“God, no, it’s freezing.”
Alice went alone, swimming out past where the waves were breaking so that she could lie on her back and rise and fall with the swells. She closed her eyes and watched the small explosions of color behind her lids, and if she leaned far enough back, and submerged her ears, all she could hear was the blank roar of the ocean.
When she returned to her mother there was an older man standing above her, his feet spaced apart and his hands on his hips. He wore black swim trunks, cut high up on his thighs. His hair was parted on the side and greying at the temples. Even though he was in good shape, it was clear that he was standing extra rigid, pulling in his stomach a little.
“Alice, this is Jake,” Edith said, squinting up into the sun.
“Hi, Alice,” the man said, transferring a lit cigarette from his right hand to his left to shake her hand. He wore aviator sunglasses with reflective lenses. Alice wondered if he was looking at her body from behind them. When he released her hand, she bent and picked up the towel she used to dry herself, wrapping it around her.
“Your mother here—” Jake started.
“Jake helped me open up an account at the local bank. That’s where I got the new clock radio from, the one that’s in the kitchen.”
“Oh,” Alice said. She’d dried her hair and sat down on the edge of her towel, being careful to keep her wet feet firmly in the sand.
The man called Jake crouched down. Edith propped herself up on an elbow. She had a lit cigarette as well, perched between her fingers, the heat from its tip causing the already warm air to ripple.
“I was just telling your mother,” the man said, “how I’d be happy to show you two around Kennewick. Give you the real local’s point of view. Best clam roll, et cetera.”
Alice must have made a face, because he laughed. “Okay, then. Best ice cream place.”
“Sure,” Alice said, and scooched a little farther back on her towel. The man turned his attention back to Edith. Alice lay back, and concentrated on the way the hot sun was drying the droplets of water on her face. She could almost feel them evaporating, leaving behind tiny deposits of salt.
“Okay, then. It’s a date,” the man said, and Alice opened her eyes. He was standing again, blocking the sun. He wasn’t actually bad looking, Alice thought. He looked like a man who should be in a Newport cigarettes commercial.
The man crouched again, his bathing suit tightening around his crotch so that Alice could see the bulge of his genitals. She looked instead at his sunglasses, a silvery blue in the bright sunshine. “Alice, so nice meeting you. If you grow up any more the opposite sex won’t stand a chance.”
“That’s what I tell her,” Edith said. “All the time. Don’t grow up. It’s not worth it.”
The man stood, both he and her mother now laughing in that obviously fake way that older people did. He said good-bye and wandered off, still holding his body stiffly as though it might collapse if he fully let a breath out.
Edith stubbed her cigarette—the man’s brand, not her own—out in the sand, and said, “What did you think of Jake?”
She said it expectantly, her voice pitched a little too high, and Alice suddenly realized that this meeting had been at least partly arranged, that the man and her mother had not simply bumped into each other at the beach, or if they had, they’d seen each other before. And not just at the bank.
“He seemed nice,” Alice said.
“He’s very successful,” Edith replied, digging out one of her own cigarettes from the purse she’d brought.
Alice lay back down. She was worried she hadn’t put enough sunblock on her face that morning, and so she draped the towel over her head. It felt nice on her face, damp and cool. She thought about the man her mother had met. He was old and a little cheesy, but not that bad. When her mother was a mill worker at a paper factory and a single mother, she had to date a building manager who wore sleeveless T-shirts and had thick moles all over his shoulders and neck. Now that she didn’t have to work, and lived in a nice town like Kennewick, Edith could date men who worked in banks and cared about how they looked. It was the way the world worked. She knew that much from the books she read. Rich girls married rich boys, and their lives were better. It was simple.
She couldn’t see it, but a cloud must have crossed the sun because she could feel a sudden coolness on her skin. She sat up too fast, becoming a little dizzy. She realized she must have fallen asleep. There were fewer people on the beach now, and her mom was packing up.
“Ready to go, Al?” she asked.
Chapter 3
Now
Harry couldn’t sleep that afternoon. He kept thinking back to the time after his mother had finally succumbed to cancer, and the immense anger that he, then a moody and truculent teen, had felt.
“We have each other now,” Bill had said, after the funeral, “it’s important to remember what we have, and not what we’ve lost.”
“Whatever you say,” Harry had replied, not making eye contact, and his father had let him get away with it. But what his father had said had stuck with Harry through the following years. He missed his mother constantly, but he did feel close to his bookish, low-key dad. It was a family of two. Not nearly enough, but it was what it was.
And now he was a family of one, Harry thought.
The vacuuming had stopped, and Harry stepped out of his room, went down the stairs, coughing purposefully when he reached the first floor so that he wouldn’t startle Alice. He entered the large front living room, spotted her lying on one of the sofas, the crook of her arm across her eyes as though she had a headache. He began to turn away when she said, “Harry, come in. Talk with me.”
“That’s okay. Keep sleeping.”
“No, no. Come here.”
Harry sat on the edge of the oldest upholstered chair in the room, a transplant from the Manhattan apartment, and said, “Have the police told you anything more?”
“They haven’t, but they’ll be doing a full autopsy.”
“It seems strange that he would fall.”
“Something else might have happened. He could have had a heart attack.”
“Do you think so?”
“It makes more sense to me than him suddenly slipping off the path and—”
“Had it rained?” Harry asked.
“Um, a few days ago, I think, but I don’t think the path would have been slippery. We’ll learn more from the autopsy. It’ll be important for you, too, Harry, in case, for instance, he had a weak heart.”
“Oh, right,” Harry said. The thought hadn’t occurred to him, that his father’s death at an early age might be a harbinger for him, as well, if it had been a natural death. He bit at the inside of his cheek, an old habit that was suddenly resurfacing, and wondered if he’d care if a doctor told him that his father had a weak heart that he’d inherited. He tried to feel something—some fear for his own future—but couldn’t. What would it matter?
Alice pushed forward a little on the sofa. “Your father was really looking forward to you coming here for the summer. He talked about it a lot.”
Harry, not trusting his own voice, nodded his head, and Alice immediately asked, “How was your coffee? Was it the way you like it?”
“Oh, it was fine,” Harry answered, then quickly added, “Better than fine. It was really good.”
“Thank you,” Alice said, placing her palms on her knees as though she was about to stand, and Harry added, “Don’t get up. I didn’t mean to disturb you.” He stood. “Maybe I’ll take a walk or something.”
“Okay, Harry, that sounds nice,” she said. “If John’s in the store, then maybe you’d drop by and say hello. We’re both hoping you can help out a little. John won’t be able to . . .”
“Yeah, of course,” Harry said.