The Ocean House. Mary-Beth Hughes

and Courtney—could be taken by someone else along with the ocean house for good. Save a lot of trouble all round, Paige said with the slightest fake British accent.

      Their father studied Paige: her long straight brown hair, the feathery arch of her eyebrows, her mother’s mobile, easily happy mouth, grim now, serious. He studied Paige for a long time, as if in reappraisal, before he answered in the low quiet voice. The voice that told them they didn’t need to believe him at all. He said that someday they’d recognize the jewel they had in Ruth.

      Right after the hurricane, Mrs. Hoving came to visit Ruth on the screen porch. The back lawn was covered in broken branches of still-green maple leaves. All the jetsam and debris half-swept into piles for the municipal trucks to remove one yard at a time.

      Mrs. Hoving had been helping Mrs. Lanahan down the road. She still did a bit of piecework stitching on the side, drapes and so on. She could do light upholstery, too. If Ruth ever needed such help. And she was so nearby today she thought, Oh, let me just lay eyes on the little ones again. Her niece’s husband was delayed picking her up, and she said to herself and then to Ruth: I told myself to walk down the lane to where that kind man has made a new home. A new start. But was it true?

      Mrs. Lanahan had been full of news about the ocean house. Mrs. Hoving couldn’t believe her ears. Condemned?

      Courtney came home from school but not Paige. All Mrs. Hoving had time to do in front of Ruth’s frowning, scouring eyes was pat Courtney’s wrist and say, You always had your mother’s pretty hands. Then her niece’s husband pulled all the way into the circle drive in a loud Oldsmobile with a discolored bumper. Mrs. Hoving went right out the front door. Just like that, Queen of Sheba, said Ruth to their father that night and imitated a wide sashay that looked nothing like Mrs. Hoving’s aching hip or her careful steps.

      Did Mrs. Hoving leave a message for me? asked Paige.

      She talked about Mama’s hands, said Courtney. Probably that was for you, too.

      The main thing she said was that she was grateful, said Ruth, yes, very thankful that you two were so well loved now. At long last.

      That sounds like a fib, said Paige.

      Apologize, said their father.

      Paige scraped out her chair and darted out of the dining room and up the staircase. Upstairs, the door to their room slammed shut.

      Courtney kept her face averted from Ruth and waited for her father to make sense of the situation. He seemed confused. As if Mrs. Hoving had moved something important or stolen something and left the door wide open to worse. Finally he said, Eat your dinner, now, Courtney. It will only get cold.

      It’s too gross, she said quietly. But he was distracted, listening, as if he could still discern Paige through the ceiling. I want to puke? whispered Courtney, as if telling her father what he really was listening for. Though he didn’t know it yet. Spoiling a surprise.

      Oh, for the love of god, said Ruth. That’s it! That’s it. And she, too, scraped back her chair and let the tears in her eyes show before rushing out, hugging her belly, looking to Courtney like a troll who’d swallowed a poisoned frog.

      Everyone’s so upset, said Courtney with a smile to her father.

      Maybe Mrs. Hoving should mind her own business, he said and went off to comfort Ruth.

      The night before, Ruth told them that the hurricane had flooded the Olympic-size pool at the Beach Club, so much that waves formed and pushed the French fry cooker out of the boardwalk snack shack and onto the jetty. Only the benches on the boardwalk bolted in place had any chance of staying still, she said, but then the boards buckled up like a wave themselves and the benches went with them. Those that were commemorated—for Mrs. Lawrence Thees and for Miss Ethel Bolmeyer—were retrieved and being repaired first. Their mother didn’t have a bench. Which seemed right, since she had a whole house to be remembered by. But the pool rising up was a frightening idea. What if the waves had come high when their mother taught them to swim? She’d hold them tight and leap into the pool and help them flutter up to the surface and find their breath. The two of them so tiny and so strong their mother swam them around and around in her arms until they learned to kick free.

      Hurricane or not, the new school year began just after Labor Day. Courtney was in sixth grade now, Paige in the fifth. To get to Star of the Sea they had to climb over and around the storm debris, downed tree limbs still uncollected, some shellacked in a dried greenish sludge. Seaweed.

      Red tide, warned Ruth. Don’t touch anything.

      Now, each morning before she left for school, Courtney arranged her seashells in a straight line, one touching the next, on top of her white dresser. Before she went to sleep at night, she shaped them in the circle. Bon matin, Maman. Bonne nuit. Je t’aime.

      The first Friday back at school, she came home and the shells were gone and she knew exactly what had happened. Just to make sure, she stood in the archway to the den. Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres on a tray, Ruth in the middle of a story about Mrs. Hoving. Ruth paused and waited.

      I’m cleaning my room, Courtney said.

      Ruth sputtered a laugh. Oh, right. But one of the others, a more experienced mother, said, How nice!

      But I can’t find my seashells. For dusting.

      The two women sitting on the tweed sofa smiled. And Ruth caught her cue. Try the bookshelf over your desk? I’ll bet that’s where they are.

      Thank you, said Courtney and went out through the garage to find Paige in the orchard. Paige had told Courtney she was strictly forbidden in the orchard, even in the mornings. No one wanted her in the orchard now. But Paige had taken her best things to give away. Just like she’d taken their father’s canon-style cigarette lighter and his English beer.

      In the orchard, Paige stood against the outhouse, arms crossed and angry, as Courtney walked toward her along the path. Two boys, Eddie, with the bluish swollen girl’s mouth, and Henry, with the pink cheeks, sat on the ground smoking small black cigars. They looked up at Courtney, frowning. The third boy was Andrew Kennedy, leaning back against his tipped-over bike wheel, legs splayed. He didn’t look at her at all.

      Out, said Paige. Now.

      We are out, said Courtney jutting her chin. She stared at her sister’s tiny breasts on display, her uniform jumper on the ground. Her Carter’s underpants looked stretched out and baggy as if she’d carried things in them. The lighter, the shells. She still wore her school blouse, opened up, but the collar was smudged as if Henry’s black cigar and Eddie’s blue lips had leaked together there. Her tiny breasts, unlike Courtney’s, poked straight out like thumb tips. And the nipples were light small orangey caps on each. Courtney’s new breasts were rounder. Ruth junior, Paige had said in a fight, and Courtney worried this might be true. Her nipples looked like stupid pink toy pig pennies. Go away, said Paige. Last warning.

      Ruth wants you, Courtney said.

      What for?

      How should I know? She told me to find you. She said even if you had to stay for detention, tell Sister to let you come home.

      Henry stubbed out the black cigar. He stood and popped it through the half-moon slit in the door behind Paige’s head. As if she’d disappeared. He didn’t need to acknowledge her anymore. She’d failed at something, Courtney knew, and felt a tickle of panic for her sister. Henry’s pants were unzipped, but now he fastened them, slid his belt through the loops in slow motion. Buckle, jacket pulled on, his clip-on school tie shoved down into a side pocket. Yeah, he said to the boys. Eddie jerked up his book bag. Andrew Kennedy righted his bike. The three of them zigzagged away through the wrecked trees.

      Nice work, Courtney. Paige pulled her uniform jumper on over her head.

      Zipper, said Courtney.

      Paige smoothed her flyaway hair. They’ll tell everyone, you know.

      I’ll take my shells back now, said Courtney.

      Tough