The Topsail Accord (37 page)
The lighthouse is divided into three parts. A bottom portion that is grey, a middle portion that is white, and a top portion that is black. The wind and the blowing sand and foam are so nearly constant that the colors were mixed into the concrete from which the lighthouse was constructed rather than being painted on.
It sits on the inland side of the coastal road, with a single strand of houses on the ocean front and a single strand on the inland side that is tidal marsh filled with birds and snakes and fish.
“
It’s surplus,” I say.
It’s surplus,” I say.
“
Surplus?”
Surplus?”
“
Yes. They don’t need it anymore. So the coast guard is giving it to the town.”
Yes. They don’t need it anymore. So the coast guard is giving it to the town.”
“
They don’t need it?”
They don’t need it?”
“
That’s what they say. But they’re going to keep running the beacon.”
That’s what they say. But they’re going to keep running the beacon.”
“
They’re just giving it to the town?” Joe asks.
They’re just giving it to the town?” Joe asks.
“
Yes.”
Yes.”
“
How come you know more about this than I do? I only live about 30 miles from here,” Joe says.
How come you know more about this than I do? I only live about 30 miles from here,” Joe says.
“
I planned this trip, not you. So I did some research. The Coast Guard is giving them the tower and the town is going to keep it open and keep up the little park around it.”
I planned this trip, not you. So I did some research. The Coast Guard is giving them the tower and the town is going to keep it open and keep up the little park around it.”
“
How can the town afford that?” Joe asks.
How can the town afford that?” Joe asks.
“
I made a donation,” I say.
I made a donation,” I say.
“
Is that how you arranged the private tour?” Joe asks.
Is that how you arranged the private tour?” Joe asks.
“
Maybe,” I answer.
Maybe,” I answer.
“
Will people be able to climb it?” Joe asks.
Will people be able to climb it?” Joe asks.
“
If they have a reservation,” I answer.
If they have a reservation,” I answer.
“
Do we have a reservation?” Joe asks.
Do we have a reservation?” Joe asks.
“
Did you even need to ask?” I say.
Did you even need to ask?” I say.
I take his hand and lead him towards the tower. He carries a small backpack in which I have placed a blanket, a self-inflating air mattress, and a bottle of wine.
From one hundred and eighty feet up the ocean is a different thing. We are not so high that we have the God-like view from a plane, and we are not on the shore, so we are not part of the ocean, not at its interface. We are in a privileged place, where we can see to a far horizon, and yet know that we are still tiny in the face of this power.
We spend hours at the top. Hours when we make long slow love and then sit looking out over the water. We mark the time as the shadow of the lighthouse crosses from one side of the park, which I have named SJ Park, for Shannon and Joe, to the other side of the park.
When the shadow begins to fade because evening is upon us I dress slowly and deliberately. I savor the feeling of the clothes as they slide onto me. Our long weekend at the lighthouse is over and I am ready to return to my books and rocks and lab. To my home and to my family. I am ready to go.
“
I will see you in January, at 8 a.m., on January 4
th
, on my ocean side porch, rain or shine. Please bring coffee,” I say.
I will see you in January, at 8 a.m., on January 4
th
, on my ocean side porch, rain or shine. Please bring coffee,” I say.
“
I will see you then, and I will bring coffee,” he says.
I will see you then, and I will bring coffee,” he says.
I kiss him on the lips, on the cheek, and on the forehead, and then drive away.
Joe
He accepts her leaving. Like he has accepted so many things in their first year. Her boundaries, her moods, her quietness, her need sometimes to control him, everything about her that makes her who she is. And everything about her that makes them what they are. He has made the deal, struck the bargain, and has received what he considers more than fair consideration. He understands the contract, understands that he loves her and that she does not love him. He begins to suspect that she will never love him, or that if she ever realizes that she does, that she will leave him. Even though she gives every appearance of love, acts like a woman in love, and reacts like a woman in love, she is pathologically opposed to the idea of being in love.
