one
They’re all drunk as usual. It’s the final night of the annual Lindstrom family reunion, the official end of summer, and the last time we’ll be together for a while. Everyone’s indulged in a few too many Moscow mules and dirty martinis. The kitchen stool behind the Carrara marble counter provides a mezzanine view of the assembled cast.
Sam’s the one dozing on the couch, his handsome head tilted back, his mouth slightly agape. There’s a tiny trickle of drool snaking toward his perfect chin. Gazing at my younger brother takes me back forty years to when he was a baby sleeping peacefully in his crib: the gentle curves of his eyelids, his long lashes fluttering in rhythm with his dreams, his warm moist breath smelling sweetly of mother’s milk. Like me, Sam isn’t a Lindstrom by blood but at least he’s one by marriage.
Eva’s leaning on Sam and appears to be asleep as well, but it’s an act. Eva’s a drunk—a high-functioning drunk, but a drunk nonetheless. Five or six drinks aren’t nearly enough to knock Eva out for the night, but it’s enough to quiet the voices in her head, the voices that remind her she’s the older sister, the smart one (read: not the pretty one), the woman who squeezed out three ten-pound babies within a six-year span and has the flabby belly and sexless marriage to prove it. Five or six drinks are just enough to make Eva think she can seduce her younger sister’s husband even though he has zero attraction to her and is pretty much unconscious to boot.
My sister-in-law, Beth, is the drunkest of them all, but she has reason to be. This is Beth’s last taste of freedom before the dreaded road trip—the road trip no one dares talk about to her flawless face but everyone discusses sotto voce in the tastefully appointed guest rooms, countless pantries and book-lined hallways of the Sunday New York Times–featured weekend retreat that Beth painstakingly designed and pretentiously named Le Refuge. Beth is lying on her back on the fluffy white flokati rug, making faux snow angels and staring up at the ceiling lights while singing “Silent Night” over and over again. Never mind that it’s the end of August. She apparently only knows the first verse.
The rest of the adults already went to bed. These family reunions aren’t exactly relaxing: a marathon of daily activities and simmering resentments. It’s not easy having to keep up with the Lindstroms when it comes to drinking, darts, Scrabble or any other pastime that can be turned into a cutthroat competition.
Eva nuzzles closer to Sam, continuing to feign sleep, her hand slipping down toward his crotch. It’s outrageous. Sam’s her sister’s husband. Then again, the poor guy deserves to get a little action. It’s the family’s worst-kept secret that Beth has been frigid ever since she gave birth to their first baby over five years ago, and it got worse when their second arrived two years later. Sam’s bent my ear for countless hours complaining how sexually frustrated he is, how many times he’s had to jack off in the shower, how convinced he is that his testicles are going to fall off because Beth refuses to put out or go down on him. It’s not polite sibling conversation but also not worth making a fuss about. After all, he’s got to talk to someone, and better me than one of the guys at the club.
You have to hand it to Beth: she thought of everything when she designed Le Refuge, filling the home with all the must-have amenities and high-end appliances showcased in the interior design porn magazines she reads so voraciously. You can just imagine a real estate agent giving prospective buyers a tour of the property, making sure to highlight each envy-inducing feature. The main house has a light-filled great room complete with fully stocked wet bar (top-shelf booze only) and climate-controlled wine cellar. Adjacent to the great room is the open-concept chef’s kitchen with a six-burner Wolf range, dual Sub-Zero refrigerators and walk-in butler’s pantry.
Just across the grassy lawn from the main house is the barnlike dorm, outfitted with four sets of matching bunk beds and deluxe memory foam mattresses and every amusement the Lindstrom children could ever want: pinball, foosball, air hockey, Ping-Pong, pool table, giant plasma TV with Netflix and an Xbox 360. The glass-front fridge is filled with a dizzying array of Izze sodas and organic yogurt tubes, and the snack pantry is stocked with jumbo-size cartons of whole-wheat Goldfish, non-GMO puffed cheese balls and five-pound plastic jars of Red Vines.
My cell phone buzzes to remind me to go and check on the children. Everyone says it’s unnecessary—after all, what could go wrong out here at Le Refuge?—but it’s my nightly habit. There’s an unseasonable chill in the air tonight. The amber light of the dorm’s windows always reminds me of the glowing lanterns in a Japanese woodblock that my professor spent an entire lecture discussing in my Harvard freshman seminar. A brown bat swoops in the distance, and a shooting star blazes across the sky. The recycled barnwood floorboards creak on my way up to the dorm’s main level. The little girls are already asleep, but the older Lindstrom cousins are piled together like tired puppies on the oversize sectional and watching something on the TV. The movie is Superbad, totally inappropriate for the tween-aged girls, but it’s hard to muster the guts to be the uncool aunt and tell them to turn it off.
Standing there, unnoticed by the four children, it’s magical to observe their unguarded faces. Max, the one male cousin—technically, a stepcousin—had been a funny-looking boy, all stuck-out ears and snub nose and sharp elbows, but he’s grown into a quirkily handsome young man with wavy ginger hair and softly freckled skin. Meanwhile, the girl cousins have inherited the Lindstrom family’s classic beauty: long blond hair, blue eyes and graceful ballet figures.
Everyone is cuddled under a cozy king-size comforter, but even with the camouflage of baffle-stitched six-hundred-fill hypoallergenic goose down, it’s obvious that things are not all innocent. Max rests his head on one arm of the sectional, and Stevie, the oldest of the girls, rests hers on the opposite arm, with quite a bit of overlapping in between. This past year, Stevie’s blossomed from girl to woman—something about her reminds me of the farmstand peaches now in season—which hasn’t gone unnoticed by Max. Oh, to be young again and overflowing with hormones, feeling the exhilaration of rubbing your long, lithe limbs against a member of the opposite sex.
“Stop that, you’re related,” my long-dead mother reprimands the children in my head. But really, what’s the fuss? The two kids are stepcousins. It’s not like they share any blood. Isn’t that what matters?
Suddenly, I feel old. At forty-nine, I’m the oldest person at the Lindstrom family reunion and the only unmarried adult. Descending the steps of the dorm and crossing the expansive lawn, my feet feel ice-cold and slippery against my slip-on shoes. Looking up at the crescent moon shining in the evening sky, my eyes are dazzled by the delicate dusting of stars. Being a city girl, it’s a special treat to see so many twinkling lights. (“Hoboken doesn’t count as the city, Hannah,” my brother, Sam, always teases.) It’s hard to remember a time when the sky was so dark and so bright at the same time.
I close my eyes and feel the gentle breeze wafting in from the shore. I take a deep breath, savoring the briny scent of the Chesapeake. I focus my energies on gratitude, on appreciating all the wonderful things in my life rather than the difficult challenges that await us tomorrow and in the days ahead. As I slowly open my eyes, I hear an owl hooting in the distance. I look upward. And there on the second floor of the main house, backlit by one of the extravagantly perfumed candles that Beth purchases by the case, I see my brother, Sam, desperately humping Eva in the upstairs guest bathroom.