Justin Cronin - Mary and O’Neil

But then it was over; she was still young, and her strength returned quickly. She walked each morning, ate the proper foods, gave up the stolen cigarettes at parties. Her hair came in; one day she left the house without a hat and didn’t realize until she was already downtown and saw her reflection in a store window. At Sam’s hockey games, or in line at the grocery store, or in the back of the church after services, a sea of amazed and happy eyes met hers. Look at you! they all said. You’re looking so well! Healthy, normal people: how did they do it? She marveled at their innocence, their easy greed for life. She had friends who rock-climbed, drove without seat belts, who hadn’t had so much as a checkup in years. What could they be thinking? She had stepped back into the world, but not completely; she was an imposter, half ghost, a spy from the shadows. She carried her new health through the crowds like a crystal chalice, and every three months she returned to the far side of the river, that awful ward of the dying: more blood drawn, chest X rays, tumor markers. In August, a year after the surgery, she had a full-body CAT scan-dreadful, a ride in a coffin, her ears pounding with a sound like sheets of metal pushed through a sawblade. It was when the doctor reported the results, smiling for the first time at the good news, that she knew that everyone had expected her to die. Beside her, Jack had broken down and wept.

A waiter came by; she asked for iced tea, then changed her order to wine, though she knew she would only taste it. The boys were building mud castles on the wet plain left behind by the receding evening tide. The waiter returned, bearing her single glass on a tray. After such a year, here she was, holding a glass of wine on a beach a thousand miles away from the April mud of Vermont. She sipped the wine, its cold sweetness like golden light on her tongue. Sunshine, her body strong, Sam and Noah happy again, or at least not afraid: what else was there to wish for? When she was very sick, she had tried to imagine a day like this one, to hold it in her mind. So perhaps that was the reason: all of it felt like a gift.

“Come here, boys.”

They came to where she was sitting. Their bare chests were streaked with wet sand. She hugged them together.

Noah touched her face. “Mama, why are you crying?”

She hadn’t noticed. She wiped a tear away with her thumb. “I’m just happy to see you. Sometimes grown-ups cry because they’re happy.”

Sam frowned skeptically; she thought he was going to ask about his father. “You’re not sick again, are you?”

She hugged them again. “Not at all,” she said.

When they returned to the condo, Jack was snoring away. His arm lay over his eyes. Thirteen years of marriage: her mind circled this thought, feeling only a mild surprise at the swift passage of time. In the adjoining room she bathed the boys, dressed them in clean shorts and T-shirts, and took them to the restaurant to wait for their father. It was the early seating for dinner; most of the other guests had children with them, even babies. At the table next to theirs a young mother spooned food into a little girl’s mouth from a tiny jar. A quick, heady thrill passed through her, remembering the years when the boys were small: Sam’s tiny mouth as he reached for his bottle, the smell and heat of Noah’s skin, like warm bread and cinnamon. So delicious, even to be near them; there were days, she had joked, when she could have eaten them whole. One wasn’t supposed to feel this way anymore-having children was a sideline, a concession to biology one made in the midst of other things-and yet it was the only true desire she’d ever possessed.

“When’s Daddy coming?” Sam asked.

She opened their menus. “He’ll be along. Why don’t we order?”

She ordered hamburgers for the boys, filet for Jack, swordfish for herself. She had given Jack a nudge before they’d left for the restaurant, and she worried that he’d fallen back asleep. But just as their food arrived, he appeared in the doorway of the restaurant.

“Sorry.” He seated himself next to the boys. Beside Noah and Sam she saw how pale his arms and face were. “How was the beach, boys? Did you miss me?” He tousled Noah’s hair. “How’s our zoologist? See any fish?”

The little boy shrugged and chewed. “Minnows.”

Jack looked around. “Where’s Mia?”

“I gave her the rest of the afternoon off,” Kay said. “I think she met someone.”

Jack salted his steak and said nothing.

“A boy her age,” Kay explained. “He works with the boats.”

“His name is Thomas,” Noah said.

Jack frowned. “She should be careful,” he said.

The waiter came to the table, and Jack ordered a beer, and Cokes for the boys; they were each allowed one soft drink with dinner. “I’m just saying we might be liable. If anything happens. You get off the grounds, it’s a different world down here.”

“He seemed very nice,” Kay said. “You wanted her to have some fun, remember?”

They finished their dinner. Outside on the patio a steel band was setting up to play. As they were leaving, Mia arrived, half running, wearing a sundress, her hair gleaming and wet from the shower. The boys took her each by a hand.

“We went to a castle,” she told them breathlessly. “On motorbikes! Just like in Denmark. It was very fun.”

“We finished dinner,” Kay said. “But go get something and charge it to the room.”

“It’s fine,” Mia said, smiling. “I’ve eaten already.”

“Can we go to the castle?” Sam wanted to know.

“Maybe tomorrow,” Kay said.

“Why is it always maybe?” Sam stuck out his lower lip the way he had done since he was a baby. “Just say yes.”

Mia tugged at his hand. “Listen to your mother, Sam,” she said firmly. “If she says maybe, then it is maybe for you.”

At a metal table they listened to the band while the sun went down over the darkening bay. Kay could tell that Jack was antsy to get back to the casino. She left them on the patio and went into the information desk in the lobby, a large open room with plants and flowers everywhere. Was there a castle nearby? she asked. Something like a castle? The attendant took a brochure from a dispenser behind his chair and unfolded it on the counter. Glossy photos of a ruined stone structure with ramparts high above the sea; piles of cannonballs and people waving; a map with the castle’s location on a solitary promontory marked by a red star: It was actually an eighteenth-century Spanish fort, the attendant explained. They could rent mopeds, he said, though the roads were narrow and steep. A van could take them, too, for thirty dollars.

She made a reservation for the van for 9:00 A.M., before the sun would get too hot, tucked the brochure in the pocket of her dress, and returned to the patio. The brochure said that the fort’s high vantage point made it a good spot for whale watching; it was this that had made her decision. She wanted to give Noah a whale.

The band had stopped playing by the time she returned; the table was empty. Down by the water’s edge she saw the boys and Mia. The last of the light was about to go. She took off her shoes and joined them. The sand around and under her feet still hummed with the heat of the day.

“You missed it,” Sam said cheerfully, and arched his back so he was walking on his hands and feet together. “Mia taught me to limbo.”

“How low can you go? How low can you go?” Noah recited. His face and voice were bland; the music was in his head, she knew, a perfect recording without a trace of feeling, except perhaps a mild curiosity. She smiled at him as he clapped his hands joylessly.

“We came down to look for dolphins,” Mia explained.