He accepts this.
As she drives away Joe pours a cup of coffee onto the black pavement in the now deserted parking lot. He follows her car with his eyes until it is out of sight.
Shannon
I am waiting on my back porch at 8 a.m. on January 4
th
. I have been here since 7:30 because it is a perfectly calm and blessedly warm day here on the beach and I did not want to miss one second. Winter came early and hard to Ohio, and I am happy to escape it. Though, as always, I am sad to leave my family behind, sad to leave my books and rocks and data behind. I have brought a few books and data printouts with me this trip. To read on the dark nights, to catalogue, to research, to plot.
th
. I have been here since 7:30 because it is a perfectly calm and blessedly warm day here on the beach and I did not want to miss one second. Winter came early and hard to Ohio, and I am happy to escape it. Though, as always, I am sad to leave my family behind, sad to leave my books and rocks and data behind. I have brought a few books and data printouts with me this trip. To read on the dark nights, to catalogue, to research, to plot.
It is the start of our second January in Topsail. We had our first July, when we met and then went our separate ways. Then we had our first January. A month of getting to know each other and a month of intimacy. A month of opening and discovery and feelings that I did not know I had.
Then we had our first Costa Rica. I still am not sure that Costa Rica was real. That I wore what I wore and did what I did and saw what I saw. I am going back there this year and if it lives up to my memory then I will buy a house there. Salvaro has been helping me all year. I will go down two days early to look around, and then I will stay a few days later to wrap things up. Joe doesn’t know any of this. He just knows that I will be there before him and after him. He is good about not asking for details. I think he worries what the details will be, and that if he doesn’t know them he can imagine me in the way that suits him best. There is nothing bad for me to cover up, but there are secrets we all keep. I keep more than most. I even keep some from myself.
My ex was upset with my secrets. I think he was upset. Perhaps he was sad that there was so much I wouldn’t share with him. But he should have known that from our dating, from our beginning. I have always been quiet, and I made no exception when we were getting to know each other. So how could he have expected me to be any other way? If he’d have asked me about it I would have told him. I would have told him that I like to be quiet, that I like to keep to myself, and that I have secrets. They aren’t bad secrets, or secrets that would humiliate or hurt anyone, there are no mysterious lovers or crimes or fetishes. They are just secrets. Like the fact that I have been investigating buying a house near Hermosa and that Joe doesn’t know.
We had our second July together. When we already knew each other, and when my sister was able to move the family around so that Joe and I could steal our moments and hours together. And we had our first lighthouse long weekend. Like Costa Rica, I do not know who I was on that long weekend. I have yet to come to grips with having him the way that I did in the lighthouse, or having him at all. I cannot fathom my ways when we are together. So I will not examine the feelings I have or the sex we have. I will just experience them both, as controlled by our agreement, our accord.
In our contract he knows that all I have to do to end the relationship is to not be here.
I know that all he has to do to end the relationship is not to be here.
But I am here, and I see him approaching up the windswept beach. We will have another January, or at least another January morning. For he might be here to tell me that it is over, that he has found another, and that he can longer abide by our rules. He would tell me in person, he would not just leave me here wondering. That’s how he would do it.
“
Hi,” he says.
Hi,” he says.
“
Hi,” I answer.
Hi,” I answer.
“
Come on,” he says. “It’s too beautiful for the porch.”
Come on,” he says. “It’s too beautiful for the porch.”
I agree, stand, and join him on the boardwalk then on the beach. This walk begins like our last one ended, seamlessly meshed together as though the end of October and all of November and all of December have not interposed themselves between our last walk at Oak Island and our first walk here.
This is the most amazing part of who we are. That we instantly fit back together, no matter how long apart and no matter how far apart and no matter what has happened. We don’t need to know what has happened. We only need to know that once again we are us and we are here and that everything is alright for the next while.
I feel chatty for some reason and start to teach him the geology of the beach. “The present is the key to the past,” I say.
