We are in Provincetown for the summer so Dad can write his novel. Mom isn’t around, because she has to stay back and work. The house we are renting is small, and Dad’s typewriter takes up most of the kitchen table. So Mark and I are on our own. We spend the days either at the beach or in town. It's our job to disappear.

The house is damp, and the walls are thin. Every surface has knick-knacks: shells, sand dollars, paintings of the sea, a boat’s steering wheel, a captain’s hat. Our belongings stand out against this backdrop: Dad’s coffee maker, his stacks of newspapers, his pens, pads, and books, gin bottles. Then there’s our Wonder Bread, and peanut butter, the small boxes of cereal plastic wrapped together so that they make a long brick. Mark and I quietly cut open the boxes with scissors and pour the milk into the white wax paper so that there are no dishes from breakfast, just two abandoned dirty spoons.

The tide is always changing. Sometimes it comes so far in that it laps the deck, and the gray shingles common to most of the homes here end up, like us, speckled with sand and salt. It’s another world when the tide is low, because instead of there being water, there’s an endless beach, a landscape of ruin. Boats and buoys and rafts are left strewn like dead fish.

I never get the tide’s rhythm down––just Dad’s. In the morning he is either typing or is supposed to be, then in the afternoon he finds us, brings us inside and feeds us lunch. Even when we are out on the beach, our ears are attuned to the thumps and hum and clacks of the Smith-Corona, the dings and the rattle of the carriage return, the sounds or the absence of them will tell us whether Dad will be up or down, a happy person or a monster. The monster yells at us.

We’ve only been here a few days when we meet some kids on the beach. They are also here for the summer. One of them is a red-haired girl, five like me, and the other two are boys, and one of them is seven like Mark. They have big blotchy freckles on their arms and legs and faces while we only have a constellation of spots on our noses and cheeks.

“Hey, it’s low tide,” the oldest one says. “You want to collect mussels?”

We say yes, and they take us to their house a few doors down to grab buckets then we go to a rock wall that seems to rise from the sand. The rocks are covered with barnacles, sharp and white, that seem to open and close as the water passes near them. At first it seems as if there are no mussels, but then we climb on the rocks and see them, the smooth blue-gray of them attached in between. We pull hard to get them free, and our hands get red and cold and pricked from all the sharp edges.

“We have enough to eat,” the girl says, and I am surprised by this because I thought that we were collecting them like seashells. “Will you come for dinner? My dad will cook them on the beach.”

I have my usual response to invitations, excitement then immediately anxiety that my Dad won’t like it; sometimes he even gets mad when I ask. But he has written ten pages today, and that’s a lot. He is the happy person. We eat with their family at their place a few doors down, like we’re old friends. After the mussels are cooked, they open, revealing orange and rubbery balls that taste of slime, sand, and sea.

The grownups talk and drink, and we kids go out into the dark to the water’s edge. It’s far because the tide is still low. We can barely see but move toward the soft waves. When we turn back, civilization looks like a pretend place. Nondescript people stand like toys in doll houses, this or that mother, father, or child, no one we know, in their kitchens, living rooms, or bedrooms.

The next day Mark and I are on the beach when we see someone come out of the house next door to ours. A very thin man is on his deck in a tiny swimsuit, wearing sunglasses, and drinking orange juice. Mark and I make up theories about him. I say he’s an actor or a model, but Mark says that since his house is so much nicer than ours, with its painted wood and cathedral ceilings, that he is rich and doesn’t work. We each dare the other to talk to him, and neither of us do, but when we move closer we hear music playing, a woman with an operatic voice. The man is singing along.

We have been here three weeks when Dad tells us that Mom will be out to visit in four days. I count each one carefully but they are long and the same, and I can never figure out whether to count the day that we’re on. Then it’s the morning of day zero. I run into the kitchen like Paul Revere on his horse.

“Mom’s coming! Mom’s coming.”

Dad stops writing, looks out the window, and takes a long sip of coffee.

“That’s right,” he says in a low voice that I know is a warning. “But not until tonight.”

“I already told you that…” Mark says and yanks my arm pulling me toward the door. I’m still in my jammies and haven’t eaten, but he gives me a severe look, making the kind of face that looks like he has ever smiled and never would, so I go, and he sits with me on the deck until I calm down, then takes me back in so quietly that Dad doesn’t notice.

