“What do you like about him?”
Cece rests her head on Wynonna. She’s always been taller than her sister; she got their father’s genes—taller than most, back broad, legs long. Nestled in the crook of Wynonna’s shoulder, Cece looks at the twilight world sideways. Bats squeak overhead, their bodies seamless and fragile against the indigo sky. “He makes me feel like I’m living life, not just passing through it,” she says.
Barry emerges from the garage, his silhouette more upright and buoyant than before. He makes his way toward his daughters in the dying light, sandaled feet padding the grass, his steps lighter. Devin calls out to tell everyone dinner is served. Kids rumble through the house. Somewhere, a neighbor’s dog yaps. Barry embraces his daughters, pulls them close and holds them tight. “I count myself lucky,” he whispers. “Who’s got it better than me?”
Cece wants to say something, protest her father’s optimism in the face of most certain tribulation, but it is easier to stay like this—together—and let be what will be.
The late-summer crowdshave descended on Mystic. Up the coast, I-95 brims with cars, swollen like a flooded river as families make their yearly pilgrimages to Newport and the Cape. The more ambitious, those who seek natural and pristine beachesvoid of human interference, venture farther north, to Harpswell and Brooklin. They pass by these once-great centers of American industry brimming with New World promise with names like New Bedford, and Providence, Salem, and New London, impatient and hurried.
American flags line Bank Street, and Cece is thankful for those who don’t stop in this fair city. Without any traffic, it takes her fifteen minutes to get from Mamacoke Cove to the beach. On account of the holiday, Richie had called it at noon after they’d finished surveying the spot where they’re intending on installing the first thirty oyster spat bags. Even though the business is still being picketed by Lorraine and a few remaining NIMBY zealots, they decided it was best to proceed while the weather was good. She is still threatening to sue, but Cece and Richie have come to the conclusion she’s more bark than bite.
After paying the twenty-five-dollar parking fee, Cece digs her bathing suit out of the back seat and changes in the car, driver seat reclined, a thick orange beach towel wrapped around her midsection. There is nothing that reminds her more of summer than this—hot fabric against your thighs, the floormat rough and pebbled under your bare feet.
Flips-flops on, beach bag full of all the necessities—outrageously protective sunblock, a dog-eared book, and a floppy hat—she makes her way down the path toward the beach. From the food truck, the sizzle of hot dogs. Kids shout and clamor in front of an Italian-ice cart, their bodies toasted by the sun. The air cools as Cece nears the beach, the path grows narrow, the dunes rising steeply. There is a moment where she can smell the ocean before she sees it, and Cece slows, her heels sinking inthe sand, and she breathes in deeply—the brine and baked sand—and she is paralyzed with happiness. As she crests the hill, only a teary-eyed boy with a boogie board breaks her reverie. He wails—something about his older brother not sharing. She surveys the beach, the Sound curling up its sandy leg one wave at a time. Mothers wade in the shallows with diapered toddlers. A few regulars in swimming caps do laps beyond the buoys, their strokes steady and even. Cece’s heart beats double time. She’s about to check her phone when she sees them, hugging the string of boulders at the far end of the beach. Morgan, his dark blue linen shirt billowing in the wind, stands and waves. Cece holds her hand over her chest and presses down on her collarbone, just to make sure she isn’t dreaming. Lacy, a tangle of limbs, rises up from the sand onto her elbows and beckons Cece enthusiastically.
“Richie’s working you to the bone,” Morgan says after Cece puts her things under the umbrella. Lacy’s lying facedown, the sea drying on her back, headphones on.
“I’m doing it to myself. We’re trying to get all the bags installed before winter,” Cece says. Now that Cece’s a supervisor, she feels even more responsibility for the project’s success, and she’s overseeing everything during the expansion process, from the hiring to the deliverables.
“Well, look at you,” Morgan says. He glances at Lacy, whose face is turned away, and steals a kiss.
It’s a foreign sensation, being this way out in public. Cece still hasn’t gotten used to this new reality, waking up in his bed—now their bed, she supposes—and sitting together on the front porch sipping coffee before work. They are together, irrefutably. Anitem, one might say. And how strange it is! They’ve fallen into the patterns of daily existence that make Cece feel like they’ve done this already in some previous life. Cece keeps waiting to be struck with a sense of panic or fear that they’ve moved too quickly, that they’ve misjudged each other terribly, but no such feeling arrives.
“Gross, I heard that,” Lacy says and blows a raspberry into her elbow.
“Be nice,” Morgan says, his voice more embarrassed than stern.
“It’s okay,” Cece says, eager to work her way back into the girl’s good graces. Ever since she moved in, it’s been touch and go. Some days Lacy is cheerful and warm, willing to talk about her friends and the coming school year, others she is cold and standoffish. Morgan apologizes on her behalf, but Cece explains this is simply life with a teenager. Lacy’s mother ended up losing her effort to gain full custody, so Lacy’s spending the three-day weekend with them before she heads back for school. Morgan and Siobhan agreed on a visitation plan that works for everyone. Lacy will spend one weekend a month in New London with her father. It’s not what Morgan wants, but it’s only a compromise if no one’s happy, at least that’s what his lawyer said.
Cece playfully jabs Lacy’s arms. “How about those swimming lessons?”
“I just got comfortable.”
“You didn’t strike me as a quitter,” Cece says, whipping the towel at Lacy’s toes and jogging into the water.
“Hey!” Lacy shouts and shoots up and bounds after her.
