Chapter THIRTY-THREE
Everyone needs a break every now and then, so Bill decided—after a rare and unusually loud argument with Clare—that he’d sit in the backseat for a while. Close his eyes. Let someone else help with the driving.
They’d been at the beach for hours. He could feel the sand in his shoes—why hadn’t he taken them off at the beach? He loved the feel of sand between his toes. But not in his shoes, not in his socks. What had they been doing on the beach fully clothed? Why hadn’t they been in the water? Mike and Nick clawing at him, trying to knock the old man down, squealing with delight and frustration when they couldn’t budge him. And flinging Marcy high in the air. Her nervous screams and giggles. The way she’d wrap her arms around his neck so tightly, her little wet body shivering fiercely.
The kids were growing faster than he realized. There wasn’t much room in the backseat, what with the boys next to him, Nick in the middle, Mike next to the window. They’d probably fought about that one. I call window, Nick would have shouted. Didn’t matter to Mike. He’d take the seat he wanted. Nick would appeal to his mother, but Bill would tell the two of them to work it out themselves, which meant Mike got the window. Might makes right. Law of the land. Nick would have to learn that sooner or later.
Clare was in the front seat, yelling at Marcy. Something was definitely wrong with Clare. Very unusual for Clare to yell. He’d stay out of this, though, just as he always did. Mother-daughter relationships were minefields. With the boys, sometimes all it took to end an argument was a look or a whack on the back of the head. Much, much easier.
But Clare was really laying into Marcy, and while he tried to concentrate on other things, he couldn’t help but overhear. What were you thinking? Do you know how much worry you caused me? Caused us all? Marcy must have gone out too far in the water. So who could blame Clare for being so angry?
But Clare wouldn’t let up. And Marcy, uncharacteristically, was staying quiet. Every now and then she’d pipe up: I was never in any real danger. It wasn’t like that. I needed the money to help get Grandpa home.
Grandpa?
The next beat of his heart shot blood up to his eyelids to open them. He saw a young girl’s profile. April’s profile.
April.
Funny how in one moment there is nothing and in the next there is something. A moment ago it was as if April was not there, never was, had never even existed. And suddenly she is there. She is. And in that same instant, Clare is gone and it was a dream, her presence so fleetingly real that he wanted to go back to sleep and never wake.
But he couldn’t close his eyes. He could barely breathe, for that matter. The blood still pounding in his ears drowned out all sound for a few minutes. His children were grown. April was in the front seat. His granddaughter, a bunch of pictures of her, a collage, all at once. She was singing. She was mouthing off. She was reading him something she’d written after he’d insisted. Something about hairy ears. Bill closed his eyes. He remembered her trying to convince him about how sometimes you have to go north to go west, or some such nonsense. April April April. He loved that name. He laughed.
You think this is funny, old man? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?
Leave him alone, Mom. Can’t you see? Can’t you tell?
Now you’re some sort of expert? You have no idea what your grandfather is capable of.
Hey, Marcy . . . would you mind keeping your eyes on the road? Maybe I should drive.
If I don’t drive, I’m likely to strangle the two of ’em. Maybe the two of you should do something instead of sitting in the back like a couple of turds.
No, it definitely wasn’t Clare. But it was music nonetheless. Bill tried to figure out how it was possible that he’d forgotten the sound of his children’s voices, the give and take, the sudden burst of anger . . . or laughter. How was it possible to miss it? They were right there. His kids. They, of course, didn’t appreciate what was happening. But eventually they would: crammed together in a crowded car, sniping at each other, wondering how many more miles to go before they got . . . where? No matter. It’d come in a second. But they’d appreciate it, he knew it. They’d look back on it and laugh when they grew up.
Bill opened his eyes. They were passing a semi. The person sitting next to him was a grown man. They’ve all grown up. Of course. But where in the hell were they?
He leaned forward and looked to his left. Strong-looking, good-looking men. Grown.
