Page 66 of Summer Romance

“Yes. In my perfect world, I would be with you all the time, no breaks,” he says.

I look up at him to see if he means it. He does.

Cliffy has liberateda dozen rocks from Pelican Island, and we paddle back to the boathouse. Iris is chanting, “Yoho ho and a bottle of rum,” which isn’t quite wholesome, but it’s happy.

When we are pulling the boat onto the shore, Ethan says to Greer, “Have you seen your mom’s Instagram account? Storage something?” I’m not sure, but he might have rolled his eyes.

“Do you mean ‘coat rack goals’?” she says, and laughs.

“What?” I say. “Was that lame?”

Ethan makes a yikes face and my kids laugh. “You could use some help, Ali.”

Greer lays her paddle in the canoe and looks at me with something close to interest. “Would you help me, Greer?” I ask. “I really don’t know what I’m doing, and half the time I don’t remember to post anyway.”

“Yes,” she says, and that’s it. She turns away and I’m not going to get any more, but Ethan is smiling to himself and I see what he’s done. He’s opened a door for me.

I lead the way as we carry the canoe up the beach, which is why I see Pete first. He’s walking through the dog park gate toward the boathouse when he looks up and sees us. We’re clearly both headed to the same place so I can’t act like I didn’t see him. I wave with my free arm and he walks over.

“Daddy!” Iris and Cliffy drop the tail end of the canoe and run over to him. Greer hangs back.

“We’re pirates!” Cliffy says.

“Well that’s fun,” says Pete, with his arms around each of them. “Bringing your lawyer in case there’s any trouble?” he asks me.

“Scooter was giving Cliffy a skateboarding lesson,” Isay as if that explains everything. Naturally, if you give someone a skateboarding lesson the next step would be to usurp their father’s spot in the family boat.

Pete’s looking at the five of us, beyond windswept, like he’s about to take our photograph. “Skateboarding, huh?” And then to Cliffy, “How’d it go?”

“Good, once I got my hat on.” Cliffy smiles at Ethan. “And you should see Mom, she’s practically a pro.”

“On a skateboard?” Pete is incredulous.

“Yes, on a skateboard,” I say. “And I am getting quite good.” Pete is looking from Ethan to me, and I know that me skateboarding is pretty damning evidence of how much time we’ve been spending together. But it’s also evidence of Super Me—balanced, steady, and gleefully unstuck. “Quite good,” I repeat.

Pete gives me a long look. “Well, I got out of work early, so I was going to take a scull out for a while. Mix things up.”

Linda is visibly uncomfortable behind him. Apparently, Pete didn’t get the memo that he lost boating rights in the divorce. Apparently, Linda didn’t count on a Hogan showing up when she was handing an expensive piece of equipment over to someone who is not a guest of the inn. I wait for Ethan to react in some way, put Pete in his place. But he doesn’t say a word.

As Pete heads to the water in his single scull and we carry the big canoe into the boathouse, I think,This. This man is right in our canoe. I love this man.

39

Greer’s taken over my Instagram account and her recent post of Carla Garcia’s attic got thirty-six likes, more than four times more than I’ve ever gotten before. Greer and Ethan think something about this is hilarious.

I spend nearly all of the hours that my kids are occupied with Ethan. Our days feel like a honeymoon in five-hour increments. We take out a double kayak and paddle all the way to Connecticut and back. We eat fish tacos on his grandparents’ terrace and watch the sailboats from their bed. We break through the Ghost Gate with our dogs and look at the city in the distance. We go to the skate park, where there is no breeze at all, and I master turning around on a flat surface. Once I’ve done it, I cannot stop doing it. With my weight on my back leg, my hips make the turn happen and propel me forward. Ethan talks me through going back and forth on the mini ramp. It’s only three feet high and the trick is to shift my weight and lean into the transition at the top. But I don’t get going with enoughspeed to get there, because I’m afraid I’ll go right over the edge. We cool down afterward in his pool and make absolutely no progress on the house. I am happy in a way that I haven’t felt since before I was married.

My dad calls when I’m driving to Ethan’s, and apparently, he’s noticed too. “Hi, Ali,” he says, a little hesitant. He doesn’t just call me unless it’s to discuss specific plans, and we don’t have any.

“Hi, Dad. What’s going on?”

“Nothing really, was just thinking that Cliffy’s going to be tall.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I saw some other kids his age at the park, and I even asked how old they were. Much shorter. Does his doctor say this?” There is no way this is the reason for his call.

“He’s definitely above average,” I say. “I’ll ask for a percentile next time we’re there. So what’s going on with you?”

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