snout leading the long dark hunting way.
As she broke the surface, Linda was crying and gulping for air. She started for shore; in front of her waited the pitched bedsheet and the bonfire pit and, above, Condor’s Nest. She thought she saw someone moving in the garden on the bluff, but she couldn’t tell who it was. Someone in a white shirt—was it Edmund? Would he believe her when she told him of the blue shark? She could hardly believe it herself—those shallow black eyes the most evil thing she had ever seen! Her satchel was heavy with lobster and water as she paddled on. There’d be time to dry off and rehook the buttons of her dress and run up the bluff to the kitchen to fetch a deep pot. She would pull Edmund aside and describe the snout and the dorsal fin and how frightened she’d been, and she wanted him to know that he had been in her mind as those teeth gleamed in the dusky water. It was he she’d been thinking about, only Edmund, dear Edmund; everything else had fallen away. And she didn’t care what he would say, didn’t care if this would embarrass him or lead him to call her a stupid girl—because this was the truth, and Linda Stamp had faced a grinning blue shark, and so what if it was little more than a baby, its teeth made Linda’s puma trap look like a nutcracker. She had to tell him, she had to take Edmund’s hand and tell him what really ran through her mind during the moments that mattered most: that she would always think of him first and last, that she was his, and
Oh please Edmund tell me that you are mine
. She reached the shallows, the waves crashing around her, and she stood, the water reaching her waist. She had made it to shore, and despite her fear she knew that she would return to the ocean floor; either the shark would come for her or it wouldn’t. Linda’s optimism set in, and just as she began to emerge from the water, naked except for her satchel and a stalk of kelp across her shoulders, Linda saw a man appear on the beach, followed by someone else, and Edmund trailing behind.
“Linda!” her father called. “Is it really you?” He was waving his arms over his pointy head, and he began running toward the water. He was skinnier than she remembered, and his beard was like a bib across his chest and over his green wool jacket.
Linda stopped, crouching and covering herself in the tide. She waved demurely. Something in her had assumed she’d never see her father again. And something in the expression on Edmund’s face—a face that had turned hard and old as he became a young man—told Linda that he too hadn’t expected to see Dieter again. He’d come to believe that the farm was his, and he’d begun to dig his toes into the windswept land.
“Come out of the water and give Papa a hug,” Dieter called.
But between Dieter and Edmund was a stranger, a tall young man in a white shirt that billowed to reveal a patch of black hair on his chest. He held his chin down, and his shoulders hunched against the spray, and his mane of black hair blew about. He followed Dieter to the water’s edge, and when he looked up, Linda, naked in the waves, the lobsters’ antennae tickling her thigh, saw his face: eel-dark eyes, a mouth split apart as if he were about to say something, as if he recognized her, his brow buckled with a worry Linda knew just then she’d forever wonder about.
“There’s someone I want you to meet,” Dieter said.
Behind the stranger hurried Edmund, his cap pushed far back on his head as if he’d been scratching it while figuring something out. He squinted and his face was blank and his glasses slipped down his nose and off his face, and Linda saw that his resemblance to Dieter had magnified. She knew that Edmund was sensing something shift beneath him. The four years of their small world, Edmund and Linda’s tiny circle of a world, had closed upon itself, a locked globe. Then Valencia appeared, and Charlotte Moss with her notepad.
“I want you to meet
As she broke the surface, Linda was crying and gulping for air. She started for shore; in front of her waited the pitched bedsheet and the bonfire pit and, above, Condor’s Nest. She thought she saw someone moving in the garden on the bluff, but she couldn’t tell who it was. Someone in a white shirt—was it Edmund? Would he believe her when she told him of the blue shark? She could hardly believe it herself—those shallow black eyes the most evil thing she had ever seen! Her satchel was heavy with lobster and water as she paddled on. There’d be time to dry off and rehook the buttons of her dress and run up the bluff to the kitchen to fetch a deep pot. She would pull Edmund aside and describe the snout and the dorsal fin and how frightened she’d been, and she wanted him to know that he had been in her mind as those teeth gleamed in the dusky water. It was he she’d been thinking about, only Edmund, dear Edmund; everything else had fallen away. And she didn’t care what he would say, didn’t care if this would embarrass him or lead him to call her a stupid girl—because this was the truth, and Linda Stamp had faced a grinning blue shark, and so what if it was little more than a baby, its teeth made Linda’s puma trap look like a nutcracker. She had to tell him, she had to take Edmund’s hand and tell him what really ran through her mind during the moments that mattered most: that she would always think of him first and last, that she was his, and
Oh please Edmund tell me that you are mine
. She reached the shallows, the waves crashing around her, and she stood, the water reaching her waist. She had made it to shore, and despite her fear she knew that she would return to the ocean floor; either the shark would come for her or it wouldn’t. Linda’s optimism set in, and just as she began to emerge from the water, naked except for her satchel and a stalk of kelp across her shoulders, Linda saw a man appear on the beach, followed by someone else, and Edmund trailing behind.
“Linda!” her father called. “Is it really you?” He was waving his arms over his pointy head, and he began running toward the water. He was skinnier than she remembered, and his beard was like a bib across his chest and over his green wool jacket.
Linda stopped, crouching and covering herself in the tide. She waved demurely. Something in her had assumed she’d never see her father again. And something in the expression on Edmund’s face—a face that had turned hard and old as he became a young man—told Linda that he too hadn’t expected to see Dieter again. He’d come to believe that the farm was his, and he’d begun to dig his toes into the windswept land.
“Come out of the water and give Papa a hug,” Dieter called.
But between Dieter and Edmund was a stranger, a tall young man in a white shirt that billowed to reveal a patch of black hair on his chest. He held his chin down, and his shoulders hunched against the spray, and his mane of black hair blew about. He followed Dieter to the water’s edge, and when he looked up, Linda, naked in the waves, the lobsters’ antennae tickling her thigh, saw his face: eel-dark eyes, a mouth split apart as if he were about to say something, as if he recognized her, his brow buckled with a worry Linda knew just then she’d forever wonder about.
“There’s someone I want you to meet,” Dieter said.
Behind the stranger hurried Edmund, his cap pushed far back on his head as if he’d been scratching it while figuring something out. He squinted and his face was blank and his glasses slipped down his nose and off his face, and Linda saw that his resemblance to Dieter had magnified. She knew that Edmund was sensing something shift beneath him. The four years of their small world, Edmund and Linda’s tiny circle of a world, had closed upon itself, a locked globe. Then Valencia appeared, and Charlotte Moss with her notepad.
“I want you to meet
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