A Cup of Normal (21 page)

I wrote this during a class at the Oregon coast. The assignment was to incorporate the setting of the ocean into a story. Somehow life and death got mixed in there too, and the meaning of family, love, and loss.

FISHING THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

Morning came over the hills of Devil’s Bay
like a long exhale, the pale light caught gold by shore pines. Sadie was already on her side of the beach, the heavy fish bucket sloshing water down her clamming boots and staining the sand pewter.

Salt air came into her nostrils cool, chilled the back of her throat and made her mouth fill with the taste of tears. Ocean air always tasted like tears, though most people never noticed.

Sadie grunted and trudged up to the edge of the drainage stream, a glassy ribbon of water that rippled from the bank and widened out to the ocean’s reach.

George was late again.

She put her bucket of fish water down on the sand, the metal rim of the pail sinking like a cookie cutter into dough. She squinted down the length of the beach. There weren’t any people on the beach yet, nothing to block her view of the sand, the green-tarnished waves and the curve of land that hooked out and caught the edge of the horizon.

When she looked away from the horizon, George was on the beach walking toward her.

He wore the same black jacket he always wore, his gray hair lifting in the breeze, his tall form getting taller as he neared. His kept his hands in his pockets.

Sadie had been married to George, and working with him for more years than she remembered. She could tell by his slow-swinging stride and the skull-splitting grin that he had something to say to her, something he liked and she wouldn’t.

“Hallo, Sadie.” George sauntered up, but did not cross over the narrow stream between them. There were rules, and he followed them. “Any new fish last night?”

“A few. I was by the hospital.” Tiny fish in the bucket splashed in the water. “Did you and Troy work things out?”

George’s grin faded and a crow called out, the sound of it as black as wings, as sudden as death.

“No, no.” He glanced off over her shoulder, his gaze sharp with old pain as he stared at the cottages that lined the cliffs above the beach, then away, to the ocean. “Haven’t seen Troy since yesterday when he went into town.”

“You let him go?” Her voice came out too sharp, and she licked her lips before adding, “Do you know where he is?”

“Easy, easy. I found him and called. He was still in town, about three miles away and walking north.”

North. Closer to where Katie lived with her mother.

“He should be here any minute,” George said.

The sound of trees and brush being pushed apart drew Sadie’s gaze up the stream bank, past a half-buried gray log, and up to the land’s edge.

Troy pushed the last branch of shore pine blocking his way between the land and sand. The branch flashed bright in sunlight, then swung back into shadow, swallowing the sound of commuter traffic that buzzed north and south on Highway 101.

There was no sound between them except the breath of the waves.

Troy hesitated, one hand behind his back as if the trees were a life line and he were falling fast. He wore faded denim and a plain white t-shirt. His feet, of course, were bare. Sadie felt a familiar pang of regret when his eyes narrowed into accusing slits.

They had done what they could for him — been the only mother and father he had known — tried to show him how to make the best out of this existence.

He hadn’t listened.

Troy strode toward them through the ankle-deep sand at the land’s edge. “Glad to see you, son.” George did not turn to look at Troy, but his voice was warm.

Troy walked right past him, leaving the smell of crushed leaves and broken twigs to mingle and die in the salt air. Troy was young enough he could have been their real son, his hair a shaved crop of black like George’s had once been, his eyes deep-set above a broody mouth.

Sadie’s heart beat harder as he stepped into the surf. The bucket in her hand rang out with a low bell-tone, as if it had just been rapped by a rock and the fish splashed and swam harder. She closed her eyes. This, then was the day she had dreaded.

Troy walked until he was ankle deep in the ocean. He faced the dark line of the horizon where a troller stood up, tipped out of view, stood up again. He didn’t look down at the froth that curled up and around his feet, and lapped darkly at the cuffs of his jeans.

Sadie glanced at George, who was still looking at his own horizon, over her shoulder. Waiting for her to invite him over the stream, and give him the bucket. Following the rules.

“Help with the bucket, will you George?” she asked. “It’s a heavy load today.”

“Sure. Sure thing.” George sucked on his bottom lip and glanced at Troy, then back at Sadie. “Going to be a good day for fish, I think.”

