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Show 59 She looked, but could not see the development in which she lived. It was to the northeast, beyond an intervening hill of roofs. The houses there beyond the hill were smaller, but not that much older. She had been three when they had moved in, a new house in a tract of new houses, and although she could not now remember the actual moving in, she could vividly recall her dad putting in the lawn. At first the grass was singular, sparse. Robbie and she had been punished for walking on it. But over the years, under her father's constant care, it had grown increasingly thicker, until it was a carpet of dark green. From one section of that carpet, near the corner of the garage, a touch of ocean was visible. And on Saturday mornings when her dad was out there in his boat fishing, she would pause in her play to look out over it. In the fall and winter it would be grey, often with a white layer of fog concealing it. But in the summer it was light green, turning darker as the morning advanced until it was a turquoise blue when he came home in mid-afternoon. The ocean. It was her one place of refuge in this huge bowl of roofs and asphalt and people. The one place which remained the same. All she had to do was see it from some window or congested street, and she felt secure. She could not see it now, from this street on which she was walking. Nor would it be visible from the next block, the block on which she lived. She slowed her steps, not wanting to arrive home. Not yet. |
