Page 23 of Stony Point Summer
“How’s it going at Ted’s?” Maris asks.
Jason puts his hands in his pockets and watches the sand as he walks. “It’s good.”
“Good?”
He glances at her beside him. But what he’sthinkingof is Maris hiding her old engagement to Shane. Of finding them in her writing shack together, so close—the air charged—only weeks ago. In this summer when he needed Maris the most.
He’s thinking of Elsa having dinner with him at The Captain’s Lounge. Of her bluntly telling Jason his leaving is pure survivor’s guilt over his brother’s death. That he feels unworthy of the incredible life he’s since built.
He’s thinking of Shane telling him off. Telling him,Don’t fuckin’ blow it.
Jason wonders if he already did.
He thinks of the morning he fell out of bed—and that it still scares him.
He thinks of how he bought a teak shower bench for Ted’s bathroom. Sure beats showering on the webbed folding chair he’d rigged up in the outside cabana.
He thinks of how he has to pick up some groceries for the fridge.
And of how Maddy slipped out Ted’s door and escaped to the beach for a good slosh through the shallows and a sandy romp afterward—with Jason in fast pursuit.
And he thinks how goddamn exhausting it all is.
But he doesn’t tell Maris any of this to counter herGood?“Yeah,” he says instead. “Ted’s cottage is what I need right now.”
“Space?”
He nods. “I bought Maddy a bed, too. So she’s staying off the couch.”
“Jason.” They take a few slow steps along the sand. “How long?”
“How long, what?”
“Before you come to terms with, well … with so much?”
He shakes his head. Because what he’d thought she wasaboutto say was,How long before you come home?
She didn’t.
“It’s not forever,” he quietly tells her.
Even quieter, she says back to him, “It sometimes feels it.”
He says nothing then. Because he knows what it’s like when a day, a decision, an experience,feelslike it’ll go on forever. There are parts of his life where he’llnevershake that feeling. And not always in a good way.
As they head down the beach toward the rocky outcropping, small waves lap nearby. The sea air is damp now, too, rising off the calm water in the evening hours. Jason takes a long breath of it right as one of those waves breaks near his feet.
Cures what ails you, Jay, he hears as the wave’s froth hisses over the sand. The voice is distant, yet familiar to him. It’s Neil—his spirit maybe, or just some random memory. But the words are very real.
So Jason takes the cue from his brother. He’ll try to cure himselfandMaris. Their marriage. Their lives. Now. By walking, breathing, taking in the sea air.
“Come on,” he says as he bends to slip off his leather boat shoes. He glances at Maris standing there at day’s end in her wrinkled distressed shorts and tired white tee. A strand of hair slips from the low twist she must’ve put up hours ago in this heat. “Let’s walk in the water.”
* * *
Maris can’t believe her ears. Jasonnevergets his prosthesis wet. The few times he has, she’s seen what a beast it is to clean afterward. Every grain of sand, every bit of salt has to be wiped off. So this is completely out of character.
“What?” she can only ask.
