Good Harbor

“Where is that?”

“Arizona. She and my dad got divorced when I was a freshman in college, and she remarried a couple of years later. Bob, the second husband, had four kids, and she raised the two younger ones. Her life revolves around his children and golf. And since I hate golf, our conversations are pretty brief.”

“I’m sorry,” Kathleen said.

“Yeah, me, too. But it’s been like that for twenty-two years, so I don’t expect anything else. Boy, was I ever determined to be totally different from her. To have a house full of kids, instead of an only child like I was. And to never ever let that kind of distance come between Nina and me. Of course, I’m learning how little control you actually have over what happens between you and your kids.”

Kathleen nodded and linked her arm through Joyce’s. “Hang on. Nina still has a lot of growing up to do, and you are not doomed to repeat your mother’s mistakes.”

“The universal fear of women everywhere,” Joyce said. “I suppose Nina has already joined that club.”

Kathleen squeezed Joyce’s arm closer. As they approached Salt Island, Kathleen asked, “When do you want to go on our little adventure?”

“Whenever you say, fearless leader.”

“I’ll check the tide and let you know.”

KATHLEEN CALLED ON Sunday morning and asked if Joyce was ready to climb Salt Island. “I could pick you up at five, and we’ll get to see a sunset over the water.”

“Nice of you to arrange that,” Joyce said.

By the time they arrived at Good Harbor, a cool breeze was chasing the last of the stragglers off the beach, which meant that Joyce and Kathleen had the sandbar virtually to themselves. On sunny weekend afternoons, it could be as crowded as a city sidewalk. Everybody went for the walk, tourists and locals alike; most just strolled out and headed straight back; a few lingered to peer into the tide pools, but only a handful climbed up to the top.

The deserted sandbar was flat, hard-packed, and cool under their feet. “It’s like a magic highway,” Kathleen said. “It appears and disappears. Brigadoon.”

“Mont-Saint-Michel — minus the castle,” said Joyce. “And it’s pretty close to walking on water.”

“Or parting the seas.”

“With a hint of danger, don’t you think? The outside chance of getting stranded, like Robinson Crusoe.”

“Well, within sight of a snack bar,” Kathleen said, pointing at the weather-beaten shack onshore.

Their laughter carried over the water.

On the island, only three wiry boys were visible, hunting for wildlife in the tide pools, nets in hand. Their excited cries were insistent and shrill.

“Hey, Carter.”

“Hey, look!”

“Hey, over here.”

Joyce looked up. From the beach, the climb to the summit of Salt Island looked relatively easy, but here, at the bottom of the fifty-foot rise, the path seemed like nothing but a deep gap between two vertical boulders. A knotted yellow rope lay across one of them. Would she need to haul herself up, arm over arm? She imagined herself dangling from it, hollering for help. Joyce had done such a good job of avoiding heights, she had nearly forgotten how much she hated them.

“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” she said, hoping her hesitation wasn’t obvious.

“Don’t worry about me. Being out in the air like this gives me energy, and I usually sleep better afterwards. I’m hoping for a full eight hours tonight.”

“Okay.” Joyce pulled sneakers and a sweatshirt out of her backpack. “I’m game.”

She tried not to think about falling and kept her eyes on Kathleen’s feet ahead of her. In five breathless minutes, they’d reached the top.

Joyce shaded her eyes and moved slowly, like a searchlight, taking in the panorama of Good Harbor. The tidal river was gone, and the footbridge looked like a Japanese miniature. The salt marsh glittered bottle-green in the late light, while oblivious drivers sped through the deepening sky, heading home for supper.

She turned. The balconies of the red motel were deserted, but next door, a fortunate few sat, in proprietary silence, on the decks of houses perched above the private stretch of the beach. Joyce imagined their vista, focused on Thacher Island and its twin lighthouses.

She turned again to scan the broad arc of dark ocean, one hundred eighty degrees of sky-skimmed water, full and empty, blue on blue, cool and far. Joyce felt dizzy — a momentary, champagne kind of dizzy. She looked to landfall at the rocky stretch below Atlantic Avenue where the Bass Rocks wore their customary mantle of gulls and cormorants, prehistoric birds, drying their mangy-looking wings in the breeze.