If you are linking to my short story “The Beach In Winter” from the U Street Writers Group Blog, welcome. If you simply stumbled upon this, welcome too.
Please enjoy!
—Scott
THE BEACH IN WINTER
It hadn’t snowed at the beach in fifteen years but now it was, with ridiculous fury, as Les white-knuckled the Rabbit down Route 87. All VWs were beasts in the snow and the Rabbit was no exception, but this storm was extraordinary. The flakes flew fast and hard in a sideways blur and the wind howled. Anything above 35 mph was suicide—if he slid off the barely-plowed road here Les wouldn’t be found for days, imprisoned by the gathering drifts, frozen.
On either side of the highway tall pines moaned and bowed sadly, weighed down by the heavy accumulation. The sky was a dark, angry bruise and lightning flashed in the distance. Jesus, thought Les, lightning in a snowstorm. He saw no one else traveling in either direction; no one else was stupid enough to be out in this kind of weather. Les’s heart pounded in time with the little black car’s overworked wipers. His breath came fast and shallow. He had to concentrate hard on slowing it and knocking back the wave of claustrophobic panic beginning to rise in his throat. He set his jaw and fixed the steering wheel in a death grip.
The weather was usually much better on Les’s trips to the beach. He mostly made the trek during warmer months, when the sun was sharp and the boardwalk was broiling. Last summer he’d come down for two weeks straight, sleeping in his old bedroom through the muggy nights and fending off Mom’s awkward questions during the too-bright days.
The beach in summer was glorious. He’d learned to swim in that water, to body surf and boogie board—he’d learned to read the waves. He’d had his first kiss on the old boardwalk, puked cotton candy while riding the Zephyr at Carnival Zone, gone to house parties and keg parties and bonfires on the sun-baked sand. He’d figured some things out at the beach.
Above all, it had been a place of tranquility, a source of calm throughout his adolescence. That was something you didn’t get in a one-bedroom in Philly: the sound of the ocean.
Dad’s stroke had been a shock, to say the least. The night Mom called Les had let the machine pick up, assuming it was yet another of her requests or demands or some other tedious thing he just couldn’t bear at that particular moment. But this was worse.
Leaning against the kitchen counter listening as she left her message, Les went numb at “major stroke,” felt his head swimming at “atrial fibrillation” and by the time she got to Dad’s “frozen left arm” he himself was paralyzed. For a long time he stood staring dumbly at the blinking voicemail light.
Les was an anxious person. His parents liked to pretend their only child led a happy and fulfilling life in the heart of Philadelphia, attending a busy calendar of social engagements with a wide circle of friends. Les was working for Ameriprise Financial, after all, and living in a nice apartment off Rittenhouse Square. But Mom and Dad didn’t know their son’s job consisted mostly of cold-calling to pitch insurance and that the majority of his free time was spent alone in the flickering light of a television or computer screen. They also didn’t know about the panic attacks, which Les of course wasn’t going to bring up himself, mostly because he didn’t want them to worry but also because he didn’t want them to think that he was weak. Well, weaker. Same reason he hadn’t mentioned being gay. Why was it any of their business? He was forty-three, for god’s sake. His life was his own.
He didn’t return Mom’s call for almost a day. But there was no way he could see his father in a hospital; hospitals were problematic. The sounds, the smells—he was sure he’d faint dead away if he had to actually enter an emergency room unless he were already unconscious and strapped to a stretcher himself.
Luckily, even in the shadow of his sixty-ninth birthday, Dad improved fast. It was amazing, really, considering the intensity of the event. But according to Mom (in one of several hectoring phone calls), Dad was in no time talking and joking and in general being a pain in the butt. Though his left side was unresponsive and would require post-hospital residency and months of therapy at the rehab center Beth Israel, at least he was stable and in good spirits. Within two weeks he was transferred to his new accommodations.
