by A. J. Banner
“Sorry about showing up unannounced like that,” I say.
“No apology necessary. I’m glad you stopped by. You’re a natural teacher.” The wind recedes, allowing us to hear each other talk. The smells of the sea, of salt and kelp, fill the air. We’ve been here before, walking along the southern shore. Why don’t you stay longer? Nancy says in my memory. It’s an early-September day, the sky bright with a last gasp of summer.
School is starting, and I need to straighten out a few things.
What things? Is this about you and Jake? Are you two in trouble? Do I detect a faint note of hope in her voice? You can talk to me. I won’t say a word to him.
I don’t trust her to keep a secret. Nancy is not like my best friend. While Linny remains steadfastly loyal, Nancy bends in the wind . . .
I’ve made hasty decisions, I say. Things are difficult.
I understand, she says. I should tell you something about Jake, about the way he is. He needs to have his own way. I’ve known him since we were kids . . .
“The kids were a little worried,” Nancy says to me now. “When you were zoned out, I mean.”
“How long was I in La La Land?” I say, shoving my hands into my coat pockets.
“Only a minute or so. But they’re not used to it. They handled it very well, though.”
“Are you going to tell them about my situation?”
“If they ask, I’ll say you get nervous talking in front of people. They’ll be able to relate to that.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, navigating around a small pile of kelp, like a wig stranded in the sand. “I was remembering teaching in a big lecture hall. And actually, I was nervous. So you’re not far off the mark.” Aiden gave me the thumbs-up. He stayed for the full hour. I was aware of him the whole time, as if I were addressing him and not two hundred sleepy students. His presence gave me confidence. But what about the kiss? Were we at the university? In the lecture hall?
“I felt that way when I first started teaching,” Nancy says. “I got my certification at City University in Seattle. But I didn’t feel ready at all. I was young. I met Van there, at a party.”
“Was he a student, too?” I say.
She gives me a curious look, searching my face. “You really don’t remember our conversations, do you?”
“Only bits and pieces.” I look down at my damp running shoes. I feel detached from my own body. I am made of bits and pieces.
“He was already working for Silver Marine Services in Seattle. He was a commercial diver. He practically lived in the water. Somebody invited him to a party in the dorm, and we binged on Sutter Home Moscato. We got pretty drunk that night . . .”
Aiden’s drunk, Jacob said, leading me into Café Presse in Seattle. I put him to bed. I see Jacob resting a gentle hand on the small of my back, steering me to a booth, ordering me a cup of tea at nearly midnight. The French ambience wraps around us; the buttery smell of pommes frites permeates the room.
Will he be all right? I say, worried.
Not the most mature response to life’s challenges, Jacob says.
“We were wild that night,” Nancy says, breaking into my reverie.
“Wild,” I echo, disoriented. I’ve forgotten what she was talking about.
“Van and I. At the party. And for a while after that, too. When you’re young, you don’t think about the consequences. Hormones rule.”
“And the consequences were . . .”
She rests her hand on her belly. “A bun in the oven.”
“You were pregnant?”
“I was so scared,” she says. “I thought I might like to not be pregnant. It wasn’t in my plans. I almost got rid of the baby. I wasn’t sure.”
I’m not sure of anything, I say to Jacob in Café Presse. When I think of being a mother, I can’t catch my breath. I cup my hands around the mug, a life raft. Jacob closes his hands around mine. I take comfort in the warmth of his touch.
It’s natural to be scared, he says. You wouldn’t be human if you weren’t.
I’m afraid I won’t be a good mother. I’ll snap at the kids. I’ll expect too much of them.
You’ll be perfect, he says, looking deep into my eyes. I’m certain.
“Nothing was certain,” Nancy is saying. “We were messing around. But Van had a sense of duty. We got married at city hall with only a few witnesses.”
“You didn’t invite family?” I say. A freighter appears on the horizon, gliding east toward the distant mainland.
