Beachcombers. Part 17

"Righto." Abbie patted the little boy's back. "You can do it, sport."

She found Howell at his desk, sitting in an awkward sideways position with his ankle up on a chair. He wore reading gla.s.ses as he scanned a report and strained to type information onto his computer. His blond hair stood out in all directions, as if he'd been running his hands through it.

"Sorry to interrupt," Abbie said. "I need a check for the grocery store."

"Oh, hi, Abbie. I didn't realize it was noon already. Um--" He opened his desk drawer, shuffled through the contents until he found the checkbook, signed a check and tore it out. "So Sydney's with Harry?" he asked absentmindedly.

"She's trying to convince him to eat asparagus."

Howell grinned. "There's a contest of wills I wouldn't want to bet on."

"Well, I'm betting on Harry," Abbie said. "I know how stubborn he can be."

"You ain't seen nothin' yet," Howell told her.

He held the check out. Abbie stepped closer as she reached for the check, and for a moment their eyes met. For a long moment she was suspended in a bubble of sensation. He wants me, Abbie thought. And I want him.

His child is in the other room! Her conscience squealed. His wife is in the other room!

Her voice was shaking when she said, "I need the car keys, too."

His fingers touched hers when he handed her the keys. For a long moment, they didn't move.

Howell said, "I'll see you when you get back."

She drove into town, bought the groceries, picked up the dry cleaning, and stopped at the pharmacy, moving in a dream. I haven't done anything wrong, she reminded herself. I'm only enjoying knowing the man--and the little boy.

Back at the house, she grabbed up two grocery bags from the SUV and carried them in. She entered the kitchen to find Harry and his mother still seated at the table. Three asparagus stalks still lay on the plate.

"You took longer than I thought." Sydney rose. "I've got to get dressed and get back to the city. You can unload the groceries while Harry eats his asparagus." She raised her voice. "Because he's not getting down or eating any other food until he's eaten it."

"I've got the dry cleaning and another bag of groceries to bring in," Abbie said.

"Fine."

By the time Abbie had brought in everything, Sydney had left the kitchen. Abbie heard the shower running upstairs.

As Abbie unpacked the groceries, she kept up a rambling conversation with Harry. A one-sided conversation, it turned out.

"Goodness, Harry. It's such a hot, sunny day. We could go to the beach, or to the school playground. You liked the slide, remember? Oh, look, watermelon! Eat those asparagus and you can have some watermelon for dessert, okay?"

In a very small voice, Harry said, "I have to peepee."

"Oh, honey. Well, come on." Abbie took his hand as he jumped down from the chair. She led him to the half bath off the kitchen and stood in the open doorway while he urinated. Then she pulled the step stool in front of the sink so he could stand on it to wash his hands.

"I told you he couldn't get down until he ate his asparagus!"

In her taut black suit and high black heels, Sydney loomed like an action figure, an electronic Dark Queen. Her briefcase was in her hand. Her lipstick was a glossy crimson and her eyes blazed with anger.

"He had to pee," Abbie told her mildly.

"Oh, you are useless!" Sydney yelled at Abbie. "How can I rely on you if you're going to let him manipulate you like that! Of course he said he had to pee."

"But, but he--" Abbie stuttered.

"You should have let him pee in his pants. That would teach him a lesson. When I tell him to eat something, he d.a.m.n well better eat it." She took a step closer to Abbie, right into her personal s.p.a.ce. "I am his mother. I know what he needs, and I know all his tricks. If I tell you to do something, do it. You are my employee, not f.u.c.king Mary Poppins, got it?"

"Mommy!" Alarm flashed across Harry's face. He tugged on his mother's skirt. "Don't be mad at Nanny Abbie. I'll eat my asparagus."

The little boy ran to the chair and scrambled up on it. He crammed the asparagus into his mouth and chewed, gagging as he fought to swallow it. His face went blotchy and tears welled in his eyes.

Abbie stood staring, horrified.

Sydney watched warily. When he'd swallowed the last asparagus, her face changed. Suddenly she was all smiles. She went to her son, knelt next to the chair, and hugged him tightly.

"What a good boy you are. What a good boy. Mommy's so proud of you." She kissed his cheeks and forehead. "Mommy has to go to work now, and Nanny Abbie will give you your tortellini, and since you've been such a good boy and eaten your asparagus, you can have watermelon and some grapes for dessert!" She hugged him again, and whispered into his ear, "I love you, love bug. Love you love you love you."

