Portion of the Sea (54 page)

I studied Josh’s face, waiting for something to click. The speech I had written, edited, and then rehearsed until I was blue in the face was not surfacing. It was drowning in my nerves. My mind was blank but for the simple number hints I kept tossing his way.

“That’s right. Jack, you are four years old. And it has been four years since mommy has been to Sanibel.”

Suddenly the world went still—the breeze, my son, and the man standing before us on the dock. It was an eerie still, like when Jack gets quiet in the backseat of the car and I fear he’s choking on a lollipop.

But Jack was fine, I noticed, as he wandered off to the edge of the dock and peered down at the water below. Josh looked at me, then over at Jack as if looking at a ghost. But it wasn’t a ghost, just more like a shadow, his shadow. They looked a lot alike.

“Jack, want a lollipop now?” I asked, hoping to lure him away from the edge, yet keep him good and quiet a bit longer.

“No, not now, Mom. I don’t want a lollipop. I want to capture a shark. The man said I was big enough to capture a shark. I want to fish.”

“I’ll take you fishing later,” I said.

“I want to fish now,” he insisted. “Take me fishing now. I don’t want to go later.”

My plan of Jack being perfectly good was quickly going overboard, and the last thing I wanted at a moment like this was any sort of temper tantrum, especially because he was too old for those and I didn’t want to scare Josh away.

“Nothing can stop a boy from wanting to fish,” Josh said, studying my eyes. “I think I might understand this little fellow.”

Tears were welling up in my eyes, and I tried hard to fight them back. “You can? Why is that?” I asked.

“I was just like him as a kid.”

“You were? What do you mean?”

“Lydia, it’s hard to hide. Jack is so much like his father it’s not funny.”

“You think?”

“Yeah, and I’m starting to think you’ve come for more than just a vacation.”

“You’re right. We’ve come to talk with you.”

“I’m big enough to catch a shark,” Jack interrupted. “Hey, man,” he called out to Josh. “Will you take me fishing?”

“Sir, Jack. It’s sir, not ‘man’ and ‘excuse me’ not ‘hey.’” I snickered nervously at Josh. “I told you he warms up.”

“Four years old,” stated Josh. “Has it really been that long since I saw you last, Lydia? Since you and I went fishing?”

“Yes,” I said again. “It has been. You’re exactly right.”

Josh shook his head and looked down at the dock, then back up at me
again and into my eyes, then over at his son, then up at the sky and back down at his feet again.

“I wanted you to meet him. I’m sorry I’ve kept this from you.”

“Why now? Why after four years have you finally decided to introduce us? Looks like you’ve been doing a fine job on your own, without me knowing.”

“I don’t know,” I said, grabbing hold of the words Ava had used on Jaden. “I’m a woman, not a man-chaser.”

“What the …?”

“I didn’t feel right hunting you down. That’s not what a lady does. It’s not proper.”

“Maybe for most ladies it isn’t, but you? ‘Proper’ isn’t exactly the word I’d ever use to describe you, Lydia.”

“Thanks,” I said, trying to take it as a compliment. “Maybe it had more to do with me wanting to do everything on my own. But not anymore! I was hurt that morning when I learned you had left. I regretted horribly what we had done, and I questioned whether I meant anything at all to you.”

“You meant something. You meant more than you’ll ever know, but what was I to do? You yourself were talking all about the life you were returning to and never mentioned a word about any relationship or feelings for me whatsoever. I wasn’t going to complicate your ambition, and since you were leaving yourself that day, I never got around to telling you that I was too. Part of it was that I was still thinking of calling off the entire Peace Corps thing. I had wanted to do something, but as it got closer, I didn’t want to leave the life I loved. It’s like, what was I trying to prove? I considered not going that day, but I’d have to live with that sense of ‘should have’ all my life, so I went. And finally, after my two years were up, I returned home only to go to war a couple of months later. I’m back now, and I live a good life here, simple. I never told you this, but since we’re both telling all, I’ll let you know that my mother walked out on my father when I was a boy. I’m looking at you now wondering whether you’re leaving in an hour. Tell me, Lydia, what are your intentions, exactly?”

“I’m not your mother,” I said. “But I am the mother of your son, and it’s
not about me anymore and it’s not about you. It’s about him now. How do you want to go about this? He could come visit once a year, more if you like, or not at all. I’ll do as you like.”

He lowered his voice. “You’re just laying this all on me. I haven’t absorbed any of this yet.”

I reached into the flap of my purse and pulled out a lollipop. “Here, Jack, catch,” I said, then tossed it onto the dock. “Sit down while you eat it and keep quiet so you don’t choke.”

I knew I had exactly seven minutes. That was the time it took Jack to lick, then bite and chew that particular kind of lollipop—the things a mother knows. I stepped closer to Josh and lowered my voice. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to dump it all on you like this, but that day you left, I tried catching up with you on the causeway. I had planned on telling you that I’d stay in Florida, write for the paper here, and see if maybe you and I could pursue a relationship. I made that decision before ever knowing I was pregnant with your child. I made it because my feelings for you were strong and I didn’t want to let a good thing slip by. And now, the only reason I’m back to tell you all of this is for Jack’s sake. You are his father, and it wouldn’t be fair to him if I didn’t at least try to pursue you, or investigate the possibility of you and me maybe getting back …”

“Lydia,” he said, placing his finger softly over my lip to stop my speech. “I’m engaged.”