With that Les’s excuse evaporated: Beth Israel wasn’t a hospital, it was a nursing home. So why couldn’t he visit now? And Dad really wanted to see his only son, the sooner the better. Les had to relent. A plan was made (by Mom), a weekend blocked out (by Mom), and Les spent the days prior reluctantly adjusting his attitude. It wasn’t easy; it never was for him. Still, he made the necessary mental preparations and was resigned to his fate.
Then the storm hit.
Les tracked the blizzard on the Weather Channel as it ominously approached from the south, his dread growing with each update. He had hoped to arrive at Beth Israel early, spend some quantity time with the family (Mom called it quality time but Les was more realistic) and then make a quick getaway before nightfall. Clean, efficient—obligation fulfilled.
And no such luck.
At four a.m. on the appointed Saturday, skies in Philly were cloudy but unthreatening, hardly a trace of rain. By seven, Les hadn’t made it even a hundred miles and snow was streaking the windshield, limiting visibility to the fuzzy cones of his headlights. He hoped desperately that it would blow over but knew it wouldn’t.
Time behind passed in a blur the wheel. His stomach was a mess. He’d had nothing but coffee and aspirin since hitting the road. He paused only once on the entire fraught journey, to pee at a rest stop that was miraculously plowed to the pavement. Why was the rest stop clear and not the highway? Frustrated, he bought coffee from a vending machine, swallowed two more Excedrin and pressed on.
It took nine hours to make the four-hour trip.
Exhausted, Les at last parked the Rabbit and slipped in Beth Israel’s nearly-empty unplowed lot and slipped and slid to the plate glass front doors. The place looked peaceful and almost pretty under its thick blanket of white. He stomped the heavy wet snow from his shoes, took a determined breath, and pushed in.
The air in the main lobby held a faint, sharp odor, which took Les a moment to place: toothpaste and shit. He set his jaw and headed for the lobby.
Behind a huge fortress of a desk sat two fat women in blue nurses’ uniforms, one whispering into a cell phone and the other engrossed in a well-thumbed copy of Us. Fended off by the large desk, a crumpled flock of old people in pajamas and nightgowns sat in wheelchairs, muttering and fluttering like gulls on the beach. A few looked up hopefully as Les threaded his way through, but the nurses behind the desk didn’t notice. He cleared his throat.
“Uh, hello, yes? I’m looking for Mr. Montaigne? I’m not sure I’m in the right place.”
The one reading the magazine flipped a page and pointed absently down a hallway. “Oh yeah. He here. Might be rolling around, though. Room 1-3-7.”
Intent on following her direction, Les nearly collided with a janitor shepherding a battered garbage cart across the lobby. Planted squarely atop it, like a disturbing green flag, was an empty box of Depends. Clichés come to life, thought Les. He laughed in spite of himself, reminded of a stupid joke: What’s 80-year-old pussy taste like? Depends . . . Ha ha ha. Not so funny now, eh smart guy? Oh, and by the way, did Dad wear one of those things? Think about that. Les shuddered. Maybe it was finally time to join a gym.
Trudging down the hall he couldn’t help himself, sneaking furtive glances into some of the open doors. Each room was its own appalling tableau. Beneath a blaring television in 128, a shriveled man with his eyes rolled up to the whites lay restrained in a bed with a thin plastic tube snaking up one nostril. He made horrendous spewing sounds as he machine gun-coughed a fine spittle, which rained back on his upturned face. Room 133 was dark, with the shades pulled and the lights low. Slumped over a walker in the shadows was a woman with thinning white hair done up in an incongruously jaunty bow. There was a puddle of something—water, Les hoped—on the floor beneath her.
At what should have been 137 there was a sign reading WASH ROOM, and Les leaned in uncertainly. He flicked a light switch and everything was bathed in an ugly green fluorescent glow. Two huge, free-standing ceramic tubs stood next to each other on the tiled floor, surrounded by a complicated system of winches and pulleys. A vision of shriveled bodies being hoisted into the tubs in these dark-ages contraptions struck Les like a slap.
I’m definitely joining a gym, he thought.
