Free A Summer Affair by Elin Hilderbrand Page B

be worthy.”
    “Worthy?” Lock said. “It’s more than worthy.”
    “Hardly anyone on this island knows me as a glassblower,” Claire said.
    “Oh, come on. Of course they do.”
    “I mean, they know that’s what I do—or did. But practically nobody’s seen my work. The vases, yes, but not my real work.”
    “That’s a shame,” Lock said.
    “I have a select clientele,” Claire said. “Five people. I’m what you call ‘extreme boutique.’ ”
    “You should be as famous as Simon Pearce,” Lock said. “One good thing about doing the auction would be the exposure.”
    “But that’s not what I want,” Claire said. “I never wanted to be Simon Pearce. Mass-produced and all that.”
    “Of course not. You’re an artist.”
    Claire looked at her hands. They had been callused for so many years, callused and sore, cut and burned. They were just starting to look like a normal woman’s hands, red from the dishwater, streaked with Magic Marker—but was this a good thing? She didn’t know. Talking about working again tore her in half. It had felt wonderful to open the sketchbook, and the image of the pulled-taffy chandelier would not leave her alone. But then Claire thought of the kids, especially of Zack: Should she explain to Lock how Zack had weighed two pounds seven ounces when he was born and spent the first five weeks of his life on a respirator? How now, at eight months, he wasn’t crawling yet, whereas her other children had been cruising around, holding on to the furniture? Dr. Patel had told her not to worry. Kids develop at different paces, Claire. Claire wanted to see a specialist, but she was terrified of what he would say. She was certain there was something wrong and it was her fault. Her doctor had warned her.
    “I can’t do it,” she said.
    Lock looked at her for a long while with an inscrutable expression on his face. “Okay,” he said.
    Claire felt tears coming on. What was wrong with her? She suddenly felt very sad and sorry for herself. She tried to stop; crying in front of Lock was embarrassing. At home, it seemed, one of the children was always crying. Claire was the one who plucked the tissues, wiped the noses, kissed the bumps and bruises, scolded the perpetrator. She did not cry, she realized, because there was no one to comfort her. Jason was as emotionally feeble as the children. If he were watching her now, silently weeping, he would be baffled.
    Lock offered her a handkerchief. Claire blotted her face, thinking how charming it was that there was still a man in the world who carried a handkerchief.
    “Are you okay?” he asked. “Did I hit a nerve? I didn’t mean to—”
    “No,” Claire said. “It’s okay.” Lock handed her her wine. She took a sip and tried to collect herself. “Can I ask you a question?”
    “Shoot.”
    “Why do you work here? I mean, you’re . . . you don’t have to work, right?”
    Lock gave her another one of his incredible smiles. “Everyone needs something meaningful to do. I sold my business so I could move to the island permanently, but I never meant to stop working. I never meant to have a life where all I did was golf and talk to my stockbroker. That’s not me.”
    “No,” Claire said. “It’s really none of my business . . .”
    “I looked around the island to see where I would be happiest. I looked at buying a real estate development company, but that felt a little empty at this point in my life. There was a woman who cleaned rooms at the hospital when Daphne was there for physical therapy. Her name was Marcella Vallenda. Do you know her?”
    “No,” Claire said.
    “Dominican woman. Four kids, three teenage boys, always in trouble, and a daughter. Husband was a deadbeat, alcoholic; he worked some days, and some days he spent at the Muse, playing keno. I got to know Marcella a little bit. She worked three jobs, she developed a cocaine habit to stay awake, basically, but the house was a hellhole, and the daughter, Agropina,