The words hit me like the rain that was now starting to fall. The thought of him dating someone else or being engaged or married had crossed my mind, but I ignored it and failed to prepare myself for both that and the rain, and so now I stood there in front of him, my insides cold and drenched from the dark news. My outsides were getting wet too, but I didn’t mind that as much.

“Oh my God,” I said, putting my hand to my face. I closed my eyes a second, and when I opened them I wished he were no longer standing close. “I feel like a fool. When? When are you getting married?”

“We haven’t set a date yet. I’m letting my fiancée choose that.”

I wanted to cry. The word “fiancée” struck me like a bolt of lightning. I could only hope she was a good, strong, loving woman, or marriage
would be the end of him. Josh was the type to mate for life, good or bad, like the scrub-jays and the American bald eagles. They all mate for life. I laughed at my own stupidity and at the fantasy world in which I lived for having believed that the man I loved would be anchoring out in a boat waiting all these years for me to return, something that only happens in a movie, not in real life. “You must at least have a month picked out.”

“We were thinking July,” Josh said and then reached for an umbrella. “No thanks,” I said. “Jack loves holding umbrellas. Here, Jack.”

As Josh opened it and steadied it in his son’s little hands, I thought back to the letters he had sent me way back, the ones in which he described the seasons on Sanibel at a time when I badly wanted to be standing in those seasons with him. “What about the daily afternoon thunderstorms in July? Wouldn’t you worry about lightning?”

“I hadn’t thought of that. She also mentioned September.”

“Florida’s lovebug season? They do fly united until parted by death. I guess it could be romantic.”

“How about winter?” he asked with a grin.

“Passing cold fronts.”

“She prefers a spring wedding anyway.”

“Alligator mating season? Don’t hold the ceremony near a swamp, unless you want gators bellowing as you walk down the aisle.”

“They do have rhythm. Can’t take that away from them,” he said. “For someone who doesn’t live in Florida, you sure know a lot about its seasons.”

“I read your letters over and over again. You write beautifully, you know. I think you’ve got a talent. Those letters read like a novel.”

He smirked and looked away. “I think she mentioned spring as when she wants to have it.”

“Tell her the water might still be brisk in April and lovebug season returns again in May.”

“Good thing you’re not her wedding consultant.”

“If I were, I’d be sure she gave it serious thought, when to have it, that is.”

“And when would you have it?”

“Hmmm,” I said, smiling. “I’d go with fall, probably late September or early October, when the bald eagles court up in the sky.”

“I didn’t know you’re a bald eagle fan,” he said.

“They pair for life. Who wouldn’t be a fan of that?”

Just then Jack handed me his empty stick. I was glad he was done, for now he could better hold the umbrella steady. “Is he a fisherman, Mommy?” he asked, standing on his tiptoes and trying to cover me from the rain. “I want to be a fisherman when I grow up.”

Josh looked away and then turned his back to us, and I wondered what he was looking at. “What now, Lydia?” he asked, his back still to me. “What do you want from me? You think you can just show up here like this after four years and …”

“Please stand over there,” I told Jack. “So you don’t poke us with that umbrella.”

I then lowered my voice and walked up close to Josh. “I understand if you want us to leave. We’ll return to our life and you can return to yours. You can forget about us if you’d like to. I certainly didn’t come here to ruin your life, and I don’t regret telling you, or at least trying for his sake, but it’s up to you now. What do you want us to do?”

“Son,” he said a moment later, taking his hat off and putting it on Jack’s head. “Would you like to go fishing tomorrow morning? I’m leaving at around eight o’clock and I sure could use help.”

The rain moved, I noticed. It was still raining several yards away and I could see it beating down on the bay, but where we were standing it had now stopped. I could see the sun shining down on both my son and his father.

“Hey, Lydia,” Josh said to me. “You’ll never believe what I found just the other day.”

“What?”

“A Junonia shell, of all things.”

“You did not! It’s not fair,” I said. “You know I’ve been looking for years now and even in downtown Chicago, I’d keep my head down every day as I walked along Michigan Avenue, hoping … anything is possible, right?”

“Yeah, and I’m going to get my picture in the paper for it. Tomorrow, maybe.”

“I hate you,” I said, laughing.

“Too bad,” he said. “Because I was about to ask if you wanted to share that Junonia with me, so we could both get our picture in the paper together.”

I stopped laughing. “I love you,” I said and ran into his arms.

It would be the most newsworthy story I took part in ever!

XLVII

SANIBEL ISLAND

1969
ONE YEAR LATER

Marlena

So many steps a woman takes in her life will not be remembered. And most of her tracks will be erased. But there will always be those certain steps she’ll never regret, the ones she’ll never forget—those glistening steps she took for herself
.

IT WAS THE SEASON
in which the bald eagles take to the sky for courting that both weddings took place. And the migrating songbirds were lining the trees and the Roseate Spoonbills were nesting on the island and the sea grape leaves were turning red and falling to the ground.

I had never been to a barefoot wedding before, where the aisle was a sandbar in the Gulf of Mexico and we only had twenty minutes of low tide and then the sea would wash over the patch of sand we were standing on. It was early fall, so the water was still warm from the summer months as
I stepped out of the anchored boat and waded onto the sandbar. And just as I glanced upward I witnessed a pair of eagles catching each other’s feet in mid-flight and our small group marveled as the birds then dropped close to the earth, as if they might strike, parting just in time. The enormous sun would soon be setting behind the bride and groom, and it was coloring the sky orange against the turquoise water. It reminded me of my own mother’s wedding to Jaden years before, only they got married in a church and held their reception on the beach, not a sandbar.