Returning to Shore

by Corinne Demas

  “He supports you,” said Eva. “You knew that, didn’t you?”

  “I guess.”

  “Pays your tuition at snooty-tooty academy, pays for your oboe lessons, your tennis camp, your orthodontist, your computer, your clothes, your food. Until Ian came along he paid for a lot of Vera’s stuff, too. You can’t say he hasn’t been generous all these years.”

  The word “generous” was not one Clare had ever heard used about her father. It made him seem more like a real person. Vera rarely talked about him much, and if she ever did, the adjective she relied on was “smart.” Clare had always assumed that the checks he sent were simply a legal obligation, not that he’d had a choice about any of it.

  “Do you hate him, too?” asked Clare.

  “Hate him? Nobody hates him!” said Eva.

  “Mom does.”

  Eva shook her head furiously. “She thought she did, once, but that was long ago.”

  “Does he hate her?”

  “You’ll have to ask him that,” said Eva.

  “He did move to the other side of the whole country.”

  Eva actually seemed to think about her answer before she spoke. “He didn’t do that to get away from her,” she said. “From what I understood, he wanted to be out in Silicon Valley, where things were happening in his field. And she didn’t want to move. That’s when marriages often fall apart,” said Eva. “One spouse wants to move and the other doesn’t.”

  Clare could easily imagine her mother saying, “I don’t want to move.” When Vera said something, she stuck to it. Still, that didn’t explain him.

  “He never came back to visit, not even once,” said Clare.

  “California does that to people,” said Eva. “It sucks them in and frazzles their brains, and they never make it back to the right coast again.”

  Clare turned in her seat so she could look at Eva straight on. “So how come he came back now?”

  “I have no idea,” said Eva. “And I don’t think Vera does, either. All I know is that he took some kind of early retirement and decided to move back to Cape Cod, where he owned a house, and got himself involved with something to do with reptiles.”

  “Reptiles?”

  “Reptiles, amphibians. One of those things, thank God, that we don’t have in New York City.” Eva took her hands off the steering wheel and waggled them in the air for emphasis.

  “How come he owns a house on Cape Cod?” asked Clare.

  “It was his parents’ place. He inherited it, and I guess he decided to hold on to it. I don’t know what it is exactly. A house, a cottage. A tent.”

  “And this is where I’m going to be stuck for three weeks?”

  “It looks like it,” said Eva. “I’m sorry, honey. I offered to put you up, but Vera thought this visit was important. If you get desperate, give me a ring and I’ll come bail you out. And besides, look on the bright side, you wouldn’t want to be stuck for three weeks with Vera and Ian in his villa in the south of France.”

  “I don’t think it’s a villa,” said Clare. “I think it’s just a house.”

  “House, schmouse,” said Eva.

  She turned her attention back to the road, and Clare tilted her seat back and closed her eyes. She didn’t think she’d fall asleep, but she must have, because when she opened them again it was early evening, and they were pulling off the roadway into a rest area.

  The parking area was long and narrow, and ran parallel to the road along the water. There were cars and campers parked in slots along the length of it, but it wasn’t full. Eva drove slowly towards the end. In the last space Clare saw an old Volvo station wagon. There was a man outside the car, leaning back against the car door. He was waiting for someone. He was waiting for her.

  3

  Eva pulled in next to the waiting car, but she didn’t turn off the engine right away. There was a bike path along the Cape Cod Canal, and a family of five came riding past them, on the sidewalk by the parking area. The youngest kid was straggling in the back, weaving along on a bike that was too big for him. “Wait for me!” he cried out to the bikers in front of him. “Wait for me!”

  Eva sat in the car until they had all biked passed. She flicked at the key chain that dangled from the key in the ignition, let it swing back and forth a few times, then she shut off the engine. The man next to the station wagon stood up straight, but he didn’t move any closer to them.

