Remember Me

by Deborah Bedford

  She’d forgotten that she existed for any purpose other than raising her children, keeping them safe.

  If I could ever get away by myself, I’d come back as good as new.

  Here she was, finally alone, missing them beyond measure.

  A heavy curtain hung in folds beyond the edge of the bed. Aubrey stepped forward with resolve and swept it aside. When it swung open, it revealed a sliding door and, beyond that, a patio bordering the dunegrass. Aubrey unfastened the lock, stood a moment with her splayed fingers smudging the glass.

  Aubrey trained her ears. She could hear the waves even through the door. They were breaking farther out, just beyond the jetty. It must be slack tide. The spit would be above water tonight and a gathering of harbor seals would be lolling in the sand. She wondered what it would feel like to go clamming again, to have the cries of the gulls awaken her in the morning.

  Maybe she’d drive over to the pier tomorrow and buy a shovel.

  At last, she threw open her patio door and took a deep draught of salt air. She stood with her eyes closed, loving the scent and the gentle rolling of the water. She realized now, for the first time in days, that she felt like she could breathe.

  With his hands shoved in his pockets, Sam picked his way through clumps of dunegrass toward the shore. The rental he’d found for them was adequate, nothing special, but it had a separate bed for him and Hunter, and the price hadn’t been bad. Hotels with NO VACANCY signs had sprung up everywhere.

  Sam counted himself lucky to have found anything on the beach.

  The way to the water was tricky from here, following faint trails through hedges of salal and the fragrant wild roses, down a steep bank of round stones worn smooth as pottery by the waves. He stepped over stacks of driftwood and tangles of kelp in the darkness, finally found the sand. He stopped there, rubbing the back of his neck as he gazed into a sky that had almost cleared, which boded well for the weather tomorrow. Only a few tattered clouds remained, fraying as they moved across the moon.

  As the stars began to come out, they reminded him of a earlier conversation with Kil. “Don’t tell me you believe in eternity,” the man who had begun to signify so much to Sam had said. They’d taken a seat on a narrow curb one night near Kil’s lean-to that doubled as his sleeping quarters.

  “Yes,” Sam had answered, cupping his knees with his hands as if to stand. “I do.”

  “The way I see it, preacher man, that makes you crazier than me.”

  “You want to see it?”

  “Say what? You got it in your pocket or something?”

  “Look up,” Sam remembered saying. They both lifted their eyes to the sky. “What do you see there?”

  Kil, with his back braced against the brick wall, had only grunted.

  “Where does that end?”

  “Got to end somewhere, preacher man.”

  “If it ends somewhere, then what’s on the other side?”

  As Sam stood remembering, thoughts of his congregation in Des Moines began to roll over him in pace with the rumble of the waves. Lester Kraft and his tendency toward scientific debate. Dottie Graham and her excitement over the care packages she’d sent for her son to share in the Army hospital. Grant Ransom and the confidences they’d shared. Sam ached at this loss. No matter what had gone between him and Grant, Sam missed talking with his friend.

  It hit Sam suddenly that it wasn’t the day-to-day responsibilities of Covenant Heights he missed. It was the faces of those he loved. He toyed with worry, did not let it overtake him.

  He’d asked questions of himself, and found he could be willing to accept what the Father had for him.

  It wasn’t the staff meetings or the decision-making or the way some held him in esteem at Covenant Heights that he pined for. It was being a part of Lester and Dottie and Grant and everyone else’s everyday lives. It was watching their faith growing through their own eyes, the stories they imparted to him. This was the treasure.

  Father, if someone besides me could pastor them better, pray better, lead them better than I can, help me to see it. Help me to love them enough to want that for them.

  If he’d thought there had been a magnitude of stars visible before, he looked now and saw the sky on an unfathomable scale. It had been years since he’d surveyed the heavens away from city lights. No doubt Lester could have discussed this completely. So many sources of light spread across millions of miles, so far away that years passed before they became visible. Between every star, Sam could see another.

