by J T Kalnay
Anyway, it has gotten cooler here in North Carolina. The sun comes up a little later and goes down a little earlier. I remember you telling me that the sun rises over the Atlantic and sets over Lake Erie. So each morning when I run I say good morning to you. I wonder if you ever say good night to me while looking out over Lake Erie?
I will have your coffee ready for you when you visit in January.
Joe
Shannon
“What a turnout,” Cara says.
“Yes. The people of this city are desperate for some waterfront access. And it clearly isn’t the government that’s going to give it to them. So why not me?” I say.
“Exactly.”
Several hundred people have gathered for a cleanup day at the new park that will perch between the road and the Lake. This is the park through which Shannon will drive her golf cart or ride her bicycle to get to her new home in the Coast Guard station. Along with the crowd there are two bulldozers, several backhoes, other heavy equipment, and several dump trucks. Out in the harbor there is even a barge with a crane on it. The union bosses have already had their men working for a week removing the largest items from where the volunteers will work today. They have played none of their usual tricks and appear very happy to do for this private citizen what they were unwilling to do for the City. Of course the promise of many perpetual union jobs cleaning and guarding the park are a good incentive.
Shannon has rented a hundred shovels and a hundred rakes and ten dumpsters. She has also rented a loudspeaker. She steps up onto a picnic table and gets the attention of the group.
“Thank you so much for coming out today to clean up this park. This is the first official meeting of the friends of Coast Guard Park, and what an excellent turnout. Thank you to the Union for sending us all this heavy equipment, and to the Coast Guard for the permit for the crane and the barge. These fine gentlemen over here are going to lead the different teams, from driftwood pickup to glass pickup to dirt moving to path construction to whatever. So thanks again, please pick a team and have fun. I will be here all day at the food tent. We have water and pop and snacks for everyone, and we’ll have hot dogs all day too. Then tonight, with all the driftwood we pull up, we’ll have an official park opening bonfire. It ought to be a day and a night to remember. I hope someone remembered to bring marshmallows for the bonfire!”
The crowd laughed and then quickly split into groups.
“I can’t believe you’re going to get all this done in one day,” Cara says. “The City had this park for ten years and never got anything done.”
“I’m not the City, and I don’t have the budgetary constraints of the City,” Shannon says.
“Or the good will of the friends of Coast Guard Park,” Cara answers.
“Or that. These people want to be able to come down to Lake Erie, and I’ve got the motive, means, and opportunity to make it happen.”
“Amen sister.”
Throughout the day, different groups of volunteers build sand volleyball courts, put-ins for kayakers, and floating docks for jet skis. While they work, hulking steel freighters creep up and down the river. Workers stop and stare at this part of Cleveland that most people never see because they cannot approach the water. The bulldozers have moved amazing amounts of ground, building terraces and hills and hummocks. The backhoes have dragged the driftwood up from the edge of the water and have piled it in the center of a football field sized clearing. The crane on the barge has plucked enormous floating deadheads from the shore, and has pulled cars, shopping carts, stoves, and other garbage that has been dumped in the water over the years. In one day, from the sunrise over the city to the sunset over the lake, the hundred acres of urban wasteland has been transformed into a people’s park in Shannon’s backyard.
As the sun sets the workers stop to admire their work, and then to wonder over the pinks and oranges and reds of the setting sun that are best absorbed from this close to the water. This time of year the sun sets to the left of the lighthouse, out over the break wall, where legions of cormorants, ducks, herons, and geese make their homes. During the day there has been a bug hatch and biblical amounts of midges have appeared, lived their twelve hour lifecycle, and disappeared. Even while the park took shape during the day, some fishermen made their way down the causeway to the jetty and dropped their lines.
Behind all the construction sounds, and the sounds of workers building their own park, Jimmy Buffet music has played and played, making this miracle at the park feel like a carnival.
From farther down the shore, from a private marina, young kids sailing in 420 dinghies have held a regatta inside the break wall, while their older brothers and sisters and friends have held a regatta outside the break wall in their larger 470 dinghies. Catamarans have raced back and forth inside the break wall, using the flatter water and the fresh breeze to broad and beam reach at breathtaking speeds.
Jet skiers have jumped the wake of the Nautica Queen as she took out the lunch crowd, and then brought them back, and then as she took out the dinner crowd.
“Those boaters have had access to the lake from their private clubs and on the tour ships,” Shannon says, sweeping her hand towards the lake. She turns and points at the volunteers and the others who have gathered for the bonfire. “But now all of you, and so many others will get a chance to know the lake too. Will have somewhere to walk or sit and read, somewhere to play volleyball or fish or put in your kayaks or stand up paddleboards. One of the city busses is going to make a loop to the parking lot at the edge of the park, so anyone who wants to can come here,” Shannon said.
“I like that you are using your gifts for good,” Cara says.
