Page 28 of Love Always

΅

Sunday, I have to get to Weaver’s by two, but the morning is wide open. Cory wakes in a great mood and Devon, who I hardly saw all night, is still in her bedroom with the door shut.

“Blueberry pancakes,” I suggest.

There is silence from the little boy on the floor building with his box of Lego. “Hey,” I try again. “This is a question. Blueberry pancakes?” This time I try to sound more like I’m asking a question.

“Only if you melt the butter.”

“Okay and—”

“—and warm up the syrup. Real maple syrup.”

I sigh and feel like I’m on the short end of some stick. “What are the magic words? I think you’re forgetting them,” I say as straightforward as possible and with no judgment.

In the same, almost bossy tone, he says “Please. Only if you melt the butter and please heat up the syrup.”

“Good job,” I say fishing around in the cupboards for flour, baking soda, baking powder, a little bit of vinegar, then to the fridge for milk and butter. The maple syrup is sitting on the back of the top shelf.

“Momma,” he says suddenly. “Ms. Kram makes this face?”

This is a question. I have to turn all the way around to look at him and I try really hard not to sigh. He does this all the time, making me decipher other people’s expressions, mirroring them in his little face. All Cory is trying to do is negotiate the world and figure people out. Right now, his mouth is set in a grim line and his eyebrows are deeply furrowed. Deeply. He has a plastic mirror on the floor next to him and he glances at himself making sure he has it right before he turns his face to me for presentation.

I try really hard not to laugh. “Well, I think that means she’s either confused or frustrated.”

“But not angry, right?”

“It could mean that but I don’t think so. Did she make that face on Friday?”

“She makes it a lot,” he says. “She makes it after I talk to her.”

As he’s eating hot pancakes and pouring more maple syrup over all of them, I stare out our little window at the sea. From my vantage point I can’t see the street unless I walk all the way over, stand next to the window, and look down. From the corner window, I can see the right turn in the curve of the asphalt road. That’s Main Street. Take a left onto the dirt road, and you're on Quarry. The first property is Echo Bay Inn. Go straight and you’re on the beach.

Finn’s got a fire going and smoke is spiraling from the chimney. It looks very cozy. There’s no fog but the clouds are thick, heavy and low, brooding over the ocean. I want to get outside and let Devon have some privacy this morning. She might be hung over. I start to ask a question and then reframe it to a directive.

“Let’s take a walk on the beach.”

“Please I need time?” he asks.

I pick up the egg timer. “I’ll set it for fifteen minutes. That will give you time to finish and brush your teeth and get your boots on.”

“And a coat,” he says, giving orders to himself, and shoves more pancakes in his mouth. He has an uncanny-to-the-minute relationship with our egg timer.

While he brushes his teeth, I slip on my wet shoes, and put his yellow rubber boots by the door. I help him into his coat—he still can’t negotiate a zipper—and wait for him to struggle into boots.

The air is ripe with salt and the briny smell of fish. Though I love lobster and crab, I can’t stand fish, and the smell leaves a metallic taste in the back of my throat.

We wander down to the shore and the waves are a little high, crashing on the shore, sifting sand and water back to sea. “Stay close!” I yell.

Cory dances in his boots, throwing his arms up in the air, the gulls teasing him as he runs down the beach past the Inn. The tide is going out and the expanse of beach is widening by the minute.

I turn up my jacket collar and head into the wind.

“Where are you two going?”

Mateus’s voice stops me in my tracks. Cory’s head snaps around. Mateus makes his way, coming down from the hillock, past Salty and the corral, heading straight for us, a lidded travel mug in his hand. He’s hatless and his black, thick, straight hair is actually tousled, wavy with the heavy sea spray. My heart flutters. Literally.

I point vaguely ahead. “Just going up the beach.”