She thinks about this. “Chaotic,” she says. “Overwhelming. Intoxicating. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I talk about them like a collective, you know? But each is an individual, a particular entity, with their own desires and foibles and specifics.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, I don’t want to bore you. Talking too much about your kids is like describing your dreams. Only interesting to the person who has the kids or the dream.”
“I’m not bored. I promise. Tell me about them.”
“Really?” He nods. “Well. Let’s see. Matty is most likely to bring a Band-Aid to a grown-up with a paper cut. Abigail has the best understanding of sarcasm, both how to deliver it and how to receive it. Claire gives the warmest hugs.” Otis shifts on the rock, flattening himself out on one side, sighing but not waking. The McLeans don’t have a dog in Brooklyn—it’s unfair to dogs, Louisa thinks, the walking regimen, being cooped up in an apartment all day—and she sometimes forgets what peace there is in watching a dog sleep, untroubled and imperturbable. “Why didn’t you ever have kids?” she asks.
Mark makes a noise somewhere between a puff and a sigh. “I wanted them really badly. But she—my second ex-wife—didn’t. It turned out to be an irreconcilable difference, as they say. So we divorced. And now here I am, no wifeandno kids.” The crinkles at the corner of his eyes pop up just as they did that first day. “Good thing I like my job. I guess one out of three ain’t bad.”
“I’m not a mathematician,” says Louisa. “But those aren’t great odds.”
He laughs. “No, not great, you’re right.”
“Where’s your second ex-wife now?”
“Seattle. She’s very happy. She was always a city girl. The backwoods of Maine never did it for her.”
“I don’t considerthisthe backwoods,” says Louisa, gesturing at the water. “This is the midcoast!”
“I don’t consider it the backwoods either,” says Mark. “But she did.” A couple of minutes go by. Louisa traces a divot in the rock. At the very bottom of the divot is a pool of water.
“It’s my favorite place in the world, Owls Head,” says Louisa. Then she feels the catch in her voice, and all of a sudden she’s telling Mark the whole story. She tells him how her mother needs to sell the house to pay for her father’s care; how she wants to use her and Steven’s Emergency Fund to pay for the house, and how Steven doesn’t agree that that’s the best use of the money. She even tells him about how she said no when Steven wanted to put the same money into his business, and how she put her foot down. “In fact I put my foot downso hardthat I can’t believe I didn’t get a stress fracture,” she says.
Mark laughs so enthusiastically at this he snorts. “I forgot how funny you are, Louisa.”
“You think I’m funny?” Louisa asks. She’s felt many things so far this summer, but funny isn’t one of them.
“Yes!Sofunny. I always thought you werehilarious.We used to laugh all the time, remember?” Does she remember? Yes, she remembers. It was such a long time ago, and also yesterday: all of them laughing, Nicole too, the way you do when you’re young and the consequences of everything feel small and far away.
Mark stops smiling and looks at her. “I completely understand how you feel about your house.”
“You do?” Blessed relief! Someone understands.
“Of course. It’s a phenomenal home. Not just because of the views and all of that. You grew up coming here. I get it. And it’s been in your family for how long? More than one generation?”
“My mom’s parents had it built,” she whispers. “So, yeah. I’m the third generation. My kids are the fourth. I always figured they would keep coming here, thentheirkids would, and someday I’ll bea wrinkled old matriarch sitting on the porch while people bring me great-grandchildren to hold, and I’ll be looking out at the same view of the breakwater with my rheumy eyes until I can’t see anything any longer . . .” Her voice trails off, and Mark waits a bit before picking up the conversation again.
“That’s tough, Louisa. It really is. I’m sorry. Honestly I can’t think of a better use of an Emergency Fund.” Her spirits lift so high she wonders if they’ll float over Penobscot Bay. It feels so good to be understood! “But keep in mind my statement is coming from someone whose emergency fund went to divorce lawyers and alimony. And every marriage is different, I get that.”
They walk more slowly on the way back, and Mark stops to point to a bird high up in one of the trees. “That’s a black tongued east coast warbler, you know.”
Louisa can’t see much of it, just a corner of a wing. “Really? Is that a particularly rare bird?”
“Probably not. I made it up.” This timeshesnort-laughs.
Two more cars have arrived nears theirs, and the small lot is now full. A family of four is putting on bug spray, and two young parents are packaging a baby up in a sling. They’re working together, heads bent in concentration, and Louisa feels a ping of recognition and sadness, watching them. That could be her and Steven with Matty, all those years ago. “That was a really nice walk,” she says. “And it really helped to talk things out. Thank you.” She unlocks the minivan and motions Otis inside. The dog looks at her balefully, and she says, “Fine,” and lifts his hindquarters to help him. “Lazy boy.” When she has closed the car door she leans against it and squints at Mark, and, yes, there he is: now she finds the teenager in the Whaler, suntanned, with salt on his skin that she could taste. All of these memories: she feels like she’s living inside a Taylor Swift song.
“We should grab a drink or something sometime,” Mark says.
“Sure,” she says.I can’t do that,she thinks. An accidental hikeis one thing. A purposeful drink is a bridge too far. Is it? “Maybe,” she says.
She pulls out of the parking lot and drives along, past the airport, past the community center. When she looks in the rearview mirror she sees that Otis is scrutinizing her with his black button eyes. His expression, if a golden retriever can be said to have an expression other than serene affability, is serious. “I don’t know why you’re looking at me like that,” she says. “I didn’t do anything! We just happened to run into each other. It wasn’tplanned.” Otis blinks. “I’m not going for a drink with him, so you can calm down about that. It’s just nice to have someone understand my side of things. Okay, Otis? I just wanted someone on my side, just for a few minutes. That’s not a crime, is it?”
When she gets home she writes four and one-quarter pages like it’s nothing.
22.