  Eva took in her breath. “Well here we go,” she said, and she opened her car door and stepped outside. Clare waited for a second, then she stepped outside, too. It was breezy outside. Inside the car she’d had no awareness of the wind, and the smell of the canal—a dense aroma of seaweed and salt water—was as much a surprise as if she had stepped out into a foreign country. She walked around the front of the car, towards Eva. And towards this man who was her father.

  She knew him from photographs. But they were all photographs of someone much younger. This man was grey haired, with a small beard, and he was older—not as old as Tertio, perhaps, but old enough so the man in the photographs might have been his son. He was taller than Tertio, but probably not as tall as Peter. He was wearing shorts and a work shirt with a pocket that held several pencils and pens. He looked as if he had been called away in the middle of some project. He certainly had not gotten dressed up to meet her.

  “Hello, Clare,” he said. He began to hold out his hand, but seemed to think better of it and let it drop by his side. His voice sounded like the voice she recognized from their phone calls, but he didn’t look like anything she had expected. She realized she’d never really tried to picture him. He’d always been just a voice.

  “Hello,” she said. What did he think, now, seeing her?

  The three of them stood awkwardly for a moment until Eva recovered her usual gregariousness. Like an actress who had momentarily forgotten her lines she brightened and spoke in a voice that was unnecessarily loud.

  “It’s been a long time, Richard,” she said. “You’re looking good. You’re looking really good.”

  “You’re looking good, too,” said Richard, and he allowed Eva to seize his hand and shake it vigorously. It didn’t seem as if he was a shy man, so much as a man who wasn’t inclined to acquiesce to expected formalities. Clare feared there would be another long interlude of silence, but Eva was quicker this time.

  “I hope we didn’t keep you waiting here too long,” she said. “We hit some traffic around New London.”

  Traffic? Clare didn’t recall any, but perhaps it was while she asleep. Or maybe they had spent too much time at the rest stop. Or maybe Eva was just saying this because they had just left later than they should have.

  “Not a bad place to wait,” said Richard. Which implied that he had waited, had been kept waiting.

  “So, I hear that you decided to opt out of the corporate crazy world and take up the pleasures of early retirement.”

  “I made some changes in my life, yes,” said Richard. “How’s it all treating you?”

  “Me?” said Eva. She shrugged. It seemed to Clare that Eva was genuinely uncertain whether to attempt a real answer, or whether the question was mere politeness. “Well, since I’ve seen you last I’ve had about a dozen different jobs—one of the jobs actually twice—I mean I left and did some freelance work, then came back to it.” Eva’s voice trailed off. Richard was looking at her still, but Clare guessed Eva could tell he wasn’t really listening.

  “Did you end up marrying that man who was a graduate student in … ?” Richard asked. “Sorry I can’t remember what field he was in.”

  “No reason you should have,” said Eva. “I barely remember myself. And the answer to your question is no. I didn’t marry him. Or anyone else either, in spite of my sister’s best efforts.”

  “How is Vera?” asked Richard.

  “Oh Vera is—” She looked at Clare now. “Help me out here,” she said.

  Clare didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know what was wanted of her.

&nbs
p; “What a question!” cried Eva, saving Clare from saying something inane. “Sorry, honey.” She turned to Richard. “Vera has just married a supportive, stable, mature male. I think she’s fine.”

  “I’m glad,” said Richard, and he said it in a way that sounded as if he actually meant it.

  Clare was relieved that the conversation seemed finally to be over and Eva headed to the car to open the trunk. Richard came with her and took Clare’s suitcase and duffel bag, and carried them over to his car. He lifted the hatch door and pushed aside a pile of buckets and nets to make room for Clare’s things. Clare wedged her backpack next to her suitcase.

  Eva extracted an index card from her bag and starting handing it to Richard. “Vera’s contact information and Clare’s emergency health information,” she said.

  “Does she think I’m five?” Clare asked.

  “I won’t be needing that,” Richard said. “I’ll take good care of her.” He smiled at Clare. It was the first smile he gave her.

  “Of course you will,” said Eva. “But please take the card anyway, just so I can tell Vera I carried out her orders.”

