It was 4:00 in the afternoon, the bright sun at his back as he walked through the sand dragging a folding chair behind him. April weather at the beach was an ethereal thing. Fickle and indecisive. Just warm enough at times, then too cool whenever a cloud covered up the sun. But these days Henry was always cold. Despite the sunshine, he was dressed for winter with his fleece-lined khakis, flannel shirt, baseball windbreaker and an ancient Red Sox cap pulled low over his eyes. An unruly spray of hair bulged from under the hat like silver straw. When he was a younger man it had been wavy black and on a day like this it would have been shining in the glare of the sun. Now his shoulders sagged, his back was humped by arthritis and his knees and hips screamed with every step he took. Eighty-three summers on this beach had taken a toll.
The beach was empty. This wasn’t a spring break destination. There were no hotels, no boardwalk and the closest pier was seven miles south. This was that rarest variety of real estate, an undeveloped beach front neighborhood made up of 100 year old homes owned by stubborn third generation families with no patience for developers who all knew the price of everything but the value of nothing. So Henry had the beach largely to himself at low tide on this Saturday afternoon at 4:00. He saw the spot where the fluffy sand leveled out at the water mark of high tide. He sat his chair down at the line and lowered himself in as his joints ached and cracked under the strain. From where he sat there was nearly a football field’s distance to the water, a distance that would be closing over the next six hours. It was Henry’s intention to bear witness, to watch the lunar magic play out in front of him on this evening. The moon would be up by the time the water reached his feet.
He glanced in each direction up and down the beach. There was a mother in a chair anxiously keeping watch over two children at the water’s edge 200 yards to the north, one couple walking hand in hand south of him almost out of sight. It was exactly what he wanted on this day, to be alone with his memories.
He watched the curl of the small waves in the distance, listened to the soft roar of them. It was calm today, the water behind the waves as still as glass. What wind there was drifted into his face from the vast sea in front of him. Directly due east a few thousand miles were other old men staring back at him from the beaches of Morocco, something Henry thought about a lot. Were the North Africans different from him? How different could they be? They all had beating hearts. But, Henry’s Dad had died in the sands of North Africa the year after he was born, staining the life of his son by his absence. When Henry was a boy he would stare across the ocean and wonder if his dad would one day appear, walking on the water. Today he closed his eyes and pictured the faded green photograph of the man that sat on the mantle of his fireplace. Soon, they would meet each other in heaven, if heaven was a place, something that Henry doubted more with each passing day—and if it was real, he doubted very much that he would wind up there. The odds were long and getting longer. Too many mistakes, the ledger of his transgressions too long. Nothing to be done about any of it.
He watched the sandpipers flitter this way and that, their long brown beaks plucking at the sand. He saw the crabs popping out of their dens, darting across the sand in their ancient dance. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the girl weighed down with her bags, a chair and two towels hanging from her neck. She wore a large-brimmed straw hat. She had a little white thing hanging from her ear which she reached for with her one free hand as she dropped her gear on the sand abruptly less than ten feet from him. To Henry’s consternation, this stranger had apparently decided that out of the several square miles of sand presented to her on this Saturday afternoon, the spot right beside him would do perfectly. She unfolded her chair, removed the towels from her neck, folding one around the back of her chair, laying the second flat on the sand in front of the chair. Then she sat about removing things from two large bags and placing them on the towel, a paperback, the largest water bottle Henry had ever seen and a small insulated bag which appeared to contain food. Finally she removed her flowing floral robe, her ridiculously large hat and extended her hand to Henry.
“Hello there! My name is Amanda and this is my first day here. You don’t mind me sitting here with you, right? Looks like we’ve got the whole beach to ourselves, right? Anyway, I’ve always found that everything is more fun with other people, don’t you think?”
Henry stared at her in silence thinking a great many things, but saying nothing. If he was going to say something, he would have said that in his experience, nothing was made better or more fun simply by the presence of other people. If anything the opposite was true, particularly when the activity was being alone on the beach with your thoughts.
“You know, I came here years ago when I was a kid but I barely remember it. You might know my Uncle…Bill Sinclair? Uncle Bill and Aunt Becky are out in California visiting my cousin—their daughter who just had her first baby, can you believe it?! Oh, they are so excited, anyway they asked me if I would house sit for them for a couple of weeks and since I’m in the middle of my gap year well here I am!”