Finally, room 137. On the wall next to the open door were two laser-printed pictures of the residents. Dad’s pic showed him lying in a hospital-style bed, a glazed look in his unfocused eyes but a smile pasted gamely across his face. The hand-lettered sign beneath said, cryptically, “honey.”
The second photo was of a handsome Asian man, also in a hospital bed, sporting thick salt-and-pepper hair, oiled and swept back in an elegant pompadour. Les peered in doubtfully. Dad had a roommate? Hadn’t Mom arranged for a private suite?
A curtain was drawn around the first of the two beds, but through a gap in the corner Les could see in. The Asian man was lying there, staring hard at the ceiling while a woman—his wife?—lay fully-clothed next to him, clinging to his chest and sobbing into his sweatshirt. A younger man—his son?—sat in a nearby chair and spoke quietly but heatedly in what sounded like Korean as he ate noodles from a plastic container. The handsome man ignored both visitors and studied the ceiling.
Look at that, thought Les. This is where you see the cracks, this is where you can make out the fault lines. This is where you see how easily things fall apart. He pulled the curtain closed and tiptoed past.
And there was Dad, staring up from his wheelchair at a murmuring television tuned to some frenetic Bruce Willis action movie. Les stopped short, eyes widening. He tried to disguise it, but he was genuinely shocked.
Dad looked as if he had collapsed in on himself. His face was weird, the left side hanging slack off the cheekbone, the mouth angling down in a sort of forced half-frown. And the eyes were funny. They were on slightly different planes, which had the jarring effect of making him look like one of those special needs kids Les saw at the bus stop near his apartment every morning.
This was the man who had splintered a bedroom door the night his son, at the tender age of sixteen, had stumbled home truly, spectacularly drunk for the first time. This was the ogre who’d forced Les to finish an abysmal Little League season, no matter that the boy spent most of it riding the bench and that he struck out on every single trip to the plate. This was the harsh taskmaster who wouldn’t let his son quit the Boy Scouts or the band or the yearbook, and who, as Mom’s loyal enforcer, had pushed and prodded and berated and belittled.
This was the ass-kicker, diminished.
“Dad. Wow. You look . . . you look great.”
Dad didn’t register Les’s discomfort. He was happy to see his son and his face brightened, the action pulling it into somewhat better alignment. He glanced from Les to the TV and back to Les.
“Somethin’s gonna ’splode here any minute,” he said, nodding at the screen. His voice was another shock, slurred and choppy, difficult to understand. Les moved in for an awkward hug, noticing as he did the plastic trough that held Dad’s left arm. His left foot was strapped to a foot rest but his right toed the floor and provided propulsion.
“How are you?” Les asked, taking his father in.
“Fine, fine,” Dad said. “Better now, ’least.” The old guy’s color was pretty good, Les rationalized, and he really had lost some weight. These facts made it easier to lie.
“You do look great, Dad. Just like Mom said.” His smile masked the low-level fear unspooling in his stomach. “The roads suck though. Hardly been plowed. Hope Mom gets here okay.”
Dad laughed. “Th’ beach has three snowplows, and two of ’em are broke. But she’ll be all right.”
Les sat awkwardly at the foot of the hospital bed and rubber sheets crinkled beneath him. “They treating you, okay? You eating? Mom said the food’s Kosher, which is healthy, right?”
“Th’ food is CRAP,” said Dad. “Puréed. Ter’ble. Outta th’toilet. Losin’ weight, tho’.”
“Like, liquefied?”
“Yeah. Can’t do solids. Goes down wrong pipe, bad news. Water too. ’Specially water.”
Mom had mentioned how he had to work on his swallow or risk pneumonia from aspirating meals. “What do you do about water?”
“They put crap in it. Thickener. Mine’s honey right now.”
“Thickener?”
“Honey’s heaviest. Nectar’s th’ middle. Then none. Can’t wait for none.” Dad was smiling, or at least half of him was, but then his face clouded. He dug at the floor with his good foot to pull himself closer. “Lesley,” he said, “I wanted you t’ come so I could talk t’ you ’bout somethin’. ’S important.”