“You okay, Dad?” the man sitting next to him asked. Nick. That’s who it was. He saw in Nick—had he noticed it before?—Clare’s eyes, maybe a little of his chin.
“Beautiful,” he said.
He saw Nick’s brow crease. How could he explain? He looked at Mike, sitting next to Nick. Was it really Mike? Something seemed off. He looked . . . old. Tired.
Mike, or whoever it was, looked at him. He wasn’t smiling. But he didn’t look angry. Just . . . uninterested. Like he was there. Mostly just there.
Eternity gave Bill a headache. Father Somebody-or-other was trying to explain it to the class. Think of a planet. Size of the earth. But instead of oceans and continents and trees and mountains, it is a solid ball of metal. And imagine that every thousand years, a small bird from deep space flies to the planet and pecks at it. A single peck. Once every thousand years. Makes a tiny little nick, and a sliver of the planet, small as an atom, flies off into space. How many billions and trillions of years would it be before the planet was gone? Now, children: Those billions and trillions of years are just a small nick of time in eternity. And so, children, think: Where do you want to spend eternity?
McDonald’s.
Bill is surprised to see a cheeseburger on a yellow piece of paper in front of him. Fries spilling out of a red cardboard box onto the paper. A small red puddle of ketchup. Someone had been talking to him. One of his children.
You have to eat something.
April says you always eat at McDonald’s.
Do you want one of my onions?
“No!” April said loudly. Bill and everyone else looked at her. “He definitely does not want an extra onion.”
One of the men addressed her. “April, if he wants—”
“Trust me,” April said, cutting him off, not timid at all. Go, April! “You don’t want to be in a car with him after he’s had an onion.”
Music again. The laughter. He picked up his cheeseburger and started eating. He concentrated on the taste of the pickle. Couldn’t describe it. But he was here with his grown children, something he knew he had wanted but wasn’t quite sure why. Didn’t matter. They were talking, laughing. Bill felt the washing sensation come over him from the top of his head, sending a vaguely familiar and wonderfully warm feeling everywhere. He remembered the beach. He remembered Clare swimming up to him. Her smile. The way she wrapped her arms around his neck and the feel of her swimsuit breasts against his chest.
He saw Nick looking at him. “You want to say something, Dad?”
“Yeah,” Bill said. They all looked at him, holding a fry midair or a soda in hand or looking over the sandwich about to be bitten into. But he didn’t say a word. He just smiled.
Bill’s eyes snapped open. It was like all those moments he’d woken up and realized that it’s Saturday morning, after all, that he wasn’t out in a crowd wearing only his boxers, that he hadn’t moved out of his house, and that he wasn’t back in a foxhole missing a hand or a foot. He knew exactly where he was: in a car, with his family, and they were all heading home. His kids were talking to each other. Bill couldn’t hear much of what was being said, but it didn’t matter. Nobody was yelling. They were talking. They were together.
He felt the weight of his granddaughter next to him. He felt it was safe enough now to close his eyes again.
And then, suddenly, he was standing outside of a hotel of some sort. People were taking turns hugging someone, calling him Mike. But when Mike stood before Bill, Bill saw that it wasn’t Mike at all. He recognized this person—the name would come to him in a moment—but it definitely was not Mike.
“I’ll be in touch,” the man said. “And you press that button on your speed dial every now and then, okay?”
Manny! Of course it was Manny. Bill never did buy that malarkey about Manny killing himself with his service revolver. Not the Manny he knew, the Manny he shared a foxhole with, shared a winter with, shared a lifetime with. But now Manny was leaving.
“I never said this to you, and I wish I had,” Bill said, surprising himself, not sure where the words were coming from but knowing they were as true as anything he’d ever said in his life. “You stayed strong through some tough times with me. Makes me proud whenever I think of you.”
And then he turned and got in the car quickly, because from the look on Manny’s face, Bill was afraid Manny might start weeping or, god forbid, try to give him a hug.