To the New Owners, page 19
Six months before, on day two after moving to assisted living, he had arranged for his dog Jazz to join him. In the middle of the night, trying to take Jazz outside, Nick stumbled. He required emergency hip surgery, after which he never regained his mobility.
In honor of his life, Lydia arranged for a “gathering” (not to be called a memorial service), held at Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall on the Princeton University campus. The front of the program featured a photo of him, hands clasped, looking pensive, a sly light in his eyes. The back cover showed both Nick and Lydia in their prime, wearing lambskin jackets, walking along the canal in Georgetown with their dog King, smiling under a canopy of bare trees, three bicyclists gaining on them in the distance.
William Bowen, the former president of Princeton, thanked Nick for his service as a trustee. When Princeton created a list of its one hundred most distinguished alums, he was ranked at number sixteen. John used to say, “Dad, if you had only tried harder, you might have made it to fifteen.”
Herb Sturz, an old friend, told dog stories, about an Irish setter named Mac, Nick’s wedding gift to Lydia, who slept under their bed on their wedding night. He mentioned Beo W. Ulf, the St. Bernard, and Willie B., named after Sir William Blackstone, author of the phrase: “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer.”
He said Nick didn’t like talking about himself so he didn’t, but he listened carefully and drew no distinction between “older people, young people, and dogs. He particularly cared about dogs. Nick particularly liked underdogs. And he had a sympathy for misfits and waifs—and he sure cared about Lydia. It took a great man to win and hold Lydia’s heart.”
Sturz also said that whenever you asked Nick how he was, he would say, “Just fine.” Even during the six months of rehab that went nowhere, he would say, “‘Just fine!’ And then he wasn’t fine.”
Jack Rosenthal, Nick’s speechwriter from his Washington days, later head of the editorial board of the New York Times, recalled Nick’s favorite story from a formal D.C. dinner, when the wife of the former president of France, trying to make polite conversation, speaking in heavily accented English, said, “What I wish most for in this world is a penis.”
A stunned shuffling of forks, eyes glued to plates, until at last her husband, Charles de Gaulle, broke in to say, “My dear, I think it’s pronounced happiness.”
(A passing truism: in moments of solemnity, if you think the crowd can take it, bring up a body part or function in the hope of bringing the house down; it often works.)
Lydia did not speak, but all four children did.
Christopher remembered asking his father how he survived in POW camp and Nick said he told himself that “the war would surely be over in four months, and he could surely make it four more months. And when those four months passed, he made the same deal with himself for another four months, and again and again.”
John imagined his father being welcomed into a secular version of the pearly gates: “I could envision the gates swinging open, only it wouldn’t be angels there to greet him. I saw Jefferson and Adams and Thomas Paine; I saw Lincoln and Roosevelt, Justices Frankfurter, Warren, and Marshall, attorneys like Clarence Darrow and Tom Barr. I saw MLK and, of course, Bobby and Jack and Teddy, followed by LBJ . . .”
He saw his father tossed into a heaven where he could “spend his eternity arguing subtleties and nuances of the law that he loves with all the minds he respected, as he patiently and characteristically waits for the rest of us to join him.”
Anne remembered her father’s advice that she said stemmed from his days at Exeter as a goalie on the hockey team: “Expect the worst—if it happens, you’ll be prepared—if it doesn’t, by my father’s calculation, you will be twice as happy. Along with a beautiful middle name, a strong chin, and a habit of reading mystery novels, my dad handed down this philosophy to me.”
And then she acknowledged that her father, a Mets fan, disapproved of her allegiance to the Yankees. “One of his deepest disappointments . . . sorry, Dad.”
Mimi went last, as she desired, speaking in a confident melodic voice that filled every corner of the room. Using a live tree on the stage as a prop, she addressed the gathering, asking the healers to keep on healing; the people who worked in government to go on governing, to not give up on democracy; and the educators to educate, all in the spirit of her father.
The person who most commanded the room was a rogue speaker, an old frail man who stood up and seized the podium.
Would this be embarrassing?
A good story followed.
Ward Chamberlin, who had been a senior vice president at PBS, said he had come down to New Jersey all the way from Boston, driven by his nephew, leaving well before dawn, because he couldn’t let his old friend go without sharing some words of praise and remembering the time he and Nick and another boy, in the summer of 1939, took a three-week bike trip through Normandy and Brittany. History was breathing down their necks, but they didn’t know it. In that moment, they were still young and hale and carefree.
