Good Harbor

Joyce hunted for the boat. The thumbnail-sized sail seemed stuck against the sky, like a scrap of white paper on a pale blue bulletin board.

“What a day,” said Kathleen, studying the distance.

In the silence, Joyce wondered if Kathleen was thinking about her cancer. She wanted so much to be a worthy friend, a confidante.

“Father Sherry!” Kathleen said suddenly.

“What?”

“That’s the name of the priest at St. Rita’s. I met him last year at some school event. I remember thinking what a funny name he had. Father Sherry. It reminded me of that old priest in Going My Way who was always taking a medicinal nip. Not that this man is anything like Barry Fitzgerald.

“Father Sherry is in his late forties, a big man. And he belongs to a diving club. I saw him once over at Folly Cove wearing a wet suit. I thought it was so funny — a diving priest.”

“With or without the clerical collar?” asked Joyce.

“You call Father Sherry. He’ll know what to do.”

They had reached the far end of the beach, where the sandbar out to Salt Island was fully exposed.

“You know, in all the years of coming here, I’ve never been up there,” said Joyce, pointing to the top of the island.

“There’s nothing there but the view. And a sense of accomplishment,” said Kathleen. “I used to take the boys. They hated that I made them bring shoes and socks and long pants. But they never once got poison ivy when I was with them. I’ll take you sometime.”

“That would be great.”

“Do you want to walk out now?”

“I should get home,” Joyce sighed. “Frank is cooking.”

They turned to start back. “It’s always amazing to me how big this beach is,” Joyce said. “The walk from the bridge never feels that far, but when I get all the way down here, it looks twice the distance. It’s like two totally different places.”

“Rachel Carson has a wonderful line about how the shore has a dual nature,” said Kathleen.

“Silent Spring?”

“No. It was in a book about the ocean. She said the seashore was, let me see if I can remember it, a place of unrest, of dual natures. It’s wet and dry. Old as the earth, but never exactly the same from one tide to the next.”

“Like people,” said Joyce.

“You don’t think people are the same from one day to the next?”

“Well, biologically they’re not. We’re not. I mean, we’re made of water, and that’s always in flux. Don’t you think that’s what she meant?”

“I suppose so,” Kathleen said. “Do you think people have a dual nature?”

“Do you mean good and evil? I’m not that much of a philosopher,” Joyce said, pausing. “But we’re all living and dying at the same time. Cells dividing, making more cells, shedding the old ones.” She stopped, worried that she’d said something wrong.

They lapsed into silence and picked up the pace a little. A jogger approached and breezed past with a wave.

“I think we’re eating fish tonight,” Kathleen said. “Buddy finally caught something big enough to eat.”

“Who cleans them?”

“He does. And he cooks them.”

“Frank likes to cook, too.”

“Tell me about Frank,” said Kathleen. “And what kind of name is Frank for a nice Jewish boy?”