That Summer by Jennifer Weiner (read more books .txt) 📕

“Did you tell anyone?” he asked. “Dr. Levy? Or the police?”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t. I felt so…” She raised her hands and let them flutter back down to her sides. “Not until now. You’re the first.”

“Listen to me.” Michael put his hand on her chin. He tilted her face up so she had to look at him. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Nothing that happened is your fault. It’s their fault. Those guys. Their fault.”

Diana nodded, sniffling. “I know,” she said. “I know you’re right. I’m trying to believe it.”

“Well, for now just know that I believe it. One hundred percent.” When he opened his arms, she shuffled close and leaned against his chest, crying so hard she was sure that his shirt had to be soaked. With her eyes closed, enfolded in a warm, Michael-scented darkness, she felt as close to safe as she had since that summer. Michael held her, and rocked her, and let her cry, and when she stopped he gave her more water, then went inside and fetched two more beers and sat beside her. They drank as the sun went down over the bay, drawing bands of gold and orange and indigo across the sky.

“So here’s a question,” he finally said. “What do you want to happen next?”

Startled, she turned to look at him. “What?”

“It’s your life. You get to decide. How do you want it to be? Like, do you want to go back to college? Do you like being a waitress? Do you like living here?” He paused, then asked, his voice lower, “Do you like being with me?”

“I…” She swallowed hard.

“No pressure,” said Michael. “But I like you. Like, a lot.”

“I’m not sure…” He waited, while she sorted out what to say. “I’m not sure that I can be with anyone, is the thing.”

She felt his body shift as he sighed, and saw his shoulders slump. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I understand.”

“But…” She paused, and breathed, and then, in a rush, said, “If you can be patient with me, I think I want to try.”

His smile was like the sun coming out after days of rain; like pulling on the softest sweater on a cold day.

“Can we take it slow?” she whispered.

“As slow as you need,” said Michael Carmody. He reached for her hand. “I’m a patient kind of guy.”

17 Diana

For the weeks and months of that year, through the fall and the winter and into the spring, Michael Carmody courted her, slowly, with great diligence and care. While the weather stayed warm, they did summer-people things. Michael took her to the Wellfleet drive-in, where they sat in the back of his pickup truck and watched a double feature of Back to the Future and Jaws with a giant bucket of popcorn propped between them. They played miniature golf with Michael’s sister, Kate, and her husband, Devin, and spent afternoons visiting antiques markets and art galleries. On the first cool night he made her dinner, linguine with clam sauce, which, he claimed, was the only thing he could cook, and he took her fishing, cheering her on as she reeled in an eighteen-pound bass. In the cottage, he oiled hinges and replaced the showerhead in the bathroom and added a towel bar to the door. In the mornings on her days off, Michael would come over with coffee and scones from the Flying Fish. Together, they’d walk Willa, and Diana would get in the truck with him and help him make his rounds, keeping him company while he patched screen doors or nailed up drooping gutters or changed the chemicals in hot tubs (“can’t tell you how many pairs of underpants I’ve fished out of this one,” he told her, when they’d visited a mansion in Provincetown, high on a hill in the West End).

He invited her to spend Thanksgiving with his family, but Diana wasn’t ready for that yet, so on Thanksgiving Day, he went to his parents’ place in Eastham, and she went home to eat turkey with her mom and dad and sisters in Boston. Then, on Saturday night at the cottage, she and Michael prepared a two-person feast of a turkey breast, stuffing, sweet potatoes, and cranberry sauce made from the berries they’d picked together in the bog.

At Christmastime, she met his father, a larger, gruffer, gray-haired version of Michael, and was formally introduced to his mom the librarian, who was petite and round, with the curly reddish hair Michael had inherited. Mrs. Carmody—“call me Cathy”—cupped Diana’s face in both of her hands and said, “Finally—finally! He brings home a reader! You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting!” before giving Diana a resounding kiss on the cheek and plopping down on the couch, looking smug. “My work here is done,” she announced, and made a pantomime of dusting off her hands, as Kate and Devin gave Diana meaningful smiles, and Michael shoved his hands in his pockets, murmuring, “That’s enough, Ma,” looking endearingly abashed. Diana met Michael’s friends—Victor, who ran a charter fishing company; and Eric, who owned a nursery; and Carolee, who taught at the yoga studio where Diana took her classes. She would have introduced him to Reese and Frankie and Carly and Ryan, her colleagues at the Abbey, except Michael knew them all already.

Some nights at work, toward the end of her shift, Michael would come and sit at the bar, waiting to bring her home. Sometimes she’d come home from work and find a gift on her doorstep—a palette of watercolors, a pair of earrings, a bouncy rubber Kong for Willa to chase on the beach, a perfectly shaped oyster shell for her to decorate.

The months went by, and all he ever did was hold her hand and kiss her. She knew he wanted more than that—she could see his face getting flushed and hear his heart beating faster;