There’s a cup of tea growing cold on the table between the two of them, and a puzzle. It’s 5:30 in the morning and the fog outside is growing, sinking, swelling. Inside, the walls of the cabin feel damp. The wood swells, walls creaking.
Anne pulls the blanket closer, finds another piece, places it. Sips her tea. She looks at Lynn through the corner of her eye. She doesn’t want to look directly at her, like a mirage she might flitter and dissipate away. Lynn’s been casting her eyes over the pieces, sometimes picking them up, sometimes not. Mostly, Lynn holds her cup of tea, letting the warmth seep into her. She’s disappointed when she realizes the tea’s gone cold and she hasn’t drank enough to refill it from the kettle. Anne is careful to note the dark circles under Lynn’s eyes.
Jacob’s still sleeping, a couple rooms over in the big room with the big window but no blinds because it’s curtained with the branches of the big firs outside. And besides, there’s no one for miles to peek in anyhow. Lynn feels a little thrill go electric through her as she pictures Jacob sleeping, and there’s a sick little moment when she almost gets up to go to him.
She drinks the cold tea. Picks up a piece, puts it back down. Big, long exhale through the nose.
They sit like this for a while, until the fog starts to lift, just a hair. Anne brings toast to nibble on and finishes the rose motif in the upper right corner. She glances at the clock and nearly an hour has gone by.
“Alex will be getting up soon,” she says. It’s hard to tell if the little smile that tugs up the corner of her mouth is real or maybe a grimace. Lynn has a hard time telling. You can never tell with Anne.
Anne scoops the leftover pieces into the box lid and gets up to make his breakfast. Any moment now, he’ll come out of his room wearing just his undies, hug his mom around the knees, and start rooting around the pantry.
“He’s a cute kid,” says Lynn. “Can’t believe he’s five already.”
“He’s a real good kid, my whole heart. He’ll be precocious though.” This time, Anne’s smile is real.
“Is that such a bad thing?”
Anne shrugs while she sweeps crumbs into her hand. “I guess not. I just worry about September when he goes to kindergarten. I wonder if he’s going to mesh okay with the other kids.”
“I think you worry too much.”
“You’ll understand one day.” The words leave Anne’s mouth before she’s realized what she’s said, before she has a chance to bite them back.
“Really, Anne?”
“Sorry, fuck. That’s –”
“No apology fucks without me.” Jacob kisses Anne on the cheek and cups her ass, thinking that Lynn doesn’t notice. She does.
“I need to go into town today,” he says, talking without pause. “I need more sandpaper, wood putty. I could get some more boards or wait. I don’t know. Breakfast?”
He smiles hopefully at the two women. He’s wolfish and rakish in the bright morning light, a vision made more so by the scruff of beard around his face, by the way his hair is still mussed from his pillow.
“That’s a great idea. We’ll grab brunch while you’re at the hardware.” Anne smiles back, rinses her teacup in the sink.
“That’s not what I meant, but whatever.”
Upstairs, while getting dressed, Lynn avoids looking at herself in the full length mirror. Any mirror really has become a problem. She’s skinny where she should be full. All her clothes fit exactly as they should and she hates them for it. She’s fit and taut and fine. Fuck.
By now she ought to be using a rubber band to keep her pants together. She ought to be wearing those shapeless shirts she used to wear to bed. She should be wearing shirts that run tight across the great ball of her womb.
Lynn sits on the bed and tries to breathe through it. These days, just breathing is hard enough but it’s made harder by the damp forest air. It makes her miss the stark dry side of the state.
But it’s better here, or that’s what she tells them. After the last miscarriage, Anne had told her to come stay with them for the summer. An opportunity to give herself a chance to recuperate. To claw herself back. To mourn and rest and grieve. They offered Lynn free everything if she’d only watch Alex for the summer while Jacob renovated the cabin and Anne worked on her art in quiet.
Lynn thought that was a stupid luxury. Time away from your own kid. But she accepted the offer because the alternative was to go back to normal life, to walk around pretending like it didn’t hurt.
Anne was from the dry side of the state too, but she was reinventing herself as a coast girl. She started wearing sun hats instead of ball caps. Long skirts instead of jeans. It surprised Lynn to see the change in her, but it had been ten years since college, so instead of a hoody for their outing, she puts on leggings, tunic, scarf. She tried to echo the easiness that came to Anne and knew that she fell plenty short.
“It will be chilly until afternoon,” Anne tells Alex, coaxing him into a sweatshirt. “You can take it off when it gets warm.” She combs his hair then pulls a hat over it. A bang hangs out, side-swept.
She packs snacks for Alex because he’s finicky, and because she wants an adult brunch. Because it will be a nice treat, she tells Lynn.
“There’s this bagel place on the bay front, best ever.”
“We can make bagels here. In the toaster, you know.”
“Not like these,” says Anne. “They bake them in-house. Something about the sea air and all that, or so they say, but they top them with things like avocado and local cranberries. Fresh juice, locally roasted coffee. It’s a hispter joint,” she says with a wink.
