Kathleen nodded and linked her arm through Joyce’s. “Hang on. Nina still has a lot of growing up to do, and you are not doomed to repeat your mother’s mistakes.”
“The universal fear of women everywhere,” Joyce said. “I suppose Nina has already joined that club.”
Kathleen squeezed Joyce’s arm closer. As they approached Salt Island, Kathleen asked, “When do you want to go on our little adventure?”
“Whenever you say, fearless leader.”
“I’ll check the tide and let you know.”
KATHLEEN CALLED ON Sunday morning and asked if Joyce was ready to climb Salt Island. “I could pick you up at five, and we’ll get to see a sunset over the water.”
“Nice of you to arrange that,” Joyce said.
By the time they arrived at Good Harbor, a cool breeze was chasing the last of the stragglers off the beach, which meant that Joyce and Kathleen had the sandbar virtually to themselves. On sunny weekend afternoons, it could be as crowded as a city sidewalk. Everybody went for the walk, tourists and locals alike; most just strolled out and headed straight back; a few lingered to peer into the tide pools, but only a handful climbed up to the top.
The deserted sandbar was flat, hard-packed, and cool under their feet. “It’s like a magic highway,” Kathleen said. “It appears and disappears. Brigadoon.”
“Mont-Saint-Michel — minus the castle,” said Joyce. “And it’s pretty close to walking on water.”
“Or parting the seas.”
“With a hint of danger, don’t you think? The outside chance of getting stranded, like Robinson Crusoe.”
“Well, within sight of a snack bar,” Kathleen said, pointing at the weather-beaten shack onshore.
Their laughter carried over the water.
On the island, only three wiry boys were visible, hunting for wildlife in the tide pools, nets in hand. Their excited cries were insistent and shrill.
“Hey, Carter.”
“Hey, look!”
“Hey, over here.”
Joyce looked up. From the beach, the climb to the summit of Salt Island looked relatively easy, but here, at the bottom of the fifty-foot rise, the path seemed like nothing but a deep gap between two vertical boulders. A knotted yellow rope lay across one of them. Would she need to haul herself up, arm over arm? She imagined herself dangling from it, hollering for help. Joyce had done such a good job of avoiding heights, she had nearly forgotten how much she hated them.
“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” she said, hoping her hesitation wasn’t obvious.
“Don’t worry about me. Being out in the air like this gives me energy, and I usually sleep better afterwards. I’m hoping for a full eight hours tonight.”
“Okay.” Joyce pulled sneakers and a sweatshirt out of her backpack. “I’m game.”
She tried not to think about falling and kept her eyes on Kathleen’s feet ahead of her. In five breathless minutes, they’d reached the top.
Joyce shaded her eyes and moved slowly, like a searchlight, taking in the panorama of Good Harbor. The tidal river was gone, and the footbridge looked like a Japanese miniature. The salt marsh glittered bottle-green in the late light, while oblivious drivers sped through the deepening sky, heading home for supper.
She turned. The balconies of the red motel were deserted, but next door, a fortunate few sat, in proprietary silence, on the decks of houses perched above the private stretch of the beach. Joyce imagined their vista, focused on Thacher Island and its twin lighthouses.
She turned again to scan the broad arc of dark ocean, one hundred eighty degrees of sky-skimmed water, full and empty, blue on blue, cool and far. Joyce felt dizzy — a momentary, champagne kind of dizzy. She looked to landfall at the rocky stretch below Atlantic Avenue where the Bass Rocks wore their customary mantle of gulls and cormorants, prehistoric birds, drying their mangy-looking wings in the breeze.
Joyce strained to memorize the colors, the specific shape of rock, roof, breaker, and beak, bathed in this light.
She faced the mansion on the bluff, a boxy Yankee castle that inspired fantasies of wealth in everyone who walked Good Harbor. Funny how it was not so grand from here, swallowed by the tree-covered hills above and behind. Next time she would bring binoculars.
Kathleen, meanwhile, stood perfectly still, facing straight out to the sea. She soaked up the late sun’s warmth. She savored her own breath, in and out, slowing down, after the climb.
