by Heidi Pitlor
“You really were,” she said, smiling.
“It’s been years since I was that drunk,” he said, and returned her smile.
—
Hilary struggled to help Daniel across the sand and rocks. He hadn’t been down to the water since he’d arrived, and though getting him there proved next to impossible due to the weight of the chair, the rocks on the beach, the sand, the mud, the seaweed, the wind, she was determined to do it. Together they managed to move him close enough so that he could just reach a finger to the tide.
“I never liked the beaches in Maine. What’s the appeal, all the rocks and the freezing water?” he said as a skirt of seaweed tumbled onto the ground before them.
“Yeah, I know, but it’s like a difficult child, this place. You can’t help admiring a beach that refuses to be sunny and soft, and water that makes your bones ache just looking at it.”
“I guess you’re right,” he said.
She steadied her arms against the top of his chair and gradually lowered herself to sit on the rocky sand. She kicked off her sandals and mashed her toes against a pile of wet pebbles.
“It’s funny. I never really knew what Brenda was thinking this whole weekend,” Daniel said. “I could guess, of course. But she never admitted much. I did all the talking. I told her how I felt and I asked her a million questions.” He paused. “Maybe it’s her being British or so much younger than me or something, but she’s always stayed about a half pace away from me.”
Hilary nodded and said, “You can never really know what anyone else is thinking.”
“But it’s different when it’s your wife. I’m sorry, but it is.”
“Of course it is. It’s probably more frustrating then.” She leaned forward, picked up a pebble and tossed it into the water.
“There have to be plenty of people who understand what’s going on in their spouse’s head,” he said.
“I’m sure you can always sense it on some level. But maybe you just don’t always like it, so you convince yourself everything is their fault, that they’re too distant or aloof.”
“Maybe.”
Hilary had listened to countless friends complain about their relationships and marriages over the past few years. “Can I ask you a question? Why do people stay together for so long?”
Daniel held his hands together in his lap.
“I’m sorry. That was a horrible thing to ask.”
“No, no, I’m just thinking about us,” he said. “I don’t know exactly why we have. It’s worked pretty well, for the most part. I like having someone around to watch out for me, someone else to be a witness to my life.” He swallowed. “For me, so much of it is predictability and knowing that every morning, there’ll be a warm body beside mine and I’ll know exactly what size she’ll be, what she’ll say and where I’ll fit next to her and where she likes me to touch. When that predictability started to fade away because she was out of bed early or didn’t respond to me like she used to, when there was this big part of my body that could no longer feel a thing next to her, that’s when everything started to go haywire.”
Hilary looked up at him. “That makes sense.”
“It does?”
She turned her eyes to the ocean and the horizon line far away. “Sometimes my favorite part of sex is the stillness afterward, just lying next to someone and feeling them right there beside me.”
“You’re such a girl.”
“And you’re not?” she said. “What were you just saying to me?”
“True.”
Hilary smiled up at him. “If I wasn’t pregnant and tired right now, I’d strip down and run into that water.”
“No you wouldn’t.”
“I would.”
“If I had legs that worked, I’d join you,” he said.
“Excuses, excuses.”
They sat for a while longer, and once the wind grew stronger and the air chillier, they made the journey back to the house. They were like an old, broken-down couple, Hilary thought as she used every ounce of strength she had to help her brother back up the beach and onto the gravel path that led around to the front door.
“You weigh at least a thousand pounds,” she huffed.
“So do you.”
“Always the charmer, you.” She went to push open the front door.
“Someone has to be.” He moved onto the plywood ramp and inside.
*
That evening, they sat over plates of food leftover from the birthday dinner. Hilary told Daniel about what had happened with Alex, about Bill David and George and Camille, and about how she sometimes thought about calling George but she wasn’t sure she should; after all, what would be the point? Daniel said she was probably doing the right thing, moving here and starting over on her own. “Starting over is usually the best thing for you,” he said. “But this Alex guy? I’m not so sure.”
“Well, neither am I.” She stood to clear the dishes. “But I’m telling you, he knows his way around a bed.”
“Sex—I think I remember what that is.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be.”
“I can’t help it.”
She left their dishes in a stack in the sink, vowing she’d wash them soon, or later that night, or maybe tomorrow, and she went to the living room to join Daniel, now flipping through a newspaper. As she glanced out the window at the fading gray sky, she decided that this must have been what a good marriage was like: sitting in a room together, unremarkably reading a newspaper and not worrying what the other person was thinking or trying to come up with something to say. She knew Daniel’s humor and temper and fears like she imagined an old wife would know her husband’s. She loved him despite the things she didn’t love about him, that he could be moody and a little bossy, a little too parental with her sometimes. She loved him ten times more than she didn’t love these things.
Hilary rested her arms on her stomach and felt a stillness inside. The baby had been turning all day, and must have finally fallen asleep. It was the strangest sensation, something inside of her drifting off to sleep while she sat there, awake and alert. Something so very separate from her at the very core of her body, someone she’d never seen or heard, but felt distinctly every day.
Outside the cold water continued to spill onto the rocky beach. The moon became sharper in the blackening sky, and she could just see the sliver from where she sat. Daniel breathed a sigh and turned a page of the newspaper.
Acknowledgments
For various colors of wisdom, support, friendship and generosity, my deepest appreciation to Jill Bialosky, Evan Carver, Chris Castellani, Bill Clegg, Jessica Craig, Emily DeGroat, Henry Dunow, Hannah Griffiths, Nicole Lamy, Don Lee, Winfrida Mbewe, Amy Robbins, Deborah Weisgall and Susie Wright. Also to my sister, Margot Geffen, for her insights and enthusiasm; my family, my first experience of love; and mostly, to my husband, Neil Giordano, the first to believe, and without whom I could never have written this book. Thank you.
About the Author
Heidi Pitlor’s fiction has appeared in Ploughshares. This is her first novel.
Copyright
First published in the USA in 2006
by W. W. Norton & Company
First published in Great Britain in 2006 by
Faber & Faber Limited
Bloomsbury House, 74–77 Great Russell Street, London WC1b 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2014
All rights reserved
© Heidi Pitlor, 2006
Cover design by Gavin Morris
Cover artwork © Jenny Bowers
Lettering © Stephen Raw
The right of Heidi Pitlor to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed o
r publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–31930–5
