Free The Promise by Ann Weisgarber

a half wagon ride from us, give or take a few feet.’
    ‘But you called them neighbors.’
    ‘It’s different here, most of us spread out like we are. They’re the closest to us and that makes them neighbors.’
    We fell back into silence. Waves lapped and receded, and the sun was a hard light. Coated in a fine layer of salt, my skin prickled. It was impossible to imagine how I would manage on this remote part of the island. Yesterday’s bathhouses and crowds of bathers could have been figments of my overwrought imagination. Nor could I think what I would say to Andre, who must be waiting for us.
    ‘Look,’ Oscar said. ‘Pelicans. There, offshore.’
    I drew in my breath. A flock of brown birds with long beaks coasted on a current of air only they could feel, one after the other, their wings spread wide and their shadows skimming the surface of the water.
    ‘Ten of them,’ he said. ‘I admire them, have ever since I got here. Folks say their wingspan is five feet across.’
    ‘Nearly my height,’ I said. ‘And so graceful.’
    ‘Surely are.’ He clicked his tongue and turned the horses away from the surf. My traveling trunks and hatboxes in the bed shifted and slid. Now, I thought. Allow yourself to lean toward him. Put your hand on his arm. In that way, apologize for your aloofness and for your frozen smiles. But I didn’t. The horses had picked up their pace and we headed toward the sand hills. There, boards formed what appeared to be a makeshift road over the soft sand and between the hills. On the far side, three rooftops were visible.
    ‘We’re home,’ Oscar said.
    Four dogs shot out from nowhere, barking and yapping as they streaked toward us. The wagon wheels creaked as we bumped off of the warped sand hill road and onto a pitted trail that led inland toward three buildings. My stomach roiled. A sharp pungent odor had hit like a slap. Dung. Wave after wave. I held on to the side of the wagon and fought the urge to be ill. My eyes watered as the stench filled my nose and mouth.
    ‘Catherine,’ Oscar said. ‘You all right?’
    I shook my head, my hand to my nose. ‘That smell,’ I said.
    ‘It’s the barn. Frank T. and Wiley didn’t have time to clean it. I’ll get to it this afternoon.’
    His hands, I thought. And the things they touched.
    ‘Settle down,’ Oscar called out, the dogs darting around the horses and the wagon. Flies and mosquitoes swarmed and whined. Still covering my nose, I saw his home in fragments as though I could absorb only one thing at a time: the flat, rough scrubland, a small grove of short bushy trees; the stable, the barn, and the house, all in a row and facing the beach.
    ‘Here we go,’ he said when we got to a split in the trail. ‘This’ll help.’ We turned east, my trunks and hatboxes sliding again in the wagon bed, the stable and the barn now behind us and the house up ahead.
    ‘Better?’ he said.
    ‘Much.’
    I breathed through my mouth, now seeing the details of Oscar’s home. It was a small one-story clapboard perched on top of thin wood stilts. The only solid thing that secured the house to the ground was the base of the red brick chimney that ran up one side.
    Do not fall apart, I told myself. Not in front of Oscar, not before the little boy who stood on the covered porch watching our arrival. Oscar’s son. His hair was dark, and he wore brown short pants and a white shirt. A young woman – the housekeeper, I thought – was with him, her hand on his shoulder.
    We stopped just before reaching the foot of the porch steps. Oscar pulled up the brake handle, and as if its grinding screech was a signal, the boy leapt down the steps and ran toward us with his arms spread open. ‘Daddy! Daddy!’ Oscar jumped down, rocking the wagon. Andre flung himself around Oscar’s knees.
    ‘It’s only been one night,’ Oscar said, but with his back to me, he squatted and pressed the child to him as though it had been months. ‘Andre,’ he said, and in