Returning to Shore (12 page)

“You really suck at Ping-Pong, don't you,” said Jaylin after they'd come out of the water and stretched out on their towels.

“I
told
you,” said Clare.

“Those guys are such jerks, anyway. Never mind them.”

“I didn't mind them,” said Clare.

“Well, you would, if you got stuck with Mark as a brother.”

“What about Kip?” said Clare. She tried to pronounce his name as neutrally as possible.

“He's an idiot, too,” said Jaylin. “All of my brother's friends are idiots. Do you have any brothers?”

“No,” said Clare. “I'm an only child.”

“Consider yourself blessed,” said Jaylin. She raised herself on one elbow and looked at Clare.

“What?” Clare asked.

“I was trying to decide whether I should tell you something or not,” said Jaylin.

Clare shrugged. She had the sense that Jaylin would have liked it if she had said, “please do” but she wasn't sure she wanted to have Jaylin confide in her. Jaylin's disappointment was brief. She sat up now and leaned towards Clare conspiratorially.

“I'm not supposed to tell anybody, but I'm going to tell you,” said Jaylin. “I actually have another brother; his name is Daniel. He's two years younger than me, but he doesn't live with us. Something happened when he was born, and he was tragically impaired. So he lives in a special home for children like him.”

“I'm sorry,” said Clare.

“Oh, there's nothing to be sorry about,” said Jaylin. “It's this really nice place with all these really nice people who take care of him.” She smiled.

“Then how come you're not supposed to tell people?”

Jaylin shrugged. “It's my mom. She tried having Daniel live at home, but it turns out the person who was living with us to take care of him was really just interested in having my dad get her connections in the film industry, and so it didn't work. Besides, this is a lot better for Daniel.”

There was a piece of logic missing here—the not-telling anyone part—but Clare decided not to pursue it. She doubted that she was the only person Jaylin had told this to—surely Jaylin had a number of friends at home who had each been singled out as confidante. She was afraid that Jaylin was going to expect some kind of compensatory confession from her, and there was nothing she wanted to tell Jaylin. Especially now. She was relieved when Jaylin leapt up after swatting at a greenhead fly.

“That's it!” she cried. “Time to abandon beach!”

Back at the house they made ice cream sodas. The house was tranquil. Jaylin checked the cars in the driveway and decided that Mark and Kip had probably gone off somewhere. Jaylin wanted to watch a video, but Clare said she thought she should be going back home.

“Don't forget Friday,” said Jaylin. “We'll be leaving in the morning and we'll buy lunch in P-Town.”

“OK,” said Clare. Friday was a few days away and Clare noted that Jaylin didn't say anything about getting together before then. That was fine with her, too. She collected her things and walked down the flight of stairs to the beach. Once out of sight of Jaylin's deck, she walked more slowly. She wasn't in any particular hurry to get back to the house. Clare watched a group of sea ducks diving in the bay. They had tufts of feathers sticking out from the backs of their heads, as if they had been caught in the wind. Clare tried to count how long they stayed underwater. It was hard to tell though, because they didn't pop up in the same spot, but it was so long that each time she was afraid they might not make it.

When she came around the side of the island she noticed a figure in the distance, walking towards her. When they got closer she saw that it was Richard. If she didn't know him, would she think he was some crazy old guy? He did have grey hair, but he didn't walk like an old man; in fact, he had spotted her and was jogging towards her now, not the way men did
when they were exerting themselves working out, but with an easy gait, the way a coyote might run.

And if she didn't know him, would there be anything about him that would make her think he was gay? There wasn't anything she noticed, but maybe she just wasn't very good at picking up on things like this; maybe there was something about Richard that other people could see.

“Your mother called,” he said.

“Is everything OK?” Clare was suddenly frightened.

“Everything's OK at her end,” said Richard, “but not so good at my end. I gather I have been negligent in my parental duties. I revealed not only my ignorance of where you were, but also the full name of the girl whom you were with. Your mother wants you to call her back as soon as you're at the house.”

“I'm sorry,” said Clare.

“No reason you should be sorry,” said Richard. “Mea culpa, entirely. I didn't think to ask where, precisely, you would be. And I didn't find out this friend of yours last name. I just don't know much about taking care of teenagers, I guess.”

“That's OK.”

They walked around the side of the island and cut up the path through the dunes back towards the house.

“I haven't talked to Vera for years—we've dealt with each other though letters and e-mail—and it was surprising to have her call out of the blue and to have her berate me. But I suppose I deserved it.”

When they were back at the house Clare turned to Richard.

“Does Vera know?” she asked.

“Know what?”

“About you.”

Richard thought for a moment. “The answer, Clare, is no; I don't believe she does.”

“Is that why you stayed out there, in California? So no one would know?”

“No. I stayed because I had a good job out there. And later I stayed because of Charlie.”

“But you didn't want people to know, right?”

“My friends out there all knew, of course, but there was no reason to tell Vera. She might have guessed if she'd put her mind to it. But Clare, the truth is that Vera had lots of other things that she put her mind to. As long as I sent her checks and didn't interfere with
any of her decisions about you, things were the way she wanted them to be.”

Richard went to the kitchen counter and gave Clare Vera's phone number.

“What should I say to her?”

Richard shrugged. “Whatever you want.”

Vera's voice was high and excited. “I hope this hasn't all been a dreadful mistake,” she said.

“I'm fine, Mom,” said Clare. “There's nothing to be worried about. I'm having a good time.”

It took some work to reassure Vera so she didn't call Eva to come to rescue Clare from Richard.

“I don't want to undermine your father's authority,” said Vera, “but I'm concerned that he doesn't seem to be exercising any authority.”

“I was just at a friend's house, right nearby,” said Clare, stressing the word friend slightly more than was truthful. “It wasn't like I was doing anything dangerous. We were playing Ping-Pong.” Surely there was no reason to mention swimming.

