He tears open the brown mailer to find a wrapped gift, clothing of some sort, it feels like. He unwraps the present. Why not? It’s his. It’s a Patriots jersey, number 87, GRONKOWSKI. Yes! Link has been dying for one of these and it’s an adult medium, roomy enough for him to wear over a hoodie.

He inspects the rest of the contents of the trash bag from the outside in case Mallory has accidentally thrown away any other presents. Then he takes the trash to the cans on the side of the house, admires the neighbor’s wreath, and heads back inside with the Gronk jersey. Thank God he saved it!

“Mom?” he says, holding the jersey up. “This came for me from Auntie Leland and you accidentally threw it away.”

Mallory is on the sofa in front of the fire, grading essays. She smiles mildly. “Not an accident,” she says. “Leland is dead to me.”

Summer #24: 2016

What are we talking about in 2016? Prince; the presidential election; Muhammad Ali; Villanova Wildcats; Harriet Tubman; Antonin Scalia; Brexit; Colin Kaepernick; the North Carolina restroom debate; Pulse nightclub in Orlando; Sidney Crosby; Blue Apron; Pat Summitt; Black Lives Matter; goat yoga; Gene Wilder; the Cubs; Brangelina; Standing Rock; Carrie Fisher; preferred gender pronouns; Piper, Crazy Eyes, Alex, Red, and Healy; “Always stay gracious, best revenge is your paper.”

Burgers, shucked corn, sliced tomatoes, Cat Stevens’s “Hard Headed Woman,” hydrangea blossoms in the mason jar, the same mason jar from year number one, which Jake finds comforting; the jar sits on top of the black burn scar on the harvest table. The meal, the music, the mason jar, and the narrow harvest table are the same, but so much else has changed.

Mallory took some of the money she inherited from her parents and completely transformed the inside of the cottage. She…gutted it. Gone is the rustic paneling and the dusty brick fireplace with the slate hearth. Gone is the screen door that slammed with a spine-tingling snap every time someone came in or went out. Gone are the Formica countertops—so outdated they were back in—and the particleboard cabinets and the fudge-brown fridge and the stainless-steel drop-in sink.

By anyone’s standards, Mallory’s cottage is now dazzling, swoon-worthy. The walls are shiplap, painted white; the old, sagging bookshelves are now floor-to-ceiling white built-ins with accent lighting and cool copper rails and a sliding ladder to help access the upper shelves. The floors are pickled oak. There’s a new deep white sofa and two comfy club chairs sheathed in cream linen and underneath is a rug striped in every shade of white from French vanilla to polar icecap. The kitchen cabinets are white with tasteful brass hardware, and the Formica has been replaced with Pegasus marble. Mallory’s bedroom is like a middle-aged woman who took a vacation to the Bahamas and returned with a new attitude and a hibiscus behind her ear. The room now has a cathedral ceiling; the walls are painted the faintest peach, and there is a sumptuous king-size bed complete with gauzy white canopies floating down the sides. She has annexed the bathroom as her own, and it’s now tiled in jungle green; the old tub was finally removed and replaced with a freestanding stone tub that resembles one of the slipper shells they used to find on their beach walks. The guest room has been extravagantly wallpapered—an azure blue background printed with frolicking zebras.

The only room that has been left untouched is Link’s. Entering Link’s room is like stepping back in time: There’s the familiar paneling, the creaky floors covered by assorted braided rugs, the dresser thick with gray paint. If Jake isn’t mistaken, Mallory harvested that dresser from the Take It or Leave It at the Nantucket dump.

Jake runs his hands over the walls of Link’s room. “My old friend the paneling,” he says. Link’s room is the only place that retains the old-fashioned, cottagey smell—salt water and mildew.

“He wouldn’t let me change a thing,” Mallory says. “Except I turned his closet into the world’s smallest bathroom. He says he likes the cottage better the way it was before. Can you imagine?”

“Well…”

“Not you too,” Mallory says. “Do you hate it? Do you think I bleached out the character?”

Jake steps back into the great room. “You kept the desk!” he says. He hadn’t noticed before, but Mallory’s kidney-shaped desk is still in the same place in the far corner of the pond side of the room, nearly hidden by the master bedroom’s new six-panel door. The desk appears out of place in this new version of the cottage, like a dowdy maiden aunt at a party of supermodels, and yet Jake would choose the maiden aunt to talk to every time.

“I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it,” Mallory says. “I remember Aunt Greta writing letters at this desk. I wonder now if she was writing to Ruthie.”

The song changes to “At Last.” The music comes from Sonos, a playlist imported from Mallory’s phone. The five-CD changer is long gone.

“I’m sorry you don’t like it,” Mallory says, and she throws back what’s left of her wine. Even the wine is fancier—gone is the twelve-dollar bottle of Cypress chardonnay, replaced by a Sancerre from the Chavignol region. “But I’m the one who has to live here. Link will be leaving for college in a couple of years and you’ll leave on Monday.”

“Hey, hey,” he says, gathering her up in his arms. “It’s gorgeous, Mal. It’s like a magazine spread. It just feels different, and I have to get used to it.”

“I didn’t want to live in a charming, rustic box anymore,” she says. “Fray has a goddamned castle out in Seattle and he and Anna just bought a place in Deer Valley, a chalet, Link calls it—”

“You didn’t do all this to keep up with Fray, did you?” Jake asks.

“I wanted it to be nice,” Mallory says. “Nicer.”

“How could anything be nicer than having the Atlantic Ocean as your front yard?”

“I know, but…” Mallory pulls away a few inches and Jake gets his first good look at her. The cottage has had a complete makeover, but Mallory Blessing is exactly the same. There’s some gray in the part of her hair, which he’s glad she hasn’t “bleached out.” Her face is suntanned and when she raises her eyebrows, her forehead becomes an accordion of wrinkles, and Jake loves it. He loves seeing her get a little older, a little more seasoned. She still has the girlish freckles across her nose and tonight, her eyes are bluish, more blue than he’s ever seen them.

“Are you okay?” he asks. “Mal?”

She rests her head on his chest and he closes his eyes. Three hundred and sixty-two days he has waited to hold her in his arms.

“I’ve been tired lately,” she says. “Link and I had a tough year. I want him to study and play baseball and be a good kid and he wants to make out with his girlfriend and go to bonfires and get high with his buddies.”

“I feel your pain,” Jake says.

“Is Bess giving you a hard time?”

“Not me.”

“Ursula?”

Jake nods. Bess doesn’t have a boyfriend, go to bonfires, or smoke dope. She stays home with her friend Pageant, and the two of them make incendiary posters for the rallies and marches and protests they attend on the weekends to fight for climate change, reproductive rights, transgender rights, immigration rights, gun control, Amnesty International. It’s hard to keep up, and whereas Jake tries to be supportive—he loves that Bess is using her voice—Ursula’s attitude is one of amusement, which comes across as patronizing.