“You’re a good example to me. You could be a billionaire like me, but you stay in your lab researching cancer. You’re doing more good than I am,” Shannon answers.
“Thanks,” Cara says. “Now let’s go have some marshmallows.”
A tired but clearly touched Shannon presides over the opening of the bonfire. She thanks all the workers and volunteers who helped. She even thanks the City officials who helped, or at least who did not stand in her way. She introduces the band that will play Calypso music and Jimmy Buffet music and even throw in a few rousing Sousa marches until the party in the new park is finished long after sunset.
At the edge of the crowd, Bill the cop and Joe’s sister and two other Friday trash pickers smile at Shannon. She didn’t know they were here. She walks over and shakes hands.
“Thanks for coming,” Shannon says.
“You’ve done so much for Topsail, it’s the least we could do,” Karen says.
Shannon smiles at Karen and then glares at Bill.
“I’ve done so much for Topsail have I?” she asks Bill.
He hangs his head. “Guilty,” he says.
“How much do they know?” she asks.
“The clinic, the lifeguards, the playground,” he says.
“Have you kept any of my secrets?” she asks Bill.
“All the rest,” he answers.
“Okay,” she says. She pats his arm.
“Thank you,” Shannon repeats. She shakes their hands again and hugs Joe’s sister.
“I see you named the kayak put-in Caitlin’s Cove,” Karen says.
“Yes,” Shannon answers.
“Thank you.”
November
Dear Shannon,
Congratulations on the publication of your paper. Yes I Googled you (again) and this time it included a link to your paper. I won’t pretend to understand the science, but I did understand the premise. And, I can see that you were accurate in predicting that there would be some resistance to your position.
Fall has been glorious here by the shore. The beach is deserted, just the way I like it, and just the way I’ll bet you like it too. I know it is wishful thinking, but it would be nice to walk the deserted beach with you.
I went surfing a few more times, took some more lessons. I get it. I get the connection people feel wi
th the ocean. I get it one way while sitting on the board outside the break waiting for a nice wave and then I get it a different way when the wave picks you up and puts all that power behind you. I get it another way when the ocean decides that it is going to hold you down for an extra second or two just because it can.
The water is still warm enough to surf once in a while now, but I’ve been looking for warm weather places to surf in the winter. Not January. I’m going to be here the whole month of January. And I’m going to have a cup of coffee ready for you every morning in January. Just in case.
So, I miss seeing you and I miss talking to you and I miss getting to know you.
I’d like to get to know you.
Don’t forget I’ll have your coffee ready for you in January.
Joe
p.s., Karen told me about Caitlin’s Cove. And the kayaks for the patients. Thank you.
Shannon
The first of the November storms has come racing down from Canada pushing half of Lake Erie ahead of it. Pushing the lake so hard that the waves and swells break high over the break wall sending plumes of spray high into the afternoon air. It is Edmund Fitzgerald day and with the storm the local radio stations have been playing the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot over and over, even the AM talk radio and traffic stations.
Shannon is perched in the circular room at the top of the small lighthouse in her new home at the Coast Guard station. The gun metal grey lake is mixing with the muddy brown from the river and the oil sheen from the port in a confusion of colors and in a jumble of peaks and foams and blowing spray.
High above the harbor, looking out over Lake Erie, Shannon feels the wind and waves working on the shore and on her new home. A dozen feet of concrete separates the lake side of her home from the harbor, and millions of tons of rock in the break wall separate the harbor from the Lake.
She is nestled in her favorite quilt and is reading a ghost story. A story about a whaling ship that sank in Long Island Sound and about a man who sees it and about a woman who believes in her man and how they fight the dark, evil forces.
Joe’s two letters are tucked into the book. She pulls the pages out and starts to read them again...
December
Dear Shannon,
I hope this letter finds you well.
You will be here next month because you love it here and because you know if you want to be left alone you will be left alone. I will have your coffee ready here, but won’t bring it by your beach house without an invitation. Also, I will be parking at the public access and running south and east from there so I won’t be passing by your beach house. I’m letting you know these things so that you know you can have North Topsail for yourself just like you did during all those years before you met me, during all those years when we must have been sharing our love for that beach together, even though we were unaware of each other. How is it possible that we never met?
Of course I would be surprised and delighted and honored if you would stop in for a coffee, and maybe to sit and talk. Also, on January 15 there is a fund raiser in Wilmington and I would like you to attend. You can come with me, meet me there, or just attend. It is a black tie affair, so if you are thinking about attending you may wish to bring something appropriate. There will be a ticket waiting for you. The link to the event is provided below.
I read an article about your lighthouse and the renovations. I can picture you there both from the article and from what Karen and Bill and the others told me about the park. I love that you made a park so that anyone who wants to be near the water can be. Not only have you provided access for these people, but you have, perhaps unconsciously, insured that you always have people around you who love the water. A brand new hundred acre lakefront park where there used to be a dump. What a remarkable thing for you to do.
