Category: Fiction

Five years ago, when you agreed to take early retirement to care for me after a fall in the shower left me hemiplegic, I thought you knew that as the oldest child, you had a responsibility to care for your mother. Now I know you were up to something.

Peter droned on and on about his client meeting, and the others put on a much more believable performance of interest than I did. Because there you were, beside the front door, zipping your coat up to the tip of your chin. How rude of you, I thought, to leave without saying goodbye.

Once underway, the children usually gathered on the roof, or the bow deck, although one of them was required at some point to be on painter duty. The Paula towed their small, flat-bottomed, square front dingy, and the towline was called the painter. Painter duty involved making certain that if the Paula slowed for any reason, that the painter was hauled in a commensurate manner, thus avoiding it becoming entangled in the Paula’s propeller, which was under the boat, connected to the inboard engine. This would be a very bad thing to allow to happen, and therefore it rarely did, though it had happened to everyone at one time or another. How could it not?

I didn’t want to fall in love with a hometown boy. Even worse, a hometown ex-varsity tennis player who knew the intricate rivalries of the Orange County high schools.

"Do you travel much?"

"Absolutely, twice a year."

"Care to meet up?"

"Okay. Why not?"

We agreed to meet the next day at a bar that Kathrin suggested. I wasn't particularly interested in her. Still, I wanted to meet. I wasn’t feeling very well. In May, I always fall into a kind of melancholy and am afraid of being forgotten. That has to do with the swifts.

I wanted to give something to him. I wanted him to leave me feeling better about himself than he had before we met, better than he had ever felt. Perhaps I was reacting to the general post-bar malaise that afflicts so many who leave the house on Friday night looking for affirmation and return on Saturday morning with a renewed disgust for humanity and an empty wallet...