Miss Phyllis sighed loudly. “We’re so thankful they were finally able to release him.”
* * *
The conversation ended when we heard the click of Sam’s cane approaching from the other room. “My apologies,” he announced, his face glowing. “My new leg is ready. Final fitting this week and then that’s it. I can use it.”
“Congratulations!” I exclaimed, raising my glass of tea.
His mother and aunt cheered and then refilled his plate. His appetite renewed by the good news, he sat down and dug in. I tried to eat my own food with gusto, but I was bursting.
“We’ll be in the water before you know it,” he said, and clinked his glass against mine.
* * *
Dinner was over and Sam escorted me to the front porch. A gentle breeze caressed our faces and the full moon blazed sterling silver in the dark sky. We stood at the top of the steps.
“Thank you for coming,” he said. “It meant the world to me.”
“I had a great time,” I said. “Your mother is a good person. And you are very important to her.”
“She stayed with me,” he said. “She stayed with me the whole time I was recovering. Even slept in the hospital next to my bed. I owe her everything.”
“You’re lucky to have her,” I agreed. “And now, with your new leg, you will be able to do almost anything.”
“May I do this?” he asked, tipping my chin up with his free hand and leaning over to kiss me. It was sweet and languid, but from the corner of my eye I could see a shadow, like an eclipse, quickly pass across the living room window.
Chapter 22
“Go pick up your dog.” Lawrence LaSalle called me on my cell phone while I was busy at the Galley serving breakfast.
“What?”
“He’s been released,” he said.
“How is that possible?” I shouted with joy. “That’s the best news!”
“We did some preliminary work,” he replied. “The salesman has been let go from his job, but that doesn’t preclude us from filing a civil suit against him and his employer. I want to get together with you as soon as I get a hole in my schedule. Is a weekend good?”
“Yes!” I screamed. “Thank you!”
“Great,” he replied. “Now go order those sandwich fixin’s.”
* * *
Vincent was waiting for me, appropriately, in the waiting room, his tail nearly flying out of its socket when I stepped inside. Dr. Susan could barely hold on to him.
“I got the release order just half an hour ago,” she said. “He did miss you, he just sat in his crate and howled all day, but it didn’t seem to affect his appetite.”
Indeed, he looked like he hadn’t dropped an ounce. I knelt down and hugged him while he slathered my face with adoring wet kisses.
“He’s very friendly,” she said. “And a really nice dog. If you need a statement from me, I’ll be glad to write something.” I gave her a hug and we left.
Vincent eagerly jumped into my car and we drove all the way back to the Galley with his head hanging out the front window.
I called Sam to let him know.
“Please let me take care of your expenses,” he said.
“No,” I said. “I can pay my own expenses. Just because we—” I was going to say slept together, but Shay was right behind me writing the Marine Conditions—
“Slept together,” Shay finished. “I know what you were going to say.”
Sam and I ended our conversation and I turned to Shay. “—are good friends; that’s what I was going to say.”
“Right,” she said. “Just because you invited him in for a cup of tea and then kissed him. On his thigh, no less, which is a tricky spot to show your moral support and then think you’re going to get away with just being pals.” She leaned forward and stared into my eyes. “Ha! You already slept with him, didn’t you?”
“No.”
“Lying eyes,” she hooted. “I can smell them a mile away.”
* * *
Vincent settled right into his old spot behind the counter while Shay and I carried on with the day’s work.
Our regulars usually come in at the same time, as though the whole town awakens, showers, and gets hungry together. Martha Winston, who owns the floral shop, came in for her usual breakfast, a fried-egg sandwich with bacon, though she always swore she was a vegetarian and that bacon was just a topping.
She leaned over the counter conspiratorially. “I heard you were dating a Muslim, Aila. How could you?”
“Did you want that roll toasted?” I asked coolly.