Les glanced out the window and felt a chill unrelated to the snow. Whatever Dad wanted to say, he didn’t really want to hear it, imagining some awkward deathbed confession. Les did not need any last-minute apologies for the events of long-ago. His parents had fucked him up, sure, but everyone’s did. Besides, Dad was nowhere near his deathbed and not a thing could be done about the past. There was no need for urgency. Couldn’t this wait?
But Dad was insistent. With his good right hand he motioned his son nearer. Les dutifully leaned in and cupped an ear.
“I want you to know, ’s okay if . . .”
“Here I am!” Mom trilled as she burst into the room. “That Crown Vic handles like a tank in the snow, which is a damn good thing since absolutely nothing has been plowed. Oh my god! Lesley!” Mom grabbed his face with chilled hands and kissed his forehead, mashing his nose flat against the maternal bosom. “I was worried about you. It’s awful out there, and you had so far to come.” Les shot Dad a helpless look.
“No problems, Mom. All good.”
“Why you’ve never looked for a job down here is beyond me.” She released him and removed her scarf. “You’d never have to make that drive again if you did. There must be plenty of finance jobs at the beach, with all the retirees worrying about their nest eggs and whatnot. Why, you could even stay in your room until you found a place of your own. If you wanted. We’d love to have you.” A series of muffled explosions issued from the TV. Bruce Willis had somebody in a headlock.
“Thanks, Mom. I know.”
“Told you!” Dad said. “’S’plosions!”
“You should think about it, Lesley,” said Mom, reaching for the remote to turn down the sound. “Especially with everything that’s happened.”
Les perched on the bed, his feet dangling, and said nothing.
“Well. Dad, I’ve bootlegged another case of Ensure.” She took a can from the paper bag she’d brought and shook it in the air. She said to Les conspiratorially, “The puréed food is terrible and I’m afraid he’s not getting all the nutrients he needs. We try to drink at least one of these a day to build up our strength.”
Dad waved her away. “No. More crap. Haven’t had first crap yet.”
“You haven’t eaten?”
“Snow storm.”
“It’s 1:30 and they haven’t given you lunch? Good lord! They knew this weather was coming! They should have made arrangements. I’ll call Don Sinclair Monday morning and give him a little piece of—”
“Snow storm,” Dad said. “Kitchen people can’t get in. Don’t care anyhow. Food is crap.” Les smiled. Dad’s temper was a good sign, right?
“I know, darling. I know you hate it.” Mom smoothed a spot on the bed next to Les and sat with a sigh. “But this can all be managed, all of it. We’ll be swallowing normally in no time.” She stroked Dad’s dead left hand tenderly. “This is just . . . temporary.” Her gaze radiated love, but Les could tell she worked hard at her bravery.
They’d always had a remarkable bond, Mom and Dad, one so close there was barely room for Les. They thought themselves both Type-A’s, and despite high hopes that their only child would combine the best of both of their worlds, they seemed to have instead cancelled each other out in him. Upon that unfortunate realization, consciously or not, at some point they’d closed ranks and turned inward when they saw he was not the high-achieving number-one-son they’d expected. They held out hope for a late rally—fictions about his life in Philly were part of that—but more and more they were resigned to the fact that Les was painfully average.
Mom regained her composure. “Speaking of temporary, since I had some extra time this morning I looked into the room snafu. I was amazed they were in the office at all with the snow but since they were I read them the riot act and you know what? We should have a private suite by Tuesday.”
“Wha’ happen?” asked Dad.
“Paperwork. Some dumb mistake on their part, not ours. By the way, Lesley, I could certainly use some of your help with this paperwork, Mr. Financial Advisor. You have no idea what I’m dealing with here.” She gripped his shoulder.
Les groaned silently. He sold insurance. He wanted nothing to do with any of this. Instead he said, “Sure, Mom. But can we talk about it later?”
