The Last Night at Tremore Beach

by Mikel Santiago

  “He was . . . my college professor, but I’m surprised Dr. Ryan would recommend him.”

  The look on Judie’s face told me there was more to it. There was something like fear in her eyes.

  “I told her about . . .” I glanced at Beatrice and Jip, wondering if I should broach the subject now. “. . . about the dreams I had after the accident. She told me it might be a good idea to go see him. You think it’d be worth making an appointment?”

  “Maybe. But I think it’s a little early for such a drastic measure. Plus, it’s been a couple of weeks and you haven’t had any more of those nightm . . .” She stopped herself, looking at Jip and Beatrice. “. . . those ‘lucid dreams.’ Right?”

  I thought back on the last one, which I hadn’t told her about—where she was bound and held hostage in my piano in a pool of blood, moaning about a man who was coming for her. . . .

  “Ouch!” Jip yelped, as I dabbed his cut with iodine again.

  “Sorry, champ,” I said, turning back to Judie. “Well, I’m still having strange dreams. But nothing like the other time.”

  “Is it because of the lightning, Dad?” Beatrice said. She always managed to find out everything.

  Two days earlier, as we took a walk along the bluff, I’d told them the story in broad strokes, figuring they’d eventually hear it somewhere. I’d given them the stripped down version without all the morose bits (say, the part about me lying unconscious in a ditch for fifteen minutes). As far as the kids knew, Dad got out of the car to move a branch out of the road and a bolt of lightning struck “nearby” and “burned” him a little, the way someone might singe their fingers if they get too close to a candle.

  “Yes, my love, because of the lightning,” I responded, “but I’m feeling much better.”

  “Have you seen his tree-shaped burns, Judie? They’re pretty wicked.”

  “Yes, Beatrice, they’re pretty incredible. But they’re almost gone, aren’t they, Pete?”

  They’d faded almost completely.

  “And I’m sure the same thing will happen with the headaches. Still, if you want, I can put in a call to Kauffman and consult with him.”

  “No, forget about it for now,” I said. “Let’s give it a little while longer.”

  I took the bandage Judie had prepared and put it on Jip’s cut. Soon, Beatrice and Jip were back in the yard playing with the Frisbee, though I warned them to stay away from the very back of the yard, where the drain was. I made a mental note: Put something over that damn drain, which I’d promptly forget the next day.

  We finished cooking and the weather was so nice that we set the table on the terrace and ate by the late afternoon sun. Judie used the opportunity to catch me up on the outdoor movie night, which was just ten days away.

  “Everyone’s excited to hear you play. What do you think?”

  I’d thought it over and decided I could play Ennio Morricone’s Cinema Paradiso. It was a short piece I barely had to prepare for since I’d played it hundreds of times. Judie thought it was a good choice. She told me she’d secured a keyboard for the event. “That should work,” I said.

  “You might want to say a few words beforehand, too,” she said.

  “Like a speech?”

  “No, nothing that grand. Just a little introduction. ‘Hello, neighbors, it’s an honor to be here tonight,’ that kind of thing. You’re the only person among these two hundred or so people who’s ever been in a movie studio and talked to a famous director. They’re all eager to know what it’s like. Maybe just tell a couple of anecdotes, that’s all. Nothing too heavy.”

  After dinner, we all settled in for a movie, and Judie went home around midnight. I watched the taillights of her Vauxhall Corsa disappear over Bill’s Peak as I thought back on her strange reaction at seeing Kauffman’s name.

  He was my college professor.

  A sleep-disorder expert. And a girl who has terrible nightmares she won’t discuss.

  Well, I guess she’s not the only one.

  THE NEXT MORNING, something sparked a connection. We’d set out on a walk along the beach, Jip hunting for treasures, Beatrice chattering away. We reached the end of the beach, where caves had formed among the black rocks, and Jip’s bag was completely full of beach souvenirs, to the point where I’d started stuffing his finds in my pockets. Beatrice had started writing her name in the sand, B-E-A-T-R-C-E. . . .

