It's. Nice. Outside.

by Jim Kokoris

  “She’ll be all right. She cried for a while.”

  “Did she say anything else? Any more details about what happened?”

  “No. She just cried. Let it out. It was good for her.”

  I sat back. “Pretty disturbing.”

  “Yep.”

  “Did Mindy follow you? Was she there with Karen?”

  “Yes, she was there.”

  “Kind of a surprise.”

  Mary shrugged. “She loves Karen.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “She loves her sister.”

  “Not so sure about that.”

  “She does, trust me. She does.”

  “You’re not seeing or hearing what I am then.”

  “It started with Karen, the whole thing. The fighting. It started with her.”

  “Really? I thought it was more Mindy’s issue.”

  Mary rubbed her eyes. “You have to remember, Karen used to be like a mom to her. Took care of Mindy. And Mindy worshipped her. Let’s face it, Karen was pretty perfect. Is pretty perfect. But Mindy got into Princeton after Karen didn’t. Mindy gets on TV. Suddenly Karen isn’t needed anymore. So she starts ignoring Mindy, not returning her calls, all that. Little things at first. But one thing led to another. Karen attacks. Mindy retaliates. That magazine thing didn’t help, that interview.”

  “Captain McBrag.”

  “That too. The whole thing has gotten out of hand. It’s ridiculous.”

  “They’ll work it out,” I said, though I wasn’t completely convinced they would.

  “They will,” Mary said.

  I stretched my legs, tried to get comfortable in the small hard chair. “I can’t believe I did that.”

  “What?”

  “Roger. Punching him.”

  “I can’t believe you did that either. Never seen you like that.”

  “I lost it.”

  “You and Karen.”

  “What can I say, we’re a violent family.” I took a drink, the bourbon stinging the back of my throat. “God, Karen’s story. That could have been tragic.”

  Mary shrugged again. “The things I used to see in the DA’s office, that wouldn’t even register. I know a good therapist, though. Maybe she can refer someone in New York for her.”

  “A therapist? How do you know him?”

  “It’s a she. I went to her after the divorce.”

  “Oh.” I glanced away.

  Mary looked out the window. It had been overcast all day, and the rain had finally come, a soft, steady drizzle. I finished my drink and watched Mary watch the rain in the summer twilight and all at once I felt myself sagging. This trip had led us all to this strange and sad and complicated point, and I wondered where it would take us next.

  “You know,” Mary said. “After he was diagnosed, it was hard. But I remember thinking things would get better. I remember thinking that there would be a time when everything would be fine, or at least close to fine. Ethan would be happy and better, the girls be happy. You and me—” She stopped. “I kept thinking that if we stuck together, we would eventually get to where everything was going to be fine. That we were going to make it, all of us. We were going to arrive someplace together and be fine. You used to tell me that all the time. A happy ending. You used to say that. We’re going to have a happy ending.” Her voice caught, and she briefly put her hand to her mouth.

  “We’re going to have a happy ending.”

  “No, we’re not. Not this time.”

  “Everything will be fine, especially for the girls. They have good lives. They’re smart, successful. Come on, they’re pretty amazing when you think about it. What they’ve already accomplished.”

  “They’re not happy. They’re both angry all the time, and they drink too much, especially Mindy. Maybe it was me, or you, or maybe it was the stress of Ethan, I don’t know. Maybe we didn’t spend enough time with them.”

  “We did the best we could. You did, especially. And they’re fine, they’re fine.”

  “They deserve to be happy. I know I’ll never be happy again, but I want my girls to be happy. That’s all I want. At least let them find some happiness in this shitty world.”

  “It’s not a shitty world.”

  “What’s good about it? Look at us, in the middle of nowhere, the wedding off, taking my autistic son to some godforsaken place a thousand miles away, some institution.”

  “It’s not an institution.”

  “And then I’m going to go home and be alone in that big house. Sally sick, the girls gone, Ethan gone, you…” She waved her hand.

  I glanced at the front desk, saw the clerk was gone, then inched my chair closer and tried to put my arms around her, pull her toward me, but she brushed me away.

