To Sea

  April sprung upon East Marion with a cold front hanging heavy overhead for two weeks. Strong storms popped out of the cool sunless sky. The grass grew lush and full.

  Elea had set up several job interviews for Jon. Margie’s husband, Todd—the “carpetbagging financial consultant,” Jon would mumble—who was also on the town board, and who was always trying to lend a helping hand, did just that for the Brands.

  “I know firms, Jonny,” Todd had said the week prior at Barry’s spring choir concert. “We’re on a freeze over by me.” The curtains had dropped and Todd whispered over the Pledge of Allegiance, “Yanno, shit’s hittin’ the fan. Don’t want investors jumpin’ ship. But it’s hittin’ the fan, all right.” Todd had whispered over the orchestra, band and into the choir before he offered his hand to the fallen Brands—and Elea took hold.

  “You got two in Midtown on Monday. One on Tuesday. Wednesday, Thursday—nothing, yet. And Friday, three on the Island,” Elea said, checking off a list with her fingernail in the air as Jon sat at the kitchen table with his feet up out of his boots. He stared in at the silhouette images of his wife between the doorframe of the kitchen. The sun’s backlight etching her in gold.

  Jon sat back in his chair. He thought of Todd’s manicured house opposed his own, built with the blood of his father. “His own hands. His own design and life went into this house,” he mumbled softly, tapping his foot on the graying wood floor boards. “And these people. These, Todd McGuire’s, think they can just move in here. Become prominent members on the town board so they can manipulate a style of life they think they can buy.” Jon did not want to see his fishing town get sold out to materialism. He did not want to see the begriming of East Marion’s soul. The obliteration of the balance of life—the balance of the nature he would always remember and would always love with all of himself. “Soon enough, neon and florescent lights will line these streets. Corporate stores with banks as their managers, not man, will edge each intersection. Only to sprawl out all over the main street. All to accommodate the needs of these newcomers. Fucking the needs of the us—the old—the needs of all mankind.”

  Jon accepted the interviews from Todd, and Elea booked them. But Jon did not attend any of them. He’d call the public relations bureaus in the mornings, rescheduling. He was thankful for Todd’s compassion. Jon knew the man’s heart was in the right place. And Jon, even though on land, stilled lived by the code of the sea. The brotherhood love of your crew. For on the sea, you cannot survive on your own. You need your fellowman. The man beside you. The man at the hull. The man on the bow. Todd lived in East Marion, and no matter how much Jon might despise him, Todd and Jon were of the same ship.

  Instead of going to the interviews, Jon would drive along the shore for the day, discovering new coves, bays and beaches. All of which delivered a completely different view of the sea taking over the land. And whether raining waters or raining rays of sunshine, Jon would step out of his car and head for the sea. He’d wash his hands and arms with the salty waves crashing against his shins. And after the day spent at the shore, he would dry his body of the sea with the towel given to him by the police officer and he’d get back into his car, retracing the tires back home.

  Several weeks of rain and lies had passed ‘til Easter came. The façade of normalcy—“for Barry’s sake,” Elea would reason—was painted over the vicious reality of the demise of the Brands. And Easter—this Easter, was the day the sun finally broke through the clouds. Bright shining rays of light crested up over the treetops for the first time in weeks. The vibrancy of life flowed through the heart of the earth, warming the damp ground. The light slipped in through the bedroom window. The warmth settling over Jon’s left eyelid, forcing it open, and he sat up in the bed. Elea was still sleeping, but a sudden nudge of his foot against her thigh lifted her eyes open. She gazed into Jon while she focused in and out of her dreams and into the morning light.

  “Happy Easter,” he said, scratching his pink eyes strained from the sun. He folded the blankets off of his legs and he leaped up onto the floor. “You ready for the hike?”

  Elea bent her elbows, propping herself up. “A hike? Today? Is it going to rain?” she started rubbing her eyes. “I don’t know about going for a hike this Easter, Jon. I’m really just not quite up for it.”

