Moon Shell Beach: A Novel by Nancy Thayer

Author:Nancy Thayer [Thayer, Nancy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 0345498186
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2008-08-05T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-TWO

As Clare and the dog cut through the sand dunes along the path to the beach, the sun was rising. On this calm June morning she could feel the night’s chill vanish like popped bubbles as the sun warmed the air. The water rolled sleepily toward the shore, its lacework waves whispering “sea.”

Clare sank down on the sand to enjoy the sky unfolding its colors, from dove gray to fire opal to a profound shining endless azure, the lavish, spendthrift blue of summer. She pulled her sweatshirt off over her head. No one else was around. Ralph was down at the water’s edge, frightening the waves.

Carelessly, she palmed a handful of sand, enjoying the tickle as it trickled through her fingers until she was left holding only a small moon shell. This clever spiral calcium structure had once been home to a simple, rather unattractive creature, a gelatinous creeping mass. Who could explain why the whorls and stripes were so intricately, carefully, and exquisitely marked?

She and Lexi had named “their” beach “Moon Shell Beach” because of the abundance of moon shells on the sand, but Jetties Beach had many more moon shells, and “their” beach had many other kinds of shells—periwinkles, scallops, razor clams, mussels. She supposed it was the romance of the word moon that entranced them. Back then, everything romantic, enchanted, and dreamy had seemed to be located far away, on another sphere completely from their common, infuriating homes.

How fascinating that Lexi had traveled so far and chosen to return to the island. Somehow it made Clare feel just a bit better about her own decision to live here. She’d lived off-island during college and visited friends on the West Coast, but she’d never seriously considered living anywhere else. She loved Nantucket. She wasn’t crazy about living with her father in the house she’d grown up in, but rentals on the island were insanely expensive; she couldn’t have opened her shop if she hadn’t lived at home. And since her mother’s death, she’d been glad, for her father’s sake, that she still lived at home. She could only imagine what a wreck he and the house would have been without her.

In the distance, a dog barked. Instantly, Ralph took off running down the beach toward the approaching figures. Adam, Lucky, and Bella. She rose and walked toward them. She was beginning to count on these casual morning meetings. Somehow they made her more optimistic about the future.

But why, she wondered, did such a thought even occur? Did she need assistance being optimistic? She stamped on the vacant shell of a spider crab, pleased with the crunching noise. Adam strolled toward her, his family of dogs playing around his legs, and Clare thought how grown-up he seemed, so reliably connected to the world. In contrast, Jesse was about as stable as a windsurfer. His lightheartedness had always been one of Jesse’s charms, but sometimes Clare thought that asking Jesse to settle down and be part of a family was like cutting a bird’s wings.

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