I’m not sure what they talked about in the car, or whether they talked at all. But the look Joy shoots me over her shoulder is definitely amused. I’m guessing she loves being coddled. I may have coddled her when she was little, but it’s been a long time since I led her around. Hell, she stopped letting me do it. Papa, apparently, is something else.
Wanting her back by my side—my family, my safety, myneed—I climb out to follow, but pause with a hand on the roof of the car. The house stands above a fieldstone skirt, and is wide rather than tall, with turrets front and rear. Its sides are clad in cedar shakes—and yes, the shakes buckle in spots. Yes, several shutters could be straighter. Still, my heart trumpets, because this house is a handsome thing.
That said, I’m not quite ready to go inside and greet the memories waiting there like a party of long lost relatives.
Needing a boost before I confront them, I follow the timeworn path between heather the color of slate, to the staircase that leads to the beach. The wood here is just plain weathered, ragged both underfoot and on the handrails, but other than the splinter risk, it feels solid enough.
Walk, don’t run!my mother calls. So I descend one step at a time, inhaling more deeply the lower I get. At the bottom step, I do the little dance of kicking off my flip-flops, and sink into the sand. It is cooler than it will be in another month, and damp enough after last night’s rain so that I don’t sink in far, but it feels wonderfully familiar. Likewise the smell. There is nothing to dilute it here—no food, no people, no cars. It is pure ocean, pure… pure.
A man-made barrier of rocks forms a breakfront protecting the dock, whose planks range in color, old to new. The whole of it is held in place by thick pilings, and stretches well out over the water. Two boats are tied here, my father’s on the right, Jack’s on the left. Both are powerboats of average length and beam; both are new to me, clearly purchased in the years since I’ve been gone. Still, the sight of them takes me back in time, way back past that one awful night to boat picnics and sunset cruises and trips to Newport or Montauk or the Vineyard.
Inevitably, though, that one awful night looms. Where had my father and Elizabeth been headed?Just out,he said in annoyance when we asked, and when the authorities asked, he said Jamestown.Just for a ride,he replied when they asked him why, and the story never changed.
I wonder if we’ll get anything more now, then wonder if it matters. The more immediate question is whether he currently owns a gun.
But I don’t want to think about that, either. Taking a deep, salty breath, I hold it in my lungs until it eases my upset.
Walking to the spot where the sand is shiny and hard, I wiggle my toes as the water bubbles in, trickles out, advances again and retreats. A tiny voice in my head tells me to go back up to the house. But if there is a problem, Joy will come looking for me. And didn’t she want to get to know her grandfather? Besides, Anne is with them.
Leaving the water’s edge, I walk several yards onto the dock and sit with my legs hanging over the side. My feet don’t quite touch the water, which means it’s low tide. When we were kids, this was a measure of our growth, much like a mark on the kitchen wall. Another measure? How quickly we could scramble up the bluff without using the stairs. There were always footholds. But no more, I realize, looking back. The rocks we used then now lie in a straggly line at its base.
The bluff is eroding. The stairway seems to be holding the soil in place, but on either side of it, gravelly sediment flows over what usedto be pure sand. The Sabathian side of the bluff, where plantings anchor the gravel, fares better.
Beach maintenance. Another thing to consider.
But not now. Now I simply listen. Though the breakwater gentles the surf, the greater ocean still resonates as it gathers, spills, and ebbs. I hear the soft ding of ships’ bells, a slightly different tone from each boat, in sync one minute, not so the next, and the percussive thump of the bumpers that hang between the boats and the dock. Combined this way, these sounds are unique. They are the lullaby of my childhood, the one that scores my Manhattan dreams, as pure here as the smell of the sea.
A gust of wind whips at the loose ends of my hair. Grateful for my Bay Bluff sweatshirt, I start to pull up the hood. But that will hide too much of the shore experience, and in this instant, that is what I need. Instead, I pull its sleeves over my hands, press them against the dock, and focus on the horizon.
Focus. Camera. Back in the car.
But I veto that thought, too. For these few moments at least, I want nothing between myself and the sea. On a clear day, we could always see Block Island and, on an extra clear day, the tip of Long Island. Today a broken haze hovers over the ocean, allowing only cracks of sunlight to splinter through and gild the waves.
Just shy of the horizon, I see two boats, one with sails, one not. Their paths approach, cross, and separate. I can’t hear them, not even the distant rumble of a motor, the breeze is that stiff. I do hear another sound, though—a faint jangle, land-based, and growing louder fast.
Looking toward the Sabathian side, I see a dog coming at me on the run. It is medium-sized and powerfully built, though the power is strictly in its body. In comparison, its legs are spindly. It is shorthaired, so much the color of wet sand that it might have blended in, if the sand offered up anything as mean-looking as this.
Time to go to the house, I sing to myself. But it’s too late. The dog is racing past the firepit, heading for me. It closes in even as I evaluate my odds of escape.
It isn’t that I don’t like dogs. But this one doesn’t look friendly, and the last thing I want is to have to return to Urgent Care for stitches and a shot.
Trapped, I hold very still. The dog stops at the end of the dock where it, too, holds still.
Distracted by movement down the beach, I dare a glance there. The man approaching us is tall and as solid of body, if far, far more long-legged than the dog. He doesn’t run, clearly isn’t alarmed, or is simply testing me to see if I’ll blink. All I do, very carefully, is ignore the wild thudding of my heart and, very slowly, turn on my bottom so that I’m facing the threat.
Stopping at the dog, he scrubs its head with his fingers. “Good guy,” he says.
“Is that a pit bull?” I call in disbelief.
“Could be,” he calls back in the deep voice that I know. I want to hear amusement. But no. It’s challenge.
“Do you own it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Why a pit bull? Because no one else wants him and he needs a home. Pit bulls are the most misunderstood dogs.”
