Sweethearts and partners,she would reply.
She turned to leave. Some of the women she’d come in with were still at the tables; others were on their way to the door. She glanced over her shoulder. Her father hadn’t taken his eyes off her. A guard approached him, ready to escort him back to his cell.
“Dad,” she called.
“Katy,” he said.
“What are we?” she asked.
He beamed, exactly the way he had when she’d first walked in, the way he had when she was a child. She walked fast, past the frog-eyed door guard, leaving the visiting room before she could hear her father answer.
31
Kate’s hands felt light on the wheel, as if she were made of air. Driving south, past all the landmarks that had reminded her of her father, felt different now. He wasn’t just a specter from the past. He existed. The memories changed character as she sped through Hartford. They weren’t as poignant, she thought. But that was wrong—seeing him in prison, in his jumpsuit, with the scar on his forehead, made them more so.
“He’s never getting out,” Kate said out loud. They were miles from the prison, but she hadn’t spoken till now.
“What was it like?” Lulu asked.
“Like walking through the steel-doored gates and ten circles of hell. These poor women bringing bags of snacks to locked-up men—in line, no talking, marching through the doors, guards watching everything. The guards,” she said, remembering the look on that one’s face. “They wanted something; I don’t know. For a prisoner to act up, to catch a visitor with contraband.”
“You were in there a long time.”
“It took forever to get to the visiting area.”
“And you saw him.”
“Yeah,” Kate said.
“Is he ... how is he?”
“He’s old. He’s sorry about everything.”
“What did he say?”
Kate shook her head. She didn’t want to talk about her father anymore. Every detail of the visit reverberated. The stoop of his shoulders, his old familiar smile, the sound of his voice. She wanted to hold on to the moments, keep them to herself. If she spoke about them, they would become conversation and dissipate. They wouldn’t belong to her anymore.
Lulu sensed it and looked out the side window. They sped out of the cities, south toward the shore. Once past Middletown, the landscape became wooded. The day had been long, and shadows from trees and rock cliffs lengthened across the pavement. Although the day was hot, summer was drawing to an end. The sun had noticeably shifted its place in the sky, the angle of the light lower, moving toward the equinox.
“You know what we should do?” Lulu asked just before they hit the Baldwin Bridge over the Connecticut River. “We should swim.”
Kate had imagined dropping Lulu off at her car in New London, heading to the Ledges to sit in the tangled garden and wait for Jed Hilliard to show up. Or maybe he would be there already, sketching weeds and wildflowers, waiting for the moon to rise. More likely, it was only a place her father had mentioned to him in passing, no meaning at all. Maybe Jed had never even been there.
“You’re right,” she said to Lulu. “A swim. But what about bathing suits?”
“What about them?” Lulu asked.
They laughed, and Kate drove them down to Hubbard’s Point. They told the summer cop by the train trestle they were visiting Scotty Waterston. The tide was high, the sandy parking lot damp. It had been built on a wetland, cleared of spartina and its thickly woven root system. The salt water followed its eternal path and still rose through the sand beneath a thin layer of gravel and broken shells.
Bypassing the main beach, scattered with late-day beachgoers, they walked to the western end and climbed the steep hill to take the path to the deserted haven known as Little Beach. The crescent strand was backed by a coastal forest of pines, white oaks, and black walnut trees. Beyond the woods was the Great Marsh, fed by Seven Mile River.
The sun had just dipped behind the trees, and the beach was shadowed. There wasn’t a person in sight. Kate and Lulu dropped their clothes and walked into the water. The Sound was cool, but Kate didn’t hesitate. It had always been a point of pride that while others stood at the edge, getting used to the temperature, she dove right in and accepted the shock.
She swam straight out, underwater, eyes wide open. At high tide the rocks were far below, and she saw tendrils of sargassum weed drifting upward in the current. When her lungs were bursting, she crashed up through the surface and took deep breaths. Lulu was swimming toward the breakwater. Kate stayed where she was, treading water, facing shore.
Blinking, her eyes cleared, she caught sight of the graffiti Lulu had mentioned—sayings, initials, and patterns. She felt disgusted by the desecration and turned around to look out to sea.
Across the Sound, two ferries heading in opposite directions passed each other. Sunset gave the white boats a pink cast, turned the water’s surface lavender. Skinny-dipping at Little Beach was one of summer’s great pleasures and always had been.
