“Oh, I thought we ought to let Hunter do that.”
Aubrey had cleaned plenty of Dungeness in her day. Walt McCart had taught her to boil them in a monstrous pot and gut them almost before she’d been old enough to buckle her shoes. She could have dismembered a number of them and had them in a plastic bag in minutes. But today she had no stomach for the task. “Ah, you’re sparing him no experience, Sam.”
“I’m not. The boy has to learn.”
The playful banter began again. “I remember when you learned.”
“I believe you taught me.”
“I believe I did.”
Hunter ran along ahead of them, swinging the bucket. Salt hazed the air, heightening the sense of distance from one spot to another. From where they stood, their view was one of constant motion, surf foaming on the shore, boats bobbing at their moorings, dunegrass bowing to the wind. The sun shattered across the water.
As the boy’s form receded, Aubrey said, “My father doesn’t discuss my mother. He doesn’t talk about her at all. Did you notice that?”
His shirt had gone limp in the damp breeze. He yanked at his buttons, centering them upon his chest. “We were kids. We had so many other things going.”
“I barely remember my mother. I remember her flying a kite with Kenneth. She had a yellow bathing suit with polka dots.”
“How old were you when she died?”
“Not old enough to remember what she looked like. Hannah’s age, isn’t that odd?”
“You told me. Hannah is—”
“—four. I was four.”
“Surely you’ve seen pictures of your mother. Your dad would have kept those.”
“There are no pictures. He threw them out.”
The pungence of fish, the dank aroma of mud and muck between the rocks, filled the air. Aubrey bent to pick up an oystershell, its underside rough enough to nick her hand. She cupped it inside her palm, its bowl as smooth as pearl.
“My whole life, I’ve watched my father ignore things that hurt.”
“He needs to know it can’t work that way. Ignoring things doesn’t make them go away. It makes them get bigger.”
The shell glinted, opalescent in her hand.
“Sometimes God heals us by letting us plow through something. That’s what I think.”
“I had forgotten what it was like to talk to you, Sam.” Aubrey circled her thumb inside the shell. “I could always tell you anything. No one’s ever listened to me like you do.”
Hunter slogged toward a thick slab of rock some thirty feet away, his sneakered feet making small splashes in the surf. They were catching up with him. “You could take off your shoes, you know!” Sam shouted through cupped hands.
But Hunter was deafened by the wind. They watched him claim the rock, climbing atop it, lifting the bucket with his hands, a king claiming a territory. They watched him find a spot for the bucket before he explored a few mossy crevices, examining stones, pitching them underhand into the sea.
He stooped low to pull up a wet ribbon of kelp clustered with mussels. “These look good,” he shouted to them. “Since we’re cooking everything else, can we take these, too? Anybody got a knife?”
Aubrey pitched her own shell aside and fished a pocketknife from her purse. She rambled, “This ought to do. Be careful, it’s sharp,” while Sam rolled his pants past his calves. He was just yanking the final fold when, in a fit of bravery, she said, “I envy you, do you know that? I envy how you’ve always been so certain of things.”
Sam straightened. She didn’t understand why, but he sounded almost angry at her. “Certain of things?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sam?”
She hadn’t meant to be reckless. But her words changed something between them.
She could tell by the square of his shoulders, the resolute way he marched out to Hunter, that her remark had opened a wound. She could tell by the jut of his elbow as he severed mussels from kelp. She could tell by the way he tromped back to shore with his nephew at his side, snapping the knife shut, setting it precisely in the middle of her palm.
“Sam?” she asked again. But Hunter kept beside them for the rest of the afternoon, swinging the bucket, babbling on about crabbing and viewing the harbor seals. She tagged along, confused and distracted, while Sam and Hunter borrowed a monstrous tub from the rental office, carted it outside and filled it with seawater. She went inside her own cottage and watched, saying nothing, as they raked charred coals from the fire pit, used dry grass and twigs as tinder, and started their own small fire. Only ripples of heat, a slight haze of smoke, rose from the sand. The sun’s brilliance consumed any view of flame.
