Free An Available Man by Hilma Wolitzer Page B

His honeymoon with Bee was a three-day weekend in Provincetown, while Gladys took care of Nick and Julie. Every year after that, until Bee’s illness, they’d rented the same house on Lake Tashmoo, in Vineyard Haven, for the month of July.
    Now those intoxicating spring breezes and yet another generation of insects floated just outside the closed windows of Edward’s air-conditioned classroom at Fenton Day, and his students were already glancing away from the lesson on the blackboard toward escape. But so much leisure time—that bonus of teaching envied by other, much higher-paid professionals—loomed as a threat to the sanctity of Edward’s daily routine. And summer itself was booby-trapped with memories.
    July 8 would be the first anniversary of Bee’s death. In the bereavement group, Amy Weitz had warned against the particular pain of holidays and birthdays and anniversaries. Somehow, Edward had gotten through Bee’s birthday in September with the diversons of the new school term, and the winter holidays seemed like a blur in retrospect, an emotional snowstorm through which he’d somehow found his way.
    But how would he get through ten long weeks without any plans? He couldn’t go back to the Vineyard without Bee, to the borrowed house they’d both loved, and face fresh condolences from their neighbors there. And he didn’t think he could occupy himself at home; he certainly wasn’t eager to try dating again anytime soon. So he went to the guidance office at school in early May and found a private tutoring job two days a week with a seventh-grader who wasn’t in any of his classes.
    Nathaniel Worth was failing science and falling behind in almost everything else. According to his guidance counselor,Jenny Greene, Nathaniel had been a “late surprise,” born when his parents were in their mid-forties. His older brother and sister had both breezed through Fenton years before, earning him an automatic place there. He’d been tested by a psychologist and a learning specialist, and was deemed intelligent but with low self-esteem, and with issues about his organizational and social skills. He didn’t have many friends, Jenny said, and had been nicknamed, with the cruel marksmanship of children, “Worthless.” There was some concern that he might fall somewhere on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum.
    The Worths lived across town from Fenton Day in an imposing prewar building that faced the East River. Margo Worth came to the door when Edward arrived for her son’s first tutoring session. She led him through stately rooms to what must have been a study or an office, where Nathaniel sat at a large, gleaming desk, gnawing like a beaver on a yellow pencil. Kids always looked smaller to Edward outside of school, and this scrawny boy was dwarfed by the desk and the leather executive’s chair on which he was perched. His summer buzz cut made his ears stand out.
    In a quick survey of the room, Edward saw law books on the shelves, punctuated by trophies of some kind, and a couple of seascapes that he thought might be by Winslow Homer. The rug under his feet was Persian and beautifully worn. Jenny had told him that both Margo and Johnson Worth were corporate attorneys.
    “Here’s Dr. Schuyler,” Margo Worth said. “Take that thing out of your mouth and say hello.” Nathaniel let the ravaged pencil drop from his teeth onto the surface of the desk, and, without looking up, lifted his hand in a brief, languid salute—a wary Indian greeting the white stranger.
    “Hi, Nathaniel,” Edward said. “It looks as if school has followedyou home.” He put his briefcase on the floor. “Would you like to work in here?”
    The boy’s head and shoulders twitched in something between a shrug and a nod; maybe he had a tic, or had simply taken a vow of silence.
    “Where are your manners?” his mother asked, and Edward said, “Thanks, this looks fine,” as if he were the one she’d been scolding.
    As soon as