Free Summerland: A Novel by Elin Hilderbrand Page B

father?” he asked.
    “Honey,” she said, “I don’t know.”
    Hobby pouring milk on his cereal, Hobby lacing up his cleats, Hobby smiling at the girls lined up on the other side of the backstop as he approached the batter’s box and did his own version of genuflecting—touching the end of his bat to each corner of the plate, Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
    She should have taken them to church, Zoe thought. She should have given them something to believe in.
    She refused to think about Jordan. This was difficult because Jordan had infiltrated all their lives and for two years had been as important to Zoe as oxygen. Jordan had talked to Hobby about colleges. Hobby could go anywhere he liked on a full scholarship, he said. Jordan kept telling Zoe, “You’ve got to stay on top of this. You want him to go to a great school.”
    “I want him to be happy,” Zoe said. “He could be happy at UMass.” “One of thousands,” Jordan said.
    “Maybe after this island, he’d like that.”
    Jordan counseled Hobby about it. Jordan researched various architecture departments—their faculties, their degree requirements. Hobby liked the idea of going to a good college. Stanford, Georgetown, Harvard.
    Jordan and Hobby talked about other things as well, including politics and music. Jordan downloaded songs that Hobby suggested—by Eminem, Arcade Fire, Spoon—and Hobby downloaded songs that Jordan suggested, by Neil Young and Joe Cocker, the Who, the Pretenders.
    Jordan said to Zoe, “I want to ask him about girls, but I’m afraid.”
    “Why girls?” Zoe said.
    “I’d like to talk to him about love.”
    Zoe could remember thinking, And what, Jordan Randolph, would you tell my son about love? There were times when Jordan’s surrogate fathering bugged the shit out of her.
    She said, “I’ll be the one to talk to him about love, thank you very much.”
    She’d had a chance to do just that one day when she was driving him home from baseball practice. Penny had gotten her driver’s license, but Hobby had been in the middle of basketball season and had been too busy. He seemed content to let Zoe or Penny chauffeur him around.
    Hobby was in the passenger seat of Zoe’s bright-orange Karmann Ghia in his usual slumped repose, his head back against the headrest, his long legs stretched out as far as they could go, which wasn’t very far. He was wearing a sweaty T-shirt; his glove was in his lap.
    Zoe asked, “Have you ever been in love, Hob?”
    He’d breathed out a laugh and looked out the window. “Mom.”
    “Just curious.” It wasn’t a ridiculous question, was it? Hobby had girls calling and texting him day and night; even girls who had graduated from Nantucket High and were now in college texted him. Did any one in particular affect him, or were they all thesame? He had asked Claire Buckley to the prom. Claire was bright and vivacious, a go-getter, an athlete in her own right, field hockey and basketball. She was pretty enough, though every time Zoe saw her she was ponytailed and perspiring, biting down on her mouthguard as if getting ready to kill somebody. “What about Claire?”
    “Claire’s cool,” Hobby said.
    Zoe nodded. That was correct: Claire was cool, and for Hobby, cool would trump beautiful or sexy. For now.
    “But you don’t love her?” she prodded.
    “
Love
her?” he said. “You mean, like the way Penny loves Jake? No. No, I don’t.”
    Zoe had shrunk away from the topic at that point. In their house, the standard by which all other love should be measured was Penny’s love for Jake. Which was completely separate from Zoe’s love for Jordan, but which mirrored it nonetheless.
    What Zoe did
not
want Hobby to ask was, “Have
you
ever been in love, Mom?”
    Hobby tying his necktie (Jordan had taught him how), Hobby sitting with Zoe up front at graduation, watching Penny sing the National Anthem. Hobby loosening his tie at Patrick Loom’s party (but not taking it off completely, good kid). Hobby