“We’re sinking!” Noah repeated. The little boy had begun to cry.
Sam glowered across the boat at his brother. “No, we’re not, stupid.”
“Sam, enough.” She paused a moment to calm herself. “Everything’s fine. We’re perfectly safe. The beach is right there.”
Slowly the boat pivoted on its centerboard, pointing into the wind. The centerboard, Kay thought. She reached forward to find the lever that lifted it into its pocket. She did, and they were free, slipping stern-first away from the beach. When they were clear she put the centerboard back down and pointed the boat once again toward open water.
“Come here, both of you.”
The boys moved to the stern beside her. “Here, Noah. Take the tiller. Feel it? See how it moves the boat?”
With Kay’s hand on his he moved the rudder back and forth; but his heart, she could tell, was not in it.
“I didn’t mean to say it,” Noah said. He looked at her plaintively, his eyes windowpaned with tears.
“It’s all right, honey.” With her free arm she hugged his thin shoulders. “You’re not in trouble.”
She gave each boy a turn steering the boat. So, there it was, and Noah knew. Had she? And did Sam? His silence said he did.
“We’ll make a pact. Everything we do and say out here is just for us. Not for Daddy, or Mia, or anybody. Agreed?”
“Like pirates,” Noah said, his voice gone far away again, to safety. “Argh, avast, blow the man down.”
“That’s it. Like pirates on the high seas. Sam?”
Beside her the older boy looked away.
“Sam?”
“If it’s a secret, you’re not supposed to tell.”
When they returned, Jack was in the shower. His news was good—he was ahead eighteen thousand dollars. He was going to take a nap, he said, and have dinner with them, and then return to the casino to play.
“You just don’t screw around with luck like this,” he said. He spoke to her through the frosted mirror as he shaved. In the room behind them the boys were dealing hands of go-fish on the carpet. “I’m going to pay off the house before I’m through. I tell you, I’m on a roll.”
“What’s a roll, Daddy?” Sam asked.
“It’s when you can’t lose. And don’t eavesdrop. You liked the sailing, boys?”
“Noah got scared.”
“Be nice to your brother,” Jack said. “Would that kill you?”
“Can we buy a boat?”
He dried his face with a towel and winked at Kay. “What kind do you want?”
“A white one.” Sam held out his arms. “With a big motor.”
“Ah.” He nodded gravely. “I’ll have to play a lot more cards for that.” He turned from the mirror to face Kay. “Seriously,” he said quietly, “the minute it goes south, I’m out of there. You know that, right?”
“Well.” Then, “Should I worry?”
“C’mon, Kay. Eighteen thousand bucks.” He frowned, searching her face. “You have to trust me on this. After everything we’ve been through, I think that would cheer you up.”
She wanted to laugh, but stopped herself. Was it possible, she thought, that she had actually known? How could she not have known? Another person had stepped into the circle. And yet here she was, with her husband and boys, in the Caribbean, Jack shaving, the boys playing cards, all of it exactly the same as if Noah had said nothing at all.
“I’m not complaining about the money, Jack,” she heard herself say. “I just think we should spend some time together.”
“And we will, I promise. I absolutely promise. I’ve just got to ride this thing out.”
Kay did not reply; Jack sat on the edge of the bed to wriggle into his shorts. “I was thinking. Maybe we should give Mia something extra, considering all the time we’ve been away.”
A gift, she thought: a lover’s gift. She pushed the thought away. “Is that really necessary? She’s getting a nice vacation on top of what we pay her,” Kay said.
“She said she wants to go home in the summer. Maybe we could spring for the ticket. I don’t see why we shouldn’t spread the luck around a bit.” He rose, and clapped his hands. “Okay, boys, outside. Daddy’s hitting the hay.”