  “Yes, El. A hike.” He paused, looking down at the wooden floor boards. He rubbed his toenails along the grains. “I’ve done it every year ever since I have been placed on this good earth. You know that. And I am not about to stop now because you simply do not feel like it.”

  Elea looked up at Jon. She could see the anger building in his eyes. He had not been firm on anything for the past several months. And such a quick verbal outlash by him frightened her. “All right, I’ll go,” she said. “I’ll go wake up Barry and start up breakfast. Eggs fine?”

  “Eggs are perfect.” The tension built up in Jon’s shoulders eased. He laid his feet flat on the floor. He looked out the window. Then he looked back over at Elea. The sun’s rays accentuated her curves, highlighting shadows under her breasts. He remembered when they held up perkily. But gravity began to settle upon them as they now hung a little lower than his mind recalled. But nonetheless, he had found himself attracted to her, still.

  “What are you staring at, you perv?”

  Jon paused for a moment. Then he directed his eyes back out towards the window to watch the waves crash to the shore. “Nothing,” he said. “Just nothing.” He glanced back over at Elea and he smiled as he undressed her with his eyes.

  She slipped her pants off. And then she unbuttoned the sleeping shirt she had been wearing.

  He stood stilled. Silent in her nude presence. He had not seen his wife naked in some time now. So long, he could not recall the last time. Her breasts hung low like how he had seen through her shirt. But they were now bare and they looked sad, coming to fine points at the ends of her browned nipples.

  “Come over here, Jon,” she said softly. “Let’s make this quick so Barry don’t catch us. And be quiet. We can’t be making all sorts of noise. It’s still early, yet.”

  Jon rubbed his toes against the floor. He looked away from Elea—out the window staring at the waves. “Cover yourself. Damn you, Elea. We can’t do this now. I don’t know if we can do this ever. Things have changed. Drastically changed. I don’t think we could follow through with this right now. Cover yourself.” He stood at the base of the bed with the sun now up in his eyes, blinding his view of the sea. “Please, Elea. Please cover yourself.” He stood stilled for a few moments. Then he headed to the bathroom, leaving his wife lying naked in the bed behind him.

  Breakfast came and then went. Elea cooked up eggs, scrambled, served with toast and, as always, with a smile. The television streamed the static sound of the Easter Parade in the city to the west, keeping the room from slipping into silence.

  Barry had a frown plastered across his face over the fact of the day being Easter and the family hike that was sure to come soon after breakfast. It was not spoken of, but surely, it was to come. It had occurred every year, every Easter, except for when April rain showers—and one year, snow—canceled the hike to sea.

  The drive was long. Almost two hours through roads that wound around tight corners. Jon slipped the sedan under newly budded trees covering the old roadways in route to the southern shoreline. He pushed his foot to the gas lightly, easing off on dips in the road, seldom tapping on the brake on the sharper turns. He focused on the branches of the trees that spat out clumps of green and red and yellow buds. He could make out the miniaturized sized leaves forming while he stopped at stop signs. And when he drove again, the buds bunched together like a large crowd at a baseball game, shading in the bright colors as a whole. “Such wondrous life extending from the branches that only a month ago would have seemed dead,” he thought.

  Elea sat stilled with her eyelid
s closed over. Her head resting softly on the headrest. Her neck bobbing this way and that while Jon guided the car around the curves in the road.

  He looked over at her sleeping and he sighed deeply. “She is missing the beauty of nature,” he thought. “She is missing out on the one time of the year when mother nature births.” He frowned at her jilted neck bouncing from either side of the headrest. Then he looked in the rearview mirror at Barry. The boy’s chin propped up on the ledge of the backseat window. Jon could hear Barry humming a tune. But the fisherman could not decode the song between the overpowering hums of the sedans engine. His son’s eyes clung to the images quickly passing him by. Buzzing and humming blips of striated colors of life and roadway ‘til the vibrations of the car beneath him—the putter of the engine and the rubbing tires—surely set Barry into a trance of his own ideas. And he shut his eyes off to the natural beauty of trees hanging over the road. The road in which Jon chose to emphasize the beauty of nature, rather than taking the quicker, less natural, more concrete route.

