The weight of water - Anita Shreve [71]
“I can’t move.”
“I’ll help.”
“I don’t want to move.”
I am thinking that this is true. I do not ever want to move again. I do not want to go back to the boat, to look at the faces of Thomas and Adaline, to wonder what they have been doing, or not doing, what has been said between them. What lines of poetry might have been quoted. Or not quoted. I know that Bil-lie is on the boat, and that because of her I will have to go back, will shortly want to go back. I will have to participate in the sail to Portsmouth or to Annisquam or find a way to survive another night in the harbor. I understand that I will have to be a participant on this cruise — a cruise for which I am responsible. I know that I will have to repack the cameras, finish the log, go home and develop the film, and hope that I have something to send into the magazine. I know that I will have to return to our house in Cambridge, that Thomas and I will go on in our marriage, as we have, in our way, and that I will continue to love him.
At this moment, it doesn’t seem possible that I am capable of any of it.
I want only to dig into the sand, to feel the sand around me for warmth, to be left alone.
“You’re crying,” Rich says.
“No, I’m not.”
I sit up and wipe my nose on the sleeve of my sweatshirt. The entire front of my body is coated with a thin layer of sand. There is sand in my hair, on my upper lip. I wrap my arms around my legs as tightly as I can. Without my glasses I cannot see the sloop or anyone on it. Even the Zodiac, only twenty feet away, is an orange blur. A shape I take to be a gull swoops down upon the beach and lurches along the pebbles. There is comfort in not being able to see the shapes of things, the details.
I bury my face in my knees. I lick my upper lip with my tongue and bring the sand into my mouth. Rich puts his hand at the back of my neck, the way you do with a child when the child is being sick to her stomach. His hand is warm.
It seems to me that we remain in that position, neither of us speaking or moving, for an unreasonably long time.
Finally I sit back and look at my brother-in-law. I can see him clearly, but not much beyond. He seems puzzled, as though he is not entirely sure what is going to happen next.
“Do you remember the wedding?” I ask.
He removes his hand from my neck with what I sense as a complicated mixture of regret and relief. “Of course I remember the wedding.”
“You were only twenty-two.”
“You were only twenty-four.”
“You wouldn’t wear a suit, and you had a pony tail. You wouldn’t kiss me after the wedding, and I thought it was because you were cross that you’d been asked to wear a suit.”
“You had on a black dress. I remember thinking it was a great thing to wear to your own wedding. You had no jewelry. He didn’t give you a ring.”
“He didn’t believe in that sort of thing,” I say.
“Still.”
“You and I went swimming that morning.”
“With Dad. Thomas stayed home and worked. On his wedding day.”
“It’s his way… .”
“I know, I know.”
“I thought at the time that Thomas was making an extraordinary commitment in marrying me. That it was almost brutally hard for him to do.”
“My parents were thrilled.”
“Thrilled?”
“That he’d got you. You were so solid.”
“Thank you.”
“No, I mean you were rooted, grounded. They were tremendously relieved he had found you.”
“I wasn’t going to cause him any trouble.”
“You weren’t going to let him cause trouble to himself.”
“No one can prevent that.”
“You’ve tried.”
“Thomas isn’t doing well,” I say.
“You’re not doing well.”
“We’re not doing well.”
I shake my head and stretch my legs out in front of me. “Rich, I swear I think marriage is the most mysterious covenant in the universe. I’m convinced that no two are alike. More than that, I’m convinced that no marriage is like it was just the day before. Time is the significant dimension — even more significant than love. You can’t ask a person what his marriage is like because it will be a different marriage tomorrow. We go in waves.”
“You and Thomas.”
“We have periods when I think our coming together