Sydney stood up, smoothing her black skirt over her hips. She shot a baleful glare at Abbie. "He needs his tortellini." She left the room, and Abbie heard her go into Howell's study and not long after that, a taxi honked outside and the front door slammed.

"Do you want your tortellini heated or cold?" Abbie thought she could allow the boy this much control over his food. He liked it cold, so she served it in a bowl, and sat with him while he ate, entertaining him with tales of the phone company cherry picker that she'd seen on his street.

While she talked, she searched her mind for memories of Lily at four. Their mother had been alive then, but she'd always been much more mellow than Sydney. Well, almost any mother would be. Abbie knew that after their mother died, she'd allowed Lily to get away with all sorts of things. Lily probably didn't eat a vegetable for a year after their mother's death. She probably lived on ice cream and chicken fingers. But Lily had turned out okay. Hadn't she? Or had Abbie spoiled her younger sister? Sometimes it seemed that way.

Thumping noises interrupted her thoughts. Howell appeared in the doorway, leaning on his crutch.

"Hi, guys." He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Harry, check me out, have my eyes crossed?" He crossed his eyes.

"Daddy!" Harry giggled. "You look silly."

"I've been reading for so long it's made my eyes crossed." He uncrossed his eyes and rubbed them. "Seriously. I've got to get out of that room. What are you two doing this afternoon?"

Abbie smiled. "I thought I might take Harry to a secret place."

"And what about dinner tonight?" Howell asked.

"Oh, I'll make chicken with--"

"I meant, will you join us for dinner?"

Abbie hesitated.

"Please?" Howell asked.

"Yes, Abbie, eat with us tonight!" Harry cried.

Abbie took a deep breath. "Well, all right, then," she said, trying to sound casual, as if this were only another insignificant invitation.

Howell sat in the backseat of the SUV with his son while Abbie drove them to the moors and then more slowly over the rutted dirt road until they arrived at the gra.s.sy turnoff to the pond. While Howell negotiated his way out of the vehicle, Abbie lifted Harry down. All around, hills rolled in green abundance, wild and free beneath the blue sky.

"Cool!" Harry cried as he ran down the path toward the pond.

"We call this the doughnut pond," Abbie told him. "Because of that little island, right in the middle, like the center of a doughnut." She spread a blanket on the ground and set up the folding canvas chair for Howell. "Come here, Harry. Do you know what this is? A deer path. Want to walk it? It goes all the way around the pond."

Harry's eyes were wide. "Will you come with me?"

"You bet." She took the little boy's hand. The sandy path was tangled with all kinds of wildflowers and vegetation. Abbie bent to touch one delicate stem. "See this, Harry? It's called blue-eyed gra.s.s."

"Gra.s.s doesn't have eyes, silly!" Harry giggled.

Farther on, she stopped and pointed. "Look, Harry. Deer tracks. See the prints?"

He squatted down, scrutinized the tracks, and touched them. "They have funny feet."

"They have hooves. Cloven hooves. That means like this." She forked her fingers. "The deer come down here to drink water."

"Where are they now?" Harry scanned the horizon.

"Oh, they're hiding. They're afraid of people."

"I wouldn't hurt them," Harry promised earnestly.

"I know. But deer are very shy."

They walked on. At a tangle of wild roses, she stopped to let Harry inhale the fragrance. She pointed out the osprey stand built in the middle of the pond and promised she'd find a book with a picture of ospreys in it. She knelt down to show him a clump of berry bushes with minuscule tight green buds.

"We'll come back in a month and pick blueberries," she a.s.sured him. "You'll be able to pick berries right over the bush and pop them in your mouth!"

"Pop them in my mouth!" Harry echoed.

When they reached the far side of the pond, they waved at Howell, who waved at them. As they headed back, Harry said, "When Daddy can walk again, we can show him the deer tracks."

"We'll do that!" Abbie agreed, smiling when she said "we."

Back at their picnic spot, Abbie poured Harry, Howell, and herself paper cups of pink lemonade from the thermos. She took off Harry's sandals and put more sunblock on him. He squirmed as she rubbed it in, then grabbed up his bucket and shovel and hurried down to the water's edge. For a moment he hesitated, concerned--there was no sandy beach, only mud.

"Go ahead, get dirty," Abbie told him. "Mud washes off just as easily as sand."

He stepped into the mud, smiling with happiness as it squelched between his toes.

"This is a great place," Howell told Abbie.

