Home for the Summer Read online

  Outstanding praise for the novels of Holly Chamberlin!

  THE SEASON OF US

  “A warm and witty tale. This heartfelt and emotional story will appeal to members of the Sandwich Generation or anyone who has had to set aside long-buried childhood resentments for the well-being of an aging parent. Fans of Elin Hilderbrand and Wendy Wax will adore this genuine exploration of family bonds, personal growth, and acceptance.”

  —Booklist

  “Chamberlin successfully portrays a family at their best and worst as they struggle through their first holiday without a beloved husband and father and have to redefine their relationships.”

  —Library Journal

  THE BEACH QUILT

  “Particularly compelling.”—The Pilot

  SUMMER FRIENDS

  “A thoughtful novel.” —Shelf Awareness

  “A great summer read.” —Fresh Fiction

  “A novel rich in drama and insights into what factors bring people together and, just as fatefully, tear them apart.”

  —Portland Press Herald

  THE FAMILY BEACH HOUSE

  “Explores questions about the meaning of home, family dynamics and tolerance.”

  —Bangor Daily News

  “An enjoyable summer read, but it’s more. It is a novel for all seasons that adds to the enduring excitement of Ogunquit.”

  —Maine Sunday Telegram

  “It does the trick as a beach book and provides a touristy taste of Maine’s seasonal attractions.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Books by Holly Chamberlin

  LIVING SINGLE

  THE SUMMER OF US

  BABYLAND

  BACK IN THE GAME

  THE FRIENDS WE KEEP

  TUSCAN HOLIDAY

  ONE WEEK IN DECEMBER

  THE FAMILY BEACH HOUSE

  SUMMER FRIENDS

  LAST SUMMER

  THE SUMMER EVERYTHING CHANGED

  THE BEACH QUILT

  SUMMER WITH MY SISTERS

  SEASHELL SEASON

  THE SEASON OF US

  HOME FOR THE SUMMER

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  Home for the Summer

  Holly Chamberlin

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Outstanding praise for the novels of Holly Chamberlin!

  Books by Holly Chamberlin

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Epilogue

  Teaser chapter

  A READING GROUP GUIDE

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2017 by Elise Smith

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4967-0155-8

  eISBN-10: 1-4967-0155-0

  First Kensington Electronic Edition: July 2017

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-0154-1

  First Kensington Trade Paperback Printing: July 2017

  As always, for Stephen.

  And this time also for Françoise.

  Acknowledgments

  There would be no Holly without my incredible editor, John Scognamiglio, so all thanks and appreciation. I would also like to thank Deborah Eve Freedman for her inspiration. Her work with storytelling provides an enormously important service to those healing from trauma and loss. Plus she’s really funny.

  In memory of Douglas A. Mendini and Ann LaFarge, good friends and wonderful colleagues.

  What we have once deeply loved we can never lose.

  For all that we love deeply becomes a part of us.

  —Helen Keller

  Prologue

  “I can’t believe we have to go home already. It’s so unfair.”

  Frieda Braithwaite smiled at her older daughter across the breakfast table in the resort’s main dining room. Bella’s brownish-blond hair was pulled away from her face into a ponytail, emphasizing her high cheekbones and large blue eyes. “Bella,” she said, “we’ve had seven days of fun in the sun. We’ve eaten fantastic food and danced until dawn. Well, almost. I don’t think there’s anything unfair about that. The only unfair thing is that your grandmother couldn’t come with us.”

  “Poor Grandma.” Ariel, Frieda’s soon to be fifteen-year-old daughter, pushed a stray curl of hair from her face. It was a futile effort. Ariel’s long red curls obeyed no one. “It would ha
ve been so great to be here with her. She was so excited about the trip. But I guess it’s not easy to travel with a broken leg.”

  “And when you’re confined to a wheelchair.” Aaron Braithwaite shook his head. “If your grandmother were less of a heroic sort . . . But that’s Ruby Hitchens for you.”

