Beach Plum Island (27 page)

She was the one who had inspired Ava to pursue her career as an artist rather than just dabble outside of her teaching hours. Once an artist’s model, Olivia had left art school to marry a Spanish painter who “drank and fucked around like Hemingway,” she’d told Ava, “but never had the guts to shoot himself.” She had three children with him, all grown and out of the house. She had left Spain, and the husband, when he took on a younger woman as a model and installed her in his studio nights as well as days.

Now Olivia did that rarest of things: managed to support herself as an artist. She had begun her career as an oil painter while she was an impoverished single mother, doing meticulously detailed miniature landscapes requiring only postcard-sized bits of canvas because that was all she could afford.

The miniatures were a hit with tourists. Olivia still did them to keep her income stream steady, but she’d graduated to larger paintings. Now her work was shown in dozens of New England galleries.

The tennis courts were empty. Olivia won the first set because of her aggressive net work and initial bursts of speed. Half an hour into the match, Ava had to wrap a bandanna around her forehead to keep her eyes free of the perspiration raining down her forehead.

Happily, playing tennis forced Ava’s mind to be still. Dad had taught her to keep her eye on the ball by trying to read the letters on it. Soon there was nothing but the ball and her own breathing, her staccato pulse, because she knew if she lost her concentration, Olivia would come in for a kill, slamming an overhead.

Once she focused, Ava was able to take the next two sets by consistently lobbing over Olivia’s head when her friend rushed the net and by aiming her returns at Olivia’s weaker backhand. Afterward, they picked up bagels and coffee in Newburyport and drove back to the island.

Ava wasn’t ready to face the mess at home. She drove instead to the lighthouse at the northern tip of the island. They parked and took the sandy path by the playground to the beach. Fishing boats and pleasure craft traveled through this channel from upriver, from the marinas in Newburyport and from as far away as Lowell, into the open sea.

On the opposite side of the river, they could see the crowded campground at Salisbury Beach. Cormorants ducked their gleaming black snake necks into the water or stood on buoys with wings outspread to dry. Ava spotted a lone seal drifting in the current.

Along the beach there were a few sunbathers and shell pickers, but hardly anyone swam here. The currents were too unpredictable. Every year, a few kayakers or fishermen were swept away by riptides or rogue waves and drowned.

They had left their sneakers in the car; Ava and Olivia ran gasping across the scorching soft yellow sand to the cooler plum-colored river’s edge. They followed the river toward the breakwater. It had been a brutal year for erosion. Two spring hurricanes had damaged several houses at this end of the island severely enough that the buildings capsized like badly stacked children’s blocks, toppling off their foundations and onto their sides. The police had cordoned off the area for weeks to keep looters and curious onlookers out of the abandoned properties. Now only rubble remained.

Residents of the island were searching for a sustainable solution to the erosion. Recent plans discussed at town hall meetings had included beach mining—scooping up sand at low tide and dumping it near the high-tide mark to rebuild the dunes—or using a system that relied on planting rows of thin cedar shims that might mimic the native beach vegetation by collecting and stabilizing windblown sand. Ava and Olivia talked about these ideas as they walked, dismissing both as improbable solutions. There would always be another, more powerful storm, they agreed.

“Seems crazy that anybody would build a house this close to the water after that last hurricane,” Ava said.

“I know. I feel lucky to be on the basin side of the island,” Olivia said. “And you’re lucky your cottage is so high up on the beach and protected by dunes.”

“Maybe it’ll just wash away with me in it when I’m an old woman,” Ava suggested. “Sometimes during those bad storms that’s what I imagine, me in that ancient cottage, bobbing on the waves like it’s a little gray boat.”

“Worse ways to go, I suppose.”

Ava followed her up the rocks to the flat part of the breakers, thinking about Beach Plum Island as a barrier island. The original settlers along this part of the Massachusetts North Shore had counted on the island to protect them from storms.

Now, four hundred years later, it seemed that Beach Plum Island was doomed to wash away. Oddly, this made Ava feel more connected to this small bit of land than ever. “I’ve never felt more like I belong on this island than right now,” she told Olivia, wincing as they climbed the breakwater and the sharp edges of the rocks bit into her bare feet. “I’m old and eroded. Beaten up. All of my edges are changing shape.”