He didn’t sound happy about it.

But then, neither was she.

George took a step, two, both white sneakers forming damns in the stream, footprints pressing, then gone beneath the shallow water.

Three steps, and George was on her side of the beach.

The wind whipped, hard, as if it had been waiting for George to reach the other side of the stream before rushing from the iced edge of the Pacific. Waves flicked up, turned pointed and dark farther out, wind-whipped and white closer in. Wind strained through trees, stirred brown grasses that rattled like dry bones.

Sadie shivered as the wind gusted by.

She touched George’s arm, his coat cold and slick beneath her fingertips. He paused and looked down. She caught a whiff of cherry tobacco, and the sweet warmth of rum as he brushed at her short, gray curls, his thick fingers tracing the lines of old sorrows across her cheek.

“Maybe the fish will all swim away,” he said, his words soft. But his eyes held the knowledge that his words were false. “The three of us could just go home. Leave the bucket where it is.”

It was the same thing he had said last fall. The same hope both of them knew could never come true. They had their jobs now. They had chosen them. Even if they didn’t always like them.

Sadie smiled anyway, acknowledging the sentiment.

“How about we take the bucket down the beach a ways and sit?” she said. “Watch the children play.”

“The log, maybe?” George bent and curled his fingers around the bucket’s metal handle.

In the hollow space where George had been, Sadie once again saw Troy. He had turned to face her. Both hands were at his sides, curled tight as stone fists. His lips were moving around words lost to the shush and crackle of waves.

His words drew the wind. Loose dry sand snapped at her boots, her coat, and finally, stung her face. Sadie tasted lightning, copper-cold on the air.

Sadie lifted two fingers of her left hand and cancelled Troy’s commands to the wind and sand. The wind stopped, the sand dropped, and the morning was still.

George straightened, blocking her view of Troy again.

“Easy now, Sadie. There’s a long day left. Let’s find the log before the living wake up,” George said.

Sadie nodded, and followed George back across the stream to his side of the beach.

The agate lickers came down to the beach to walk the wet strip of sand where the ocean slipped in, rolled stones, covered and uncovered gems. Agate lickers usually traveled alone, strolling slowly, heads hung as if a heavy weight pulled at their necks, their gaze on the sand. They looked old and slow no matter their age, and only paused for the glint of a mossy, a milky or a blood amber chunk of the earth’s castoff bones.

Sadie had always liked the agate lickers, but today, they moved too slowly, like harbingers of a world mourning its own life/death rhythm.

Families spilled out of hotels and summer cottages set along the cliffs. More people poured from parked cars. People with blankets, baskets, backpacks and coffee cups. Tiny children with floppy hats rode on shoulders, older children bounced and careened down steep stairways that were clamped against the banks like braces of concrete, steel, and wood. The children stopped five steps above the sand, tugged their shoes off and flung themselves out and out, thrilling in a moment of flight before they landed with a soft thud on the beach beneath them.

George and Sadie had chosen their favorite spot, and sat with their legs straight in front of them and a log that looked like the bleached rib of a whale at their backs.

Sadie’s fish bucket sat between them, a cool metal pool that reflected no light.

Troy was pacing. Twelve steps north, twelve steps left in front of them, close enough Sadie could hear the sugar-crunch of his strides. He stared forward, and turned toward the ocean to change direction. He never looked their way.

“Might be sunny all day,” George said. His head swivelled from side to side as he watched Troy pace.

“Good day for the children to play,” Sadie said.

Troy stopped, turned, glared.

“Why did you make me come back?” They were the first words he had spoken since he came back from the land, and his voice sounded raw from the salt air.

“It was your choice,” Sadie said. A squabbling flight of seagulls passed above them, and a dog yipped by, chasing a tennis ball down the sand.

“I chose to leave you,” Troy said.

“You chose to stay with us three years ago. Not at the top of the cliff when you took your last step, but halfway down, many moments before you hit the surf and stones.” Sadie said.

George slipped his hand around the back of the bucket, searching and finding her hand. His hand was cold, bone hard, and rough as a winter stone. Sadie shivered, but held his hand, drawing what strength from it she could.

