The Paper Palace(92)

As I near the ocean, I pick up speed, eager for the dense woods to give way to low scrub and cranberry, eager for the sea. Around the last bend in the road, I’m surprised to see Jonas sitting on the shoulder, binoculars dangling around his neck.

“What are you doing here?” I’m panting when I reach him. “You said you weren’t coming up ’til next week.” I sit down beside him.

“Last-minute decision. One hundred percent humidity, the whole city stank of armpit, and then the air conditioning in the loft decided to stop working.”

“Oh, c’mon. Admit it. It’s because you missed me so much.” I laugh.

Jonas smiles. “Well, that too. It seems impossible for us to get any proper time together in the city. We’re all so crazed. And then suddenly it’s summer. Thank Christ. Kids happy to be here?”

“Hardly. We haven’t even been here a day and already they’re complaining about no Wi-Fi. Peter’s threatening to send them all to military school.”

“He up for a bit?”

“Two weeks. Then the usual back-and-forth on weekends. Are you on your way to the beach, or already been?”

“Been. I went to check on the nesting shorebirds.”

“And?”

“They’re nesting.”

“Are the fences up?”

He nods. “They’ve cordoned off half the beach.”

“I fucking hate piping plovers.”

“You hate anyone who doesn’t understand that you own the Back Woods,” Jonas says.

“The whole thing is ridiculous. The paper says the plover population has decreased since they started roping off those sections of beach to protect them.”

Jonas nods. “It’s possible the smell of humans was keeping the coyotes away from the eggs.”

“So, what’s been happening at your end? Gina good?”

Jonas hesitates a hitch before answering, almost imperceptible, but I notice it. “Ecstatic to be here. And already looking for ways to avoid my mother. She left to go sailing before I woke up. Took the Rhodes out to check the rigging.”

“Sailing.” Even after all these years, the word sticks on my tongue, as if I’m speaking a Namibian click language.

“Sailing,” Jonas says.

It hangs in the air like a slow-falling rock. I feel the unpeeling of something tender and awful and sad and shameful between us, as I always do. But Jonas breaks its fall, and the moment passes.

“She wants to buy a Cat 19. I’m on the fence.”

“Jack will be psyched if she does.” My bright voice rings false, and I know he hears it, too. But it’s what we do, what we’ve done for years now. We drag our past behind us like a weight, still shackled, but far enough back that we never have to see, never have to openly acknowledge who we once were.

Above us, a peregrine wings the sky. We watch it peak into the clouds, turn, and plunge headlong toward the earth, sighting its prey.

Jonas stands up. “I need to head back. My mother wants help planting marigolds. The mosquitoes are terrible this year. Stop by for a drink later. We’re home tonight.”

“We’d love that.”

He gives me a quick kiss on the cheek and heads off. I watch him walk away until he rounds the bend, out of sight. It is easier this way.



* * *



—

Mum is in her usual spot on the porch sofa when I get back. Peter is in the kitchen making coffee.

“Morning, gorgeous,” he calls out. “How was the first run of the summer?”

“Heaven. I feel like I can finally breathe.”

“Coffee’s on its way. Did you make it to the ocean?”

“I did. The tide was just going out. I found this.” I walk over to him, hold out my open palm. “I’ve never seen a horseshoe crab this teensy. It’s perfect.”

“How was the water?” my mother asks.

“I didn’t swim—I was in my running clothes.”

“You could have swum naked,” Mum says. A criticism.

“I could have,” I say. It has begun. “I ran into Jonas on the road. He invited us all for a drink later.”

“Excellent,” Peter says.

“Did you notice? The gypsy caterpillars are back,” Mum says.

“The road to the beach looked fine.”

“They’ll get there. They’re like locusts. Half the trees between here and Pamela’s are bare. It’s too depressing. That horrible pattering sound of droppings raining down onto the path. I had to put my rebozo over my head and run, yesterday morning.”

“Caterpillars shit?” Peter asks.

“It looks like beige coffee grounds,” I say.

“That happened to me once,” my mother says. “It turned out I had an ulcer.”

“Your mother is speaking in tongues again, Elle,” Peter says.

“Your husband is impertinent,” Mum says. “In any event, if you ever find what appear to be coffee grounds in the toilet bowl, you’ll know.”

“That’s disgusting,” I say.

“Nevertheless.”

“Coffee, Wallace?” Peter asks, coming out of the kitchen with a fresh pot.

I adore my husband.