It wasn’t the first time she’d seen Sam absorb himself with Hunter, but it was the first time she’d seen him use the boy to distance himself from her. He kept the boy busy snapping kindling over his knee and feeding the fire. He enlisted Hunter’s help to lift the tub from the grate and douse the fire with steaming water when the crabs were done. He instructed his nephew in the messy business of cleaning, spreading newspaper over the patio and having at it, their heads together as they cracked shells and discarded gills and organs, leaving only the legs and the white flaky meat.
Aubrey retreated to her own cottage kitchen, busying her hands making salad. She’d purchased fresh vegetables at a roadside farmer’s market. Arugula lettuce. An onion so moist that it dripped when she cut into it. Snow peas so fresh that they snapped when she pinched off the tips.
She went after the mixture with great zeal, tossing it with two forks, taking out her frustrations on it. He’s the one who has the Almighty to talk to. You’d think he could at least explain himself to me.
No sooner had she thought it then a shadow fell across the sink. She didn’t have to turn to know someone stood in the cottage threshold. She sensed Sam there. She didn’t have to look to know who stood at her door.
Self-consciously, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She stared at her fingernails which, because of handling lettuce, were etched with green.
“There are only two things I’ve been certain of in my entire life,” he said to her back. “One, I knew I was called to be a minister. Two, I wanted to find you.”
Oh. Oh.
She turned, leaving her hands behind her spine, supporting herself against the counter.
“You should have called me about Kenneth’s funeral. I could have been there for you. I wanted to be there.”
So much time had passed since then.
“It was so important to me. You and Kenneth and your dad were the only things that mattered. You know I would have been there for you.”
“Sam, we were both so young. I didn’t know how to include you when I was trying myself to survive.”
Much like I’m trying to survive now.
“I came to Piddock Beach that next summer, did you know that? I came to your house and pounded on the door. I wouldn’t leave.”
“Sam—”
“The neighbor, what was her name?” He frowned. “Mrs. Branton, that was it. She was making a cake. And you were just gone.”
She opened her mouth but could not think of a reply.
“I wanted you to marry me and I had to walk away.”
“Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t go there, Sam. There isn’t any need.”
She did not know when he crossed the room. Suddenly he was standing before her, and she felt his hand on her elbow. He stood so close that she could see points of light in his eyes. She could smell the scent of him, salt in his hair and a day riding the sea on his skin. She dropped her hands from the counter, thinking she’d use them to maintain some distance. But she couldn’t stop trembling.
He ran his hands up her elbows and whispered her name. Her breath caught in her throat. When she grasped the back of his neck, whorls of his hair slipped between her fingers. He pressed his forehead against hers. He touched his fingers to her throat. She leaned into him, ever
y sinew crying out for their lives to be how they’d once been. She wanted him to kiss her.
But he did not.
He stopped himself. His hands fell away.
She felt faint with gratitude and regret. “We need to talk,” she said. “The things you said, how you tried to see me, how you planned to ask me . . . to ask . . .” She stared at the floor beside his foot. “It’s making me think of things I shouldn’t think of.”
A small silence lingered between them. “I had to tell you,” he said.
“Maybe I wish you hadn’t.”
“What I said earlier about your father. About God’s healing, plowing through something. Sometimes it’s the only way.”
She bit her lower lip, hating herself for the tears in her eyes.
“Your father—”
“No,” she said, meeting his eyes. “It isn’t my father who is hurting me.”
For the second time, he whispered her name. “Where did you go that summer when you left town?”
She was shaking her head and her words came in little hiccups. “I, I can’t do this,” she said. When she looked up at him, she could see all the regret of the world in his eyes. “I can’t, Sam.” She examined the shapes in the linoleum as if they could tell her what to say. “Things aren’t good right now between me and Gary. That’s why this is dangerous. Being with you feels like . . . a betrayal.”
Sam sat hard on the edge of bed, as if he had collapsed.
