“Those are some houses in the background” he said about the houses on Mattapoisett’s Crescent Beach. “Yes, they are not renters like us.” I replied. I had sent a photo of a picturesque scene and didn’t even realize the impressive constructions in the background. These are the houses we have grown accustomed to over the past 40 years. As Mattapoisett has gone from a quaint bayside town to one where every waterfront home seemingly attempts to outdo the features of the one renovated just prior, the place has morphed into a place filled with people who frequently use summer as a verb. Even Sam Waterston has a place here. Yes, the Sam Waterston. Cue the sound of chunchun from Law & Order.
“I’ve been writing a piece called “The Renters” for a long time” I half joked through text. “What will it be about?” he asked, a natural follow up question to a claim about something in the works. I explained that the piece has only lived in my head and the fact that it has simmered there for almost 20 years gave me a perfectly gestated response: “About flirting with the edge of upward mobility but your good for nothing fifth child’s college education gets in the way.” I aimed my phone’s camera at the house we once almost bought and sent off a picture of the place that could have been ours. A direct beachfront property, it is a house that looks as if it were dropped in from Coral Gables, Florida and could double as a vacation home for the Golden Girls. In fact, we call it the “Golden Girls’ house.”
We viewed it on a weekend and I was confused by what was happening. Were we moving? I was maybe 7 or 8 and I had no understanding of the drunken power of real estate in the 80s. Was it all the coke that people were snorting? The lack of war? The seductive power of capitalism? Whatever it was, the grownups all wanted it and all I ever wanted was a Cabbage Patch Kid, a real one and not one of those knockoffs that my brother Jim tried to pass off on me. Her skin was not smooth like the dolls of my friends, it felt like sandpaper and her eyes were a shade of green that was a little too hopeful for my taste. I played with her for sure, always pretending she was real but the truth I knew was unshakable and I longed for one that came fresh in a yellow box with a clear plastic window.
As we navigated the rooms of this house on Crescent Beach, I peered down into a portable crib. Staring up at me was a Cabbage Patch Kid, a real one, and I suddenly wanted that house as much as Mom and Dad. I remember wondering if it would come with the doll or if the house meant that real dolls would follow—my parents weren’t the only ones with an eye toward upward mobility. I knew what I needed to climb that ladder and whatever this place was, it had exactly that. Over the period of maybe a year or two, we viewed other places. One had bunk beds, another had an overwhelming smell of must. Each place we viewed, I envisioned us there in June or July. We had been renting for years and only in August; for all I knew, Mattapoisett didn’t really exist outside that month. It seemed strange to me to know that if we had our own place we could go there anytime during the summer. Heck, if it had heat we could go there for Thanksgiving. I allowed myself to be carried away with the hopes and dreams of Mom and Dad.
As the fifth child who arrived rather unexpectedly after a ten year hiatus from procreation, I spent a lot of time with Mom and Dad alone. I’m sure I was a strange kid as I am now a strange adult. I’d sit at dinners and listen to Mom talk to Dad about his work and slid into my own world where my writing most certainly began. I remember making my brother cry laughing as he sat across from me at the dinner table with our parents. I was delighted to finally have an audience and he must have gotten a clear glimpse of what life was like as the runt of the litter. I sarcastically narrated my own story in a low tone directly to him loosely based on whatever conversation Mom and Dad were having. They didn’t even notice I was talking. “And so I went up to Dick Ripley and I said what kind of name is that?” I’m sure I said something along those lines, the names of Dad’s coworkers are all I remember of those discussions and that one always made me giggle for obvious reasons.
Thanks to these times, I am the storyteller I am today—observant, imaginative, and delightfully random. Thanks to Mom and Dad, I got a front row seat to what happens when the middle of your life arrives and you don’t feel like you have enough to say for yourself. Buying a second home seemed like the right thing to do. I just shrugged and hoped for more Cabbage Patch Kids and trips to places with palm trees. “I’ll have a virgin piña colada” I always ordered whenever we went to restaurants. Whoever the hell I thought I was, it was clearly a much fancier version of the person I have become. Mom and Dad attempted, quite valiantly, to buy that second home. I’m pretty sure it was the one with the bunk beds. They even tried, in vain, to borrow against Dad’s retirement. The reality of the hit they would take and the fact that child number five was just a few breaths away from college forced them to forever postpone the dream of Mattapoisett home ownership. They kept renting in August, though; a dream rented is better than no dream at all.
I often do the math of all the rent money that has been spent by my family over the years. I remember thinking, back when I thought I knew everything, that it was money that could have been better spent. At 43, however, I have come to unknow everything I once thought I did. If you don’t become humbler as you age, you are not aging correctly. I know nothing of what it means to be enamored with a life that could be yours and to have that dream delayed then dashed by both prudence and consideration of the secondary education dreams of your youngest child. My foray into becoming the imperfect human I am today was more important to Mom and Dad than their thirst for something more. Still, every August (and I do mean every), they have quietly scraped together the funds for this tradition that, in all honesty, has been more of an education for me than all the courses I took at Holy Cross.
I don’t know who I would be without Mattapoisett. Oxford Creamery, Turk’s, the giant seahorse (is his name Salty?), the lobster parties, the Old Granddad toasts to my great aunt who left us some funds after she died, the pining for a certain windsurfer by every single female (and at least one male) in my family, the meteor showers, the drunken swims at midnight, the inappropriate use of a hole in a rock as a makeshift bathroom, the nights that we thought would never end, the breathless mornings, the hurricanes, the beach shacks I watched float away when Bob hit in ‘91, the behemoths that went up in place of those shacks blocking the views of those who could not rebuild or remortgage, the sudden passing of sweet, goofy Uncle Jerry at the close of our trip in 2015. To be a part of Mattapoisett or, better said, to have Mattapoisett be a part of you, is to know what life in slow motion is like, to savor moments and memories like a butterscotch candy rolling around in your mouth as its sharp edges make themselves known to your tongue and you let only the sweetness prevail.
“I can hear a boat riding through the waves” Dad just said, finally sitting with his coffee after a confusing and disorienting morning. “Mattapoisett for one more day” I told him, reminding him of where we are and for how much longer. “Are you sure it’s not just the dishwasher?” Mom asked about the sound he hears. “No, it’s a different sound.” At 89, he no longer has a lot to say but he still has a lot to take in. I watch him noticing the smallest of things—a bird on a fence, an insect on a table, a rabbit crawling out from under the shed. “I hear something, I’m not quite sure what it is.” Mom said. “It’s a boat on the water.” Dad says plainly. I think he’s right. Someone out there is taking to the bay, absorbing the heat of the sun and the upward splash of the water as the bow dips up and down. That someone knows what it is like to have this place be a part of him just as Dad knows it too. “One more night in Mattapoisett.” I remind him again. One more night.
John and I are both in tears. Thank you