Remember Me

by Deborah Bedford

  “Where are we?” Hunter said. “Why are we driving around looking at houses?”

  Sam didn’t answer immediately. There it was, number 503, the ample driveway curving past the myrtlewood tree. The paneled glass door was still intact, its wood painted Essex green. The porch, shielded on both sides by balusters, stood empty except for a weather-worn rocking chair, its seat unraveling. The Douglas fir had overgrown the curb and towered over the house. The rain had tinted its wooden façade a dark, unimpressive gray. Rust stains ran at regular intervals wherever there was a nail.

  Nostalgia clogged Sam’s throat. How many years had it been? And yet, it might as well have been yesterday.

  You’re a grown man, Sam, he lectured himself. You’re being ridiculous, imagining the past. How they’d laugh if they could read your mind. You’re acting like more of a teenager than your nephew.

  “Why are you staring at that old place?” Hunter asked.

  Sam could have simply told him the truth. He could have used such weightless, easy words, been so noncommittal. I had a best friend who lived here once. Did anyone ever tell you that?

  But just as he started to explain, the door opened and a stranger came out, some young, dark-haired woman with a baby. Well, what had he been thinking? Of course Aubrey didn’t live here anymore.

  He felt heat rising from his neck, felt the rims of his ears begin to burn. He murmured something to his nephew about getting lost, trying to find the beach. “Isn’t that it down there?” Hunter pointed and, through the sweep of windshield wipers, Sam got his first glimpse in twenty years of the expanse of whitecaps, churning gray.

  Sam could see a boat coming in, not doing too well negotiating the chop. He recognized off-shore rocks and roosting pelicans, shapes that had been lasered into his mind over the years. He understood, in that moment, the true meaning of timelessness. His mood lifted considerably. For the first time in days, he felt expectant. It didn’t matter how people saw it now or thought Piddock Beach had changed. For Sam, the feeling of magic arrival would always stay the same.

  “I wanted to go with you to see Grandpa living on his boat,” Billy said, looking pitiful, his chin working against the top of the seat. “I don’t know why we have to stay with Aunt Emily instead.”

  “Aunt Emily is taking you to Disneyland,” Gary said as Aubrey gathered up napkins and ketchup packets. It hadn’t taken long to demolish the fast food. “You’ll have a much better time there.”

  “But I like the boat—”

  “Your grandfather can only handle you for about two seconds. You’ll be playing with your cousins. You can’t complain about that.”

  Hannah wailed from behind them, “Dad. I forgot Elephant. We have to go home.”

  Aubrey and Gary exchanged glances. They were in it now. Aubrey explained as well as she could. “We’re too far away to go home, honey.”

  “But we have to. Elephant’s there.”

  “We’ve gone too many miles, Hannah. We can’t go back.”

  “Elephant will be lonely. Dad.”

  “No, Hannah.” And from Gary, amazing though it was, that was enough. Could a preschooler sense desperation in her father’s voice even though she couldn’t hear it?

  The windows had fogged up because of the rain. Or maybe, Aubrey thought, it was from the internal combustion of everyone inside. Channing stayed as far away from the rest of them as she could manage, sprawled across the width of the SUV on seats that could also be folded up for luggage, her mukluks crossed at the ankles, propped against the door.

  Aubrey didn’t know how the children hadn’t noticed the changes in Gary. Mercifully, no one in the expensive private school they attended had seen fit to discuss the police reports that ran sporadically on the local page. But the lines on her husband’s face told the story itself—his pale square cheeks that looked the consistency of bread dough, the wrinkles that had seeped in around his eyes, hair that had turned brittle gray, as if Gary had walked through colorless clouds of ash. He’d grown more tired, older. Broken that fast. Almost overnight.

  They began to see signs for Portland International Airport and Gary worked his way into the correct lane. Security made it so difficult these days. They would have to find a place to park, check the children in, and only one of them would have a receipt to escort the little ones through screening.