“My mom was there, and his parents. And our best friends. We didn’t tell anyone else. We got married fast.”
Is this too fast, too soon? Jacob says in the dressing room. He slipped in before the wedding. He leans down to look at me in the mirror, so handsome in his tailored tuxedo, and my heart falters. Maybe he’s right. Maybe everything is happening too quickly.
You shouldn’t be in here, I say to him.
You can talk to me about anything, Kyra, I hope you know that. Are you having second thoughts?
No second thoughts, I say. He backs away into a mist. What happened before that moment? What happened after? There is something wrong about the encounter, the way the details come back to me. It seemed like afternoon, but maybe it was late morning. Maybe I only imagined him coming into the dressing room. Linny rushed in soon afterward, her face flushed. Everyone’s here, she said. Are you ready?
I turned to her and said, Do you think it’s too soon? Maybe Jacob didn’t come into the dressing room at all.
She hugged me. It’s your life. Seize the day.
I’m impulsive . . . but we’re in love. Love is all that matters.
She kissed my cheek. Then I give you my blessing.
Nancy zips up her jacket, the sound grating through my memory. “My mom got sick pretty soon after Van and I got married. We came back to the island to take care of her until she passed away.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“She died right after my son was born,” she says, her voice breaking. “She got to see him, but he never got to know his grandma.”
“So you have a son.”
“Tristan, yes. I told you about him. He’s in college.”
“I’m sorry, I forgot.”
“My mom left us the house, so Tristan grew up here.”
“Was it what you wanted, to move back here?”
She hunches against the wind, which has changed direction, coming from the north now. “I didn’t think about what I wanted. I did what was practical. Times were tough. Van started the salvage business, I stayed home with the baby. I took over teaching at the school, and the rest is history.”
“Are you happy now?” I say.
“I’m happy enough.” She looks at me. “What’s happiness anyway? We make the decisions we have to make, under the circumstances. I had my son. He became my joy.”
“But your marriage . . .”
“Would I have married Van if I hadn’t been pregnant? I don’t ask myself those questions anymore. They can’t be answered. The past can’t be changed.” She sighs, picks up a large white clamshell, chipped at the corner. I step around a stranded, dead crab, turned upside down, the meat picked clean by seagulls.
“You two love each other, though,” I say.
“You could call it love.” She stops to sit on a dry, weathered log, driftwood long ago washed up to its sandy grave. “What we had grew into love, I suppose.”
I sit beside her, the cold breeze in my hair. Frothy waves ripple across the sea. There is nobody else on the beach. The island often feels this way, I realize—devoid of human habitation.
“But you weren’t in love when you got married,” I say. “It really was only about the baby?”
“We liked each other well enough. Anyway, love is a verb, isn’t it? It’s the way you treat someone. What we actually feel about people can be . . . complicated. Don’t you think? Couples get married for all kinds of reasons. But you and Jake married for love. You’re lucky.”
; Did I marry Jacob for love? I must have. I can’t imagine marrying for any other reason.
“You have a son,” I say, “and Van seems like a solid, decent man. You’re lucky, too.”
She rolls up her sleeve to show me a small tattoo near her elbow, resembling a blue knot wound into the shape of a triangle. “A Celtic knot,” she says. “Tristan and I got these matching tattoos on the Ave. Spur of the moment.”
She told me this before—how she feels about her son. “He’s at the University of Washington.”
“Finishing his freshman year.” She unrolls her sleeve, letting it fall loosely over her wrist.
“He was leaving last summer, when we visited. You were sad.”
“I’m getting used to it now,” she says. “But I was a little insane after he left. Even with Van around, the house felt empty. I missed Tristan so much, still do. I’m sure Van didn’t approve of the number of times I went over to visit. Tristan started getting sick of me, too.”
“I’m sure he loves seeing you,” I say.
“He’s the best son a mother could ever hope for. He was always sensitive, always a reader. He had intelligent questions from the time he could talk. He started speaking in complete sentences at the age of two.”