  I’ll rest, if you want, Lord. I surrender my exhaustion to you. Only, show me how to be open to what you want from me here.

  A clicking of stones behind him told him he was no longer alone. Sam turned, saw a silhouette picking its way along the driftwood. A string of porch lights from the cottages backlit his visitor. Even shading his eyes with his hand, Sam could not see.

  “How come you’re standing out here?”

  “Hunter.”

  “You’ve been gone a long time.”

  “Just trying to soak up the ocean.”

  “Oh.”

  Hunter’s jacket was flailing in the wind. He turned to look at the waves, too. “You really like it here, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  The water slipped in scallops toward their feet. Hunter stepped toward the sea, as if his proximity to it would help him understand its odd allure to his uncle. Against the white arcs of the breakers, Sam could read the sullen slope of the boy’s shoulders, the angry slant of his forearms. Sam lifted a hand toward Hunter, reaching to clasp his shoulder, the bittersweet tenderness he’d found for his church flock transferring itself completely to this boy.

  But something stopped him from touching his nephew.

  Father, I don’t want to offer anything to Hunter that isn’t real. He knows me at my worst. He’ll see through anything I try to do if I’m not sincere.

  Sam’s fingers curled, uncurled, did not find their mark. His hand fell to his side.

  Somewhere in the distance a boat sounded its horn, mournful and deep. A spear of light from the Tillamook Head Lighthouse sliced across the water and played along the edges of the off-shore rocks.

  “I want you to know that you were right about me,” Sam said to his nephew’s back.

  The boy did not move. Sam waited, his eyes trained on the contour of Hunter’s hair where it came to a shaggy edge at the nape of his neck.

  “You were right, what you said to me in the car. About the things you overheard me say to your mother. I told her I wouldn’t consider spending time with you.”

  Slack tide must be almost over. The surf slid onto the sand and threatened the boy’s feet.

  “The most important thing is for you and me to be honest with each other.”

  Hunter zipped his jacket completely to his neck.

  “Your mother thinks I’m the one with all the answers. She’s always been wrong about that.”

  The boy finally turned. When he spoke, his words were almost lost in the tumble of the waves.

  “You loved my father, too, didn’t you?”

  And Sam nodded. “Yes. I did.”

  Aubrey watched the beam from the Tillamook Head Lighthouse sweep in a diligent circle across the bay. She twisted her set of wedding rings—the half-carat solitaire set in yellow gold, the matching narrow gold band—around and around the finger on her left hand. When she removed them with one easy tug and left them lying in her lap, Aubrey wasn’t sure exactly why she did so.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be married to Gary anymore. It was just that being married to anyone seemed a lot of trouble. It seemed fair somehow, a sort of trade for the nights she’d lain awake wishing he would come home or for the police call about the belligerent way he’d tried to slug them on the golf green or for the brave face she wore at the supper table for the children.

  She took off the ring because she wanted to walk around unfettered, unlabeled. She didn’t want to be prodded right now, or ma
de to bristle, or even made to move.

  Long ago, in the first month they’d been married probably, she’d had the rings welded together. Now Aubrey bore them inside the cottage, carrying them between her thumb and her forefinger, aloft and aware, the same way she’d carry a lit match. She found a box of foil in the little kitchenette. She ripped off a sliver, made a small case out of it, and tucked the rings inside.

  She’d read on the Internet how the packet would be perfectly protected on the bottom shelf of the freezer. She placed the packet there, exactly as specified. She straightened her spine in victory, closed the refrigerator door, and returned to the patio.

  There were people from the cottages standing by the water. She could hear male voices conversing. Although she tried to eavesdrop, she couldn’t make out their words as she stood squeezing her own bare hand, awash in guilt, feeling keenly that something was missing.

  Was it wrong to miss her husband with this longing, and wish herself free of him, too?

  Aubrey reminded herself that Gary had made his own choices. She reminded herself that she didn’t care.

