“Doesn’t she?” Mary says.
I know they mean to be kind, but their chipper tone makes me feel like I’m a hundred years old.
While Lora packs up the biscuits, Mary helps me into the car. She drives to the grassy area above the water, where they set up a chair for me away from the treacherous rocks. A gaggle of children, my nieces and nephews and some of their friends, are already on the beach, skipping rocks far out into the sound, competing to see whose goes the farthest, whose skips the most, their voices rising and mingling with the cawing of gulls.
My fourteen-year-old nephew, John, the oldest of the bunch, climbs up from the beach to sit with me for a while. We watch the others play games in the grass: Red Rover and Red Light/Green Light and Giant Steps and hide-and-seek. They climb pine trees and gaze out at the small islands like Al and I used to do, sailors on the mast of a ship, the fields below a yellow ocean. The adults lounge on wool blankets, poke at the fire, pour fruit punch, squint up at us with a wave and a smile. Only Al is absent.
After some time, I hear the familiar clacking of the old Ford engine up near the house. The motor cuts off. I twist around to see Al climb out, go around to the other side, open the passenger door. Out steps a slim smiling woman with light brown pin curls.
Estelle—it must be. My stomach lurches. He did not mention a word to me about bringing her here.
“Well, look at that,” John says. “Al’s got a girl.”
Here they come, now, down the path, Al in front, grinning shyly, wearing a crisp white shirt I’ve never seen before, the woman behind in a blue dress, sure-footed, laughing, dimple-cheeked, swinging a basket in one hand and a straw bonnet in the other. I want to run away, but I can’t. I am caught like a fox in a trap, squirming, panicked, stuck.
“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” Al says. As if we were acquaintances running into each other at the hardware store.
“Sure is,” John says.
I gaze at Al steadily, saying nothing.
Color creeps up his neck. He clears his throat. “Christina, this is Estelle. I think I told you I’ve been doing some work for her father.”
“There’s work that needs to be done at our house,” I say.
Estelle’s smile fades.
“How about we head down and see the others?” Al says to her.
She looks at him, then inclines her head toward me and John. “Nice to meet you,” she says in a tiny voice.
“Likewise,” John says.
They turn and pick their way down to the rocks.
John cracks his knuckles. “Well, guess I’ll grab another slice of rhubarb pie.”
I nod.
“You okay, Aunt Christina?”
“I’m fine.”
“Can I bring you anything?”
“No, thank you.”
When John goes back to the clambake, I watch Al and Estelle, smiling and chatting and pointing at a sailboat, accepting plates of food. I sit glowering above them like a hot coal.
Lora clambers up to sit beside me, then my brother Fred, bearing offerings from below: an ear of corn, still warm in its charred green husk, a bowl of clams, a slice of blueberry cake. I shake my head. No. I will not eat. Their voices falsely cheerful, they exclaim over the blue sky, the glassy water, those delicious drop biscuits, what a lovely dress.
It was on this very bank that I sat with Walton—how many years ago? I know what everyone is thinking. Poor Christina. Always left behind.
I feel myself battening down, fortressing.
Sam climbs up and sits on the grass beside my chair. “What’s going on?” he asks, patting my knee.
I look down at his hand on my knee and then at him. He removes his hand.
“Nothing’s going on,” I say.
He sighs. “This is no good, Christina.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You are ruining this picnic.”
“I’m doing no such thing.”
“You are, and you know you are. And you’re making Al very unhappy.”
“If he’s going to bring that—that gold digger—” I blurt.
Sam puts his hand over mine. “Stop. Before you say something you’ll regret.”
“He’s the one who’s going to regret—”
“Come on,” he says sharply. “Don’t you think Al deserves to be happy?”
“I thought Al was happy.”
He sits back on his heels. “Look, Christina, you know that Al has always been here for you. And he always will be. To begrudge him this—this relationship feels a little . . . well . . . mean-spirited.”
“I’m not begrudging him anything. I’m just questioning his judgment.”
Sam sits with me a minute longer, and I know he wants to say more. The words are sitting on his tongue. I can guess what they are. But he seems to think better of it. He pats my knee again and stands up, goes back to the others.
A few minutes later Al and Estelle climb the bank and up to the Ford, looking away when they pass me. Even the children seem wary, giving me a wide berth as they play their games in the grass. Within the hour Lora and Mary are packing up blankets and putting food into hampers. When they pick me up and help me into the car, they don’t say much, but their faces are grim.
Mary and Lora settle me into my chair in the kitchen and go back to the car for some foil-covered leftovers—“to tide you over for a few days,” Mary says. After carefully placing the dishes in the icebox under the floorboards, she gives me a small strained smile. “You’re all set?”
“I’m fine.”
“Well. Happy Fourth.”
“Happy Fourth,” Lora echoes.
I nod. None of us seem very happy.
After they leave, I scoop Lolly into my lap. I notice that the geraniums have wilted in their blue pot with the crack running up the side. The fire in the range has died out. The air is damp, rain is on the way. And all at once I have the peculiar sensation of watching myself from above, in the same spot where I have sat nearly every day for the past three decades. The geranium, the cracked pot, the cat in my lap, the fire that must be fed, rain on the horizon, the road to town in one direction and the St. George River in the other, stretching all the way to the sea.
I don’t know how much time has passed when I hear Al’s car crackling up the drive. The door creaking open, slamming shut. Footsteps to the kitchen stoop, the squeak of the screen door.
He flinches when he sees me. “Didn’t know you were in here.”
“Yep.”
“It’s dark.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Want me to light the lamp?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He sighs. “Well, okay, then. Guess I’ll turn in.” He hangs his cap on the hook beside the door and turns to leave.
“She’s been married three times,” I say. My heart is thumping in my chest.
“What?”
“Did you know that?”
He inhales sharply. “I don’t think—”
“Did you know that, Al?”
“Yes, of course I know that.”
“And I hear she’s . . . ambitious.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Her motivations are questionable. I’m told.”