The Gypsy Moth Summer by Julia Fierro

Author:Julia Fierro
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

17.

Veronica

She looked past the caterpillars slithering across the window and spotted Bob trudging across the wide sea of lawn. Champ loped at his side, Bob’s hand absentmindedly stroking the dog’s thick brown coat. It comforted her, knowing Bob wasn’t alone. His binoculars bounced against his paunch and she tried to remember a younger version of him, all muscle and bone and a full head of hair. The dog tags Admiral Marshall had specially made for him tangled on his naked chest when they’d made love for the first time after a long business trip. Veronica had known right away he hadn’t been faithful to her while away—there just wasn’t enough desperation in the act. The knowledge had stung and she’d made fun of herself—you naïve little twit—for believing he’d have chosen solitude. For her.

He was up at the seawall almost every night since they had returned. There was a new crack in the foundation and he had commanded her to get on the goddamn horn and call the engineers. Order a ton of boulders to be shipped on a barge. Fortification. She had nodded and said, Yes, Bob, but hadn’t called anyone, and knew she never would. There was no room on her to-do list.

She lit a cigarette and resisted the urge to scratch the phantom itch where her left breast had once been. She tried to imagine what he saw when he looked out over the sea. It was as if he was waiting. For something. Or someone. Gripping the cement with his feet, like he could will the crumbling seawall to remain solid, root it into the earth, brace it against the surge sucking at the foundation. It was just like him, she thought, to pick an unwinnable battle with the sea, the merciless ebb and flow that would remain long after the seawall crumbled, long after he, and she, were dead and gone. Most likely, she thought, he was dreaming of revenge. Like some mad sea captain at the water-whipped helm of his ship.

It would rain soon—dark storm clouds swarmed over the sea. What would happen to the caterpillars, she wondered, realizing they didn’t repulse her as they did the rest of the islanders. Perhaps a plague was just what the island needed.

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