. Then, when Shea hit preschool, Claire worked more. Everything was okay, fine, good at times, but there were bumps. Jason started smoking at work—smoking!—and trying to hide it with beer or breath mints. Jason became resentful when Claire turned him down for sex. She tried to explain to him what it felt like to be pawed by three kids all day. She was their slave, their employee; she worked for them. Was it any wonder that when the end of the day came, she wanted to be left alone? Jason had never been intellectually curious (after that first summer, he never mentioned de Tocqueville’s name again), and over time he became incorrigibly sucked into the television. Claire found the TV maddening—the channel surfing, the sports. Jason drove a pickup that was as huge and black as a hearse, a gas- guzzler he affectionately called Darth Vader. Darth Vader? Claire said, incredulous that she had married a man who treated his truck like a fraternity brother or a pet. The kids like it, Jason said. The truck, the love affair with the tube, the sneaked cigarettes, and the early morning breakfasts at the Downyflake so that Jason could touch base with his subs and hear about new business—all of it served to push Claire to the brink.
    But there were also many wonderful things about Jason. He worked hard and provided for his family. He prided himself on being simple and straightforward, honest and true; he was the right angle of a T square, the bubble in the level, always locating the center. What you see is what you get. He adored the kids. He had a foot soldier in their son J.D. J.D. helped Jason with projects around the house: rolling paint onto walls, turning the screwdriver while sucking intently on his bottom lip. I’m Dad’s wingman. They built a go-cart using an old lawn mower engine; they went scalloping together and pulled cherrystone clams out of the wet, marshy sand with a tool Jason had fashioned from a piece of PVC pipe. You’ll never go hungry with the Crispin men around! Jason was exemplary with the girls, too—father of the year. He delivered Ottilie and Shea to dance lessons, he bought them bouquets on the day of their dance recital, and he whistled louder than anyone else in the audience. He tirelessly explained that Ottilie was an old-fashioned French name. We wanted something unique, he said, beaming with pride.
    When Claire got pregnant with Zack, things were going smoothly. She was working on a huge