June 21 already. Mother and I haven’t talked about the coming date. Today may be the longest span of daylight of the year, the summer solstice, but in two days it will be June 23 again, the longest day of my life. As sure as the earth turns on its axis, the seasons change. There’s a time to mourn, and a time to turn from mourning. Is this what we are doing—Mother and I—in our own ways, like magnets pushing each other away? On the twenty-third, after a whole year has passed, are we supposed to stop? Turn everything off, all our feelings, and let Howard move into the Maine house? Adopt Kammi as our own and set up her easel and paints near a window with a southern exposure?
A group of boys jog along the beach, splashing through the surf, kicking up wet sand. Laughing, they pass close in front of me, but they don’t turn to look. They’d recognize me if they did. I know them. Saco’s running in front. Panting, Mayur brings up the rear. How will he ever hike Mount Christoffel on Saturday?
The boys stop before they get close to our house, before they’ve crossed an imaginary property line. They look toward it, and then they wave in unison at someone standing on the deck. I squint. It wouldn’t be Mother. She’d be in her studio near the widow’s walk, higher still, except that it’s not even eight o’clock yet. Martia, maybe? She might be sweeping the sand off the deck, careful not to drag the furniture for fear of disturbing Mother, who demands quiet in the mornings.
The figure comes down from the deck and meets the boys on the beach. They crowd around.
By the time I get there, Kammi’s at the center of the group of boys.
“Where’d you go?” she asks when she sees me. The boys part around her like a river around a rock.
“I walk the beach every morning.”
“What’s in the bag?” Mayur asks.
Before I answer, Loco elbows his way between Mayur and me. “If you want shells,” Loco says, “we know a good spot. Where they aren’t broken up. Off the reef.” He’s pointing up the beach, on the other side of Blauwe Huis. “You have to swim out past it.”
“It’s safe,” Saco says to Kammi.
Kammi looks from Saco to me.
“I’m not looking for shells,” I say, gripping the plastic bag harder in my fist even though it’s empty, as if someone might take it and look inside.
“I like to pick up shells,” Kammi says. “At Sanibel Island, in Florida, the beaches have thousands of shells. So many you can’t walk barefoot.”
Saco nods, serious. “I know a beach like that here, too. It’s on the other side of the island. Maybe we can go—”
“Hello.” A voice carries on the wind. Mother waves from the widow’s walk. Up early. Maybe she heard the voices after all and decided she’d better worry about Kammi. Because she can’t trust all those boys, and she can’t trust me to protect Kammi. Not after the nighttime swim at the Bindases’ house.
Saco hesitates, but then he waves, and the other boys do, too. He’s the leader. Even though Mayur thinks he is, because it’s his beach and his house and his father’s a doctor.
“Come over for breakfast. Martia, we have company.” Mother goes back inside, but I can still hear her calling for Martia. When Mrs. Bindas came to visit, Mother couldn’t wait for her to leave. Now Mother’s asking for the boys to come closer. She wants to meet them, check them out herself before she lets Kammi go hiking with them.
Saco opens his mouth, but Mother’s already disappeared.
“Mother wants to meet you before the hike,” I say.
Mayur says, “She was at the cookout.”
“That was before the hiking invitation. She wants to make sure no one’s going to push Kammi off a cliff,” I say.
“That’s not true,” Kammi says, blushing.
“Okay, so maybe no one’s going to push you off a cliff,” I say.
Martia appears on the deck. She’s carrying a tray. “Breakfast,” she calls.
Mayur barrels his way forward, the other boys following his lead. Saco waits with Kammi and me. Funny how when other people are around, Mayur assumes his princely role. Kammi is his guest for the hike, so he goes first in the natural order of things.
Martia has filled a blue and white tray with pastries and rolls, butter and jam. We walk onto the deck, where the boys stand around in a circle, their backs against the railing. A moment later, Martia returns with a pitcher of chilled passion-fruit juice and thin plastic cups that, when empty, will blow away in the wind. She fills the cups and passes them around.
Mother appears, putting herself into the circle of boys. “I didn’t have a chance to meet most of you at the cookout.” She hasn’t asked a question of them yet, so they don’t say anything.