Death on a Vineyard Beach Read Free Page A

you let go of the tiller and slacked the sheet, and came down here for a minute or two?”
    I looked around the horizon. There were some tall sails to the north of us, and some fishing boats to the south, down toward Wasque or maybe even farther. Two trawlers,their outriggers spread wide so that they looked like great birds or insects sitting on the sea, were moving across the channel. There were no signs of a shoal close by.
    â€œLet’s check it out,” I said, and loosed the sheet and tiller. The
Shirley J.
turned slowly and drifted broadside down wind and stream. I eased down beside Zee.
    Afterward we lay together while the boat wallowed gently on the small waves.
    â€œIs your mast all in splinters, are your shrouds all unstrung?” asked Zee, flashing her dazzling smile.
    â€œOnly momentarily.” I ran my hands over her smooth tanned body. “Skin,” I said. “There’s nothing like it.”
    â€œLook up there,” she said, staring at the sky.
    I looked at the clouds moving across the blue.
    â€œA cloud-eating sky.” She pointed.
    Sure enough, amid the light, fluffy clouds there was a patch of cloud-eating blue sky. As the windblown clouds moved into it, they grew rapidly smaller and then disappeared. Clouds that didn’t enter that bit of blue sky kept right on blowing down wind, intact and undiminished. More proof that nature is weird.
    We lay and watched the clouds being eaten up.
    â€œAre we going to have babies soon?” asked Zee.
    â€œIf you want babies, you get babies.”
    â€œOr should we just have the two of us for a while?”
    â€œIf you want just two of us, you get just two of us.”
    â€œBut what do you want? I don’t want you just to want what I want. I want you to have some wants of your own.”
    â€œBut I do want what you want. I know you want to have babies, so if you want them now, that’s okay with me. Or if you want to have them later, that’s okay, too.”
    â€œBut you do want to have them.”
    â€œActually, I do,” I said. “I just don’t want you to feel that you should have them right away just because I’d like to have some.”
    â€œHow many do you want?”
    â€œI think two. Or three at the most. My parents had two. One of each kind. That seemed to be a good number and a nice variety of genders.”
    â€œMy parents had three. Two boys and me. That seemedlike a nice selection, too. Do you want a boy or a girl first?”
    â€œA girl, because they’re made of sugar and spice and everything nice. And I want her to look just like you. Later we can have a boy. Or if we don’t, that’ll be okay, too.”
    â€œWhat if we get boys instead of girls?”
    â€œI think boys would be okay. You can teach them how to fish and I’ll teach them how to cook. We’ll do the same with the girls. We’ll both teach them how to garden, and Manny Fonseca can teach them all how to shoot.”
    â€œI don’t know if I want them to know how to shoot.”
    â€œIn that case, I’ll have to sneak them off to the Rod and Gun Club range by myself while you’re at work, because I want them to know how to handle weapons.”
    â€œAre we having our first argument about the children?”
    â€œNope. But since there are guns in our house, I want you to learn how to use them, too, and how to be safe with them. But I may have gotten to you too late. You may already be molded.”
    â€œMold, shmold. I just don’t like guns. We never had any in our house.”
    In a locked gun cabinet, I kept the shotguns and the rifle that had been my father’s, and the .38 pistol that I’d had when I’d been a Boston cop. I didn’t do much hunting anymore, but I kept the guns anyway. Now and then I used one.
    I got up and took the tiller and hauled in the sheet, and the
Shirley J.
turned and headed east once more.
    Zee, the sea goddess, lolled