1

  “WELL? WHAT DO YOU THINK?” CRAIG Davis stopped on his way to the kitchen, bracing the box he was carrying against the back of a living room wing chair. “Is it what you expected?”

Ann turned from the window, a blank look in her eyes. “What did you say?” When he didn’t immediately answer, she added, “I’m sorry. I was somewhere else.”

It was a statement as common as the silence that had replaced their once eager sharing of the day’s events. He shifted the box under his arm. “Never mind. It wasn’t important.”

“Please–” She held out her hand in a helpless gesture. “I wasn’t ignoring you. I was just thinking about … about how much fun Jeremy is going to have here and how hard you worked to get the whole month off.”

He knew what she’d been thinking, and it had nothing to do with him or Jeremy or the time they would be there. He hated that she lied to him and at the same time was grateful she spared him the truth. “I asked what you thought of the house.”

She looked around as if just then noticing her surroundings. “It’s lovely. Nicer than I expected.” She struggled for something else. “Rentals usually look …” She shrugged. “Like rentals. But this is really … nice.”

He’d found the house through a friend and had almost backed out when he learned it had to be rented for an entire month. He’d never taken a two-week vacation, let alone stayed away from the office for four. But desperate times demanded desperate measures. If this didn’t work, at least he would know he’d given everything he had to give. “Where’s Jeremy?”

She blinked and then frowned. “I don’t know. I thought he was with you.”

“Jesus, Ann. You were supposed to–”

Jeremy came into the room from the hallway. He moved protectively toward his mother. “It’s okay, Dad.”

With his light brown hair in need of cutting, wearing a Garth Brooks T-shirt passed down from his cousin and two-size-too-big pants held in place with a tightly cinched belt, he looked like a poster boy for neglected children. No one would ever pick him out of a line up as the nine-year-old son of a man who had his own CPA firm and a woman who, until a year ago, had managed conventions for the largest hotel in Reno, Nevada.

Jeremy took his mother’s hand. “I told her I was going to unpack my stuff. She probably didn’t hear me.”

Ann gave Jeremy a grateful smile. “Would you like me to go to the beach with you later? You used to love the water. Remember the time I held you until a big wave came in, and then I’d let you go and Daddy would catch you?”

“He was only two when we took him to Hawaii,” Craig said. “I doubt he even remembers what the ocean looks like.”

“I do remember, Dad. And I was three. Bobby came with us because Uncle Carl and Aunt Marcia were getting divorced.” As if obliged to convince his father, he added, “We went out to dinner and there were lizards in the restaurant and they scared Bobby.”

With their son in Hawaii, Carl and Marcia had worked out their problems instead of working out the details of the divorce. Nine months later, Bobby had a brother and an intact family that grew more solid every year.

As convincing as Jeremy sounded, Craig wondered if his memories were real or ones that came from the photograph albums he took into his room and studied every night the way he’d once disappeared to absorb Harry Potter.

“Give me another half hour to get things put away, and I’ll go down to the beach with you.” Craig worked to make the statement appear casual. Jeremy didn’t need to know how worried his father was about leaving him alone near the water with his mother.

“I can help,” Ann said. “What else needs to be done?”

A futile flash of anger shot through Craig. All Ann had to do was look around and see what still needed doing. A woman who had once directed a staff of thirty, who’d thrived on challenge, who had an attention to detail to rival NASA’s, had become like a second child in the family. For months now she’d refused to take responsibility without direction.

As always, Craig’s sorrow overrode his frustration. “The suitcases are only half-unpacked and the kitchen stuff still needs to be put away.”

She had tears in her eyes when she looked at Craig and silently mouthed, “Thank you.”

He nodded and glanced at Jeremy, noting his obvious relief at the gentle ending to what too often in the past had led to confrontation between his parents. Jeremy’s reaction was harder for Craig to deal with than Ann’s. When he thought about the outgoing, happy kid his son had once been, Craig had a difficult time accepting the serious, taciturn child he was now.

“I’ll help Mom,” Jeremy said. They were words spoken so often the past year they almost went unnoticed, like a period at the end of a sentence.

Knowing his presence would put some unintended pressure on Ann, making her question every decision no matter how simple until she was unable to make any decision at all, Craig went into the bedroom and filled the dresser drawers and closet with the clothes he’d packed the day before.

The sun was low on the horizon by the time they left the house for the beach. Jeremy walked between Craig and Ann, holding their hands, both an emotional conduit and insulator.

