The Getaway
The beach was quiet around their little bungalow. The squat cottage was not far from the green water that lapped up and down the long strip of smooth sand, and the little white building sat by itself, far from the condos and the popular boardwalk to the south. A dour bank of gray sat stolid beyond the distant strand, and a nervous wind stirred up and down the coast, periodically bearing the alternating scents of fresh pretzels, chowder, and diesel fuel.
He sat in one of the weathered gray Adirondacks, the one with the outside half of the right armrest broken off and carried away somewhere by the sea or a beachcomber or a little kid who wanted to use it for a bat. He feigned comfort as he reclined in an old concert t-shirt and some shorts, his right hand fiddling with the splintery armrest, his exposed legs bumpy from the cold air. He scoured the distance looking for a freighter or ferries or fishing boats, waiting for nothing in particular. She would join him soon, he thought, but in the back of his mind he questioned even that, and he decided he liked the cool wetness in the air, and if he was cold, it was acceptable. There was nothing on the water, and the storm to the south grumbled unconsciously.
It had been about a year now since the accident.
A year since they got the call about the car, found twisted and glassy and sheered down that rocky slope, bent against the tree.
A year since the funeral, with his in-laws that talked too loud, who laughed a lot, as though they were at the midway at the state fair, or a high school football game.
A year since she- his wife, her mother- abruptly quit her job, with no explanation- none offered- and told him she was going to go to her sister’s in Birmingham for a while.
She stayed away for over four months, and in that time his hair went from brown to gray and his abdomen thickened from excessive eating and watching TV.
Still, now, he felt chills run up and down his body, underneath the new layer of fat.
He wondered how far out he could swim, if he had to, and then make it back to the beach.
He wondered if it was colder the farther he went out, or if it was all the same cold, once he was past the initial shock of diving in and being immersed in ocean.
He then thought about her in the photos they had kept on the fridge at home. The one of when she came home from the hospital, a tiny pink bundle, eyes closed, but a clear smile spread across her little oval head. With Nancy Dalton in second grade, covered in mud, after an afternoon out in the pasture, that gay crazy look in her eyes. Hugging Grandma Hawke at the summer picnic, her full 10-year old body enwrapped around the frail woman’s laying torso, her head in that Goofy- eared hat. Covered by Doby the giant mutt on the living room carpet. In her softball uniform her senior year in high school. In her awkward school dance pictures dressed up, holding the arm of the Ruffin boy, or that Pritchard kid. On the tree swing at Uncle Moss’s, under the canopy of fall colors, her face matured into that of a young woman under a swirl of auburn hair. The class photos. Pictures of her with Natalie and Erica and Amanda during their teenage years. Her glowing face beside the held-up scholarship letter.
Somewhere north up the waterfront, a muted dog bark carried in on the wind, low soft jabs upon the dull noise of the wallering tide. He turned and looked up the coast, scanning for movement, but he saw nothing.
She had been coming home from spending the summer as a counselor at the Windhill Camp, guiding and guarding and goading middle schoolers for 10 weeks. She, and her parents with her, had been excited about heading off to her first year of college. She was intelligent and energetic and responsible and roundly adored by friends and kids and neighbors and employers.
A lot different than him.
A lot different than her mother.
His eye caught sight of a rock outcrop in the distant undulating waves, and he wondered if he could swim at least out to that. If it really was a rock, he then reconsidered. He might get out there and learn it wasn’t real, and he’d be screwed.
All the heat from the day was gone now in the remaining sunlight, and he thought for a moment about getting up and walking north as far as he could go.
And then he heard the swish of the sliding glass door behind him and the sound of Perry Como crooning lowly from within the little box, and then the swoosh again, and the music gone, and then the shuffle of nearing feet.
“It’s freezing out here!” she said to the sea, and then, as if just noticing him there for the first time, “Are you trying to get sick?”
She was large under the pastel floral dress and long coat of faux short brown fur, her black hair cropped to frame her pinched facial features. She used to be smaller, he thought, recalling her trim figure when they had married way back then. But her shape was still pretty to him. Her eyes were moist behind her black rimmed glasses and she avoided looking at him.
She paused in front of him as if she was trying to make a giant decision, and then she walked over to him and bent over and kissed his left cheek, grabbing his left arm tightly for a moment, the smell of cognac on her breath.
“You need a jacket or a blanket.”
And then she sat down next to him in the other weathered chair and they both quietly watched the churning of the sea until the darkness settled completely in.
