“Of course you are. You’re very smart, and Miss Andrews thinks so, too.”
“But I’m the only one in my class who has to stay after school.” “Yeah, well… that’s okay. I had to stay after school when I was a kid, too.”
That seemed to get his attention. “You did?”
“Yeah. Only I didn’t have to do it for only a couple of months, I had to do it for two years.”
“Two years?”
Miles nodded for emphasis. “Every day.”
“Wow,” he said, “you must really have been dumb if you had to stay for two years.”
That wasn’t my point, but I guess if it makes you feel better, I’ll take it.
“You’re a smart young man and don’t you ever forget it, okay?”
“Did Miss Andrews really say that I was smart?”
“She tells me every day.”
Jonah smiled. “She’s a nice teacher.”
“I think so, but I’m glad you think so, too.”
Jonah paused, and those fire trucks started coming together again.
“Do you think she’s pretty?” he asked innocently.
Oh my, where is all of this coming from?
“Well…”
“I think she’s pretty,” Jonah declared. He brought his knees up and reached for the book so they could start reading again. “She kind of makes me think about Mom, sometimes.”
Nor did Sarah, though in an entirely different context. She had to think for a moment before she finally found her voice.
“I have no idea, Mom. I’ve never asked him.”
“But he’s a sheriff, right?”
“Yes… but that’s not exactly the sort of thing that’s ever come up.”
Her mother had wondered aloud whether Miles had ever shot someone. “Well, I was just curious, you know? You see all those shows on TV, and with the things you read in the papers these days, I wouldn’t be surprised. That’s a dangerous job.”
Sarah closed her eyes and held them that way. Ever since she’d casually mentioned the fact that she would be going out with Miles, her mother had been calling a couple of times a day, asking Sarah dozens of questions, hardly any of which Sarah could answer.
“I’ll be sure to ask him for you, okay?”
Her mother inhaled sharply. “Now, don’t do that! I’d hate to ruin things right off the bat for you.”
“There’s nothing to ruin, Mom. We haven’t even gone out yet.”
“But you said he was nice, right?”
Sarah rubbed her eyes wearily. “Yes, Mom. He’s nice.”
“Well, then, remember how important it is to make a good first impression.”
“I know, Mom.”
“And make sure you dress well. I don’t care what some of those magazines say, it’s important to look like a lady when you go out on a date. The things some women wear these days…”
As her mother droned on, Sarah imagined herself hanging up the phone, but instead she simply began sorting through the mail. Bills, assorted mailers, an application for a Visa card. Caught up in that, she didn’t realize that her mother had stopped talking and was apparently waiting for her to respond. “Yes, Mom,” Sarah said automatically.
“Are you listening to me?”
“Of course I’m listening.”
“So you’ll be coming by the house, then?”
I thought we were talking about what I should wear…Sarah scrambled to figure out what her mother had been saying.
“You mean bring him by?” she finally asked.
“I’m sure your father would like to meet him.”
“Well… I don’t know if we’ll have time.”
“But you just said that you weren’t even sure of what you were going to do yet.” “We’ll see, Mom. But don’t make any special plans, because I can’t guarantee it.”
There was a long pause on the other end. “Oh,” she said. Then, trying another tack: “I was just thinking that I’d like to at least have a chance to say hello.”
Sarah began sorting through the mail again. “I can’t guarantee anything. Like you said, I’d hate to ruin anything he might have planned. You can understand that, right?”
“Oh, I suppose,” she said, obviously disappointed. “But even if you can’t make it, you’ll call me to let me know how it went, right?”
“Yes, Mom, I’ll call.”
“And I hope you have a good time.”
“I will.”
“But nottoo good a time-”
“I understand,” Sarah said cutting her off.
“I mean, it is yourfirst date-”
“I understand, Mom,” Sarah said, more forcefully this time. “Well… all right, then.” She sounded almost relieved. “I guess I’ll let you go, then. Unless there’s something else you’d like to talk about.” “No, I think we’ve covered most everything.”
Somehow, even after that, the conversation lasted for another ten minutes.
Later that night, after Jonah had gone to sleep, Miles popped an old videotape into the VCR and settled back, watching Missy and Jonah frolic in the surf near Fort Macon. Jonah was still a toddler then, no older than three, and he loved nothing more than to play with his trucks on the makeshift roads that Missy smoothed with her hands. Missy was twenty-six years old-in her blue bikini, she looked more like a college student than the mother she was. In the film, she motioned for Miles to put aside the videocamera and come play with them, but on that morning, he remembered he was more interested in simply observing. He liked to watch them together; he liked the way it made him feel, knowing that Missy loved Jonah in a way that he had never experienced. His own parents hadn’t been so affectionate. They weren’t bad people, they just weren’t comfortable expressing emotion, even to their own child; and with his mother deceased and his father off traveling, he felt almost as if he’d never known them at all. Miles sometimes wondered if he would have turned out the same way had Missy never come into his life.
Missy began digging a hole with a small plastic shovel a few feet from the water’s edge, then started using her hands to speed things up. On her knees, she was the same height as Jonah, and when he saw what she was doing, he stood alongside her, motioning and pointing, like an architect in the early stages of building. Missy smiled and talked to him-the sound, however, was muffled by the endless roar of the waves-and Miles couldn’t understand what they were saying to each other. The sand came out in clumps, piled around her as she dug deeper, and after a while she motioned for Jonah to get in the hole. With his knees pulled up to his chest, he fit-just barely, but enough-and Missy started filling in the sand, pushing and leveling it around Jonah’s small body. Within minutes he was covered up to his neck: a sand turtle with a little boy’s head poking out the top.
Missy added more sand here and there, covering his arms and fingers. Jonah wiggled his fingers, causing some sand to fall away, and Missy tried again. As she was putting the final handfuls in place, Jonah did the same thing, and Missy laughed. She put a clump of wet sand on his head and he stopped moving. She leaned in and kissed him, and Miles watched his lips form the words: “I love you, Mommy.”
“I love you, too,” she mouthed in return. Knowing Jonah would sit quietly for a few minutes, Missy turned her attention to Miles.
He’d said something to her, and she smiled-again, the words were lost. In the background, over her shoulder, there were only a few other people in view. It was only May, a week before the crowds arrived in full force, and a weekday, if he remembered correctly. Missy glanced from side to side and stood. She put one hand on her hip, the other behind her head, looking at him through half-open eyes, sultry and lascivious. Then she dropped the pose, laughed again as if embarrassed, and came toward him. She kissed the camera lens. The tape ended there.
These tapes were precious to Miles. He kept them in a fireproof box he’d bought after the funeral; he’d watched them all a dozen times. In them, Missy was alive again; he could see her moving, he could listen to the sound of her voice. He could hear her laugh again.