22

Ethan drives to my house, and I go inside to change into shorts and get Ferris. He wants to come in, but he’s seen enough of what a mess I am today, and I know for a fact that, even though I loaded the dishwasher, there are two sets of muddy cleats and the rancid shell of a hermit crab in the sink.

We go back to his house to pick up Brenda, and he emerges in his red swim trunks and a white T-shirt with a backpack slung across his shoulder. It’s the outfit of a teenage lifeguard, but I’m having a hard time seeing Ethan as anything but the grown-up man who is currently holding me together.

We drive in silence to the dog park, which is honestly not my first choice. I don’t really feel like playing referee and making small talk with my mom’s friends. When we get out of the car, there’s a breeze pushing backlit clouds across the sky. It rustles the giant leaves of the sycamore trees in a way that sounds like distant applause. As if thirty miles away, someone else has finally gotten things right. There’s a hint of lavender in the air. Lavender, I think, is a sinister fragrance—it relaxes you while it calls in the bees.

Ethan leads me past the dog park toward the sound. It’s low tide and it looks like you could walk halfway to Long Island. Little kids are in the water in front of the inn with buckets and shovels, the water just up to their ankles, and I imagine what it must feel like to be that free in all that space. Like they’re walking on water.

There’s a path along the seawall that runs the length of the park but eventually dead-ends into private property. We start walking south in silence and I am loving the feel of the wet breeze on my face. I am loving the fact that he’s not expecting me to explain any more about why I was crying.

When we’ve hit the end of the path, we are at a wrought iron gate around the garden of a waterfront home. The Litchfields used to live here, but I think they moved to Florida too.

Ethan peers through the gate and says, “The Litchfields used to live here.”

“I remember,” I say. “Sammy used to have the best parties. No one ever complained about the noise out here.”

Ethan points to a small island a hundred yards out. It’s covered with a couple of hardy trees that bend north as if they’ve been caught in a photograph of a storm. “That’s Pelican Island, or at least that’s what we used to call it when we were pretending to be pirates. Sammy’s brother Jason and I used to swim out there and build tree forts when we were little. In high school we’d hide beer behind those trees.”

“Clever.”

“Well, it was if it was a day like this. But on several occasions the tide came in and we were left waiting for a case of Bud Light to wash up on the shore.” Ethan is smiling at Pelican Island, and I want to feel as light as he does. “Let’s take the dogs.”

Ethan hops off the seawall onto the beach and reaches up for Brenda and then Ferris. “Come on,” he says. “We’ll go sit out there for a bit and get a new perspective.” He holds up his backpack. “I even have refreshments.” We leave our phones inside our shoes on the wall and start walking across the water. The tide is so low that the water barely covers my feet. We’ve taken Ferris and Brenda off leash and they run wild, hunting scents and crisscrossing the shore. The sand squishes under my feet and I turn my complete attention to the feel of it. Wet sand gathers between my toes and rinses away with each step. It’s rhythmic, the sound of my feet splashing toward the island.

Ethan is ahead of me and stops when we are about ten feet from the island. He calls the dogs and scoops them both in his arms as the water gets a bit deeper. The wet dogs soak his shirt and he’s submerged to the top of his thighs by the time he gets there. He places the dogs and then his backpack on the rocky shore. “Want me to come back for you? You’re going to get soaked.”

I can see that I’m going to get wet past my waist if I keep going, but I don’t feel like getting rescued again today. The sun is welcoming me out into the water. “I’m good,” I say, and keep going.

Pelican Island is bigger than it looks from the shore. You could probably fit my house on it, but nothing more. Around the two trees there is sand and rock and washed-up shells.

“Turn around,” he says.

And I do. There’s Beechwood. Where most of my life took place. It looks different while standing still on another piece of dry land. The inn, the clearing of the dog park, the Litchfields’ house. Hidden beyond the canopy of trees is the high school where I was the valedictorian, the church where I was married, the house where I tried to be a wife. From a distance, it’s just green. I relax not having to look at all the details. The mess.