“That’s remarkable,” I say, a stirring of melancholy inside me.
“You and Jake were trying, you said.”
“We were.”
“In my case, it was the opposite. Van’s sperm barely blew in my direction, and I got pregnant. It was the last thing I wanted.”
“Yes, isn’t it ironic, the way things work out?” I sense an unseen river flowing beneath the surface of my marriage to Jacob. We were trying to get pregnant, but there was more to our story, just out of reach. I’m surprised to feel a tear sliding down my cheek.
Jacob and I arrive at the Whale Tale at dusk. The restaurant sits on a high bluff overlooking the sea. The dining room is small, only ten tables widely spaced for privacy. Another couple huddles together in a far corner. The sky is brushed with the last rosy shades of an October sunset. Jacob reaches across the table to take my hand. Our wedding rings glint in the candlelight. The flame flickers between us, accentuating the angles and shadows of his face. He’s clean-shaven, in a white button-down dress shirt.
“How did it go at the school?” he says.
“It went well. Speaking to the students felt natural. I guess it came back to me.”
“That’s good, right? You sound thoughtful.”
“Nancy and I went for a walk afterwards, too.”
“And? Did she ease your mind?”
“More than sufficiently. But . . . she told me other things.”
“Uh-oh, what? I told you to be careful of her.”
“I didn’t realize she and Van were pregnant before they got married. I remembered feeling sad when we were trying, maybe because we couldn’t?”
He reaches across the table to rest his comforting hand on mine. “It doesn’t mean we won’t be able to have children in the future.”
I slip my hand out of his, take a drink of water. “I don’t know if I want kids. It was just a feeling. Nothing specific came back to me.” This is a lie, and I’m not sure why I have this instinct to hold back the truth, but Sylvia said I should trust my instincts. I wish I could talk to her now, but in her answering machine message, she said she’s away for a few days. She didn’t tell me she would be gone.
“Does this place bring back anything?” Jacob says.
“It is romantic,” I say. “But no. Nothing.”
“Let me help you along. I could start with the pleasure points.”
My blood is rising again. I open the menu in front of my face, and he chuckles.
“What’s so funny?” I say.
“You’re cute,” he says. “Shy.”
“For all I know, you say the same thing to all your secret girlfriends.”
“Yeah, that’s me. I have secret girlfriends stashed all over the world.”
“Do you?” I look over the top of the menu.
“Do I what?”
“Have secret girlfriends stashed all over the world.” My stomach makes a strange turn.
“Hell yeah,” he says, opening his menu.
“Where are they, these girlfriends?”
He keeps looking at the menu. “I can’t keep track. France, Iceland, Canada . . .”
“Here on the island, too?”
He gives me a lopsided grin. “She’s the only one I care about.”
“What’s she like?” I’m trying to focus on the appetizers. Feta cheese wrapped in grape leaves . . . corn masa cake.
“Wild hair, the kind you can get your fingers tangled in . . . gorgeous eyes.” He looks into my eyes, and I feel a stirring inside me.
“She sounds like quite something.” I focus on the main menu. Mediterranean salad. Shredded romaine and Napa cabbage tossed in lemon vinaigrette with fresh mint . . . “Should I be jealous of her?”
“Not at all.”
“Good evening, folks!” The young waitress trots over. Everything about her is bouncy, especially her ponytail. “What can I get for you two?”
I order the East Indian vegetarian platter. Chard leaves stuffed with a spiced potato–pine nut filling . . . served with red lentil dal . . . Jacob orders the pan-seared scallops with ginger sake, served with sesame scallion rice cakes and seasonal vegetables.
“Great choices!” The waitress bounces off and returns a moment later with the wine menu.
“No, thanks,” I say automatically.
Jacob grabs the menu. “Wait. You love sweet wines.”
“But I shouldn’t—”
He smiles at the waitress. “The Mystic Vineyards Chardonnay.”
“Of course,” she says. “Bottle or glass?”