She’d meant to joke, but Olivia knew her better than that. “What are you complaining about?” Olivia said. “You’re hardly old and you’re in great shape. You’ve got work you love, two sons who adore you, and an ex-husband who’s less of a prick than most. Count yourself lucky.”

“I do, mostly. But lately my life feels out of control,” Ava said. “Everything is changing so fast, it’s like I’m losing the ability to protect everybody I love from seismic shifts in our lives.”

They settled with their bagels and coffees on a flat, sun-warmed rock midway down the breakwater. “What changes?” Olivia asked. “You mean the boys getting older and leaving home?”

“Partly. Evan and Sam drive me crazy, but I hate the idea of them leaving.”

“They’ll be back,” Olivia said. “With laundry and empty bellies and cars that need fixing, I might add. Then you’ll resent them for intruding on your new freedom.”

“Maybe. But I still feel dismal about it all. It seems like the end of an era. The end of me feeling useful.”

“And really, really tired,” Olivia reminded her. “Don’t forget that.”

Ava laughed. “How could I? I hardly have the energy to match my own shoes in the morning.”

She chewed her bagel for a minute, thinking about Simon and the conversation with Mark. Even with Olivia, she didn’t dare talk about Simon. She couldn’t risk Elaine finding out. Or Gigi.

“Mark called me this morning,” she said. “He’s going to move in with Sasha. Which, knowing him, means they’re probably already engaged.”

“Well, he lasted on his own longer than most men,” Olivia said. “And he’s always been a good father, unlike some I won’t name.
Enrique.
” She jabbed her finger in the general direction of Spain across the Atlantic.

“I know. Mark is a genuinely nice guy, right? Maybe that’s why the news hit me hard.” Ava shook her head. “So weird. I’ve never had regrets about the divorce, so why do I mind this change so much?”

“Because it’s a permanent separation,” Olivia said. “You and Mark stayed so close after the divorce, it’s like you were still married, just living in separate houses. I always admired that about you, but I did wonder how you kept yourself emotionally separate when your lives were so entangled.”

“I don’t know,” Ava said. “It was such a relief when we started living apart that I wonder if I ever really loved Mark at all. Maybe Elaine was right, and I only married him to escape my parents.”

“Well, so what? At least you were happy for a while. And now you’re mourning him being with another woman. That must tell you something about your feelings for him.”

“I know. It’s just that, with everything that’s happened since Dad died, I haven’t quite trusted my emotions. They’re all over the map. Like, I’ve been realizing how alone Elaine must have felt when I married Mark. And now, by hanging out with Gigi and looking for Peter, I don’t know. It feels like I’m abandoning Elaine all over again.”

“What makes you think she feels abandoned?”

“Elaine’s on this self-destructive path lately, drinking and hooking up with guys. Her behavior reminds me of Mom’s, with her bouts of drinking and depression.”

“That’s out of your control. Elaine’s a big girl. How she behaves doesn’t mean you should stop seeing Gigi or give up on looking for your brother. Elaine is probably just scared about having someone else in her life to care for, since things didn’t go so well with your mom. But Elaine’s not you.”

“I’m scared, too,” Ava said.

“You’d be stupid not to be scared. But you’ve always been stronger than Elaine. I know you’ll be fine, no matter what.”

Ava crumpled up her napkin and stuffed it into the empty coffee cup, then lay back on the rock, shielding her face from the sun with one arm. “I’m tired of being strong,” she muttered. “All my life, I’ve been the good sister, the responsible one with a house and kids, the one who gives the holiday dinners and tells Elaine what to get the boys for their birthdays so they’ll think she’s cool. What the hell. I feel like I’m always tiptoeing around her delicate little feelings.”

“So stop.”

“I’m not sure I can,” Ava said glumly. “Even though I’m lying here and telling you how much I resent my sister, I’m also constantly worrying about her. I wish I knew how to feel close to her again, but all of my actions lately are pushing her away.”
Not to mention what Elaine would do if she found out about my feelings for Simon
,
Ava thought. “I feel guilty because if I’m going to really lay myself bare, I have to admit that Elaine was the one who stuck it out and took care of Mom while I ran off and did my own thing. She must resent me for that even though she hasn’t ever said so. Who was the irresponsible one then?”

