Page 34 of On Fire Island
Even at Ben’s slow pace, we reached the ferry early. Ben walked out to the edge of the dock and sat down, his legs swinging back and forth above the water like a kid. Two swans were doing a lap around the perimeter of the basin. I waited with anticipation to watch them effortlessly glide in unison over the wake of the ferry when it arrived. Ben took a deep cleansing breath to counter the distant sight of the boat cutting through the morning fog. I wondered about the future of his relationship with my family—if that obligation died with me or not.
The boat arrived, and three strangers staggered off. My mother, makeup free and wearing tennis shoes, my sister, pulling a giant Yeti cooler with another strapped to her back, and my dad, who also looked like he had aged ten years since the funeral. While Ben stood between them for a group hug, I reminded myself they would be OK, that they had one another. He slid the backpack from my sister’s shoulder and grabbed the cooler. Theinsanity of my father not even noticing that my sister was carrying everything wasn’t lost on either of us.
As the ferry pulled away, Renee raced up on her bike, tossed it against the fence, and ran out on the dock. She had obviously had a change of heart regarding the drummer. It was too late. She watched as the boat got smaller and smaller until it disappeared into the fog. Then she sat down on the bench, alone, and buried her face in her hands.
“I got you an iced coffee at the market,” Gabe said, tapping her on the shoulder and handing it to her like it was the plan all along. She looked up at him and released a pent-up sob.
“Don’t,” he said, pulling her to him for an embrace. When he released her, she looked into his eyes.
“What happened to the ten o’clock boat?”
“You weren’t on it.”
She shook off her obvious emotion, embarrassed by the spectacle of it. “Wanna come back to the house, stay with me for a few days?”
I wondered if Gabe knew what a big deal this was for her. He seemed to be oddly insightful. He answered by scooping her up into his arms and kissing her passionately. Her knees shook again, and she pressed them against his legs to steady them. The kiss clearly moved her more. She couldn’t get enough of him.
“Are you sure?” he asked, when they came up for air.
“No. Not at all,” she said, with a shy smile.
“You know, being sure is overrated.”
She didn’t. But she was suddenly willing to find out.
twenty-one
Mementos
The walk back to the house from the ferry dock was even slower than the walk there, and with the added depressing element of people diverting their eyes as we passed—their collective grief was palpable. As much as it may have hurt my family, I was thankful that Ben had escaped to the beach. If this is what they looked like after the week of shiva, I couldn’t imagine how Ben would have fared. Maybe they were better when they had an audience. I’m sure my mother was.
“I have to freshen up,” my mom said when we arrived, giving Sally an obligatory pat on the head before heading straight for my bedroom. She closed the door behind her, locked it, and sat down on my side of the bed. I wondered about the depths of a mother’s love, of a mother’s grief, and again felt thankful that I hadn’t left a child behind.
My nightstand was untouched since last summer, except for a pair of Shep’s reading glasses. She opened a novel I had been reading and studied it as if it were the holy grail. In reality, it had been a painfully slow read, and I had uncharacteristically given up onit at chapter six, where it was earmarked. She slipped it in her purse while I uselessly protested.
“That book was a bore. Take something else!”
I hoped every one of my belongings would not be held on to with misguided nostalgia. I had tossed or donated a lot of stuff in the city over the past few months so that Ben wouldn’t have to bother with it, but everything here at the beach was just as we left it back when our lives were picture-perfect.
She picked up an old family photo of us that sat framed on my nightstand next to one of Sally as a pup and another of Ben and me the summer that we started dating. It was a photo of my family when we were young on Saint Bart’s, before it became the bougie place to go. The shot was very Slim Aarons, and I treasured it.
Every Christmas, my parents would rent a villa on Saint Bart’s, where we proceeded to make some of my happiest childhood memories—except, that is, for our arrival. To get to Saint Bart’s, you had to first fly to Anguilla and then charter a small plane to navigate one of the shortest runways in the world, nestled between two mountains. I found the famously harrowing landings thrilling but can still hear the piercing cries from my sister, who always thought we were going to crash. She would hold my hand so tightly I thought my fingers would fall off. The same happened when we got shots at the pediatrician or when the scary monkeys came on-screen duringThe Wizard of Oz.It worried me, even then, that she wasn’t brave on her own.
In the picture we are around thirteen and nine and standing poolside, looking over at our parents, who were deep in a game of backgammon. Our skin is tanned, and our hair stiff and sticky from the lemons we squeezed on daily, ridiculously hoping forhighlights in our monochromatic black locks. In the photo, Nora holds her right fist against her chest, clutching a piece of red beach glass smoothed to perfection and abstractly shaped like a heart. I had been the one who found it on the beach earlier that day. I handed her the heart-shaped treasure and said, “This is for you, Nora. It has magic in it. Hold it tight when you’re scared and I’m not around.”
She clutched that little piece of glass in her little fist for most of the day, as if taking in its powers, and cried when she lost it at the end of the trip.
My mother placed the photo back on the nightstand and opened my top drawer. I had actually seen her do this before. Not one to respect boundaries, she thought nothing of going through my closet or dresser like a camp counselor during morning inspection. I had even caught her refolding things on occasion.
She pulled out an old silk scarf of mine and buried her nose in it. It was interesting to me, how people grasp on to scent after someone passes. I had never much thought of it before. I guess it’s the last possible sensory connection. I doubt it still smelled like me, if it ever had. I couldn’t remember the last time I wore it. It was one of those wardrobe pieces that went to the beach to die.
She shoved the barely worn scarf in her bag with the book and left the bedroom. She seemed to have gotten what she came for. I wasn’t surprised; my mother always had a thing for things—something tangible of mine to hold on to would help her to grieve.
“Where’s Nora?” she asked my dad and Ben, who were unloading a massive amount of leftovers from the shiva, mostly from the aforementioned Upper West Side trifecta of Zabar’s, Fairway, and Citarella. Shep had made himself scarce for the visit, but I imagined he would be thrilled the next time he opened the fridge. The selections from the “Brisket Brigade” had been dwindling.
“She went to the beach,” Ben answered. “She should be back soon.”
I spotted Nora a few blocks east, her bright yellow sweatshirt peeking out from the morning fog as if it were the sun itself. I reached her mid-conversation. She was perched on a cut of sand, looking out over the ocean on the empty beach, talking out loud—to me. It felt more like a confession than a conversation. As if the endless sea in front of her was her church and I was her priest. This wasn’t surprising to me. The vastness of the ocean is humbling, and its color a reflection of the heavens above. I felt humbled as well, and still no closer to entering the “world to come” as my Rabbi friend had suggested I eventually would.