Their trip took them through many small, isolated towns that happened to coincide with the Tour de France. They knew the schedule ahead of the racers and, born strategists, they mapped their route whenever possible to reach the Tour destination ahead of the pros. Thereupon, the villagers bestowed on them victory cheers, the smiles of pretty girls, fresh bread, generous amounts of wine, charcuterie . . . at least until the real racers showed up, and Nick and his friends disappeared.
My daughter, Justine, was chosen to read a poem by Lydia that included this stanza:
Lies are where
TRUTH lies
To find its way
Through this
And other lives.
So—here’s today’s
Truthful lie:
YOU’LL NEVER DIE
I always felt shy around John’s dad. Whether he chose to or not, he radiated gravitas. If I couldn’t bring up at least the Constitution along with “please pass the butter,” I feared I was in danger of superficiality.
He had a lawyer’s logic down pat.
Once, when Lydia went on a diet and announced that the last five pounds were the hardest, he said, “Tell yourself you have ten to go.”
During the Monica Lewinsky/Bill Clinton controversy, I asked him if he thought Clinton was the target of right-wing conspirators.
“Either that, or he is just not being kept busy enough at the office.”
John and his sibs used to call him First National Nicholas, in honor of the way he provided. He had the air of someone both stoic and statuesque who would never fail to deliver on a promise.
The story I like to tell most about my father-in-law is when he visited my son’s elementary school.
My children grew up hearing the story about how their grandfather, when he was deputy attorney general of the United States, confronted George Wallace.
When young Nick first heard the story, he said, “That Wallace. He sure was a meanie. I’d like to find his house and go beat him up.”
“That,” I said, “is not precisely the lesson of Grandfather.”
When Nick was in the second grade, in 1990, he asked, “Do you think Grandfather would come to my school for a special share?” He and some older pals in the sixth grade cooked up the idea of having Nick’s grandfather address both classes in a combined forum.
Special shares were the Cadillacs of shares, and they ideally involved a living creature, at least a goldfish or a baby. The ideal special share was a pro athlete. Short of that, an indulgent grandparent would do.
“Sure,” I said. “Just ask.”
“When?” Nick the Elder said.
As part of their preparation, the sixth graders at Fort River Elementary School in Amherst were shown snippets of a documentary titled Kennedy vs. Wallace.
John’s father spoke in his usual soft voice with its low timbre, a voice that soothed and convinced at once:
“Back in the sixties black people were treated differently. They were not allowed to eat at lunch counters; they were made to ride in the back of the bus. They were treated as though they were less than white people. President Kennedy wanted to do something about it. And so he ordered the integration of the University of Alabama. But Governor Wallace tried to block the entrance. I knew he wasn’t going to move unless I made him do it. He wanted to be stubborn. Haven’t you ever told your parents you weren’t going to do something you know perfectly well you should do?”
A boy had a comment: “You look younger in the show.”
“It wasn’t a show. It really happened.”
“A lot younger.”
A girl interrupts. “No, you’re still okay, the same.”
A big grin from the speaker: “Oh, that’s my girl.”
Another question: “Weren’t you scared he might fight back?”
“No, I was much bigger. But it was hot. Something you might not have noticed was that he stood in the shade and he made me stand in the sun. And I was tired. I had been up all night. He really annoyed me.”
“What happened to Wallace?”
“He is still alive today. And you know what? He recently said he made a mistake. He was sorry for what he had done. You know there is something on that video you saw that is quite important. After Vivian was allowed into her dorm, we went up there and we told her that even though people were afraid there might be an incident now that she was a student at the university, she should come down and eat in the cafeteria with the other students. So she came down, and took a tray, and stood in line, and went for food, and sat down at a table by herself. And right away—ten seconds after—five white girls came to her table and sat down with her, and right then I knew everything was going to be all right. Young people didn’t believe in not treating people right.
“It was all the older people, the stupid older people.”
As a lawyer, he possessed a gift for making things complicated, with qualifiers and obscure terminology. But he also possessed an even greater gift: the ability to take what is complicated and to make it simple.
After his appearance, the students sent letters.