“You would not believe the bills. Five days in the ICU? That alone was nearly seventy thousand.”
Les hadn’t considered the financial toll of Dad’s illness. More accurately, it hadn’t even occurred to him. He wondered now how they could afford such care. Why hadn’t he thought about this before? His family was well-off but by no means rich.
“You owe seventy grand?” he sputtered.
“No, no, thank god no,” said Mom, moving about the room, straightening things. “It’s all Medicare, or insurance. All except $2.49—would you believe it?—exactly $2.49 for a pair of shoelaces for the orthopedic shoes. Absurd. We haven’t paid a dime past that.”
Les wanted nothing to do with his parents’ finances. He had no idea how they provided for themselves in retirement and he really didn’t want to learn now. He took a measured breath.
“We’d just like for you to have a look before we send some forms off. Make sure all my i’s are crossed and t’s dotted, ha ha.”
Les sighed. “Fine, fine. I’ll look at them in the morning. There’s no way I can get back tonight, even if the snow stops. I’m assuming I can I stay at the house?”
Mom gave him a little frown. “Of course you can. You don’t have to ask. You can always stay at the house.”
“Thanks.”
“We just wish . . . well, we just wish you lived closer, is all. Especially now. Don’t we Dad?”
“Mom—”
”You’ve never really seriously looked for a job down here, have you Lesley?”
“Mom, I—”
“Why is that?”
Before he could answer, the voice of the bored Us-reading nurse crackled over the intercom. “Lunch 2 PM today. Sorry for the delay, folks. We short-staffed but Cookie finally here.”
Les and his mother regarded each other silently for a moment. He glanced up at the television. Credits were rolling.
“Well then,” Mom said, checking her watch. “We’ve got five minutes. Let’s get your father cleaned up.” Mom wheeled Dad into the bathroom and closed the door. Les drew his feet up, lay back on the bed and pulled a pillow over his face. He didn’t want to hear any unfortunate noises from inside there.
Pushing his father’s wheelchair behind Mom as she marched up the hall to the cafeteria, Les thought, this is it: the new normal. Things were going to change, were changing before his eyes, had changed already. Had changed already.
He wasn’t prepared.
“Seven,” wheezed Dad as they entered the dining area. Each table held a numbered placard and a half-hearted arrangement of plastic flowers. One wall of the room was a floor-to-ceiling mural of a sun-dappled glade populated by cuddly forest creatures. No doubt the intent was to be calming, but to Les it just looked creepy.
The sound system blared a selection of oldies, its volume cranked to accommodate innumerable hearing aids. Through tinny overhead speakers an angelic chorus was cooing, They'll all come to meet me, arms reaching, smiling sweetly / It's good to touch the green, green grass of home.
“Love this song,” said Dad, humming along.
The aged flock from the front desk had migrated here and was settling in, a few of the old birds flapping and calling absently. At table seven a tiny woman in a yellow bath robe was already seated, clutching a wad of Kleenex in one twitching hand. She gave Dad an exaggerated wink as Les docked the chair.
“There you are,” she said in a quavering voice. “I’ve been watching out for you.”
“Hi, Mary Ann,” said Dad. “Les, this is Mary Ann.” Les nodded.
“Like on Gilligan’s Island,” said Mary Ann, smiling shyly.
“See the water?” Dad nodded at his plastic mug. It appeared half-full of cool, clear tap water, but when Les picked it up the liquid moved with the consistency of syrup. “See? Thickened.”
“Hi Mary Ann,” Mom interrupted, bright and faux-merry as she dropped her bag on the table and pulled out a chair. “What’s on today’s menu?”
“I do believe it’s fish,” said Mary Ann, pronouncing it “fee-yush.” Her voice was musical and childlike, a faded hint of the South in her vowels.
“Fish,” said Dad. “Dear god.”
