To Sea

  The grass had greened from the dormancy of winters brown. Now, soft to the touch—long and overgrown—and hugging the asphalt roadside where parishioners parked car after car, lining the thin road for the Sunday morning service. All slamming doors, all walking up the dewy grass to the tolling church.

  Jon jumped from his bed. He threw the blankets off his chest and he glanced over at the digital clock flashing nine twenty-two. He looked over at Elea. She was wrapped around several blankets. Her soft face cushioned a small indentation into the pillow. Her cheeks—still and soft. He shifted his weight aside her, hanging his arm around her waist. His hand grabbed at her stomach. A smooth exhalation escaped his lips as his head fell back into the pillow. He wanted to hear his wife—the woman he loved—sigh relief into his ears. He wanted to set his fingertips into her skin. He wanted to feel her blood pump with his. There was a great deal of things he wanted to do. Things he had not done in some time.

  “Jon,” she moaned. “Leave me alone. Sunday’s are my only days to sleep in. No stories on TV today. Only cartoons and those boring political shows.”

  “But the cars, Elea. They woke me up,” Jon pleaded. “And we haven’t had sex in…” he paused. “I can’t remember how long.” He thought of all the times she must have had all of the things he had wanted from his wife. And a frown settled on his face.

  “Eight months and two weeks, Jon. That’s how long,” she reported, not once opening her eyes, throwing the blankets up over her head. “Jon, leave me alone. We can’t force these things. They will just, you know, come.” Her body sunk into the mattress.

  Jon sat up. He bit his tongue to ease any drops falling from his eyes. Then he distanced himself from Elea. He dangled his feet over the sides of the bed. He looked over his shoulder—out the bedroom window. He could see the oaks take to their full green. The sun began to fill in the horizon. The sound’s small waves pummeled the shoreline, then eased back into the sea. His thin lips coiled upward. He shoved his feet into his boots and he headed out to the back porch.

  Elea remained in the bed. Without turning to him. Without questioning his whereabouts. Without opening her eyes.

  Jon pushed the porch swing slowly. The swing creaked loud against the waves. White bubbles foamed to the edges of the shore where the gentle wind blew the sea suds up into the air. Jon grabbed the swing. The creaks stopped. And the sea roared in over the land. He watched the waves and the trees and all the world swaying before him. He walked around the swing, tracing the wooden backing with his long fingers before he sat. His back pressed to the brittle dowels. Occasionally he kicked at the porch to rush into the air. But he mainly just thought. He thought of the sea and where he fit in with it. He knew he loved it. He most definitely knew that. He knew it was his maker. But he did not know how or when it would all fit together. He tilted his head back, trying to cease his thoughts of the sea. He tried to ease his thoughts of the conversation with the priest the week prior.

  Jon kicked the porch hard, jolting the swing into an uneven sway. He jumped to his feet, leaning up over the porch. He looked out to the horizon. He could see an image of Elea dancing atop the low white waves. She was dressed in a shapely blue dress. Her hair took the motion of the waves crashing down onto her shoulders. He smiled, remembering in glimpses all of the times when she was all to himself. He reached over the porch, joining her hands into his own and they danced across the dark blue sea.

  “Pa,” Barry called out through the screen door. “What are you doing?” Barry stared at his father dancing on the porch by himself.

  Jon stopped moving—quickly pushing his hands down to his sides, straightening out the seams on his pants. He lifted his head. Then he cleared his throat. “Son,” he finally said. “You’re up quite early.”

  Barry flipped his phone open, looking down at it. “It’s ten twenty-nine. Ten thirty. It’s not too early, Pa.” Barry pushed the screen door open, letting the metal crash back into the frame. “What are you doing out here? Did you eat yet?” Barry’s eyebrows narrowed.

  “No, I haven’t. I just came out here for a little air. Finally getting some warm mornings. No more frost from here on out.”

  “That’s good.”

  Jon rested his hands on Barry’s shoulders. Then the man lifted his left hand to Barry’s right cheek, rubbing over the boy’s high cheekbone. Then Jon brought his hand back down on his son’s shoulder. “You know, son. Life comes at you from all directions,” he said. “And sometimes, it just hits you in a blind spot when you are least expecting it. You’ll find yourself swept up by a sudden wave and before you know it, you are beached—faced down in the sand.” Jon slid his hands into his pockets and he forced a grin at his son.

