Chapter 12: The Fourth

Lawrence stood in the hallway after the door shut.

He didn't look at me.

He looked at the worn place in the runner between his shoes.

"Okay," he said.

Then he walked down the back stairs, and I heard the kitchen door, and the porch door, and then nothing.

He didn't come into the kitchen again for eight days.

The notes stopped too.

On the Fourth of July the Harborlight's lawn was strung with white lights from the porch to the boathouse.

Two hundred chairs. Twenty round tables in white cloths. A string quartet on a platform by the seawall.

A barge was anchored out in the harbor, loaded with fireworks.

Blair had planned every inch of it.

I'd cooked every inch of it.

Lobster rolls on brioche I'd baked at four in the morning. Oysters on ice. Corn with herb butter.

Three hundred little blueberry tarts, because the blackberries still weren't ripe.

Hattie came down to help with the pies.

She brought Poppy, scrubbed and braided and in a red dress with white stars.

"Stay in the kitchen," I told Poppy. "Or with Aunt Hattie. Nowhere else."

"Can I see the fireworks?"

"From the back steps."

"Can I give my present?"

"What present?"

She held up a piece of folded construction paper and wouldn't let me see it.

"It's a secret."

I was too tired to argue.

At six I carried out the first trays myself.

Eleanor stood at the top of the lawn in pale blue silk, receiving people.

She saw me with the tray.

She came over, smiling for the guests, and took an oyster she had no intention of eating.

"You're still here," she said pleasantly.

"I'm catering."

"So I see."

She held the oyster shell in her gloved fingers.

"Your answer upstairs bought you the summer, Miss Ellison. Don't waste it. And don't let me see that child tonight."

She dropped the oyster back on my tray, untouched, and turned to greet a senator's wife.