  “Anyway.” She picked up her big bag from the floor, stood. “What time are we meeting tomorrow?”

  “Where are you going? Sit down. Come on.”

  She ran a finger under an eye. “I hope Karen’s things get here in time.”

  I took in my ex-sweet-sweetie, standing in the lobby of a roadside hotel on a rainy night, broken and lonely, but decided not to push things. “They should be here by nine.”

  “What about the other van?”

  “They’re going to pick it up. We don’t need two vans anymore. It’s more of a hassle.”

  “It’s going to be crowded.”

  “We’ll be fine.”

  “Okay, well, I’m going to bed then.”

  “Good night, Mary.”

  “Okay.”

  10

  Karen’s things didn’t arrive until after eleven, so rather than lose more time deciding what to ship, we jammed everything into the remaining Odyssey, making things very tight. Mindy sat in the far back, a bag on her lap, while Karen and Ethan were barricaded by boxes in the middle. Up front, Mary had bags wedged tight against her feet, and even though it was warm and sunny, I was forced to wear my jacket because there was absolutely no room for it anywhere.

  “This is crazy,” Mary said.

  “We’ll ship some more stuff at the next stop.”

  “Why didn’t we ship it now?”

  “Because I want to get going. We’re losing time. We’re supposed to be there in three days.”

  Back on I-95, Tony Bennett singing “Little Drummer Boy,” the road clear and the sky a deep blue, the morning gradually settled. Though she had skipped breakfast, Karen seemed no worse for the wear. Ethan was fine too, alternately playing with the Etch A Sketch and his cell phone while Mary and Mindy read newspapers. There was no residue of last night’s drama, no shadow of what had transpired. One thing life with Ethan had taught us all was that yesterday’s issue, for the most part, was yesterday’s issue.

  “It’s nice outside,” I said.

  No one, not even Ethan, responded, so I drove on in silence. As we made our way up the interstate, I tried to take advantage of this burst of peace, tried to put my William Least Heat-Moon hat on and sponge up what I could of the Eastern Seaboard, but instead was diverted by a memory from the War Years. We were having dinner, all of us, an unusual occurrence since Ethan, while a saint in restaurants, was a hellion at the kitchen table. Consequently, most of our attempts at family meals disintegrated into street fights, complete with food throwing, milk spilling, and my escorting Ethan from the table. But this one evening, for reasons unknown, he was calm, eating slowly and quietly, his head down over his plate. Mindy and Karen talked about their days at school. Mary asked me if I wanted more meat loaf. We even had ice cream, chocolate chip, for dessert. I remember Mindy taking in the bucolic scene and saying, “Wow, look at us, we’re like a normal family.” That was all we’d ever wanted. Moments like that, moments like this.

  The quiet was broken, but not by the likely source and not by a likely sound. It was Karen, and it was her laugh. I glanced in the mirror to confirm this Halley’s-Comet occurrence and saw Mindy leaning forward holding her phone over Karen’s shoulder. They were both watching something
and smiling.

  “Pretty hilarious, huh?” Mindy said.

  “Yeah, funny,” Karen said. “Do you know that guy?”

  “Yeah, he’s kind of an asshole, but he’s funny.”

  “Yeah, he is.”

  Mindy sat back, pleased. Ethan remained transfixed by his Etch A Sketch and phone. Mary yawned and turned a page of her paper. I turned up “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” and we drove on. Just like a normal family.

  * * *

  Normal family ended up having to make an abnormal number of stops throughout the day: for lunch, gas, poo-poo, pee-pee, Sprite, pee-pee again, and then again (this time for me). Finally, after a very late lunch (or very early dinner), we surrendered and checked into a Courtyard Marriott where, after a PBS–style-fundraising bear marathon on the bed (“Thanks to Bears Like You”), I took Ethan swimming.

  The pool, as I was beginning to suspect all indoor hotel pools were, was empty. After getting him safely situated in the shallow end, I made a show of jumping in with a rebel yell and furiously swimming a lap, believing that one burst of exercise, that twenty seconds of frantic activity, would undo the havoc that the Cracker Barrel was wreaking on my body. When I was done, I stood in the deep end, gulping mouthfuls of humid chlorinated air.

