It was August. Soon the cold would be in the late night air and then begin inching its way hourly into the day. Eddie would leave in a week and she would settle back into herself, go into the hibernation that happened to all the island people after the tourist season. It was a gradual seclusion, much like the way the sea edges back to itself at low tide.
Again it would be phone calls, crackling and tentative, Emily telling him island gossip and relaying seasonal scenery details: the snow on the beach, the first spring rustle of young sea oats, the joebells budding near the cottage.
“In Camelot,” Emily sang in a high, tinkling voice. “Do, do, do, do,” she hummed into the bisque, then wiped her hands, leaving a mark like angel wings on her dark shorts.
At the table, she imagined each person in the place set for them. Birdflower, his clean hair held back by a piece of leather, on her right. Eddie on her left in his jeans and black T-shirt. Lila near him, her fingers woven through his under the table. Emily's eyes clicked to the next spot. She had set one too many places and leaned over the table to sweep up the silverware. John Berry tipped her chin. “What about me?” he said and held his plate up for more.
The needle was hiccuping against the end groove. She removed the record, walked to the bathroom, and pulled off her shirt. Adjusting the nozzle, she tugged her shorts off. Tan lines made her body into a geometrical sculpture. Emily poured shampoo into her hand to suds her scalp. She put her face under and felt the bubbles run out of her hair like a long veil down her back.
There was a hand moving past the shower curtain through the falling water, resting on her hip, then sloping slowly up the curve of her breast. Emily leaned into the hand that went to her collarbone, her neck. The curtain split and Birdflower pulled her head out of the water. His lips tasted of warm sun and tobacco.
She rinsed carefully, sticking her rear into the stream, arching her back, moving so every part got water.
“Get us a drink,” Emily yelled. Water beat on the small of her back. She heard the clink of ice, the gulp-gulp of pouring gin, and a knife on the wood block slicing a lime. She turned off the water and pulled a towel into the steamy stall. He handed her a drink and sat on the toilet cover.
“Have you thought about it anymore?” Birdflower asked, mixing his drink with a finger.
Emily let the ice rest against her teeth and took a long drink. She set the glass on the soap dish and swung her hair down in front of her. “Not really,” she said, moving the towel over her hair.
“Goddamnit,” Birdflower said, standing up, filling the small space of the bathroom. “You go on and on never promising, never setting anything straight.”
Emily swung her hair back over her head and reached for her glass. From the kitchen the fish smell moved in and around the bathroom.
He paced in half steps in front of the sink.
“I don't owe you anything,” she said.
Birdflower rested his hand awkwardly on a wicker shelf which held powder and perfumes.
“Sit down.” With her fingers she worked the leather knot out of his hair.
He held his hands to her hips and pulled her closer, ran his tongue lightly in tiny circles around the fine hairs of her lower stomach. He kissed the curly hair between her legs, each time pulling her closer, moving his tongue back into the soft folds. Emily reached a hand out to steady herself. The room felt as if it were filling with water. She knew only the swirling steam and that one wet place. There was a sudden click in the kitchen as the timer rang out.
Emily sleepily opened her eyes. Birdflower stood. She saw a vine moving in his irises, circling to a wreath around his dark pupils, growing even as they stood, straight profiles in the medicine cabinet mirror, shoulder to shoulder, breath to breath, in the tiny bathroom.
“Should we say grace?” Emily asked.
“Sure,” Lila said. “I'll do it.” She paused, lowered her head, and quickly chanted, “Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub, yeaaaaah God!”
Birdflower laughed.
“What?” she said, lifting her hands. “I bet he has a great sense of humor.”
“He'd have to,” Birdflower said. “If he looks down on all this.” Emily poured wine from a tall thin bottle with nuns whispering on the label. “You guys get one glass, okay?” Emily looked over the fish and cold pasta salad with shrimp and black olives. “You think you might go to Tennessee this winter for a visit?” Emily said to Lila.
“I might,” Lila said.
“Your mother may come up to my little house in Michigan this winter for a couple months.”
“Nothing's been decided,” Emily said. The light in the room was fading. Shadows aged every object. She watched Eddie number the items above the white porcelain sink. He seemed to count the petals of the bluebells in a mason jar on the window ledge.
“So,” Emily said. “It's been quite a summer.”
Lila said, “They're not much different, one from another.”
“I don't know,” Eddie said. “To me each one seems to have a personality.”
Birdflower nodded. “I'll agree with that,” he said, reaching for more fish. “But I guess you'd know better than any of us, Lila.”
“Even heaven would get boring after so long,” Eddie said.
“This isn't heaven,” Lila said. “It's not even close.”
“A place is what you make of it,” Emily said. She got up, walked to the fridge, and got another bottle of wine.
“Yeah,” Eddie said. “Dad's wife has this corny plaque in the bathroom—'Bloom where you are planted.’’
Lila laughed, “That'd be great if we were sea oats.”
Emily uncorked the bottle and poured more wine for Birdflower and herself.
Birdflower and Lila rocked on the porch swing, angel food cake and peaches balanced in their laps. Emily stood above Eddie, who sat straight against the back of a wooden chair. “Your father will throw a fit,” Emily said, holding an ice cube to his ear.
“Good cake,” Eddie said, bringing a forkful up to his mouth.
Birdflower set his plate on the floor and grabbed the guitar leaning against the house. He put his ear close and tuned each string.
Eddie said, “Come on.” Emily looked at the top of his head and tried to tell herself this was no different from bandaging his cuts when he was a boy. Emily thought of her fingers slowly moving a straight pin forward. The drops of blood that would gather around the needle and the steadiness of her hand as she waited to see the silver tip from the back side rise out of her son's skin.
Lila said, “Get it over with fast — that's the best way.”
“Will you hold the flashlight,” Emily said to Lila.
“Maybe we should do this inside,” Eddie said, the breeze moving the long hair around his neck.
Lila picked up the flashlight and shined it on Eddie's ear.
Emily pressed hard on the ice, let it drop to the porch, and rocked the alcohol bottle back. She dabbed his ear and the point of the pin.
“Hurry,” Birdflower said. “Before the numbing wears off.”
Fireflies blinked in the front yard. Emily moved her hand closer; the flashlight made her look like a haunted torturess. She inserted the tip of the pin just as a truck's lights blinked over the porch.
“That's him,” Eddie said, jerking his head. Blood quickly gathered on Emily's thumb and forefinger.
“He's not stopping,” Lila said, watching the truck rock down the sand road.
Eddie said, “I can't feel anything. Is it done?”