April & Oliver (40 page)

He recalls April’s voice from childhood, over the sound of the surf one summer. “Come on,” she called. “The tide’s going out.
We can make it.”

Oliver stared at the mountain of rock emerging from the sea about a hundred feet offshore, just at the edge of a cove. To
him, it had the shape of a gigantic wolf curled in sleep. Even if they reached it, how could they possibly scale it, especially
with a four-year-old in tow?

“Do you have any idea how fast the tide comes in here?” he called.

But April had already hoisted Buddy up on her shoulders and was making her way gingerly across the slick, rounded boulders.
It didn’t matter that she had rolled up her shorts. They were instantly doused by waves moving in turbulent sheets across
the bed of stones. Oliver knew better than to try to stop her.

They were twelve. Oliver’s parents had invited April and Buddy on a camping trip. Buddy liked to wake April and Oliver every
morning to go exploring before breakfast. Al, then fourteen, was dead asleep at that hour, and refused to be roused for anything
short of the tent catching fire.

“Wait up,” Oliver called. He had on sturdier sandals than April, but still it was hard to find his footing on the slick, ribbon-like
seaweed. The ocean smell was strong here. In the fleeting moments when the water stilled between surges, it was surreally
clear. Rocks of all colors glistened beneath the surface. He saw a sea urchin, and then, to his amazement, a starfish with
long, graceful fingers and a spiny, salmon-ocher back. It appeared only for an instant before being obliterated by the next
influx of water.

“How can you see where you’re going?” Oliver asked. April’s hands were cupped around Buddy’s ankles while her hair flew wildly
about her face.

“Do me a favor,” she said. “Tie it in a knot.”

He had done this before, so he knew to grasp the hair at the base of her skull, twist it snugly into a rope down to the tip,
then tie the whole thing in a slip knot.

Was the water deeper now because they were getting closer to the sleeping wolf, or was the tide coming in? Looking back over
the rocks they had already crossed, it was impossible to tell. The closer they got to the huge rock, the more the boulders
were encrusted with sharp, gnarly barnacles.

“The barnacles are closed,” Oliver said, bending to look at them. “Doesn’t that mean they’ve been out of water for a while?”

“Does it?” she said.

“Low tide’s over,” he said. “We don’t have much time.”

“We’ve gotten this far, Oliver,” she said. “Let’s at least see the view from the top.”

“How are we supposed to get up there?”

They hoisted themselves up on a ledge, the back paw of the wolf. “I’ll go first,” she said. “You pass Buddy up to me.” She
began to climb. The rock was a creamy pink with crystalline specks that sparkled in the morning sun. When she reached the
next level spot, she lay on her stomach and reached her hands down for Buddy. Oliver held the boy over his head until April
had grabbed hold. They heard a thunderous boom as a wave struck the rock from the opposite side. Fine spray came down on them
from over the rise. “Here comes the tide,” Oliver shouted.

“Hurry up,” Buddy called down to him. “We’re almost at the top.”

As they approached the crest, they each took one of the boy’s hands. As soon as they stepped over the rise, a burst of wind
almost knocked them off their feet. They grabbed each other, Buddy between them, and went to their knees. It was like being
in a wind tunnel. April’s hair came undone and whipped behind her like a tattered flag. Oliver’s sweatshirt nearly flew clear
off his body. Buddy howled laughter, raising his arms. April and Oliver held him tightly. The wind was so strong it was hard
to breathe, but somehow they were smiling. The expanse of ocean before them was more than Oliver’s eyes could take in. He
had never seen so much sea at once. Rows of whitecaps extended out to the horizon. With the vast, glinting ocean before them
and the strident wind in their faces, Oliver wondered:
If this moment were a song, what would it sound like?

He doesn’t know how long he has been sitting there when he smells the musky aroma of burning peat and realizes he is hungry.
He left the B&B at dawn, so he guesses it must be close to nine by now, four in the morning back home, though he’s not inclined
to think that way anymore. The fog has thinned and he begins walking, passing black-faced sheep and a lone horse switching
its tail as it watches him. He sees a white building and moves toward it, hoping to find a road he can follow. It turns out
to be a church, simple and small, with stone walls and a slate roof that probably replaced the thatch.