  Richard tucked the card behind the pencils and pens in his shirt pocket.

  “If anything comes up that might require the assistance of an aunt, just give a holler,” said Eva.

  Richard nodded and opened the passenger door of the car. There was nothing for Clare to do but get in. Eva got something out of her car, then placed a small shopping bag on the seat behind Clare. “The piece of cake,” she said. “Don’t forget to put it under your pillow. I’ll be wanting a full report of that dream.” She leaned down to kiss Clare good-bye.

  Too quickly, she was off.

  4

  They didn’t speak at all until they had crossed over the Cape Cod Canal. The bridge was the kind of high bridge that’s arched so there’s a moment when you can’t yet see the opposite side and you wonder if you’re just heading off into space. In the far distance, off to the left, Clare could see the bay. The dark blue of the canal below was pockmarked with white waves. The boats were toy-sized, and the bicycle path was a dark ribbon, stretched along the shore. Clare thought of the boy on the bike.

  “Wait for me!” he had cried. “Wait for me!” Had they waited? Surely they had waited.

  “We’re taking route 6A, not the highway,” said Richard, after they had gotten off the bridge. “Any time I go off Cape, I always take the scenic route back, because then I feel I’m really here. On the highway, you could be anywhere.” He concentrated on his driving for a moment, then, when they came to a stop at an intersection he turned to her again.

  “It’s about an hour to the house from here. Would you like to stop somewhere before then?”

  Clare wondered if he meant to ask if she needed to use a bathroom, but was actually embarrassed to say so. “I’m fine,” she said.

  “Did you want to get some dinner?”

  “Oh no, I had a late lunch. I’ve had a lot.”

  “That’s right,” said Richard. “I imagine you would have.”

  They rode most of the rest of the way in silence. Clare kept thinking he would start talking again, but he didn’t. Some people didn’t like to talk while they drove, Clare knew, but that certainly wasn’t the case with her mother, who used car trips as an opportunity to lecture her. And it wasn’t the case with Eva, who had talked the whole way. Clare fingered her iPod on her lap, but she felt shy, somehow, putting her earbuds in. She had the feeling that her father might think it rude. Now and then she stole a glance at him. He was handsomer in profile than full face. She had thought his hair was grey, but it wasn’t entirely. It was bleached out, dull blond, and real grey only in places. Wispy hair, like hers. His face and arms were tanned, and there was a white mark on his wrist, the ghost of where he had worn a watch. Clare wished now that she had asked Eva more about him. She wished she had asked her mother more about him, too.

  What did she know about him? Very little. On her birthdays he sent her cards that said, “Now you are ___” for whatever age she was, and inside he’d Scotch-tape some money. When she was younger it was a ten-dollar bill, later a twenty. Last year it had been a fifty. He taped it carefully so that most of the tape was on the card, and only a little of it on the money, and so she could peel it away easily. She looked at his hands on the steering wheel now. His fingers were callused, the nails cracked. It was hard to imagine those rough hands selecting a birthday card, taping the money inside it.

  What else did she know? At one time, he’d started a collection of first edition books, which he’d left behind with Vera when he moved to California. The books weren’t those nice leather volumes—the kind that look expensive—they were just plain books with their paper jackets in plastic sleeves, but when Vera had sold them, they’d been worth a lot.

  She knew that when Vera had wanted him to give up his rights to her and let her be adopted by Peter, he hadn’t let that happen. Vera had wanted her to have Peter’s last name, Giancelli, “a name that sings,” Vera had said, but he hadn’t let that happen, either. Vera had taken on Giancelli herself, but when she’d gone back to law school she’d gone back to her maiden name. Now, in an act of uncharacteristic docility, she’d submitted herself to Ian’s last name, Ruderman, a name that did not sing. A name, Clare thought, that anyone would have changed to something pleasanter a long time ago.