  Bella sighed dramatically. “It stinks about Grandma’s accident, but I still wish we could stay here for a few more days. I mean, it could be forever before we get the chance to come back!”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Ariel pointed out. “But I know what you mean. This really was an awesome vacation. Thanks, Mom and Dad.”

  Frieda looked to her husband with fondness. “It’s your father who deserves the thanks. He was the one who moved heaven and earth to get this week away from the firm.”

  Aaron put his hand over his heart and bowed his head. “I’ll happily accept praise and adulation, but don’t forget it was your mother’s idea to make Bella’s sixteenth birthday into something really special. And next year,” he said, turning to Ariel, “we’ll do something really special for your sixteenth birthday.”

  But Ariel didn’t seem to have heard her father; she had her nose in the guidebook she had started studying weeks before the vacation. “Oh, wow,” she said suddenly. “I don’t know how I missed this! There’s a museum of Jamaican culture in the next town. It says they’ve got pieces dating back to pre-Columbian days. OMG, they even have stuff from the ‘Redware people.’ That’s before the Taino tribes settled here. And they’ve got artifacts from the Spanish invasion and the English invasion and pieces from the Maroon culture, too. Please can we go?” she asked, looking up from the guidebook.

  Bella laughed and rolled her eyes. “Ariel, you are such a dork. How can anyone possibly be interested in looking at a bunch of dusty old clay pots?”

  “I doubt the pots are dusty,” Ariel said matter-of-factly. “They’re probably kept in glass cases to prevent people touching them. And the cases probably have a specially controlled atmosphere to help with preservation. And I’m sure there are lots of other things on display besides pots.”

  Bella rolled her eyes again and reached for her juice. “Yeah,” she said. “Like broken pots.”

  Frieda looked at her watch. “I don’t know, Ariel,” she said. “We have to be at the airport by noon to return the rental car and catch our flight. It’s already almost nine thirty.”

  “Wait a minute. There might be time,” Aaron said, checking his own watch. “When does the museum open?”

  Ariel glanced at her guidebook. “Nine.”

  “And the airport is only about forty minutes from here. Frieda?”

  Frieda shook her head. “We’d be calling it pretty tight, Aaron.”

  “Nonsense,” Aaron argued. “Look, clearly Bella has no interest—”

  “Uh, yeah!”

  “So why don’t you two stay here, catch some last rays, and I’ll take Ariel to the museum. The luggage is in the trunk and I’ve already checked us out, so that’s no worry. I’ll text you when we’re on our way back and then we’ll head right out to the airport.”

  Frieda looked at Ariel’s face, shining with excitement. She had been such a good sport about coming to Jamaica even though Ariel and the sun didn’t play well together and, with her keen interest in history and art, she was more suited to galleries stuffed with antiquities than to sunbathing and surfing. And Aaron was a responsible man; if he thought they could make it to the museum and back in plenty of time for the family to catch their flight home to Massachusetts, then why object any further?

  “Sure,” Frieda said. “Sounds like a plan. You two have fun.”

  “We will!” Ariel jumped up from her seat. “Thanks, Mom. I’m so psyched.”

  “Then we’ll be on our way,” Aaron said, rising from his own chair.

  “Be careful and don’t forget to drive on the left side of the road.”

  “You worry too much, Frieda.” Aaron smiled and leaned down to give his wife a kiss on the lips.

  Frieda, who had just taken a bite of toast, gave him her cheek instead. I am so lucky, she thought as she watched her husband and daughter walk out of the dining room hand in hand. I am so lucky to have this beautiful family.

  “Sometimes I don’t know how Ariel and I are related,” Bella said when they were alone. “Pots? Seriously? What’s interesting about a pot?”

  “You know,” Frieda said, “we’ll probably be going to Paris next year for Ariel’s sixteenth. I’m thinking you might want to get used to the idea of looking at old pots and oil paintings and religious statuary and historic buildings.”

  “Blah.” Bella shuddered. “At least that’s a whole year away.”