  Barry smiled back, shielding the sun from his eyes with a hand above his brow. “Pa, I know you are hard on your luck. But don’t sweat it. It can only get better. The seas can’t stay dry forever. That’s just impossible. The fish will surely return soon. They just have to.” Barry relaxed his stance. He forced Jon’s hands from his pocket, interlacing them with his own. “Pa,” he said. “You’re a good father. I mean, not always. But you try hard. I’ll give you that.”

  Jon tried to sustain the grin plastered across his face. But he failed and his lips quivered back down to an angled frown. “Thanks, son.” But that was all Jon could say. He wanted to tell him about Monroe. He wanted to tell him about Elea. He wanted to tell him about the sea. But he could not bring himself to. So he waited—staring out at the bright blue sea. Just watching the waves press on.

  “You want to head out for a walk. Along the shore? It’s quite the day for it, if I don’t say so myself.” Barry started down the steps, tugging on Jon’s jacket to follow. “C’mon, Pa. Let’s go,” he called.

  Jon smiled. This time a natural grin. “He finally wants to go to sea,” he thought. “And with me.”

  Barry jogged to the small strip of rocks before the sand met the low-tide waves. He bent over, rummaging through the stones ‘til he raised a flat tan one the size of a half-dollar. The boy ran back to his father, placing the rock in the man’s hand. “I bet I can skip one farther than you.”

  Jon closed his hand over the cold stone, petting the smooth surface with the tips of his fingers. “I bet you can’t,” he yelled up at Barry who sprinted back to the break. Jon chased after him. Then Jon tilted his shoulder to the side and he hurled the stone, skipping it eight times along the flat sea. “Beat that,” he snarled.

  Barry picked up several rocks, inspecting them with great detail before he flung one that bounced twice, then sunk out of sight.

  “That’s what you get when you try and contest a professional rock-skipper,” Jon mocked. Then he pointed his chin to the sea, allowing the breeze to blow on his neck. He reached his arm around Barry’s chest, locking his left hand around his right wrist, squeezing his son in for a great hug.

  “Pa,” Barry wheezed. “You’re choking me.”

  Jon let loose some slack in his grip, sliding his hand off his wrist to clasped hands before he broke his grip entirely and he rustled Barry’s hair. “I love you, son,” he said in a relaxed tone that seemed almost foreign. The grunt-rasp of his voice was gone. A subtle cheer tailed the ends of each word passing through his lips.

  The two walked for a ways, taking in the silent hum of the small crashes besides them. The suns golden rays kissed the two men brightly. Jon could not break the smile from his face if he had tried. His mind was cleared from the toxins that had poisoned him for the past few months. He felt alive, one-hundredfold. He watched himself reflect off the water in ripples of light and sea foam as three gulls fluttered overhead, crying with emptied stomachs before they settled upon the calm sea a few yards out.

  “You hungry, Bar?” Jon asked his son as they watched the gulls float with ease over the bobs of the sea.

  “Yea. I could go for so
me grub. I’m sure Ma has put the bacon and the eggs on by now. She must be furious with us for leaving like that. You know how she gets.”

  Jon stopped. He dug his boots into the wet sand. He called after Barry who started to head back home. “Barry,” his voice had lost all its jubilance, returning back to a grunted monotone. “I think I should tell you something about Elea,” he paused. “I mean, your mother.”

  Barry stopped, turning back towards his father. The tide had come in now, gliding up over Barry’s shoes and he sunk into the shore.

  “Your mother has been unfaithful to me.” He pulled his feet from the sand. “And to you. I followed her to a motel a few months back when she was supposed to meet Margie for lunch.”

  “Couldn’t be, Pa. Ma wouldn’t do something like that. I’m sure she can explain. And that was months ago,” Barry pleaded with vigor—fury in his voice.

  “It’s true, Bar. Believe me, son. I didn’t want to believe it either.”

  One of the gulls floating on the sea cawed. Another flew closer to land. Jon shifted his vision, and with it, his mind, briefly away to the sea—shining a hue of cornflowers in early bloom.