“Look at those clouds sitting on the water,” Jeremy said.

“That’s fog,” Craig told him. “It will probably roll in tonight after we go to bed.”

“Cool.” He toed a broken shell without breaking stride. “Will it still be here when we get up?”

“Probably. And if not, there will be plenty of chances to see it the month we’re here.”

Jeremy didn’t say anything for several seconds. “What will we do if it’s foggy on my birthday?”

“I take it you’d prefer sunshine?” Craig wished Ann would say something. She was better at this kind of trapped-in-the-car conversation with Jeremy than he was.

“They might shut down the rides. If it’s bad enough, they might even have to shut down the whole boardwalk. Then what would we do?”

“They won’t.”

“But what if they do?”

“They won’t, Jeremy,” Craig insisted. “These people are used to fog. It’s as much a part of their summer as sunshine every day is part of ours.”

“How do you know that?”

“My grandmother lived here when I was your age, and I used to visit her.”

That seemed to satisfy him. Jeremy looked at Ann. “Where did your grandmother used to live when you were my age?”

She didn’t answer him.

“Ann?” Craig prompted.

She turned to look at him. “What?”

“Jeremy’s talking to you.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I was thinking about something. What did you say?”

“I was just wondering where your grandmother lived when you were my age.”

“Why would you want to know that?”

Craig looked away. She hadn’t heard a thing they’d been talking about. It wasn’t going to work. He’d been a fool to believe her promise to try harder if he took time off and they went away together. Nothing had changed. Nothing was going to change.

“It’s okay, Mom. You don’t have to tell me. Me and Dad were just talking about stuff.”

“Shouldn’t you be looking for driftwood?” Craig asked Jeremy. They’d stopped for dinner that night at a restaurant selling wind chimes made out of driftwood and seashells. At first Jeremy had asked to buy one to hang outside his bedroom window, and then, unable to decide which one he wanted, announced he would make his own.

Jeremy seemed torn between going and staying.

“Go ahead,” Ann urged. “We’ll be right behind you.”

He let go of their hands and took off to explore the already picked-over treasures left behind by the last high tide. Craig pointed to a bleached log sitting well back from the shoreline. Too large to have been rolled there by kids, the log’s size and location were silent witness to the fierce storms that occasionally hit the area.

“We can see the whole beach from here,” he said.

“And Jeremy can see us,” she added.

Craig sat on one end, giving her room to take the middle where the wood had been worn smooth. Instead she sat at the other end.

“It’s not like Hawaii,” she said after several minutes. “But it’s nice,” she quickly added. “Just like you said it would be.”

“What would you like to do tomorrow?”

She gave him a blank stare. “I don’t know what there is to do.”

“I take it you didn’t read any of the books I brought home?” Hoping to get her involved in planning the trip, he’d picked up several travel books on the Monterey area and asked her to look through them for ideas.

“I meant to …”

“Did you at least bring them?” He worked to keep the frustration out of his voice, but the look she gave him let him know he’d failed.

Ann crossed her arms over her chest and looked down at her feet. “You know, it’s hard for me to remember the last time we talked, and I wasn’t apologizing to you for something. Everything I do, everything I say, is wrong somehow.” She glanced up to him. “Are you as tired of it as I am?”

“What do you want me to do? I’m willing to try anything to have our old life back.”

She lashed out at him. “Our old life is gone, Craig. We can’t go back. Why am I the only one who can see that?”

“Are you saying that we should just give up?” How could he pray that she would say no and hope that she said yes at the same time? “Is that what you want?”

“If I could really have what I want, we wouldn’t be here.” Tears filled her eyes and spilled over to her cheeks. “We’d be home playing with our baby, sending out invitations for her first birthday party, and writing the letters for her time capsule. I’d be decorating the house and …” Her voice caught in a hiccupped sob. “And … and instead I’m here. How could you not know what being away from her on her birthday would do to me?”

“You should have told me you didn’t want to come.”

“I ordered pink roses for her.” She went on as if she hadn’t heard him. “Barbara is going to put them on her grave for me.” Doubling over, she put her hands to her face and sobbed. “I’m her mother, Craig. I should be the one giving them to her.”

Craig knelt in front of her and took her into his arms. “She was my daughter, too, Ann,” he said. “We gave her everything we had to give when she was with us. She’s somewhere that she doesn’t need us now. Jeremy does.”

She held herself rigid, unable to accept the comfort he offered. Even when they were touching, they were apart.