The Banks of Certain Rivers (11 page)

“So are you going to run next year or not?” she asked me
as my brother tiptoed into the water.

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “I haven’t
decided.”

“You should make a list of pros and cons. That’s what my
mom always has me do when I can’t decide something. Is there
something about track you really don’t like?”

I pondered it. “Not that I can think of.”

“Are you any good? Do you win races?”

“Yeah, I guess so. I won a couple races last year.”

She smiled. “Sounds like a pretty easy choice to me.”

I figured this exchange—and the smile that completed it—had
given me an edge in the unspoken battle with my brother. I decided
I’d wait for darkness to fall and take a seat next to Wendy by
the fire. When the time was right (and her father wasn’t paying
attention) I’d ask her if she’d like to go for a walk. I
didn’t make any plan for after that. I didn’t want to
assume anything; really I just wanted to talk to her more. But my
plans were crushed when, as I came back from fetching a sweatshirt
for Kathleen, I saw Mike lean down to say something into Wendy’s
ear. She shrugged and nodded, then hopped up and followed him as he
sauntered away along the water’s edge.

My throat went tight as I watched them go, and I looked down and
pawed at the sand with my foot. Teddy saw it. Kathleen saw it. The
adults, laughing among themselves up on the deck, saw nothing. My
sister patted at a spot on the blanket next to her.

“Come here, kid,” she said, showing some uncharacteristic
sympathy. I sank down next to her and let my head droop. “Just
because she went off with him doesn’t mean anything, okay?
Someone’s really going to think you’re a catch someday.”

Her kindness, even if sincere, did little to elevate my mood, and I
kept looking over my shoulder down the beach. Nothing. My only
consolation was that they’d gone opposite the direction of
Little Jib River and the pump house; at least my refuge wouldn’t
be sullied by the thought of the two of them in there doing whatever
it was they’d gone off to do. I looked down the beach again and
again, and Teddy punched my arm and let me sneak a couple swallows of
his beer.

My father was shoveling sand over the fire by the time I finally gave
up waiting for them to come back. I went inside alone, got myself
ready for bed, turned out the light and climbed into my bunk. I
waited for what seemed like a very long time before I heard the
creaking old floorboards in the hall and the squeak of our bedroom
door. I listened as Mike got into his bed below me, and let another
minute pass before I brought myself to speak.

“Well?” I asked.

“Well what?”

I swallowed. “Did you do it?”

“No.”

“Did you kiss her?”

“No. I didn’t kiss her.”

“Did you do anything?”

“Just shut up about it, okay? We didn’t do anything. She
went home like three hours ago.”

Three hours? I sat up. “Where the hell have you been?”

“I took a walk on the beach. That’s all.”

I thought about this, and even felt a little guilty for the way my
spirits were lifting. “Did you guys talk about anything?”
There was a long, long silence. “Mike?”

“She doesn’t like soccer players,” Michael finally
said from below. His voice was muffled, like he was talking into his
pillow. “She said she likes runners better.”

And for nothing more than this, I decided to keep running.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Sent: September 8, 1:50 pm

Subject: One Letter

_____________________________

It’s funny, out of all the
things of yours that I’ve saved, letters and pictures and
everything else, the one thing I wish I had most of all is that first
letter you wrote me before ninth grade telling me I had better do
track again. I’d already decided by that point I was going to
run, I even signed up for cross country, but then that letter came
and it was like “Well, I guess I really am doing it now.”
I never told you this, but I threw it out! I was so terrified of Mike
finding it and making a big deal that I kept it under my mattress for
a while, but even that was too radioactive for me, so I tore the
letter and envelope into little pieces and pitched it.

Did your mom give you my address
after we’d left that summer? I can’t believe it would
have been your dad.

