The Birthdays by Heidi Pitlor Read Free Book Online Page B

who were content to sit still for hours outside until their skin resembled cured meat, but in Maine the beaches were different and far less crowded. They were rockier, more dangerous, and the weather was entirely unpredictable. She respected these things. She’d only been to Maine once, in high school with a friend, but she still remembered walking barefoot on the beach at night and skinny-dipping in the frigid water with some older boys they’d met.
    Yesterday, she’d taken an overnight flight from San Francisco and, from the airport in Portland, a bus to the ferry. A short old man who worked on the boat had carried her bagup the gangplank and offered to buy her a soda. Another had gingerly lifted her bag down the gangplank and led her to a cab. She wouldn’t have expected such kind treatment—she’d all but written off Northeasterners as stoic and icy. The cab she took to Jake’s house was a beat-up station wagon painted pink and purple, and the driver a funny elderly woman who told raunchy jokes the entire way. Hilary listened as she struggled to remember the punch lines and accidentally gave them away too early. “Christ,” the woman said, “I do that sometimes.”
    “It’s all right. No one’s perfect.” When they’d reached her brother’s house, Hilary pressed a large tip into the old woman’s hand.
    Now she decided to walk the mile or so back into town to kill time. She rarely walked much of anywhere anymore and she thought the exercise would probably do her good. She’d never been to Great Salt Island. So far it appeared to be a typical New England tourist spot: quaint, candy-colored houses with picket fences, and, back near the ferry, an ice cream stand, a seafood restaurant named the Mermaid’s Table. She didn’t see the appeal of such a place that throttled visitors with its cuteness. She walked along the road and a stooped old man looked up from his yard at her, this tall, pregnant thirty-five-year-old woman with black hair, pasty skin, a nose ring, several tattoos. She wore large black sunglasses, a floppy straw hat, a black sundress and carried an oversized black bag. Hilary called loudly, “Well, hi there, sir. Nice day, isn’t it? It sure is beautiful,” and the man nodded carefully and turned back to his house.
    In town, she found a bookstore, Books & Beans, where she ordered decaffeinated tea and sat on a tall stool at a metaltable. The place smelled of San Francisco—of coffee and musky incense and something clean and fake, maybe room deodorizer. In the corner stood an unmanned counter where lottery and ferry tickets were sold. As far as she could see, she was the only customer in the place. The weather was warm and sunny except for a few scattered clouds, and everyone else on the island was probably at the beach—except for the boy, or man, who’d sold her the tea. Now he was wiping off the table next to hers with a stained brown rag, and he cleared his throat. Something about him was faintly familiar. Tall, somewhat attractive, with an endearingly round face and a closely trimmed beard, he could have been anywhere from eighteen to thirty, maybe older. Hilary picked up a magazine that lay on the stool next to her.
    “It’s nice out there today.” His voice was quiet and deep.
    “Nice enough,” she said.
    He turned and continued wiping the tables.
    She rubbed her fingertips together, looked at her watch and saw that she still had over two hours before she had to be at Jake’s. With the money her father had sent her, Hilary had been able to travel across the country. Five years ago she never would have come, though her father would have insisted and her mother would have told her she was being selfish. Jake would have called and lectured her about being a good daughter, and Daniel would have sent her a drawing of him alone on a beach, half smiling, half frowning.
    But now, of course, everything had changed—and even more than they knew. It wasn’t just her pregnancy. Her