Between the Tides Read Free Page A

ones!”
    Charles looks at his watch. “Dinner, Lainie?”
    â€œYes, we have an eight-thirty. With Jane and Robert.”
    â€œDon’t go.” Claire grabs my arm. “Mommy, please don’t go. You have to finish the story. Where is the prettiest one, the selkie mother?”
    Charles turns to us and then he leaves without another word, moving down the wooden hallway with his methodical step.
    â€œAh, the prettiest one.” I straighten up.
    â€œHey, Mom? Do you think you’ll have to wear nail polish once we move to this place?”
    â€œI’m sorry, Matilde?” I examine my short fingernails with their residue of charcoal.
    â€œYou know, be like the other mothers. Dad said he’s going to have a big job.”
    â€œMommy!” Claire shouts. “The selkie mother?”
    â€œShe has children and she loves them very much, Claire. For years she tends to them and is a good mother and a good wife. There are days when she almost forgets her sealy skin and she seems resolved to life on land. Other days she visits the rocks and remembers her selkie roots: a distant memory for her until one morning there is a rainstorm and the ceiling starts leaking. The mother climbs up to the rafters to plug the leak and she finds her sealy skin that her husband has hidden away. She cries over her old coat that has stiffened and is withered and dry. Her sad salt tears moisten the coat so it looks more like a seal coat.”
    I stop speaking and the room gets cold.
    â€œThen what?” asks Claire. “Mommy, what?”
    â€œLater, Claire,” Matilde says. “Claire. C’mon, Candy has dinner on the table and the boys will eat up the good stuff. Mommy and Daddy are going out with friends. Mommy has to get ready.”
    â€œThe prettiest one jumps into the ocean!” says Claire. “I know she does, Mommy. I know already! But she has to come back, right, Mommy, back to her children!”
    Matilde scoops Claire into her arms. Claire is struggling, pounding on Matilde’s shoulders. Matilde looks at me and I give in.
    â€œShe does come back, my darling girl.”
    Claire cries anyway; her face is blotchy. Then Matilde cries and so do I.
    *   *   *
    â€œNo, Charles, not tonight.” I am as far away from him as possible in our queen-size bed, not far enough to keep me from his ever-magnetic pull. Lying in bed with Charles is a reminder of our shared history and the private currency we trade in. Before children, before the idea of children. Those days we used to trek along the coast, those nights we read Yeats, mostly “The Song of Wandering Aengus” and the Maud Gonne poems to each other. Sometimes there were no stars in the sky and only a silver moon. He pledged to be my friend, my best friend. Charles, who once kept me safe.
    He sits up, switches on the light, and looks at me. I look away. He takes my head in his elegant surgeon’s hands, runs his fingers down my jawline, and turns me to face him. He leans down and kisses me.
    â€œLainie. Lainie. We’re not moving to Minnesota. We’re moving an hour out of the city.” If only what Charles said could influence me.
    â€œI don’t want to leave New York,” I say.
    â€œYou might change your mind,” Charles says.
    â€œI don’t want to leave my life.”
    â€œWhat life? What will you be giving up? You can have anything you want. You can have everything you want, Lainie.” He starts kissing my earlobe, a preliminary move.
    â€œWhy is that?” I ask.
    â€œYou would have your very own studio. A large studio.” A smart bait for me, his first method of conviction. I’ve worked at my dressing table or in a corner of the living room ever since we converted my studio into Tom’s bedroom two years ago.
    â€œYou’ll make new friends. There’s an Arts Council right in town to join, get to know some other artists. Elliot is where