“You came back to us again today when we called,” Sadie said. “You are a part of the sand and the wind and the stone now. You cannot take back your first step in life. Nor your last.”

“But my Katie —”

“Your daughter is gone. Three years ago. You let her go, when you stepped into air.” Sadie said this softer, for she had said these words so many times, they were faded and thinned.

“Holding on to Katie will only bring sorrow to you. And to her.”

George squeezed her hand, and his grip hurt, but it was a reminder of how strong they were, together.

“But I can’t just —” he waved his hand, at the families, the bright sky. “How can I watch this? How can you?”

Three children, two girls and a boy, laughed and raced down to the ocean, where they splashed and squealed in the waves.

The bucket hummed, as if a wooden spoon had been rapped against it once, twice, three fresh, sweet notes as each child, as each soul, touched the waves.

A fourth child, younger and slower under the burden of a bright yellow beach ball rambled down to the water. She stopped a short distance from the smooth, shallow wave, and waited for the foam to trickle over her bare toes.

The bucket hummed again, sour and sharp.

Troy gasped. “Katie?”

The little girl tipped her face toward the sky and smiled.

“Don’t go to her, Son.” George’s voice was grave and cool. “She wouldn’t see you.”

Troy paused, his entire body looking like a wire that had been stretched too tight.

A breeze lapped up off of the waves, carrying the smell of kelp, fish, and cool, deep minerals. A young couple walked past, hand-in-hand. They stepped around Troy as if a rock, or bit of seaweed were in their path.

“I can go back once,” Troy said. “You told me that, when I . . . at the cliff, three years ago, when you found me. You told me I could go back one time.”

“Listen to yourself, Troy,” Sadie said. “If you go back, it will be the last time. And it will only last for a moment. No one escapes death. You made your choice to die, and you chose to spend your days with us helping souls find their way to death. We love you. You’ll see Katie some day. When she’s older.”

“When she’s dead!” Troy spun, and faced them. “I will not have my daughter grow up without me.” His shoulders were angled as if he were facing down a cold wind. His feet were braced, one behind and one in front. “Please, let me go,” he said.

Sadie nodded. George nodded.

The bucket between them swirled, water lapping to the edge, but never quite lifting beyond. Thousands of fish now swam in the water, impossibly tiny, but perfect, souls.

The children on the beach laughed and the waves slapped and turned, teasing, gently pushing, like a mother to a child.

Sadie squeezed George’s bone-cold hand, tucked her legs, and pushed up onto her feet. She brushed sand off the back of her pants and walked three steps, her boots
thucking
at her knees. She stood next to Troy.

She placed her hand on his shoulder. He was trembling.

“I don’t know if you understand this, Troy,” she said.

His eyes were red-rimmed, salt-sore, and his white t-shirt was damp with the spray off the waves that hung in the air even though the sun poured down. She watched as his face became pale, his lips the blue-white of a broken mussel shell.

“Please.” He swallowed. “I just can’t watch her anymore. Please let me go.”

Sadie held her arms out to him, to her almost-son who was taller than she, but came into her embrace like a lost child seeking shelter. Her arms surrounded him, and she heard George’s coat swish as he stood.

George placed his long-fingered hand, the skin of it so thin Sadie could see the bones beneath, on top of Troy’s head.

“Close your eyes, Sadie,” George said from over her shoulder.

Sadie closed her eyes. “Be gentle with him, George.”

“Sadie.” A soft reprimand. “You know better.”

Sadie breathed in, and waited for the feeling, the hollowness within her heart that would tell her another child, another soul had been taken by death’s cool hands. It was all part of the dance, she knew, all part of the world living and dying. All part of their job.

But this child, this man, had been their son, had learned how to laugh with them, how to accept his own fate. In a way, how to live.

Perhaps they had taught him too well.

George drew his fingers lightly through the close-crop of Troy’s hair. He was being gentle, Sadie knew he was, but Troy stiffened against her, his arms clamping at her waist like hard pincers. It was hard to die. And harder to have your death taken away.