It is just another day.
That is what Addie tells herself.
It is just a day—like all the others—but of course, it is not.
It is three hundred years since she was meant to be married—a future given against her will.
Three hundred years since she knelt in the woods, and summoned the darkness, and lost everything but freedom.
Three hundred years.
There should be a storm, an eclipse. Some way to mark the monument of
it.
But the day dawns perfect, and cloudless, and blue.
The bed is empty beside her, but she can hear the soft shuffle of Henry
moving through the kitchen, and she must have been gripping the blankets, because her fingers ache, a knot of pain in the center of her left palm.
When she opens her hand, the wooden ring falls out.
She brushes it off the bed as if it were a spider, an ill omen, listens to it land, and bounce, and roll away across the hardwood floor. Addie draws up her knees, and lets her head fall forward on them, and breathes into the space between her ribs, and reminds herself it is just a ring, and it is just a day. But there is a rope inside her chest, a dull dread winding tighter, telling her to go, to put as much distance between her and Henry as possible, in case he comes.
He won’t, she tells herself.
It’s been so long, she tells herself.
But she doesn’t want to take the chance.
Henry’s knuckles rap on the open door, and she looks up to see him holding a plate with a donut, three candles stuck into the top.
And despite everything, she laughs. “What’s this?”
“Hey, it’s not every day that your girlfriend turns three hundred.” “It’s not my birthday.”
“I know, but I didn’t exactly know what to call it.”
And just like that, the voice rises like smoke inside her head.
Happy anniversary, my love.
“Make a wish,” says Henry.
Addie swallows, and blows the candles out.
He sinks onto the bed beside her. “I’ve got the whole day,” he says. “Bea’s covering at the store, and I thought we could take the train out to…” But he trails off when he sees her face. “What?”
Dread claws at her stomach, deeper than hunger. “I don’t think we should be together,” she says. “Not today.”
His face falls. “Oh.”
Addie cups his cheek, and lies. “It’s just a day, Henry.”
“You’re right,” he says. “It’s a day. But how many of them has he
ruined? Don’t let him take it from you.” He kisses her. “From us.” If Luc finds them together, he will take more than that.
“Come on,” insists Henry, “I’ll have you back long before you turn into a pumpkin. And then, if you want to spend the night apart, I understand. Worry about him in the dark, but it’s hours until then, and you deserve a good day. A good memory.”
And he’s right. She does.
The dread loosens a little in her chest.
“Okay,” she says, one little word, and Henry’s whole face lights with pleasure. “What do you have in mind?”
He disappears into the bathroom, reemerges in a pair of yellow swim trunks, a towel cast over one shoulder. He tosses her a blue-and-white bikini.
“Let’s go.”
 |
Rockaway Beach is a sea of colored towels, and flags planted in the sand.
Laughter rolls in with the tide as kids make castle mounds and people lounge beneath the glaring sun. Henry stretches their towels out on a narrow patch of unclaimed sand, weights them down with shoes, and then Addie grabs his hand and they run down the beach, the soles of their feet stinging until they hit the damp line of the tide and plunge into the water.
Addie gasps at the welcome brush of the waves, cool even in the heat of summer, and wades out until the ocean wraps around her waist. Henry ducks his head beside her, and comes back up, water dripping from his glasses. He pulls her to him, kisses the salt from her fingers. She slicks the hair from his face. They linger there, tangled together in the surf.
“See,” he says, “isn’t this better?” And it is.
It is.
They swim until their limbs ache, and their skin begins to prune, and then retreat to the towels waiting on the beach, and stretch out to dry beneath the sun. It’s too hot to stay there long, and soon the scent of food wafting from the boardwalk is enough to draw them up again.
Henry gathers his stuff and starts up the beach, and Addie rises to follow, shaking the sand from her towel.
And out falls the wooden ring.
It lies there, a fraction darker than the beach, like a drop of rain on a dry sidewalk. A reminder. Addie crouches down before it, and sweeps a handful of sand over the top, before jogging after Henry.
They head for the stretch of bars overlooking the beach, order tacos and a pitcher of frozen margaritas, savoring the tang and the sweet-salted chill. Henry wipes the water from his glasses, and Addie looks out at the ocean, and feels the past fold over the present, like the tides.
Déjà vu. Déjà su. Déjà vecu.
“What is it?” asks Henry.
Addie glances toward him. “Hm?”
“You get this look on your face,” he says, “when you’re remembering.”
Addie looks back out at the Atlantic, the infinite hem of the beach, the memories spooling out along the horizon. And as they eat, she tells him of all the coasts she’s seen, of the time she ferried across the English Channel, the White Cliffs of Dover rising from the fog. Of the time she sailed the coast of Spain, a stowaway in the bowels of a stolen boat, and how, when
she crossed to America, the whole ship fell ill, and she had to feign sickness so they wouldn’t think she was a witch.
And when she gets tired of talking, and they have both run out of drinks, they spend the next few hours bouncing between the shade of the concession stands and the cool kiss of the surf, lingering on the sand only long enough to dry.
The day goes by too fast, as good days do.
And when it’s time to go, they make their way to the subway, and sink onto the bench, sun-drunk and sleepy, as the train pulls away.
Henry takes out a book, but Addie’s eyes are stinging, and she leans against him, savoring his sun-and-paper scent, and the seat is plastic and the air is stale, and she has never been so comfortable. She feels herself sinking into Henry, head lolling on his shoulder.
And then he whispers three words into her hair.
“I love you,” he says, and Addie wonders if this is love, this gentle thing. If it is meant to be this soft, this kind.
The difference between heat, and warmth. Passion, and contentment.
“I love you too,” she says. She wants it to be true.