  The other would have to say good-bye at the counter.

  She laid a hand on Gary’s knee as if she were doing him a favor. “I’ll take them through,” she volunteered.

  When his chin shot up, she knew he saw through it. He glanced across the front seat and she knew he understood. If she left him alone with them, she was afraid of what he might say.

  Billy began to complain again. “I don’t know why you and Dad think it’s so important to go away alone.” From the sound of his voice, Aubrey knew they blamed this fiasco on her. They all knew she could convince Gary to do what she wanted.

  “Sometimes parents need to go away—” They need to go away from each other, she might have said.

  She and the kids made it through security with a great thumping of tubs, the removal of shoes and boots—Billy’s sneakers scattering dirt all over the belt when he took them off—a long second look at Channing’s bottomless leather bag, and Hannah’s blanket having to be removed from her clutches so it could be scanned. As Aubrey noted the lumbering aircraft outside, one of which would take her children away, it seemed ridiculous that such things could fly.

  When they arrived at the gate, the plane had begun boarding. Aubrey introduced her brood to the ticket agent and handed over the documents that enabled children to travel alone. Now that the moment had come and everything had been set into motion, Aubrey felt a hollow sensation that she almost couldn’t bear. “Hey,” she reminded them, holding her arms out when they began to walk directly toward the door. “Don’t I get a hug or something?”

  Billy was the only one who came back. Channing had already turned her earphones on and Hannah only looked wistful. She’d reverted; her thumb was in her mouth as her big sister dragged her along by the hand.

  “See you, Mom.” Billy’s words were offhanded, his lips wet and cool. She didn’t dare keep him longer with the girls gone on ahead.

  “See you, little man.”

  As Aubrey watched his compact little shoulders retreating, it seemed like her entire life had walked away.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Sam felt the shock of recognition the instant he noticed the photograph on the wall at the Sea Basket. While he and Hunter stood in line for a table, he took a quick look around, found himself staring at a likeness of an old friend.

  A faded picture of a young soldier wearing his dress uniform, the stripe of a private on his sleeve, before he’d made it to first class. Sam didn’t have to look twice to be sure. The boy’s smile was evident in his eyes even though his lips were pressed into a menacing scowl. Someone must have coached him to appear intimidating in uniform.

  OUR FALLEN SON, the plaque read. KENNETH MCCART. KILLED IN ACTION DECEMBER 1970.

  Sam felt raw close to his chest. Kenneth had been so sure that he could find his own way. Make it back.

  Hunter was looking at him, his hands shoved inside the pockets of his baggy shorts. “Are you okay?”

  The hostess must have found them a table. “This way, please.” She carried menus in her hand.

  “You know those people? The McCarts?” Sam asked the waitress, gesturing toward the photo before she led them away. “I did. A long time ago.”

  “Sorry.” She shot him an apologetic smile. “Guess it was before my time.”

  Sam wondered if anyone noticed Kenneth’s picture anymore, if anyone stopped to take a measure of the hope in the young man’s eyes or to read the defiance in the cagey twist of his lips. At least the picture hadn’t been thrown away; someone in Piddock Beach must remember Kenneth’s name. Or maybe it was just another of those things that had become invisible.

  Ten minutes l
ater, Sam sat alone at the table, talking on his cell phone to Brenda, using a finger to bend the flap of his other ear. “You’re not going to believe where I am,” he yelled into the phone. “I’m at Sea Basket Steamer’s. Remember po’boy sandwiches? . . . I know. Can you believe it’s still here?”

  His sister’s voice was a thread connecting him to another life, so thin it might have never existed at all, transparent as a spider’s web. With one swipe of hand, one brush through the air, their connection might be broken. He’d called her because he was excited. He couldn’t say why her voice disappointed him now.

  “It’s the same. People still sit together even though they don’t know each other. The waitress walks around with the basket of hot hush puppies.” He was sure Brenda would laugh at that. Their parents had once broken up their hush puppy fights (Brenda always started those; Sam always got into trouble). The neon signs still shone a strong, fierce green, yellow, and red behind the bar. Fishing floats dangled overhead, cradled in dusty nets.