Without thinking, he goes inside. Frail light filters onto the pews. It is empty. He has not been inside a church since his
wedding day. Through blood-red glass, the tabernacle flame shimmers, indicating the presence of the Eucharist. Oliver genuflects,
though he’s not sure why, and when he stands, he notices beside the altar a modest, upright piano.

At the same moment Oliver stands frozen in the church, April awakens to the sound of wind. A dream swims in her mind, and
she quiets herself to remember it clearly. She is lying in the back of a canoe, her arm draped over the side, fingertips raking
the cool water. Fly fishing, Buddy stands in front, reeling in his line. He turns to look at her over his shoulder, his grin
wide and confident. “This is it,” he says. “I’m going for broke.” As he throws his arm back to cast, the endless swerve of
the line slicing across the sky, the latch on his wristwatch opens. April reaches over the side of the boat and snatches the
watch an instant before it hits the water. When she looks up, Buddy is gone. The boat is still, the water undisturbed. He
has vanished, and in his place on the forward bench of the canoe lies a glistening rainbow trout.

April sits up in bed. She looks for her watch atop the library books on the night table, but finds it has fallen to the floor.
She reaches for it. Four twelve am. She shivers. The dream felt so real.

If Oliver takes a single step farther into the church, he will lose his bearings. Something here wants him, the way fire does
wood. He pictures the stove at the B&B where he brews himself tea. Each night he tosses a brick of peat into the flames and
watches, transfixed, as the peat is gradually inhabited, consumed, obliterated into light and heat. The fire ravages the peat,
the peat fueling the fire, transformed as one into fragrance and ash.

He tells himself he only wants to see if the piano is tuned. Fragments of memories shower his mind, like the time he waded
into the ocean at night and dove toward the lane of moonlight lilting on the rhythmic sea. The memory glints and vanishes
like a knife through water, ephemeral as fingers shaping a chord.

Shaken by the dream, April pulls on her robe. Dubious stands abruptly and shakes, his eyes sleepy and dazed. “It’s okay,”
she says. “Go back to sleep.”

In her pocket is Oliver’s letter. She stares at it, remembering hide-and-seek, how good he was at keeping still. When she
found him, it was because he summoned her. Even now she can almost hear the pause between his breaths, the silence around
each heartbeat. At the same time, he is infinitely far, like someone she never knew.

In the living room, the sliding glass door is wet with spray sucked from the crests of waves. April opens it a few inches
and feels the burst of cool salt air lift her hair off her shoulders. The sky is remarkably clear now. She recognizes Vega
and the constellation Orion. The sea has never sounded so close. The dog circles her nervously. With her eyes on the darkened
window, she slides down against the piano and listens.

He tests a note. The piano feels like a stranger, cold and stiff. He remembers lying in the rowboat with April, water lapping
the wood. It was true what she said about setting fire to everyone she touched.

The cold, damp church has swollen the wood of the piano. The keys are a fraction late springing back, but it’s in tune. He
plays Bach’s Minuet in G Sharp, one of the first he practiced as a boy, and the piano rises to it.

The sea is turbulent outside. Dubious rests his head in April’s lap. She moves her grandmother’s cross between her fingers,
opens the letter, and reads.
Dear Dad,
it begins. She feels voyeuristic, reading someone else’s mail, but Hal seems determined to share it. As she reads, she learns
that Oliver is in Ireland now, on an island called Inishmore where he plans to stay through April. After that, he’s not sure
if he will return to California, go back to law school, or some third option he hasn’t thought of yet. He’s leaning toward
something impractical. April folds the letter, smiling, and strokes the dog’s back.

She notices a second envelope within the first. She takes it out and sees
Please forward to April
written in Oliver’s pen. She gives a start. Dubious looks up at her curiously. Until now Oliver has not so much as mentioned
her. She opens it to find only a postcard, an aerial shot of an island off Galway Bay, breathtaking and bleak. She stares
at the image without flipping it over, afraid of what he has written. Looking at the island, she imagines it some five thousand
miles due east, skirting the opposite shore. She wonders about the people who live there, how one learns to survive the presence
of so much beauty. Bracing herself, she turns the postcard over. In the upper-left corner the faintly typeset address of a
B&B has been circled in the same blue pen as her name on the envelope. Below that, nothing is written. Not a word.