Summerland: A Novel Read Free Page A

couldn’t remember his singing anything but “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” once, at a chefs’ after-hours party.
    If Zoe was to be very honest with herself, she would have to admit she wasn’t sure that Penelope’s voice was an unadulterated blessing. At times, Penny seemed almost burdened by it. Her voice had to be cared for like some exotic pet—a macaw, maybe, or a rare breed of chinchilla. Penny wouldn’t eat spicy food or drink coffee; she wrapped her throat in a warm, damp cloth at night as she lay in bed and listened to Judy Collins sing “Send In the Clowns” over and over again. She couldn’t stand smoke of any kind; every winter she begged Zoe to get rid of the woodstove.
    It was during the year that Penny turned thirteen, which was also the year that she started her period, which was also the year that Ava and Jordan’s baby died, that Zoe heard her sobbing in her bedroom one night. Zoe knocked, and when Penny didn’t answer, she walked right in. She found Penny sitting on the floor of her closet, hugging herself and rocking in a way that made Zoe think that this sobbing was a ritual that she had missed many times before. Zoe had to pull Penny from the closet and drag her to the bed before demanding a reason for her tears.
    “What is it?” Zoe asked. “What’s wrong?”
    Penny said that she felt like there was less love in the world for her than for other people. Because she had no father.
    Whoa: that answer had leveled her. Hobson senior had died of a heart attack when Zoe was seven months pregnant with the twins. Zoe had given birth to them alone; she had raised them out of infancy alone. She had hunted for a job as a private chef, and an opportunity on Nantucket had fallen into her lap. She had moved to the island, she had bought the cottage, she had put the kids in day care, and she had worked for the Allencast family on upper Main Street. The Allencasts paid her a generous salary that included health insurance and an IRA, they gave her flexible hours, and they introduced her to people who provided her with side jobs. Zoe suddenly had a role on the island: she was an elite personal chef, as well as the mother of two exceptional kids. There were certainly times when Zoe felt like she was doing nothing right, but there were also times when she felt like she was doing
something
right.
    But watching Penny sob and hiccup and fight for breath that night because she had no father made Zoe feel certain she had done nothing right. Nothing in thirteen years.
    She said, “I love you twice as much as any other mother loves her child.” She had grabbed Penny around the shoulders and kissed her fiercely in the part of her hair. “Goddammit, you know that, Penny.” She had feared the kids would grow up with an empty space in them. She had worried it would be Hobby who would suffer, but Hobby had always had men in his life—coach after coach, and the admiring fathers of his friends. Jordan was like a father to him, as was Al Castle. But it wasn’t Hobby Zoe had to worry about; it was Penny.
    Zoe tightened her grip on her daughter and noticed how Penny seemed to slip through her grasp, like a handful of butter. Zoe had done all she could, but she couldn’t be two people at once.
    Zoe took Penny to see a psychologist. It was one more thing for Zoe to fit into her already bursting schedule, one more thing forher to pay for, but it had to be done. The psychologist, a kind, plain woman named Marcy, met with Penny alone half a dozen times before finally talking with Zoe.
    “She’s a terrific kid,” Marcy said.
    “Thank you,” Zoe said. She smiled, waiting for more. Marcy smiled back, bobbing her head.
    “That’s it?” Zoe asked.
    “Well…,” Marcy said. She held her palms out, as if trying to show Zoe something—a baby chick or a milkweed pod—that Zoe couldn’t see. “Penelope has a heart made from the finest bone china. Just be aware.”
    A heart made from the finest bone china? Zoe