“The Feds are out some nights, patrolling,” he said. He wondered why hadn’t he thought of this excuse before. “And the Coast Guard’s got seaplanes stationed on Ten Pound Island. Smack in the middle of the harbor.”
“Not afraid like that.” Emma lifted his chin with her finger and made him look at her. The dark pools of her eyes glistened—they seemed not to watch Josiah so much as take him in. She was the one who saw his unhappiness, he realized, saw that he was split in pieces.
“Susannah’s pregnant,” he said. “That’s why I didn’t come. I’m sorry.”
Emma’s finger dropped. “That’s good,” she said. “That’s very good.”
“It’s only three months in. Further than before, but still. She’s too excited. She’s talking about names.” Josiah stopped, conscious of Emma’s having retreated. He had not meant to talk about Susannah. The whole point was not to think of her, to trade her flat, taut stomach for Emma’s soft one, to assert himself, to take charge! How pathetic it seemed now.
The sound of jeers and whistles made him turn. He saw dark shapes on the drawbridge above the cut. Early revelers, perhaps the firework setters. He and Emma wouldn’t be seen from this distance, but they couldn’t risk going closer, either. They could not row through, thank God. Something landed on his neck and Josiah reached back to feel the nubby slime of a rotting tomato. He was always being saved like this, in ways he had not thought to want, from dangers he had not foreseen. Before he could react—he fingered the tomato, stunned—Emma had grabbed the oars, shoved him off the bench into the bow, and turned the boat around. She was far better at rowing than he. She started to pull and like that the stuff between them fizzed again, Josiah’s punishment complete, her hand’s imprint on his chest a hot desertion, his prick rising. Another tomato hit the stern but Emma rowed fast and well with the tide, her back rocking toward him and away. Stuffed onto the tiny bow bench, Josiah felt he had been stolen. He felt helpless and safe. They reached the sagging dock in a quarter of the time it had taken him to row them out, an instant, a blink, so that when he had cleated the line it seemed they had never left. His agony was erased. He let her wrestle him onto the dock, roll him off into the marsh, and pin him against the stabby grass, leaving bright red nicks in his back, which Susannah, he knew with glad and grievous certainty, would not notice.
Fifteen
July third. The Hirsch children’s visit slid into its ninth day. They would be in Gloucester four more before returning to their cities. Ira sat with Lillian at his bedroom window, watching his grandsons play ball on the lawn below as their mother watched from the terrace. Adeline had the nanny but rarely left her with the children, whether out of fear or discomfort or a genuine desire to be close to them herself, he couldn’t tell. She was the opposite of Vera, who didn’t hire anyone to take care of the children or take much care of them herself. So the nanny sat in the shade for appearances while Adeline watched her own children. Julian had gone for a swim at the club while Brigitte napped. Oakes was somewhere. He couldn’t be heard for once. The whistle buoy was quiet, too. It was a hot, still day, the children the only ones moving. A sailboat tried to tack. It heeled, it sat—one of the boys from the club would have to go tow it in.
“There she is.” Lillian pointed to the far end of the lawn, where Bea had appeared from between the trees that lined the drive. Unless she was with the others, Bea always walked the drive, not through the orchard. Around her neck she wore Ira’s binoculars, which she had begun carrying all the time now, claiming she was looking at the whistle buoy, and sometimes birds. She had left early this morning, when she heard that Lillian was coming, and Ira was surprised to see her back. He guessed she might have run into Julian, and fled.
“There she is,” he agreed.
“I don’t know why Albert couldn’t grace her with a visit.”
“He’s coming tomorrow.”
“Why not today? It’s Sunday, for God’s sake. Mph.”
“It’s very hard for Julian,” Ira said. “Bea. How she’s changed. He still won’t admit that she doesn’t play. He comes home expecting her to be sixteen.”
Lillian turned to face him.
“And Bea. She still has a crush on him, you know.”