"It is." She stretched out on the blanket and let the sun beat down on her. She wore shorts and a b.u.t.ton-front, short-sleeved camp shirt. She knew the coral color was becoming to her complexion. She heard Harry talking to himself as he filled his bucket with mud. She kept her eyes closed, sensing that Howell was looking at her body. She hoped he was.

The afternoon drifted by. The heat of the day made her indolent. They took a walk together, stopping to investigate bugs and leaves. The three of them were so comfortable together. So natural.

Finally they returned to the house. Emma hadn't scheduled any work for her that evening, so she had no reason to hurry. As she showered Harry and dressed him in clean clothes, Howell went into his study to work.

Harry lay beneath the kitchen table playing with his horses while Abbie lazily moved around preparing dinner. She knew the things Harry loved to eat, and made plenty of it: rice, and carrots cooked and smothered with b.u.t.ter, and chicken b.r.e.a.s.t.s with mushrooms and cream. Harry would pick the mushrooms out, but that was okay. She sliced fresh Bartlett's Farm tomatoes to serve instead of a salad. Harry had eaten his green food for the day, she decided, with a little thrill of rebellion.

While the chicken baked, she went out onto the patio with Harry. They were building a fairy house like the one in front of The Toy Boat on Straight Wharf. Abbie was carefully putting together the house out of sticks. Harry was making a path to the house with tiny moon sh.e.l.ls.

Howell came hobbling outside. "What an evening. Harry, I like your fairy house. Abbie, I poured us both a gla.s.s of wine, but I haven't figured out how to get it out here without spilling."

She smiled. "Sit down. I'll get the wine."

By the time she returned, a gla.s.s in each hand, Howell had lowered himself onto a wicker chair. She took a chair nearer Harry than Howell. She hoped he didn't notice how her hands were trembling. Her throat was dry. She kept licking her lips.

"It's hard to get used to so much peace and quiet," Howell said. "I'm such a city boy."

"What city?" she asked.

He'd grown up in Cambridge, where he lived with his parents and his sister in an apartment. He'd gone to college in Berkeley. He worked in New York and New Haven.

"It was Sydney's idea to buy a house here," he said.

It stung, hearing his wife's name in Howell's mouth. She bit her lip.

"So many acquaintances have places here. It's a good place for her to network."

"Plus, it's paradise for kids," Abbie said.

"Absolutely," Howell agreed. "Of course Sydney figured that into the equation."

"I can hear the timer. Excuse me." Abbie fled into the kitchen. What the h.e.l.l was she thinking, drinking wine with that man as if they were some kind of couple! She was glad he mentioned Sydney. They should keep Sydney right there in the room with them.

She drank the rest of her wine as she worked in the kitchen, preparing the meal. She called them in, and supervised Harry as he washed his hands. She served the food. She put Harry and his father side by side and sat across the table from Harry.

Howell asked Abbie what it was like to grow up on the island, so during dinner she entertained father and son with tales from her childhood. How the seals gathered on the jetties during the winter, and congregated at Great Point like great snorting, grunting, shiny rubber rocks. The time the whale washed up in Sconset. How the electricity used to go out before the underwater cable to the mainland was installed, and everyone read by candlelight, shivering beneath blankets.

Harry listened, wide-eyed, so Abbie continued to regale him as she led him upstairs for his bath and before-bed ritual. She dressed him in clean cotton pajamas, tucked him into bed, and sat next to him, still talking. He fell asleep almost immediately. Abbie sat for a while gazing down at his dear little face and her heart almost burst with longing.

Downstairs, she discovered that Howell had managed to hobble around the kitchen. All the dishes were loaded into the dishwasher, which churned steadily away, and the kitchen counters were clean.

She stood in the kitchen doorway. "He's sound asleep."

"You work magic with him, Abbie." Howell held up the bottle of wine. "Help me finish this."

"Oh, well ..."

"Just one gla.s.s each."

Maybe he's just lonely for adult conversation, Abbie thought. "All right."

Since his accident, Howell's customary place was on the sofa, with his leg stretched out and elevated on a pillow. Abbie took a chair opposite with the coffee table safely between them. She took a sip of wine with a trembling hand. It was still light outside, but in the house the rooms were dim and shadowy. No lamps were lit.

Her skin glowed from the day's sun. Every cell of her body seemed alive and awake. Alert. Ready. She could not look away from Howell. His handsome face, his strong body, his steady gaze ...

"Abbie," Howell said softly. "My G.o.d. What are we going to do?"