Congratulations. I often think about you and me after our surf lesson, about you and me in the lighthouse. It was a magical moment. Please don’t let it be our last.
I remember your order so your coffee will be ready.
If you arrive before nine it will be black, if you arrive after nine it will have some cream in it. Joe.
Shannon
I am almost there, almost to my cottage. It is early evening on January 3 and I have just arrived in Topsail from Ohio after a remarkably smooth twelve hour drive. All the Starbucks were still where they were supposed to be, and all the gas stations were where they were supposed to be. My car and stomach have behaved the way they are supposed to behave. No men made lurid suggestions to me while I stood in line for coffee, no men offered to pump my gas. I was invisible, the way I usually am. No-one noticed me, not even in my new car.
I am going to stop at his coffee shop before going to the beach house. Am going to tell him that I am here, that I got his letters, and that I will be in for coffee in the morning and to talk.
I park, get out, and stretch in the cool North Carolina evening, which is such a contrast to the ice and snow I left behind. Living at the edge of Lake Erie I feel constantly connected to the water and the sky and the seasons in a way that living even a mile back from the shore does not produce.
Here in the parking lot, still a mile from the water, I smell the ocean, even here so far from the coast. I drink in the southern evening, let it seep into my pores. I breathe in the salt air, let it clean away the stale air from my car. I stretch my neck left, then right, then step stiffly into the warm coffee shop.
Shannon and Joe
“Happy New Year,” she says.
“Happy New Year,” he answers. He is surprised to see her.
She looks tired, lovely, and tired.
“Your regular?” he asks, trying not to stare, trying not to believe that she has just walked into his coffee shop.
“A decaf. I’m grungy and tired and strung out from the road. Just a tasty decaf, with extra cream, and a touch of sugar.”
“Okay,” he answers.
“But if you truly think it’s a good idea, if you truly want to talk, you can bring one to the beach house tomorrow, at eight, and we can walk. To the pier and back. No running tomorrow, not after that ride.” She stretches her neck from side to side.
“I don’t know Shannon,” he says. “It’s been months. And I haven’t heard anything from you since you left. Not even after Danny visited. Not since that last day when I saw you and I told you about Colleen and our daughter. And then nothing until you walk into my coffee shop tonight. Are you sure you want me to?”
“I got your letters,” she says. “They were nice letters.”
“But you didn’t write back,” Joe says.
“You didn’t ask me to. I wasn’t going to assume you wanted me to. I wasn’t going to ‘owe’ you a letter. And I was thinking,” Shannon says.
“I still don’t know,” Joe says.
“It’s your choice,” she says. “But, it’s only to the pier and back. It’s only coffee. It would be good to talk,” she says. “Even if you want to tell me to leave you alone.”
He decides.
“What time?” he asks.
“Eight,” she says.
“Deal,” he answers.
She pours half her cup of coffee onto the floor.
“To seal the deal,” she says.
Joe laughs.
Shannon
I pull into the drive at my cottage. I love this cottage. I have loved it since the moment I saw it from the upper deck of my beach house. Loved how it nestled into Alligator Bay. Loved its private boardwalk through the marsh to the bay. Loved its deep porches that lurk below tin roofs. Loved its unobstructed views of both the bay and the ocean.
I loved it the first time I walked through it and saw the old wooden floors, the floor to ceiling windows, the small island in the kitchen, the way the morning sun flooded in from the east and the way the evening sun retreated out to the west. Loved how quiet it was, at the end of the hundred yard drive from the dune to the edge of the marsh.
I can
see it from my beach house, but I think that it is the only house on the island from which you can see the cottage. And the beach house is one of the only houses you can see from the cottage.
I bought it using a straw man, a fiction, a third company owned by a second company owned by a first company. I never want anyone to be able to find me here. Not my sister, not Joe, not the kids, not anyone, certainly not my ex. This is my place. Mine alone. I think I was right to engage in all the subterfuge, especially with even Bill the cop spilling my secrets.
Growing up with all my brothers and sisters there were few places you could ever be alone. And you had to go searching for those places. When my dad divided up his property, it got easier, but it was still a chore. Even when I was alone, someone always knew where I was and how to get in touch with me in just a few moments. That’s apart, but it’s not alone.
This cottage, my cottage, is where I am completely and utterly, by choice, alone. I love it like I love nowhere else on the planet. I cannot imagine anyplace like it. I have privacy in my new home in the abandoned Coast Guard station in Cleveland, and I know I can have privacy on my walks on the beaches, even when my sister is with me. But this place is my refuge. It is part of the bargain I have made with life and with my geologist brain that will not turn off and with my purely by chance fortune and with everything. This month is for me. For years I have spent the entire month speaking only when necessary, like to the cashier at the grocery store, or to a waiter at the Green Turtle.
