THENEWYORKER,DECEMBER2, 2019 21
that read “I was shocked by your out-
door shower.”
“I was thinking, How surprising can
it be?” he told me. “I mean, you’re at the
beach, for God’s sake. Then I went out
to wash up, and when I touched the
handle for the hot water I got thrown
clear across the room.”
Hugh bought the second house with
everything in it, and, although it’s a bit
heavy on the white wicker, the furni-
ture is far from awful. He drew the line
at the art work, though. It was standard
fare for a beach house: garish pictures
of sailboats and sunsets. Signs reading
“If You’re Not Barefoot, You’re Over-
dressed” and “Old Fishermen Never
Die, They Just Smell That Way.”
If he wanted to, Hugh could work as
a professional forger. That’s how good he
is at copying paintings. So for the rental
house he reproduced a number of Picas-
sos, including “La Baignade,” from 1937,
which depicts two naked women knee-
deep in the water with a third person
looking on. The figures are abstracted,
almost machinelike, and cement-colored,
positioned against a sapphire sea and an
equally intense sky. Hugh did three oth-
ers—all beach-related—and got a com-
ment from a renter saying that, although
the house was comfortable enough, the
“art work” (she put it in quotes) was defi-
nitely not family-friendly. As the mother
of young children, she had taken the
paintings down during her stay, and said
that if he wanted her to return he’d defi-
nitely have to rethink his décor. As if they
were Hustler centerfolds!
“
C
an you believe that woman?” Hugh
said, almost a year after the hur-
ricane hit, when we arrived to spend a
week on Emerald Isle. It was August.
The Sea Section was still under con-
struction, so we stayed at the rental
house, which he was calling the Pink
House, for reasons I could not for the
life of me understand. “It’s just such a
boring name,” I argued.
“It really is,” my sister Gretchen
agreed. She’d pulled up an hour before
we had, and was dressed in a fudge-col-
ored tankini. Her long hair is going sil-
ver, and was gathered in a burger-size
bun, not quite on the back of her head
but not on top, either. She had turned
sixty earlier that week and looked as if
she were made of well-burnished
leather—the effect of age and aggressive,
year-round tanning. The skin between
her throat and her chest had gone crêpey,
and it bothered me to notice it. I cannot
bear watching my sisters get old. It just
seems cruel. They were all such beauties.
“Calling this the Pink House is just
nothing,” she said.
The best name, in my opinion, con-
sidering that the rental was next to the
Sea Section, was a choice between the
Amniotic Shack and Canker Shores.
Both had been suggested by a third party
and were far better than what I’d come
up with.
“And what was that?” Gretchen asked,
opening a cabinet in search of a coffee
cup.
“Country Pride Strong Family Pep-
permill,” I told her.
“Not that again,” Hugh said.
“It’s not a pun, but I think it has a
nice ring to it.”
Hugh opened the refrigerator, then
reached for the trash can. Renters aren’t
supposed to leave things behind, but
they do, and none of their condiments
were meeting his approval. “It sounds
like you just went to the grocery store
and wrote down words.”
“That’s exactly what I did,” I told him.
“Well, too bad. It’s my house and I’ll
call it what I want to.”
“But—”
He tossed a bottle of orange salad
dressing into the garbage. “But noth-
ing. Butt out.”
“C-R-A-B,” Gretchen mouthed. I
nodded in agreement, and made pinch-
ing motions with my hands. It can some-
times be tricky having Hugh around
my family. “What is his problem?” each
of my siblings has asked me at one time
or another, usually flopping down on
my bed during a visit.
“What is whose problem,” I always
say, but it’s just a formality. I know who
they’re talking about. I’ve heard Hugh
yell at everyone, even my father. “Get
out of my kitchen” is pretty common,
as is “Use a plate,” and “Did I say you
could start eating?”
I’d like to be loyal when they com-
plain about him. I’d like to say, “I’m
sorry, but that’s my boyfriend of almost
thirty years you’re talking about.” But
I’ve always felt that my first loyalty is
to my family, and so I whisper, “Isn’t it
horrible?”
“How can you stand it?” they ask.
“I don’t know!” I say. Though, of
course, I do. I love Hugh. Not the moody
Hugh who slams doors and shouts at
people—that one I merely tolerate—but
he’s not like that all the time. Just enough
to have earned him a reputation.
“Why did you yell at Lisa?” I asked,
the year that three of my sisters joined
us for Christmas at our home in Sussex.
“Because she came to the dinner table
with a coat on.”
“So?”
“It made her look like she wasn’t stay-
ing,” he said. “Like she was going to
leave as soon as her ride pulled up.”
“And?” I said, though I knew exactly
what he was saying. It was Christmas
dinner, and it’s a slippery slope. One
year you wear a down coat at the table,
and the next you’re dressed in a sweat-
suit eating cold spaghetti out of a pan
in front of the TV. My sisters can say
what they will about Hugh’s moodiness,
but no one can accuse him of letting
himself go, or even of taking shortcuts,
especially during the holidays, when it’s
homemade everything, from the egg-
nog to the piglet with an apple in its
mouth. There’s a tree, there are his Ger-
man great-grandmother’s cookies, he
will spend four days in an apron listen-
ing to the “Messiah,” and that’s the way
it is, goddammit.
Similarly, he makes the beach feel the
way it’s supposed to. A few years back,
he designed a spiral-shaped outdoor
shower at the Sea Section that we found
ourselves using even in the winter. He
grills seafood every night, and serves
lunch on the deck overlooking the ocean.
He makes us ice cream with fruit sold
at an outdoor stand by the people who
grew it, and mixes drinks at cocktail
hour. It’s just that he’s, well, Hugh.
When I get mad at someone, it’s usu-
ally a reaction to something he or she
said or did. Hugh’s anger is more like
the weather: something you open your
door and step into. There’s no dressing
for it, and neither is there any method
for predicting it. A few months after we
met, for example, he and I ran into an
old friend of mine at a play. This was in
New York, in 1991. We thought we’d all
go out to eat, then Hugh offered to cook
at his apartment. Somewhere between
the theatre and Canal Street, his mood
darkened. There was no reason. It was