  Jon parked the car half on the road and half on a collapsed dune falling up over the asphalt. There were tall grasses flattened aside a small sand path blazed by the hooves of deer who traveled from bay to sea over the cracked roadway. The car shook for a moment, then Jon switched the ignition over, ceasing the engine. The whoosh of wind to steel and glass rattled the car, nudging Elea and Barry both back into a reality.

  Jon tapped on the steering wheel. He looked over at his family. Then he exited the car. The other two followed suit, closing the doors behind them in unison. The clash of metal echoing out to sea without any tall trees to capture the resonating sounds. Their faces loosened, capturing the warmth of the sun ‘til the wind breezed by bringing a chill that tightened their cheeks. Jon held his neck out. He shot his nose up, sniffing the salty sea mist passing by. A small, sullen smile drew across his face that hid behind his thick beard. Elea kicked sand over her shoes and she bit on the cuticles of her forefingers. She wrapped a sweater over her shoulders. Then she zipped it up to the collar, shoving her hands deep within the pockets. Barry nervously combed the back of his head with his fingers swirling his hair between his nails. Jon looked out at the sun. It seemed to float above them. The clouds were light and wispy and seemed to hold little to no substance at all. He traced the frail white lines with his finger. His other hand shielding the sun from his eyes.

  “Onward,” Jon announced. But he already began to walk down the deer paved path.

  The hike had been conducted every year ever since James Brand was but a babe. And now, Jon’s family kept the flame of tradition alive—a saunter down by the sea on the day of their savior’s resurrection.

  “This path isn’t even made for humans,” Barry whined. “And I bet it’s filled with deer ticks.”

  “We got to keep tradition alive,” Jon said, walking quickly. Elea, not far behind his stride, stayed silent. And Barry, behind them, alone, tapped unsendable text messages—no service this far out to sea.

  The path thinned out, allowing the trio to walk in a single file. Thus, they kept quiet and Jon slowed down their pace to view the vast grass covered dunes surrounding them on all sides. The sounds of ocean and bay were not far off. The light rush of waves could be heard in the distance—along with the soft cry of sandpipers and gulls seldom passing overhead. After a short while, the path opened up and the flattened grass path expanded outward. Elea quickened her pace to join Jon at his side, who had shifted his head this way and that to capture the joyous rapture of all the beauties unfolding as he made his way down into a sandy valley between the high dunes. Barry quickened his pace as well. But he still fell short behind the strides of his parents. Elea would look back at Barry, motioning him to come beside his father. But Barry would look off the path, out at the dunes, anything but at his parents, avoiding the contact that his mother tried to gain.

  She tried to act as if this Easter was like any other Easter. She smiled and she walked at the side of her husband, trying to displace the anxiety of the marriage along with the lack of funds filtering into the home. She tried to protect her son. She tried to assure their boy that things would be all right in the long run. She tried to hide the internal fighting—the lies between herself and her husband. She tried to see her family as at peace, drawing an elegant façade over the truth—the reality of the demise within the Brand household. However, Barry, not blind to the truth, could see all of the tension building.

  The path soon opened up into a shallow meadow. The flattened grass widening between a mass of dune walls.

  Elea stopped to tie her shoe. “Jon, hold up,” she said, bending over, loosening the laces in her sneakers. “I need to fix my sock. It bunched all up on me.” She looked back at Barry catching up. She stared into his eyes until she locked his into her own. After knotting her shoe laces tight, she stood up, brushing the loose sand from her pants, smiling at Barry who was now at his parents’ side. “All right, I’m ready.” She walked up to Jon, slipping her hand onto his palm, sliding her fingers against his. Then she looked up into Jon’s eyes. “So Barry, how is everything going in school? Almost done, eh? Must be pretty exciting.” She broke her stare, looking back to their son.