“Yes, but not dark,” she said. She rocked back on her heels. “Now, Aila, I know you since you were a baby. I worry for you.” She slapped two plump hands on the counter. “They beat their wives, you know. And hide them in the cellar. They do terrible things.”
“How do you know any of this?” I asked.
She blinked. “People read things.”
“Stupid things,” I said. “I am very fond of you, Miss Martha, but shame on you for talking like that.” I handed over her breakfast. “You know he’s an American, right? An American soldier?”
“Be very careful anyway,” she said, paid for her food, and left.
* * *
She was followed by several other Fleeties, who seemed unusually reserved. Or maybe I was looking for something that wasn’t there.
“What’s become of this town?” I asked Shay when we had some time to eat lunch together. “Why is everything changing?”
She gave me a sympathetic look. “There is nothing changed,” she said evenly. “Things are now just bobbing to the surface.”
* * *
Sam met me with a big grin on his face after I closed the Galley for the night. “My aunt is signing that big old boat over to me. I’m going to get it running again. How’s that for good news?”
“I’m happy for you,” I said, checking the motion detector lights and cameras and rolling up the awnings. Next, I locked the front door and finished by setting the alarm and quickly sliding the little wooden scissor gate closed, locking it in place. “You must be getting used to pink.”
He laughed. “Gonna paint it,” he said. He was always so introspective, I was glad to see his face brighten with anticipation. I finished locking up.
“You got some fancy equipment there,” he observed.
“Yes,” I agreed. “But I don’t even know why I bought it.”
He patted my shoulder. “Things will be okay. Listen, I have fried chicken in the car. Let’s go to the beach and admire my boat.”
Vincent and I followed him—Sam was still driving the pink Cadillac—and we sat on our usual bench facing the bay. He had a cooler packed with two lemon sodas, chicken—more chicken than two people could eat in a month—and a big salad and served me with great ceremony. A dinner napkin for my lap and another for my hands. He was excited about his new project and apparently had decided to include me—and Vincent—in all his plans.
“I thought sometime this summer we could boat over to Boston, or along the coast,” he said. “Maybe eventually I could trade it up and do some traveling.”
But I had no intention of going boating and the assumption that I would just do it bothered me.
“Sam, I don’t trust boats anymore,” I finally told him, picking chicken from a bone and feeding it to Vincent. “So don’t include me.”
“I’ll help you get over it,” he said, placing his hand gently over mine. “I promise. Just trust me.”
“I do trust you,” I said. “But I don’t trust the water.”
“You have to let go at some point,” he said. He took a biscuit from the cooler and flipped it to the gulls, which were parading up and down on the pier and mewing like cats.
I studied his face. It was filled with concern, but he was asking the impossible. “You can’t let the past rule your life,” he added.
“Are you able to do that, Sam?” I asked sharply. “Are you letting go of the past?”
He si
ghed. “I’m trying. I carry my past below my waist,” he said, pain etching his features. “Every minute of the day. How do I let go of that?”
* * *
I was in bed, curled against Vincent, whispering his name and holding him close to me. I had missed him terribly the whole time he was gone. I realized how much I had depended on him to comfort me when we went to bed at night, the sound of his snoring, the feel of his soft, patchy fur under my arm, the shape of his silly, boxy head against my shoulder. He was always at my side, always waiting for our next move. My life had been set to rights when he came back home. “Vincent, have I told you that I love you?” I whispered over and over into his tattered ear. Now that I had allowed myself to love him, I wanted him to hear it all the time. He opened one eye and gave me a lazy lick across my chin.
“Thank you,” I whispered. He meant everything to me.
But still, I couldn’t sleep.
There were new things to worry about. Sam, for one. I didn’t want to disappoint him, but there was no way I would get in a boat again. And then there were the remarks from my customers at the Galley. These were people I had known and loved for years. Security equipment? Why had I even installed it? What was it going to prevent in this little village? My thoughts were scattering like wild birds.
