The Topsail Accord by J. Kalnay Read Free Book Online Page A

Because it means I don’t have to pretend about anything. Pretending is too much work. And it means that she will either take me or leave me just the way I am. I’m fifty soon, and this old dog isn’t about to learn any new tricks. My personal computer works, I’m not getting an iPad. Okay I did get a Kindle, and a water-proof and sand-proof bag so I can sit and read on the beach. My favorite thing, just sitting by the ocean and reading.
    She’s coming over tomorrow, with her sister, to work. And she’s leaving soon to go back to Ohio. She’ll be back, to her cottage, to be alone. If she hasn’t even invited her sister to her cottage she’s never going to invite me to her cottage.
    She has so many mysteries. Are they really mysteries? Or does she just like to be alone? Some people just like to be alone. To think, or not to think. I know I like to be alone, and I know that I like to be together. I like intersecting lives. Lives that intersect but that don’t smother or reduce the other life. Beautiful intersections when lives are made better by the moments together. Sex is an intersection. Why am I thinking about sex? Perhaps because she’s beautiful and sexy and smart and doesn’t have any idea the effect she has on men. This man in particular. Yes sex is a fantastic intersection. But one I better stop thinking about right now. She’s going back to Ohio, and I am not ‘that’ guy, not ‘that’ islander. Well, not very often, and not lately.
    Talking and jogging and doing things together are nice intersections too. Harmless intersections. But how harmless are they with Shannon? Because just thinking about her I’ve thought about marriage and family and sex. Maybe not so harmless at all.
    Well I will know a lot more after tomorrow’s ‘date’. I’ll see her working and I’ll see her with her sister and her sister will see me. Our sisters will meet. Lord knows how that will go. I’m going to ask her to go for a walk on the beach around sunset tomorrow, after supper. I don’t know if she’ll just walk. She’s a really fast runner, she didn’t even break a sweat or have any heavy breathing from our run.
    If she says ‘yes’ to the walk I’ll ask her whether she wants me to come to her house or if she wants to meet me on the beach in front of her house or if she wants to meet somewhere else. Where she wants to meet will tell me a lot.
    Why am I planning tests? Why am I ‘intelligence gathering’ with her. She asked me not to pretend. Actually she told me not to pretend. I think she’d also tell me not to engage in intelligence gathering. I think she’d tell me that if I have a question I should just ask her the question. And I also think she’ll either answer the question or tell me that it’s none of my business.
    My my my. She’s got my head spinning. And my head doesn’t spin.

Shannon
     
    The setting sun is throwing pinks and salmons into the late evening clouds over the Sound. I walk behind as the children alternate sprinting and stopping and looking at things on the shore. The kids and I come out a few evenings just by ourselves every year. Unlike their parents, I offer no suggestions about what they should do or how they should do it. I simply walk behind, with a cup of decaf, and marvel at how much they have grown. I visited each and every one of them the day they were born, except the twins. The twins were born while we were all here, all except my mom and sister.
    I remember driving to the different hospitals and holding the tiny little babies and wondering whether I would ever have my own. As the years went on, I realized I would never have my own. Though no-one could identify any specific problem, either with me or with my husband, I knew somehow that there would never be a baby. All the trying and hoping eventually ruined even that one thing that almost sort of worked between us, the sex. It had been good when we were young and had no worries and I was just discovering this thing.