  Barry opened his mouth, not ready to speak, and he cleared his throat. “I guess it can be exciting,” he said, shifting his feet through the flattened grass. “You know, it is what it is. It doesn’t make me any different if I graduate high school or not.” He looked up from the ground and he caught the eyes of his father. “I couldn’t even get into State. So, what’s the use.”

  “Aw, Bar. That’s a sour outlook,” Elea said. “There’s always community college. Just bring your grades up there. Then you’ll surely get into State, no doubt. Maybe even get a scholarship since your father ain’t helping, none.” She kicked sand over Jon’s boots. Then she continued with Barry. “Graduating high school is certainly something to be proud of. It brings you one step closer to graduating college. Just think. Once you graduate college, then you will be able to survive in this crazy world with ease. You’ll be on top of the world. You’ll be smarter than your average bear.” Elea smiled, patting Barry on his back. Then she looked to Jon, who dusted the sand off his boots, looking out to the peaks of the tallest dunes—listening for the sea—looking for the sea. “And you won’t have to rely on nature for an income, for that matter. You can become your own boss. Make yourself a high priority for you and your family. Be able to pay for the roof over their heads. The possibilities are endless, Bar. Endless.”

  Jon pulled his hand out of Elea’s. He tugged at his beard, folding the ends under his collar. He watched a group of sandpipers dance over the dunes sprinkled with wisps of beach grass. The small birds pecked for stray insects on the tall blades. Jon’s lips stiffened. His eyes grew glassy over their light gray hue. He briefly stared back at Elea in disappointment of her words. Then he looked over at Barry. “Son,” he said softly, just over the sound of waves and wind. “You don’t want to have to rely on the sea to support yourself and then, one day, your family. If you take Her for granted, she’ll cut your nose to spite your face.” Jon continued to pull on the whiskers on the chin of his beard, rolling the ends under the collar of his shirt. “You don’t want to live off the inheritance of your father. You don’t want to place your son’s education in jeopardy because you are dipping into the funds to put food on the table.” He paused for a moment, watching the sandpipers jump—startled in unison—then fly off over the blind side of the dunes to sea. “You don’t want to be at the mercy of Her. You don’t want to be in such a state.” Jon blinked his eyes hard.

  Elea looked at Jon sharply. The sun beat down, angled behind her head, creating a backlit halo shining through her thick black locks. Her face reddened and she focused in on Jon’s eyes. “You have dipped into Barry’s college fund?” she exclaimed loudly. Her voice overpowered the whisp
ers of the ocean and the cry of the gulls. “You are telling me you have been stealing money from our own son’s college fund? How do you expect us to pay for it now? You think that you can just fix things right? You think the sea will just fix things on up for us, don’t you? And just as I began to loosen up with you, I now learn this. That you really are a no-good. A lousy excuse for a man.” Elea looked back at Barry out of the corner of her eye and she bit her tongue. She had so much more to share with Jon, but she did not want to subject Barry to the verbal beating Jon was sure to receive. She paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. She relaxed herself, lowering the tone of her voice. “You better make things right, Jon. That is all I got to say to you. You better go and make things right somehow. Or God help you.”

  Barry stood stilled, frightened by the controlled tones in his mother’s voice. The boy fixed his eyes on the folded over grass his feet pressed upon. He pushed his hands deep into his pockets, stretching out the seams in the bottom. He had heard his parents fight before, but only through walls and doors and pillows. He had never seen his mother’s eyes fill with such rage.

  Jon stood with his head held high. His eyes fixed on the flight of three gulls gliding overhead. They cawed softly. Then they dipped behind the dunes to the sea. Jon took his hands out of his pockets, cracking each one of his knuckles back individually. He folded his fingers into one another, making loose fists before he extended his digits out, reaching for Elea’s hands. “Don’t worry, Hon. Don’t you worry one bit,” he said smoothly. “Things will be set straight, soon enough.”

  Elea took her hands out of his, shoving her fingers into her pockets. Her eyes still filled with intense anger. Her eyebrows tilting with fury.

