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“And I suppose you’ve already made up your mind?” He said it with such resignation that her next words caught in her throat.
This had been a terrible idea. He would think she was a fool. This would only start the old argument again. It had been too long, and they’d been too far apart for any of this to matter.
But above the din of fear and loneliness were the words from Anthony’s letter, so clear that she could almost hear him say them in older-brother exasperation.“Tell the man what you’re thinking. Chances are, he hasn’t got a clue.”
“I wanted to say I’m sorry.” The surprise on Russell’s face threatened to stop her right there, but she let the words pour out without bothering to make sure they followed the tips in some useless advice column. “For not being honest with you. For avoiding everything important and burying myself in magazinesand work and ... and meatloaf while pretending you were fine when I could see you weren’t. For comparing you to my father and for ... well, for being selfish.”
Russell stared at her, as if unsure where the flood of words had come from and completely unable to match them.
That was what they didn’t tell you in the novels about heroines and their fine speeches: that the most difficult moment of all was still to come, full of the fears that collected in the silence after a declaration of true honesty.
When her husband finally did open his mouth, his words were thoughtful. “I never—well, thank you, Avis. For all of that. Let me wash up and have a second to think. Then we’ll talk.”
He turned toward the bathroom, and she stiffened, lurching toward him. She hadn’t had time to tell him...
“Don’t go in there!” She closed her eyes, wishing she could somehow disappear.
His hand froze on the doorknob, as if he suspected some sort of minefield. “Why not?”
“Because there’s sand in the bathtub.” Borrowed from the four milk cans stationed at the library’s front doors, which, thank the Almighty, had languished free from incendiary bombs since Gio and Rosa had put them there.
“There’s ... what?”
“And a lobster in the sink.” The stare continued, and she added meekly, feeling miserable, “His name is Long John Silver.”
The shocked expression could only hold him for so long, and he pulled open the door. Right on cue, the rope Avis had attached to the doorknob dropped the needle on the record player and the first strains of “Moonlight Serenade” echoed smoothly off the grouted tile.
Peering around his shoulder, Avis could see the whole pathetic scheme as it must seem to him. A thin layer of sand, patchy enough that the brown tarp showed through in places,with a seashell placed artificially in the center. The record player on the floor, occasionally spattered with a drop of water from the sink, where the lobster she’d christened Long John Silver scrabbled inside. And her wedding veil hanging over the window, the pale pink roses sewn to the headpiece clashing with the green of the walls.
“I don’t understand.”
She undid the belt of her housecoat and let it slip away, revealing the cherry red bathing suit she’d purchased for their honeymoon—and never worn since. Even after only two years, it fell more snugly across her middle, and the daringly short flared skirt revealed wider thighs. Though with everything else, maybe Russell wouldn’t notice.
“I’m not trying to manipulate you or convince you to give up the Hooligan Navy, Russ. I promise. It’s just been so long since we’ve been happy that I thought we might ... recreate a happy moment this way.”
The idea that had seemed so romantic after getting Russell’s letter only seemed ridiculous now, more Abbott and Costello than Rita Hayworth and Fred Astaire.
For his part, Russell was still staring, his head turning from the small-but-energetic lobster flicking water onto the tile, back to her.
“I’m sorry. I’ve missed you, and ... you’ve been gone for so long....”
But before she could finish, Russell stepped toward her, smelling of sweat and damp wool and the ocean, and lifted her chin gently. “I believe you, Avis.”
He did?
“And I’m the one who was selfish, leaving the way I did when I knew deep down you didn’t want me to.”
She couldn’t stop now, not before she’d said everything she’d planned. “I want you to be happy. And I know you love your work on the picket patrol. But I also need to know that, when allthis is over, you’ll come home to stay—and that will be enough. That I’ll be enough.”
She’d tried to imagine all possible scenarios of what Russell might say in response. In none of them had she anticipated the way he stepped back and bowed.
“May I have this dance?”
Numbly, she took his hand, melting into the familiar pattern of steps, waiting for him to say something, anything, else. He didn’t.
Developing sea legs certainly hadn’t translated into dance skills, but Russell led her in a slow waltz as the record spun out its last verse.
Even then, Russell didn’t make a dramatic declaration of love or burst into another argument or even ask more questions. He only knelt by the bathtub, picking up a handful of her jury-rigged beach and letting it fall. “Sand?”