  Hunter and Sam trekked together along the pier early the next morning and, although Hunter still walked three steps ahead of his uncle with his fists shoved inside his jacket pockets, he approached the morning with an air of acceptance. When Sam stopped to watch a crab boat pulling up its pots, Hunter stopped to watch, too. When Sam pointed out how the seagulls followed the crabbers, swirling overhead, their white tails flashing in the sun, Hunter observed the scene with slight interest. When Sam stopped to inquire of a weather-worn fisherman on the pier, “How’s the fishing going today?” and the man replied, “Fishing’s great, it’s the catching that’s bad,” Hunter joined in the genial laughter.

  It doesn’t take long on a pier to convince a man and a boy to hurry to a supply shop to purchase licenses and buckets and bait. “You ready to try your hand at this, too?” Sam asked, straightening from where he was standing at the railing.

  Hunter looked thoughtful for a moment. Then, “Well, I guess so.”

  When Sam pushed open the door to Piddock Beach Sporting Goods ten minutes later, an overhead bell heralded their arrival. It took Sam a few moments to get his bearing, so great was the clutter. Rows upon rows of sea kayaks dangled from the ceiling. Aluminum-handled fishing nets stood in barrels, arranged like giant bouquets. A queue of yellow squall hats stood next to an array of jelly-like jigging baits in brilliant oranges and greens and pinks.

  Sam picked up a tide table, a booklet provided by the shop, informing beachgoers of the time and measure of high tides and low tides, every day.

  They spent longer than they’d planned stocking up with supplies, one surf-casting rod that they’d agreed to share, a bucket, a plastic shellfish gauge, two tiny bait baskets to entice Dungeness crabs onto the sand, and a cardboard package of frozen squid. When it came their turn at the checkout stand, Sam slid their selected items toward the cash register. “Oh, and one more thing I almost forgot. We’ve got to have a clam shovel. I never did find one anywhere.”

  “Afraid you’re out of luck on the clam shovel, mister. Some lady come in and bought our last one, not more’n an hour ago.”

  Aubrey spent her day in Piddock Beach idly beach combing and exploring the tide pools she’d loved so much as a child. She speared the sand in likely places with her new clam shovel, and when she came up empty-handed every time, decided that she must have lost her touch.

  Aubrey took a short drive south mid-afternoon to Cape Kiwanda. She stopped at the Sea Basket on her way home and, in a great surge of nostalgia as she stood before her brother’s photograph, ordered a large green salad and hush puppies and a bowl of clam chowder to go. She ate her supper alone, sitting on the stoop of her open sliding door, vaguely aware of someone sitting a few patios over. She’d noticed them when she’d come in—a man and his teenaged son. Now there was a blaring television and some sort of hairy, big dog.

  When Aubrey stepped inside to discard her plastic salad bowl and the thin, disposable fork, she heard the guest down the way begin to strum his guitar. For long moments she listened, not understanding the music her neighbor was playing. It wasn’t a song exactly, just a formation of chords, an organic melody in which each note trended toward the next before it arrived.

  Then she understood; he was composing. It was quite a nice tune, actually.

  She returned to her door to hear more. She happened to glance in his direction at the same instant he rose and turned on the porch light against the oncoming dusk. He stood peering into his window and his features, made bright by the light from inside, were familiar. Aubrey let her breath out slowly. Her ears began to ring at the sight of his face.

  It wasn’t possible. Not possible that she would happen to look up and he would be here after all these years.

  But then, yes. Sam Tibbits had always come here, too. They had met each other here. It must be possible.

  She felt like she’d traveled back years in time. A childhood heart never forgets. He had been the only friend she’d ever had who she trusted enough to talk about everything.

  If I say something and it isn’t him, he’ll think I’m an idiot.

  When Sam Tibbits had kissed her the first time on the beach, her chest had constricted and her stomach had turned somersaults and she hadn’t been able to stop smiling for weeks.

  If I don’t say something and it is Sam, I will have missed my chance.

