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She draws away from him and dries her eyes. She sniffs once.
The question of whether or not what we do is wrong for me is ir-
relevant, she says, unwilling to repudiate what they have so recently
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won. Of course it is wrong for me. More so for you. It is wrong al-
together. But I thought we had agreed not to squander our joy by
chastising ourselves.
Her hat falls backward and tumbles into the grass. He laces his fin-
gers through the bun of her hair and draws her head back so that her
throat is exposed. She is twisted, contorted on the wooden seat, and
her skirt is already rucked up to her knees. Their embrace is awkward,
and he cannot reach her from the side. He jumps down from the
wooden seat, takes her hand, and leads her into the marshes.
Together, they sink to their knees, the tall grass bending beneath
them, and he pulls her farther down so that they are lying together
on their sides, facing each other. He struggles out of his jacket and
slips out of his braces. He unfastens the front of her dress while she
pulls his shirt from his trousers. The cloth billows out like a para-
chute. She slips her hand up the length of his chest, and it seems the
boldest touch of her life.
Nearby, she can hear the low whomp and flutter of a bird s wing
beating against the water. Something sharp digs into her side. The
sun is so blinding, she has to shift his face over hers to shield her
eyes. She wants to say the word beloved aloud. She hesitates, then
does so once, then twice, then three times the word emerging
in gasps, as if she were being pummeled. Olympia, Haskell whispers
into the side of her hair.
He takes her earlobe into his mouth and presses the heel of his
hand against her through the cloth of her dress. There is a quicken-
ing through her body. With an instinct she has not known she pos-
sesses, her hips rise to meet his hand. How is it that the body knows?
She stretches her legs and pushes herself urgently against him. The
new sensations within her are keen and knife-edged. Her shoulders
slide down against the grass, and she arches her back. Haskell holds
her tightly, his face buried in her neck.
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They lie together in the marshes. The wet seeps through the grass.
I could not have imagined this, she says.
She wants to speak further of this thing that has shaken her body
as if it were a rag doll, this thing that has left her with a curious
thread of lingering desire. She wants Haskell to be inside of her, as
he was in his room. She cannot think of how to tell him this except
to raise her skirts.
How astonishingly bold she is becoming, she thinks.
Is this how it is? she asks him. Is this the secret all men and
women share?
Some have this, he says. Not all. Most men do. There are
women who do not ever have this, who cannot allow themselves to
have it.
And Catherine, Olympia instantly wonders. How is it with
Catherine?
We cannot lie here, he says.
They help each other up, and he kisses her. I will take you to the
cottage now, he says. We will sit in the sun, and our clothes will
dry there.
Her legs are wobbly, and she has to pull herself up into the car-
riage with her hands. Her dress is damp all along one side.
Haskell takes up the reins, turns the horses around, and heads in
the direction of the new cottage. He reaches for her hand, which he
holds in the folds of her skirt.
You flirt with risk, she says.
It is not normally my nature. He presses his hand against her
leg. Sometimes I say to myself that we must never see each other
again, and I am resolved in this
Her heart seizes up at this pronouncement.
and then, within seconds, I understand that such discipline
will not ever be possible.
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They travel the length of the coast road, Olympia praying that
they will not encounter anyone known to her. After a time, he draws
the buggy up to the skeleton of the new cottage. Olympia can see
that it will have a stunning view, with only the Atlantic for a front
yard. He helps her down from the carriage and takes her arm. She
wonders if her father is even now trying to see them through the
telescope, if she now exists in its circular universe. Most of the cot-
tage has been framed, and there are many places through which one
can see the ocean. Olympia begins to imagine fancifully what it
would be like to enclose such a house entirely in windows to have
light always, to feel surrounded by sand and ocean.
I am not sure I have ever seen a house being built, she says.
Together they enter the cottage and move through rooms that for
now exist only in the imagination, rectangular and oblong chambers
framed in pine and oak, forming a house that will one day shelter a
family. She wonders how such a structure might be built, how one
knows precisely where to put a post or a beam, how exactly to make
a window. From time to time, Haskell murmurs beside her, This
will be the kitchen, or This will be the sun parlor, but she does
not attend him closely. She prefers, for the moment, to think of the
house as ephemeral and insubstantial.
This is the dining room, he says when they have come to a stop-
ping place that has been partially enclosed.
And she cannot help but think of the dozens of dinners he and
Catherine will one day have in this room. Perhaps even Olympia
might be invited to such a dinner and will sit where she is standing
now. She shakes her head quickly and turns away.
What is it? he asks.
This . . . , she says. It is not important.
I should not have brought you here.
How old is Catherine? Olympia asks.
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Thirty-four, Haskell says tentatively.
And how old are you?
Forty-one.
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