Page 84 of Summer Longing
He nodded. “We gotta get these oysters down to at least forty-five degrees, and we do that by submerging them in a mixture of salt water and ice. It’s called a slurry. And then they’ll be tagged with all the info, like harvest date, time, harvest area, and time of icing.”
“Do you need help with that?” she said.
“Thanks, but I can take it from here.” He looked at her. “You really find this interesting?”
“Of course. Who wouldn’t?”
He stopped and adjusted the bags in his hands. “A lot of people,” he said with a look on his face that seemed almost wistful. But then something in the sand caught his attention. “See that indentation?” he said.
She looked down and nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”
“That’s from horseshoe crabs mating. It’s their season,” he said.
She let out a nervous giggle. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just wasn’t expecting to hear about crab sex today.”
“Too much information? I guess I didn’t want to end the day on vibrio.”
She swallowed hard, looking at him and thinking she didn’t want to end the day at all.
“Not too much information at all,” she said. “It’s been perfect.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
It was long after dinner and Fern had still not returned from her visit with Amelia. Elise began to wonder if she planned to come back to the house at all.
Maybe she’d gone too far last night in bringing up Fern’s refusal to try to carry a child of their own. But how could Fern look at her and say she’d wanted a child as much as Elise? It simply wasn’t true and Elise needed Fern to acknowledge it. She needed her wife to acknowledge her pain—a pain that was not equal between them. But now was not the time to press this fine emotional point. It was not worth pushing their relationship to the brink.
Was Fern truly moving back to living above the tea shop, as she’d said last night? Or was that just the heat of anger talking?
Elise wasn’t willing to leave it to chance.
She fed Mira one last bottle for the night, burped her, and dressed her in a fresh onesie. She checked her own limp hair in the mirror and decided she didn’t want to waste time doing anything with it. Now all she needed was someone to watch Mira for half an hour. Really, she could just bring her along in the stroller. But she felt, given the current tension between them, convincing Fern to come home tonight would be best accomplished without a baby in tow.
The last she’d seen Ruth, she was messing around with those concoctions of hers in the kitchen. Maybe Olivia was free?
She carried Mira down to the living room and found Olivia on the couch staring into space. “Hey, how’s it going?” Elise said.
Olivia smiled dreamily but said nothing. Maybe this wasn’t the best time to ask her to watch Mira.
“Are you okay?” Elise said.
“What? Oh, yeah. I’m just tired. I went oyster picking today.”
“I was going to ask if you could watch Mira for a few minutes while I run to Amelia’s, but it seems like you’re ready for bed…”
“No, my dad and I are going out to get ice cream. I can take her with us.”
“Really? That would be great. I’ll be back soon. She’ll probably fall asleep in the stroller.”
“No problem,” Olivia said.
Elise smiled at her gratefully. She could only hope the rest of the night would go as smoothly.
Work had always been Ruth’s escape.
Her escape from the fear of being broke, the fear of ending up unhappy like her mother. Her escape from her deteriorating marriage. And now, though it was technically not work, whipping up batches of moisturizers and soaps was once again her outlet.
This summer was supposed to have been the simplest, most uncomplicated time of her life. Now she had her grown daughter and ex-husband under her roof, and it wasn’t even her roof.