“Dear Deputy Eternity General,” began one letter from a sixth grader. “I thought it would be another one of those boring lectures, but I was FORTUNATELY wrong. You were interesting and clear. Also, I never met anyone from politics in person (unless you count those cardboard President Reagans you can get your picture taken with in Boston, ha ha).”
One student thought it was great that he knew so much about the 1960s and wondered if he knew about the 1970s as well.
The letters from the children in Nick’s grade were less businesslike in tone and they contained crayoned drawings, which may or may not have had any bearing on the subject at hand, including rainbows and pots of gold. They claimed to have “rilly enjoyd” his talk and to have been “tot” a lot (more history clearly than spelling). They couldn’t believe that that selfish Wallace “standed in the shade” the way he did. One student asked for his “otograf,” and another thanked him for “saving us from all the evil people.”
But the most treasured response came from his grandson:
“Dear Mr. Person with the same name as me: Thank you.”
It is clear to me that everybody has his or her own, seemingly universally beloved version of John’s dad. For me it was, above all, seeing him on the Vineyard, relaxed.
“Time to leave,” says the note from my father-in-law in the logs, the man whose vision this all was, who had the idea and the means to create this haven and then the heart to share it.
Then a list:
• Close fireplace flue
• Lock all doors and windows
• All porch furniture inside
• Pull boats way up on beach
• Put canoe under deck
• Sails, etc., go to middle bedroom . . .
Most of the chores are done. I have to get a new tire for the Jeep. The gas in the red tank should be disposed of responsibly. Please ask guys at dump. Don’t pour it around Thumb Point please. In a way I hate to leave, but it is that time of year, and you can’t fend off the passage of time.
Chapter Fifteen
Great Dark Cattle
Packing is such a hit-or-miss activity, so discordant, especially if you are not a naturally well-organized person. One step forward, three steps back, as you get waylaid by thoughts of the past, by a procession of people that stretches back, in the case of this move, almost a half century. In the end it was just John and me, as it had been in the beginning. We, who had loved the house with an extravagant love, would do it the honor of performing its ablutions. No one else had the heart or the inclination or the time.
As I wiped sweat, cursing the heat, much of my adult life and the life of this house flashed before me: I was drowning on dry land. Images paraded by: the strapless navy-blue polka-dot bathing suit from the early years, the extremely sincere ratatouille I would make whenever John’s parents arrived, the pink sweatshirt Justine would wear to the beach, Nick’s Styrofoam boogie boards that always looked the worse for wear at the end of our visit, the light blue envelope with Kay’s invitation to dinner, the challah bread our friend from Miami made from scratch, the sight of the Lewis children coming up our driveway unattended—living the kind of childhood people had before they were born—John assembling with hope and disassembling with resignation his fishing poles, the rusty keys to the house nestled on the rusty hook. I felt cranky, put-upon, and filled with caprice. Not the big-time caprice of a Vengeful Deity, resulting in tsunamis and whirlpools, but a lowercase version as I tossed objects into discard piles all over the living room, dispensing death sentences left and right: this can go (an old sleeping bag), that too (warped centerboards), and that (an ugly mug). Beds were tossed, books discarded, bureaus sent to bureau heaven. Someone, unfamiliar with the property and its location, asked if we were going to have a tag sale. At this remote location? Right.
We asked Donald DeSorcy’s son Leo, who took over as caretaker after his father became infirm, if he knew any island guys who might want a free grill and some deck furniture and even some kayaks and a motorboat. How many times had we settled into those all-weather chairs on the deck with a drink or a book? How often had we maneuvered the boats back and forth from the beach, father, son, mother, daughter, friends, cousins, siblings, in-laws? These items were not crazy valuable, and it felt better to place them in good hands rather than to Craigslist them to the highest bidder.
Leo’s guys—hardy, consoling, just like the workers on the ferries—showed up in their trucks. They sized up the bureaus, the dining table, a handcrafted linen chest that was a beast to lift despite its beauty: Would the women in their lives approve?
We worried about what to do with Lydia’s driftwood chandelier, but Leo said he would take it and put it in his barn in memory of his father, who after all had found it in the first place.
Knowing that this moment had been in the works for years did not make it any easier. I ranged from feeling enraged to resigned.
Why were John and I the ones left holding the bag?
Well, someone had to do the job. Think how much worse it would be if we weren’t here, on hand for the last rites.