At every place setting was a large brown napkin with a strip of Velcro on it. Mom fastened one around Dad’s neck and Les realized it was actually an industrial-sized bib. “He can get a bit messy sometimes,” Mom stage-whispered. A burly attendant approached with a cart and passed out garden salad and chicken noodle soup, offering a serving to Les, who declined, his stomach still awash in aspirin and bile. Mom also passed, but when the man slapped a regular salad plate in front of Dad, she was quick to intervene. “He’s on puréed! No solids!” Without saying a word or breaking stride, the attendant snatched back the offending plate and moved on to the next table.
“Doggone it, why don’t they just write it down?” Mom said. “How many times do I have to tell them?”
“Thank god you’re here,” said Les.
“Yes, well. Everyone needs an advocate.” She kissed Dad’s cheek. “And that’s what I am. Dad’s personal advocate.”
“I wouldn’t call this soup,” said Mary Ann. “No sir, that’s not what I’d call soup.”
Another attendant began serving entrees, and Les gradually registered the oily, damp smell bearing down on the room. The odor was soon overwhelming, a clinging film that had him pulling the collar of his t-shirt over his nose to breathe. Better to inhale his own B.O. than this awful stench.
When Dad’s portion arrived, he raised a spoon and steeled himself. Mary Ann had been served a traditional fish filet, but the substances on Dad’s plate were unidentifiable, several mounds of . . . something. Dad took a stab at the white pile first.
“Potatoes usually safe,” he said, spooning in a small bite. He chewed thoughtfully and then leaned forward to swallow, concentrating hard.
“That’s what they teach him in therapy,” said Mom. “He’s got to get the angle right.”
“You’re eating too fast,” said Mary Ann, bobbing over her plate like a drinking bird toy. “You shouldn’t eat so fast.”
“No. Swallowin’ too slow,” said Dad. He took a breath and spooned up part of the green pile, raising his good eyebrow.
“Fish?” asked Les.
“Maybe,” said Dad, grimacing as he leaned forward again to complete the gulp. Mom massaged the back of his neck while he stoically sampled the rest of the gruel.
“He’s a fighter,” said Mom.
After dessert, Mom said, “Lesley, there are some things we should discuss.” Les flinched. He knew what was coming: the full-court press of guilt. She wiped a spot of applesauce from his father’s cheek. “Dad will be released in a couple months, assuming no setbacks, and I’m going to need your help. We will need a lot of help. You’ve got some vacation time saved up at work, haven’t you?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“Fish is crap,” said Dad.
“Are you drinking that cranberry juice?” said Mary Ann. “My doctor says to watch out for the cranberry juice. They put wine in there, you know.”
Mom regarded Les frankly. “What I’m hoping here is that you can give us a real hand,” Mom said. “Like they say: it takes a village.” She put an arm around Dad and squeezed.
“Um,” said Les, staring at his knuckles.
From across the room a male voice cried out and began singing at high volume, in direct competition with the stereo. Startled, Les turned and tried not to stare at the tall, goggle-eyed man in a dinner jacket and a bad comb-over, belting out some passionate lament. “L'amore è nulla, l'amore è tutti,” he sang. A few of his fellow diners clapped.
“Caruso,” Mary Ann said into her applesauce container, from which she was busily extricating a last quivering spoonful. The man sang a few more lines and wandered out of the room. “Mr. Harvey is a very good singer,” said Mary Ann.
Reaching for Dad’s spoon to lick it clean, Mom changed the subject. “So, Lesley, are you seeing anyone these days?”
A psychiatrist, or a woman? Les wondered. He hated these sneak attacks, had spent the entirety of his visit last summer fending them off. He sighed and said nothing
“Bernadette Hudson’s son met a very nice girl on one of those computer dating sites,” she sailed on. “eHarmony? Have you ever thought of trying something like that?”
“A wuh wuh wuh wuh wuh WUH!”
Les jumped. At the next table over, a man lying almost horizontally in a complicated wheelchair let fly a series of heaving coughs that gradually diminished to a lower-pitched “wha wha whaaaaa.” After retching for forty-five excruciating seconds, he quieted. A minute later, he started up again.
“They’re not doing anything,” said Mary Ann. “They’re not doing anything about that.”
