I swallowed. “Yes, Father,” I admitted. Every waking moment.

“And have you committed the most grievous offense of masturbation?” he asked.

What was he talking about? I’d never heard the word before, but I guessed he meant intercourse. I couldn’t imagine what else he might mean.

“Oh, no, Father!” I said, so loudly my family probably could hear me in the pews.

“Good,” the priest said. “Be sure you never do.”

Never? I wanted to ask him if it would be okay to do it when I was married, but he sounded so stern and frightening that I didn’t dare.

“Yes, Father,” I said.

“For your penance, say six Hail Marys and five Our Fathers and now make a good Act of Contrition.”

The rote words spilled out of my mouth. All the while I was thinking that I’d gotten out of it easy. For a few extra Hail Marys, I would continue having impure thoughts about Ned. I wasn’t sure I could stop them even if I wanted to.

CHAPTER 18

Julie

I lay in the double bed in the guest room in Ethan’s house. The room was dark, but I remembered my impressions from when I walked into it for the first time that afternoon to deposit my overnight bag on the handsome wood chair in the corner. The walls were a spectacular blue—robin’s-egg, only richer and deeper. The curtains fluttering against the open window were a bold white-and-blue stripe. The painting on the wall looked like something my mother might have created: an impressionistic view of what could either have been a body of water or a green field, depending on how you wanted to look at it. I wondered if the simple yet dramatic decor was Ethan’s doing or that of his ex-wife. I didn’t need to wonder who was responsible for the stunning carved headboard or the dresser. By the time I’d made it to the guest room, I already knew that Ethan was no ordinary carpenter.

Many things had changed in Bay Head Shores since 1962. As I drove through the area before heading to Ethan’s house, I tried to remain in control and dispassionate, as if I were a scientist making observations instead of a woman visiting a place that haunted her. The little corner store where my sisters and I used to buy penny candy had been turned into a tiny antique shop, and now it was tucked beneath the overpass leading to the large bridge that had replaced the old Lovelandtown Bridge. There were many more houses, and the area had the feeling of a resort as opposed to the simple bayside neighborhood it once had been. The sun was brilliant against the architecturally varied houses. The yards were manicured with pebbles or sand and salttolerant landscaping. I drove the curved road leading to our little beach—the Baby Beach—with a tight knot in my throat.

Okay, I said to myself as the beach came into view. Be objective. There’s the little playground. Could those swings possibly be the same ones Daddy used to push us on? I didn’t think so. There’s the lifeguard stand. And loads of people. Brightly colored beach umbrellas. The shallow area’s still roped off for the kids. But… My eyes searched the water beyond the shallow area. No platform. I was glad to find it missing. I’d dreaded seeing it. I had seen quite enough.

Shore Boulevard, my old street, had changed more than I could have imagined. To begin with, it was no longer a dirt road. Houses sat nearly on top of one another, filling both sides of the street. The woods were gone. Two houses stood in the lot where the blueberry bushes had once flourished. I was surprised that it didn’t sadden me to see how built-up it had become. Instead, it relieved me that it didn’t feel like the same street at all.

I nearly stumbled upon our old bungalow. Everything seemed so different that I hadn’t expected the house to suddenly appear on my right. I stopped the car abruptly, lurching forward, glad there was no one behind me on the quiet street. The house looked lovely and well cared for. It had been a grayish blue when I was growing up, with black shutters. Now it was a sunny pale yellow trimmed with white. An old anchor leaned against the tree in the front yard. The obviously custommade mailbox at the edge of the road was painted to resemble the ocean, and a model sailboat rested on top of it. Someone cared about the house my grandfather had built, and I felt gratitude to them, whoever they were.

Between the bungalow and the newer house to the right of it, I could clearly see the canal. The water had an instantaneous, visceral pull on me. The current was swift, the water that deep greenish-brown I remembered so well. I rolled down my window and let the humid air wash over me. Here’s the only thing that hasn’t changed in this little corner of the world, I thought, as I watched the canal race toward the bay. The water, with its shifting current and its salty, weedy scent. I stared at it, going numb, a defense against feeling anything that could shake my fragile hold on the here and now. I was amazed that, so far at least, I seemed to be surviving this homecoming.