“
I beg your pardon?” he asks.
I beg your pardon?” he asks.
“
The beach. Today’s beach is tomorrow’s sandstone.”
The beach. Today’s beach is tomorrow’s sandstone.”
“
You
are
a geology geek aren’t you?” Joe asks.
You
are
a geology geek aren’t you?” Joe asks.
“
Yes I am. So here’s a quiz. You see those shells? How old do you think they are?” I ask.
Yes I am. So here’s a quiz. You see those shells? How old do you think they are?” I ask.
“
A year? Maybe ten?”
A year? Maybe ten?”
I stoop down and pick through a few dozen shells and separate out three. “This one is likely a thousand years old, this one is probably ten thousand years old, and this one isn’t even a shell, it’s a fossil, and it’s probably ten million years old.”
“
Ten million?” Joe asks.
Ten million?” Joe asks.
“
At least. Right off the coast there is a rock formation that has a very distinct chemical signature. When you find shark’s teeth here that are all black those are fossils too. And they’re probably about 6 million years old.”
At least. Right off the coast there is a rock formation that has a very distinct chemical signature. When you find shark’s teeth here that are all black those are fossils too. And they’re probably about 6 million years old.”
“
You know when I was a fundamentalist Christian I was certain the world sprang into existence in six twenty four hour days about six thousand years ago.”
You know when I was a fundamentalist Christian I was certain the world sprang into existence in six twenty four hour days about six thousand years ago.”
“
So you were Young Earth Creationists,” I answer.
So you were Young Earth Creationists,” I answer.
“
Yes. We were.”
Yes. We were.”
“
But not now?” I ask.
But not now?” I ask.
“
No.”
No.”
We walk on in silence for a while looking for shark’s teeth.
“
Did you ever notice that almost all the shells are lying cavity down?”
Did you ever notice that almost all the shells are lying cavity down?”
Joe
Our second January is coming to an end. Once again she will come to Wilmington with me to help with the Foundation, and to run in the race. This year I think she intends on winning. The weather is predicted to be much better so there will be a larger crowd. She is a year older but more determined than last year. I only notice this extra year in the tiniest details, just an extra line by her right eye, and an extra grey hair over her left temple. She is running as well as last year, maybe better, and she has mentioned the race more than one time. She has even checked the online registration to see if last year’s winner is entered. He is. We drove down to Wilmington twice to run the course, once we did three loops at a casual pace while she felt for inclines and figured the tangents for the corners. The other time she did a casual warm-up lap and then raced while I followed on my mountain bike.
Our second January has been as memorable as our first. We have walked and run and made love and drank coffee and have even sat on the balcony and talked. Not often, but we have talked. I have learned a little more about her and have told her much about me. I don’t think she needs to know these details, but I share them anyway. She has educated me about the beach. About why some of the sand “barks” and why some of it “sings”. She loves being a geologist.
While she has told me about the beach, she has still told me little about herself. I try not to pull her teeth to get details from her. So each detail she shares I savor like the rare morsel that it is. She gives so little of the rest of her, even while giving all of her while here. There is Shannon here and there is Shannon there and there is Shannon in Costa Rica and at a lighthouse. They barely seem like all the same Shannon, and if I had only seen her in one place I might not recognize her in any of the other places. I wonder how many more Shannons there are. There must be at least Shannon in the lab, Shannon in the field, Shannon with the adult family, Shannon with the kids, and Shannon the oil and natural gas millionaire. But they are not signatories to the bargain and so I leave them be.
The one thing we have talked about, quite surprisingly, is her ex. His name is Rick. He came to see her at her lab just before Christmas. To drop off a gift for her nephew, a gift that Shannon could attribute to some other family member or to herself so that her nephew would not feel the loss of his uncle. Shannon was touched at his kindness, and took a few minutes to talk to him. For once he had not touched on their breakup, and had focused only on the family. She could tell that he genuinely missed them. Even while she reminded herself that he had made his choice and that she had lived with it.
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