Stone calls the house and says it’s not a good time for us to come over. Marcella and I don’t go to see Bonnie. I work on the deck with coffee, then lunch, then a glass of wine as 3:00 p.m. turns into 4:00 p.m., and just before sunset, when I’m about to head inside, I see Stone at the bottom of the steps in the sand.
“I’m going out,” he says. “You in?”
I pull on my suit, and at 7:25 we’re catching our first wave.
The sun doesn’t fully set until after nearly nine in the summer here, and the sky is hazy but bright. We’re the only two people out on the water.
I watch Stone in the waves. The way his body slides through the ocean as if it’s his partner. I shake my head because all at once I’m remembering what that feels like—to move against him.
“You’re even better than you used to be,” I say.
He turns around to look at me. I see the rise and fall of his chest against his board. “I think I’m better when I’m with you.”
“That’s not true.” I think about Board Up. All the time he’s spent practicing, devoted to this sport in my absence. And all the time I’ve spent away from the water. “But I feel it, too.”
I see the goose bumps on his skin like a road map. I trail my eyes down his arms and follow his fingers into the ocean.
He looks up at me. Blinks some water away.
“What do you feel?”
“Connected,” I say, without pause. “And humbled.”
“Always humbled,” Stone says. “I forget when I haven’t been in the real deal long enough.”
“That you can’t take it for granted?”
Stone looks at me. I see the glass droplets on his eyelashes. “That she’s ruthless.”
I think about this. How many missed opportunities there have been on the ocean. How many waves I’ve blundered, skipped, straight-up ignored. How many I’ve fought and lost. How many have held me under, forced me to fight to breathe.
“Yeah but the waves keep coming, right?”
The sky starts to change around us. I feel a stab of fear that even this thing I know so well—have known so intimately—could destroy me in a second.
“Death and taxes and waves,” Stone says. He reaches across the water. Gives my shoulder a squeeze.
We sit that way, looking at each other, as the sunset changes from orange to pink to blue.
“We should head in,” Stone says.
I follow his lead. We paddle into the next set and ride it straight to the shore. I fall in on the end and come up sputtering to see Stone dragging his board out of the water.
He drops his and comes back to help me, but I knock him off. “I got it,” I say. “You want dinner?”
I’ve avoided talking about Bonnie, our canceled plans, what it means.
“I do,” he says. “But I should head back. I’ve just been picking up for me and Dad lately.”
“I’ll tell Sylvia to make extra.”
Stone waves me off. “We’re fine, really.”
“She’d love to,” I say. “It’s the least we can do.”
He hooks his board under his arm. He pauses. The night is violet around us, now. Almost iridescent. “I’m glad you’re here, Laur,” he says, and then he’s gone.
And for the next two days I don’t see Stone in the mornings. I paddle out once alone, and once with Bert. I think about texting him, but in our month back at the beach neither of us has reignited our thread. I’ve pulled it up. The last exchange is from six years ago. An unanswered one from me:How are you?