She was right. Not until the plates were being cleared did the burly attendant who’d mistakenly given Dad solids check on the guy. “Mr. Zorn? You a’ight?”
Mr. Zorn, quiet at last, closed his eyes.
Suddenly a whooping alarm sounded. The lone occupant of table five, a husky woman with a nimbus of grey hair peeking from beneath a purple watch cap, was attempting to get up. There was some sort of cord dangling from her and as she struggled to her feet it caught on her wheelchair. She made for the exit and the chair tagged along, banging into her ankles.
“It sets off bells if she gets up,” Mary Ann announced, bobbing above her empty applesauce container. “She’s not supposed to get up.” The attendant moved more quickly this time, catching and gently easing the woman back into her chair, reconnecting the cord to shut down the alarm. When the shrieking stopped, the overhead speakers seemed louder than ever. A soul singer with a voice like polished ebony was sweetly crooning,
Soon he'll be there at your side / with a sweet bouquet
And he'll kiss your lips / and caress your waiting fingertips
And your hearts will fly away
“’S a good one,” said Dad, motioning at the ceiling. “’Member, Frannie?”
Mom was listening too, a far-away look on her face. When the song circled back to the chorus she crumbled and turned to the wall, digging roughly through her purse. From Les’s angle she seemed to be laughing, her shoulders heaving delicately. Something was funny?
“High school,” said Dad. The old man’s eyes were watering. “Cafeteria. ’Member, Frannie?”
Mom gave up and threw her bag on the table. Les saw then that she wasn’t laughing at all, but struggling with tears of her own. She snatched up a Velcro napkin and rubbed her eyes hard. For the second time that day Les was shocked. Mom had never before in his presence betrayed such vulnerability, such weakness. She laid her head gently on Dad’s shoulder.
The cracks, thought Les. You really could see the cracks.
“You’re not drinking the cranberry juice, are you?” said Mary Ann. “They put wine in there, you know.” The tinny speakers sang,
Your hearts will fly away . . .
Dad’s eyes glistened behind his crooked glasses. With his good arm he pulled Mom close and kissed her. They sat for a moment with their foreheads pressed together and Les stared at the floor, uncomfortable and slightly embarrassed.
“Don’t worry,” said Mary Ann. “I’m watching out for him.”
The song ended and Les’s parents looked up, blinking as if emerging from a cave. Most of the other diners had by now been wheeled back to their rooms. Mom rubbed her eyes again with the napkin and Dad wiped his with the sleeve of his good arm. He pushed away from the table. “Headin’ t’ th’ room,” he said over his shoulder. “Gotta go.”
“Wait,” said Les, thinking his father somehow upset in the wake of his public display of emotion. In truth Les had been touched by it, had seen his parents in an unguarded moment that for once had begged his sympathy, instead of vice-versa.
After everything, Mom and Dad were human. He handed his father one of Mary Ann’s Kleenex.
“No, no, NO!” said Dad, stamping his good foot. “ I got to go.” He angled toward the exit but one wheel of his chair wouldn’t turn. “NOW!”
“He’s had some control issues, I hate to say,” Mom said quietly to Les. Then, louder, “In another month or so we’ll have everything back to normal!”
A wheel lock was engaged on the left side of his father’s chair, Les saw, and as he reached across to disengage it he noticed the dark patch blooming in his old man’s grey sweatpants. He was mortified.
What happened to the damn Depends?
With the lock at last off Dad sped toward the door. “Come on, Frannie!” he called as he wheeled away.
In hot pursuit, Mom said, “We’ll go back to the room now, Lesley. Do you just want to meet us in the lobby?”
“Uh . . . sure, Mom. Sure.” But she hadn’t waited for an answer. She was already tearing down the hall after her husband, Les’s father, who’d just wet his pants.
Les felt his chest tightening. He wandered after them in a daze, willing himself to relax, but he felt like he was underwater, under thickened water, battling thickened waves, trying to kick his way to the surface. Breathing grew more difficult. He glanced around, searching half-seriously for an oxygen tank, guessing there had to be a few spares around here somewhere.