  When she stood, her knees were wobbly. She placed her hand over her heart because it felt like it might fly out of her chest. She counted each step as she crossed the grass.

  He turned from the window, picked up his guitar, and laid it against his lap. She hoped he wouldn’t stop messing around with it. The music had been nice. That was the thing that confused her, though; Sam had never played the guitar. She waited in full view, staring at him, thinking, If he recognizes me, he’ll say something.

  “Nice night,” she commented.

  “Sure is,” he said.

  Oh, this is ridiculous. It’s been too many years. It can’t be him! Besides, he’d look different by now, wouldn’t he?

  The kitchen light flooded out the window, formed a pool on the bug-encrusted fender of his car. In that pool of yellow, she saw the license plate, IOWA. That license plate made her brave enough to stay rooted to the spot.

  “Excuse me,” she said to him. “You might think I’m crazy . . . It’s probably because I’m in this place on vacation, reminiscing, but you look familiar. You look like somebody I used to know.”

  He stared at her, his eyes perplexed, his mouth in a quizzical smile. His hair was darker than she remembered. That’s when she noticed his hands still resting on the strings, his fingers broad and strong. His nails were as square as Chiclets. And she thought, I will never forget those hands as long as I live.

  She cocked her chin at him, tried to think of something she used to say. “Did you know that a crocodile can’t stick out its tongue? Or that a snail can sleep for three years?”

  Without taking his eyes from her, he laid the guitar aside. “Aubrey? Oh my word, Aubrey? Don’t tell me it’s you!”

  She nodded.

  He sprang from the chair, jumped off the patio in an instant, and hauled her into an embrace. His guitar fell over and made a hollow clatter on the deck. Sam didn’t notice. He held her at arm’s length and examined her face.

  Questions began flying, piling up one on top of the other, from both directions at once. “What are you doing here?” “How long has it been?” “What have you been up to?” “How have you been?” “It’s crazy, isn’t it?” “I thought it was you!”

  They drew slightly away, stood clasping each other’s elbows, studying each other’s faces. Sam’s eyes had narrowed with mirth. Aubrey shook her head with joy. “We’re both talking at once,” she said. They started laughing at each other and couldn’t stop.

  All those questions they’d asked, and neither had answered a word!

>   “You look good, Aubrey,” he told her.

  She wrenched one arm away from his and smoothed her hair, suddenly conscious of how she must appear. She wasn’t old exactly, but she wasn’t young anymore, either. Of course, she’d added a few telltale pounds. The years she’d spent in the sun on her father’s fishing boats could be read in spots that passed as freckles, but were not.

  But none of it mattered, she realized as she tucked a strand of hair behind one ear. What difference did it make? She didn’t look at him and see a grown-up. She saw a boy, and his smile made her fourteen again.

  “So do you,” she said, and meant it. “Sam, you look good, too.”

  “Thanks,” he said, still studying her. “Wow.”

  “I agree. Wow.”

  “Oh, man,” he said, his eyes still bright. “Where did you come from? Aubrey, do you live here?”

  “No, I don’t. Not anymore.”

  “Well, then—”

  “I’m staying in one of the units.” She pointed. “Three doors down.”

  His gaze followed her gesture. “I can’t believe it.”

  “I know.”

  “Wow.”

  “I know.”

  They’d run out of words. The joy of recognition slowly mellowed, followed by an awkward pause that neither knew how to breech. Dunegrass rustled at their feet.

  She stepped backward and straightened her sleeves.

  He smiled at her and had no idea what else to say.

  “If you don’t live here,” he asked at last, “then what are you doing?”

  “I’m just . . .” She stopped, knowing that now wasn’t the time to tell him the truth; to do so would seem a betrayal to Gary. Sam had been someone she’d trusted years ago. He was a stranger now.

  “I’m just traveling through.”

  “I see.”

  “How about you?”

  She saw a shadow cross his face but, before she could read it, the expression was gone. “Same thing as you.”