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Gwyn picks her feet up, so the swing swings. “You just described every morning for me.”
Maggie laughs and runs her hand along the swing’s seat, along the wooden boards. “So did Thomas build this?”
“No. Thomas’s parents. A long time ago. It was their wedding present for us, actually.”
“Champ and Anna?”
“Champ and Anna.” She smiles.
“What were they like?”
Gwyn smiles. “Wonderful, really. Very lovely people who liked each other a lot. Anna didn’t particularly like me, though. But Champ did. I made him laugh.”
“Why didn’t she like you?”
“Mother-in-laws are the worst. You know, they don’t like you, they make you feel bad about yourself, they have a divorce party the day you meet them and you have to face the fact that they are crazy. Plus, if you aren’t very sure of yourself, you may start feeling like you are going that way too.”
Maggie smiles.
“I wished you could have met them. You would have liked them. They moved here, for good, after the hurricane of 1938. Anna said Champ was like a man obsessed with Montauk for a while after that. He built the town a library, and helped remake a new town center.”
"And then what?”
“And then it calmed down. But he was peaceful here. He was really peaceful.” She shakes her head. “I think I thought that Thomas was like him. It was important to me. But being absent and being peaceful are two different things. They can look alike, but they are really the opposite.”
Maggie is quiet, thinking about that, hoping that Nate is closer to the second, believing he is. “When did they die? Champ and Anna? I mean I know it was before Nate was born, but—”
“Anna got sick not long after we got married. And the doctors couldn’t really do anything to stop it. I don’t think Champ could take it without her. He died six months after she did.” She takes a final drag of her cigarette. “But they lived a happy life together. Not long enough, but very happy. I think that is better than the other way around.”
“How do you get there?” Maggie asks, turning and meeting Gwyn’s eyes. “The happy part?”
Gwyn smiles. “You get lucky.”
“That’s what you’ve got for me?”
“I’ll work on it, and get you something else when I’m a little less tired.” She pauses. “Avoiding smoking is probably a good starting point.”
Maggie puts her cigarette out on the bottom of her flip-flop, and looks over at Gwyn. “Sounds good.”
Gwyn stands up and Maggie can feel her look down at her— carefully—as though she were trying to figure out whether she should say it, whatever it is that she has already decided she needs to say.
“I know you’re upset wit
h Nate, Maggie, and who am I to tell you that you shouldn’t be? Maybe you should get out now. Maybe when things start to show that they aren’t what we think, we are better off hitching ourselves to a different star.”
“Really?”
Gwyn puts her hands on her hips, shrugs. “Who am I to know? But I have been thinking a lot today, and for whatever it is worth, there are different ways to have trouble. There are different ways to be confused about how someone’s disappointed you. My husband lied about the future because he wanted to forget the past. But Nate lied about the past because he thought it would give you two a future. Don’t confuse the two things.”
“I couldn’t even if I wanted to.”
Gwyn reaches over and, without asking, gently takes the pack of cigarettes from Maggie’s hands. “What I’m trying to say is that it will be okay between you and Nate. Because you both want that. Because you both want that more than anything. It sounds simple, but I’m learning that the problems start when you want different things.”
“Like Mr. Huntington wanting to become a Buddhist?”
“Like Mr. Huntington not wanting to be with me.”
Maggie looks down, gets quiet. Her eyes focusing on Eve’s cigarette, on what she thinks she knows about Eve, on wondering what the truth of it may be doing to Gwyn, may do to her from now on.