“Do you want to know what I did the other day? I phoned my neighbor and told her how to find the key I had left under the mat for the housekeeper. I spent twenty minutes giving her directions so she could dig through Hannah’s toy box, looking for a blue stuffed elephant with one eye gone. When she found it, she drove to the post office to pay and have it overnighted to my daughter. ‘Oh, yes, and make sure you get the insurance,’ I told her. ‘After all this, don’t run any risk of it getting lost in the mail.’ Thirty bucks for postage, when Hannah could have something new for ten.”
The sun had moved toward the west outside. Clouds pillared above the sea, which would make for a spectacular sunset. Hazy light poured through the open door.
“It’s not the practical thing, is it?” Aubrey began to stir the salad in sharp, shaky motions. “But that’s how it works. Even a four-year-old knows. You can’t exchange one thing for another.”
Aubrey could see her reflection in the faucet. She could also see it in the droplet of water growing from the spout, not yet heavy enough to fall. When she picked up the salad bowl to carry it to the refrigerator, she felt as if she carried her life in her own shaking hands, so easily dropped, so easily broken.
She said, “I only want to be here with you.”
“Aubrey. Don’t . . .”
“Gary is in alcohol treatment. He hasn’t been emotionally present in our marriage for a long time.”
I’ve used you, Sam. Used what you used to feel for me to reassure myself. To numb myself. She slid the bowl in the refrigerator and turned toward him. She knelt in front of him, her heart aching. I’ve used you the same way Gary uses alcohol. “For the life of me, I can’t think what would orchestrate such a thing,” she said. “That I would run away to Piddock Beach and find you here.”
There. She’d said it. She looked up at him again as he raked his fingers through his hair, and she saw he’d turned a ghastly pale.
“Oh, Aub,” he whispered. “I was only thinking of my own heart. I’m so sorry. I pushed it too far.”
“But don’t you see, Sam? I wanted you to push. I wanted to feel—” She stopped, buried her face in her palms, then gazed up again. “—I wanted to feel the way I used to feel. I wanted it to be easy again.” And then, “Only it was never easy, was it?”
“No.” He combed his fingers through his hair again. “It wasn’t, Aubrey. Not even then. The thing I remember most was having to tell you good-bye.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
When they thought back to it later, neither Sam nor Aubrey could tell when the shouting on the beach began. The patio door was open to the sunset. Sam grew aware of the fracas bit by bit. Suddenly, he noticed the loud, angry voices. He recognized the familiar barking of a dog.
He rushed out into the evening light, “Ginny!” expecting to see her splashing in the swells, her tongue lolling to one side. But when Sam saw her, she was springing around something in a circle, her paws flopping, her ears streaming gleefully. When he called her name again, she didn’t even slow down.
Sam shaded his eyes against the sunset. When he heard Hunter’s frantic shouting, Sam realized something was wrong. He began to run toward the sea.
At the point where foam slipped onto shore, the harbor seal had deposited her baby again. The animal lay in the sand like a smooth rock, entirely motionless, still and sleek. Its head rested on the beach. Its eyes were trusting pools of light, watching Hunter.
Even from this distance, Sam could see tears streaming down his nephew’s face as a crowd pressed in toward the seal. He saw a trail in the sand and realized the seal was bleeding from a gash in its side.
The seal had strayed from its protected place and it lay in a heap upon the sand, in the middle of a crowded section of beach. One of Hunter’s friends who built the bonfire darted close enough to jab it with a stick. Ginny twisted and leapt, beside herself at the scent of blood. She danced and leapt. Hunter tried to hold her at bay with his command, but it was no use. If Ginny came close to the injured creature, she would do it harm. A dog is bred to hunt in the wild. Sam had once seen her jaws snap the neck of a duck.
“Hunter!” Sam shouldered past strangers, or maybe they parted in front of him, he couldn’t be sure. He was suddenly as frightened for the seal as Hunter was. “Stand back, people. Please.” Still, he shoved his way through. It must have been his voice working, but he never felt himself speak. “You will harm the animal.”
