On one of the afternoons when Leanne was working in the library of the big house on Beachside Avenue, Miranda and Henry were searching for worms on the lawn in back. Long Island Sound stretched out before them. The sky was a vibrant blue and the wind was brisk. Aunt Charlotte had recovered enough from her surgery to be steered outside in a wheelchair. She was wearing one of the fleece blankets with arms that Betty had ordered from TV. "The second one was half-price," Betty had explained to an outraged Annie. Then she had given it to Charlotte Maybank, who wore it at all times, inside and out.
Henry curled his fingers in the bright grass and damp sod. The earth was dark and rich, almost black. A pink worm slithered out from the trench he had carved.
"Look!" he said.
"We can go fishing," Miranda said.
Henry's brow wrinkled. Miranda knew by now that this was the cloud before the storm.
"The worm will die," he said in the tremulous voice that preceded a wail. "The fish will die . . ."
Miranda quickly picked up the worm and took Henry's hand. She placed the worm in his palm. She said, "See that brown part? That's dirt. It eats the dirt and then the dirt comes out the other end and the dirt that comes out is better for growing things."
"Worm poop," Henry said, mollified.
As Miranda breathed a sigh of relief, she saw Roberts coming out of the house and walking down the flagstone path toward them. He wore his habitual dark suit. His shoes gleamed in an old-fashioned way. He looked even more grave than usual.
"Roberts?" she said, standing up. "Everything okay?"
He gave Miranda a halfhearted wave, turned to the old lady and said, "Charlotte, we really have to talk," then began to wheel her inside.
"Housewares, durable goods, knickknacks . . ." Charlotte Maybank's wavering voice came back to Miranda on the wind. "Oh yes, they'll all have to go!"
Later, Miranda asked Leanne if anything particular was up. "Roberts looked pretty spooked."
Leanne pursed her lips, then gave a quick shake of her head and said, "Just my aunt's nonsense. You know how she is."
On top of the dunes, Frederick stood with his bare feet in the cold sand. He was thinking about the night he gave the reading at the Furrier Library in Manhattan. He could picture Annie Weissmann, her eyes shining, a little imperfectly hidden smile of pride on her personable face. Cape Cod in the winter, his daughter had said with disdain. Annie's sister had said something nice but odd, some nonsense about paragliders, but also something about her feet in the cold sand. Gwen had never understood things like feet in cold sand. Neither, it appeared, did Amber. He leaned into the wind coming from the water. It was almost strong enough to hold him up. He felt it against his face, in his hair, on his scalp. His hands were red and cold. He never wanted to move. With the hollow rumble of the waves and the wail of the wind in his ears, embraced by the gusts of sea air, his feet planted, aching in the cold of the packed sand, Frederick felt safe from the life he led and alive in the life he truly lived. He stood on the edge of the dune until the light began to dim. His joints were stiff. He was refreshed.
When he drove home, he got a call on his cell.
"Where have you been?" Amber said. "I've been calling for over an hour. I thought you had a heart attack or something."
"I hope you're not disappointed. I was on the beach. I left the phone in the car."
"Listen, we're staying in the city a little longer. You don't mind, do you?"
Amber and Crystal had stayed on at Joseph's apartment, even after Frederick came back to the Cape. It had been over two weeks now. It seemed to Frederick that Amber had become quite indispensable to his sister and daughter, a kind of in-house house sitter. She ran errands for them. She babysat for the twins, took them to puppet shows and to the pediatrician. Felicity often asked Amber to run out to the market, to the butcher. They all three (Crystal seemed to bow out of a lot of these activities) would take the little girls to the park and then cross to the East Side to go shopping. Frederick tried not to think about any of them too much. He spent an hour or two each morning walking on the beach, then worked, then took another walk in the evening, then drank himself to sleep. He was a solitary person and was not unhappy with the way things were, only with how they would be.
"Daddy?" Henry said, pointing to the television screen. Kit was against a brick wall, a look of horror and fear on his face, a gun to his head. Henry started to cry.
"Baby, it's not real," Leanne said. "It's make-believe. That's Daddy's job--pretending."
Henry sobbed and wailed, his little body shaking.
Betty said, "Get a cookie. Get the child a cookie." It had never worked with the girls when they were little, but you never knew. Did they even have any cookies?
Leanne and Miranda took Henry into the kitchen and sat him on the counter.