I had among my belongings a story from the Gazette written by Mimi’s former husband’s brother, Joel Harrison, about the sale of their house overlooking Quitsa Pond. The family had lived in it for fifty-two years in the summer, and like our house by the end, it was the worse for wear: “Most floorboards creaked, the electrical system issued occasional threats, the oil tank was rusted, the kitchen was archaic and most beds were worn and uncomfortable.”
Like us they thought about renovations: like us, they kept an ongoing punch list they ignored.
The Harrisons worried that their house might be razed and “replaced by something far larger and more lavish,” a disheartening prospect.
Joel found himself mourning not only the house, but what he felt was now missing from the island from when he was young.
What’s gone are folks like Capt. Donald Poole, Everett’s father, who lived with his wife Dorothy on our shared driveway. This crusty character was straight out of a Melville book to my teenage eyes. If my memory can be trusted, he wore two brass earrings, had an inscrutable, weather-beaten visage, he walked as if he were perpetually on board a rolling boat, never smiled at me and rarely talked. If he saw me in the rearview mirror he would purposefully slow down so that his primeval truck, whose license plate said “Tired,” barely moved. He glared and I cowered. Here was a man whose roots stretched all the way back to the whaling days, a time when the Island was the center of a robust fishing industry, back when the very idea of huge summer homes, sold-out ferries, fancy restaurants and pollution were inconceivable.
Every summer the Harrisons invited the Pooles to their annual cocktail party and every summer they refused, but about thirty years into their acquaintance, Mr. Poole approached “Mistah Harrison,” who was out in his yard, shook his hand, and thanked him for being a good neighbor, and then walked back home.
In New England, there is no higher compliment. People in New England are not always friendly, but they are never fake friendly.
Recently, I asked Joel what had happened to his family’s property.
“I was both enraged and heartbroken that every shrub, tree, and piece of my childhood home was torn down and replaced with a tasteless, visual insult that ruined relations with neighbors.”
“I fundamentally don’t understand the mindset of anybody needing an enormous house with two kitchens and eight bathrooms that is not in keeping with the history and the geography of its environment. Why aren’t they more concerned about their neighbors hating them?
“For me it was a personal loss. An era is over and you feel a certain grief not just for our own selfish reasons but for the passing of time. Many people share that feeling in many places, not just on Martha’s Vineyard.”
In honor of his life, Lydia arranged for a “gathering” (not to be called a memorial service), held at Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall on the Princeton University campus. The front of the program featured a photo of him, hands clasped, looking pensive, a sly light in his eyes. The back cover showed both Nick and Lydia in their prime, wearing lambskin jackets, walking along the canal in Georgetown with their dog King, smiling under a canopy of bare trees, three bicyclists gaining on them in the distance.
William Bowen, the former president of Princeton, thanked Nick for his service as a trustee. When Princeton created a list of its one hundred most distinguished alums, he was ranked at number sixteen. John used to say, “Dad, if you had only tried harder, you might have made it to fifteen.”
Herb Sturz, an old friend, told dog stories, about an Irish setter named Mac, Nick’s wedding gift to Lydia, who slept under their bed on their wedding night. He mentioned Beo W. Ulf, the St. Bernard, and Willie B., named after Sir William Blackstone, author of the phrase: “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer.”
He said Nick didn’t like talking about himself so he didn’t, but he listened carefully and drew no distinction between “older people, young people, and dogs. He particularly cared about dogs. Nick particularly liked underdogs. And he had a sympathy for misfits and waifs—and he sure cared about Lydia. It took a great man to win and hold Lydia’s heart.”
Sturz also said that whenever you asked Nick how he was, he would say, “Just fine.” Even during the six months of rehab that went nowhere, he would say, “‘Just fine!’ And then he wasn’t fine.”
Jack Rosenthal, Nick’s speechwriter from his Washington days, later head of the editorial board of the New York Times, recalled Nick’s favorite story from a formal D.C. dinner, when the wife of the former president of France, trying to make polite conversation, speaking in heavily accented English, said, “What I wish most for in this world is a penis.”
A stunned shuffling of forks, eyes glued to plates, until at last her husband, Charles de Gaulle, broke in to say, “My dear, I think it’s pronounced happiness.”
(A passing truism: in moments of solemnity, if you think the crowd can take it, bring up a body part or function in the hope of bringing the house down; it often works.)