Vera wanted to know all about Jaylin, and was audibly relieved, as Clare guessed she might be, when she learned that Jaylin's father was the author of best-selling
novels that had been made into movies. Just saying he was a writer wouldn't do since Vera had been impatient with what she called Peter's “dilettantism.” Clare seized this moment of softening to ask about France, and Vera, fears assuaged, was happy to describe for Clare all the pleasures and tribulations—for with Vera there were always tribulations—of the villa they had rented.

Through the window Clare watched Richard walking by, carrying a bowl of kitchen scraps out to the compost pile. She felt oddly protective of him. In a final gesture to appease Vera she asked after Tertio, careful to call him Ian.

Richard had been out on the deck, sitting in one of the faded canvas chairs. Clare thought for a moment that maybe he had been simply lounging there, watching the view, but noticed he had a book he laid by his side. It was, as she might have guessed, a serious book, on mollusks.

He looked up at her. “So,” he asked, “what's the verdict?”

Clare opened the other chair and set it up beside him. “It's OK,” she said. “I don't think we have anything to worry about. I've persuaded her that I'm not in grave danger, so she's not flying home to rescue me,
and she's not calling Eva, either.”

“Thank you, Clare,” said Richard. “I guess that although she doesn't trust me, she trusts you. I don't think that I will live up to Vera's exacting parental standards, but I will try to be more vigilant.”

“I like the way you've been,” said Clare. “Mom's not exactly easy to live with, you know.”

“Oh, I know,” said Richard.

Clare slipped her feet out of her flip-flops and stretched her legs out in front of her.

“Aunt Eva says you and Mom weren't a match made in heaven,” said Clare.

Richard laughed. “I guess not,” he said.

“But what I don't understand,” said Clare, “is how come you were married at all. I mean, I just don't get it.” Clare trailed off.

“Is this something you'd like to talk about?” asked Richard.

“I guess so,” said Clare.

“How about you just ask me any questions you want, and I'll do my best to answer them?”

“Then you should be able to ask any question about me, too,” said Clare. “You haven't really asked
me anything since I've been here.”

“Haven't I?” Richard seemed surprised.

Clare shook her head. “Not at all. I'd expected you'd ask me lots of questions.”

“What kind of questions?”

“Like ‘what do you want to do when you grow up' kind of questions.”

“Are you disappointed?”

“Not really,” said Clare. “Older people are always asking me those kind of questions, and I never know what to answer.”

Richard leaned forwards and reached around his chair to set the backrest a notch lower so he was level with Clare. They were side by side, both looking out at the slice of view. A large dark bird lifted itself up from the marsh and rose up through the sky.

“Look!” Clare said.

“It's the great blue heron,” said Richard. “You can always tell, even at a distance, from the way it flaps its wings, slowly, like this.” Richard rose up in his chair and moved his arms up and down. He looked, in profile, a bit like a heron himself. It had something to do with his distinctive nose, but it had mostly to do with
his neck, which was long and thin, with a pronounced Adam's apple.

Richard's arms were graceful, and the way he dropped his wrists and let his fingers follow did look like the movement of the heron's wings. “Try it,” Richard said.

Clare smiled.

“Come on,” said Richard, “really try it.” So Clare leaned forwards and moved her arms, too.

Richard sat back in his seat. “All right,” he said. “Now back to business. What would you like to know about me?”

Clare rested her head back in her chair and closed her eyes. There were so many questions—it was hard to decide where to begin.

“What I want to know,” she said, and she hesitated before she went on, “is whether you always were the way you are, or whether something happened, and made you change.”

Richard let out a big breath of air. “That's a biggy, huh?”

Clare shrugged. “I guess.”

“I think the answer is that sometimes people don't
really know themselves,” said Richard. “I haven't changed, but it took me a long time to figure out who I was. For years I was afraid of finding out. It was a long, slow process. It began when I moved to Palo Alto.”

“How come you got married, though?”

“That's what people did—what they still do, though now it's different,” said Richard. “Besides, I was captivated by Vera—she had a vivid personality and she was beautiful.” He laughed. “You're smiling Clare, but it's true. Vera was stunning. And she seemed so sure about me. It's a great thing, Clare, when you're not certain about yourself, to have someone else certain about you.”

Clare opened her eyes and looked sideways at Richard. He was staring out at the marsh.

“I wasn't surprised when Vera's enthusiasm for me waned,” he said. “When she became involved with Peter I wasn't surprised, either. I didn't expect her to come with me to California, and she didn't. Eventually I met other people. And then, slowly, things became clear to me.” He turned to look at Clare.

“But that's not a reason for forgetting all about me,” said Clare.

“I didn't forget about you, Clare.”

“You might as well have.”

“Oh no, Clare. That's not true. And I never forgot about you. I was trying to make your life easier by staying far away. I didn't want to be a problem for you.”

“That's not a good excuse for staying away. You wouldn't have been a problem. Not to me!”

Richard was quiet for a moment, then he added, “Perhaps I was protecting myself, as well.”

She let the words sit in her mind, and gradually her anger dissipated, until it was no longer there. She waited a moment more before speaking. “It's your turn to ask me a question now,” she said.

“Is this hard for you?” he asked. “Finding this out?”

Clare shrugged. “A little,” she said.

“I'm sorry about that,” said Richard.

Clare looked down, then added, “But not nearly as hard as you seemed to think it would be.”

Richard ran his hand along the wooden frame of his canvas chair. “I thought about not telling you,” he said slowly. “But I couldn't see how I could have a relationship with you without you knowing. And it was
important to me to establish a relationship with you. Charlie always wanted me to, and I put it off for much too long.”

“Charlie knew about me?”