  “Duh! You’re missing the ‘I,’ ” Jip said.

  “Okay, let’s see you write yours, if you’re so smart.”

  Beatrice chased Jip toward the rocks. He ran faster and faster—faster than I’d ever seen him run—as if real danger was nipping at his heels. I was laughing until I saw him headed for one of the rocky caves.

  “Jip!” I called out. “Hey, Jip!”

  But he was too far away, and the wind was blowing too hard for him to hear me. He’d accelerated and was six or seven feet ahead of his sister. He dove onto the sand and crawled into one of the tiny caves, which was too small for his sister to follow him into. She kicked sand at him, but he disappeared into the cave.

  The mouth of the tiny grotto couldn’t have been more than a foot and a half wide and the waves crashed near the opening. I got a sick feeling watching Jip disappear into that narrow blackness. I was almost sprinting by the time I got there. Beatrice was on her knees trying to see inside, but that damn cave swallowed every bit of light like a black hole.

  “Jip!” I yelled, realizing I didn’t care that I sounded mad and scared. “Get out of there, right now. It’s dangerous.”

  My voice reverberated inside the cavern, a short, staccato echo. And then, silence. I felt my heartbeat quicken. Beatrice looked at me without saying a word. I think we both realized something was wrong.

  “Jip, do what Dad says!” she yelled. “Get out of there!”

  I was afraid that maybe he’d found another way out that led to the jagged rocks on the other side of the rock formation. The waves crashed there in violent white water. I climbed over the treacherous rocks, shredding my bare feet, trying to find another way into that den.

  “Jip!” I sounded terrified now. “Can you hear me, son?”

  The whole range of awful things that could happen flashed before my eyes.

  I couldn’t see another way in so I climbed back down onto the beach. Beatrice had crawled into the opening as far as she could, and I crouched down next to her.

  “Can you see him?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I think I see him.”

  “Jip!” I yelled again. “Listen to me, son. Please come out of there. There are big waves on the other side and . . . I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  A few seconds later, Jip appeared out of the darkness, crawling back out the way he’d crawled in.

  The second he was out, I swooped him up in my arms, checked him over for cuts, and blanketed him in kisses.

  “What happened in there, son? Tell me . . .”

  But Jip didn’t say a word. He threw his arms around me and buried his face in my neck. He was shaking, and I felt the warmth of his tears coursing down my skin. I couldn’t understand what had happened. I’d witnessed the whole thing, his skirmish with Beatrice, the splashing, the chase. Nothing out of the ordinary between two quarrelling siblings.

  “He had one of his weird episodes,” Beatrice said. “It’ll pass. You just have to give him a minute.”

  “Weird episodes?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”

  “He gets them sometimes. Mom told the psychologist about it. But it’s nothing serious. He just gets quiet, as if he’s in another world. Sometimes he gets all sweaty and nervous. You just have to let it pass.”

  We went back home and I got Jip into a hot bath—“How are you feeling? Warming up yet?”—using the opportunity to lavish some attention on my poor boy.

  “Yeah . . .”

  The tub filled up to his belly, and gradually I felt Jip’s shivering subside. I continued soaping him up, taking his tiny ears be
tween my fingers, slippery like a pair of minnows.

  “What happened down there, son? Why were you crying?”

  Jip remained silent at first. It took almost a minute for him to speak. He scrunched up his face.

  “I was scared.”

  He nearly whispered it, like a secret he didn’t want anyone else to hear. I lowered my voice to match his.

  “Scared of what?”

  “Someone was coming. A monster.”

  “A mon . . . ?” The words caught in my throat. Don’t sound suspicious, Harper.

  “Who was it, son?” I said, finally. “Did you see its face?”

  “No . . .” Jip said. “I just . . . felt it. All of the sudden.”

  “When your sister was chasing you? It was just her behind you.”

  “Yeah. But there was something else, too.”

  “Something else?”

