I convince myself that it’s okay, that I can consider this later, even as I decide to go out for more. I grab the flashlight and a light jacket, leave my pajama bottoms on, and work my way down the boardwalk and the flights of stairs. For a moment, I imagine what Ness’s daughter must’ve felt out here that night, alone, as a young child. Ness says the lamps were added to the boardwalk after the event, that he hates the light pollution, but that his ex-wife insisted. And now he just leaves them on.
I wonder if there isn’t some deeper reason that he leaves the lamps burning. The lighthouse throbs against the high clouds, and I think of the signals we put out without knowing, the invitations, the warnings. I think of the way I left my social media status as “married” until a year after the divorce was final. Some part of me wanted Michael to know that it was okay to come back, to watch that reef, that rocky shoreline, that it can be dangerous around here, but look: a clear path to safe harbor. If you choose.
I don’t know what I’m looking for on the beach. Nothing, maybe. In a literal sense. What I hope to see is a blank expanse of sand, exactly what I’m used to, for the world to make sense again. When Michael left, after we lost our child, the suitors were endless. Men I had thought were friends. Coworkers I didn’t know I had. From life in high school and college where dates were nearly impossible to find, to this… scared me. Something was wrong. There were shells everywhere I looked. I assumed they were fake. Lies.
Not much has changed. Abundance frightens me. Or maybe I believe that I only deserve joy when it’s hard to come by.
I’m only a hundred meters down the beach when I see someone heading my way. The bob and weave of a flashlight. Ness and I didn’t talk much over dinner. I was too stunned from the shelling, and he seemed content to leave me to my thoughts. But something changed between us, a sheathing of my sword and a lowering of his shield. An unspoken promise, perhaps, to not play roles this week. To just be.
It was a dangerous sensation. I was reminded over dinner that what I’ve mocked from afar, what I’ve learned to loathe, is only a caricature of Ness. The actual man is just that—a man. However flawed. And it’s hard not to feel something being alone with him. It has nothing to do with what he represents, only that we’re nearly the same age, apparently single, and spending hours alone together along this spectacular beach.
I watch the flashlight approach. All around me are shells scattered in the sand; they flash wet and shine in the beam of my flashlight. I would rather they be pared down to one. A sensible number. The absence of choice. Take these thousand lies and give me one thing that’s real. Something I can cling to, believe in, and trust.
Ness is coming down the walkway for me. He has sought me out while I have gone looking for answers of my own. And I’m in a weakened state, thinking of Michael, of all the opportunities missed, of the sad existence of that lighthouse to the south, spinning its warning, unable to break from its foundations and join the little lights out at sea. Stuck. Dire.
If Ness comes to me and stands too close, I might throw my arms around him. I might cling to him and sob, like a near-drowned sailor who has found a rock. Not because I want him, but because I feel horribly alone here, with the sea crashing at my back, my mind swimming with wine and with recollections, my heart pounding and empty, my emotions strung out like a piano wire.
If he leans into me, I may not resist. I hate myself for this. I loathe myself in that moment, and I know I’ll hate myself even more tomorrow, but I feel in that split second the need to be needed, and I see myself down where the sand is packed and cool, an arm beneath my neck, lips pressed against mine, the lingering scent of coconut and sunscreen and the Merlot we had with dinner, and the mad, selfish, insane desire to be kissed by someone, even him, and told that everything will be all right—
“Ms. Walsh?”
The beam lances me in the face. I recoil and throw my arm up to defend myself.
“Sorry, ma’am.” And the light drops to my feet. “Saw the alarm go off. Thought we were being raided again.”
I catch the glint of a gun before it’s holstered. I see the uniform, the bright buckle, the shield on the chest. It’s the young guard from the second gate. He must work the late shift.
“You should be careful out here,” he tells me. “We get people coming in by boat now and then to take shells. Infrared cameras usually spot them, but all the same it’s not safe to be out here alone.”
I hadn’t thought of this. I’m walking around in the middle of a jewelry store, my flashlight not a beacon of warning but an invitation. “Sorry,” I say.
“I can join you if you like. You lookin’ for anything in particular?”
I don’t know if it’s because of my state or something in the way he says this, something in the way he takes another step toward me, closer than would be comfortable, but this offer sounds like a proposition. He’s either being helpful or coming on to me, and as it tends to work with men, I have no idea which.
“I’m fine,” I say. I no longer feel like shelling. I no longer feel like company. If this man were to touch me, I would scream. His gun makes me feel less safe, not more so. “I was just restless. I think I should go to bed. We’re getting an early start tomorrow.”
I glance up at the main house, where nothing moves.
“You sure?” the guard asks.
“Yeah,” I say. I take a step back toward the boardwalk that leads up to the guest house. “I appreciate it, though.”
“Because Mr. Wilde lets me shell here any time I want. I don’t mind joining you.”
“No, that’s all right. I appreciate it.”
I turn to go. A small beam of light follows me, and another one, larger, arcs across the sky. I am in a dangerous place. I am in a wild place. I wish I could say that reefs were all around me, but the threats I feel all lie within.
17
The following morning, I am awoken by a glowing horizon, by a blooming dawn. No alarm bleeping at six, no traffic noise, no blaring horns or car alarms, no urban cave with curtains closed tight, no headache or grogginess—just the trickling awareness that it is a new day, a slow slide to consciousness, rolling around in fine sheets while the sound of a crashing sea permeates the walls.
It isn’t even six yet, and I’m wide awake and rested. A breeze swirls down from upstairs, where I must’ve left a window open. In the small kitchen, there’s one of those capsule coffee makers. I choose a dark roast and find a mug in the third cabinet I try. Peeking inside the fridge, I find basic staples: milk, eggs, butter, sliced deli meat, cheese. None of it is opened. I’m dying to meet Ness’s housekeeper. Things are seemingly done by magic around here.
While the coffee is brewing, I decide to take a quick shower. The walls of the shower stall are made of transparent bricks the colors of sea glass. I watch the sunrise through them as I soap up and rinse off. It occurs to me that someone on the boardwalk could see my silhouette inside the shower, which makes me feel suddenly exposed. I decide not to care.
I chalk the lack of concern up to my general good mood. And I chalk up the good mood to the great day of shelling the day before. It’s human, I think, to be buoyed by a sudden increase in resources. This is how I try to be clinical about my rising spirits, rather than trust or embrace them. It helps me forget the moment of abject weakness the night before and what might’ve happened if Ness had been the one to find me on the beach.
I towel off and put on a clean bathing suit, a sundress over top. The coffee waits beneath the brewer. I take a sip and find it passable for instant brew. The worrier in me is troubled by how absolutely perfect the first half hour of my day has gone. I expect trouble ahead to balance it all out.