They don’t talk. There’s only the sound of the sea breeze and the crying seagulls. A pleasure boat motors past, too—one of the very few out on the Sound during this lockdown.
Mack adds a dollop of lotion to his fingertips and starts on Avery’s shoulders. As he massages in the sunscreen, he leans in.
“I’m trying,” he says, close to her ear.
Was his voice too quiet for her to hear over the lapping waves? They splash at their feet, again and again, the waves leaving behind a frothy silver lace as they retreat.
A minute later, Avery lifts her hand to his on her shoulder and clasps it. “The beach flowers you brought me were beautiful,” she says, turning her face toward his. She lifts her hand off his and touches her salty fingers to his scruffy jaw. “We can put them on the table tonight, at dinner.”
* * *
Later, after taking swims, and sunbathing, and walking the beach once more, they head back to the cottage. Their routine’s growing familiar: the late-day showers, and dinner prep, and setting the outdoor table. One does this, the other does that. They sidestep around each other, brush arms, cook. Cabinets are opened; the flatware drawer rummaged through; blue stoneware plates set out; napkins anchored with a salty beach rock; the deck umbrella tilted to block the sun.
Today, Mack lifts a twenty-pound bag of charcoal and pours the briquettes into the grill’s grate. When he sets the heavy bag aside, he rolls up the sleeves of his chambray button-down over rust-colored shorts.
“No gas grill here?” Avery asks when she brings plates to the deck table.
“No.” Mack picks up the can of lighter fluid and squirts the charcoal pieces, giving them a thorough dousing. “What’s good about a charcoal grill is that you have a half hour to kill before the coals are hot.” He steps back, setting the lighter fluid on a small patio table while the briquettes soak. “Me and my father like to sit out here and chew the fat.” As he says it, Mack tosses a few lit matches on the coals in the grill. “Some of the best talks we’ve had went down on our old webbed chairs, while we waited for the grill to heat.”
“Sounds nice,” Avery vaguely says, arranging forks and knives at their dishes.
Mack returns the lighter fluid and bag of charcoal to the shed. When he comes back out, he holds a webbed folding chair in each hand. He opens them on the grass near the smoldering grill. The chairs’ faded green-and-white webbing sags; the once-shiny aluminum chair frames are dull and dinged. When he finally sits on a chair, it creaks as he settles in.
“Come on, Mrs. Martinelli,” he says to Avery, who’s just bringing her pitcher of beach grass and wildflowers to the deck. “Join me.”
She stands there in a gray-and-white striped top over frayed khaki shorts. Fresh out of the shower, her damp blonde hair is side-parted; small gold hoops hang from her ears. She looks at Mack for a second, then sets down the bouquet and joins him on the lawn, where she sits in the old chair beside his.
“You asked me something before.” Mack pulls a small notepad out of his cargo shorts pocket.
“I did?”
He flips to a page where he’d jotted a few lines. “Yes. Questions.” He looks over at her beside him. “When you wondered if I even knew you.”
“Mack …”
“No. No, listen. It got me thinking. So I’d like to see if you were right.”
“What do you mean?”
“I want to see if I know you or not.”
Avery opens her hands, motioning for him to begin.
So as the sun sinks a little lower in the early evening sky, and as a neighbor mows his lawn, and as a robin trills a lonely song from a tree in the yard, Mack searches for the truth.
“You asked if I knew your favorite food,” he says, drawing a finger beneath the first question. “Well. There are different ways to interpret that. Your favorite meal? Favorite fruit? Favorite candy? Which is anything chocolate, by the way. But when all is said and done, your favorite food—the one that gets your beautiful hazel eyes to drop closed as you savor the flavor?”
Avery leans on the arm of her webbed chair and props her chin on her hand, all while watching Mack.
“Meatloaf. Your mother’s meatloaf, dipped in ketchup. Does it every time. And I fully intend to heavily bribe your mother to get that recipe so that your eyes drop closed for me, too.”
“Okay,” Avery whispers with a small smile. “Score one for you.”
As the black charcoal briquettes become edged in gray, Mack continues. He glances at the notepad. “When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?”
“Be careful with that one.”
“Oh, I will be. I could guess the typical answers. A teacher, maybe. Or a veterinarian. All kids want to take care of animals. But I think not. Not you.” He tips his head and squints at her.
“I’m waiting,” Avery quietly says.
Mack leans forward and puts his elbows on his knees. Drops his head, too, before looking at her. “A scientist, of sorts, I’m guessing. Something like a geologist.”
“A geologist?” Avery asks. “Why?”
“Well, after a lifetime of summers at Hatchett’s Point, I’ve learned something. It’s that people are most themselves by the sea. Something shows in them that isn’t revealed elsewhere. That salty sea air pares life down to the basics. And I’ve been watching you collect sea glass all week. And beach stones, instead of shells. So, that’s my guess. You’d want to be a geologist and work with rocks. Maybe on the coast.”
“Score two for you,” Avery tells him with a nod.
“Seriously? You really wanted to be a geologist?”
“In a roundabout way. When I was little, I wanted to be a farmer.”
“No way. You? A farmer?”
“Mm-hmm. Our town sponsored a Farm Day, and my parents brought me to tour a local farm. We took a hayride into the fields. Sat on a tractor. Plucked a corn cob right off the stalk. But I’m pretty sure it was the pony ride that clinched it for me. I still remember that summer day. Oh, it was so hot. I wore a pink shirt with shorts, little ruffled socks with my sneakers. My hair was in two ponytails. And—” she says when he waves her off, “if I had a farm, the fields would be surrounded with a rock wall, using those New England rocks pulled right from the soil. So, a geologist? Close enough.”
“Okay. I’ll let you convince me I got that one right.”
“Can’t you picture it, Mack? Martinelli Farm.”
Mack raises an eyebrow, then flips the page on his notepad. “Next. What’s your fear?”
She nods. “Any ideas?”
“I have one, yes. Fear of the dark,” he says, his voice low in the evening air.
“Why would you guess that?”
Mack reaches over and touches her face. When he does, she takes hold of his fingers and waits for his answer.
“Easy,” he says, looking past her, then directly into her eyes. “Your story of leaving a light on did it. After hearing it, well, I know what it means if the light’s off.”
They’re quiet then. Painfully quiet. Avery lets go of his hand, shifts in her chair and looks at the grill. He does, too. The black charcoal is changing to silvery gray.