That night Mom’s bus is late, so we won’t see her until morning. I wake up, and the house already feels sunnier. I hear her voice in the next room, her deep belly laugh, and rush into her arms.

“Darling!” she says and then she’s all around me, soft and warm, and smelling of her familiar perfume. I sit in her lap and lean against her chest and belly. Her hair grazes my shoulders, and I pretend it’s mine.

She and Mark and I spend the whole day together. Mom takes us to the boardwalk for footlong hot dogs and ice cream cones. I feel as if everyone, even the ocean, is meeting her. That afternoon she brings a blanket and a book to the beach to watch us swim. We’re in the water when we see her standing talking to the neighbor. Her laugh carries across the beach.

That night it’s raining so we eat inside, cramped at the table. Dad is quiet. He may be fine or this may be the calm before an explosion.

“Have you met the man next door?” Mom asks us. “He’s a successful artist.”

Mark and I look at one other, silently acknowledging that our theories are wrong.

“I’ve asked him to paint your portrait,” she says to me, leaning over the table, and pressing my nose with her thumb.

“Why?” Mark asks. “Why wouldn’t you just take a picture?”

He is looking at Dad, measuring his response. Dad takes lots of pictures of us, on black and white film that he develops at home.

“I wouldn’t want a painting of me!” Mark blurts out, then looks guiltily at Dad, who is not paying attention.

“Well,” Mom says in her rich alto voice. “That’s just fine. I thought you might feel that way which is why I didn’t ask you. But you should know that there are things a painting can capture that a photograph can’t.”

She smiles so that her teeth and eyes sparkle. I don’t know what she means. I picture piles of thick paint, the colors swirled together. I’ve only painted with my fingers. It’s messy, the kind of thing that gets me in trouble.

Mom goes back to the city, and I forget about the portrait until Dad says out of the blue it’s time for you to go next door. At first I think it’s some kind of punishment, but then he says it’s for the painting. He walks me there and looms over me at the door. He’s massive and unpaintable, and I’m a little girl, a doll in a dress. The neighbor is in non-beach clothes, a blue short sleeved shirt and tan pants. The moment we meet he smiles, but then his face goes blank, back to the way it was before. Then Dad leaves, and it feels strange to be alone with a stranger. His place has thick walls, shiny wood floors, shaggy rugs, and glass sculptures. Giant colorful paintings are everywhere. He doesn’t say anything to me the whole time. I am in a stiff dress that my mother picked out for me: light blue with a frill of lace around the neck. As I hold myself very still, the only sounds are the paint brush against canvas and the lapping of the water.

The next morning I watch my father, thinking of how he is so very different from the artist next door. He’s sitting on the couch writing notes on legal pads while we are eating breakfast. First he frowns, then smiles; a moment later his face droops, and his mouth turns downward. The dark circles under his eyes seem to darken, as if a shadow is passing over him.

I sit for the portrait once a week for several weeks, but each time I am never allowed to see it. Not even a glimpse.

Mark and I meet only one other person that summer. One night we come in from the beach and a woman is in our house who I’ve never seen before. She sits with her back straight and her purse in her lap, as if she is applying for a job, but she is not dressed like that; it’s more like she’s dressed for a night out. She has on big hoop earrings, a short skirt, and a low-cut puffy sleeved top. She’s pretty, younger than my mom, with short curly hair like Carol Burnett. Her feet are lined up neatly in high wedged shoes, one next to the other.

“I’m waiting for your father,” she says to me, “he’s getting changed.”

She smiles, and I can tell she means to be polite to us, like she recognizes that we are important, but isn’t trying to make friends. Immediately Mark goes to our bedroom and closes the door behind him, but I want to look at her. I’m trying to understand what’s happening. The only time we see women like this is when they come to babysit us; no one has come to see Dad before. In her lap is a copy of my father’s book. Her hands are wrapped around it tight.

“Your father’s famous,” she says and smiles her Carol Burnett smile, parting her lips to show oversized teeth. Her mouth makes me think of horses and apples.