We sit down under the trees, and he opens his backpack and hands me a beer.

“You really are a great lawyer,” I say, and he laughs.

“I also brought pretzels, no extra charge.”

“It feels like we’re watching the opening scene of a movie about our town, where they pan in on the whole thing before we get to the action.”

He nods. “And then what happens?”

I am quiet for a bit, because I don’t know. The woman gets divorced. The kids grow up. The dog dies. “I’m having a hard time seeing the happy ending.”

“There’s no happy ending to an unhappy story.”

I give him a little shove and take a sip of my beer. “That’s so annoying. You can’t keep quoting my own speech back to me.” I stretch out my wet legs in front of me and close my eyes as the sun dries them.

“But it’s true,” he says. “You can’t just keep doing what you’re doing and wait for it to turn into something happy. You kind of have to look for the happy things along the way.”

“I guess.” Brenda comes over and sits on Ethan’s lap, like she agrees. I turn to him and watch his profile as he concentrates on running his hand along Brenda’s spine. He’s so in the moment.

“I’m soaked,” he says, and takes off his shirt. The sudden sight of so much golden skin makes my breath catch. I want to reach out and run my hands over his shoulders, but I am a little too vulnerable right now. I want to keep this thing with Ethan fun, and right now I feel like I could grab on to it too tight and ruin it.

“So is it your Zen pursuit of happiness that makes you unreliable?”

“Maybe. I kind of move toward what feels good.”

“Like what?” I’m looking straight at the Beechwood shoreline, and I can feel him looking at me. My question is loaded as I say it, because it would feel good to have him lying on top of me on this tiny island.

“Sticking it to Pete today felt pretty good,” he says.

I laugh. “It did.”

“Was there any particular reason you ever dated that guy?”

I laugh the smallest laugh. “Pete just made sense. He felt like he was going to be a partner. I loved how he was so into everything he was into. There was always a frenzy of activity and it felt exciting.” I turn to him and his eyes are on me. Like he’s recording my words to play them back to himself later. “But then we had kids and my days were full of messy things and joyful surprises, and Pete’s life was about all of his activities. I thought it might help to move to Beechwood so my mom could pitch in.”

“And did it?”

“Kind of. She sort of slid in to fill the gap between Pete and me, and it worked.”

“And then she died.”

“And then she died.”

“And Pete left,” he says.

“And now I’m actually getting divorced and it’s fine. I wish we’d broken up years ago.” I look down at my feet, now sandy again. “I’m really grateful that you were there to help me today. But I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to stand up for myself. Pete said I’d disappeared. The night he left. And I felt that today, just how absent I’ve been.”

Ethan puts his arm around me and pulls me toward him. The warmth of his bare arm and his hand on my shoulder spreads throughout my body. I shift closer to him and rest my head on his shoulder. “You’re the architect of your own experience, Ali. You’ve got to get out from under this,” he says.

“Under what?”

“I’m not sure. Something’s weighing you down though.”

Laundry. A mountain of mail. Grief. I lean into him a little closer.

“You okay?” he asks into my hair.

“It just feels really nice to be with you.” I wait to feel embarrassed that I’ve said this, but I don’t. Ethan has seen me in my Costco underwear; he’s seen me berated by my husband. He’s seen me cry. He’s felt safe each time.

“See? You move toward what feels good.” He tightens his grip and holds me while we watch the water. I concentrate on the feel of his fingers on my arm and then the feel of the salt water drying on my legs. The white noise of the sea breeze mixed with the so-close sound of his breathing.

“It’s too bad you’re so unreliable,” I say, because honestly I would love to just climb into this happy man and stay forever.

“I guess.” He’s quiet for a while before he goes on. “Catherine mostly left because of the things that make me happy.” He releases me and lies back on the sand. I am not ready for him to stop holding me, that is the only thing I am a hundred percent sure of. I lie down next to him so that I can at least feel his arm next to mine. The sky is remarkably blue behind the leaves of this tree.

