We had taken a couple of steps in the direction of our bungalow when I suddenly felt myself being lifted up and tossed into the air, the life preserver flying off my arms. I may have screamed; I don’t know. I do remember my mother shouting “Ross!” as I fell. I saw the bulkhead whip by in front of my eyes, and then I was in the deepest part of the Chapmans’ dock. I shot beneath the water’s surface, flailing my arms in the green, blurry, underwater world. I could hear voices, muted shouts. Then I broke through the surface of the water, gasping for breath, my mother holding me up, her dark wavy hair wet around her face.

“You’re okay, darling,” she said to me, her hands firm and secure on my rib cage.

I was sobbing. I pressed my head to her shoulder.

“Why’d you do that, Dad?” I heard Ethan ask.

“It’s the best way to get over a fear,” Mr. Chapman was saying. “Just jump right in. See, Lucy?You were in the deep end and you didn’t drown.You bobbed right up to the surface.” His voice was kind, but I was never going to go near him again.

My mother half carried me back to the slope, where she set me down and took my arm, walking me up the slimy green surface, and I saw then that she, too, was crying. At the top of the slope she let go of my arm, marched over to Mr. Chapman and smacked him hard on his shoulder.

“How dare you!” she said.

Mr. Chapman rubbed his arm where she’d hit him. “If you took her to a psychiatrist—which might not be a bad idea—he’d recommend you do what I just did,” he said.

My mother grabbed my hand. “She’s not your daughter!” she said, starting toward our house with me. I had never seen her so angry. I could feel her fury in my fingers where she was squeezing them. She called back over her shoulder, “Don’t you ever lay a hand on one of my children again!”

At home, even I knew I was milking the traumatic event for all it was worth. Grandma clucked over me, helping me change out of my wet bathing suit while I bemoaned the terrible treatment I’d received at the hands of our neighbor. She rubbed me all over with talcum powder from her special pink tin of Cashmere Bouquet, then dressed me in my favorite green baby-doll pajamas. I could hear my mother complaining to my grandfather about what had happened and Grandpop’s soothing voice in response. I was allowed to stay up late, playing my plastic violin, and Julie was forced to go to bed at the same time as me, so that I would be able to fall asleep without nightmares about the rag-that-looked-like-a-head stuck in the wires on the attic ceiling.

When I was nine, I jumped into my neighbor’s pool and began to swim. I’d had so many lessons that I knew the mechanics by heart. All I needed was the practice—and the courage that came from surviving one of the worst things life had to offer: the death of my sister.

CHAPTER 16

Maria

1927-1939

It was funny how when you neared the end of your life, you could find yourself thinking about its beginning. I was only five when my parents and I spent our first summer at the bungalow. The canal was brand-new back then, only having been completed the year before. There were very few houses in Bay Head Shores at the time, and everyone already knew one another, so I think it was particularly difficult for my mother to make friends at first. Rosa Foley was an oddity, with her exotic dark looks and Italian accent, but my father was so very American that he was able to make inroads for us with the other families and their children and I quickly had several playmates.

When I was eight, nine-year-old Ross Chapman moved in next door and became my best friend. We’d fish together in the canal and swim together at the beach. He taught me how to play tennis when I was eleven and I taught him how to dance when I was twelve. The Chapmans lived in Princeton during the rest of the year, while we lived in Westfield, so Ross and I never saw each other or even exchanged letters during those months. Come summer, though, we’d pick up right where we left off.

The summer I was fourteen, I started viewing Ross differently. He’d grown tall and lanky in a very handsome way. I’d started that adolescent yearning for a boyfriend, and although he and I were still just pals, I fantasized about him being more than that. He was on my mind even during the school year, and when talking with my Westfield girlfriends, I would refer to him as my boyfriend. My friends were envious, thinking I had a luscious summer love. I knew Ross would probably clobber me with his tennis racket if he knew how I talked about him. I was still just the girl next door to him.

When my daughters were growing up, they liked to date one steady boy at a time, but things were different when I was a young teen. My friends and I did everything as a group. “Maria’s gang” was how my father referred to us. At the shore, my “gang” consisted of about twelve youngsters. Many of us had boats, and we’d cruise between the bay and the river with ease.

