never went in agreeably but bunched up down at the bottom. You had to struggle with it for hours to get it in properly. When her husband was alive, he was always cold in the house when they came down for Christmas or Easter, so they slept together beneath a down comforter, which made Eleanor so overheated she had to sleep nude, with both bare feet sticking out.
Mortimer. Eleanor had been married to him for forty-six years. He was five years older than Eleanor. She’d met him when she was twenty-one, a student at Wellesley, spending the summer on the island with her family. Eleanor had been troubled about her future. Her one love, what her parents called her hobby, had been sewing. The New York fashion world emphasized hippie clothes and glamour dresses made of synthetic materials that Eleanor disliked. Her parents were appalled when Eleanor told them she wanted to be a seamstress of some kind, and really, Eleanor didn’t quite know what she meant. Her mother had a seamstress named Minnie who came to the house to alter her clothes to fit her perfectly.
That August in Nantucket, Marsha Richard had called to ask Eleanor to make up the fourth for a game of doubles tennis. Her tennis partner was Rocky Colby, a regular summer visitor and Marsha’s beau. Rocky’s friend, Eleanor’s partner, was Mortimer Sunderland, a tall, slender, dark-haired man. He was extremely handsome, and Eleanor expected him to flirt with her, but Mortimer concentrated on tennis as if it were a game of chess, taking his time to consider the arc of the ball before reaching out to slam it back just over the net. He was older than Eleanor, and quiet, cautious, giving little away. After the game, the four sat on the patio drinking Anchorages, half iced tea and half lemonade, and while Eleanor couldn’t keep her eyes off him, she assumed he didn’t like her because he spoke so little.
To her surprise, later that day Mortimer phoned to ask her to dinner. Now, here in the attic, she could still recall how her heart had thumped at the sound of his voice. She drove herself crazy trying to decide whether to wear a dress with a plunging neckline—sexy—or a more conservative dress—elegant. Should she wear her hair down—sexy—or up—elegant? Mortimer seemed to be a closed door, and she was determined to open that door. At least a little.
At the same time, Eleanor was deeply disappointed in herself. How could she be so physically attracted to this man who was absolutely and exactly who her parents would have chosen? She wanted to be a rebel, or at least rebellious. She wanted to fall in love with the wrong person, someone dangerous, maybe with a motorcycle. And here she was, trembling with excitement to see a man as conservative and sophisticated as her father.
The evening turned out to be almost dull. They ate at the yacht club, where so many of their parents’ friends stopped at their table to say hello that their conversation was superficial, almost forced. Mortimer looked dashing in a white shirt with yacht club cuff links and a navy blazer, and he seemed as drawn to Eleanor as she was to him. It didn’t make sense. She’d heard about Mortimer. He was a catch. She was certain this would be their only date.
At one point, Mortimer leaned across the table and touched her cheek lightly. She was so surprised and pleased she couldn’t remember what she’d just said that made him react affectionately. She gazed into his eyes, completely smitten. Then he said, “Sauce. It’s gone now.” She put her hand to her cheek, blushing with embarrassment.
But he must have liked her. When he drove her home, he asked her for a date the next night. He waited until the third date before he kissed her—back then it was some kind of unwritten law.
During that summer, Mortimer snowed her—that was what her friends called it in her day. He asked her out almost every night, he sent her flowers, he brought her home to dinner with his parents. Eleanor discovered that Mortimer had been brought up to believe that the guiding principle in life was duty. He was a very serious man, but in those early years, he was also a very sexy man, knowing how to focus and pay attention. Mortimer was an accountant in an established insurance company, a man good with statistics and percentages, so Eleanor