This proclamation was made with a beaming smile, as if she had just won the lottery, or found a cure for cancer or something, so throughly delighted was she in her great good fortune. Henry remained in a muted condition, partly because of the novelty of having a babbling twenty year old invading his personal space and partly because her habit of speaking in one run-on sentence after another left him little room to interrupt.
“What was your name again?” She asked
“I didn’t say.” Henry finally spoke.
Amanda continued undeterred.
“Oh isn’t this just the loveliest view? And its so warm today. I didn’t expect it will be so nice in April and I had the hardest time packing, didn’t know if I should pack for cold or hot, but this is absolutely perfect.”
She walked down to the water’s edge as Henry watched, trying to decide what to do. She was wearing a conflicted outfit, a pair of sweatpants and a bikini top. Her skin was bright and creamy white with freckles dotted all over her arms and face. Henry thought that if she didn’t put on powerful sunscreen, and soon, she would burn to a crisp. It didn’t surprise Henry at all that Bill Sinclair would have this girl as a niece. The Sinclair’s were from a long line of wealthy artistic types from Massachusetts, none of whom had done an honest day’s work since Jimmy Carter had been in the White House. They frolicked on this beach all winter, then flew back to the Cape as soon as it got too hot for their delicate sensitivities. Worthless, third generation trust fund family. And now this girl shows up here on this of all days and just has to sit right next to him talking about gap years. What the hell was that? Henry asked out loud. He watched her run back from the waves and thought that she couldn’t possibly be a day over 21.
Amanda threw herself on her blanket and opened her paperback. Henry entertained the hope that reading would occupy her thoughts, but his hopes were soon dashed by a word salad outburst.
“So, man with no name, are you familiar with the novelist Pat Conroy? I am on something of a Conroy kick lately, I’ve read The Water is Wide, The Great Santini, but now I’m finally plowing into The Prince of Tides and honestly I think this may be the most beautiful, tragic and mind-blowing thing I have ever read, and I can’t believe I didn’t start with this one, which is what my friend told me to do, but The Water is Wide is about a teacher and since I think I might want to be a teacher after college I thought I would read that first.”
“Henry.”
Amanda looked at him, squinting through the sun. “Excuse me?”
“My name is Henry.”
She sat up, turned towards him and beamed, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Henry.”
Henry glanced at her, incredulous at her unreasonable cheerfulness. “I wouldn’t jump so easily to that conclusion, young lady. For all you know I might be an ax murderer or a serial rapist.” Henry thought perhaps if he tried to startle her with the possibility of violence it might make her rethink her decision and move along.
“A girl like you shouldn’t just walk up to a strange man alone on a beach.”
She laughed, a collegiate giggle that had the effect of lighting her face up like a firefly. “I’m willing to take a chance that you are not an ax murderer. Actually, the very idea of it makes me laugh, but I appreciate your concern for my wellbeing—but I’m tougher than I look.”
Henry looked away towards the water. She was as frail as a waif on the streets of a Dickens novel.
“I love the name Henry,” she continued undeterred, “You know a lot of the old school names are making a comeback these days, names like Henry, Charlie, and George and I think its wonderful…”
As he listened to her go on and on it occurred to him how vast a chasm existed between her and him, Amanda with her inexhaustible appetite for spoken words, for giving every idle thought that entered her head wings to fly, and him with his deep desire for quiet, words being the agent that kept drawing him back into the world.
“Nevertheless, perhaps you should wait to determine how pleasurable this meeting with me turns out to be before declaring it pleasant without any evidence.” Henry felt more comfortable speaking to her while looking at the ocean, her face being far too incandescently innocent for his taste.
“Can I ask you a question, Henry?”
“Its may I ask you a question, “Henry corrected the child, “As long as I am under no obligation to answer.”
“Fair enough,” She smiled. “Why did you place your chair so far from the water?”
“In the vain hope that it might discourage others from sitting right next to me.”
“Oh, you don’t mean that Henry. Look at how much fun we’re having!”