Lydia did not speak, but all four children did.
Christopher remembered asking his father how he survived in POW camp and Nick said he told himself that “the war would surely be over in four months, and he could surely make it four more months. And when those four months passed, he made the same deal with himself for another four months, and again and again.”
John imagined his father being welcomed into a secular version of the pearly gates: “I could envision the gates swinging open, only it wouldn’t be angels there to greet him. I saw Jefferson and Adams and Thomas Paine; I saw Lincoln and Roosevelt, Justices Frankfurter, Warren, and Marshall, attorneys like Clarence Darrow and Tom Barr. I saw MLK and, of course, Bobby and Jack and Teddy, followed by LBJ . . .”
He saw his father tossed into a heaven where he could “spend his eternity arguing subtleties and nuances of the law that he loves with all the minds he respected, as he patiently and characteristically waits for the rest of us to join him.”
Anne remembered her father’s advice that she said stemmed from his days at Exeter as a goalie on the hockey team: “Expect the worst—if it happens, you’ll be prepared—if it doesn’t, by my father’s calculation, you will be twice as happy. Along with a beautiful middle name, a strong chin, and a habit of reading mystery novels, my dad handed down this philosophy to me.”
And then she acknowledged that her father, a Mets fan, disapproved of her allegiance to the Yankees. “One of his deepest disappointments . . . sorry, Dad.”
Mimi went last, as she desired, speaking in a confident melodic voice that filled every corner of the room. Using a live tree on the stage as a prop, she addressed the gathering, asking the healers to keep on healing; the people who worked in government to go on governing, to not give up on democracy; and the educators to educate, all in the spirit of her father.
The person who most commanded the room was a rogue speaker, an old frail man who stood up and seized the podium.
Would this be embarrassing?
A good story followed.
Ward Chamberlin, who had been a senior vice president at PBS, said he had come down to New Jersey all the way from Boston, driven by his nephew, leaving well before dawn, because he couldn’t let his old friend go without sharing some words of praise and remembering the time he and Nick and another boy, in the summer of 1939, took a three-week bike trip through Normandy and Brittany. History was breathing down their necks, but they didn’t know it. In that moment, they were still young and hale and carefree.
Their trip took them through many small, isolated towns that happened to coincide with the Tour de France. They knew the schedule ahead of the racers and, born strategists, they mapped their route whenever possible to reach the Tour destination ahead of the pros. Thereupon, the villagers bestowed on them victory cheers, the smiles of pretty girls, fresh bread, generous amounts of wine, charcuterie . . . at least until the real racers showed up, and Nick and his friends disappeared.
My daughter, Justine, was chosen to read a poem by Lydia that included this stanza:
Lies are where
TRUTH lies
To find its way
Through this
And other lives.
So—here’s today’s
Truthful lie:
YOU’LL NEVER DIE
I always felt shy around John’s dad. Whether he chose to or not, he radiated gravitas. If I couldn’t bring up at least the Constitution along with “please pass the butter,” I feared I was in danger of superficiality.
He had a lawyer’s logic down pat.
Once, when Lydia went on a diet and announced that the last five pounds were the hardest, he said, “Tell yourself you have ten to go.”
During the Monica Lewinsky/Bill Clinton controversy, I asked him if he thought Clinton was the target of right-wing conspirators.
“Either that, or he is just not being kept busy enough at the office.”
John and his sibs used to call him First National Nicholas, in honor of the way he provided. He had the air of someone both stoic and statuesque who would never fail to deliver on a promise.
The story I like to tell most about my father-in-law is when he visited my son’s elementary school.
My children grew up hearing the story about how their grandfather, when he was deputy attorney general of the United States, confronted George Wallace.
When young Nick first heard the story, he said, “That Wallace. He sure was a meanie. I’d like to find his house and go beat him up.”
“That,” I said, “is not precisely the lesson of Grandfather.”
When Nick was in the second grade, in 1990, he asked, “Do you think Grandfather would come to my school for a special share?” He and some older pals in the sixth grade cooked up the idea of having Nick’s grandfather address both classes in a combined forum.
Special shares were the Cadillacs of shares, and they ideally involved a living creature, at least a goldfish or a baby. The ideal special share was a pro athlete. Short of that, an indulgent grandparent would do.
“Sure,” I said. “Just ask.”
“When?” Nick the Elder said.
