Barrier Islands Read online

10

  That night Brooke and her husband finally lay down in the same bed at the same time for the first time in two weeks. Jodie was sound asleep in the next room, clearly exhausted from her active day at Lil’s and still more crawling about the apartment. Brooke had not realized just how dirty their unfinished pine floor was until she saw Jodie’s hands and the stains on the knees of her Muppets pajamas. She resolved to scrub the floor tomorrow.

  But now she lay on her back in their narrow bed with Onion beside her. The lights were out but the room was lit with the glow of the full moon and Lil’s yard light pouring through the unshaded window. The room was cold, the heat from the woodstove in the main room not reaching quite this far back. Brooke pulled the patchwork-quilt bedspread tight to her chin, thought of pulling it over her head for warmth but figured that might give Onion the wrong idea—of prohibition or, maybe worse, of playful invitation. So she kept the covers at her chin and stared at the far-off ceiling.

  Onion sat a little higher in the bed, his head and bare shoulders outside the covers, raised slightly on the pillow wedged against the wooden headboard. His breathing was silent, a clear sign to Brooke that he was not asleep or anywhere near it. His sleeping breaths were accompanied by childish yips and quiet groans that Brooke used to feel were charming but now found annoying, especially last year when they kept her awake after rising to feed Jodie in the middle of the night and returning to try to get back to sleep.

  But there was only silence now as each stared into the dark and contemplated this return to their shared bed after the suspension of their promise never to sleep apart. Brooke thought about the other bed she’d slept in while away—her childhood twin bed with the soft mattress and the white painted metal headboard with its brass caps and accents. It had been so welcoming and natural on her return. What about the beds Onion had slept in while she was away? Was it only this bed and his childhood bed, in his boyhood room not twenty yards from where they lay? Or had there been another bed, one night or several? She wondered.

  Onion rolled toward her onto his side and extended one arm across her body to her shoulder, pushing the covers aside, his hand caressing her neck then slowly up toward her face and hair. It was a gesture both gentle and familiar—the first step in a sequence that would culminate in an old sharing, their best common ground, that would also be somehow new, to the year at least, and maybe to their future lives.

  “Is there a daycare on the island?” she asked in a firm whisper.

  Onion’s hand froze where her neck merged into her skull, just beneath her left ear. “A what?”

  “A daycare—to watch over young children.”

  Onion’s body slid back to its former location on his side of the bed and against the headboard. “They go to school during the day.”

  “But before kindergarten.”

  “Their mothers take care of them.”

  “And if their mothers are busy?”

  “Then their grandmothers or aunts or older sisters.”

  “But if the mother is busy two or three days a week, that would be a lot to ask.”

  “Who’s busy two or three days a week?”

  “I might be.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m thinking of going back to school. Part-time.”

  “There’s no college out here.”

  “At Coastal.”

  “That’s on the mainland.”

  “I know where Coastal is.”

  “How are you going to go to school on the mainland?”

  “Part-time—two classes or maybe three. I could try to get them all on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but might have to do Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Take the early ferry in, go to class, take the late ferry back out. It’s a long day but I think I could manage.”

  “Why?”

  “To get my degree.”

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know. To use it to get a job.”

  “Jobs out here don’t require degrees.”

  “In case we move.”

  “We’re not moving.”

  “Just in case.”

  “Why would we move?”

  “I don’t know—for Jodie.”

  “What about Jodie?”

  “To give her more chances.”

  “Chances for what?”

  “Life.”

  “This island has all the life she’ll ever need.”

  “We can’t be beach bums forever, Onion.”

  “We’re not beach bums. We’re married with a child.”

  “Living in your parents’ garage, you working for tips.”

  “I could manage the restaurant one day.”

  “Yeah, divided among about a dozen of your kin.”

  “A good living.”

  “What about me?”

  “You take care of Jodie.”

  “I can’t just sit here forever. I’ll go crazy.”

  “We can always use another waitress.”

  Brooke scoffed.

  “What? You were good at it, always brought in the biggest tips.” He laughed as his mind returned to an earlier attention. “Just flash that smile and shake that booty and watch the tips flow on in.” He reached under the covers and pinched her butt through her flannel pajamas.

  “My point exactly!”

  “What point?”

  She growled in disgust, rolled to her side, her back to her husband, and pulled the covers over her head.

  Onion slid under the covers too. “We can pretend we’re camping in the tent on the beach. Remember that?”

  “Leave me alone. Go to sleep.”

  He found the elastic waist of her pajama bottoms and slid them to her knees.

  She stopped resisting but didn’t roll over to face him. In truth she was happy to hide their tension beneath a more primitive urge and consolation. Even so, she still remembered to reach under the bed. She slid the condom on without facing him or lifting the covers. He was startled but didn’t protest, content enough with attaining after long pause his elusive goal—the panting and moans that rose quickly followed by genuine rest for both.