  If she’d been allowed to take Peter’s last name, Clare felt, she’d be able to be connected to him always. She’d be his real daughter, instead of the daughter of this man, whom she was sitting next to in this old station wagon. This station wagon that smelled like … Clare tried to think of what it was. The Cape Cod Canal? They weren’t that close anymore, but it smelled as if they were.

  “It would be nice if we could get back before dark,” said Richard, suddenly. “It’s always something to come to the bridge and look out over the marsh.”

  “I thought we already crossed the bridge,” said Clare.

  “We crossed the Canal bridge. This is the bridge to the island. It’s a small bridge, wooden.”

  Clare thought he’d continue talking, but he didn’t. Eventually they turned off the main road onto a road that headed towards the bay, a road that got narrower and winding. They emerged from the woods, and the paved road ended. Richard stopped the car and turned off the engine.

  Clare looked at her father. He gave her a smile, and then gazed ahead, his hand outstretched, as if he was offering the view to her. In front of them was a marsh—a huge, flat, open space, that went on and on. The sun had just set and the sky was that trembling, soft pink before evening turns into night. It was absolutely quiet, as if sound itself did not exist. They sat there for a while, looking at the still marsh, and Clare let herself sink into the quiet. I’ll remember this, she thought. I’ll remember this quiet and the way this looks, this enormous marsh, and the sky at dusk. I’ll use this sometime in a story. The first job of a writer, Peter had told her, was to be an observer. And she was training herself to do that. Not just observing things, but finding a way to translate them into words in her head, storing them up to use later. That’s what Peter did, for the stories he wrote, for the novel he was working on. It was reassuring now to be thinking of a story, to imagine herself as a character in a story, instead of just herself, a girl in this bare, open place, with a man who was her father, but a man whom she didn’t know at all.

  After a few minutes Richard started up the engine again. “Time to cross the Blackfish Island Bridge,” he said.

  The bridge was, in fact, wooden, and it was just wide enough for one car. They drove up one side, across a creek, then down to the marsh on the other side. The car’s tires thumped on each plank.

  “What if someone’s coming the other way?” Clare asked.

  “Doesn’t happen too often,” said Richard. “And if it does, one car waits on the side till the other’s crossed over. No need to worry. No cars in sight.”

  “I wasn’t worried,” said Clare. “I
just wondered.”

  “Unless, of course, it’s one of those washashores, in one of those monster houses on the dunes, tearing over this bridge in their SUV.”

  “What’s a washashore?” asked Clare.

  “It’s what they call newcomers, around here.”

  “I guess I’m a washashore,” said Clare.

  “You? Not you, Clare. You’re third—no, fourth-generation Blackfish Island. It’s your great-grandparents who built the original cottage out here.”

  “But I’ve never been here before.”

  To her surprise, Richard stopped the car, stopped the car right where they were on the sand road, in the midst of the darkening marsh. He turned to her.

  “What made you think that?” he asked.

  Clare shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. She felt a little frightened. Not that he was angry, but that it seemed as if he might become angry.

  “You came here every summer, when you were little,” said Richard. “Vera didn’t like it out here, so we came for only a week or two. But you were certainly here.” Now he sounded more sad than angry.

  He started up the car again and continued driving. The road was so rutted Clare grabbed onto the seat to steady herself for the bumps. It didn’t seem as if they were on a real road, just a worn path through the marsh grass.

  If she’d been here before, how come she didn’t remember it at all? Shouldn’t there have been some click of recognition, something that seemed familiar, even if it was something she’d experienced when she was young, even before she had words. But everything was strange, this place, this man who was her father.

  Her best friend, Susannah, had a father who lived in Colorado, and Susannah visited him every summer. She was there now, would be there until the middle of August.

  “It’s nice that you get to see him every year,” Clare had once said.

  “You call once a year nice?” Susannah had asked. “I think it sucks big time.”

  “Well, I never see my father,” said Clare. “I haven’t seen him in, like, eleven years.” Susannah shut up for the moment. “Well that’s something,” she finally said.