  “Why. Mad?” Ethan asked. His eyes were fixed on me as he carefully worked his way around the pool, holding on to the side. Occasionally, he stopped and kicked his legs with a huge grin on his face.

  “Just having a heart attack. No biggie. Keep kicking.”

  “Mom!”

  “Mom?” I turned. As advertised, my ex-sweet-sweetie was standing by the steamy glass door, wearing an unfamiliar black one-piece.

  “Swimming! Mom! Hot!”

  “She sure is!” I yelled this in Stinky Bear’s voice.

  Mary smiled, kicked off her flip-flops. “It is hot in here.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” Without another word, she jumped in and disappeared under the water.

  “Swimming! Mom!”

  When Mary emerged, she splashed Ethan, and he happily splashed her back, smiling his wide, toothy grin. He didn’t associate his mother with fun—no one in our family did—and he was beside himself.

  “Mom! Wow! Wow!”

  I watched the mother and son battle for a while, let them have their moment, then swam over and joined the fray, choosing no sides. After taking a few direct hits to the face, Mary surrendered.

  “No mas!” She tried to escape, but I grabbed her foot. We ended up on the other side of the pool, laughing, breathing hard.

  “What prompted this?” I asked.

  Mary shrugged. She looked rejuvenated, her hair tucked back behind her ears, her face glistening. She gave me one last splash. “I needed this.”

  “You look good in that suit.”

  She didn’t respond to that. Instead she scooted low in the water and checked the clock above the door. “He can sleep with me tonight. I have a suite with two rooms. It was the only room they had.”

  “A suite, eh? Does it have a Jacuzzi?”

  “It does, actually. Not sure why. I bet no one uses it.”

  “Let’s use it tonight.” Then I added, “For Ethan. I’ll run out and get some wine for us.”

  She offered a smile. “Wine.”

  While this wasn’t exactly an invitation, it wasn’t exactly a don’t-even-think-about-it, so, sensing an opportunity, I moved toward her. She let me stand close, so close that I could feel her breath warm on my face, see tiny streams of water dripping down the tops of her breasts.

  “Another pool,” she said.

  I took her hand and was just beginning to think this was the culmination of two years of waiting and praying, that I was finally getting the nod to return from the desert, when I heard Ethan scream.

  Mary jerked free of me and dove toward the center of the pool, where Ethan was thrashing away, half underwater. Before I could move, she was pulling him up, sputtering, coughing, gagging for air. I swam toward them as fast as I could.

  “You’re all right,” she said. “You’re okay. You can stand here. It’s not that deep.” Ethan was in a panic, yelling and throwing his arms about, his eyes filled with terror. As far as I knew, it was the first time he had been underwater.

  I took a firm hold of an arm, Mary took the other, and we watched him cough for a minute before slowly leading him out of the pool. “You shouldn’t have let go of the sides. Never let go. But you’re okay, you’re okay, Ethan, settle down, settle down,” I repeated.

  We dried him with separate towels while he stood, shaking, his coughing dying down. When he finished, he looked up at me.

  “No. Swimming!”

  “Okay, no swimming.” I kissed him on the top of his head and felt his wet hair against my mouth.

  “You can’t leave him alone for a second,” Mary said. “Not one second. You’d think we’d know that by now.” The light in her eyes was gone, and the exhausted, worried Mary was back at her post.

  “He’s fine. He just went underwater. It’s not a big deal. Why don’t you go back in? I got him.”

  She laughed, but not happily. “I’m done.” She put on her flip-flops.

  “You sure?”

  She wrapped the towel around her waist, tied the ends together in a hard knot. “Just bring him to my room.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” she said, walking toward the door.

  * * *

  Even though he had just been swimming, I decided to wash Ethan’s hair, so I gave him a bath. After I put on his pajamas, I brushed my teeth, slipped on a clean shirt, then hustled him down the hall to Mary’s room. I still had hopes.

