To Sea

  The warmth of summer settled in early. The Brands moved into the local motel that Elea knew all too well with her other man. The sun grew stronger with each day passing. The gulls flew as if they had been flying for days before touching the sand or the waves—endlessly circling for food that was nonexistent. The sandpipers reappeared from behind the red wooden dune fences—pecking at the shore in search of crustaceans and insects that were less frequent than seasons prior. Elea had left for the first three days to—what she told Jon—“to find herself” in this crazy circumstance. But Jon took that line to mean she was wrapped in the arms of her other man in a different motel. But when Elea returned, no questions were asked and no accusations were made and life went on as usual—as usual as living out of a motel could be.

  The morning rolled in over the island. Elea peeled back the plastic on three frozen breakfast entrées. She then tossed them in the microwave and she watched the meals rotate clockwise around the humming machine ‘til it beeped the food to a warmed perfection. An old wooden box of a television played her shows across the room, keeping the Brand morning soundtrack intact.

  “I hope you like yours well-done,” she said to Jon, dropping a plastic tray in front of him. “How about you, Bar? Well-done good?” Elea sat herself at the small table in the one room motel room, placing the other two meals in front of herself and her son, keeping her eyes on the TV.

  Barry nodded, not knowing any other answer. For breakfast had been well-done and in the microwave for the past three weeks. He turned the microwaved eggs and potatoes around in the plastic container before eating the contents quickly. A yellow light shed in through the white curtains in the back of the room behind the bed and the cot laid out for Barry. “Time for school,” Barry said, throwing the plastic tray into the trash. “Only a few more weeks of this hell and I’m done.”

  “But you’ll have college,” Elea said, eyeing the TV, scribbling notes. “You’ll have college in the fall.” She smiled, looking over at Jon for a reassuring confirmation. But he shifted his man-made eggs in his plastic tray with his plastic fork, failing to meet eyes with Elea until she nudged his arm into his breakfast. “Right, Jon? College?”

  “If that is what he wishes,” he said. “Then college it will be.” Jon cleaned the eggs from his elbow. “But, you know, college is not for everyone. Especially for Brands. The sea is our college.” Jon winked at Barry who caught his father’s gesture before the boy closed the door behind him.

  Elea came around the table. She brought her chair with her and she sat next to Jon. She muted the television and she tried to read Jon’s face without saying anything for a few moments. “You shouldn’t feed him such thoughts, Jon,” she said, finally. “He is going to college. And that is that.”

  Jon forked down the last of his faux heated breakfast, pushing the plastic to the center of the table.

  “Are you going to respond to this matter, or are you going to just sit there silent?”

  Jon nodded, swallowing the last of the crumbs before smiling. “Yes, dear.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, dear. Whatever it is you said. Yes, dear.” Jon pulled at his beard.

  “Are you even listening.”

  Jon nodded. “Yes, dear.”

  Elea’s lips pressed tight against one another. Her eyes peering firmly into Jon’s dull grays. “Okay, then. We need to discuss something else.” She paused for a moment, gathering the food waste on the table into the wastebasket. Then she returned to Jon’s side. “We need to discuss our living situation. The house.”

  “What about it?” he said. “We rebuild once the insurance clears.”

  “About that, exactly.” Elea paused. Then she began to craft her words with care. “That land is poisoned. It is cursed. You said so yourself, Jon. Nothing good will come of it. The salt has destroyed all life there. And besides, we can get a pretty penny for that land. Then we can move upstate. You said it yourself, Jon—the salt of the earth. That land is a goldmine for us right now. It will pay for a new house. It will pay for Barry’s college.”

  “The salt of the earth,” he said. “The salting of the earth. The salt kills all life, preserving the dead in its own time. Yet killing all life.” Jon took his glasses into his hand. He huffed a steamy hot fog on the lenses, cleaning them with the inside helm of his shirt. He sat back in the chair and he placed his glasses back over his eyes. “That land is my home, Elea. That land is the land of the Brands. I cannot sell it. I cannot let that land go. I cannot sell my part of the sea for a sea of mountain ranges outside my living room.”

  “Jon, you are overreacting,” she said. “And you are not thinking logically. You’ve been out of work for nearly two years. The sea is a dead end, Jon. We need to live. This fire could be our opportunity. Open your eyes, Jon. My brother, Ethan, will surely let us live in his guest house on the farm until our cottage is built in the mountainside.” She looked into Jon’s weary eyes. “And Ethan is sure to let you work on the farm. And all the colleges for Barry, Jon. He’ll get such a fine education up there. We can sell the land and live up north. Can’t you see it, Jon? An opportunity.”