Joyce watched a solitary woman walking the beach, a long, beige caftan fluttering at her ankles. Joyce looked over at Kathleen, now facing up, studying the overhead sky.
“What color would you call that?” Kathleen asked. “Cerulean?”
“It’s nearly purple, isn’t it? So rich, you know? Almost” — Joyce searched for a word — “chocolate.”
Kathleen laughed. “Blue chocolate? That doesn’t sound very appetizing.”
“Oh, no? Blue is the color of heaven, where you have as much chocolate and sex as you want. In fact, I’ve never understood how anyone could have a favorite color other than blue.”
“Then I won’t tell you that mine is the color of the sand at Good Harbor.”
“I forgive you.”
“There is only one place I love as much as this,” Kathleen said. “Halibut Point.”
“Never been.”
“In all these years?” Kathleen reproached her. “You’ve got to go. It’s wonderful. Very different from this. All rocks and crags — no sand. Magnificent. I used to take my boys. One day every summer, just before dawn, no warning at all, I’d roust them out of bed. They’d fall asleep in the car, and I’d bribe them awake with cookies and a thermos of hot chocolate. We’d walk out to the biggest, farthest-out rock we could find, and the minute we saw the sun, we all cock-a-doodle-doo-ed like roosters.” Kathleen cupped her mouth and crowed.
The boys on the rocks below looked up.
Kathleen crowed again. Joyce waved at the boys.
“Did Buddy go with you?”
“No. He took the boys fishing without me, so Halibut Point was my little adventure with them. I told Buddy we were going out for a sunrise breakfast, which we did. We went to the diner in Lanesville. Hal always got buttermilk pancakes and Jack had French toast.
“You have to go for the sunrise sometime, Joyce. It’s just . . . well” — Kathleen reached out to the view and held it between her hands — “as good as this.”
“You talked me into it. But I don’t think I’ll be able to drag Nina along.”
“Hal stopped coming the year he turned fourteen. But Jack went until he graduated from high school. The last year we went, he drove, and when he got there, he opened the door for me.” Kathleen smiled at the memory. “Very gallant.”
A sleek powerboat skimmed across the horizon, bouncing lightly on the water. The engine’s sharp whine sounded a tinny note above the splash of the hull, cutting across the waves.
Joyce lay back on a flat rock, which held the warmth of the sun and the acrid smell of birds. “Should we be getting back?” she asked, her eyes closed.
“There’s no rush for the tide, if that’s what you mean.” Kathleen looked over her shoulder toward the center of the island. “There used to be a kind of pond in the rocks. It must still be there. The boys and I used to visit it.”
“Let’s go see.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’ll follow you anywhere,” said Joyce.
“You’re good for my ego.”
Joyce smiled. “About a year ago, I met an interesting woman at a PTO meeting. We really hit it off, chatting in the driveway afterwards. But when I asked her if she wanted to have coffee, she said no, she already had more friends than she had time for. Imagine that.”
“It’s been a long time since I made a new friend. But I think that’s mostly my own fault,” Kathleen said. “I’m so private. I don’t . . . what’s the word? . . . disclose. Especially if something’s wrong. It was drilled into me that y
ou don’t put your business out where anyone else can see. It makes for a lonely life. My grandmother used to say the Irish are a lonely people. She said it with a kind of pride.
“I sometimes think one of the reasons Pat was attracted to religious life was the closeness we saw among the Sisters who taught us. The Sisters of St. Joseph were such good women — none of that smacked-knuckles business — very kind to us and generous with one another.” Kathleen paused. “I haven’t thought of them in such a long time.”
Joyce watched the sunlight shift in Kathleen’s white hair, making her eyes seem much bluer. Suddenly they were brimming. “Kathleen?”
“I’m okay. I just miss her. My sister.”
“Of course. But you can talk to me, you know. About anything.”
“Yes.” Kathleen put her hand on Joyce’s shoulder for a moment. “I know that.” Waves splashed in the deep grotto beneath them and sent up the smell of cool brine. Kathleen got to her feet. “Are you ready to explore?”
“Lead on.”
