Autumn Evening
 She came straight from the airport and arrived at his Wildwood cottage in the early evening of a warm, glorious Indian summer day.
“You must be all jet-lagged,” he said. “How long was the flight from Amsterdam?”
“Almost eight hours,” she said, “Can we go to the beach or something? I want to get out. I still feel all closed in. It’s been so long since I’ve been down here, too.”
“Let me take you to my favorite evening spot. It’s really beautiful. And you get the late sun, you know?”
“Good. I could use it. It doesn’t get really hot over there much. I missed the heat here.”
“How long was it?” he asked. “How long were you there? I lost track.”
“Almost six years. God, it seemed like we’d just got settled when it all happened. Where does the time go? It was so nice and then that.”
“I know,” he answered. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come. I really wanted to.”
“I know. But you had your life. And you were there before. Don’t worry. You’ve been a good brother. Now we’re all we have left for each other.”
“Yeah. We’re orphans together,” he said. They laughed, softly. “Come on. You’ll love this spot.”
In the parking lot, she said, “That’s the lighthouse, right?”
“Yep. Hereford Inlet Lighthouse. It goes back to the 1870s, I think. But it’s the gardens that I want you to see. They’re like old English country gardens, sort of all over the place, but when you see them altogether, they’re actually breathtaking. I know the guy who does them. He’s really an artist. Sometimes when I’m here by myself and it’s quiet and I’m listening to Bach or somebody on my Walkman, I think he’s a genius. This has to be the most wonderful place on the island. Exquisite, you know? Like sort of a hidden treasure.”
They were alone there, and the gardens were brilliant in the late sun. Monarch butterflies fluttered through on their fall migration north, and the birds had begun their soft evening songs, adding somehow to the quiet, which was palpable, an actual presence. The world was at one with itself, as if time had slowed to the measure of the light breeze that barely rustled the slowly nodding flowers.
They walked idly, letting their feet take them, and all about them was the silent rapture that the garden could become, each step a further revelation in color and shape and natural design, abetted invisibly by the hand that had guided it. He let the garden’s inner delight again descend on him, while she was newly enraptured, softly struck, awed. She named aloud some of the flowers: holyhocks, day lilies, nicotiana, nasturtium, snapdragons, foxgloves.
He was impressed. “Wow, you know all these.”
“Not all. It’s amazing, really. Do you come here a lot?”
“I do. It’s such a good way to end the day.”
They made their way around the lighthouse and he led her through the small spice garden, and then through the arbor of low trees and shrubs that formed a green tunnel along the board path that led out of the gardens to the sea wall that runs along the inlet.
“I usually sit here for a while,” he said.
They sat on a bench. In front of them was a small lake formed by the tides and beyond that Hereford Inlet stretched past Champagne Island to Stone Harbor in the distance. The ocean was off Stone Harbor, endless. Seabirds sailed to and fro, gulls calling shrilly into the evening air as they made ready for the night. The slight breeze was cooler now.
In front of them was a stone marker with the inscription: “In memory of all those lost at sea.”
“Maybe it would have been better if he’d just been lost that way,” she said.
“It must have been so hard,” he said. “Knowing how it would end.”
“Yes and no. We were able to plan it all: the plot, the coffin, the service. He was involved in everything. I think it gave him some comfort.”
He looked away, then back at her. “You both showed so much courage,” he said.
“Not me, really. He was more than brave. He was almost holy toward the end. He was so much my husband then. We were so close. We shared the last of his life together. It was kind of amazing, now that I think of it. We were almost one those last few weeks. But now, now I worry that I could have done more, made it easier for him. I keep thinking about it.”
“Don’t,” he said. “You did all that could be done. I know you. Don’t even think that.”
“I guess so. But I do, you know.”
“Yes. That’s you, too.”
They sat in silence then, the sea sound a constant echo of itself punctuated by bird cries. The first russet streaks of sunset showed against the blue of the sea and sky.
Presently, she turned to him and said, “Would you mind if I sat here by myself for a while?”
“Of course not,” he answered. “I’ll walk in the gardens.”
When he came back, he paused in front of her before sitting down. Then he said, “You look different somehow. What’s the word? Transcendent. That’s it.”
She smiled at him, and indeed she did look different, as if a weight had somehow been removed.
“Let me tell you what just happened,” she said. “It was amazing. I’m still not sure it happened. I was just sitting here. I was crying a little bit, you know? After a while, this young couple came along with their little daughter. She couldn’t have been more than three years old. Blond. Beautiful, actually. She was wearing a white sundress and she looked to me like a little blond angel.
“The parents said hello and kept on walking, but the little girl stopped and looked at me. Then she said, ‘Why are you crying?’ Her voice was so clear, like a little bell. I said I was sad and she nodded her head like she understood. Then she came over and put her hands on my knees and looked me right in the face. ‘He’s all right now. Don’t worry,’ she said. Then she skipped away; she actually skipped after her parents.
“And my heart kind of skipped then, too, and then I understood deep inside of me, and now I feel so different, so much better.”
“I know,” he said. “Like I said, it shows.”
“And I still don’t know if was real or not,” she said. “But if you look way down there, you can still see them. You can see her little white dress.” She pointed.
He looked and he could see a small white dot, bobbing along the sea wall. Then it disappeared. |