Like a featured attraction in the center of a ring, Hunter had grabbed a sharp, forked length of wood. It was wet and, as he used it as a foil against the dog and the others who were coming too close, thick pearls of water flew through the air. Later, Sam would learn that it must have been Ginny who first discovered the seal. She must have alerted everyone to its presence by her hopping and barking. Tourists gathered to touch and prod. The wound might have come from broken glass, a prodding stick, or a dog’s teeth. They would never be sure.
Sam remembered his cell phone in his pocket. Ridiculous to do this! Sam thought as he dialed 911, the only thing he knew to do. He expected the dispatcher to hang up on him, but she didn’t. She patched him through immediately to a marine wildlife service.
From another world, Sam heard himself describing the location of the cottages. They told him to keep the seal safe from further harm. “We’re sending a truck.” He could hear computer keys clicking in the background. “Because of the traffic, I can’t estimate when we’ll arrive.”
Sam folded his phone and shoved it inside his rear pocket. “Buddy. It’s okay.” But Hunter had gone beyond comprehending faces and voices and instructions. Sam was on the wrong end of the driftwood. Hunter’s muscles bulged beneath his T-shirt sleeves as he fought off his uncle. Sam tried to shield himself with the heels of his hands, but Hunter was striking blindly.
“Kid, it’s me. It’s okay.”
Hunter took two more well-aimed jabs before he recognized his uncle. He stared, surprised, for a moment. The stick angled into the sand. Sam gripped Hunter’s shoulders and drew the boy against him. Even then, they both understood that the seal would be hauled away.
Through the jostle, Sam saw Aubrey wrest Ginny by the collar. He shot her a look of gratitude as she led the dog to the cottage. “The seal is injured.” Sam’s voice boomed like it was directed from a pulpit. Its authority surprised even him. “If you want to save its life, you must disband.” Even as Sam said the words, the wildlife truck topped a hillock, rattling toward them, crushing wild roses and agate beneath its tires. The scent, which Sam would never
forget, was a sweet mixture of diesel and roses and crushed sandstone and oil.
The wail began deep in Hunter’s throat. He struggled against his uncle again, wielding the stick. “It’s okay, Hunter,” Sam said. “It’s okay.”
Only, it wasn’t.
They both understood that a mother would return to the sand to retrieve her young, and that the young, innocent thing would no longer be there.
When Sam grabbed the end of Hunter’s flailing weapon, splinters pierced deep in his skin. When Hunter finally realized he could stop swinging, he dropped the makeshift sword onto the ground. Sam gathered his sister’s son into his arms.
Most of the bystanders on the beach had slipped away by the time the wildlife officer had examined the animal. All this time, the creature has never taken its eyes from Hunter. Sam dropped one of his arms and used all of his force to propel the boy forward along the beach. As they lifted the newborn seal into a net and wet it down with seawater, tears rolled down the boy’s face.
He struggled against his uncle one last time, lofting three halfhearted swings into the air. “Nothing’s going to be okay.”
“Hunter.”
“No.”
Their feet dug into the sand, making them stumble against each other. It was tough going. They were both gasping by the time they slowed and Sam released him.
“There’s nothing I can say,” Sam said. “There’s nothing I can do to make it any better.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Hunter bent to catch his breath, his hands on his knees. “My dad’s dead. Mom’s a mess. I crashed your car. Your church sent you away. And you didn’t even want me here! How can you pretend?”
Hearing it listed out was like getting pummeled in the gut. “You’re right. A lot of things are bad right now.”
“Mr. Ransom came to the house. He told Mom that if you stay the way you are, they don’t want you anymore.” Hunter enjoyed saying it, Sam could tell. Sometimes it felt like if you lashed out at others, some of the pain would leave your heart with the lashing. Sam met his stare. Sam saw anger in Hunter’s eyes, almost threatening, but underneath the anger, there was confusion.
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