Free Spirit Lost by Nancy Thayer

against her, the two of them together; the scratchiness of his evening’s beard against her forehead; her lips pressed against his naked shoulder, tasting salt, smelling sweet sweat and the lingering fragrance of clean cotton; the weight of him all up and down her. Often she tried not to become orgasmic so that she could focus on this, on John in her arms, his labor against her, the sense of urgency in him. He became everything to her then, her child, her hero, and when she held him in her arms, naked, full-length, on their bed, she was always overcome with a love for him that was so strong that she knew she would kill for him, do anything for him. This was what her life was about. She loved her husband as her heart loved its blood.

    The next few days almost gave them summer back. Nantucket was nearer the Gulf Stream than the continent and so was often warmer, and for the week after Thanksgiving, the temperature reached fifty-five or sixty almost every day. It was unusual, but Willy and John were delighted.
    John took his sketch pad and pencils and inks off in their Wagoneer to different spots on the moors or along the beach and spent entire days sketching and painting. Willy packed him sack lunches of corned beef sandwiches on bread slathered with mustard and thick with sweet onions; she thought onions guarded against catching colds. She added an apple, a beer, a thermos of coffee.
    John left by nine every morning and didn’t return until five or so at night, and hereturned exhilarated, the back of the Wagoneer filled with sketches and small watercolor scenes. It was just picture-postcard stuff, he knew—a canvas of the ferry Uncatena rounding Brant Point or the glaze of bright sun on the smooth water of a pond—but these pictures were a start, a way of feeling his way toward what it was he really wanted to do.
    Willy stayed home, threw open the windows, put all her Wyndham Hill records on her stereo, and painted her sewing room. She painted the woodwork cream, the walls a golden-pinkish apricot. The walls were old and had as many wrinkles and eccentricities as an old sailor’s face. Former owners had made holes to hang pictures or put in a flue; more recent ones had plastered over or put on wall-board compound and not sanded down thoroughly, leaving lumps and blotches. There were some long wandering cracks that had been there so long they seemed essential to the wall; the wall was not weakened by them. They were just there. Willy didn’t mind.
    Kirk Beauregard arrived and took measurements for turning the skylight into a hatch that would open onto the widow’s walk. He said he’d be back by the end of the week, but he wasn’t. It didn’t upset the Constables very much; nothing could during this week of kind weather. On Saturday they bundled up in layers and biked out to Surfside together with lunches and paperbacks in their bike baskets and spent the whole day walking on the beach, picnicking in the dunes, watching the ocean tease the shore. Gulls dipped overhead, and families with children and dogs went past, playing games with the surf. Willy and John congratulated themselves for their happiness.
    On Sunday, Willy thought she might go to one of the churches on the island but didn’t get up in time. She spent the long morning reading the Times and the Globe and drinking coffee with John. It was cooler today but still sunny. Windy. John wandered off up into the attic to sort through his week’s work and start making some kind of order of his material. Willy curled on the sofa with a book and pulled an afghan up over her. She was too lazy to build a fire.
    John sorted through his stuff. He wasn’t going to have shelves for months; that was becoming obvious. If he waited on the shelves, he’d never get anything done. The former owners had left behind a large wooden cable wheel in the attic. It stood only about two feet high and was stamped in yellow on its green surface: American Insulated Wire Corp. Pawtucket