  “What if I don’t want to go to college,” Barry interjected. “What if I don’t want to go to no school that is going to teach me the ill morals of man—the ways to lie and cheat your way up to the top? I’ve been doing some thinking lately, and I feel I must go to the sea. I mean, I’m not good enough for State. But I am and always will be a Brand. I feel I must do what Brands do. And live for the sea.” Barry paused. He looked at the dunes as if he could see through them. “Live for Her. I don’t want to go to no community college.”

  Jon’s tense lips loosened a bit, curving upwards. He looked over at Barry, placing his hands on his son’s shoulders.

  “Don’t you go on supporting this crap, Jon,” Elea said quickly. “Barry, you need to go to college. Look at your father. You do not want to end up like him. He’s quickly becoming an old timer of the sea and now he cannot land a job in the real world because he has spent his entire life out on the ocean chasing fish all around the world. And once the tides change, once the fish are gone, he goes out of work and it destroys his marriage. Sinking his family. You don’t want that, Bar.” Elea looked over at Jon. “You don’t want that for your first and only born.”

  Jon rubbed his son’s shoulders. Barry felt at ease. He looked up at his father and their eyes locked for a moment and then the moment passed. The two had the family tradition embedded within them. The Brand profession of the sea was enrooted in Barry, and Jon had known it all along. He had doubted him at times. But the Brand in Barry, Jon knew, was sure to expose itself and shine. Jon knew what he must do now. He knew he had to do his son right and give all of himself to replenish Her—the sea. Jon knew that he must set the balance of man and nature straight once and for all. His eyes sunk into their sockets.

  The breeze stopped. The air stilled. The warm sun blanketed all the earth and the three relaxed, taking in the rays with ease. Jon looked out to the dunes—out to the grass standing up, motionless in the air. Then he looked over to Elea, who had turned her back on Barry and himself. He patted her on the back. She tensed up, shaking him off of her quickly.

  “Get off me Jon. I don’t want to be touched,” she croaked. “Let’s just go to the sea so we can just go home.” She twisted her arms across her chest.

  Barry began to walk along the path, leading the way to sea while Elea and Jon walked slow behind in a side by side silence. Barry discarded his sluggish steps for more strong, more powerful strides through the beaten down grass. His pace doubled the pace of his parents. He held his head high, observing all that surrounded him as if he had been born that very day—as if he had never taken the journey to the sea before. An excitement ran through him that he had never felt before. He felt powerful. He no longer felt meek and helpless in a poor rural town. He knew then and there, all at once, that college would not do. That he would need the sea like his father needed the sea. He just wanted to be able to fulfill this goal. This dream. But he knew his mother would force him into college in the coming fall. He knew that Elea would not allow him to set out for the sea. He knew that Elea would make him become the person that Elea would want him to become. She did not want to hear his own will. She would not allow him to fulfill his destiny to Her. He could understand why. But he also knew an office life would simply not suffice. He knew the sea ran through his arteries. He could feel the sea pump from his heart—nourishing each limb—each corner of his body. He leaned his head back, sniffing in the salty air. He had never felt so alive. His chest opened up. He could feel the salt move through him. He felt as if he was one with the water. One with the sea. A feeling had swept in over him. A feeling he could not, and would never be able to describe. But he knew it was right. He knew he was made for the sea.

  Barry was well ahead now. The grass path had turned to sand. A thickening brush of bayberry, beach plum and beach heather began to bunch up to an intertwining tunneling cove just high enough to pass under. The sun was shielded out by the thickets of branches and newly green buds with small pinkish flowers popping out around bunched up lavender berries. And once he was under, once Barry was in, the shady tunnel chilled his skin. A light breeze blew in from behind. The chirps of sandpipers and king fishers echoed spring songs ‘til the tunnel of branches and buds collapsed and the brush fell back, creeping alongside the trail as the sun and the sound of sea enveloped him whole.

