“We spent every Christmas and summer at her house in Provincetown. In the winter it’s a ghost town, and at my grandmother’s house, it was easy to feel like we were the only people in the world. And then in the summer, it’s a carnival.” He smiled and told her he never felt entirely comfortable far from the sea.
When she asked questions, thirsty for more, aching to know this man who was bringing her back to life, he diverted the conversation to more impersonal ground. He would distract her, taking her breath away with motorcycle rides on the Schuylkill Expressway. Her arms wrapped around him, the wind knocking against her, she felt she was holding on for dear life. He circled around the river, whipping past the art museum and the boathouses, and she shrieked in futile protest that he was going too fast. And she was reminded of having once read that the brain experienced fear and falling in love in the same way, often confusing the two.
The only thing predictable about their stolen hours together was that they always took place during the daytime, when Kip was at the office. There was just one exception, and it was the beginning of the end.
It was late August. Kip was out of town, and Nick invited her to go out clubbing with him and his friends. She was excited to have a whole night with him instead of just a few stolen afternoon hours. She dressed playfully in a black miniskirt with a T-shirt covered in geometric shapes in bright colors. She could remember the shirt exactly. God, she felt beautiful that night.
She met Nick at his apartment. He and his friends were already drinking shots and getting high. He put his arm around her, introduced her as his girl.
“Oh yeah,” said one of the friends. “The married chick.” No one seemed in a hurry to leave the smoke-filled apartment. Eventually, she looked at her watch; it was almost two in the morning.
“We should go,” she said impatiently. She offered to drive. They all piled into her BMW, and Nick directed her to a desolate neighborhood filled with warehouses. The club had no sign and no name and it opened just as the legal bars were closing. She hadn’t known such places existed.
She nursed a cup of water. After years of treating her body like an instrument, she couldn’t abuse it even for one night. Nick warned her not to put her cup down out of her sight, even for a few seconds. And then he wandered off, and she was left alone in the cavernous space.
What the hell? Why had he bothered to invite her? The music was so loud, she felt it in her chest. She wandered around in circles. She needed to pee but the line for the bathroom was so long—for people who weren’t even using it as a bathroom. She wished she were at home, tucked into her bed.
She finally spotted one of his friends. “Have you seen Nick?” She wanted to leave but was afraid to walk to her parked car alone. The friend pointed in a vague direction.
“Where?” she asked, squinting in the darkness.
“By the stairs. See that exit sign?”
“Okay, thanks.” She threaded her way through the crowd, doubting that she would find him.
She found him.
He was inside the stairwell. It was barely lit and it reeked. (Now she knew where people were going to pee, since the bathrooms were otherwise occupied.) A bleached blonde wearing a red miniskirt leaned against the wall, her head thrown back, exposing her long white throat. She was pinching her nose. Nick, standing next to her, was busy snorting coke off of a compact mirror.
Blythe backed away.
What was she doing there? The madness of it all was suddenly so clear to her. Sweating, she pushed her way through the club, desperate to get away. Outside, the North Philadelphia streets were dangerously desolate, and she realized how crazy she was being—risking her marriage and now her very safety over some temporary, lust-induced insanity. By the time she reached her car, her hand was shaking so hard she could barely get the key in the door.
When she was finally home, safe in her bedroom, she took off her clothes and threw the outfit in the garbage. She never wanted to see it again, to be reminded of the wretched night. Of her wretched behavior. Guilt-ridden and confused, she pulled her new journal out of her nightstand drawer and poured out her heart: I’ve been so lonely, I don’t think my husband loves me. I’m in a marriage with no purpose, we will never be a family, and so I did something reckless and stupid and now I’m more angry at myself than I ever was at Kip…
Kip returned from his business trip the following afternoon; she was resolved to reconnect with him. She pulled his favorite bottle of red from the cellar and cooked sirloin and baked stuffed potatoes. Afterward, she steered him to the bedroom, where she closed her eyes and tried not to imagine her sensual, reckless, maddening lover. She didn’t think she’d be able to climax—not only because she often did not with Kip, but also because of the guilt and the mental burden of trying to resist making comparisons. But surprisingly, it was the most physically gratifying sex of their marriage.
She wasn’t the only one who noticed.
“Maybe I should go away more often,” Kip said, kissing the top of her head. That’s when the guilt came in, sweeping through her like a wave of nausea. It’s over with Nick, she reminded herself. It was a temporary detour, but she was back on track now.
Blythe closed the memoir on her lap. She couldn’t focus. Should she tell Marin the truth? Correct her assumption that her biological father was an anonymous sperm donor? Was the truth better or worse?
A woman walked up to the house smoking a cigarette and wheeling a suitcase. Blythe watched her collapse the handle, pick up the bag, then climb up the stairs briskly, without hesitation.
“Can I help you?” Blythe asked, standing.
The woman had thick brown hair threaded heavily with gray and sharp dark eyes above an aquiline nose. Blythe guessed she was around her own age. “I doubt it,” the woman said. “I’m here to see my mother.”
With that, she brushed past Blythe and strode into the house.
Amelia considered the morning a success.
Marin came up short on her quest for sea glass but Amelia was pleased to find several white wentletraps and a handful of shells from Atlantic razor clams. Marin picked up a sea urchin skeleton, which fascinated her, but it was ugly and she ultimately tossed it back into the sea.
When it was clear the beach had yielded all that it would that day, Amelia ventured to ask Marin, “Are you at all curious about my son? It’s okay to ask, you know.”
“I really don’t want to talk about him. I mean, no offense, but he was just a sperm donor. My father is my father.”
Amelia nodded. She did not take offense. It was a difficult situation, and Marin was handling it as well as anyone could be expected to. While she accepted the turn of events on the surface, she clearly rejected it on a deeper level. It was a process, and Amelia knew that one week wasn’t enough for her to work through it all. She just hoped she would keep in touch, and if the day came when Marin wanted to really talk, Amelia would be there for her.
They got back into the car and Marin busied herself looking at the shells.