As part of their preparation, the sixth graders at Fort River Elementary School in Amherst were shown snippets of a documentary titled Kennedy vs. Wallace.
John’s father spoke in his usual soft voice with its low timbre, a voice that soothed and convinced at once:
“Back in the sixties black people were treated differently. They were not allowed to eat at lunch counters; they were made to ride in the back of the bus. They were treated as though they were less than white people. President Kennedy wanted to do something about it. And so he ordered the integration of the University of Alabama. But Governor Wallace tried to block the entrance. I knew he wasn’t going to move unless I made him do it. He wanted to be stubborn. Haven’t you ever told your parents you weren’t going to do something you know perfectly well you should do?”
A boy had a comment: “You look younger in the show.”
“It wasn’t a show. It really happened.”
“A lot younger.”
A girl interrupts. “No, you’re still okay, the same.”
A big grin from the speaker: “Oh, that’s my girl.”
Another question: “Weren’t you scared he might fight back?”
“No, I was much bigger. But it was hot. Something you might not have noticed was that he stood in the shade and he made me stand in the sun. And I was tired. I had been up all night. He really annoyed me.”
“What happened to Wallace?”
“He is still alive today. And you know what? He recently said he made a mistake. He was sorry for what he had done. You know there is something on that video you saw that is quite important. After Vivian was allowed into her dorm, we went up there and we told her that even though people were afraid there might be an incident now that she was a student at the university, she should come down and eat in the cafeteria with the other students. So she came down, and took a tray, and stood in line, and went for food, and sat down at a table by herself. And right away—ten seconds after—five white girls came to her table and sat down with her, and right then I knew everything was going to be all right. Young people didn’t believe in not treating people right.
“It was all the older people, the stupid older people.”
As a lawyer, he possessed a gift for making things complicated, with qualifiers and obscure terminology. But he also possessed an even greater gift: the ability to take what is complicated and to make it simple.
After his appearance, the students sent letters.
“Dear Deputy Eternity General,” began one letter from a sixth grader. “I thought it would be another one of those boring lectures, but I was FORTUNATELY wrong. You were interesting and clear. Also, I never met anyone from politics in person (unless you count those cardboard President Reagans you can get your picture taken with in Boston, ha ha).”
One student thought it was great that he knew so much about the 1960s and wondered if he knew about the 1970s as well.
The letters from the children in Nick’s grade were less businesslike in tone and they contained crayoned drawings, which may or may not have had any bearing on the subject at hand, including rainbows and pots of gold. They claimed to have “rilly enjoyd” his talk and to have been “tot” a lot (more history clearly than spelling). They couldn’t believe that that selfish Wallace “standed in the shade” the way he did. One student asked for his “otograf,” and another thanked him for “saving us from all the evil people.”
But the most treasured response came from his grandson:
“Dear Mr. Person with the same name as me: Thank you.”
It is clear to me that everybody has his or her own, seemingly universally beloved version of John’s dad. For me it was, above all, seeing him on the Vineyard, relaxed.
“Time to leave,” says the note from my father-in-law in the logs, the man whose vision this all was, who had the idea and the means to create this haven and then the heart to share it.
Then a list:
• Close fireplace flue
• Lock all doors and windows
• All porch furniture inside
• Pull boats way up on beach
• Put canoe under deck
• Sails, etc., go to middle bedroom . . .
Most of the chores are done. I have to get a new tire for the Jeep. The gas in the red tank should be disposed of responsibly. Please ask guys at dump. Don’t pour it around Thumb Point please. In a way I hate to leave, but it is that time of year, and you can’t fend off the passage of time.
Chapter Fifteen
Great Dark Cattle
Packing is such a hit-or-miss activity, so discordant, especially if you are not a naturally well-organized person. One step forward, three steps back, as you get waylaid by thoughts of the past, by a procession of people that stretches back, in the case of this move, almost a half century. In the end it was just John and me, as it had been in the beginning. We, who had loved the house with an extravagant love, would do it the honor of performing its ablutions. No one else had the heart or the inclination or the time.
