Beautiful Day

THE NOTEBOOK, PAGE 43

The Honeymoon

I really wanted to go to Europe-Italy or London-but we didn’t have the money and your father was studying for the bar. And so your father chose St. John because it didn’t require a passport, it was tropical, and because we could camp there. It was cheap.

I was skeptical about his choice at first because it wasn’t what I had imagined I wanted, but I fell in love with the place the second the ferry pulled into Cruz Bay. St. John has a magic and a uniqueness, just like Nantucket. It is 70 percent national park, and it is breathtaking.

Daddy and I stayed at the Maho Bay campground, where we lived in a rustic cabin. We heated water in a large black bladder and took what we called sun showers. We rented a kayak. Daddy paddled and I lay across the front like Cleopatra. We hiked through the ruins of the old Danish sugar plantations. We snorkeled with rays and sea turtles, we encountered wild donkeys walking along the side of the road, we gazed at the stars from the beach, we drank rum punch.

Daddy and I returned to St. John on our twenty-fifth anniversary. We stayed at Caneel Bay, and we ate lobster every night. We rented a nice new Jeep. We did the island like people who had money, but we were no more or less happy than we had been the first time. It was exactly the same. All that mattered was that we were together.