  “There are only lakes up north. Fresh water. No ocean. No salt. No sea. I cannot work on a farm. I farm the seas, El,” he said. “Not the land. I cannot leave the shores. I cannot leave the sea for the land. Blasphemy.” He hit the table with a heavy fist. Then he calmed himself with closed eyes.

  The phone rang off the side table next to the bed. The dull ring floating on the yellow haze of the sunlit room.

  Jon sat on the edge of the bed, placing the phone on his shoulder. “Yes, this is he. A meeting? But why?”

  “Barry has missed twenty five of the last forty classes—,” a woman’s voice spoke soft but sharp. “And on the days he does decide to grace my class with his presence, his jeans are soaked of the sea and he smells like clams. And I am not sure if he will graduate if he continues down a path like that,” Ms. Carla Fitter said—Barry’s first period economics teacher and high school principal.

  “But…”

  “Mr. Brand, I know about the fire. I know it must be difficult. But we have services for Barry. In the mean time, Mr. Brand, your son still needs to go to school.” She spoke as if she sat high in a chair, looking down upon her prey. “We are going to have to have a meeting. And that is that.”

  “A meeting?”

  “Yes, Mr. Brand. A conference.”

  “How about Wednesday?”

  “Tuesday. Tomorrow. Does eleven work?” She took charge and Jon lost control.

  “Tomorrow at eleven?”

  “Great. See you, then.”

  Jon sat with the phone buzzing a dial tone for a few moments before he returned to Elea at the table. She sipped on a large mug of coffee, wearing a long sleeping gown, looking over her notes as commercials interrupted her show.

  “What’s at eleven tomorrow?”

  “Ms. Fitter.”

  “Barry’s principal?”

  “And economics teacher.” Jon twirled on his mustache. “She wants to meet with us tomorrow. About Barry.”

  Elea took a long sip of coffee. Then she looked up at Jon who was now seated at the table. He drank his own coffee with the newspaper in his lap.

  “What about Barry?” she asked.

  He took his time to swallow. “Missing some classes.”

  “He’s going to flunk.” Elea pushed her coffee away from her and she threw the hot liquid into Jon’s face. “You asshole. You infected our son with your craziness. The sea is just the sea. It is water. We live on land. It is nothing special. It is just the sea.”

  Jon blotted the coffee from his wiry face with a towel. “The sea is the beginning. It is the place where all life was created. From the water. From the salt. The secret to life—and to all humanity—lies in the womb of the sea. And in the end, the sea is where we all re
turn.”

  Elea threw the mug to the floor. The porcelain shatter echoing—pieces spinning to their feet. “I’m done. You are crazy and you have passed it onto Barry. I need to go. I don’t know if I can come back.” She went to the side of the bed, grabbing a small purse and a light jacket. She then opened the door. A burst of light shined into the room—on Jon—and then it closed.

  Jon sat in silence. Then he moved to the window. He parted the shades and he watched Elea—the blue sedan—pull out of the lot and onto the road. A yellow-blue shine bounced off the windshield before the car disappeared behind the pines on the roadside. Jon looked up at the sun and the glossy, glassy rays seemed to dance off his lenses, distorting the image with mirrored light. He looked back out at the road, watching a car pass. He folded his glasses into his hands and the car vanished before him. He placed his glasses back on, and the car reappeared. He swiped his glasses off again and he looked into the sun. The most beautiful shine of yellows and oranges and reds pulsed into him. He pulled himself away from the shades—backing up until his legs hit the bed.

  “I cannot believe I have never seen it before,” he thought. His face glowed like the sun. “I cannot believe it. My entire life, a fake. A hoax. Seen through a false perception of life.” He inspected his glasses. Then he threw them on the bed. “Through glass. Unnatural. My whole life. My entire life seen through devils work. Who are we to decide what proper vision is? I have deceived myself. No longer shall I see through the lenses of the unnatural. I vow to seek my existence—my true fate—through the eyes my God has given me. I shall seek the sea with my own eyes.”

  Jon buttoned the top button on his shirt and he walked out the door—down the stairs—across the lot—down a wooded path—and to the sea.

 

  CHAPTER 21