As I wiped sweat, cursing the heat, much of my adult life and the life of this house flashed before me: I was drowning on dry land. Images paraded by: the strapless navy-blue polka-dot bathing suit from the early years, the extremely sincere ratatouille I would make whenever John’s parents arrived, the pink sweatshirt Justine would wear to the beach, Nick’s Styrofoam boogie boards that always looked the worse for wear at the end of our visit, the light blue envelope with Kay’s invitation to dinner, the challah bread our friend from Miami made from scratch, the sight of the Lewis children coming up our driveway unattended—living the kind of childhood people had before they were born—John assembling with hope and disassembling with resignation his fishing poles, the rusty keys to the house nestled on the rusty hook. I felt cranky, put-upon, and filled with caprice. Not the big-time caprice of a Vengeful Deity, resulting in tsunamis and whirlpools, but a lowercase version as I tossed objects into discard piles all over the living room, dispensing death sentences left and right: this can go (an old sleeping bag), that too (warped centerboards), and that (an ugly mug). Beds were tossed, books discarded, bureaus sent to bureau heaven. Someone, unfamiliar with the property and its location, asked if we were going to have a tag sale. At this remote location? Right.
We asked Donald DeSorcy’s son Leo, who took over as caretaker after his father became infirm, if he knew any island guys who might want a free grill and some deck furniture and even some kayaks and a motorboat. How many times had we settled into those all-weather chairs on the deck with a drink or a book? How often had we maneuvered the boats back and forth from the beach, father, son, mother, daughter, friends, cousins, siblings, in-laws? These items were not crazy valuable, and it felt better to place them in good hands rather than to Craigslist them to the highest bidder.
Leo’s guys—hardy, consoling, just like the workers on the ferries—showed up in their trucks. They sized up the bureaus, the dining table, a handcrafted linen chest that was a beast to lift despite its beauty: Would the women in their lives approve?
We worried about what to do with Lydia’s driftwood chandelier, but Leo said he would take it and put it in his barn in memory of his father, who after all had found it in the first place.
Knowing that this moment had been in the works for years did not make it any easier. I ranged from feeling enraged to resigned.
Why were John and I the ones left holding the bag?
Well, someone had to do the job. Think how much worse it would be if we weren’t here, on hand for the last rites.
I had among my belongings a story from the Gazette written by Mimi’s former husband’s brother, Joel Harrison, about the sale of their house overlooking Quitsa Pond. The family had lived in it for fifty-two years in the summer, and like our house by the end, it was the worse for wear: “Most floorboards creaked, the electrical system issued occasional threats, the oil tank was rusted, the kitchen was archaic and most beds were worn and uncomfortable.”
Like us they thought about renovations: like us, they kept an ongoing punch list they ignored.
The Harrisons worried that their house might be razed and “replaced by something far larger and more lavish,” a disheartening prospect.
Joel found himself mourning not only the house, but what he felt was now missing from the island from when he was young.
What’s gone are folks like Capt. Donald Poole, Everett’s father, who lived with his wife Dorothy on our shared driveway. This crusty character was straight out of a Melville book to my teenage eyes. If my memory can be trusted, he wore two brass earrings, had an inscrutable, weather-beaten visage, he walked as if he were perpetually on board a rolling boat, never smiled at me and rarely talked. If he saw me in the rearview mirror he would purposefully slow down so that his primeval truck, whose license plate said “Tired,” barely moved. He glared and I cowered. Here was a man whose roots stretched all the way back to the whaling days, a time when the Island was the center of a robust fishing industry, back when the very idea of huge summer homes, sold-out ferries, fancy restaurants and pollution were inconceivable.
Every summer the Harrisons invited the Pooles to their annual cocktail party and every summer they refused, but about thirty years into their acquaintance, Mr. Poole approached “Mistah Harrison,” who was out in his yard, shook his hand, and thanked him for being a good neighbor, and then walked back home.
In New England, there is no higher compliment. People in New England are not always friendly, but they are never fake friendly.
Recently, I asked Joel what had happened to his family’s property.
“I was both enraged and heartbroken that every shrub, tree, and piece of my childhood home was torn down and replaced with a tasteless, visual insult that ruined relations with neighbors.”
“I fundamentally don’t understand the mindset of anybody needing an enormous house with two kitchens and eight bathrooms that is not in keeping with the history and the geography of its environment. Why aren’t they more concerned about their neighbors hating them?
“For me it was a personal loss. An era is over and you feel a certain grief not just for our own selfish reasons but for the passing of time. Many people share that feeling in many places, not just on Martha’s Vineyard.”
