We had come to Big Sur, both of us for the first time, for Easter in 1990. By the time the year was up, we would no longer be together. We stayed at the Ventana in a suite with pitched cedar ceilings and a hot pool that steamed at night in the spring rain. We hiked and bicycled and gathered giant pinecones on a mountaintop and talked about our future, a thing we didn’t always do. At Nepenthe, we bought postcards we didn’t send and books we didn’t read and kept returning to the Henry Miller Library, which, regardless of the hours posted, was always closed. On Easter Sunday, we went to Mass at a chapel in the forest and stood in the back. We huddled on the windswept beach at Pfeiffer, the sand whipping our faces, a beach I would return to years later with another lover on a windier day.
The morning we drove to San Francisco to catch our flight back east, he pulled the rental car over at an outlook north of Partington Cove. We stood there on the cliffs, silent, breathing our last of the sea air before the drive north. The navy water below was studded with whitecaps and sea otters. Above, birds of prey circled.
“Look—red-tailed hawk.” He took his hand from my waist and pointed up, not excited but pleased. He had an affinity for these birds, and because they are the most common of hawks—adaptive, with territory in desert and forest from Canada to Panama—he was always pointing them out. We’d stop a moment, watch them soar, pay homage. It seemed to calm him that wherever he was, red-tailed hawks were there, watching over him like wild kindred spirits.
I raised my head, following his gaze, and, squinting, tried to make out the buzzards from the hawk. He explained the differences as he always did. Head, belly, tail, wingspan. I’m not sure whether I could see them or not, or whether I just liked hearing him tell me. It was something that made me love him fiercely, this conviction of his that it was of utmost importance that I, as a member of the human race, know the difference between a red-tailed hawk and a turkey buzzard, and he wouldn’t quit until I did.
As I scanned the sky, he told me that hawks bond beyond mating, some for life, and that when they court, the males make steep dives around the females until their talons lock and they spiral together to the ground.
“That’s awful—you’re making it up!” I cried.
Pleased by my response, he kept on.
“But you, Puppy, the way you will tell red-tailed hawks is by the way they shriek when they are hungry for rabbitsandsnakesandsquirrels, just like when you are hungry and you shriek and squeal.”
“I do not. Stop it, John!”
“Oh, but you are right now.”
“You’re tickling me!” I yelled, and ran to the car. We were still laughing when we pulled up to the general store for sandwiches. We both knew, when he said I was hungry, that it was he who needed to eat.
Passing over Bixby Bridge with Big Sur fading behind us, I turned and touched his cheek. “King,” I said to him, “let’s come back next year.”
The afternoon before I was to leave the Hermitage, I met with Father Daniel for spiritual direction. I walked to the chapel fingering a jade Buddha on a red string that my brother had brought back from China. He had given it to me the day before the biopsy, and now it hung, day and night, around my neck. The doors of the church were heavy. I opened them and met a round man in a white robe who looked like he had lived. He led me to a small room near the font of holy water, and when he quoted Jung and Robert Johnson, I liked him at once. For more than an hour, I told him about my life. I told him everything I could remember, the last failed love affair, guilts I had forgotten, anything that weighed on me. I even spoke of the pain I’d felt years before when I’d found out that John had gotten married on Cumberland. It surprised me. So much time had passed, but an inkling of it was there, deep within me.
I told him how afraid I was. I said that now, when I needed it most, I could not pray. It was as though my knees would not bend. As I spoke, I realized I was ashamed I had cancer.
“Pray from where you are,” he said.
“But I am so broken,” I whispered back. The scar across my breast was in my heart as well.
“God loves you just as you are. Pray from where you are.”
“But I don’t know if I still believe. I doubt so much—I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know if I’m still a Catholic. There’s so much I question.”
He smiled, leaning back in his chair, and folded his hands over his belly. “I imagine you are because you question.”
“But, Father … I don’t believe in sin.”
He waited for me to go on, and when I didn’t, he said, “Sin, in the Greek, means missing the mark. An archery term. That’s all it is. That which has kept you from God.”