  “You’ve got to let Dad know this place is still around, okay? I called but he doesn’t answer . . . At the nursing home, right. Dad will get such a kick out of it. And maybe if he mentions it to Mom . . . The newspaper’s still called the Lighthouse-Reporter.”

  Brenda began to ask questions on the other end of the line and Sam did his best to answer her. “Everything’s good with Hunter,” he lied. “We’re getting along fine . . . Yes. Yes, we have been talking,” as if he could count the dozen or so lines they’d exchanged.

  When she asked if she could speak to her son, he felt like a cornered animal. “He’s not with me right now. He’s out walking the pier, getting the feel of the place.” The rain had tapered off, leaving only rivulets of water rushing along the curb, wet pockmarks in the sand. “You know how it is here.”

  “I thought we could just go to McDonald’s,” Hunter had said the moment he saw they’d be sitting with strangers. “I don’t want to sit with people I don’t know.”

  “You need to try this,” Sam insisted. “I don’t care if you walk the pier until the chowder comes, but I’m going to make you try this.”

  “Hey,” Sam said now, leaning slightly over the table. “I have to let you go. The food’s coming.” Then, “He’ll be back any minute. Don’t worry, Bren. I’m feeding him.” And, “I don’t have a number yet. We’ll call tomorrow after we’ve gotten settled. How’s that sound?”

  She’d broken through a boundary again, pushing her present concerns on him when he’d needed to share the memory of this place with her. He’d wanted her to be excited about his impressions of Piddock Beach. His sister was the only one who he had thought would understand. But instead he was saying, “Everything’s going to be okay, Brenda. Hunter’s fine. Really, you can stop asking that . . . Yes. Tomorrow. Fine. That will be fine.” Then one last time to make sure she understood him, “Fine.”

  With a tap of his finger, he cut off the phone.

  “You sat there beside me,” Gary told Aubrey just before they parted, “acting like you were protecting them from something horrible.”

  “Who?” She feigned innocence.

  “The kids. Our kids.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The rain had cleared, but the woodland around them was still dripping. A mist had settled low against the land, fog sieving through gaps between the wet trees.

  In another life Aubrey would have stepped closer to her husband and straightened his jacket collar. She would have lifted her face to him and remained that way until he reached toward her and drew her against his chest. But she would do none of those things now.

  Aubrey mouthed it quietly; maybe she hoped he wouldn’t hear. “I was protecting them from the truth.”

  “Aubrey, I’m their father.”

  “That’s exactly the point.”

  A fancy scrollwork sign in blue, with gold letters that said simply CRESTOVER TREATMENT CENTER, had directed them inside. After giving their names at a checkpoint, they traveled another mile along a narrow lane before they reached the main buildings. On the outside, the stone building looked serene and beautiful; it might have been a spa or a retreat instead of a medical facility. An attached wing elbowed to the north, another to the south. Water dashed over the scallops of a stone fountain, three tiers high.

  Gary unloaded his small black suitcase from the SUV and they stood beside it for a long minute. They both took a deep breath at the same time. He scrubbed back his hair, revealing the gold glint of watchband at his wrist. Aubrey wrapped her arms around herself, feeling cold to her very bones, so cold that she didn’t think she’d ever feel warm again.

  “How many times are you going to make me pay for this?” he asked.

  “Until it’s over,” she answered.

  Aubrey had been wrong when she guessed that the drive with the children would be the worst part. This was more difficult by far. They were alone together and the truth could be discussed between them. Pretending for the children’s sake had given them some degree of safety.

  Now, that safety was gone. In a mirror motion to one he might have once expected from his wife, Gary took the corners of his collar between his fingers, pressed hard as if they’d told him to leave thumbprints. He craned his neck forward and straightened his collar himself, giving it sharp little yanks with each word. “I guess this is it.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t want you to come inside with me.”