  I ran my fingers through his shampooed hair, taking the opportunity to kiss him on the head. And I remembered what my father had told me in Dublin: It’s passed down from parent to child.

  Why not? I said to myself. What makes you think you’d be the last one?

  “Has this happened to you before?”

  “Sometimes,” he said.

  “What is it you feel when it happens?”

  I rinsed the shampoo from his hair and Jip opened his eyes. He looked up at the ceiling as if trying to remember.

  “I’m afraid. Afraid that something’s going to happen.”

  “That something’s going to happen . . . to you?”

  “To me,” he said, playing with the soap suds, “or to somebody else.”

  “Like, who, for example?”

  “Mr. Elfferich, the security guard at school.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “His son died in a car accident.”

  “And you had a feeling something was going to happen to him.”

  Jip nodded.

  “Before it happened?”

  He nodded again.

  “Did you tell your mom about any of this?”

  He shook his head no.

  “Have you told anyone? The therapist your mom took you to?”

  I pictured poor Jip sitting in that therapist’s office, squirming in his chair to keep an unspeakable secret, as the psychologist probed with textbook questions that would never arrive at the truth.

  He shook his head again: no.

  “Does it happen to you, too, Daddy?” he asked.

  “I think so,” I said. “I never know when it’s going to happen, either.”

  “Is it bad?”

  Jip had opened his eyes wide, searching. He was listening intently now. This was a BIG QUESTION, in capital letters. Like, Is there a God? or Where do babies come from? I could see it on his face.

  “I don’t think it’s bad or good, Jip. It’s like having ears. Sometimes you hear something nice, like music. Other times, you hear things you don’t like, such as noise. I think that’s all it is. Neither good nor bad. We only perceive things.”

  One day, I’ll tell you about your grandmother and your great-grandmother. One day, when you’re older, I’ll explain a lot of things, son.

  “Okay.”

  “Whenever it happens, you can always talk to me. You can tell me about it, okay?”

  “. . . I will. So, can we fill up the bathtub a little more?”

  “Of course,” I said, turning on the faucet. “But you can’t stay in too much longer or your skin will get all wrinkly.”

  “Yeah, Dad.”

  We fell silent as I watched Jip shape the suds into sailboats. I was scared for him, as if a doctor had just diagnosed him with a rare and incurable disease. It was probably what my father had felt for my mother every day of her life.

  ON A SPLENDID Tuesday morning, I got a call from Leo and Marie that the O’Rourkes had invited us out on their sailboat with their children.

  The pier was five miles outside of town, in a lagoon where a dozen sailboats were docked. We drove out, and the O’Rourkes were already there with their twelve-year-old twins, Brian and Barry, who immediately turned their attention to Beatrice. She wore a wide-brimmed hat we’d bought at Judie’s and movie-star sunglasses. The twins immediately fell under her spell and argued over who would help her across the gangway. But Beatrice, who was used to hopping on and off of boats in Amsterdam, bypassed the whole scene by leaping onto the boat unaided, to the boys’ amazement.

  I hadn’t seen Frank O’Rourke since the night of my accident, so I took the opportunity to thank him for his help. He had been the one who found me and carried me to Leo’s car. Of course, Laura went on and on about how she had been the one to tell Frank what to do. Good old Frank just nodded, a case of Budweiser in his arms.

  We sailed along the coast, past a landscape of fabulous cliffs, vast salt marshes, and ancient watchtowers, lighthouses, and homes even more remote than my beach house. Marie, who’d spent her years in Northern Ireland bird-watching and reading about them in books, gave us a graduate-level review of all the local migratory birds. In the spring, she said, you could find birds that had traveled from as far as Africa and Canada.

  Laura and Marie were in the back of the boat on either side of Jip, who sat, strapped into his life vest, scouring the ocean with his binoculars for a glimpse of a dolphin or whale. The twins sat similarly on either side of Beatrice at the bow of the ship, trying to win her attention with stories and boating trivia. They must not be as boring as their mother, I thought as I watched Beatrice laugh with her new friends.

