Dangerous Women

Tonia was walking a little ahead now, looking toward the sea. Susa

For Susa

She bent and picked up a sand dollar, a perfect one. How few things were as perfect as they seemed. She had thought Ralph was perfect once. But then so had Tonia, and Kate. Had he laughed at that-all three sisters?

She used to think he had the best, the most robust and individual sense of humor, that his laughter healed all the little scrapes and abrasions of life, made them stop mattering and sink into things worthy only of jokes-and then forgetting. But she used to think a lot of silly things, once.

She put the sand dollar down again, gently, so it would not break. There were other shells also, most of which she did not know the names for. She did know the razor shells, and knew to be careful touching them; the edges could gash deep. In fact you could pretty well cut someone’s throat with the big ones, the sort you found in rock pools at the point, when the tide was low.

They were about twenty feet from where the waves finally stopped, hesitated, and then sucked back and under into the deep water again. The sand was wet, but she was not quite sure whether the tide was going in or out. Kate was nearest the sea, Tonia next to her. The light was lengthening, the air a little cooler, the mountains of white foam more luminous.

Then suddenly one wave didn’t stop, it kept on coming, surging farther up the sand, swift and deep, and Kate was in it up to her calves, her boots and skirt soaked, and Tonia only just escaped because she saw it in time and ran, skirts flying.

The wave sucked back again, almost knocking Kate off balance, drawing the sand from under her, and she gasped with the shock and the cold. Then she started stumbling up, wet skirt slapping around her ankles. Tonia looked at her with wide eyes, her expression unreadable. “Forgot about the sneaker waves, eh?” she observed.

“I’m sodden!” Kate said in fury. “My boots, my skirt, everything! For heaven’s sake, you could have warned me! Or at least got out of my way!”

Tonia’s eyebrows shot up. “Warned you? My dear, you know the Oregon coast as well as I do! If you didn’t see a sneaker wave coming, then you weren’t paying attention, your mind was somewhere else. And I am not in your way. The beach is wide enough for all of us.”

“You saw it in time to run!” Kate accused, her anger still clear in her face. “I would have warned you!”

Something close to a smile touched Tonia’s mouth. “Would you?” she asked. “Would you really, Kate?”

“What kind of a question is that?” Kate shouted at her. “Of course I would!”

“I wonder.” Tonia turned away.

Susa

Susa

Now she was terrified that Tonia knew, or at least suspected. Did she? Was that the hidden meaning behind her words? Or was it just bereavement in Tonia, loneliness and crushed pride, because Ralph had fallen so far? And in Kate the guilty fleeing where no man pursued, because she had the taste of her own betrayal always in her mouth?

Tonia bent and picked up a shell. It must have been a good one, because she put it in her pocket, then looked back at Kate. She barely seemed to notice Susa

Susa

Would they condemn Susa

It hadn’t been. But it would still cut deep, right to the bone, if it were thought to be. It would help little if strangers knew it had been so desperately difficult, an act of terrible decision, fought and struggled over, the choice between betrayal of others, or of self and all she knew to be right. She needed that understanding from those she cared for.

But in her heart she knew Tonia at least would never understand. She had loved Ralph with a consuming devotion. Perhaps some of it had been ambition, seeing his possibilities, and his hunger to achieve them, and maybe more than a little of it had been the pride of ownership. The most charming, intelligent, polished man in Astoria had been hers. Of all the well-bred and elegant young women who had chased him, she had been the one he chose. But there had been a good deal of plain human passion as well, the laughter, the warmth, the ache to love and be loved, the pounding heart at his step, the happiness when he smiled, the sound of his voice even when he wasn’t there, the perfect memory of his smile. No, Tonia would not understand or forgive anything that Susa

For that matter, Kate would not forgive it either. That was as certain as nightfall. Her rage would be absolute, in spite of her own betrayal. She would not see it as passion, and therefore wrong, but so very pardonable. She would see it as cold-hearted vengeance-which it was not! In the end it had been her only choice!

But thank God Kate did not know either. This was the first time the three of them had been alone together since Ralph’s death, and they were going to spend five days here, each guarding their secrets. They would smile and talk as if there were nothing to pretend about, no lies, no hidden rage or pain. It would be the ultimate test!

They were making their way back toward the house, the wind behind them now, cooler as the sun was lower on the horizon, spilling a bright path across the water and tipping the great curling heads of the waves with pale fire. The thunder of them breaking never ceased, yet it was an oddly peaceful sound, like the breathing of the earth. This time they did not walk close enough for a sneaker wave to catch them.

Susa