and have drops of seawater among the light brown hairs.
She twists her hair and smiles at me. Her face is guileless when she smiles. I am trying to reconcile the image of her smile with the frantic, guttural sounds that emanate in the morning from the forward cabin.
I remember these moments not solely for themselves, but for the knowledge that beyond these memories lies an instant in time that cannot be erased. Each image a stepping stone taken in innocence or, if not in innocence, then in a kind of thoughtless oblivion.
Rich goes immediately to Adaline and puts a proprietary hand on the flat of her belly. He kisses her on the cheek. Billie, too, takes a step forward, drawn to beauty as any of us are. I see that Billie will find a reason to drape herself across those long legs. With effort, Thomas keeps his eyes on me and asks about our small trip. I am embarrassed for Thomas, for the extraordinary whiteness of his skin, for his chest, which seems soft. I want to cover him with his blue shirt, which is lying in a puddle.
On March 5, 1873, approximately sixty people lived on all the islands composing the Shoals: the lighthouse keeper’s family on White; workmen building a hotel on Star; two families — the Laightons and the Ingerbretsons — on Appledore (formerly known as Hog); and one family, the Hontvedts, on Smuttynose.
We run the Zodiac into Portsmouth. We are hungry and want lunch, and we don’t have much in the way of provisions. We sit in a restaurant that has a porch and an awning. It seems as close to the water as one can get in Portsmouth, though I think there is not much to look at beyond the tugs and the fishing boats. A sharp gust of wind catches the awning and lifts it for a second so that the poles that anchor it come off the ground as well. The awning tears loose at one corner and spills its wind. The canvas flaps in the breeze.
“The heavens rent themselves,” Thomas says.
Adaline looks up at him and smiles. “Uncovered orbs and souls.”
Thomas seems surprised. “Mullioned waters,” he says.
“Beveled whispers.”
“Shuttered grace.”
“Shackled sunlight.”
I think of Ping-Pong balls hit hard across a table.
Adaline pauses. “Up-rushed sea,” she says.
“Yes,” Thomas answers quietly.
At the restaurant, Billie eats a grilled cheese sandwich, as she almost always does. She is hard to contain in a restaurant, an effervescence that wants to bubble up and pop out of the top of the bottle. I drink a beer called Smuttynose, which seems to be a brand that capitalizes upon the murders. After all, why not name a beer Appledore or Londoner’s? The drink is oak colored and heavier than I am used to, and I think I become slightly drunk. I am not sure about this. The boat itself produces a kind of inebriation that stays with you for hours. Even when you step foot on land, you are still swaying, still feeling the thump of water against the hull.
I read in the guidebooks that America was discovered at the Isles of Shoals, on Smuttynose, by vikings.
On Star Island, there is a cemetery known as Beebe. In it are buried the three small daughters of George Beebe who died separately and within a few days of each other in 1863 of diphtheria.
At the restaurant I have a lobster roll. Thomas has fried clams. There is a lull in the conversation, as though the strain of the trip into the harbor in the Zodiac has drained everyone of words. Adaline eats a salad and drinks a glass of water. I notice that her back is straight while she eats. Rich, by contrast, is easily slouched, his legs stretched in front of him. He pushes his chair slightly closer to Adaline’s and begins idly to stroke her arm.
Captain Samuel Haley settled on Smuttynose several years before the American Revolution. While he was building a seawall to connect Malaga and Smuttynose, he turned over a rock and discovered four bars of silver. With this money, he completed the breakwater and built the pier. The breakwater was destroyed in February 1978.
Edward Teach, also known as the pirate Blackbeard, spent his honeymoon with his fifteenth and last wife on the Isles of Shoals in 1720. He is said to have buried his treasure on Smuttynose.
“Don’t tear your napkin.”
Thomas’s voice is ragged, like the bits of paper on the table.
Adaline gently removes the wad from Billie’s fist and