The summer Ross was sixteen, he showed up at the shore with a Ford Phaeton convertible. Oh, my, the fun we had with that car! Of course, it was only meant for four people, but we managed to squeeze six or seven of us into it, some of the kids standing on the running board, hanging on for dear life. We were wild—not by today’s standards, of course, but we thought we were pretty crazy. Everything felt so safe back then. No one I knew ever got hurt in a car crash. No one drowned in the ocean. And certainly, no one was murdered. Our placid lives would all change in a few years, with the stock-market crash and the Second World War, but our teenage years were easy and fun filled.

Once several of us could drive, we started hanging out at Jenkinson’s Pavilion on the boardwalk. We nearly lived there, dancing to live music in the evening, swimming in the huge saltwater pool during the day, and basking for hours on end in the sun. It was a wonder I never got skin cancer, but I had my mother’s Mediterranean skin and I guessed that saved me.

My dark looks, however, came with a price.

The summer I was seventeen, the intensity of my attraction to Ross had deepened to the point of obsession. Not only was he handsome, he was brilliant as well, getting straight A’s in his private high school and being accepted to Princeton for the fall, where he would follow in his father’s footsteps by studying law. It seemed, though, that we would never be more than friends. Ross would often give me a ride to parties and other get-togethers, and on the way home, we would talk about who we were attracted to, who we would like to go out with. You, I wanted to say. It’s you I want to go out with. It was hard for me to listen to him say he liked Sally or Delores, when my longing for him was eating away at my insides. I played the game, too, though, telling him I had a crush on Fred Peters, the best-looking boy in our group. Ross only responded that he thought Fred was interested in me, too.

The change came when I was crowned queen of the Summertime Gala, an annual Point Pleasant event. It featured a small parade, and I rode on a little float pulled by a few of the boys from my gang, Ross and Fred included. I was dressed all in white from head to toe and wore a crown. My envious girlfriends treated me coolly, but my fifteen minutes of fame seemed to alter Ross’s view of me.

He drove me home after the parade. He turned the car onto Shore Boulevard, but instead of continuing down the road to our houses, he pulled over and parked in front of the woods.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

He glanced at me, then smiled almost shyly. “I want to tell you something, Maria,” he said.

“What?” I asked.

“You made a very beautiful queen,” he said. Ross had never said anything like that to me before. He’d never commented on my looks in all the years I’d known him.

“Thank you,” I said.

“I hope you don’t think this is silly of me,” he continued, “because I know we’ve always just been friends, but I thought about you over the winter. I thought about how swell it was going to be seeing you again this summer.”

“I thought about you, too,” I whispered.

“You did?”

I nodded.

“I went out with some girls in Princeton, you know, but I was thinking of you the whole time,” he said. “I’d look at pictures my parents had of you and me…you know, sailing and in our tennis clothes and…you know those pictures.”

I nodded again, my heart brimming with joy and gratitude. These were the words I had longed to hear from him and had heard only in my imagination—and in the lies I told my Westfield girlfriends.

“Today, when I saw how other men looked at you…” He shook his head. “I knew I had to let you know how I feel. I couldn’t take the chance of letting you get away.” He took one of my hands in both of his. “I’m in love with you, Maria.”

I was sure that my smile lit up the car. I let go of his hand and reached out to hug him. “I’ve loved you for years,” I said, my lips against his ear.

He drew away from me, then leaned over to kiss me, so tenderly I barely felt it. He raised his hand to my breast, touching it through my silly white queen dress, sending a spark through my body.

“I want you.” He smoothed my thick hair behind my ear.

“I want you, too,” I said.

“Tonight,” he said, “let’s break away from the gang at Jenkinson’s. We can go out on the beach under the stars.” He lifted my hand and drew it to his lips, and I nodded.

“All right,” I said. I knew what I was saying, what I was agreeing to, and I knew it was a sin. But I didn’t care.

That night at Jenkinson’s, we danced, both with other people and with each other, trying not to be too obvious. Around nine o’clock, Ross and I stepped out onto the broad porch and down the stairs to the beach. We slipped off our shoes and our feet had barely touched the sand before we were kissing. We made love beneath the Jenkinson’s boardwalk, while the band played Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller songs almost directly above us. It was the first time for me, although I was sure it was not for him. I lost my virginity to Ross that night on the beach. I’d lost my heart to him years before.