Tidal Flats. Cynthia Newberry Martin
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“I made you a bow,” she said.
He rested his hand on her leg as he stood.
Then he picked up his wallet from the wooden bowl. “I wonder what a clown does with his money.” His cell phone beeped. “There’s Wheeler now.” Ethan collected the rest of his clown paraphernalia and said, “Okay, give this clown a proper send-off.” He pinched her bottom and honked his horn. “I’ll be back in time for supper unless I decide the clown life is the life for me—in which case, come visit me when the circus is in town.” He picked up his pillow and threw it at her.
Instead of accompanying him to the door, she slid back under the covers. He still hadn’t said he was going back, and like a kid afraid that if she didn’t believe she wouldn’t get any toys, she hadn’t asked.
She tried to imagine him in Afghanistan. There, he wore a beard. There, he dressed in those loose, flowing clothes. But it was all blurry. She could only see him here.
And she was doing her part. Right after they got married, she’d bought a journal and directed her thoughts toward children. She’d visited the zoo, stood next to them, spoke to them. In those early days, Ethan might point out how much fun a small family was having at the beach. See, he would say. And yes, she would reply, they did seem to be having fun. But she only saw it; she couldn’t feel it deep inside. Then she switched her focus to the mothers—watching and listening and talking to them. Finally she tried making it an intellectual undertaking and read everything she could get her hands on about the wonder and mystery of children.
She wanted to want them for Ethan.
But she just didn’t.
She’d thought about pretending—saying she wanted one and seeing what happened. Perhaps if she had mother clothes to put on …
These days, her goal was to not draw any conclusion, to not say out loud or in her head anything final, to remain open for the weeks that remained. But the closer it got to their anniversary, the more she found herself thinking about Ethan’s part of the bargain rather than her own. After all, as she’d said more than once to Vee, if he was never done with Afghanistan, she would never have to have a baby.
She picked up her phone.
“Is this the director of Howell House calling?” Vee said.
“Ha ha. How’s it going?”
“Ugh—stomach flu.”
“Oh dear, can I do anything?”
“Don’t mention hamburgers.”
“Hope you feel better.”
“We’ll celebrate when I do. Adios.”
Cass slid her computer to the bed. She had to get the GoFundMe account open. But she couldn’t come up with a name she thought would inspire donations. Maybe if she let go of what she wanted and looked at what she had.
Help Howell House.
It wasn’t poetry, but it was a way forward.
“Help Howell House,” she typed into the website and clicked and was live, everything else having been in place days ago. Then she clicked on the Donate Now button and contributed $100. Her plan was to get the word out to as many people as possible, and she would ask Ella to take charge of the campaign on social media. Next week, letters would go out. After that, an email blast. Building up to the serious stuff—the foundations and potential large donors. She could do this. She had to do this.
Around dusk, she and Ethan set out on foot for Sunday Supper at JCT. Kitchen. Not depending on a car for everyday living was something they agreed on. He hadn’t had one since before college; hers stayed mostly in the garage. It had been her high school graduation gift, and she’d always thought she’d trade it in for something smaller when she had extra money. But her parents had given her the Explorer. They’d seen her in it. She had seen them from it. It was a link, a connection. At the time each one had died, she’d hardly kept anything. Travel light her father had taught her.
Up ahead, the dirt-red pedestrian bridge extended in an arc over the railbed below. Its design echoed the crossing tracks underneath.
“You look nice,” Ethan said. “I’ve missed how you wear your clothes.”
She smiled. “How do I wear my clothes?”
“Like butter,” he said, leaning over and kissing her ear. “Like they’re irrelevant.”
She glanced down. A faded pink tee, a chiffon skirt, sandals.
On one of the tables across from the bar, a family was having a picnic. The baby was crying in the stroller, which the mother was pushing back and forth. Another kid sat in the dad’s lap. Still another was smashing potato chips. The dog hid under the table.
“The circus was fun,” Ethan said. “It’s been a while since I was with little kids for that long. I’d forgotten how the smallest things amaze them. They totally believed I was a clown. I was completely real to them.”
“Were you funny?”
“I believe I was, babe,” he said, taking her hand.
“How did you even know how to be funny?”
“They painted a big red smile on my face.”
“I wish I’d known it was that easy,” she said, and flicked him with her jean jacket.
“The tent was packed. Kids and parents and balloons and—they even had an elephant the kids could feed. You should have seen him sling his trunk around a banana. Ate the whole thing—peel and all.”
Last night the elephant wandered India again / and tore the darkness to shreds. One of the five passages her father had underlined. Elephants always made her think of Rumi.
“I just stood there, and kids came up and laughed and hugged me. And the parents would take our pictures. I love kids.”
Cass loved Ethan.
And she loved the views from the bridge, especially at dusk—to the right, the old Atlanta Water Works smokestack with faintly lit downtown Atlanta behind it, and to the left, tracks that led into grass and trees and sky. She paused at the top looking away from town.
He came up behind her and rested his chin on top of her head.
She pulled his arms around in front of her and ran her fingers over his knuckles. As she stared at the undeveloped land, she tried to visualize Ethan done with Afghanistan but couldn’t do it. What if he couldn’t do it—what if he couldn’t stop going? Ever since Tidal Flats, she’d been thinking of the agreement as something that would keep them together, but as a breeze swirled around them, releasing the overly sweet smell of tea olives, it occurred to her instead that the agreement could be the end of them.
11
The day after the circus, Cass arrived home with a small bag from the market. Ethan was sitting on the sofa facing the door. “Hey,” she said, “Wheeler’s fund-raiser gave me the idea of having a small thing at Howell—balloons, music, games, Fanny’s chocolate chip cookies. Saturday morning. I handed out flyers on the way home. And I included the GoFundMe info …” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ethan’s travel camera bag on the wheelbarrow.
He stood. “I’m going back,” he said. “Friday.”
“Oh,” she said. He wouldn’t be here Saturday.
He stepped toward her.
She held up her hand to stop him, and they just stood there miles apart. On the table she’d set that morning—two plates, two napkins, two wine glasses. She let go of the bag of groceries and heard the crack of breaking glass, smelling the wine before she thought of it and turning away from Ethan and the mess and going around the other sofa toward the French doors, which she threw open. She just had