Amanda had arrived the night before after having driven straight through from Boston. By the time she crawled into bed it was nearly 2:00 in the morning. She had slept until noon, then visited the Piggly Wiggly for some fresh fruit. Now she began removing lunch from her bag. Hard boiled eggs, saltines with Monterey Jack cheese and sliced strawberries. Out of a small cooler she removed a Michelob ULTRA and immediately slid it into a Penn State insulated sleeve. She popped a strawberry in her mouth and began raving about how delicious they were and how everything tasted better at the ocean. Henry watched it all unfold in front of him like an anthropologist who had stumbled upon a member of a long lost civilization in the Brazilian jungle. As he listened to her constant chatter he couldn’t help being impressed by her sunny disposition. But surely she would eventually gather her things and head back to Bill Sinclair’s far too large and ostentatious house, long before the arrival of high tide. Henry would have to let her talk herself out and leave him to it.
There was nothing left for Henry and he was worn out. There didn’t seem to be a point after the four score mark. Watching this young girl’s boundless enthusiasm and energy had driven the point home—life was for the young. This was her world, not his. At least not any longer. He had his run, his time in the sun. Now he couldn’t get warm, no matter how many clothes he put on.
“Where are my manners?” Amanda blurted out after a minute or two of silence. “Would you like a beer? I have extras.” Then she fished it out of the cooler and handed it to him without waiting for an answer. Henry took it without a reply, cracked it open and took a hesitant taste.
“What the hell is this?” He asked, turning the can around and holding the bottle at arm’s length trying to make out the name. “Its bloody awful.”
Amanda giggled again. “Its a light beer. A girl has to watch her figure you know. And funny, you don’t look or sound British. What’s with the “bloody”?
Henry took a second sip of the troublesome brew and answered abruptly, “Not that its any of your business, but my wife was British. I picked it up from her.”
“Was? I’m sorry Henry. Did she pass?”
“Seven years ago, today.”
Amanda’s expression changed in an instant. She sat her beer on the blanket, closed the paperback in her hand and removed her hat. “I’m so sorry Henry. How long had you two been married?”
Henry glanced down the beach where he saw the walking couple returning, still holding hands. “A long time.” He finished the beer in a healthy gulp, thinking it to be the sorriest excuse for a beer he had ever drank. He squeezed the empty can in his hand until it was misshapen then folded it in half and tossed it onto Amanda’s blanket, surprised by a sudden wave of emotion that brought tears to his eyes.
“I can’t imagine how heartbreaking it would be to lose someone you loved for so long.” She drew her knees up close to her chest and wrapped her arms around them tight.
“It wasn’t my finest hour,” Henry spoke to the ocean, while watching the couple getting closer. “But you get over it and move on, just like with everything else.”
“And yet, even though she died seven years ago, you still remembered the date.”
“Its not the sort of thing a person forgets.”
Henry watched the couple stop at the edge of the water directly in front of him to embrace. Amanda saw them and couldn’t resist a sentimental outburst. “Oh, isn’t that the sweetest thing, Henry. Look at them…so in love.”
“You know no such thing,” Henry declared. “You think every couple who kisses on the beach are in love, do ya?”
“Don’t you?”
“Hell no! For all we know he might be cheating on his wife with this woman, while his wife is back home taking care of his children. Besides, I’ve always been suspicious of people who kiss in public.”
Amanda grinned shyly, “I wouldn’t exactly call this…in public. There’s hardly anyone here! You should be less cynical and give them the benefit of the doubt. They look happy to me and seeing them kiss makes me happy too. What’s not to like?”
“If you like kissing so much why didn’t you bring your boyfriend down here with you?”
“Because I don’t have a boyfriend at the moment.”
“Why not? You’re the age for it.”
“I haven’t found my soulmate, yet. But I know he’s out there.” Amanda opened her book and took a sip of her beer.
The knot that had risen in Henry’s throat and the surge of surprising emotion were gone now as the couple made their way north. He watched Amanda as she read her book then heard himself asking her for another one of her awful beers. She reached into her small cooler and pulled a cold can out and flipped it to him.
“So how come a little thing like you brought multiple beers out here to the beach by yourself. You got a drinking problem? How many of these things you got in there?”
“I always plan on company coming along, Henry…and its a good thing I did, don’t you think? Besides, I thought you said they were ‘bloody awful’?”
