Carver was lying alongside Beth on the big beach towel with the flamingo design on it that afternoon. They’d both been swimming, and he’d gone back to the cottage and returned with sun blocker for Beth and two cans of cold Budweiser. He lay now on his stomach on the towel, listening to the sea and feeling the hot sun on his back while beside him Beth applied the sun blocker to her arms and shoulders. His head was sideways and resting on his arms, but still he saw the shadow on the sand.
He raised his head and tilted it far back, as if he were a turtle. Adelle Grimm was standing over them. She was wearing green slacks and a loose white blouse and holding a white sandal in each hand. She didn’t yet look pregnant.
“You’re surprised to see me,” she said. The sun was behind her, turning her hair into a halo and making it difficult to make out the expression on her face.
“I suppose so,” Beth said.
Adelle seemed to be looking at Carver. “I came for . . . I don’t really know. Absolution, maybe.”
“I’d give it to you if I could,” Carver said. What had she done? Stepped out on her husband. It wasn’t an uncommon transgression. She’d had no idea it would mean his death.
But it had. He was dead and now maybe she was pregnant with his child. Somebody’s child. Either the husband she’d cheated on or the man who’d murdered him.
“I guess that’s really why I went that day to see Martin Freel. For understanding and absolution.”
“Maybe you should see him again.”
“Are you going to have the baby?” asked Beth, the woman who, because of Adelle’s lover, wasn’t going to have a baby.
“I don’t know. I can’t decide.” The pain in her voice was more burning than the sun.
“You came here for advice,” Beth said. “We can’t give you any.” Carver was surprised by the hardness in her tone, almost a cruelty. “It’s your decision. Yours alone. People like Martin Freel don’t know it yet, but that’s the way it has to be. It’s that way for every woman.”
Adelle backed up a step, her bare toes digging into the hot sand. She didn’t seem to mind the heat, as if the burning of her feet might be some sort of benediction.
“What are you going to do?” Carver asked in a tone kinder than Beth’s.
Adelle waited a moment before answering, staring out beyond him at whatever held her eye on the sea. “I’m not sure,” she said at last, “but I have to make up my mind soon. I have to get this settled.”
She turned and walked away. Carver lay watching her still-slim figure as she climbed the wooden steps from the beach. She bent gracefully to slip her shoes back on, then passed from sight. Beyond her he could see distant storm clouds stacking up for miles in the western sky, blowing in from the Gulf.
He dropped his head and rested it again on his arms. His wristwatch was a hard lump at his temple. Through his ear, through the bones around his ear, he could hear it ticking away time.