Anne digs through a box in the closet looking for things to bring to keep Alex entertained. She settles on a box of cards, a little metal can filled with little toys.
“Sounds expensive.”
Anne gives Lynn that look. The one that says she is disappointed, dismayed, but also that she’s not going to say anything.
Lynn sits in the back seat, playing a game with Alex. Anne is scribbling a list in the passenger seat and Jacob screws with the radio, but the trees are thick through here and he can’t pick up the signal.
Finally, the trees stop all at once, and a wave of coastal air washes over the car. But the waves themselves can’t be seen. The sky and ocean meet in one neat gray gradient.
“Momma, I want to make a sand castle,” Alex pipes, stopping his game with Lynn.
“No time for that today, love. But we can go see the sea lions.”
Alex’s lips pucker, and he glances at Lynn sideways.
“The sea lions smell,” he whispers.
He’s not wrong. Even inside, the sharp smell of fish permeates everything. They sit at the window, watching the ships in the harbor rock. Lynn eats a regular bagel, cream cheese smeared across the top and it might have well been anything fish.
“This is why there are only chowder places on the boardwalk,” Lynn says.
Anne cuts Alex’s bagel, but he’s not paying attention. He’s coloring the cartoon shark on his menu, scribbling through the words.
“Jacob thinks he’ll be done with the major renovations by September.”
“Are you going to sell the house in the city?” Lynn picks up her coffee, pushes the bagel aside, covers it with a paper napkin stamped with starfish.
“Well, yeah. It’s better here, you know?” Anne’s picking apart her own bagel. Little bites. “Quieter, slower. The commute isn’t so bad for Jacob. I can work anywhere, so yeah. I think it’s better here.”
“Huh. I though the plan was to have both.”
“It was, but things change. It’s a little more expensive here, because of the location and all.”
They fall silent because there’s nothing Lynn can say to that. Anne’s life is light years away from Lynn’s — a home and family and all the trimmings. Anne knows it too, knows that she’s said something untenable something that would have been better left unsaid.
They finish and move out to the boardwalk. Alex scrunches his nose but humors his mother. He watches her with his big brown eyes, sees the effort that she’s forcing, takes a moment to unscrunch his nose and lace his fingers through hers.
The sea lions are making a racket. Barking on the floating docks, slipping up and out of the water heavily. Slipping into the seawater.
“So, what’s your plan?” Anne picks back up, and Lynn knows she’s been holstering this question all along. “You can stay, long as you want.”
Alex is leaning against the railing, pressing the whole of his little body against it and making faces at the sea lions. For a moment, Lynn sees his little body press too far, pushes head over heel over the railing, tumbling wholly in the water. A splash into the gray water and the sea lions scattering. The bay water returning to relative calm.
But it’s only a trick of Lynn’s imagination – one of those morbid little moments that catch her off guard.
Besides, Anne’s fingers are only a hair away, they’re playing with the fuzz on his head, and Lynn realizes that Anne’s acutely aware of it all. She seems like she’s not, like she’s idly chatting, but she knows, she watches Alex like a hawk.
“It’s a pretty cush gig,” Lynn grins. “Eat your food, crash on your couch, watch the kiddo while you two do whatever it is that you do.”
Anne raises her eyebrows at the edge in Lynn’s voice. She picks off paint from the railing, flicks it into the water below.
“I’ll stay through summer,” Lynn shrugs. “At some point though, I have to face the music.” She winces at the cliche but leaves it.
“Momma says you gotta take a step back. You don’t know and this is a sign.” Alex pauses, his face serious as he looks for the words. “A sign from outer space.”
Anne’s face creases and she picks another long sliver of paint from the railing, but she doesn’t say anything. Alex’s words just hang there.
It’s a moment before Lynn says anything. “She says that? One of her signs from the universe?” The edge in Lynn’s voice is razor thin.
Alex clams up and sits down to watch the boats go by.
“I just mean that maybe you don’t need to be rushing into anything. It’s happened, what, three times now? That’s a lot for you to handle. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to settle down, take your time. Maybe consider the traditional route.”
“Traditional? That’s rich coming from little miss hippy dippy artist.”
The gulls are squawking. Waves crashing. The sea lions and dock workers. It’s a racket.
Just like that the words are done and said and the edge of Lynn’s voice melts, quick and easy as laced frost. Anne’s eyebrows have lifted, reaching for the blonde flood of her hairline. She rubs together the two thin lines of her lips.
“Offer stands.”
Jacob picks them up an hour later. Distracted by something on his cell phone, he doesn’t notice the silence that has grown. He seldom notices much these days.
For instance, he didn’t notice the swell of his wife’s breasts or the smile that played at the corner of her lips. He didn’t notice later, when the swell receded and the smile died.
He barely gave it a moment’s thought before he agreed to Lynn’s extended visit. Before he muffled a sorry about the baby and took her bags inside. Didn’t notice the catch in Anne’s breath too as he said it.
