To Sea

  Spring passed into summer—thick green leaves reflected off the cool blue water. Summer then faded, falling into autumn. The leaves yellowed and burnt red—then they browned and felled. The gulls that flew against the coastline came in fewer numbers. The stronger ones outliving the starved. The sandpipers stuck to the brush, foraging for insects up high in the dunes, not even chancing a trip to the shore. Fall then ended abruptly with cold. And still, no fish to angle.

  A year of stagnancy shed away. Still no work, or sign thereof for Jon. Fights boiled each morning between sheets. Yet each breakfast was prepared by a smiling wife—a loving mother watching the TV with a keen eye. All the while keeping her notes for the hopes of tomorrow—for the hopes that she will win the big prize. That they will call her up. Ask her some petty trivia from the show the day prior. And she will just flip through her notes, reciting the answer with ease. She knows not to talk too much. That they don’t like that. Time is money. Answer quickly. Get in and get out. She has run the conversation over a million times in her head. “It’s all about the vacation,” she’d say. “Eyes on the prize.”

  And each morning, her men sat silent across one another—enveloped in the hum of the television as they waited for their food to be served by her. They knew that smiles would be delivered with each dish. As if it was when the oceans were filled with fish. When Jon flooded his home with prosperity. When voyages yielded huge gains and no questions. But now—jobless for nearly two years, an adulterous wife of five plus years, and the dwindling funds from surpluses past—Elea’s tone had certainly changed behind closed doors. But her breakfasting voice had remained uplifting.

  Jon had raked through the folds in his mind for the year. The sea and the old priest’s words consumed all of the fisherman’s thoughts. He exerted all of himself towards decoding the priest’s guidance. Jon began to build walls with his whimsical thoughts between himself and society—between himself and his family.

  He traveled back to the beach over the green drawbridge, repeatedly. But never again did he see the old man. “He has to come back,” he thought. “He wouldn’t just leave me like that.” Jon continued on to visit a beach—any beach—two to three times a week until he found himself visiting Her every day. “I need to talk to him again. He has something else to tell me. I know it. I feel it. I cannot give up. He’ll come. I know it.” And every time he thought he had figured out his destiny—his goal—his reason for living—he would question himself and start all over, driving back to the seashore in search for answers.

  As time pressed on, with each drive, Jon would find himself in a daydream with his eyes to the heavens, staring out at the fluff of clouds morphing into images that he swore were messages from Him. Messages from his Father. His words. His guidance lining the edges of cumulous and airplane trails. And yet, all the while, as the sky and the leaves and all the earth changed—the sea still remained. Pounding away at the land. And as the sea remained, Jon remained. Unchanged. Like clockwork, timed and assured, Jon would find his way to the shore. Be it in his yard or a daytrip to a nearby beach-town. He would find his feet shifting over sand. Pushing the grains between his toes as the salty air tugged at his beard. He no longer wanted the sea. He needed it.

  Barry’s grades had slipped. Not much. Half a mark. But half a mark enough for Elea to confront him. Enough for Elea to force Jon to talk to their son.

  “Biology is tough. And so is Calculus,” Barry would plea. “I’m trying my best.” But for the Brands, Barry’s so-called best would not be enough. And with every push at Barry, the boy would push his anger down in a single gulp—accepting his penance of sarcasm from Elea and the now lack of caring from his father. As Jon’s eyes had now been fixated on the sea through windows or through walls when there were no windows to look out of.

  Then the spring returned—warming all the earth with rain and fog. The oaks still hung onto seldom browned leaves and had yet to bud with yellows and greens. The echoes of the church bell still resonated through the bare oaks—through the thin needles of the tall pines. And the sound still brought in smalls waves crashing to the shore below the bed of washed out stones.

  Jon’s drives to the shore had expanded farther out west. And with every drive, he held onto the notions of exploring the coastline to find the answers. To find the priest.