  Barry’s lead increased. The sights and sounds of his parents were minutes behind him. Jon and Elea walked slowly in silence. She stared at the grassy path below her feet as Jon combed over the high points of dunes. He looked for the sea. But he could only see the tall beach grass and the chipmunks and the sandpipers that scurried about. The gentle wind blew the budding leaves slow, giving the brush life. But Elea kept her head down, looking only at the land before her feet—watching the grass turn to sand. Her eyes glistening as the grains sparkled like stars hung in a nighttime sky.

  The two continued. Still silent. Silent all the way to the tunneling cove of wooly brush. Still silent—listening to their steps echo overhead and down along the arms of branches. They could see footprints—Barry’s footprints—sunken into the smooth sand. They followed them. Those shallow little holes for feet ‘til they reached Barry. The boy’s feet falling right into his next steps. He was bent over just around the bend in the path. Stilled. Silent. He stood as motionless as the swaying brush beside him. His lips perched open. His tongue licked by the wind.

  “Bar, keep going, it’s only a bit more farther,” Jon called ahead. “The sea, Bar. It’s only about a hundred yards more. Not much further, son.” Jon tugged at his beard. Then he threw his hands into his pockets. He approached Barry with his slow stride, resting his hand on his son’s broad, bent over back. “Come on, son. Get up. Not much more to go. The view is worth it.”

  “Pa. Look at that,” Barry said, slowly and calmly. His voice stumbling a bit as each word trailed off in a nervous stutter. “That deer,” he pointed over next to some thickets and collapsed beach grass on the side of the trail. “It dead.”

  Jon looked down Barry’s arm, tracing the boy’s forefinger down the bayberry and beach grass pushed to the sand—a red paste covering the tips of green blades. Red puddl
es coagulated on the ground under the deer’s mouth. A slit torn in its decomposing stomach, dotted with the buzz of flies.

  “What are you boy’s staring at?” Elea said, making her way from behind. “Let’s just go to the sea and go home already. We have been out here forever. I just want to go back.” She made it to them and she looked over to what they had been staring at in complete silence. She froze momentarily. Then she screamed loud enough to send all the sandpipers and king fishers to fly out from the surrounding brush for a mile in all directions. She stepped back with several staggered steps. Then she ran back down the trail.

  Jon and Barry stood up. They stared at the rotting deer for some time in an awkward silence. Jon leaned in closer to gain a better perspective. He could see maggots crawling through the chewed meat, exposing the ribs of the decaying doe. He held onto his beard, as if he was protecting it from the carcass. He pinched his lips closed, cutting off his air supply from the grotesque stench. He stepped back to Barry’s side. The two stood stilled. A tear trickled down either side of Barry’s cheeks which he quickly wiped away. Jon looked over at Barry. Then Jon wrapped both arms around his son for a tight, long embrace.

  “It’s okay, son,” Jon whispered assuringly into Barry’s ear. “These things happen in nature. We are born to this earth. We do what we are destined to do. And then we simply fade when it is our time. We return to the earth.”

  “When do we know?”

  “Know what?”

  “Know when it is our time to fade?”

  Jon loosened his grip around Barry. The man paused for a moment. Then he glanced over at the dunes before he settled on a cool stare down at the dead deer. “You will know it is your time when you look out to sea and She no longer calls your name. No matter how hard you shout Her name, She remains silent to your call.” Jon looked out at the tall dunes cutting off the view to water—and a stream of tears fell from his eyes. “That is how you will know, son. That is how you will know you are finished.”

  Barry brought Jon in closer, tightening his grip around his father. The two remained silent for some time, slowly withdrawing their emotions ‘til their eyes dried to a blurry pinky red and they let go of each other.

  Jon brushed the drops from his beard, wiping the residue on his hands along the sides of his jeans, where he felt several little bumps on the denim seams. He pressed against his sides quickly. Then he looked down to see hundreds—thousands of ticks leeched onto his legs. He frantically brushed them—flicking them to the sand as he examined his jeans and shirt, leaning in closer to get a better look at the decaying deer.