“Explain,” I say.

“I hated growing up here, as you know. I always felt so lost, like I didn’t know who I was or how to be. Even in Manhattan when I was this corporate lawyer with a big paycheck, I still didn’t know; it was like I was playing a part. When I moved up to Devon, I felt like I mattered. The kids at the skate park rely on me for a lot of things. A few of the older ones have run away from foster homes, and I try to help get them jobs and places to stay. I keep tabs on them. I do the legal work for Rose at the animal shelter and work with the dogs when they need me. My downstairs neighbor Barb calls every time she sees a spider. Lots of things like that. And I love it. I’m this different person up there. Like I’m not useless. Like it’s finally okay that I don’t play football.” He laughs a little. “Anyway, I’m happy being a guy people lean on, and it got on her nerves. I canceled a lot of weekends away. The last one was a trip to Bermuda we were supposed to take with some of her friends. One of the kids from the park got in a fight and broke four ribs the night before we were leaving. I couldn’t go.”

He turns to me and we are nose to nose. There’s a little bit of sand under his eye and I wipe it away. I love that I get to casually touch him. He doesn’t even blink. “Those kids think I’m super reliable, which is ironic, I guess.”

“They must,” I say, and my heart clenches.

“Catherine said I have a hero complex. And I never really understood that. I mean, what kind of complex would I have if I just blew them off?” He shakes his head, like he’s shaking away the thought. “Anyways, it’s good for me too, because the kids help run the events at the skate park.” When my face doesn’t register understanding, he goes on. “I own the skate park. It’s just an empty lot with some ramps we built, but kids come now and it’s a whole thing. I made it because I couldn’t find any place to skate up there.”

I reach my hand up and cup his cheek, feel the roughness of his stubble. “You’re a good guy, Ethan.”

“I don’t know about that. But it all feels good. It feels good to finally be happy.” His eyes go intense, like he has something he’s been wanting to say. He reaches over and brushes my hair over my shoulder and runs his hand along my neck. I see him decide not to say whatever it was, and instead he kisses me. It’s a whisper of a kiss, more full of reverence than full of desire. I have the sense that he’s told me something. We lie like this, on our sides, looking at one another while the water laps the shore and a soft breeze kisses our skin. I run my fingers over his cheekbones and then along his lower lip. I am memorizing him. The soundtrack for this moment is a gull overhead and the intensifying sound of the waves.

Ethan looks over his shoulder. “The tide’s coming in.”

I jump up and grab Ferris. Being stranded on a deserted island with an attractive man only works if there’s a port-a-potty.

He’s got his backpack on and is holding Brenda. “Follow me, I think it’s just going to be a little deeper than it was on the way in. We won’t have to carry the dogs too far.”

The water’s only up to the top of my waist, but I have to hold Ferris pretty high to keep him from getting soaked. I like wading through the water behind Ethan and the way he keeps turning around to see if I’m okay.

When the water is shallow enough, I put Ferris down and let him run. He and Brenda are ahead of us and I fall into step next to Ethan. We don’t speak as we make our way back to our sneakers, phones, and leashes. We’ve both missed a call from Frannie, and I’m shocked to see that it’s 2:55.

“Wow, I really lost track of everything out there,” I say.

“Yes,” he says, without looking up from his phone.

“Everything okay?” I ask.

“Yeah, sort of. The guys have an event at the skate park tomorrow and the city’s pulled their permit. They can go ahead with it if it’s never more than thirty people at a time. I’m going to have to go up tomorrow to act as a bouncer.” He tosses his phone into his backpack and we start walking back to the car.

“So do you go every time they need something?” I ask.

“Well, usually I’m there when they need something, so it’s easier.”

“I’m glad. Someone else might just tell them to cancel it.”

He stops and smiles at me like I just said Massa-Cheez-Its. “Do you want to come with me tomorrow?”

“To Devon?”

“Yes, full change of scenery. I’ll pick you up at 10:05.”