Perhaps hoping to raise Cece’s estimation in his daughter’s eyes, Morgan had talked up Cece’s swimming prowess andcollegiate accolades, and while Lacy didn’t seem particularly interested in Cece’s athletic career, she did ask if Cece could teach her. Obviously, she could already swim, but she wanted to learn the proper technique. She’d watched the summer Olympics two years ago and grew infatuated with the American team, especially Katie Ledecky, who seemed unstoppable. Lacy wanted to know how to do that—how to move with power and grace, how to breathe and shape your body, how to cut through the water like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Cece waits for Lacy, water up to her waist, feet on rippled sand, right before the drop, where the depths are chilled and dark. This is only their second lesson, but Lacy already knows the drill. She levels out in front of Cece, who puts a hand under her midsection. They review the basics: streamlined body position (head down, neck neutral, legs and hips even); elbows high on the stroke.
The girl is weightless in her hands.
“When I let go, you go. Give me fifteen good strokes.”
Lacy gives a confident nod, but Cece can see she’s already running through the checklist in her head. “Give it a try,” Cece says. “Just like the other day.”
Lacy puts her head down, brown hair fanning out like a seashell. Cece slips her hand away, and the girl goes, arms rising and falling, legs kicking up white foam. Cece remembers when she did the same thing with her father. She remembers how awkward and uncoordinated her body felt when she tried to remember every little rule, how her legs and arms felt disconnected from her torso and shoulders, like she was a marionette without her strings. While a bit choppy and halting, Lacy’s form isn’t half-bad, but the coordination just isn’t there. Cece gives a thumbs-up. Perhaps she’s approaching this the wrong way.
They move closer to shore. Cece can feel Morgan watching them intently from the shade of the umbrella. Once Lacy can stand, Cece reviews the basics again and then tells Lacy to watch her and pay special attention to how level her body stays with the surface of the water. Lacy appears dubious but willing.
Cece eyes an orange buoy twenty-five yards away. A good target as any, she thinks. She wets her face and hair, and then she’s taking her first stroke and then her second, head down, body straight but not rigid, her arms rising and falling, fingers squeezed tight. Legs pump. The first breath comes, a shock of sunlight against her closed eyelids. Everything moves in unison, and quick enough, she isn’t swimming at all—just moving. She pushes herself, lungs burning like they used to, back stretching like it used to, the water no longer an obstacle but a path. Her chest opens, the air comes, salty and sweet. Cece doesn’t need to peek. Straight and true, she knows she’ll hit her mark, as long as she keeps swimming.
Soon enough, thesummer will end just as it began, quickly and without warning. Lacy will return to school, where she’ll boast of her newfound swimming talent and continue watchingO.C.reruns religiously. Lorraine will eventually give up protesting Rayburn Oyster, but she still won’t acknowledge Cece or Morgan, which is mighty awkward, considering they’re basically neighbors. A few seasons down the road, Morgan will offer to cuther hedges, and she won’t say no, which he’ll interpret as the door remaining open to some sort of reconciliation. Cece will call him crazy, but deep down, she’ll hope he’s right. Speaking of things that might seem crazy but are, in fact, not at all, Cece’s mother will find her second chance at love, thanks to the internet. “Who knew there were so many men out there!” she’ll say to Cece over the phone.
Wynonna won’t ever fully get over her parents’ divorce, especially with Kim moving on so quickly, but like most things, time will do its work, and Cece will eventually feel her sister softening. After an initial period of transition, one marked by hard conversations and reality checks, Barry will be perfectly happy living in Wynonna’s guesthouse. Surrounded by grandkids and without a spare moment to think, there won’t be a day that he beats himself up about selling his print advertising business at a loss. The only thing he’ll grumble about is having to give up Bernard, since Wynonna’s kids are allergic.
After recovering from being jilted a second time, Jonathan will begrudgingly take his mother’s advice and start dating more “suitable” women, “good girls” who’ll understand him. And it won’t be long before he’s married with a big house full of children. Only sometimes, when he sees oysters on the menu at a restaurant or drives by the exit for New London, will he think of Cece. It will be a fleeting thought, and he’ll be thankful to have escaped a period of his life that no longer makes sense to him.
As for Cece, she’ll see Rayburn’s expansion through to the end, and when Richie gets too old for the job, his back crooked and his eyes bad, he’ll put Cece in charge full-time. Morgan and Cece will talk about moving from New London to Mystic to becloser to the office, but they like it here. After all those years, Morgan will nearly be finished renovating the house, and it will be summer soon. Morgan will plant his colossal vegetable garden and cook dinner on the grill while Bernard lounges on the back patio, eager for a treat. Cece will get off work early because she’s good at paperwork, and they’ll eat summer fluke and drink white wine while the citronella candles flicker; and later, before they’ve grown too heavy with lethargy, they’ll mix their usual nightcap and take Bernard for a walk around the neighborhood. They’ll lean into one another and chuckle and point to the spot where they first kissed. Not as rambunctious and overzealous as he once was, the dog will tire and slow his gait. He’ll whine and sit down in the middle of the street. Morgan will chastise him for his laziness but will oblige him. Later, they’ll head back, neighborhood homes casting curtained light onto yards and sidewalks. The heat from the summer sun will rise from the ground and mingle with the wind coming off the water. Cece will loop her arm in Morgan’s; she’ll feel his quiet presence. Close to home, Bernard will break into a trot, and Cece will feel her own pace quicken, and she’ll smile to herself in the darkness at all the good things to come, whatever they maybe.
