For now, for this moment, he was alone as Crusoe. But not lonely.
Impossible to be lonely here, he realized, surrounded by all this power and energy. He’d remember this, he promised himself, remember this feeling the next time he tried to make excuses, the next time he tried to justify just closing himself in.
He loved the beach, and this stretch remained a sentimental favorite. He loved the feel of it before a storm—winter, summer, spring, it didn’t matter. And the life of it during the season when people dived into the waves or stretched out on towels, or settled onto beach chairs under umbrellas. The way it looked at sunrise, or felt in the soft kiss of summer twilight.
Why had he robbed himself of this for so long? He couldn’t blame circumstances, couldn’t blame Lindsay. He could, and should, have come—for his grandmother, for himself. But he’d chosen what had seemed the easier way than explaining why his wife hadn’t come, making excuses for her, for himself. Or arguing with Lindsay when she’d pushed for Cape Cod or Martha’s Vineyard—or an extended vacation on the Côte d’Azur.
But the easier way hadn’t made it easier, and he’d lost something important to him.
If he didn’t take it back now, he’d have no one to blame but himself. So he walked, all the way to the pier, and remembered the girl he’d had a serious, sizzling summer flirtation with just before he’d started college. Fishing with his father—something neither of them had even a remote skill for. And further back to childhood and digging in the sand at low tide for pirate treasure with fleeting summer friends.
Esmeralda’s Dowry, he thought. The old and still vital legend of the treasure stolen by pirates in a fierce battle at sea, then lost again when the pirate ship, the infamous Calypso, wrecked on the rocks of Whiskey Beach, all but at the feet of Bluff House.
He’d heard every variation of that legend over the years, and as a child had hunted with his friends. They’d be the ones to dig up the treasure, become modern-day pirates with its pieces of eight and jewels and silver.
And like everyone else, they’d found nothing but clams, sand crabs and shells. But they’d enjoyed the adventures during those long-ago, sun-washed summers.
Whiskey Beach had been good to him, good for him. Standing here with those wicked combers spewing their foam and spray, he believed it would be good for him again.
He’d walked farther than he’d intended, and stayed longer, but now as he started back he thought of the whiskey by the fire as a pleasure, a kind of reward rather than an escape or an excuse for a brood.
He should probably make something to eat as he hadn’t given a thought to lunch. He hadn’t, he realized, eaten anything since breakfast. Which meant he’d reneged on another promise to himself to regain the weight he’d lost, to start working on a healthier lifestyle.
So he’d make a decent meal for dinner, and get started on that healthier lifestyle. There had to be something he could put together. The neighbor had stocked the kitchen, so . . .
As he thought of her, he glanced up and saw Laughing Gull nestled with its neighbors beyond the dunes. The bold summer-sky blue of its clapboard stood out among the pastels and creamy whites. He remembered it as a soft gray at one time. But the quirky shape of the place with its single peaked roof gable, its wide roof deck and the glass hump of a solarium made it unmistakable.
He saw lights twinkling behind that glass to stave off the gloom.
He’d go up and pay her now, he decided, with cash. Then he could stop thinking about it. He’d walk home from there, renewing his memory of the other houses, who lived there—or who had.
Part of his brain calculated that now he’d have something cheerful—and true—to report home. Went for a walk on the beach (describe), stopped by to see Abra Walsh on the way home. Blah, blah, new paint on Laughing Gull looks good.
See, not isolating myself, concerned family. Getting out, making contacts. Situation normal.
Amused at himself, he composed the e-mail as he climbed. He turned down a smooth cobble path between a short yard laid out with shrubs and statuary—a fanciful mermaid curled on her tail, a frog strumming a banjo, and a little stone bench on legs of winged fairies. He was so struck by the new—to him—landscaping