  Those hopes died an immediate death when Mary opened the door in sweat pants that perfectly matched her worn-out expression.

  “You get lost?” she asked.

  “I gave him a bath. Sorry.”

  “Say good night, Ethan,” she said. No hint of Jacuzzis, wine, the extra bedroom where Ethan could sleep while Mary and I quietly made long overdue love.

  “Where. Stinky Bear. Be?”

  “He’s inside. Come on. Say good night.”

  Ethan shot me a resigned look that made me wonder if, on some basic male level, he had sensed his father’s intentions. “Leave. Now,” he said solemnly.

  “Good night,” I said.

  “Leave. Now.”

  Mary took his hand and closed the door without so much as glancing at me. I lingered for a moment, all-dressed-up-with-nowhere-to-go, considered knocking, considered serenading her, but thought the better of it. Instead I issued my official one thousandth sigh of the trip and turned away.

  * * *

  I resisted the temptation of the lobby bar and instead returned to my room to map out the remainder of the trip. I pored over the Rand McNally and, factoring in dozens of poo-poo, pee-pee, Cracker Barrel, and Tonto breaks, tried to determine an ETA for Maine. With so many intangibles (conclusion: poo-poo is one of life’s great intangibles), it was impossible to say exactly when we would arrive.

  Off duty for the night, I pulled out Blue Highways and reread a few pages, marveling at the contrasts between our two journeys. William Least Heat-Moon had touched, seen, and tasted America. I had touched, seen, and tasted Cracker Barrels. He had hit the road to escape a failed marriage. I had hit the road and taken my failed marriage with me.

  I scanned the room for Stinky Bear. I needed to talk things out with him, seek his wisdom, ask him about love and life, but remembered he was with Ethan. I only had old Grandpa Bear with me, and he was sleeping.

  Sensing I was ripe for a visit from the Doubt and Guilt, I turned on my laptop and went to the Ocean View Web site. I needed to remember why I was on this trip.

  Built at the turn of the twentieth century, Ocean View originally had been the summer home of the Doyles, a well-off Boston family with ties to the shipping industry. Seven years ago, with real-estate prices in fr
ee fall and with the last of the Doyles long gone, the sprawling estate was put on the market and purchased at a fire sale price by a group of far-thinking and deep-pocketed parents who were frustrated by the shortage of suitable housing options for disabled adults. The founding families, all Boston Irish Catholics, found a small order of nuns to oversee the care of their children in exchange for a comfortable place to live and worship. The nuns accepted, with the stipulation that a small chapel be built on the grounds and that 10 percent of the yearly contributions the families made be donated to their order.

  Only twenty residents lived at Ocean View, with ten more higher-functioning adults living in three group homes down the hill in Camden. I had toured one of the group homes, and while impressed with the arrangement—the residents were thoroughly integrated in the communities and even had jobs—I knew Ethan would do better in a more structured environment.

  For parents of disabled children, Ocean View was the proverbial shining city on the hill. But it came at a steep price: a one-hundred-thousand-dollar down payment, thirty thousand dollars a year, and a pledge in writing, certified by an attorney, that Ocean View would be beneficiary of your will and that that inheritance would be a minimum of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

  It was expensive, but there were few choices. America has many attributes, but the care of its growing population of disabled adults is not one of them. I was fortunate that I could afford this steep price, fortunate that I worked in an affluent school district that paid me well, fortunate that I would get a good pension for the rest of my life. Mostly, I was fortunate that David Prioletti, Mary’s father, had started a rock quarry business some sixty years ago in southern Illinois and that that quarry would one day be sold in excess of forty million dollars.

  Other families, I knew, did not have such resources, such options. To most, Ocean View, with its swimming pools, airy gymnasium, on-site medical staff, and bright and cheerful café, was a dream. I knew this and felt some guilt, but there was little I could do about the inequities of life. Simply put, Ocean View was more than good place: it was as I have mentioned, our salvation.

  I browsed the site for a while longer, checked the weather in Camden (cloudy and sixty-five), then clicked off the computer and climbed into bed. I had high hopes for a dreamless sleep.