  When they had finally finished breakfast—Bella decided to have another helping of scrambled eggs from the buffet—Frieda and her daughter left the dining room and settled in the comfortable open-air lounge not far from the resort’s reception area. Potted palm trees stood between prettily cushioned chaises and low tables made of glossy rattan. Bella put on her sunglasses and buried herself in her iPhone. Knowing Bella’s obsession with the Internet, Frieda had made sure that the resort was equipped with Wi-Fi before booking a reservation. An unplugged Bella was not something either of her parents wanted to be around for more than a few hours. As for Frieda, she turned to reading Iris Murdoch’s The Sea, the Sea on her Kindle.

  Absorbed in the novel, lulled by the warm breeze and the sound of the gently swaying palms, Frieda was oblivious to the passing of time until a child’s gleeful shout brought her to the moment. She checked her watch. It was almost eleven. Aaron and Ariel really should have returned by now, she thought with just a trace of annoyance. If they missed their flight . . . Frieda took her phone from her bag and sent Aaron a text. Where r u? He didn’t reply. Well, Frieda thought, maybe the museum was a dead zone, and she knew that Aaron refused to text while driving, so if they were on the way back to the hotel . . .

  Rapidly Frieda typed Ariel’s cell phone number and sent the same message she had sent to her husband. But Ariel didn’t reply, either.

  “Who are you texting?”

  Frieda looked up from her phone to find Bella watching her.

  “Your sister,” she said. “But she isn’t answering.”

  Bella snorted. “Ariel is such an airhead. You know how she’s always losing her phone. She probably dropped it somewhere and doesn’t even know it’s gone.”

  “Be fair,” Frieda said. “She doesn’t lose her phone. She just misplaces it.”

  “Whatevs. Try Dad.”

  “I did,” Frieda told her. “But you know he won’t answer if he’s driving.” But why wouldn’t he ask Ariel to reply? Frieda wondered. A sharp sliver of worry stabbed at her belly.

  “Well, they’d better be on the way back,” Bella said. “I want to be home in time to watch The Bachelor tonight. If we miss our flight because of some boring old museum I will so kill Ariel.”

  “We won’t miss our flight,” Frieda said. “Don’t be dramatic.”

  Bella looked back to her phone, but Frieda couldn’t resume her reading. In spite of the fact that Aaron thought she worried too much, she wasn’t a person prone to panic. Still, she didn’t like that neither Aaron nor Ariel had responded to her message. Their silence didn’t feel right.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” she said, rising from the comfortable chair and moving out of her daughter’s hearing. She called Aaron’s cell phone; when he didn’t pick up she left a message on his voice mail. “Hey, it’s me. Where are you guys? It’s getting late. Call me.” She then called Ariel’s cell phone; when Ariel didn’t pick up, Frieda left a message on her voice mail, this one delivered in a voice that was just a little tense. “It’s Mom. Please call me, okay?”

  Frieda could feel her face constricting in a frown as she walked back to where Bella was waiting.

  “You called them, didn’t you?” Bella asked, removing her sunglasses.

  “Yes,” Frieda admitted. “
But the calls went to voice mail.”

  “We are so going to miss our flight!” her daughter complained loudly. “It’s after eleven! Why don’t we just meet them at the airport? Send Dad another text and tell him we’ve gone ahead.”

  “They’ll be here,” Frieda said firmly. Of course they will, she thought. Of course they will. There’s the potluck dinner at the Andersons’ tomorrow night. They’ll want to see the pictures of our vacation. And Aaron’s got that big presentation on Friday and Ariel has a violin solo in the school’s concert on Wednesday. Of course they’ll be back. They have to be.

  “It’s eleven fifteen, Mom.” Bella was pacing now, her purple flip-flops slapping the floor.

  Maybe, Frieda thought, they should leave for the airport. She could give a message to the clerk at the reception desk for Aaron and Ariel and entrust their plane tickets to her as well. She could leave another voice-mail message telling Aaron she and Bella had gone ahead. But what then? She couldn’t get on the plane not knowing what had become of her husband and daughter. What can I do? she asked herself. What is there I can do?

  “Mom,” Bella moaned. “Come on. We could get a cab or maybe the resort bus could take us. If we don’t leave now . . .”

  Frieda shook her head and stared down at her phone as if willing it to ring.