“Jesus, you make the top of my head feel like it’s going to fly right off, going in circles like that,” Olivia said. “Cut it out! You and Elaine are both high-functioning, productive people. Neither of you has anything to feel guilty about.”

Ava sat up again and took a deep breath. She stared out across the river at the Salisbury Beach campground, where the puffy roofs of the oversized RVs gleamed like frozen marshmallows. A family with three small children was walking along the opposite shore with a black dog. A pair of mute swans floated in the reeds.

How fragile everything is,
she thought. One of those children could drown; the dog could get hit by a car; the dog could kill one of the swans; the camper vans could be upended by a hurricane. Meanwhile, Beach Plum Island was being washed away beneath them, one grain of sand at a time, even as they sat here, oblivious to the loss.

No matter how much sand people might want to dump along its shores to build back this island, there was no guarantee the sand would stay put. The shoreline would continue to be carved away; the endangered piping plovers nesting in the dunes really could disappear forever from the face of the planet. Her beloved cottage might wash out to sea with her in it. Her own children were in danger every day just by existing. You couldn’t completely protect anything or anyone, least of all yourself.

Yet she couldn’t help it. She had to try, even with Olivia, to keep some boundaries intact. She couldn’t tell anyone about Simon. She couldn’t
be
with Simon again.

“Lately I’ve been thinking I should stop looking for Peter, at least for a little while,” she said. “Until things are better between Elaine and me.”

“But I thought you
wanted
to find your brother.”

“My
dad
wanted me to find him,” Ava said. “I was mainly doing it for him.” She stood up suddenly, brushing off her shorts. “Sorry. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me. I should get back to the studio and focus on work. At least that’s something I can control.”

“Unless the kiln blows up.”

“Gee, thanks.”

They started picking their way down the rocks. When they reached the beach, though, Olivia wrapped one arm around Ava’s waist, forcing her to match her strides to Olivia’s own longer ones. “You can’t go back to work today,” Olivia said.

“Why not? I’ve got a million deadlines.”

“Yes, but you have something more important to do first. You need to go to Maine and look for that birth certificate.”

Ava shook her head. “Not until I talk with Elaine about it.”

“This isn’t about Elaine! You’re the one your dad asked to do this, and you won’t be happy until you do it. This is a crazy time in your life, I know, but you can’t let fear hold you back. You have to keep moving forward.” Olivia gave Ava’s waist a squeeze, made her stop walking. “Turn around,” she commanded.

Ava did, laughing a little at the intense expression on Olivia’s face. “Okay. Now what?”

“What do you see?”

“The beach. Rocks. A few boats. Some shells.”

“And?” Olivia pointed down at the sand.

“Our footprints. I never realized how much your feet turn in and mine turn out. I walk like a duck,” Ava added.

“You do, but it doesn’t matter,” Olivia said. “Because in a little while, guess what? The tide will come in and there won’t be any more footprints. It’s like our lives, right? Whatever we do before this moment in time, we can’t do over. We have no choice in life but to keep moving ahead.”

“Moving ahead to
what
?” Ava said.

“To a future where you have answered important questions about your life so that you can feel less guilty,” Olivia suggested. “Those answers about your parents and your brother will help define who you are as a woman apart from being a sister, a mother, and a daughter. And don’t Evan and Sam deserve to have a mother who works as hard to make herself happy as she does for everyone else? You don’t want them feeling as guilty as you do when
they’re
adults.”

Ava sighed and leaned her head on Olivia’s bony shoulder. “You’re a good friend,” she said.

“I’m only telling you what you already know,” Olivia answered, and kissed the top of her head.

•   •   •

Somehow, they had pulled it off: they’d created an ad campaign for a dying South Carolina university that made it sound like the best possible place to earn your degree and get job skills at the same time. The copy made the university sound friendly but worldly, using the requisite points about personal attention, a relevant curriculum, and a global perspective without actually invoking those cobwebbed catchphrases. The university’s admissions people were over the moon about it, Tony had said when he called from their campus earlier today.