When John finally got to the end of the dirt road, his father was standing next to a patch of purple fireweed drinking a beer. John waited in the car until the dust had settled, then got out and walked over to his father, the two of them facing each other.
“You’re looking good,” said John.
“I know I don’t look good,” said Ben.
The elder man, lean and sinewy, was dressed in khaki pants and a faded blue shirt. His squinty eyes roved over the BMW and its out-of-state plates, then up and down his son. He frowned and shook his head. John began taking off his tie. “I drove straight from the office,” he said. “I thought I might be able to get back to Anne before midnight.”
“Don’t know why you come all this way to see the place,” said Ben.
“I came to see you, Dad,” said John. He looked around, slowly remembering certain things. The bend in the road beneath a clump of spruce trees, the lopsided gray cedar shack, the tree stump where he’d learned to use a knife. Somewhere overhead, the shrill chirps of an osprey. He exhaled, and his breath mingled with the cool fall air.
“I don’t have much to give you,” said Ben, not looking at his son but gazing off at a grove of birch trees. “Gave the boat to Wally. Wally can use it up to Pemaquid.”
“Yeah,” said John. “I don’t need the boat anyway.”
A breeze came through the trees and fluttered Ben’s fine, chestnut hair. “Your mom said I should show you the shack, case you wanted it,” he said. “It’s not much.”
John sat down carefully on the tree stump, began rolling back the sleeves of his shirt. He took out a handkerchief to wipe off his face. He had the same high forehead and huge chin as his father. As he sat there wiping his face, he was wondering whether he should sell the whole damn place.
Ben turned and tossed the empty beer can into the back of his pickup truck. It rattled, metal against metal. In the silence afterward, John heard the soft sound of water lapping against the rocks down the hill. That too he remembered. Then, unconsciously, his thoughts drifted to his comfortable study, music floating in from his living room.
The imaginary music was interrupted by the grind of a motorboat starting up somewhere in the bay. “Probably Wade’s boat,” said Ben. “It sounds like his engine.”
“Wade’s still here?” asked John.
“Thirty years,” said Ben.
John stood up and brushed off his pants. He walked over to the clump of spruce trees and kicked one.
They went into the shack, not much larger than a storage shed, the pine floor warped from years of rain and inattention. A stack of wooden lobster traps sat in one corner. A cot, hardly wider than a man. A kerosene stove with a Zenith radio and some playing cards on top. On the ceiling, a patch of strong sunlight flickered and pulsated, reflected off the ocean.
John took two steps into that trembling light and stopped. There was that old, familiar smell, the stink of damp sea kelp and fish, the smell of his father.
John didn’t go any farther, but reached over and turned the knob on the radio. It clicked and that was all.
Ben laughed bitterly. Then began coughing hard. John went over to him, touching him lightly on the shoulder. Ben pushed his son away, turned his head aside, and leaned against the wall. “Told you it wasn’t much,” he said.
“Dad,” John said.
The sun had stopped its ceiling dance, the angles no longer right, and filled the tiny room with slants of light. A strut in the window cast a feathery shadow on the opposite wall. The light swarmed around it.
Ben was looking down at something on the floor, massaging the mole on his neck. “Spent some good times here,” he said. “Even got your mother to come over from the house and roost here one night. You and Wally were out to Aunt Lonnie’s. Remember?” John shook his head no.
“Why didn’t you ever bring Anne up here?” asked Ben. “At least to the house?”
John hesitated. “Anne’s a city girl,” he said.
Ben looked away, then said, “Let’s go.”
They stood outside the shack. A patch of wild pink roses, rosa rugosa, bloomed beside the wooden door. The air was whitening. A fog was coming in.
“Got to go down and put a new plank in the float,” said Ben, holding a two-by-four under his arm. He waited restlessly. John nodded, looked again at his father, and began moving toward his car. Seagulls squawked raucously.
“You might as well see the dock before you leave,” said Ben. “It comes with the place.”
“Shouldn’t you be in bed, Dad?” said John.
Ben didn’t answer but started down the hill, limping and dragging the two-by-four. John looked at his watch, sighed, and followed.
The older man had just got to the ramp when his leg buckled underneath him and he went down. “Damn that no-good frickin’ leg,” he shouted from the ground, and he deliberately slammed the bum leg into the two-by-four lying beside him. The board slipped off the ramp into the water with a splash. Ben struggled to his feet. “Are you coming or not?” he asked over his shoulder. He continued down the ramp to the float.
John walked behind, got to the float, and stood beside his father. It was 10 degrees cooler down on the water. Gold sea kelp draped over the rocks like braided hair, bristled and hissed with tiny bubbles popping in air. The shoreline straggled green and sienna. And beyond, the ocean stretched like a vast, dark sail, slowly ruffling in the wind.
Suddenly the air began to glow. Fog scattered the sunlight, bounced it around and back and forth until each cupful of air shined with its own source of light. In all directions, the air beamed and shimmered and glowed, and the gulls stopped their squawking and the ospreys became silent.
For some time, father and son stood experiencing the silence and the glowing air, watching together as they had many times in the past. Then they turned and walked back up the hill.