He asked if I wanted to receive the sacrament of reconciliation, what I knew as confession. And although I’d sworn to myself that morning that I would not confess anything because I didn’t believe in it; although it had been more than thirty years since I’d said my Hail Marys in the dark and leaned against the confessional grate in the cold hall outside the Sacred Heart chapel, trying to make out the priest’s face through the crisscross of metal (wondering if he was the handsome one or the old one); although I hated the words sinner, penance, unworthy with the ire of a rebel, I said yes. And when I did, words fell and unburdened my heart of secrets I hadn’t known were stones.
The monk’s eyes looked deep into mine. His voice was gentle. “Your penance, and this will not be easy for you, on your walk today, when you see something pleasing—a flower unfurling, a cloud going by, anything—I want you to imagine that you are the only person on this earth and God has created this beauty just for you. Remember, it will be hard for you. Can you do this?” I nodded, wiping my face with the back of my hand. Father Daniel then took golden oil from a small glass cruet and with his fingers marked the sign of the cross on my forehead. “This is the sacrament of the sick,” he said. “You may ask for it at this time.”
I stepped outside the chapel. The heat had abated, and I began to walk west on the path that led to a wooden bench and a view of the Pacific crashing at the cliffs, a thousand feet below. With each step, I watched my life go past, like a film in my mind’s eye—chances missed, risks taken, fears, pleasures, joys, loves. The ghosts. I let them pass, and they knit themselves together as stories, my stories.
How much longer do I have? I wondered. Three months, a year, two years, five? Would the story end now, in the middle? Or would I live as long as my great-grandmother, dying on her ninety-second birthday after breakfast and the paper. I did not know, but something in these hills had allowed my mind to quiet so that I could name my fears. And I felt the possibility that I might be able to navigate the challenges and choices of the months ahead and accept where I was—whatever happened.
When I reached the bench at the edge of the overlook, I stood and watched the sea. The cliffs here were higher, the sweep of sky grander, but I thought of Gay Head.
Then the monk’s words came back to me. This will be hard for you. I smiled. I was a slow learner; things often were. Father Daniel had spoken of God’s love, a greater love. He said that grace and forgiveness are there for us just as we are, in our vulnerability and in our humility, in our fear and in our frailty, when we are at our most human. That we are loved not for what we do or how we appear, but because each one of us is a child of God.
I looked up. A red hawk was soaring, its tail flamed and fanned to catch the wind. No sound. No effort. I closed my eyes. Far below, waves were breaking. I could hear my own breath. I could feel my heart beating.
February 1986
It’s our first weekend away together, a February long weekend. The day we leave, I buy a new coat on impulse—a camel-hair coat, long and belted at the waist. It’s soft and it drapes. I get it on the last day of the Bergdorf 70 percent off sale, and though I’m a four and it’s an eight, I must have it. The back has a deep vent, and it swishes when I walk. And in the store mirror, I don’t see a flushed-faced girl in a too-big coat; I see Katharine Hepburn. I hand over my “for emerg
encies” credit card. The saleswoman cuts off the tags and packs my old coat in the lavender shopping bag. I slip the new one on and walk out onto Fifty-eighth Street near the Paris Theatre and the drained stone fountain by the Plaza.
On the way up to the Vineyard, we hit a winter storm. I spend most of the flight with my face buried against him, saying prayers I thought I’d forgotten. With every pitch and drop of the small commuter plane, I squeeze his hand. After circling for an hour, we’re stranded on the mainland for the night. Everyone claps when the pilot lands in Hyannis, and we step off woozy into the dark night. John drops coins in the pay phone and wakes someone, the housekeeper at his grandmother’s, to let them know we’ll be spending the night. “We’re set,” he says. It’s easy.
In the taxi on the way over, he admits he was frightened, too, but I never would have guessed it. His face showed nothing.