I turned into the Chapmans’ driveway, parking behind a pickup truck I guessed belonged to Ethan, and got out of my car.

“You made it!” Ethan walked from his house and across the sand to where I was standing. His feet were bare and he was wearing jeans and a blue T-shirt. His smile was filled with an ease I did not feel and he surprised me with a hug.

“Quite a trip,” I said, trying to return the smile.

“Traffic?” he asked.

“No. Just…I drove around.”

“Ah.” He seemed to understand. “Changed a bit in forty years, hasn’t it?”

The screen door opened again and it was a moment before I recognized the woman who emerged from the house as his daughter, Abby. She was carrying a sleeping infant, six months old at the most, in her arms.

“Hi, Julie,” she said, walking toward us. She had a baseball cap on her short blond hair and a blue quilted diaper bag over her arm.

“Hello, Abby,” I said, and I leaned down to try to get a look at her baby. The child’s head rested against Abby’s shoulder. It had to be a girl. Her eyes were closed, but her lashes lay long and curled on her pudgy cheeks. “And who’s this?” I asked.

“My granddaughter, Clare,” Ethan said. He reached up and rubbed his hand softly over the little girl’s back.

“She’s gorgeous,” I said.

“Clare and I are just leaving.” Abby smiled at me. “I’m glad I got to see you, Julie, if only for two seconds,” she said.

“You, too, Abby.”

Ethan put his arm around his daughter. “See you Sunday for dinner,” he said.

“You got it.” Abby stood on tiptoe to kiss her father’s cheek. “I love you,” she said, stepping away. Then she walked toward the white Beetle convertible parked in front of the house.

“Love you, too,” Ethan called after her. He grinned, watching his daughter and granddaughter get settled into the little car. He looked at me. “I am one lucky dude,” he said.

I nodded. “Abby’s really a lovely young woman,” I said, but I was thinking about Shannon, trying to remember the last time she had told me she loved me. I told her all the time. When had she started responding to those words with “okay” or the occasional cherished “you, too”?

“Hand me your bag and we can go in the house,” Ethan said.

I rolled my overnight bag toward him and reached into my pocketbook for my eyeglass case. I traded my prescription sunglasses for my regular glasses, then followed him into the house. Once inside, I realized that I had very little memory of its interior. When Ethan and I had played together indoors as kids—rarely, unless it rained—it had usually been at my house. We’d play cards on the porch or board games on the linoleum living-room floor. What had definitely changed inside the Chapmans’ house, though, was its furniture. The first thing that greeted me in the living room was a striking, floor-to-ceiling entertainment center in a pale wood, the craftsmanship exceptional even to my untrained eye. That was only the first of Ethan’s creations I noticed. Everywhere I turned, I saw evidence of his gift. There were end tables and a coffee table. Beautiful chairs with curved backs and silky smooth arms. The kitchen cabinets were a pale maple, and even the countertops were made of a eye-catching striated wood I couldn’t resist running my hand over.

“Tiger maple,” Ethan said. “I love the stuff. You’ll see it all over the house.”

I felt chastened by reality. I’d viewed his being a carpenter in negative terms. In my mind, I’d labeled him a man who worked with his hands instead of his head. But here were the results of his labor. He’d used not only his hands and head in the creative process, but there was plenty of evidence of his heart as well.

“The humidity here is terrible for the wood,” he said, smoothing his fingers over one of the cabinet doors. “But I don’t see the point of making beautiful things if you aren’t going to use them, so I use them.” Damn, he was cute, and I found myself smiling at him. He radiated a relaxed, soft-voiced, blue-eyed charm. The goofy kid who had begged for fish guts was simply not in evidence, and the attraction I’d felt to him in the Spring Lake restaurant was back in spades.

I looked through the kitchen to a jalousied sunroom.

“You enclosed your porch!” I said. Through the open jalousies, I could see the backyard and canal. “Let’s go out there.” I wasn’t sure if I truly wanted to be in the backyard we’d once shared or if I simply wanted to get it over with.

“Sure,” he said.

As we walked onto the sunporch, I squinted my eyes toward the opposite side of the canal. The weathered wooden bulkhead was gone. In its place was a steel bulkhead the color of rust. “What happened to the bulkhead?” I asked.