Tonight I’m going to have
dinner with Alan and Kris. Like we used to do, like we did so many
times, but different. Obviously different. So many dinners, when
Chris got a little bigger, and you didn’t feel so bad about
leaving him with a sitter. We weren’t seeing Lee and Sherry so
much, and the Massie girls did tag-team babysitting in our own
home—no driving necessary, no definite time to return—and
we could eat, drink, and drink more. God, we had fun. I think of that
night we ended up sleeping in their basement. There are maybe three
times I remember you really being drunk and that was one of them: we
were two hundred yards from our house but you couldn’t manage
even to walk the little path in the dark. Usually I was the one to
take it a little too far but you were on that night, *on*,
so why go home? You wanted
to soak in the hot tub, you wanted more margaritas, you tried to kiss
Alan, you called the margaritas “trouble.” Thank goodness
the kids were back at our house. Kristin called the kids to tell them
to lay out sleeping bags and pop another movie in the VCR, and when
she hung up the phone you shouted: “Mix us up some more
trouble!” And we did. God, that night we did. Captain Alan
barked “Here we go!” with his finger on the blender
button, and away we went. We were soaking in trouble.

In the morning you covered your face
with your hands and groaned for me to close the blinds. They were
closed already. Kristin and Alan laughed from upstairs, and I laughed
and walked home to find the kids slumbering together in a knot on the
inflatable mattress on the living room floor. I made them breakfast,
waffles in our wedding-gift iron, and when Kris called to check in I
heard you retching in the background. We decided you could use a
little space for your recovery. I took the Chris and the girls to the
beach for the day, and the whole time our son was under the
impression you had the flu. An easy enough deception. When we got
home late that afternoon, and Chris found you green on the couch with
a wet washcloth on your forehead, he knelt at your side and asked if
he could make you some soup. You laughed and laughed.

My nights are measured now. I caromed
down that path, bouncing off everything, so many times after you were
gone, certainly more than three times, and finally I reined myself
in. Things came apart, but I pulled myself together. Captain Alan
would let me know, I think, if I started down that trail again. I
trust him to watch out for me, and he does.

Things don’t get out of control
anymore. I promise.

CHAPTER EIGHT

By the time I make it home,
I’m
ready to declare my run a success. The proverbial
slate has been wiped, and I’m pleasantly tired out. I down a
few big glasses of water at the kitchen sink, and find a very
gourmet-looking sandwich that Chris has made waiting on our little
breakfast table. The sticky note reading ‘TRY THIS
DAD’—comically adhered to the sandwich itself—leaves
no worry that I’m going to consume something not intended for
me.

Chris’s fabrication is pretty good. There’s arugula,
dried cherries and some pungent melted cheese in a sliced baguette,
all stuff from the farmers’ market, I’m guessing. I
remain standing to eat it out of the concern that my post-run legs
will stiffen up if I have a seat.

Over the table, on the corkboard on our kitchen wall, there’s a
picture of my father and Dick Olsson. They’re laughing in the
picture, probably over the fact that they’ve swapped hats: my
father’s Greek fisherman’s cap is too tight on Dick’s
head, and Dick’s safety-orange hunting hat is so big that it’s
nearly covering my father’s eyes. This was Wendy’s
favorite picture of her dad; she always said she didn’t really
know of any others where he was smiling. I’d have to say it’s
one of my favorites too.

My father, a diminutive, prematurely balding, wisecracking hippy
economics professor who had been part of the 1968 protests in
Chicago, and Dick Olsson, a towering autodidact who could
persuasively argue that Nixon had received a bum deal and kept a
portrait of Ronald Reagan over his workbench, formed a most unlikely
friendship. Even after all of us kids went to college, before Wendy
and I were married and my parents had retired and moved to Florida,
my mother and father would still come up to visit the Olssons a
couple times a year.
The four of them even took a cruise
through the Caribbean back when I was in school; by all accounts it
was a fantastic time. Carol and my mother always got along well, but
it was the peculiar friendship between Theodore Kazenzakis and Dick
Olsson that really cemented things.

They remained close up until the end. There are two times in my life
I recall ever seeing my father cry: the night the Detroit Tigers won
the 1984 World Series, and seventeen years later at Dick Olsson’s
funeral.

Dick’s passing was the great sorrow of my father’s life.
I guess he was lucky to have just that one.

I finish up Christopher’s sandwich and dust my hands over the
sink. I consider taking a shower, but through the kitchen window I
see Chris shooting hoops on the barn slab court, so I head outside
instead.

