Peter stirs behind me.
“It’s early,” I whisper. “Go back to sleep.”
He turns over, smiles at me, hair matted to his forehead, his pillow sleep-wrinkled onto his cheek. “Cozy,” he says. He looks so sweet, like a little boy.
“Back soon.” I kiss his eyelids, breathe in his familiar smell of salt and cigarettes.
“I’ll make breakfast,” he mumbles.
I jog up our steep driveway, dodging roots and winter potholes in the soil, before heading down the dirt road that skirts the pond and ends at the sea. The woods are quiet, barely stirring. Most of the houses haven’t yet been opened for the season. June can be rainy and damp. The fresh morning air feels like a splash of cold water. With each thud of my feet on the sandy ground I can feel my body waking up, as if I’m coming back to life after a long hibernation, sniffing for bees in the clover, looking for just the right tree to scratch. It’s this way every year.
As I near the ocean, I pick up speed, eager for the dense woods to give way to low scrub and cranberry, eager for the sea. Around the last bend in the road, I’m surprised to see Jonas sitting on the shoulder, binoculars dangling around his neck.
“What are you doing here?” I’m panting when I reach him. “You said you weren’t coming up ’til next week.” I sit down beside him.
“Last-minute decision. One hundred percent humidity, the whole city stank of armpit, and then the air conditioning in the loft decided to stop working.”
“Oh, c’mon. Admit it. It’s because you missed me so much.” I laugh.
Jonas smiles. “Well, that too. It seems impossible for us to get any proper time together in the city. We’re all so crazed. And then suddenly it’s summer. Thank Christ. Kids happy to be here?”
“Hardly. We haven’t even been here a day and already they’re complaining about no Wi-Fi. Peter’s threatening to send them all to military school.”
“He up for a bit?”
“Two weeks. Then the usual back-and-forth on weekends. Are you on your way to the beach, or already been?”
“Been. I went to check on the nesting shorebirds.”
“And?”
“They’re nesting.”
“Are the fences up?”
He nods. “They’ve cordoned off half the beach.”
“I fucking hate piping plovers.”
“You hate anyone who doesn’t understand that you own the Back Woods,” Jonas says.
“The whole thing is ridiculous. The paper says the plover population has decreased since they started roping off those sections of beach to protect them.”
Jonas nods. “It’s possible the smell of humans was keeping the coyotes away from the eggs.”
“So, what’s been happening at your end? Gina good?”
Jonas hesitates a hitch before answering, almost imperceptible, but I notice it. “Ecstatic to be here. And already looking for ways to avoid my mother. She left to go sailing before I woke up. Took the Rhodes out to check the rigging.”
“Sailing.” Even after all these years, the word sticks on my tongue, as if I’m speaking a Namibian click language.
“Sailing,” Jonas says.
It hangs in the air like a slow-falling rock. I feel the unpeeling of something tender and awful and sad and shameful between us, as I always do. But Jonas breaks its fall, and the moment passes.
“She wants to buy a Cat 19. I’m on the fence.”
“Jack will be psyched if she does.” My bright voice rings false, and I know he hears it, too. But it’s what we do, what we’ve done for years now. We drag our past behind us like a weight, still shackled, but far enough back that we never have to see, never have to openly acknowledge who we once were.
Above us, a peregrine wings the sky. We watch it peak into the clouds, turn, and plunge headlong toward the earth, sighting its prey.
Jonas stands up. “I need to head back. My mother wants help planting marigolds. The mosquitoes are terrible this year. Stop by for a drink later. We’re home tonight.”
“We’d love that.”
He gives me a quick kiss on the cheek and heads off. I watch him walk away until he rounds the bend, out of sight. It is easier this way.
* * *
—
Mum is in her usual spot on the porch sofa when I get back. Peter is in the kitchen making coffee.
“Morning, gorgeous,” he calls out. “How was the first run of the summer?”
“Heaven. I feel like I can finally breathe.”