The grass was warm on Nathaniel’s bare feet. The sun blurred his vision. When Meredith opened the door for him, the dog rushed around her, scratching the wooden floor of the kitchen and running his nose along the counter. Rascal didn’t hesitate on his way into the parlor and toward the sound of human noise. When the dog saw Meredith and Rachel, he ran from one to the other while they lavished him with attention. Nathaniel sat in the chair across from Meredith and the girl. He crossed his legs one way, then another, until he finally stood up and poured a glass of water from the pitcher on the table.
“You look well, Rachel. I’m glad to see it.”
The quiet of the first few days after her accident had passed over the last ten days into something he had not yet grasped.
“Where’d you get the dog?” Meredith asked.
“Oh, he shows up when he gets hungry.” Nathaniel saw her happiness, but he didn’t imagine that it could be for himself. They ate the lemon cake and cookies that Dot carried in on the silver tray. Sun fell through the windows in a bath of light. Rachel leaned back against the pillows and let the warmth onto the front of her body. Nathaniel watched Meredith’s back arch slightly as she stretched herself out and sat in a chair by the couch.
“I saw you fishing the other day,” Rachel said. “I could see you from that window there.”
“Nathaniel has been fishing since he could walk,” Meredith said. “The first time I saw him, he was a boy leaning over the water near the end of the jetty, peering into a minnow trap. I wanted to see what was in that trap. I wanted to catch minnows, but I had to get home and do my chores. Those boys ran wild as wolves, my mother said.”
She’d never told him this, and it thrilled him to know she’d thought about him that long ago. He wanted her then, wanted to feel her more than physically. He reached for a piece of lemon cake, and she reached for a cookie at the same time. They looked into each other’s eyes for a single moment that contained a decade of feeling—their love for each other and the rupture in their relationship, his defection to the island and her marriage, this room that they both found themselves in and the girl that brought them here, sadness and wistfulness—then they looked away. His longing for her made him want a home in a way he hadn’t since the accident. Home had always been his parents’ house, until he fell in love with Meredith, then home had become a place they dreamed together. When he looked around this house, he realized what a different home she’d chosen from the one he had once imagined for her, and it saddened him.
Meredith placed her glass of iced tea on the table, tilted her head to one side, and fiddled with her pearl earring, then she looked down as if she were studying the rug. Nathaniel watched her eyes running over the braided blue pattern that shimmered in the light like water. He didn’t want his visits to her house to end. He panicked for a moment, imagining himself alone, then he told himself he liked his solitude and tried to fortify himself with this knowledge as he left.
Meredith followed him to the back door, and they lingered for a moment in the breeze from marsh. “Did you stay away because of our talk?” Meredith asked.
“It made me think,” Nathaniel said.
“Me too.”
“Let’s go rowing.”
“We can’t go rowing. What will people say?” Meredith held her hands across her stomach and peered toward the water out the window.
“Do you remember that first time?”
“Of course I remember.” She placed a hand on his arm, and she didn’t remove her gaze from his face. It was as if no time had passed, and they were the same people they had been back then, only older and with layers of sadness that they hadn’t known before. He looked into her eyes, at the startling green of them. When he touched her waist, her curves were like a memory. The utter beauty of her neck and shoulders, so close to his mouth that all he would have to do is lean down to kiss them. He was aware of her heat, the scent of skin and soap, and the firmness of her corset as she leaned against him.
“I’m going into business with my father,” he said. “It’s time for me to build a life, Meredith.”
“You’ll still come visit?”
“If you’d like?”
She nodded. He felt her there for a moment, then he turned to go.
• • •
The sun burned down on Nathaniel’s shoulders and scorched him through his shirt as he walked toward the shack. He felt full of love at the thought of Meredith. What emptiness had she filled that he hadn’t known was there? He had an unexpected, deep feeling ringing through him, the sound of her voice, the vibration of her touch. He imagined the curve of her collarbone and the freckle on her right breast and how he wanted to kiss it right now. He walked faster through the muck of low tide. The dog followed him to the plank over the wide creek, and they made their way through the thickets that bordered the island. The shack stood straight as any house he’d ever seen, made to withstand any weather.
He wanted to build a house for him and Meredith, but there was no way that could happen, he realized.
He drank water from the pump and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Glancing around the clearing at the single chair, the empty clothesline, the small circle of stones where he cooked his meals, he saw the paucity of his life and felt ashamed. What did he have to offer Meredith? Not even a plot of land to build a house upon. He kicked at the circle of stones, then sat on the chair, frustrated. Meredith would never leave her marriage. What was he thinking? Still, he couldn’t let go of the thought that if he could provide a home for her, she would come to him. She loved him still. He was sure of it.
As soon as he had that thought, though, he lost its surety. Why would she love him after all that he put her through? If he returned to her house, Theo would be furious. Nathaniel didn’t know what violence the man was capable of. He took the broom from where it rested against the side of the shack and swept in wide arcs around the clearing, swiping away leaves and rocks and clods of dirt. He took apart the campfire stones and stacked them again, one by one, into an orderly circle. Inside, he brushed the floor and took his sheets outside to hang on the clothesline, opened the windows to let the breeze through the shack. He lay back on his mattress, but he couldn’t relax. He prepared a large meal of salt beef, turnips, and onion that he shared with Rascal. He drank a cup of water to wash it all down, and only then could he sleep.