Twenty Dollar Masks at the Cozumel Pier

Then Ivan and Carla came off, with the kids between them. The kids had on bright rash guards, the long-sleeved swim shirts, Ezra’s red and Judd’s green. Carla had packed them for the boat.

Ivan wore a plain blue shirt and khaki shorts. He had his hands in his pockets. He saw me standing there with the mesh bags and stopped walking.

I did not go to him. I went to the kids, because that is who I had made the promise to.

“Ezra,” I said. “Judd. I told you that you were going in the ocean today, and I meant it. I have masks. There’s a beach down the waterfront. It’s free, it’s public, and the water is like a swimming pool.”

Then I stood up and looked at Carla, not at Ivan. “If your mom and dad say it’s okay,” I said. “And if they want to come, I’d love that most of all.”

Carla looked at Ivan. Ivan looked at the pier under his feet. The kids looked at both of them, and Judd was holding his breath, actually holding it, like he was already underwater.

“Ivan,” Carla said quietly.

He did not answer for a long time. A whole group of people from the ship had to walk around us, a family with a stroller and two teenage girls in matching hats.

Then he said, “Fine.” Just that. He did not look at me when he said it. But he came.

We walked down the waterfront road together, the seven of us at first, then Bernadette took Linus off toward the shops, and it was five. Fletcher walked with his brother. Carla walked with me.

It was already hot by eight thirty. The road ran along the sea with a low wall on one side and shops and little restaurants on the other, and the wind smelled like salt and diesel and fried tortillas.

“He’ll come around,” Carla said, low enough that the men could not hear. “He’s not mad at you. He’s not. I want you to know that.”

“I know,” I said. “I figured that out last night.”

She looked at me sideways. Carla is a dental assistant, a tiny woman with a big laugh, and I had never seen her look the way she looked that morning. Tired all the way down.

“He’ll tell you,” she said. “Or he won’t. But it isn’t mine to tell. I promised him.”

“Then don’t,” I said. “I’m not here to make anybody tell me anything. I’m here to put two kids in the water.”

She squeezed my arm and did not say anything else, and we walked.

The beach was small and public, a strip of pale sand between a rocky point and a low seawall, with a few palm-roof shade huts and a man renting chairs for a couple of dollars.

From the sand you could see the ship we had come in on, tied up at the pier back down the shore, enormous and white against all that blue. It looked like a building somebody had parked in the ocean.

There was a lifeguard stand and a flag. The flag was green.

I checked the water at the edge with my hand, then walked out to my knees and stood there for a full minute, watching how things moved.

The current runs along that coast, mostly north. You could see it a little way out, in how the sea grass leaned.

Close in, inside the rocks, it was gentle, maybe a slow drift. Good enough for kids, with an adult right there.