“Want to play?” Chris asks me, and I laugh.

“Maybe something like ‘horse,’” I say. He
passes me the ball and I take a shot that misses off the backboard
with a loud
clunk.

“We’ll play to twenty. I’ll give you five points.”

“You’ll still kill me.”

“I’ll keep my right hand behind my back. You’ll
beat me if I play left handed.”

I say fine, and he lets me have the ball first. We dance around; he
goes easy on me. It’s fun to watch him move so well, so
confidently, even when he’s blowing past and stealing the ball
right out of my hands. I manage to hang on, barely, keeping one point
ahead of him until it’s 15-14. Then in a blur Chris dunks on
me, twice, before sinking an unbelievable three-pointer from the
middle of the court to finish me off.

“Nice game, Dad.”

Panting, doubled over with my hands on my knees, I manage to say:
“Nice game.”

I spend the early
afternoon grading papers out on the back deck. The work is from my
morning physics class and nothing too mentally strenuous: check yes,
check no. 100%, A+, great work, and so on. The kids made an effort.
Christopher ducks his head out the door to say goodbye, and I tell
him to be careful and say hi to everyone at the rec center for me.
When I ask him if he needs any money he shakes his head and says he’s
all set.

It’s a date night, of sorts, so I take a long shower and spiff
myself up in a dark gray button down shirt and some newer jeans.
Lauren is planning to check in with Carol before we go, and she’ll
leave her car parked over there for cover in the unlikely event that
Chris makes an unexpected (and unannounced) return home. I’ve
got a few minutes before Lauren is supposed to show up, so I stroll
over to the farmhouse on my own.

I find Carol in her room, propped up on a pillow in bed with a
months-old issue of
Cosmopolitan
. She’s not wearing her
oxygen line, and her eyes look bright when she sees me leaning in the
doorway.

“Did you have a good day?” I ask.

“Really good day, Neil. Chris came by earlier.”

“He said he was going to.”

“Sounds like you boys had a nice visit with Wendy.” The
wrinkles in her face turn to something like a smile. “Chris is
such a good boy. You’ve done a good job.”

I smile back, as much at the compliment as at the pleasure of having
Carol return from dreamland for a while. “I got pretty lucky
with him,” I say. “He’s all right.”

“He is all right, Neil.”

The sound of the side door stops me before I can say anything else,
and Lauren calls, “Hi Carol!” When she comes down the
hall she acts surprised to see me.

“Oh, hello there,” she says with a smirk.

“Hi Lauren. How have you been?”

“I’ve been very well, thank you.” She nearly keeps
a straight face through our forced formality. “Carol, how are
you doing today?”

“I’m just great,” she says. Behind the doorjamb,
where Carol can’t see, I give a big thumbs-up, and Lauren nods.

“I’m going to leave you two,” I say, and Carol
waves goodbye.

“Have fun tonight, Neil.”

“I—” Have fun? Does she know I have plans? “Thanks.
I will.”

Lauren tells Carol she’ll be right back, and walks me to the
door.

“She’s doing good? She looks good,” Lauren
whispers.

“She seems great. Does she know we’re doing something
tonight?”

“Yes. I told her.” My mouth falls open, and Lauren rolls
her eyes and pokes me in the ribs with her index finger when she sees
the look on my face. “No, of course I didn’t tell her.
What are you thinking?”

“That ‘have fun’ thing she said, I don’t
know….”

“It’s Saturday night. It’s traditional in this
country for people to have fun on a Saturday night. So of course she
sent you off with good wishes. Don’t be so paranoid, okay?”
She pokes me again. “Can you run over to your house and grab a
bag or a pack? Something to lug our wine in.”

I say sure and Lauren sneaks in with a quick kiss. “I’ll
meet you over there,” she says. I head back through the dusk
and find a canvas shopping bag in my front closet, and go back out to
wait on the front steps. The day is nearly gone and the moon, waxing
almost full, is just coming up over the trees. I’m watching a
pair of bats circle over the yard when I hear Lauren walking back
from Carol’s, and I have to peer at her for a moment in the
darkness to discern that she’s got three bottles of wine held
in her arms against her chest.