He slept three hours, while Kay minded the boys on the beach. Mia had the rest of the afternoon off; she would join them for dinner, and then stay with the boys during the evening, so Kay and Jack would be free to do as they liked. It was, she knew, what made the trip all possible, having Mia along to help. Without Mia there would have been no trip at all. Why was she not angrier than she was? The air was calm, the sky a richly saturated blue above the quiet bay. The cruise ship had vanished without a trace. She watched the boys swimming and digging in the sand, but her thoughts were far away, back in the year of her illness. So sick: it was as if she had gone to some distant country, far away from all of them. It wasn’t the surgery she had minded most of all—all the books and movies had this wrong; the breast was trying to kill her, she wanted it gone—but the hair on her pillow when she awoke each morning, long strands of it marking the place where her head had been, and the whiteness of her scalp as it emerged, first in a crown at the top, then all around. She tried not to let the boys see. I am falling away, she thought. I am being disassembled in the smallest parts. She had sores in her mouth, on her tongue, down the back of her throat. Always, the final taste of blood. The days between rounds of chemo passed in a haze of exhaustion and worry. She took pills to sleep, pills to cheer her up, pills to help her keep her food down or stop the diarrhea that sent her dashing to the toilet. And always there was Mia: shuttling Sam to school or Noah to his therapist, unpacking groceries in the kitchen or negotiating with the boys over naps or treats, bringing Kay a glass of water or a mug of tea on those days when that was all she could keep down. She heard, from her room, the sound of Mia’s voice, mixing with Jack’s and the boys’; one day she sat at the top of the stairs and simply listened. The four of them were playing Parcheesi, or trying to; Noah would not sit still, kept moving his piece at random, and yet, somehow, the game had proceeded, Mia cajoling the boys and letting Noah cheat a little, Jack saying, “See? Watch what Mia does. Do what Mia tells you, boys.” She listened for an hour, and knew what she was hearing: the sound of a family, though one she was not part of. The cancer had traveled to twelve nodes in arm and chest. N12, the chart said. It was not the best situation, they told her. In a college town there could be no secrets, or so she’d thought. The house filled up with friends and colleagues, her bedroom bloomed with scarves and hats, the freezer burst with casseroles. One day, at the end of a month when the bills had piled up, she walked to the end of the driveway to the mailbox and found, tucked in an envelope, five hundred dollars in cash.
But then it was over; she was still young, and her strength returned quickly. She walked each morning, ate the proper foods, gave up the stolen cigarettes at parties. Her hair came in; one day she left the house without a hat and didn’t realize until she was already downtown and saw her reflection in a store window. At Sam’s hockey games, or in line at the grocery store, or in the back of the church after services, a sea of amazed and happy eyes met hers. Look at you! they all said. You’re looking so well! Healthy, normal people: how did they do it? She marveled at their innocence, their easy greed for life. She had friends who rock-climbed, drove without seat belts, who hadn’t had so much as a checkup in years. What could they be thinking? She had stepped back into the world, but not completely; she was an imposter, half ghost, a spy from the shadows. She carried her new health through the crowds like a crystal chalice, and every three months she returned to the far side of the river, that awful ward of the dying: more blood drawn, chest X rays, tumor markers. In August, a year after the surgery, she had a full-body CAT scan—dreadful, a ride in a coffin, her ears pounding with a sound like sheets of metal pushed through a sawblade. It was when the doctor reported the results, smiling for the first time at the good news, that she knew that everyone
had expected her to die. Beside her, Jack had broken down and wept.
A waiter came by; she asked for iced tea, then changed her order to wine, though she knew she would only taste it. The boys were building mud castles on the wet plain left behind by the receding evening tide. The waiter returned, bearing her single glass on a tray. After such a year, here she was, holding a glass of wine on a beach a thousand miles away from the April mud of Vermont. She sipped the wine, its cold sweetness like golden light on her tongue. Sunshine, her body strong, Sam and Noah happy again, or at least not afraid: what else was there to wish for? When she was very sick, she had tried to imagine a day like this one, to hold it in her mind. So perhaps that was the reason: all of it felt like a gift.
“Come here, boys.”
They came to where she was sitting. Their bare chests were streaked with wet sand. She hugged them together.