“They are. I’m thirsty is all.”
Amanda settled in with her book, laying on her stomach, her feet tangled in the air behind her. As Henry watched her sipping her beer and curling her auburn hair in circles around her finger it startled him how much she reminded him of Adeline the summer they had met. Same hair. Same attitude.
Several minutes passed as she read and Henry dreamed of the day he met his wife in a bar at Fort Benning, Georgia in 1966, two weeks before he was to be shipped out to Vietnam as an Army Ranger. He saw her walk in and was instantly attracted and intimidated by her evervescence. He watched her confident stride and sunny smile, then was startled to see her making a beeline for the empty bar stool next to him. She plopped herself down and said, “You’re a Ranger! Hello. My name is Adeline, what’s yours, Lieutenant?”
Henry hadn’t waited to be drafted. He had enlisted, chose the Rangers. From the very beginning his military career had been one where the primary motivating assumption was that he would not survive Vietnam. This outcome seemed right and proper to Henry. His life had been a joyless slog filled with inexplicable sadness up until the day he had found structure and purpose in the crucible of basic training. Dying a soldier’s death seemed fitting to Henry because it would unite him with the great void of his life, his father. He was determined to end what had been his melancholy existence with a noble ending, a brave and valiant death. But then, this angel from heaven had sat down next to him and ruined his plans. Theirs had been a whirlwind romance, two weeks of infatuating tenderness, the first meaningful and emotionally fulfilling sex of his life, and by the time he shipped out he had found a reason to survive. Meeting her had made him a better man, but a far less lethal soldier. Despite being shot twice, he survived two tours of duty and made it home to Adeline.
Now he watched the girl, engrossed in her book as the forward edge of the waves crept closer.
“That’s why you haven’t got yourself a husband, you know that. Right?” Henry spoke to the waves.
Amanda looked at him with yet another smile. “Why’s that? Because I read?”
“Writers like Conroy will put notions in your head like that soulmate nonsense.” This time Henry looked at her as he spoke, paying closer attention to her eyes, so familiar, so much longing. “There is no such thing as a soulmate. Loving somebody is hard work. You stay with someone all your life because of a decision of the will, not some sentimental hogwash notion of finding your soulmate.”
Amanda tossed her book aside and sat crossed-legged on the blanket facing Henry. “Well, aren’t you just an old romantic? Tell me about your British wife. How did you meet?”
“In a bar.” Henry answered. “Not romantic at all.”
“In England?”
“Fort Benning, two weeks before I shipped out to Vietnam.”
“Are you kidding?” The setting sun lit up Amanda’s face. She shaded her eyes against its glare. “That’s terribly romantic! You met her and got married in less than two weeks?”
“Absolutely not.” Henry snapped. “We weren’t idiots! We dated for two weeks then she gave me her address before I shipped out and we wrote each other letters while I was away. When I returned to the States, I tracked her down and after a while we got married.”
“That’s so beautiful,” she sighed. “Did you have children?”
“One son.”
“Where does he live?”
“He’s dead.” Henry noticed the waves spilling closer.
Amanda lifted her hand to cover her mouth. “I am so sorry Henry. Forgive me for asking so many questions.”
Henry was quiet for a while as the sound of the incoming tide got louder. The awkward moment had finally silenced the girl, who was now wrapping a Nittany Lions towel around her shoulders. The setting sun had turned the slight breeze chillier.
“He was in a personnel carrier coming back from a patrol in Afghanistan when the vehicle ran over an IED. Killed my boy and two other men.” Henry had never spoken the words to anyone.
Amanda said nothing, suddenly transformed into a listener. Her heart was in her throat as he continued. “Adeline didn’t want him to be a soldier. Neither did I. But it was hard to argue with the boy when it had been exactly what I had done as soon as I had the chance. When he went over there to that hell-hole I had a feeling that he wasn’t coming back. I think that Adeline knew it too. She talked about having premonitions because of what happened to my father in WWII. Of course, it didn’t help that I had made the mistake of telling her about my plans for becoming a Ranger all those years ago…that before I met her I was planning on a kind of suicide by war courtesy of the United States Army. Sometimes when you start baring your soul to someone you love, you wind up living to regret it. Well, she never let me forget it the whole time Eddie was over there, these premonitions. Truth is she never fully recovered from losing him. It was a heavy load on her up until she passed.”