  “Believe it, Barry.”

  The boy walked slowly up to the bank of rocks. He immersed his hands into the stony shoreline, grabbing as many rocks as his fists could fit. Then he darted back to the water—falling ankle-deep into the shallow sound as he threw the fistful of stones into the calm of the sea. The two gulls farthest from the shore cawed and flew out of the path of hurled rocks. But the closer gull remained. Still. And was struck with a flurry of stones. The lone gull squawked loudly. Then it fell to the side. Head under water.

  “I don’t believe you,” Barry yelled, now throwing fists full of sand into the sea—at the dead gull. “You are a liar. You are a useless father and you can’t even get a job to support us. If she did do it, I don’t blame her. You useless man. You can’t live off the sea forever.” Barry sniffed. “You need to grow up and do what’s right for us. Stop thinking only for yourself for once.” Barry walked out of the water, brushing off the sand caked up on his hands.

  “I know you are angry. But you need to understand.”

  “Understand what? That our family is falling apart. What else is there to understand?”

  Jon’s eyes grew narrow. His fists clenched tight, showing the whites of his knuckles. “Listen, Barry Brand. You need to grow up. You cannot go onto college acting like an immature country-boy hick from rural Americana. You’ll get eaten alive by city-folk. The world is an immense place, son. And you haven’t a clue of how it works.” Jon’s brow wrinkled. Shadows caught in the troughs. Shined sweat gleamed on the crests. “You’re going to wind up being a fisherman like me. Like your grandfather. I fought with this concept in my head for a long while now and I can no longer fight it. Barry, I figured it; you aren’t made out for college. You aren’t made for the indoors. You’re made for the sea. And it isn’t right for your parents to push you into something you aren’t made out to do.” Jon petted the whiskers under his nose. Then he shoved his hands into his pockets. “And I can no longer provide for us with the sea’s blessing. It is my destiny to make things right with Her,” Jon said, pointing out to sea. “It is my duty to make sure that this ocean can provide for you and your family like it once did for me and mine. Like it once did for my father and his. You’re a Brand, Barry. And the sea is your calling.” Jon paused for a moment, looking over to his son. The boy’s legs soaked with sea.

  “You are crazy, Pa. You truly are. You accuse your own wife and disrespect your own son. You are something else. You are the reason this family is drowning. It isn’t me. It isn’t her. It is you. And you need to fix things right, quick, or I will.” Barry’s voice was shallow. It held a low undertone. His blue eyes turned a light gray—thrown into both fire and water.

  The dead gull washed ashore. The tide pushing the bird to a rest at the soles of Barry’s shoes. He looked down at the stilled thing, kicked it over face down, and then he turned on the sea and he headed back to the house.

  Jon’s eyes teared as he stared at the bell now tolling up in the steeple. He remembered the priest and how he did not reveal his fellowship. “Barry,” he shouted up ahead. “Wait. Let’s go to church. The next service is starting. Let’s go.”

  Barry stopped. He walked back towards his father slowly. “We haven’t been to church since I made my Communion. And, besides, that church isn’t even our church. They speak all Greek in there.” Barry’s face cringed, showing wrinkles along the sides of his cheeks. “I’m not going,” he said, walking back to the house.

  “Barry. Wait.”

  Barry stopped, again—turning. “What?”

  “Let’s just go for the love. All churches are a fellowship of love. Let’s just go in and relax.”

  “No. I’m hungry. I’m going to see if Ma put the eggs on yet.” And Barry continued with a slow saunter through the swish of tumbling rocks.

  Jon stood aside the lifeless gull. “I’m sorry, little guy. You need to excuse my son,” he said, tossing wet sand over the carcass. He watched Barry walk down the bank of stones, up the yard of tall grass, and to the back porch before he disappeared behind the door to the kitchen. Jon signaled the sign of the cross over the gull, whispering the Lord’s Prayer up until he forgot the verses. He tugged on his beard. Then he shuffled his feet through the sand ‘til he reached the church. He paused at the steps, looking up at the stained-glass Greek Jesus. He signed the cross over the Man’s glass heart and he walked through the doors of his fellowship of love.

 

 

  CHAPTER 8