Free Good Harbor by Anita Diamant

sounding like a Hallmark card. How can you describe the sky and the light up here
     without getting all gooey?”
    “It’s hard to describe love of a place,” Kathleen said. “I can’t do it, and I’ve been
     here nearly thirty-five years. I remember reading a poem that said the harbor here
     is big enough to hold the sky. Something like that. It was Charles Olsen. He used
     to live in Gloucester, you know. And there was also a line about how Gloucester was
     still a place to go fishing from. I should find that again.”
    “I’d like to read it,” said Joyce. “Did you know Olsen?”
    “Oh, no. I heard him speak at a town meeting once. Strange guy. A shame he died so
     young.”
    There was a pause, and then it was Joyce’s turn to ask a question. “Do your sons live
     nearby?”
    Kathleen told her about Hal, her oldest, twenty-nine and living in San Francisco,
     a computer programmer; and Jack, twenty-three, a chef in New York, with a Broadway
     actress for a girlfriend.
    Kathleen asked about Nina. “She is totally into soccer,” Joyce said. “And most of
     the time she wishes I would vanish from the face of the earth.”
    “Oh, dear. That sounds painful.”
    “It is,” Joyce said, shocked to find herself instantly close to tears. “Her room is
     right off the kitchen at home, and from the time Nina was a baby she made us keep
     that door open. She liked to listen to us moving around. She liked to know we could
     hear her. She told me that once.
    “But in January — God, it was just a few months ago really — she closed the door.
     I remember it was a Sunday. And that was it. One day we were friends, tickling, and
     going to movies together. The next day I was a terrible embarrassment, clueless, terminally
     annoying.
    “I wonder if the whole adolescence thing is going to be harder for me because Nina
     is an only child, or because she was a miracle baby. I had three miscarriages and
     two surgeries before we had her. I used to give myself hormone shots in restaurant
     bathrooms, like some kind of junkie.” Joyce paused. “I haven’t thought about that
     part of my life in ages. We worked so hard to get her. Now that she’s such a royal
     pain in the ass, I should probably remember how much I wanted a baby. But that’s not
     my first response when she screams at me for asking if she needs lunch money.”
    “I think boys are easier,” Kathleen said. “But there is an undeniable loss when they
     get to this age. And it’s never as sweet as when they’re little and sitting on your
     lap.”
    They sat quietly for a moment, each savoring memories of little shoes, effortless
     kisses, bath time.
    They smiled at each other. This is good, thought Joyce.
    The conversation turned to work, and Kathleen talked about the never-ending budget
     battle over funding for the library. Joyce told Kathleen how her first national magazine
     article was completely “edited” to say the opposite of what she had intended.
    They agreed to a second cappuccino and traded favorite authors.
    “Jane Austen, Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison,” Joyce said.
    “Beverly Cleary, E. B. White, Maurice Sendak,” said Kathleen.
    “Oh, Sendak is a genius.”
    Kathleen beamed. “Absolutely.”
    “Did you ever try writing a children’s book yourself?”
    “Once upon a time. It was pretty awful. I’m good at helping children find books to
     love.”
    The door opened and two men walked in, shouting greetings to Philomena in Italian.
     A moment later, four Japanese tourists crowded in. Kathleen looked at their cameras
     and whispered, “They’re early this year.”
    Out on the sidewalk, Joyce suggested that Kathleen and Buddy come for dinner the following
     week; the deadline would help her get some painting done.
    Kathleen hesitated and the invitation hung in the air for a moment too long.
    “Don’t feel you have to,” Joyce said.
    But Kathleen heard the catch in Joyce’s voice. “It’s not that I don’t want to.