  She looked past him at the sizeable front door. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” He gripped the handle of his bag and lifted it. “How long did you say you’d be in Piddock Beach?”

  “Two weeks, at least. I’ve rented the cottage for that length of time. After that, I don’t know.” Then, “Gary, don’t rush this, for either of us. I want you to stay here as long as it takes.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Or are you not sure whether or not you want me to come home at all?”

  Her eyes shot toward his. Was that her motive? Was Gary reading her, or merely trying to make her afraid? “That isn’t fair, Gary, saying that now. When we’re about to part.”

  “We won’t be talking by phone. They’ve said they won’t let me do that. We’ll be cut off—”

  “All the same, we won’t make assumptions today. It’s too soon.” At that moment, even the thought of letting him walk through the treatment-center door by himself terrified her.

  She guessed that he must have read it in her face. “You going to be okay?”

  “Yes.” And the rest went unsaid. I’m much better off now I know you’ll be taken care of.

  Gary didn’t move for a minute. Two minutes. He stood there in front of her, clutching his suitcase handle in both hands. The mist had thickened, enclosing them in an ever-dwindling circle. They were socked in. Somewhere in the distance, an osprey shrieked and its cry seemed muffled by the fog. Gary readjusted his grip on the suitcase. “I know I’ve hurt you, Aubrey. I know I’m not the man you married.” He surveyed the mist somewhere past her left shoulder, his lips set in a grim line.

  It was the perfect moment to encourage him, to say, Of course you are, Gary. You need to get well, is all. And I know you can do it for us. But Aubrey didn’t say those things.

  She had expected him to succeed in this battle so many times before. She’d had so much faith in him once. He’d guaranteed her that he’d change, and she’d applauded every time he promised to throw out his bottles and stop spending long hours at the clubhouse bar.

  Then, every time, he started drinking again and dashed her hopes.

  Aubrey just couldn’t get her hopes up anymore. She felt numb and cold and empty, especially with the children gone.

  Gary started toward the entryway, stopped, turned as if to catch one final glimpse of her. “You take care,” he mouthed across the way. He lifted his fingers, curled slightly, in half salute, half wave.

  He’s my husband. I should be sad that we’re part
ing. But I’m not.

  Aubrey stood hugging herself, feeling nothing. She didn’t wave back.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Aubrey unlocked the door to the little cottage room she had rented and fumbled along the wall until she found the light switch. When the light came on, she discovered a swaybacked bed and a television with the channel directory fixed to its top. Off to the right, a Formica-covered counter, a row of cabinets, and a two-burner stove constituted a kitchen. She dropped her room-key card on the dresser beside the plastic ice bucket.

  The place was chilly and cramped and smelled of mildew. Aubrey plopped her bag on the floor and turned up the heat. Then she stood in the middle of the room, rubbing her hands along her arms to warm herself, wondering what she ought to do with herself.

  Her dad would have long been asleep on his boat by now. She teased him for still keeping fisherman’s hours, “Up with the sun, out with the tide, roost with the seagulls,” she liked to say, hoping he would smile. After all these years, she still tried to invoke the humor he kept so carefully guarded. Her father had stopped laughing when his son died.

  Aubrey thought about phoning Emily to make sure the kids had arrived safely. When she checked her watch, she guessed they’d be in Emily’s Suburban headed toward Lancaster. If they asked to speak to Gary, she wouldn’t know what to tell them.

  Already, she would be caught in deception.

  She hadn’t moved from the center of the room. She hugged her arms again and stared at the empty wall. Loneliness washed over her with such force that it made her feel faint.

  What would she do all this time without the kids?

  Aubrey had often lamented how their activity never ceased around her. She always felt a step behind as the days kept shooting past. Just once, I’d like to finish a thought, she’d bemoaned. I’d like to spend just one day when life didn’t feel like a whirlwind around me.