  “Exactly what I thought,” Jon exclaimed. “That deer is infested with ticks, Bar. Brush them sons of bitches off you before you get the Lyme’s disease.” Jon swept the sides of his legs quickly. Nervously.

  Barry followed suit. But he stopped when he got to cleaning off his shoes. “Pa,” he shouted. “Look at your shoes. Quick, Pa. Look at your shoes.” Barry jumped up and he buried his feet into the sandy ground. The outers of his shoes were covered in a thick blanket of pinhead sized deer ticks crawling slow and close together, creating the image of a mass of dirt wiggling across his shoes.

  Jon looked down at his shoes, discovering the same thing as Barry. “These damned things are everywhere. We got to get out of here. This dead deer is a curse. It is a bad sign, son. These ticks are everywhere. Let’s jet to the car, quick,” Jon said, brushing off the tiny parasites from his shoes and legs and shirt. He began to run back down the path to the car. Barry pulled his feet from the sand, brushing at the tops of his shoes frantically as he staggered along the path, not far behind Jon.

  Elea swatted at her legs. She picked at the ticks she too discovered while waiting for the two back by the car. “These bastards are everywhere, Jon,” she shouted. “You, no-good. The warmth today must’ve hatched these fucks. But we just had to go to the sea today, didn’t we?”

  Jon batted his shoes with his long, lean fingers, looking up at his wife. “We go every Easter, Elea. What would ever make this year any different.” He sniffed the salty air loudly up into his nose. He blinked hard. Then he refocused in on her brown eyes that looked lighter under the bright blue sky.

  Elea looked over Jon. The two sparred off for a few moments in a deep stare. Barry had stopped picking at his shoes, watching the tiny ticks crawl up the broadside of his calf as he listened in on his parents argue. He stood silent. Set into a deep gaze that dove off into extrapolated thoughts of arson. He saw the green and brown earth flame red. The clear night sky filling with a crawling, deep black cloud billowing under the sparkling stars. He saw it all crashing down before his eyes. The deterioration of their home. The ruin of the family as a whole—their house in flames.

  Elea and Jon bickered for a while longer as they picked and pecked at the many ticks stuck to them ‘til they scanned themselves clean and got into the four-door. The ride home was as silent as the depths of the sea.

  Jon took the quicker route home—the interstate paved with smooth concrete slabs of gray. The trees lining the expressway were a light green coloring of new budding leaves to be. The light blue sky drew no clouds.

  By the time they got back to East Marion, Elea had dozed off into a light slumber. Barry exited the car quickly, walking off behind the house along the sea. And Jon sat, watching his son disappear behind the dunes. His wife’s lips quivered beside him as her throat gargled with deep inhalations of air.

  “Should I wake her?” he thought. “Or should I just leave her?” He nudged her bicep. Then he slammed the car door as he exited, waking her instantly.

  Jon headed for the kitchen—to the upper right cabinet over the refrigerator. He passed a tall clear bottle, then a short green bottle before he pulled out a tall brown bottle. He poured its contents out over ice prepared in a clear glass. He filled it to the top, allowing a small amount to spill over, settling around the circular base of the cup on the counter. He threw the bottle into the large pocket of his sweatshirt. He picked up the glass, heading out the back door—out onto the back porch.

  “The sea. I need the sea,” he exclaimed. “I need to relax with my sea.” Jon brought the glass to his lips, tilting it back quickly. The ice pushing up to his face, chilling his nose, wetting his mustache. When the liquid was all but consumed and all that remained was the ice, he wiped at his wet beard and he refilled the cup halfway. He looked out at the small waves crashing in on the sand. Then he looked over at the rock bed just above the break. He then stared up at the sun. A light perspiration began to accumulate between the squinted wrinkles on his forehead. He took a small sip at his glass and he heard the church bells call out fifteen times. “Must be three o’clock service,” he thought. “I should go. Repent my sins. The Greek God is fully capable of hearing my sins.” He threw the glass and the bottle to the bed of rocks, shattering them both—the tan liquid sinking between the smoothed, hot stones. And he walked away from the sea and into the church.