They made their way across a fairly level plain of rock, clambering around granite boulders strewn by ancient ice. It didn’t take long for Kathleen to find the pond, which turned out to be a brackish puddle surrounded by scrubby weeds. Tiny wasps buzzed across its glazed surface.
“Sorry,” Kathleen said, wrinkling her nose. “I guess what I really remember is how much Hal and Jack loved finding it.”
Joyce crouched down. “I can see why. It’s crawling with life, heated by the sun and nourished by bird shit.”
Kathleen laughed.
“Boy, are you a cheap date. All it takes is a single four-letter word, and you’re on the floor.”
“You’re a bad influence. I’m swearing a blue streak these days. Well, for me it’s a blue streak. Buddy gets a kick out of it, actually.”
“Oh, great. So now I’m known in the Levine house as the woman who corrupted Kathleen.”
“Buddy calls you Dr. Joyce.”
“Ha.”
“Well, Doctor, I think we’d better be going.”
“Okay, but, Kathleen, I need to pee.”
“Well, go ahead.”
Joyce hesitated.
“I’ll join you.” In one fluid motion, Kathleen crouched and pulled her pants and underwear around her knees.
“Wow. For such a ladylike lady, you’re very good at that.”
“Thank you,” Kathleen said with mock dignity. Joyce laughed and managed a reasonably good imitation.
“Didn’t you have peeing contests as a kid?” Kathleen asked, watching as it ran down the rocks, drying without a trace. “Patty and I did it in the backyard, summers. My grandmother caught us once. Chased us around the house with a hairbrush, but we were too fast for her.”
“I don’t think I ever had a peeing contest in my whole life. This is like a milestone!”
“Mazel tov,” said Kathleen, starting to laugh. “Today you are a woman.”
That set Joyce off, and soon they were on their sides, gasping for breath, hiccuping laughter.
“Oh, oh, oh,” said Joyce, pulling her pants up. “It’s not even all that funny. Can you imagine what we look like?”
“I’m afraid so.” Kathleen wiped her eyes and stood. “I think we’ll go back around the other side. It might be a little faster.”
She headed down a cascade of rocks that seemed more and more menacing to Joyce as they descended. Kathleen pointed out good footholds and hummed under her breath; Joyce tried to manage her rising panic. I will not wimp out, she thought. Shit, I can’t wimp out. What would Kathleen do? Carry me?
They were on the sand within fifteen minutes and walked back to shore in water lapping at their ankles. Kathleen took Joyce’s hand and raised it like a prizefighter’s. “Now you can tell the world you conquered Salt Island.”
“Let’s have T-shirts made,” Joyce said.
“Okay,” said Kathleen. “But first, let’s go for a drink.”
BUDDY WAS WAITING at the door when Kathleen got home. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “Joyce and I had a margarita out on Rocky Neck after the beach.”
He followed her to the kitchen, where she began to describe the walk to Salt Island. “It was so beautiful, Bud. We found that little pond the boys used to love. I think Joyce was a little nervous climbing down, but I was calm as a clam. Pretty good for an old lady, huh?”
He stared at her for just a moment. “Good?” he said, straining to keep his voice level. “What if you fell? What if she fell? The lifeguards were gone. It’s been dark for over an hour. I almost called Jack at work. I was close to calling the cops. Didn’t you even think what I might be going through here?”
He was nearly shouting, and Kathleen went cold with shame. Buddy sat down heavily and put his head in his hands.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I should have left a note. I wasn’t thinking. It was just . . . I forgot myself.”
He didn’t move. The clock ticked above their heads.
Kathleen heated a can of soup and they ate without speaking. Soon after, she went to bed with a copy of Library Digest. Buddy stayed in the den, the TV on.
Sorry as she was for worrying Buddy, Kathleen tried not to feel too guilty about her day with Joyce. She was too tired to read and turned off the lights. Running her hands over the muscles in her thighs and calves, she thought about taking some aspirin; she’d probably be sore in the morning.
She woke up, hours before dawn, uneasy. In the bathroom mirror she pulled up her nightgown and stared at her breast. The skin was red and raw, the nipple was sore, and there was a dull ache inside her chest. Kathleen stared at her haggard, frightened face. What had she done?