It was now dark and the waves finally reached the tips of his shoes. He stood up slowly and took a few tentative steps forward. The water was cold. He closed his eyes, pushed the air from his lungs then inhaled deeply. Opening his eyes, he saw a sliver of a moon rising in the eastern sky.
He had spent over eighty years obsessed with finding the right way to live his life, but given much less thought to how it should end. What was a good and proper time to die? Shouldn’t a man choose the day instead of being surprised? The worst possible ending would be a pitiful last gasp in a hospital bed, shriveled to 90 pounds by cancer, alone and forsaken. No, this was the way. He would die on this beach, in this water that had sustained him all of his life. There was no one left to mourn and no one left to mourn him. It was time.
He kept walking towards the deep. He felt his heart beating. Though he was resolute, he was also afraid. There was so much mystery in the mix of death. What was on the other side? Was there peace, the raging flames of hell or merely the darkness and emptiness of nothing? Would he see Adeline and Eddie? Would he meet his father? One icy step followed another. Then he heard her voice. She stood as still as a stone despite the waves, the towel around her shoulders wet along the bottom edges, the straw hat held firmly in both hands.
“I never figured you for a coward, Henry.” It was Adeline’s voice. “This? This is how you will die? Shameful!”
Henry saw Amanda’s face, her auburn hair, the freckles on her skin. He turned towards the shore but saw no chair but his own.
“Is it not enough that our son was taken so young? Was it not enough for you to lose your father in the war? You are 83 Henry, not a hundred and three. Have you nothing left to give, no further purpose to your remaining days? Arthritis isn’t cancer. Aches and pains are no justification for this!”
Henry was suddenly furious. “You think I’m doing this because I’m tired and old?! You call me a coward and maybe I am…but since you died there’s no reason to go on. I thought my grief would fade and pass with time, but it hasn’t. I’m lonely, Addie. I wake up every morning and my heart is empty. I just can’t face it anymore. I’m tired of fighting.”
She stepped closer to him, reached out for his hand. “Then, find something worth fighting for you old fool. You are an amazing man with a pure and tender heart. You know so much about this world, you have a mountain of knowledge to share if you would just find someone who needs help. You need to get over yourself, love.”
Henry noticed her face changing, its color and shape quivering smoothly, the cream clay of her face shifting from Amanda to Adeline. The sounds of the waves died down as he looked deeply into her eyes.
“There is a girl here. She just arrived today. She’s staying at the Sinclair house. She told you she was on a gap year from Penn State when the truth is that she dropped out. She told you she was house sitting when in fact her parents kicked her out and her Uncle is her last resort. She is deeply troubled, she suffers with a mild form of schizophrenia. If you weren’t feeling sorry for yourself right now you would be ideally suited to help her. She has been dumped on your very doorstep. You could help her, come along side her, use what used to be that big heart of yours to comfort her. But no…here you are walking into the Atlantic Ocean like a spoiled child. You are not the giant of a man that I married. Henry…this isn’t you!” Then the vision melted into the salty air, leaving Henry alone in knee deep surf.
Henry finally made it back to the house by midnight, freezing cold and hungry. He took a warm bath, heated up some tomato soup and fell asleep in his easy chair trying to make sense of his visions.
He surprised himself by waking up early, just as the sun was rising over the water. It had been a dreamless night, also a surprise. His last thought before drifting off was the same as his first thought of the morning, the one thing that Adeline had said in the water that had hurt him—that he was no longer the man she had married. Henry never thought of himself as noble in any aspect of his life outside of the fact that he was Adeline’s husband. It was the one role where he felt secure and proud. As he stared into his bathroom mirror he wanted nothing more than to become that man again, the sort of man who Adeline would love.
He dragged his chair through the sand. The beach was empty on this Sunday morning. The wind was calm, the water the green shade of sunrise. He saw the one chair down by the water’s edge with the Penn State towel draped over the back. He made his way through the hard packed sand, dragging his chair behind him, shuffling along quietly until he was by her side. He smiled down at her. “Would you mind some company?”
