His favorite day of the year. Didn’t he go over that? Even if he did, maybe something will come out of it that he hadn’t thought of before. He’d begin talking about it with her and the kids days before they left New York for Kennebunkport. “Guess what? We’re getting close to my favorite day of the year. I can hardly wait.” Or “Two days till my favorite day of the year. Everybody thinking about what they want to pack? I know, it’s crazy, but I so much look forward to it.” Gwen and he would share the driving, even the times she was pregnant—“No; my stomach doesn’t get in the way”—so that part of it wasn’t difficult. Six, seven hours. If they left on a Friday, which he liked to avoid, maybe eight. He’d sleep for about an hour in the front passenger seat. “Where are we?” he’d say when he woke up. “God, we’ve made great time.” Lunch at a family restaurant they always stopped at in Connecticut right off the highway—81? 94?—about ten miles from the Mass Pike. The kids loved its homemade pies with two scoops of ice cream on top. “Can we get two flavors?” He’d start singing moment after they crossed the Pisca-something bridge into Maine and the kids would join in — Gwen never did: “It’s too silly a ditty”: “We’re here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here-e-e-e,” their voices rising on the last “here,” and then a repeat of the line without a rise at the end. It was something — not a song, really — his busload of summer campers when he was a kid used to sing when the bus pulled into camp, also for two months. Bringing into the motel room their briefcases of manuscripts and one of his two typewriters — hers and then her computer and printer were too heavy for someone to steal, though he covered them and his other typewriter with blankets — and a suitcase for them and knapsacks for the kids and stuff for the cats. And a shopping bag of cotton sheets and pillowcases for them to replace the linen already on their bed. The kids didn’t mind the hotel linen and didn’t understand why they did. “They all feel the same.” “That’s because your body isn’t supersensitive yet,” he said, and when she started crying — he forgets which one — he said “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. You’re sensitive; I know. Please, darling, don’t spoil a great day.” Running around the beach with the kids — being chased and then chasing them — three of them jumping into the water together at least once. “Br-r-r-r, it’s cold, our annual membership renewal in the Polar Bear Club.” The kids able to tolerate the cold water much better than he — even swimming in it a few minutes — all while Gwen read or napped or both in the room. “If you can swing it, I’d love to have two hours alone. Even to see what’s on cable,” since they didn’t have it at home. Showering. “You too, kids. If you want to sleep without scratching your feet all night, you have to wash the sand out of your toes.” He’d get cheese from the little cooler they brought from New York and put it on crackers and pass the plate around and then just leave it on the night table. Vodka over rocks but probably two before heading off for dinner. He always offered her a beer or glass of wine in the motel, but she’d hold off drinking till he ordered a bottle of wine at the restaurant. “A half bottle or wine by the glass won’t do? After all, it’s just the two of us drinking.” “What we don’t drink, I’ll cork and bring back to the room and we’ll finish it tomorrow night. But you know me. It’s the one evening I don’t mind getting a bit lightheaded, and we’re not driving.” Delicious food. He thinks he ordered the summer’s first New England clam chowder as a starter every year and then scallops as an entrée. Sunset from the glass-enclosed porch they always tried to sit in. He’d call the restaurant before, sometimes from New York a week ahead, but if he didn’t he’d stop by the reservation desk on his way to or back from the beach with the kids to see if he could reserve a table by the porch window around seven. Because they always ate at the Breakwater Inn: just a short walk from their motel. After dinner, the kids usually ran ahead. “Give us the key.” “It’s dark, and there are no streetlights, so watch out for cars when you cross the road.” Gwen and he either held hands when they walked back or he put his arm around her waist or shoulders. Because of the wine and food and that they were feeling so good with each other and everything had gone smoothly that day and this was the first day of their long stay in Maine, with no classes to prepare till the end of summer, and maybe something to do with the sea smells and air, he could almost say they always made love that night, but only when they were sure the kids were asleep in the next bed. When Rosalind got older — fourteen? fifteen? — which would make Maureen eleven to twelve — the girls got their own room in the motel. “Come on, kids; it’s getting late. Time to turn off the TV.” “Ten minutes?” “Okay. Sounds fair.”