The dog, driven by my restlessness, finally went from my bed to the floor to get some sleep. I sat up, wide awake. I needed to sit next to something bigger, more unruly than the thoughts that troubled me. I left my bed and pulled on a jacket and slipped outside. Vincent immediately followed. We headed for our old spot.
“Now, don’t get scared,” I said to him as we walked along the beach. It wasn’t high tide yet, so the sand was filled with the detritus of the bay, sharp-edged shells and thick seaweed and smooth-washed stones and things that glittered in the moonlight but turned out to be nothing at all. “The seals just started coming in this week.”
And there they were. Sentries watching in eerie silence, the moonlight highlighting their round heads as they lifted above the water, watching as we walked past them, watching without expression or concern. There was just the sound of the water, until a hoarse call made Vincent stop and face the water, his ears pricked. He raised his muzzle and sniffed at the air before answering the seal with a low growl.
“Remember what I told you,” I said. “We leave them alone.”
Now that they had established a new territory, they had been getting more vocal, hooting at me when I walked along the beach at night, making long, eerie calls that echoed softly across the sand. A few glided through the water as smoothly as if they were made of glass, coming closer to the shoreline, peering at me from the water, heads and necks shining in the moonlight. They turned their heads to follow us with their large, round, glistening dark eyes. I shuddered as we passed them, and led Vincent to the end of the dock.
I sat there, letting my legs dangle over the edge, my jacket collar pulled close to my neck while Vincent trotted back to the beach to sniff around. A few minutes later, he returned, with something in his mouth. He had done this many times before, finding himself a piece of driftwood or some dead and decomposing sea creature. Usually he dropped it on the pier and rolled all over it, then hid it until later, bringing it out just in time for us to go home, where he would eventually sneak it into my bed. I ignored him this time and listened to the hard chop of the bay making tough little waves while the doleful horns from the boats coming back into the P-town harbor provided a counterpoint to the calls of the seals.
After a while, Vincent dropped what was in his mouth onto the wooden boards. I leaned over to pick it up. All around us was full moonlight, its luminescence allowing me to see that Vincent had found a shell, the color of sand and clouds, its tiny, intricate convolutions reflecting the gleaming light, and, for all the dog’s mouthing, still in nearly perfect condition. It was a wentletrap, much like the shell necklace Dan had given me, the one I had worn on my wedding day and faithfully every day after that until it broke.
“Oh,” I said to the dog, holding the shell up to examine it, to run my fingers lightly across its spirals, pressing my thumb against the point at its top. Such an intricate shell, like life itself, filled with twists and turns, coiling round and round, reaching for some kind of pinnacle. I had felt awful when my necklace broke. I tried to remember when it happened—it was sometime after Dan died. Had I been sleeping with it under my pillow? Or in my hand while I slept? It was so delicate, why would I have done that?
I closed my eyes to picture Dan’s face when he gave it to me, his eyes shining with love. They were hazel. Green-hazel. I pictured the shape of his face, his jaw; he had a nice nose, thin and aquiline, with just the suggestion of a bump. He had the most disarming smile; I could never stay mad at him. His chin had a cleft that was a little bit off center—and his voice . . . I tried to hear his voice in my head; why couldn’t I hear his voice? He was from the South and had a silky South Carolina accent. I tried to grab it from my memory. He had sung to me so many times, why couldn’t I hear his voice? Then the shape of his face grew dim . . . his features started fading. I tried to summon him, how it was all put together, his dear face—Don’t leave me. I strained for a vision of his face, fought to think . . . Dan—
And then, and then, for a few horrible moments, I couldn’t remember what he looked like at all.
Chapter 23
“Curious,” Shay said the next day when I showed her the shell.
“That’s all?” I asked. “Just ‘curious’? Dan gave me one before we were married. And now Vincent found one. What do you think it means?”