When we finally get to the Vineyard the next day, it’s foggy. We stock up at Cronig’s Market, then follow the lonely roads, ones I’ve never seen, past shuttered Victorians and shingled farmhouses. By Chilmark, the land turns bare and wild, and when State Road splits, we take the lower fork and turn onto an unmarked dirt road. Bert, the caretaker, has opened up the main house, and that’s where we’ll stay. But in the afternoon, John takes me to the Tower. It’s been shut for months. He holds the door open, and I step into the new-wood smell. When I come back with him that summer, and those that follow, the Tower is where we stay.
The next morning, he takes me to the cliffs. The sun’s out, and he wants to orient me. My sense of direction is usually good, but the island has me turned around. We drive up Moshup Trail. Gray heads of houses nestle in the scrub, and as we near the top, I can see the lighthouse—one I know from postcards—and its faint beam hoops over us. “Gay Head Light,” he says. Outside the car, it’s cold. The souvenir shops are boarded shut, but there’s the smell of salt, and I can almost hear the phantom linger of wind chimes and seashell mobiles. I push my hands into the silky pockets of my coat as he strides ahead. He nods to one of the shacks and smiles. “Great chili fries.”
We reach the promontory, the very western edge of the island. The sky is as bright as water. It was called Gay Head then, all of it—the land, the township, the cliffs below. But years later, when I returned after his death, it would be known by another name, an older one—Aquinnah—for the Wampanoag people who have lived here for thousands of years and who, in summer, run the shops and sell the chili fries. In legend, a giant named Moshup created the channels and islands by dragging his toe across the land. He lived in his den in the cliffs and caught whales with his bare hands. Until the white man came, he taught his people to fish and plant, and he watched over them. Some say that he still does—that when the fog drifts in, he’s there.
I lean against the railing, with the windy sea below, and he tells me these stories. And in my new coat, I’m hoping I look something like the French Lieutenant’s Woman. The wrong color, I know, and there’s no hood, but that’s the idea anyway.
“There’s Cuttyhunk.” He points, his arm on my shoulder; the other holds my waist. “Nashawena, then Pasque. Naushon’s the long one.” Except for Cuttyhunk, these are all private islands and mostly deserted. Then he turns in the opposite direction—south toward Squibnocket Pond and his mother’s beach. I follow his gaze to an island on its own some miles off. “That’s Nomans Land.” Nomans, I repeat after him, and decide I like that one best.
When it’s warmer, we will sail to Cuttyhunk. When the leaves are tipped with red, we will hike on Naushon. We’ll camp for a night on Nomans, a moonless sky and the Milky Way arched above our small tent.
We get a late start. On our approach to Nomans at sunset, his mother’s Seacraft threatens to run aground near some old pilings, and I swim ashore with our gear piled on my head. It takes three trips. Then I watch from the beach as he dives with a knife in his teeth and after many tries succeeds in anchoring the boat. Damaged, he says, but afloat. That night, we roast bluefish, corn, and potatoes and drink wine under the stars.
In the morning, I hear engines. I nudge him awake. Outside the tent, mongrel seagulls peck at the singed tinfoil around the campfire. I look up. A plane is buzzing low. Now, in daylight, a large sign with DANGER painted in black letters glares at me. He’d told me it was illegal to land here but neglected to say that while a third of the island is a bird sanctuary, the rest is a navy bombing practice site. As I scramble, cursing, for the boat, I can hear him: “Don’t stress, this is the bird side!” Later, his mother will berate him, and not only for the injury to the boat. “But you were with Christina,” she keeps saying, to remind him that I was there, in harm’s way, alongside him.
And one August morning—it may be the last summer we’re together—we will kayak to the back end of Nashawena, hide the boat in the brush from the caretaker, and climb to the headlands, where the sheep are. We’ll sit in the scratchy grass flecked with blue chicory and look out over Vineyard Sound, and he’ll tell me the names he likes. “Flynn Kennedy—it’s got a good ring. What do you think of Flynn?”