  Meanwhile, Leo, Frank, and I sipped our beers at the helm.

  “I’m trying to convince Leo to make the investment of a lifetime,” Frank was saying. “There’s this sailboat for sale right at the port where we dock. What about you, Harper? You interested in sailing?”

  I admitted it was something I’d always wanted to get into but had been too lazy to pursue. Frank encouraged me to take the plunge and even offered to give me lessons.

  “The season begins in May and ends in October. You have almost half the year to sail and there’s always wind in Donegal.”

  Frank left the wheel to ask his sons to give him a hand with the sails. He left Leo at the helm. I couldn’t help but think of that newspaper article I’d found. The temptation to probe further was irresistible, and this seemed a good moment to try.

  “Maybe it is a good idea to buy one of these,” I said, hoping to steer the conversation. “Have you been sailing long?”

  “A few years now. I learned in Thailand, but I’ve only ever sailed small boats. Twenty, twenty-two footers. Nothing as big as this. But dammit if O’Rourke isn’t giving me a taste for it,” Leo said. “What do you think, Pete? Should I blow the rest of my life savings on a boat?”

  “I think you’d better ask your wife first,” Marie chimed in, as she came over to find a soft drink.

  “So what does my lovely wife think?” Leo asked, pouting his lips for a kiss.

  Marie gave him a peck on the lips and caressed his shaved head.

  “I don’t think our retirement allows for that kind of luxury,” she said. “If you wanted a sailboat, you should have run off with that rich German heiress you met. What was her name . . . ?”

  “Okay, okay . . .”

  “You know he had a rich girlfriend, don’t you, Pete? She was a guest in one of the hotels in Dubai where he worked. She called him on the phone every day with some excuse to see him.”

  “Oh, she had big plans for me . . .” Leo joked. “I was a pretty good-looking guy. Maybe I should’ve given it a shot, huh? Run off with her? Maybe I’d have a big sailboat by now.”

  “And maybe I could’ve found myself a hunky aerobics instructor instead of a funny little old man.”

  “Who you callin’ old?”

  As they play-fought, I turned and let the ocean breeze blow through my hair and clear my mind.

  The last few nights, I’d had some free time, and I’d started playing around with online sear
ches again. In a way, I was ashamed of myself for continuing to snoop (and even taking the paranoid step of then erasing the search history on my MacBook for fear of someone finding me out). But the memory of that mysterious newspaper article hidden in a bookcase kept eating away at me. My second round of searches finally turned up something. I found a story about the Fury’s disappearance in an Australian newspaper’s electronic archives. But this one was more of a summary and didn’t include any pictures or a description of the missing couple. I couldn’t find any other record of the incident. The crew of the Fury seemed to vanish without a trace—or at least, no other newspaper had bothered to write about them being found.

  And then there was the painting of the baby by one J. Blanchard, hidden just as carefully. My mind spun some wild theories, but I tried to force myself not to go down that path. I’ve always hated gossip, and I didn’t like being the one spinning conspiracy theories about my friends. Whatever the explanation might be, it didn’t matter: Leo and Marie were two of the closest people in the world to me, like family, and I must refuse to pick apart their lives. I decided I wouldn’t Google them again. “Bad karma is like a termite,” Judie had told me once. “It burrows deep inside your mind and eats you from the inside out.”

  A few hours later, we came upon a pod of dolphins to the north, and we decided to follow them into the deeper water. It’s one of those moments that remains etched on my memory. I remember the feeling of standing on the bow of the ship with Jip, the wind and sea spray in our faces, as we yelled every time one of those magnificent creatures came to the surface alongside the boat. “Look, Daddy, look! There’s another one!” he cried, and I held him close to me, partly out of love for my son and partly out of fear of the endless blue sea.

  That night, as I cooked dinner, Beatrice showed up next to me in the kitchen with a look on her face that said, Ask me what I’m thinking.

  “Is Judie your girlfriend?”

  “My girlfriend?” I said as I moved the skillet over the gas burner. “She’s a friend. A very good friend.”