She had just turned on the flattop and was setting things up for breakfast while I ground the coffee beans. Though she was wearing a loose top over sweats that had been cut off at the knees, her baby bump was now quite apparent. She turned around to give me an exasperated look. “You want me to forecast your future from a shell?”
“Yes. Do you think it means something?” I pressed. “When I was a kid I always looked for perfect shells.” I turned the shell over and over, feeling its ridges against my fingers. “I always wanted a shell collection, but my father made me sell them in the store. He always kept a basket of perfect shells on the counter. Tourists like buying shells,” I said, “and the store made some extra money. Everything was for the store.”
“You want to sell it?” she asked, surprised.
I rolled it around in my hand. “I don’t think so.” I wrapped it in a napkin and tucked it into my jeans pocket. “It’s so odd to find such a perfect shell. Vincent was so gentle. What am I supposed to do with it?”
She sighed. “I don’t do shells; I don’t read palms. When the time comes, I suspect you’ll know what to do with it. In the meantime, I don’t have a clue.”
“Tea leaves?” I joked. “Can you do tea leaves?”
“No.”
“How about casting runes?”
She rolled her eyes. “How about casting a few eggs upon the griddle,” she said. “We’ve got customers.”
* * *
But not as many customers that day as we would have liked.
“Is it slow?” I asked Shay late morning. “Or am I imagining it?”
“It’s slow,” she said. “We usually finish the bacon before this.”
I knew it. I always semi-fry about ten pounds of bacon the night before and refrigerate it, finishing it off as people order bacon and eggs. It makes for fast cooking when we need it. We never have any left over, but it was already near noon and we still had nearly half of it wrapped on the flattop. Shay always referred to whatever bacon was left over as the Baconometer. It was definitely reading too high this morning.
It had been a week now, since Sam’s mother had been in, and I wondered if that was the problem. Of course we still got the tourists, but it seemed to me a fair number of Fleeties were slipping in quietly to pick up their mail and leave. There is a supermarket a few miles out of town, which I suspected was now the destination of some of our
formerly loyal customers.
“Why?” I asked Shay. “It can’t be because one person came in here with a head scarf and ordered a muffin.”
“Of course not,” she said in a way that I knew she meant the opposite.
But Mrs. Skipper could still be lured in by our cherry Danishes. Today she came in accompanied by The Skipper himself. Their real last name is Healey, but they’ve always been The Skipper and Mrs. Skipper. He used to come in alone, almost every afternoon, to pick up the mail when it was delivered late. He was always courteous, courtly, even, with a blue fisherman’s cap perched on top of his thick white hair. He was a tall man, lean and weather-beaten. His arms were ropy from muscles, betraying a life spent as a commercial fisherman. All I knew was that he had his own boat years ago and kept it docked at the wharf in P-town. We guessed him to be in his early nineties now; he had been the mayor ever since I could remember. He seemed in good health and always ordered Earl Grey tea with honey and lemon, and imported kippered herrings on toasted rye with two tomato slices. We always made sure to order a case of kippered herrings every so often to keep it in stock in the back room, just for him. “It’s the Skipper’s kippers,” Shay always made it into a little ditty that she thought was immensely funny.
“Don’t tell Florence I’m eating this,” he would say. “She doesn’t like me to have so much salt.”
And we kept our word. But it had been a while since The Skipper had been in for his kippered herring. We still had three cases in the store room. I don’t think anyone else even knew what they were.
Now The Skipper was helping his wife shop, apparently adding a few unplanned-for items to the grocery basket and making frequent suggestions.
“We don’t need dog food,” I could hear Mrs. Skipper tell him from the next aisle. “We don’t have a dog.”
“Katy!” he snapped. “So who’s Katy if we don’t have a dog! We have an Irish setter.”
“Katy died eleven years ago, Donald.” Mrs. Skipper was sounding exasperated. “Don’t argue with me.” She took the dog food from the basket and plopped it back on the shelf.
And All the Phases of the Moon Page 14