Noah touched her face. “Mama, why are you crying?”
She hadn’t noticed. She wiped a tear away with her thumb. “I’m just happy to see you. Sometimes grown-ups cry because they’re happy.”
Sam frowned skeptically; she thought he was going to ask about his father. “You’re not sick again, are you?”
She hugged them again. “Not at all,” she said.
When they returned to the condo, Jack was snoring away. His arm lay over his eyes. Thirteen years of marriage: her mind circled this thought, feeling only a mild surprise at the swift passage of time. In the adjoining room she bathed the boys, dressed them in clean shorts and T-shirts, and took them to the restaurant to wait for their father. It was the early seating for dinner; most of the other guests had children with them, even babies. At the table next to theirs a young mother spooned food into a little girl’s mouth from a tiny jar. A quick, heady thrill passed through her, remembering the years when the boys were small: Sam’s tiny mouth as he reached for his bottle, the smell and heat of Noah’s skin, like warm bread and cinnamon. So delicious, even to be near them; there were days, she had joked, when she could have eaten them whole. One wasn’t supposed to feel this way anymore—having children was a sideline, a concession to biology one made in the midst of other things—and yet it was the only true desire she’d ever possessed.
“When’s Daddy coming?” Sam asked.
She opened their menus. “He’ll be along. Why don’t we order?”
She ordered hamburgers for the boys, filet for Jack, swordfish for herself. She had given Jack a nudge before they’d left for the restaurant, and she worried that he’d fallen back asleep. But just as their food arrived, he appeared in the doorway of the restaurant.
“Sorry.” He seated himself next to the boys. Beside Noah and Sam she saw how pale his arms and face were. “How was the beach, boys? Did you miss me?” He tousled Noah’s hair. “How’s our zoologist? See any fish?”
The little boy shrugged and chewed. “Minnows.”
Jack looked around. “Where’s Mia?”
“I gave her the rest of the afternoon off,” Kay said. “I think she met someone.”
Jack salted his steak and said nothing.
“A boy her age,” Kay explained. “He works with the boats.”
“His name is Thomas,” Noah said.
Jack frowned. “She should be careful,” he said.
The waiter came to the table, and Jack ordered a beer, and Cokes for the boys; they were each allowed one soft drink with dinner. “I’m just saying we might be liable. If anything happens. You get off the grounds, it’s a different world down here.”
“He seemed very nice,” Kay said. “You wanted her to have some fun, remember?”
They finished their dinner. Outside on the patio a steel band was setting up to play. As they were leaving, Mia arrived, half running, wearing a sundress, her hair gleaming and wet from the shower. The boys took her each by a hand.
“We went to a castle,” she told them breathlessly. “On motorbikes! Just like in Denmark. It was very fun.”
“We finished dinner,” Kay said. “But go get something and charge it to the room.”
“It’s fine,” Mia said, smiling. “I’ve eaten already.”
“Can we go to the castle?” Sam wanted to know.
“Maybe tomorrow,” Kay said.
“Why is it always maybe?” Sam stuck out his lower lip the way he had done since he was a baby. “Just say yes.”
Mia tugged at his hand. “Listen to your mother, Sam,” she said firmly. “If she says maybe, then it is maybe for you.”
At a metal table they listened to the band while the sun went down over the darkening bay. Kay could tell that Jack was antsy to get back to the casino. She left them on the patio and went into the information desk in the lobby, a large open room with plants and flowers everywhere. Was there a castle nearby? she asked. Something like a castle? The attendant took a brochure from a dispenser behind his chair and unfolded it on the counter. Glossy photos of a ruined stone structure with ramparts high above the sea; piles of cannonballs and people waving; a map with the castle’s location on a solitary promontory marked by a red star: It was actually an eighteenth-century Spanish fort, the attendant explained. They could rent mopeds, he said, though the roads were narrow and steep. A van could take them, too, for thirty dollars.