Mom and Dad had by now disappeared into the room and Les found himself in the main lobby with the gulls, half of whom were looking up expectantly all over again. Good god, he thought. So old. So helpless. And one day, no doubt, he would take his place among them. He felt his windpipe constricting in that old familiar way.
Did it have to end like this? Reduced? Abbreviated? Shitting in a bag like a newborn? Start in diapers, end in diapers—the circle of life, indeed.
Les bolted for the door.
He wanted no more to do with this place. He needed fresh air. Immediately. He didn’t even go back for his coat.
The Rabbit was covered in several inches of new snow and more was falling, but at least the deluge had slowed. Les flung an arm across the windshield to scrape the driver’s side clean, heaved the door open and got in, teeth chattering. He didn’t bother with the other windows, just jammed the car into gear and fishtailed it out onto the street.
He drove automatically, with no conscious thought to direction, and for a while it was enough just to be moving. The Rabbit’s heater was warm on his face and the snow in twilight was actually beautiful, the streetlights twinkling like Christmas Eve. Gradually his pulse eased and the weight lifted from his chest. The further he drove into the gale, the calmer he felt. The car radio went on and on about “the mother of all beach storms,” but Les was no longer worried about the weather.
Eventually he glimpsed, between the cranes erecting glittering new towers along Atlantic Avenue, angry whitecaps under an indignant sky. The beach. Of course he would wind up here. Gusts off the open water stiff-armed the little car at every cross street, but it was, strangely, exhilarating.
The beach.
He followed Atlantic up to 64th, where he knew of a tiny parking lot the lifeguards used, protected on three sides by shifting dunes. His little secret.
He sat with the engine running for forty-five minutes, listening to the wind, trying to decide what to do. Drive back to Philly? Go to Mom and Dad’s? He needed to think.
He found a sweatshirt and a pair of gloves in the back seat and pulled them on. The wind sighed as he shouldered the door open, snow swirling and falling down his neck from the roof. He wished he’d remembered some decent boots.
From the boardwalk everything looked strange. He’d never seen snow on sand like this before. The surging wind had blown deep, cottony drifts up the boardwalk steps but out where the sand rose before dropping away to the water everything was scoured brown.
He waded down the steps, knee-deep in powder. The storm picked up grit from the dunes and flung it at his face, stinging, but truthfully he didn’t feel much of the cold. And the howling wind was somehow a good thing, quieting his jumbled thoughts. With hands thrust deep in the pockets of his jeans, Les pushed to the water’s edge.
The sand out here was frozen, and each step crack-crunched as the ice first held and then fractured beneath him. It was like tiptoeing across the sugar frosting of a giant oatmeal cookie.Cracks everywhere, he thought ruefully, following one. He came to a rise and paused, mesmerized by the surf battering the shore below him. The water was beautiful, scary, the waves ferocious, throwing up a spray of frozen droplets that fell and collected like glass beads.
The ocean, thickened.
He didn’t know how long he spent there, staring at the pounding surf and the bleak view. He was thinking about boundaries.
Les could picture himself on Google Earth, a solitary figure, clearly defined, at the edge of the continent in the middle of a crazy snowstorm.
Right there. It was odd and comforting, knowing exactly where he was.
From the corner of his eye he registered an odd movement in the distance. He turned to glimpse a black dot bouncing methodically down the beach toward him. He squinted into the lashing wind and made out a silhouette. A man?
Some crazy person appeared to be out there, jogging!
In a full-body wetsuit a runner pounded down the beach metronomically, just out of reach of the breaking surf. What kind of nut, Les wondered, would be out here alone in weather like this?
Oh, he thought. Me.
He watched as the man approached against a purple sky. He was moving at a good clip, despite the wind. Purposeful and determined.
Les peered into the storm, eyes tearing, as the man drew even and then moved past, making his way steadily down the beach in winter.
