Later that night he pushed into me over and over again and I gasped out of love and he said, “Don’t lie,” and I said, “I’m not, it’s good to be next to you, it makes me feel good to have our bodies naked together,” and he pushed in harder, banged up against me. I knew I would be bruised in the morning. He did it like that sometimes when he was drunk. But I let it go, I let him go at it, because I wanted him to be happy.
The next morning, Thomas and I walked down the waterfront to see how we were going to kill the next seven days. I saw a waterslide in the distance, and Thomas pointed out the kayaks on the lake. That was the first time I realized that it was a strange place for us to go on our honeymoon, if we were going somewhere at all. We grew up in a state that was practically dry. What did we care about the water? Sure I liked the community pool in the summertime, but that was all we could do at the resort, roll around in the hay at night, and play in the water during the day. And I think there were supposed to be some hiking trails but I was not much of a walker anymore. I had my truck by then. I just liked rattling along the cornfields. There were no cornfields here. There were thick green trees and the water and the air smelled nice, murky and earthy at the same time, but I did not know what to do with myself for even a second.
Thomas had the answer though. He took my hand and pulled me along to a dock where there were sailboats floating at the end, all tied up next to each other.
“We should rent one of these,” he said. He looked out at the lake, at another sailboat skimming the water like a bird. “We should go sailing.”
“Thomas Madison, I’ve known you practically my whole life and you do not know how to sail,” I said, and I laughed.
He looked at me, and he squinted his eyes. I had done it, pissed him off, on the first real day of our honeymoon.
“I do too know how to sail. My dad taught me. He was in the Coast Guard, and he knew how, and he took me sailing a few times. It was when he and Mom were still together. We went on vacation.” He looked dreamy for a second. “In Wisconsin.”
“All right, I guess I did not know that part,” I mumbled.
“Aw, it’s okay, honey,” he said. He put his arm around me. “Don’t feel bad you don’t know it all yet. You will.” He steered me toward the man renting the sailboats, a rough, red-faced man, with grizzly gray hair covering his chin and racing up his cheeks. Half burned by the sun, half burned by age. He wore a yellow T-shirt that said, “Sunny Day Sailboats” in blue letters.
Thomas and Mr. Sunny Day set to negotiating about the boats. I watched Thomas closely. We never left our town, ever, barely talked to people we did not know. Maybe a few times a year I would meet someone new. Making new friends did not seem important to me then. We had everything we needed. But seeing Thomas out in the world was fascinating to me. How he treated people, at first glance, without knowing anything about someone. I just let him do the talking. I was so young then, I thought that was the way. And it was easier, to let someone take care of you.
So there he was, barking at Mr. Sunny Day, who was asking Thomas what he knew about sailing.
“I trained with my father, a former soldier in the U.S. Coast Guard,” he said. He had his arms crossed in front of him and his short legs were spread squat. “Since I was a kid I been on the water.”
The man backed down a little bit, pulled his body back, kicked the ground with his foot. “Well, I didn’t know that, now did I?” he said. He smiled. “Not everyone knows how to handle a boat.”
“Oh yeah,” said Thomas. “I’m a master tacker.”
“All right, then,” said Mr. Sunny Day. He and Thomas walked off together and started looking at boats. There was some paperwork he handed to Thomas to sign. Thomas did not read it, just signed it. I shrugged. I twirled my wedding ring around my finger. I squinted out at the lake. Two teenage boys paddled next to each other in kayaks. They were laughing. They wore life vests, so I knew they were safe. It looked calm enough out there on the water, a nice place to be a married couple. The water was a dark purple blue and there were all kinds of living things buzzing in and around it. I slapped a mosquito off me. I wondered how deep the water was. I wondered if it was possible to drown if our sailboat sank. Not that my husband would sink it. Because he had been sailing since he was a child. I had just heard him say it.
Thomas and the man shook hands and Thomas motioned me over. Mr. Sunny Day handed us both life vests, and we walked toward the boat we would be renting. The sailboat was a bright fake yellow, stretching to look like sunshine. “We are newlyweds,” I told Mr. Sunny Day, even though he had not asked.
“Are you now,” he said. He held my arm as I got on the boat. Thomas was already untying the sail. “Just like I remember,” he said. I ducked my head down and slid in facing Thomas, who was standing knee deep and then waist high in the water as he pushed us farther out.