She made a reservation for the van for 9:00 A.M., before the sun would get too hot, tucked the brochure in the pocket of her dress, and returned to the patio. The brochure said that the fort’s high vantage point made it a good spot for whale watching; it was this that had made her decision. She wanted to give Noah a whale.
The band had stopped playing by the time she returned; the table was empty. Down by the water’s edge she saw the boys and Mia. The last of the light was about to go. She took off her shoes and joined them. The sand around and under her feet still hummed with the heat of the day.
“You missed it,” Sam said cheerfully, and arched his back so he was walking on his hands and feet together. “Mia taught me to limbo.”
“How low can you go? How low can you go?” Noah recited. His face and voice were bland; the music was in his head, she knew, a perfect recording without a trace of feeling, except perhaps a mild curiosity. She smiled at him as he clapped his hands joylessly.
“We came down to look for dolphins,” Mia explained.
She looked at Mia. “Did Jack go back to the casino?”
“The professor said to tell you to meet him there,” she replied.
“I see.” What else was there to say? But she found herself glad; she had time yet. Let him gamble. “Perhaps later,” Kay said.
They strolled the length of the beach, Noah dawdling to pick up shells left bare by the tide. Behind them the ambient sounds of the resort grew faint. They made their way to the end, where the sand stopped and a chain-link fence topped with razor ribbon sealed the edge of the property. She had seen it before, in daylight, and thought nothing of it; now, in the darkness, it gleamed forbiddingly. Beyond it stood a run-down house, the stucco peeling away. A skinny dog was chained in the front yard, chewing at something in the dirt. On the porch steps a light suddenly blazed: a match, and then, from the shadows, the scent of marijuana. She heard a man’s deep laugh, and then a pair of voices talking, words she could not understand. Without warning fear sliced through her. How sturdy was the fence? Had they been seen?
She stepped back, calling to her children in a harsh whisper. “Come away from there, boys.”
Sam held fast to the fence, plainly interested. Here was something new. “I want to see—”
“Now.”
They retraced their steps back toward the resort, a blazing oasis of light and music, and by the time they had returned to the condo, her nervousness was gone. The air had taken on a floral sweetness; above them the palm fronds rustled, a sound like girls in taffeta skirts descending a flight of stairs. The steel band had resumed playing on the patio. For the adults the night was just beginning, but for the children it was over; the boys were completely drained by the day,
even Sam, who snuck a thumb into his mouth as he stood before the toilet to pee. She tucked them in and told them no nonsense, and joined Mia on the porch.
She was wearing a sweater around her shoulders, and held her purse. “I was wondering,” Mia began, “if you don’t want to play cards tonight—”
“Go, go,” Kay said. “Take the rest of the evening off.”
She hesitated, but her face was delighted. “Thomas says there is a party, for the staff. I can be back in time to watch the boys if you change your mind.”
Kay waved her away. “You’ve done enough,” she said.
She sat in a rocker on the porch and waited for Jack. She supposed that his not returning was a good sign; it meant he was still winning. A gauze of stars hung low above the bay, and a gentle wind blew. At eleven she went inside and dressed for bed, but sleep would not come; sometime later she felt the pressure of the air in the room change and heard the door open. She rose and went to the hall. Mia was putting her purse on the table.
“Oh!” she said, startled. She put a hand over her heart. “You frightened me.”
“I’m sorry. I thought it might be Jack.”
“It is very late. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I wasn’t sleeping.” She paused a moment and regarded Mia, the girl before her. She didn’t quite know what she was looking for. Mia was barefoot, and her feet were sandy; more sand was on her throat, in her hair, the pure white sand one found just above the high-tide line, as fine as powder.
“Kay?”
“It’s nothing. It’s all right.” She tried to smile. “Did you have a good time?”
“It was just a party.” She shrugged. “American boys can be so . . . what is the word? They want things.”
“Needy.”
“Yes, they need us. Even the little ones!” Mia laughed. “You can see it in Sam. He’s going to be quite the lady’s man, I think.”
“Like his father.”