They’re the times she would sit at dinner, smiling, when I knew she wasn’t thinking about me. They’re the baby name books stacked for reading by the toilet, the crib mobile she bought three years ago and never unpacked, the finance charges on our credit card bills that keep me awake at night.
Just above the spot where I sign my name is a vow:
Yeah, I suppose I do.
I’d worship anyone and anything who could turn my life around.
In a way, I get along better with my sister-in-law than with my own brother. For the past two months, every time Reid asks me if I have a master plan, a goal to get back on my feet, Liddy just reminds him that I’m family, that I should stay as long as I want. At breakfast, if she cooks an uneven number of slices of bacon, she gives me the extra, instead of Reid. It’s like she’s the one person who really gives a crap whether I live or die, who either doesn’t notice that I’m a colossal fuckup or, better yet, just doesn’t care.
Liddy grew up with a father who was a Pentecostal preacher, but when she’s not acting all churchified, she can be pretty cool. She collects Green Lantern comic books, for example. And she’s totally into B movies-the more outrageous the better. Since neither Zoe nor Reid ever understood the attraction of this kind of pulp film, Liddy and I have had a tradition of going to a midnight showing each month, at a dive of a theater that does crappy-director film festivals honoring people you’ve never heard of, like William Castle or Bert Gordon. Tonight, we’re watching
Liddy always pays for my ticket. I used to offer, but Liddy said that was ridiculous-in the first place, she had Reid’s money to spend and I didn’t, and in the second place, I was keeping her entertained while Reid was at some client dinner or church meeting and so this was the least she could do. We always got the biggest bucket of popcorn-with butter, because when Liddy and Reid went out, he insisted on being heart-healthy. That was about as rebellious as Liddy got, frankly.
I’ve been out drinking three times this week-just a quick beer here and there, nothing I can’t handle. But knowing I was meeting Liddy for this movie is what kept me dry tonight. I don’t want her running back to Reid, telling him that I reeked of alcohol. I mean, I know she likes me and we get along, but she’s my brother’s wife first and foremost.
Liddy grabs my arm when the main character, Dr. Bennell, runs onto the highway at the climax of the film. She closes her eyes, too, at the really scary parts, but then demands that I tell her every last detail of what she missed.
We always stay for the credits. All the way to the end, when they thank the town that allowed filming. Usually, we’re the last ones out of the theater.
Tonight, we’re still sitting in our seats when the teenage boy with zits comes in to sweep the aisle and pick up the trash. “Have you ever seen the 1978 remake?” Liddy asks.
“It sucks,” I say. “And don’t even get me started on
“I think this might be my favorite B movie ever,” Liddy replies.
“You say that about every one we see.”
“But I mean it this time,” she says. She leans her head back against the seat. “Do you think they knew what happened to them?”
“Who?”
“The Pod People. The aliens. Do you think they got up one morning and looked in the mirror and wondered how they got to be that way?”
The kid who’s sweeping stops at our aisle. We stand up, walk into the dingy theater lobby. “It’s just a movie,” I tell Liddy, when what I really want to tell her is that no, the Pod People don’t ask what’s happened.
That actually, when you turn into someone you don’t recognize, you feel nothing at all.
Seventy-seven.
That’s how many days after filing the divorce petition I’d have to show up in court. That’s how long Zoe would have, after being served this summons by the court, to join me there.
Since I filed the divorce papers, it’s been hard for me to get back into the swing of work. By now, I should be putting up my flyers for plowing. I should be cleaning and storing my mowers for the winter. Instead, I’ve been sleeping in, and staying out late, taking up space in my brother’s house.
So when Reid asked me to help him by picking up Pastor Clive at Logan Airport the next morning after a red-eye from an evangelical conference at the Saddleback Church, I should have said yes immediately. I mean, it wasn’t like I was busy. And after everything Reid had done for me, the least I could do was repay him with time, if not money.
Instead, I just stared at him, unable to respond.
“You,” Reid said quietly, “are really something else, little brother.”
Liddy came up to the kitchen table, where I was sitting, and poured me a glass of orange juice. As if I needed any reminder that I was just a black hole in the middle of their home, sucking away their food, their money, their private time.
I may not have been able to say yes to my brother, but I couldn’t say no to her.
So now it’s dawn, and I’m fully planning on driving to Logan to meet the 7:00 A.M. plane arrival, but as I’m heading past Point Judith, I notice the waves. I check the clock on my dashboard. I’ve got my board and wet suit with me-they’re always in my truck, just in case-and I’m thinking that there’s no point in getting up this early if I’m not going to get in fifteen minutes of surfing on my way to Boston.
I pull on my wet suit, hood, and gloves, and head toward a bar that has proven itself in the past for me-a fairy godmother made of shallow sand that can take a long, low wall and turn it into a screaming curl.
Paddling out, I pass a pair of younger guys. “Jerry, Herc,” I say, nodding. Fall and winter riders are a unique breed, and we mostly know each other simply because there aren’t many people crazy enough to head out surfing when the water is fifty degrees and the air temperature is forty-one. I time it just right and catch a decent six- footer. On the way back out I watch Herc’s wave go vertical, see him skirt the inside break.
I can feel my triceps burning, and the familiar icy headache that comes from being slapped in the face by a freezing, teasing ocean. It’s harder to pull myself up on the board, easier to nod to the others to take that particular wave while I wait out the next one. “You sure, Gramps?”
I am forty. Not ancient by any means, but a relic in the world of surfing.
Except.
No sooner have I pulled myself upright and stuck my first turn than I suddenly lose my footing, tumbling backward. The last thing I see is the flat hull of my board, coming at me with lightning force.
When I come to, my cheek is pressed into the sand and my hood’s been yanked off my head. The wind has turned my wet hair into icicles. Jerry’s face slowly comes into focus. “Hey, Gramps,” he says, “you okay? You took a hard knock.”
I sit up, wincing. “I’m fine,” I mutter.
“You want a ride to the hospital? To get checked out?”
“No.” I’m bruised and battered and shivering like mad. “What time is it?”
Herc lifts up the neoprene edge of his wet suit to check his wrist-watch. “Seven-ten.”
I’ve been surfing for over an hour? “Shit,” I say, struggling to my feet. The world spins for a moment, and Herc steadies me.
“There someone we should call?” he asks.
I can’t give them the number of one of my employees, because I’ve laid them all off for the winter. I can’t give them Reid and Liddy’s number, because they think I’m picking up the pastor. I can’t give them Zoe’s number, because of what I’ve done to her.
I shake my head, but I can’t quite bring myself to say the words:
Herc and Jerry head back out one more time, and I walk slowly to the truck. My cell phone has fifteen
