In Every Way by Nic Brown Page B

fishing boat turn in unison and, one by one, wave, as if they can hear the very frequency of her psyche. Maria does not wave back, but is not unappreciative of their attention. She feels herself emerging anew in Beaufort these days, though it is not a return to form; it is a new Maria who has begun to surface. It is a woman yet to be identified. She climbs a ladder of two-by-fours nailed to the pier, each slat grown over in oysters sharp enough to slice open a careless shivering foot, then lies on her back on the warm wood. People on the sidewalk pass intermittently, appearing upside down in her inverted view. They are not interested in her. In Chapel Hill, no matter how sunny the day might be, a person lying on the ground would bring traffic to a halt. Here, in the logic of a placewhere bodies are expected to submit to gravity and expose themselves to light, she is not even worth a second glance. After long minutes of this, it begins to feel as if she is in a different place altogether, one removed from Beaufort, one where she is simply observing from a distance, remote and unattainable. And so, when a dog clatters onto the pier and begins to tick his claws across its boards as he approaches her, it comes as a shock.
    â€œHey, doggy,” she says, and then she sees its owner—a tall man in a wrinkled white shirt pushing a blue baby stroller. She had not recognized the dog, not from her inverted perspective, but this man she cannot miss. He has a lazy shuffle, and although the sun has backlit him into nothing but a featureless silhouette, Maria knows him at once. She catches her breath. It is Philip. He kicks the head of a dandelion, and its seeds explode into the breeze.
    â€œFerdinand!” Philip says, but the dog continues his advance. His pointy face growing larger with each step that he takes toward Maria. “Ferdinand!” he says again, “Hey!” But the dog doesn’t stop until he’s reached Maria’s face. She has read that dogs are now trained to sniff out cancer cells in humans, and as his whiskers tickle Maria’s forehead, she is certain that he can smell the molecular relation between her and the new child now living in his house.
    â€œHi, Ferdinand,” she says, and the dog delivers one wet lick to her forehead. She considers the fate of Pinky. She understands that his death was of her own design, that it made sense at the time. She is wary of the shifting ground beneath her, what makes sense one day, only to seem unthinkable the next. Through the space between Ferdinand’s legs, she cranes for a glimpse into the baby carriage. “Stay here, doggy,” she whispers. “Stay.”
    Philip starts down the pier. At his approach, Maria feels his footsteps shudder through the wood beneath her.
    â€œSorry,” he says, wheeling the stroller to a stop. “He’s always looking for friends.”
    â€œThat’s OK,” Maria says, sitting up. There is a small bundle in the stroller, immobile. A nose.
    Philip affixes a green leash to Ferdinand’s collar and says, “Sorry,” again, then, “Come on,” and starts back. Ferdinand’s claws tick atop the planks behind him.
    He is older than she is. He has a job, money, a career; he owns a house. He knows things that she does not, but still, Maria feels he is someone she could know, someone with whom she could talk and, within minutes, find common ground. He is, after all, pushing her sleeping child down the sidewalk. She admires his taste in home and wife. If he lived in Chapel Hill, she is sure his circle would cross with her own and her mother’s. He does not seem interested in being cool. He is beyond that. Philip is a grown-up. He is the opposite of Jack. Maria feels certain that she could step into his life and all involved would be happy to have her there. But with him she will never have the chance. A few words, a lick from his dog, a glimpse of Bonacieux’s