In Every Way by Nic Brown Page A

said. But she was lying. Her heart, she is afraid, has undergone a physical transformation in the wake of Jack’s break. He has injured it. Of this she is certain. Because sometimes when she thinks about him, it feels like it hurts for blood to pump through it.
    Her mother had turned to the window to watch Christopherson, in shorts and cowboy boots, push a quiet lawn mower across the neighbor’s front yard. The low whir of its little engine filled the space.
    Then she said, “I do.”
    â€œYou do what?” Maria said, having lost herself in the memory of Christopherson’s flesh.
    â€œI miss Jack.”
    Maria was shocked. Is shocked, still. She thinks the damage inflicted by Jack on her heart should trump any lasting desire on the part of her mother to smoke weed with him or listen to his Wu-Tang files.
    â€œHe made me feel young,” her mother had said. “I’m already sick of Karen’s old-person shit. I can’t watch Antiques Roadshow.”
    â€œWell, you’re not young,” Maria said, “and Antiques Roadshow is rad.”
    Maria now feels guilty and wonders if it was worth picking this fight with her mother, or any. There is so little time left. They have chosen Beaufort for her mother’s final days—why can Maria not fill them with pleasure? She will die, she will die, she will die. Maria tells herself this in order to believe, because in truth, she cannot.
    Maria parks the heavy bike at a small gazebo on the waterfront across the street from the post office. Beside it, a short and deserted public pier extends into Taylor’s Creek. It is her favorite place to access the water. She is not interested in crossing the bridge to Atlantic Beach. Even on quiet days, the shore there is overrun with people hustling for position. Damp swimsuited couples walking hand in hand make Maria feel self-conscious, pale, and out of shape. She prefers instead this dead-end bridge to nowhere. It might be built on nothing more than the bank of a tidal creek, but it feels like it is hers and hers alone. It is also the spot from which Maria first saw Philip the summer before, and though she has yet to see him in public since arriving in Beaufort, she cannot deny that she is hoping he might again appear here.
    She lifts the tote bag from the bike’s basket and removes the large towel and blue sketchpad. Other than the golden ghost she spray-painted onto the wall of the abandoned house with Christopherson the other night, Maria has still not drawn a single image since well before Bonacieux’s birth. But the urge has begun to return. With the sketchpad, she walks to the edge of the pier, folds the towel in thirds, and sits.
    Her feet swing only a few feet above the high tide. Sailboats are anchored nearby in the creek. More horses graze on Carrot Island, close enough that she can see their ears twitch at the scream of a gull.She unties the ribbon on the sketchpad, and from its first pages tumble three brittle four-leaf clovers, like secret messages sent from Maria’s past. She found them with Jack months ago; they were growing around a gas pump in south Durham. “Radiation magic,” Jack had said. “Exxon lucky charms!” Two evade her fingers and drift onto the water below, but the third she catches, and as she does, it crumbles into dry green shards in her palm.
    Though it is early November, the sunshine is still bright and warm. Maria sketches a sailboat, clumsy with her first lines, but as the image slowly emerges, it does so with increasing authority. She is empowered by this reminder of her skill. She removes the old Brooks Brothers oxford she found hanging in the closet and slips off her shorts. Beneath she wears a black one-piece. The water will be frigid, she knows, but she is not afraid.
    Off the pier she dives. Going under is an electric shock. She emerges, gasping for warmth, thrilled and buzzing with life. Three tanned men in an open-hull