So he doesn’t notice when even Alex is quiet during the drive. He keeps his eyes between the road and the phone, head straight, using one thumb to type. He doesn’t notice that Anne is too distracted to chastise him.
It’s turning into a nice day. Alex peels off his layers and goes shirtless even though there is still a little chill left. Anne retreats to the kitchen, starts prepping things for dinner. Chopping. Jacob in the shop, taking his new supplies and sawing them down. Measuring, cutting. Lynn in her room, face down on the mattress.
But Alex notices. He sees the silence that grew, chews his lips while he considers it. He decides against his usual chatter, decides to let the grown-ups stew.
He’s not allowed in the shop and is seldom allowed in the kitchen when his mom is busy chopping.
He leans against the door to Lynn’s room. There’s a draft under the door; it crawls against his toes. There’s no sound from inside.
He knocks, once. Twice. Listens.
After a moment, he pushes the door open anyway. He knows he’s not supposed to — his mom says it’s rude and his dad gets mad. Sometimes, their door is locked when he tries to open it. Those times he sits outside it, listening to the small noises from the other side until he hears footsteps and scrambles away.
But Lynn doesn’t look like she minds. She rolls onto her back, scoots back until her back hits the headboard.
“What’s up, kiddo?” She pats the bed, universal for come on up. “What’s up, moose nacho?”
Alex knows she’s making fun of him. She knows he says muchacho but it gets all tangled up on his tongue and Lynn’s just teasing him. But he lets it go, decides not to push his luck with her. You never knew what kind of Auntie Lynn you were going to get.
“I’m sorry I made you mad at the ocean,” he says. Alex doesn’t look at her, but he runs one finger across the back of her hand. Connect the dots with freckles. “Mom says I talk too much. I need to learn when to keep my mouth shut.”
“That doesn’t sound like something your mom would say.”
“Dad says that. He calls me motor mouth ‘cause I never quit talking.”
Lynn’s quiet for a moment and her forehead creases. “You’re not. And you didn’t make me mad.”
“You looked mad.”
Lynn considers, shrugs. “I always look mad, don’t I?”
Alex thinks, and then a smile blooms across his face. He nods. “But you’re not, are you?” he asks. “My parents are always mad. Mom hums. That’s how I know. And Dad spends all his time in his shop.”
Lynn wants to tell Alex not to worry about it, that he’ll understand when he’s older. But she doesn’t because she knows it’s a lie. For a moment though, Alex seems a whole lot older than he is. His eyes are serious, the lines of his lips drawn long and she can see who he’ll grow up to be. She tussles his hair, shakes up the dust-colored curls haloing around his ears.
“You’re too serious, mister.”
That night, the house is quiet as Lynn packs her things. Gathers her clothes and books. She makes the bed and lays on top of the covers.
She pauses frequently to listen because the old house creaks and she’s paranoid and thinks it’s Anne instead of just the settling of the house’s old bones.
There’s moonlight coming into the window, playing in the fir branches and throwing patterns across the floor. Lynn thinks she can feel the breeze.
There wasn’t much to pack, but she’s exhausted by the enormity of it all. She would have been happy to stay here forever, in a forest by the sea, and watch Alex grow up. Watch Jacob and Anne dance around each other.
When she can’t wait any longer, she gets up and walks through the house. Pauses by Alex’s door, the light of his nightlight faint through the crack in the door. She’ll miss the kid, though she knows she’ll see him again, probably sooner than she wants to.
In the kitchen she thinks of leaving a note, something witty and obscure. A quote maybe, but she’s not feeling clever and eats hard bread from the counter instead, drinks milk from the carton. Leaves it on the counter. She knows Jacob will be blamed for it.
Out the window, Lynn sees the fog, close to the trees, wreathing them. She feels a line of it, a cold long finger down the vertebrae in her neck. Tracing it down. She shivers. Feels the lick of it along her hairline before she realizes that there’s still a pane of glass between her and the fog. She shivers again and realizes that, yes, she did feel something. The slipping of skin against hers.
Lynn turns and sees Jacob in the half light, half dressed.
Right then, she’s not thinking about Anne upstairs, asleep, unaware of the two of them in the space below.
She’s not thinking of all the dead babies between the three of them, their nameless faceless selves. She’s not thinking of Alex and what his sensitive soul will have to learn to navigate.
And right then she doesn’t mind. She likes the crush of it, of Jacob and his hips and the counter and all her anger.
His breath is hot and sour, and Lynn turns her face away, which only makes him reach closer. Outside, the light grows.
Lynn’s mind wanders even as her fingers urge Jacob on. She’s running a list of all the things she’ll have to do after this.
Outside, after they’re done, she can still smell his breath along the skin of her neck. She rubs it away with her sleeve. She starts with a step, then another, and another, until it’s just her and the crunch of gravel, the early morning birds and the breeze.