“Glass,” I say. “I’ll just have a little.”
“Two glasses,” Jacob says.
“I’ll be right back.” She hurries away.
“I shouldn’t,” I say.
“One is okay. You’re not an alcoholic.”
“You said I stopped the alcohol when we were trying . . .”
“So we’ll stop the alcohol again, when we try again.” He pulls his chair around the table, so he’s sitting closer to me. “I want to make you happy. Why don’t you let me?”
“Jacob . . .”
The waitress brings the wine and then lets us be alone.
Jacob lifts his wineglass. “A toast to us. To starting again.”
We clink glasses, and he leans over to kiss my cheek, and I hurtle back to the last time we were here. He leaned over to kiss my lips. You’re not yourself, he whispered. My heart ached. I took in the curve of his jaw, the soft sunset, his brilliant blue eyes, as if memorizing his face.
“Are you okay?” Jacob says, putting down his glass. His forehead creases with worry. “We can leave.”
“No. We’re staying.” The wine goes down smoothly with a touch of sweetness. I begin to feel warm.
“But you’re not happy,” he says.
“I’m perfectly fine.” Our food comes and I pick up my fork, the flickering candlelight reflected in the metal. “I’m with my handsome, patient husband, eating a delicious meal at a nice restaurant.”
“I have reason to hope, then,” he says, smiling, and as we eat, I catch him looking at me now and then with an expression of promise, anticipation.
* * *
“Dessert?” the waitress says later, when she comes to pick up our plates.
“I’m full,” I say. “I can’t eat another bite.” I’m a little tipsy.
Jacob pays the bill with a credit card and steers me out to the truck. He reaches over from the driver’s seat to kiss me. The wine seeps through my body, dulling my judgment. How many glasses did I have? More than one. Two, three? I can’t recall. I kiss him back, the way I know I have before, many times. His lips taste familiar. I’m enjoying his touch. I want him. I wanted him before. But something went wrong between us. And I suddenl
y remember thinking, What secrets would I hide to save my marriage?
At home, while Jacob makes a fire, I change into comfortable sweats. Will this be the night he joins me in the master bedroom? How will it feel, to be with him again? I’m infused with excitement, trepidation, and fear. I pace in my room, glancing at my gaunt, worried face in the dresser mirror. The dinner at the Whale Tale recedes into a fog. Aiden Finlay’s face emerges in my mind. He reaches out to me, then fades. I see Nancy hurrying to the front of the classroom today, while I stare into space, lost in the past.
A few minutes later, there’s a tentative knock at my door.
“Come in.” My heartbeat kicks up. Jacob’s about to cross a boundary. So am I. No, I already have.
He’s carrying a shimmering gown on a hanger. The dress I’m wearing in the wedding photograph.
Tears spring to my eyes. “It’s so beautiful,” I breathe. “We still have it. You still have it.”
“I kept it in the back of my closet. Until you were ready. Now seems like the right time to give it back to you.”
He lays the dress across the bed next to me.
I touch the silk, soft and familiar against my fingers. “I’m glad you kept this.”
“I wouldn’t get rid of it. It’s Lucia Embroidered Motif.” The designer language sounds awkward coming out of his mouth.
“How do you know?”
“You told me. You used to tell me everything.”
“I’m sorry.” I don’t even know why I’m apologizing anymore, but it always feels like I should.
“Things will go back to the way they were. How many couples can say they’re starting again with a clean slate?”
“Not many, I’m guessing.” I hold up the dress in front of the mirror. “It might still fit . . .” I search the shiny folds, the crystals, the beautiful stitching, for some sign of the past.
Jacob comes up beside me. “You will still look beautiful in that dress. You always did.”
I look at him in the mirror. “We got married in Discovery Park.”
“Your uncle flew in from Oregon to give you away.”
“Uncle Theo.” My mother’s only brother, fifteen years her senior, kept in touch with me after my parents died, but because of his dementia now he doesn’t even remember my name.