That Old Cape Magic

family. Every summer they rented the same rambling, ramshackle old house, not far from where her mother grew up. It was drafty and creaky, its floors so pitched that if you dropped a Parcheesi marble off the kitchen table, you’d end up chasing it around the living room. But the place was familiar and had scads of room for her parents, the five kids and their weekend visitors. Joy had many fond memories of family dinners and evening excursions to a nearby amusement park, of all-day Monopoly and Clue tournaments when it rained. Even after her father got transferred and the family moved out West, they returned to Maine each July, never mind that its beaches were rocky and its water too frigid to swim in. Joy had even suggested the same house might be available for their honeymoon. Which begged Obvious Question Number One: why had Griffin talked her into the Cape instead? Given the opportunity to imitate a happy marriage—and there was no denying that Joy’s parents had one—why choose to follow his own parents’ miserable version?
    Still, they’d been happy in Truro, hadn’t they? It wasn’t like he’d bullied her. They discussed, finally agreed, and it had been fine. They spent the whole time making love and excitedly mapping out the rest of their lives. It was there, walking hand in hand among the Truro dunes, that Joy first talked about the sort of house she dreamed of them owning one day. It seemed to be a cross between the Syracuse house she grew up in and the summer rental in Maine: old, inconvenient, graceful, full of character, a house that had a rich history before you showed up and might even harbor a benign ghost or two. That Joy believed in ghosts was one of the more endearing things he’d learned about her on their honeymoon.She was certain the Syracuse house had been haunted. The whole family—even Jared and Jason, her much younger brothers—had sensed the ghost’s presence; it was, they all agreed, a woman. Only her father was immune, but he didn’t count, she explained, because he never noticed anything.
    The exuberant clarity with which she envisioned not just her dream house but also their futures back East was infectious. Griffin concurred with all of it, and why not? It would be nice to leave Los Angeles eventually, to live a saner, quieter life away from the clogged freeways and the ambient noise of what passed for culture there. He didn’t think he’d write screenplays forever, he told her, or maybe even for very much longer. He enjoyed the work, but it was hardly literature he and Tommy were writing. For some time now he’d been thinking he might try his hand at something more serious, a novel or collection of stories. But that, unfortunately, wouldn’t be nearly so lucrative, which meant they’d have to start saving; and when they made the break he’d probably have to teach. He’d been talking along these lines for a while when it occurred to him that he was lying. He
hadn’t
actually been toying with the idea of writing fiction for “some time,” and in fact it hadn’t occurred to him until he heard the words coming out of his mouth. Odder still, what he heard himself proposing was a life not all that different from his parents’. What had possessed him? Why give up screen-writing, something he was good at, even if it wasn’t serious work they might approve of? And who knew if he could write anything that was. But never mind, he told himself. He wasn’t so much lying as dreaming, and what was wrong with that? Wasn’t Joy doing the same thing? He’d only meant to suggest there was more to him, or might be more at some future date, than was now apparent, that she needn’t fear growing bored with him, because of course he’d change and grow. They both would.
    But to Joy his dreaming might have sounded more like a promise. “A professor’s house, then,” she said, excited, when hementioned teaching. That meant a library with floor-to-ceiling bookcases and comfortable chairs for reading, a big
OED
on its own stand, a small stereo for quiet, contemplative music. There’d be no “family room,” at least not like the one in her parents’ house, with its “entertainment center,” fake mahogany shelves lined with bric-a-brac purchased on cruises and at gift shops in state parks. The total absence of books in their home was the first thing Griffin had commented on, and he could tell she’d been embarrassed and hurt by the observation, though she’d gotten over it