Later that morning, Dr. Singh reassured her that the symptoms had nothing to do with exercise. “Please, Mrs. Levine,” he said gently. “Put that out of your mind. Skin problems are a normal side effect. This happens to many patients, and the symptoms resolve once the treatment is over.”
He looked at her breast from every angle and laid a finger gently against the scar. “I think it is not so bad that we can’t continue.”
Marcy clucked her tongue. “You’re not using any new lotions or soaps are you?” Kathleen glared. “Of course you’re not,” Marcy said quickly, handing her samples of two thick, unappealing creams.
The techs were sympathetic. “It’s pretty bad,” Terry agreed. For the first time, she looked at Kathleen’s breast as if it were entirely separate from her.
“Sometimes it comes on fast like this,” Rachel said. “But it can clear up fast, too. Try keeping a few damp washcloths in the refrigerator. That feels good.”
The clinic-wide chorus of reassurance didn’t help. Kathleen took it personally. These symptoms were just nasty reminders so she wouldn’t forget — not even for a few hours — that she had cancer. As if she could forget.
Lying on the treatment table, her arm above her head, her breast exposed, Kathleen chewed on it. Cancer, cancer, cancer, cancer. It never became a meaningless noise the way almost any other word did when you repeated it endlessly. There was something about the way the letters hung together that was oddly malignant.
There’s another terrible word, she thought, malignant. The machine moved into place and Terry’s voice sounded over the speaker. “You all set, Mrs. Levine?”
“Malignant,” she whispered.
“Are you okay?” Terry asked.
“Yes,” she said. No, she thought.
When Joyce called later that morning, Kathleen told her what had happened. “No fuckin’ fair,” Joyce said, and showed up two hours later with a carton of lemonade and a bag full of cotton sports bras with the tags still on.
“I can’t believe you went to this much trouble,” Kathleen said.
“Hey, this is exactly the least I can do.”
It was the first time Joyce had been to Kathleen’s house. She admired the built-in bookcases in the living room and stopped to study the chronology of family pictures: from Hal and Jack as smiling infants
to Hal and Jack as smiling adults.
When they reached the deck, Joyce marveled at the garden, where Kathleen’s daylilies were in full bloom. “What’s that one called?” Joyce pointed to a lush stand of deep red flowers.
“I think that one’s College Try.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I could go look it up.”
“Don’t bother. You go sit under the awning, and I’ll bring you a drink.”
They sipped their lemonade, not saying much. Joyce thought Kathleen looked worn-out. Had her arms been this skinny yesterday?
“Buddy was upset with me,” Kathleen said after a long pause.
“Because you were late?”
“Yes. And I know it’s stupid, but I feel like I’m being punished for yesterday.”
“For not calling?”
“For having a good time.”
“Don’t do that to yourself.”
Kathleen didn’t say anything, and for the first time, there was awkwardness to the silence between them.
“Can I get you anything else?” Joyce asked.
“No. I think I’ll try to nap.”
“Okay. I’ll come by tomorrow and pick up the bras that don’t work.” At the door she gave Kathleen a hug and thanked her for saying what she was really thinking. “Call me if you need anything.”
The next day was worse. Kathleen woke up feeling as if she’d been hit by a load of bricks or flattened like the coyote in those Road Runner cartoons. She felt encased in cotton wool. She felt like their old dog, Kirchel, on his last shaky legs before Buddy had taken him to the vet, to have him put to sleep. She came up with one image after another, lying in bed, trying to marshal the energy to stand.
It took all her strength just to get dressed. Reluctantly, she asked Buddy if he’d drive her to the clinic, where she asked to speak to the doctor again. She felt guilty about taking his time two days in a row, but he walked in wearing a sympathetic face. “I will order some blood tests, but I suspect there will be no explanation for your exhaustion there,” Dr. Singh said after listening to her heart and lungs. “I do not mean to imply that your fatigue is not genuine. This is a well-documented side effect. But it, too, shall pass, Mrs. Levine.”