12

I DIDN’T SLEEP MUCH THE NIGHT WE WERE BAPTIZED as Bohemian Club members in lithium-laced spring water under the Strawberry Moon at the edge of the known world. As usual, Guy fell into sleep as fast as falling off a cliff. With a lamp on, I listened to the creaks and patters of the house and waited for the dawn. Between the scratching of tree branches blowing against the windows and walls and what sounded like the repeated scraping and slamming of the front door, my body moved from a state of permissive wooziness that lingered from the springs to one of shivering, jittery alertness. If I hadn’t been afraid to move, I might have retched with nervousness into a nearby vase or rubbish bin. Undoubtedly, the perfect container would have appeared to catch my heaves.

UNLIKE THE PERFECT kaleidoscope sunsets, the sunrise is a muted affair in Bellinas. The pigeon-gray light precedes the sun for hours, and it is hard to tell the morning has come at all until the swift clearing of the fog at exactly nine o’clock, as if swept away by one swishing stroke of an enormous broom. With the promise of light and the easing of the wind at dawn, I finally dozed off. I dreamed of Mia with the white cat in her portrait. A whirlpool of seashells. Guy’s blood-covered hands against rock. Cresting waves that appeared at first to crash atop, and then part, a flame. I knew I was dreaming and realized that it was a comb gliding through long waves of hair, and my understanding of what I saw shifted. Symbols were scrolled in a golden script across a wooden surface, with an abalone eye at their center.

IT TOOK ME a moment to place myself when I woke after my short early-morning sleep. It was a romantic setting in which to wake. The sheepskin at the foot of our bed and in furry islands across the floor. The view of the ocean fog commuting across the tall, wild forest through the windows. Beeswax candles set on hand-cast plates of warm pinks and oranges. Still, something in me felt broken. My skin felt both cold and fiery hot.

It must have been just before nine, as the sky was not yet the clear, calm blue of robins’ eggs and newborn babies’ eyes. Guy began to wake with an unshaven look of annoyance, maybe bothered by my own movements, before turning and settling again. Still, to share your conscious days with someone is no small thing. To trust your dreams beside another’s is something even bigger. What a marvelous act, I always thought, to merge your realities, but I was afraid to share what I had dreamed. Would Guy dismiss the feelings, the aches, as not real? How can the dreams of the one you sleep beside be discounted, when whimpers and twitches are real enough to wake you? I was relieved he had gone back to sleep. Perhaps I expected too much from marriage, even after a decade of supposedly being in love.

My hand on my belly, I thought of the abalone in my dream. I ran a hand through my hair, still tangled and wet from the night before. Everything would be fine. How could it be otherwise? Bellinas was so perfect looking. I watched the fog rolling in as slabs of muddled, milky haze above the water, transformed into gauzy feathers that brushed the glass with condensation and floated onward into the trees of the Hidden Coast. I gulped the air down in mouthfuls of salt and cedar and a hint of smoke. Freezing cold. One. Two. Three. Four. Looking at the grays outside, I felt it could be January instead of July. Was that the smell of smoke from the nearby wildfires or smoke from Mia’s incense lingering in my matted hair? It reminded me of the air on eastern winter nights, of cozy gatherings around warm hearths. Had I not seen the mountains of smoke from the plane, I would not have known about the blazing destruction that surrounded us. How would we know if the fires got too close, I wanted to know, but Mia assured me repeatedly, as she had when we arrived. “Bellinas is protected.”

On this first morning, my memories of the night before felt far away. Surely Manny had not invited us, or declared us, to be members of what he called the Bohemian Club? And what exactly does such a group do? Here again that magical thinking, different from the ideation diagnosed by doctors. I began to doubt what my body knew. Dreams were warning me. Bruises down my arms and back cried out. Common sense laid out a clear path to leave. And yet . . . I did not.

“What are you thinking about?” said my husband, now awake and stroking my forehead. “You’ve got a deep furrow going.”

The fog outside the window moved so fast in the moments right before nine o’clock, watching for too long produced an overwhelming dizziness. “What do you think about everything?”

“I mean, what’s to think?” Guy began, pulling his hand away from my face. “Everybody’s great. So cool and welcoming. Manny seems like a really good guy, you know? What an incredible night. Who does things like that? I feel like I’m with people who really get me for the first time.”

“You don’t think I get you?”

“That’s not what I meant, but c’mon, Tansy. I’ve always wanted to be a part of something bigger. To be a part of a community.”

“Is that what they are? You didn’t think it was a little weird, the fancy name and their rules and philosophies? And what about that prayer or whatever it was?”

“So they’ve given themselves a name. It’s probably just for T-shirts or taxes or something. Who cares? They’re a group of interesting people trying to create a little pocket of good in the world. We basically stumbled into a family here, which is what I thought you wanted. Try being a little grateful, Constance.”

With that, I hopped up. I didn’t remember unpacking and putting away our suitcases, but it is possible that Guy had. I must not jump to the conclusion that everything was magic, or that every act of magic was enacted to undermine my sense of reality. In orderly, retail-worthy folds, our clothing filled the spacious and cedar-scented drawers of the dresser decorated with Mia’s candles. The sandy jeans and sweatshirt I did not remember retrieving from the rocks before our descent back to town lay on one side. No longer sandy. No longer stained. Absent any evidence of the night before and waiting for my need of them. There was, of course, a closet full of gauzy dresses as well, but I dressed in my own clothes that first morning, with my back turned to my husband. In a hurry to get the day going, to leave the bedroom, I didn’t think, but bared my naked chest to the town. A provocation, perhaps, but what did it matter? The whole coastline had seen me undressed more than once already. I practically slid across the floor of the bedroom, as if my mismatched wool socks were skates, and then I was hopping down the narrow stairs. The house was helping me, I think. Separating us, creating friction in my speedy departure from our marital bed.