Mary looked down at the dishwater, the smile dissolving from her face. She plunged her hand below the bubbles and pulled up the next bowl, and started scrubbing it.
“Is that irony or what?” Edward stopped with a hand in front of him. He put it on Mary’s arm. “Baby, of course, I told him I had help. I didn’t take all the credit—”
“Will you take the job?”
“What? It’s not really a job offer exactly. He’s just being friendly, but it might go somewhere. I might be able to use his name in a referral letter. It’s just like with the professors – they forget you, but you just have to name drop and you’re in. That’s how it works. Get ‘em to sign a character reference.” He was looking up, daydreaming as he spoke. “Can you imagine? Me at some company job in New York. What would my friends think? Of course I’d have to think it over. I mean, does it involve doing what I really want to do? If the paycheck was decent, I could get a studio, do my own stuff on my own time, you know.”
Mary continued scrubbing the same spot on the dish as Edward watched her.
“Baby, what’s wrong?”
Mary rinsed the bowl and then clinked it down on the counter.
“You do what you want to do.”
“What? Baby, I’m not going anywhere right now. Just thinking about the future.”
The muscles in her neck tightened and a vein stuck out as she held her breath.
“Baby… what’s wrong? Why are you mad? Of course, I’d want you to go with me.”
One strand of hair, passing in front of her ear, hung down along her cheek. She brought up another dish and continued her scrubbing, her sleek forearm muscles flexing with her grip of the bowl. For a few moments, there was a terrible silence as he watched her withdrew into her own hot core.
“Baby, wouldn’t you want to see New York?”
“See it, or live there? This is my home.”
Edward stepped back and looking down. He went over to the refrigerator, opened it, and leaned against the door, staring at nothing inside, realizing that she would never leave the islands.
“You know I’d want us to get married one day. When I’m better off financially.” He waited a minute for her to say something, touching the raw skin under his black eye. It felt puffy, warm and heavy like it was about to drip off his face. “New York has opportunities,” he half mumbled.
The scrubbing stopped. He turned his head to see her looking up out the window over the sink. The fiery sky of sunset gave her hair an orange patina.
“Are you happy?”
He stood straight up and faced her.
“What? Mary, I’m very happy. I’m super happy. I’ve never been happier.”
“If you’re happy, then why do you need to change?”
He shook his head and sighed. He didn’t know how to answer that – how to explain that people needed to grow. Infected with Mr. Murrell’s corporate speak, Edward was suddenly back at his art openings, inside a white-walled gallery, talking excitedly to his friends about new concepts. People needed to constantly strive to excel, be the best at whatever they did.
“It’s a nice simple life here, but it’s no career.”
“When you say career, don’t you mean money?”
Screaming erupted from the front of the house, halting and starting several times. Edward ran out to the table where Mrs. Murrell was standing over her youngest boy, his feet pulled up onto his chair. The boy had dropped a steak knife on the flat of his foot just above his big toe. The offending blade lay on the ground under the table. His mother was struggling to keep him still, holding the foot down from the ankle with one hand. She gripped a wad of towels with the other, frantically wiping away blood welling up from a half-inch gash, talking with quick, rising words about getting to a hospital. Mr. Murrell stayed in his chair, looking up from his magazine like someone being paged over a loud speaker, mildly interested in what was happening. The older brother stood behind his mother, nervously watching the scene.
“Let’s put pressure on it,” Edward said, stepping up to the chair the young boy was in. He tore off some towels from the roll and folded it until it was a palm-sized square. He pressed this over the cut.
“We’ve got to call an ambulance!” His mother held the blood-soaked wad with both her hands.
“Linda, don’t get hysterical. He’s a big boy, he can take it,” Mr. Murrell said, holding up his magazine. “You’re just making it worse by making him more upset.” He made a show of sighing before turning the page.
There were two seconds of silence as the boy took in a breath before continuing his bawling, tears dropping off his cheeks and onto his shirt. A bubble of spittle formed between his shaking lips. He closed his eyes and screamed when Edward applied the improvised gauze.
“We need to get him to the emergency room!” Mrs. Murrell was as breathless as her son.
She threw the crumpled towel on the ground just as Mary came outside.
“I think it looks worse than it really is,” Edward said. “Mary, isn’t there a first aid kit under the sink? Would you get it?”
Mary nodded and quickly went back inside.
“How do you feel? Jimmy, right? Jimmy, how does it feel? Don’t look at it.
“B-b-bad.” He sniffled as his mother wiped his nose with a clean towel.
“Well, did you see any dolphins out there today?” Edward turned his head and looked out at the dark waters of the bay.
Jimmy shook his head, sucking up the liquid dripping from his mouth.
“You have to look closely to see them, so keep watching.”
Jimmy sniffled and looked out past the beach.
“Sometimes, if you’re really nice, they let you ride them.”
“D-d-did y-y-you ride them?” Jimmy asked with a shaky frown stretched across his face.
“Yeah. All the time.”
“Did you see that? I think I saw one out there. Do you see it? You have to keep looking.”
Jimmy was looking toward the water, sucking in wet breaths, when Mary came out with the first aid kit. Edward put it on the ground and opened it. He tore open one antiseptic towelette and one sealed cotton pad. He wiped the gash clean and, before little Jimmy felt the sting of the alcohol wipe, put down the cotton pad. One second later Jimmy screamed. More tears fell onto his shirt. Edward threw away the bloody towel, moved Mary’s hand onto the cotton. He unpackaged a fresh roll of gauze, lifted Mary’s hand away and began wrapping the boy’s foot, using the entire roll.
The boy stopped crying after a few minutes, and his breathing became regular. Edward had kept him talking the entire time with stories about the different fish he’d seen in the bay.
“The bleeding’s stopped,” Edward said to Mrs. Murrell. “He just needs to keep it up for a while. Maybe you can read a story to him. Keep his mind off it.”
Mrs. Murrell’s eyes darted from the bandaged foot to the open door of the house, and at her husband reading.
“Ready to go lie down, honey? Let’s go lie down.”
The boy nodded, and then sniffled and coughed.
“He’s tough. Stop treating him like a baby.”
Mrs. Murrell ignored her husband and took her son’s hand. Edward quickly lifted him from the chair, careful to keep the boy’s foot from hitting anything. He carried the boy up the stairs and into his bedroom, laying him onto the bed. His mother pulled out a book the boy had in his luggage, got a chair and sat next to him. She was looking down at the book when Edward left the room.
Edward returned to the table outside where Mr. Murrell sat alone. Edward closed the first aid kit, and began picking up the litter around the table, glancing up to see Mr. Murrell tilting his magazine at different angles so he could read under the single security light above the door. Earlier, the clouds of dusk had swept west, clearing the sky. Beyond the light from the houses, it was completely black except for the glow of the whitecaps rolling onto the beach.