Dad appears, reeking of aftershave. He asks sweetly if I’m hungry, using an especially kind voice reserved for when there are guests. I say, “No, I’m not hungry” back, in my in-front-of-guests voice, and scamper off. Mark and I listen from our room, hear them talking and laughing. The combination of their voices makes a noise that doesn’t belong. Dad doesn’t seem to belong to anybody, not to our mom and not to us.

In the morning, for the first time all summer, we are up before him. We don’t see him until late that afternoon.

“Hop in the car,” he says, when he is finishing the last of his coffee. “We’re going to the ocean.”

“I thought we were at the ocean,” I say, looking sheepishly at Mark, who seems to already understand, and frowns at me while he puts on his sneakers.

Dad pulls me up onto his shoulders so that my head nearly scrapes the ceiling. Then he points out the window.

“See this? All this is bay, not ocean.”

From up on his shoulders the window over the kitchen sink looks low.

“But I thought the bay was the ocean.”

I look for Mark again but he is standing by the car, eyes squinting in the sun.

“Well, it’s all the same water. That’s true,” he says and puts me down gently. “But here it’s protected. You see how the land curls around. It makes it very calm here. But the ocean’s not calm. There are big waves over there. And it’s not far, just on the other side of the Cape.”

We drive past low green bushes that pass outside the car window in a green and yellow blur, then come to a road through low dunes. The wind is so strong it pulls the car door open and makes it hard to close. Mark and I race ahead to the water’s edge and can barely hear each other over the noise of the waves.

“Take your shoes off and go in!” Dad yells from back on the beach. “And roll up your pants!”

We jump over each wave. Our pants get soaked. There doesn’t seem to be anyone in the world but the three of us.

In August, Mom’s visiting again. We are having dinner on the deck, and the sun is setting. A delicious golden light is on her face. She has a scarf around her neck, her sunglasses on, and looks like a movie star. Dad is looking out at the Bay, his hand on his glass of gin, covering it. Mom feels like a stranger now; for a month it’s been the three of us. The tides have taken us over, while she still has the air of the city. You can see it in the way she sits in her chair. She doesn’t lean back but forward, is ready to pop up and do something else; from the moment she arrives, she is preparing to leave.

The next door neighbor calls down to her from his balcony.

“Hello! You’re back!” he yells.

“Yes! Hello!” she yells back. He gestures for her to come over. She gets up from the table and goes over to his deck. Mark and I don’t budge from our seats. This is during dinner. Dad has an exasperated look. She comes back and announces, “It’s done!”

For a moment I have no idea what she means, and I worry that it means something’s wrong.

“The painting of you!” she says and puts her hand on my shoulder. “ I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see it.”

When we go to get the painting, Mark stays back, happy to be alone. It’s odd to walk with my parents down the street. They are almost never together. They are like magnets with opposite poles. We stand at the door in complete silence as Dad rings the bell. Mom rearranges her scarf, smooths her hair, and does that thing she always does when she sees her reflection. She sucks in her cheeks so that she looks thinner.

At first she does the talking, but then we fall into silence again as we stand in front of the covered picture. With a flourish, the man lifts the fabric from the canvas, the way my mother unfurls a sheet to make a bed.

A girl stares back at me with round pink cheeks, giant freckles, and an almost smile. My parents make no oohs or ahhs.

“Well this is no good,” Dad says.

Mom says, “I’m sorry, but I have to agree.”

I’m looking at the artist and his unchanging face as they take a few steps away to speak to one another about what to do. I hear Mom say, “No obligation to buy” and Dad say “You better believe I’m not going to.”

But the girl doesn’t seem that bad to me. I like her. I want to look at her longer, but Mom pulls me toward the door. Dad talks to the man, whose eyebrows for the first time are slightly furrowed, cheekbones becoming more pronounced. I hear Dad’s voice raise as Mom and I go out the door.

“But it doesn’t look anything like her!”

The painting is left behind. I don’t dare ask my parents about it.I imagine the canvas tucked between other paintings, the girl on her side, two dimensional, trying to smile despite being alone in the picture, a lost and thrown away thing.

On our last night on the Cape, Dad has one of the artists on Commercial Street draw my portrait, a caricature. These are quick distorted sketches of people, with giant heads and little bodies. This is the art I take home at the end of the summer: a thin piece of 11x14 drawing paper with a cartoon of a big-headed girl with a toothy smile.

It could be anybody.