I don’t like Fleur, his girl’s name. I prefer Francesca, Isabel, and Kate. But Flynn I like. Or it might be the sleepy look on his face as he says it.
But all that will happen later. Right now, it’s windy and his arms are around me and I can see in all directions. Which way is east? I say, and he spins me a quarter turn from where I’m guessing. Away from the sea, away from the cliffs, in the direction of Gay Head Light.
…
In the afternoon, the wind dies down, and we take the jeep to the beach. As soon as we cross the uplift of dune, he jumps out, scales the car, and orders me into the driver’s seat.
“Just do it,” he yells when I say I can’t drive.
I hear him laughing on the roof, and I spin the jeep in circles, as tight and as fast as I can.
“Now you!” he says.
“I can’t.” But somehow he gets me up there, camel-hair coat and all. My fingers dig into the sides of the roof as he pushes down the gas. After, I catch my breath from laughing and slide down the driver’s side into his arms, and we walk to the water’s edge. It’s a winter beach, mottled oysters, mussels the size of my thumbnail, threads of papery black and white seaweed, and the dirty foam the surf has left. Billows of it. He kicks it as we walk.
“Don’t you know the story?” I ask.
“What story?”
“Mermaids have no immortal soul—they live three hundred years and then become the foam on the sea.”
“What are you talking about?” He’s picking up small stones and skipping them, a singsong on flat water.
I go on to tell him the Hans Christian Andersen tale, of the red flowers in the garden of the Sea King’s daughter, her desire for a soul, her love of the black-eyed prince she rescues from drowning, the potion that turns her tail into legs. But each step’s a sharp knife, and the cost is her tongue.
“Then what happens?” he asks. His stone skips three times, and we whistle at his prowess.
“He marries someone else and she becomes a spirit of the air.”
He hands me one he likes. It’s freckled, and I save it from skipping.
“You know strange things.”
“It’s not strange,” I reply, slipping the stone into my pocket. “It’s a fairy tale.”
“You’re a funny girl,” he says. He turns to me. He’s thinking of something, and his eyes get smaller.
“Funny,” I say back. I was hoping for something else. Beguiling, maybe. And I imagine myself a butterfly on velvet—pinned, prodded, examined. Denuded of mystery.
“You’re different. Intriguing,” he continues, his voice dispassionate in a way I’ve never heard before.
I look away from him down the beach. The wind dries my eyes, and I fix my gaze on the tender way these shallow waves hit the shore.
After some time, he pulls me toward him, his fingers looped in the belt of my new coat. “Hey,” he says, softly. “I have no
doubts about you or what’s happening. I have everything I want here and now. I only think I’m crazy it didn’t happen sooner.”
“You do?”
“I’ve always had a sneaker for you. Always.” His forehead presses mine, and the weight calms me. The longest courtship ever, that’s what he calls it. “I wanted to pounce, but every time you had a boyfriend, and they were all Marlboro men.”
It’s not what I remember, but I like when he says it.
We keep walking. Past a small wooden sign at the top of the high-water mark. POSTED: NO TRESPASSING. Past Zack’s Beach, its bluffs blown back like a wave with a brambled top. Crusts of purple sand crack under our sneakers as we go. And near the dunes, remnants of summer—tall orange buoys speared in the sand, a chapel/fort of driftwood, a child’s shoe. The wind picks up, and I pull the coat around me. He leans into me as we walk, crossing my path. Then he bounds ahead, taking giant steps. I jump between them. Everything’s a game. We switch and he follows my tracks, and wonders out loud why my feet are so small. They’re not. They’re average. Many things about me are. But he keeps saying they’re small. You’re so small. And that winter he has dreams he will break me.
He’s showing me the place he loves. I know this. Every summer his beach is different. It erodes and changes. Every summer it’s new. We’re near the cliffs now, the chalky face seared by color. They wrap a mile around this end of the island and stretch 150 feet up. Iron ore, clay, gravel, sand, black lignite. He’s reeling off the reasons for the brilliant hues.
Come to the Edge Page 23