So here has been dawning Another blue day.
Think, wilt thou let it Slip useless away?
—CARLYLE
Emily, the bride out of high school. They can’t afford marriage but she isn’t worried. She has wanted this, she’s said, since their first dance in the gym in ninth grade. How hard it had been, he thinks, to have asked her: to cross the floor in front of his friends and ask the cute girl with the orange sweater to dance. The music was Elton John, “Your Song”. Strange to remember a song and a place and a time, and emotions, so clearly.
After the dance, after their first walk home and first kiss goodnight, they began to date: movies on Friday nights and parties in friends’ houses usually in rec rooms or basements. He found himself more and more enraptured by this girl so quiet and conservative. She played the piano, her lessons each week a chance for him to meet her and walk her home. At those times she would speak of Beethoven or Bach; how she loved the music he’d never heard.
He felt she was far too close to her father. That man was the reason for her conventional ways. He would take her to concerts or museums, just the two of them wrapped in a culture they’d shared since she was old enough to appreciate it. When her father had discovered Ross’ interest in history, he began every once in a while to include him on their outings. Those times had not been the most comfortable with Ross on the outside listening in. Once in a while Emily would touch his hand surreptitiously, wanting to include him, hesitant with her father around.
She possessed a mildness which concealed her intelligence, her bright spirit, and a subtle need to differentiate from her father. But she would not succumb to that need. She was loyal. Ross wanted to see more of her, be exclusive, the custom back in those days when you found someone special. But despite his presence at their family dinners, once each month, Ross could never break the shell of fidelity Emily and her father shared.
So he left her. He joined the track team and spent hours training, working off his frustration. He won a few races. He enjoyed the company of his team mates. There were other girls. He was young and needed to explore. But always, always, she was at the back of his mind as the presence to whom he compared all the others. He’d eventually spent a miserable summer trying to be like everyone else, trying to fit into the adolescent world which constantly changed around him, trying to draw him away from the beacon that was Emily.
At the start of the next school year, unforeseen by him on one ordinary day, she did something completely unanticipated and socially supernatural. She simply walked up to him in the school hallway. His head was inside his locker so he hadn’t seen her coming. When he heard her voice, he was so shocked he banged his head on the locker’s upper shelf.
“Oh God, are you alright?” she exclaimed apologetically.
“Yeah, uh, yeah I’m ...”
“Let me see. You might have a cut.”
“No, it’s alright. Why’re you here?”
“I want to talk to you.”
“Yeah?”
“I’d like to know why you stopped seeing me.”
He had not expected that kind of directness, that steel in a girl of fifteen. Then again, knowing Emily, he should have. He found it difficult to find the right words to explain his feelings. In the end she found them for him with an honesty which was always the most wondrous part of her.
“I, uh, I just thought we should take a break. It was getting too serious,” he mumbled.
“I thought you were the one who gave me a ring.”
“You wouldn’t take it.”
“Because of my dad ...”
“What’s with him anyway?”
“He wants to protect me. He thinks I’m too young. I love him, Ross, but not the way I love you.”
“What? You ... love me?”
“There, I’ve said it. So now you can do what you want with it.” Tears glistened the hazel of her eyes as she stood there trying to be brave. Within that moment in a school hallway he knew he’d never again give her up.
“You love me?” he uttered again, loving the sound of the words.
“I had a talk with my dad. He can’t change, but he’s okay with us seeing each other.”
“You’ll wear my ring?” He tried to make it hard for her, his boy’s pride exerting itself.
“On a chain round my neck. I can’t flaunt this in front of dad. Is that so important?”
“This isn’t easy ...”
“You think I don’t know that? I’m sure it’s already around the whole school I’ve come here to see you.”
“Forget the ring. You’re right. I’m sorry. You really love me?”
The Sanibel cottage is a clapboard affair with a veranda looking out over the beach to the west. The beach is a glistening stretch of shells, billions of them washed in by the tide, running for miles along the Gulf side. The place is not much for what it cost. Still, it is perfect for them. It is far enough up the coast to be isolated, yet near enough to stores for amenities. They spend their first day grocery shopping and unpacking the car. It is not long before they have settled in.
They share a bottle of wine that night. They sit on the veranda in bleached wicker chairs and watch sunset turn the Gulf waters golden. Pelicans sail by in low, gliding silhouettes inches above the waves, searching the sea for their supper. They seem so primordial in their shapes. The light diffuses and as the sun sinks below the horizon it glows magenta across the sky. Then only a few low-slung clouds in the west hold their colour. A breathless pink twilight replaces them as dusk closes in.
Emily’s hand finds his.
“There must be a God,” she says solemnly, “to make this kind of beauty.”
“There must,” he answers.
“You’re very quiet.”
“I was thinking I might go in and read.”
“Can’t you stay here for a little while? It’s so peaceful. Just relax, Ross. You’ve been working all day.”
“I want to get started on Durant. We brought all those books. I should read them.”
“I’d appreciate it if you stayed,” she says softly, her voice breaks a little. “I don’t want to be alone right now.”
He squeezes her hand reassuringly. He has caught the sound of her desperation. No one wants to die. No one wants to leave ocean breezes or sunsets or even the dark of the night. She cannot be strong all the time. It is his turn now. He is thankful for the dark. She cannot see his face.
“One condition.” He affects a bantering tone; his way of lightening the mood.
“And what might that be?” she replies, strong enough still to respond in kind.
“The price of a kiss. You haven’t kissed me in three days!”
She leans over to meet him, their lips touch softly. He still feels electricity in her kisses.
He finishes the last of the wine.
“So, what’s on the schedule for tomorrow?” he says.
“I haven’t thought of a thing. If it’s sunny I’d like to lie on the beach.”
“What? No plans?”
“Well, we could ask the pelicans over for lunch,” she says, laughing. He has helped her. He has done something right.
“I thought maybe we could drive up to Captiva,” he says. “The guy at the store says it’s hardly changed.”
“I don’t know how I kept up with you,” she says, chuckling.
“If I recall you were always a little ahead of me ...”
“Up at six every morning.” She makes her list tapping his hand with her finger each time. “Off for a run, then to school, teaching, marking, your research, coaching ...”
“... Grooming the garden, cutting the grass, shovelling snow, doing odd jobs for the wife ...”
“I wasn’t that bad, was I?” she responds quietly. He has forgotten her mood.
“Of course not, I loved every second.”
“Of every minute of every hour of every day of every year?” she retorts in their personal patois; the mood passing like an ill wind.
“From the start to the ...” He stumbles.
“... Finish.” She speaks softly the word he cannot.
“I’m a clumsy ass,” he says. He has reminded her, he knows, of the end.
“It’s getting chilly. Let’s go in. You can read.”
“Alright. About tomorrow ...”
“Couldn’t we put off Captiva? I really would like to get some sun.”
“Of course we can.”
“I’ll make you a sandwich,” she says, the moment forgotten.
As she enters the cottage Ross stays in his chair. The sunset has caused a reflection within him. He and Emily were married still young with their lives ahead. He remembers her in the garden pruning rose bushes. So tan. Her hair shining auburn with golden streaks catching sunlight. The garden had taken years to create but she’d always found ways to improve it. Ross was installing a fountain for her, a kind of grotto amid the rose bushes where the water was to run over rocks and ripple the surface of a small pond. He would place the rocks where Emily had planned. They were heavy and he was sweating. Emily came to help. Together, young and strong, they lifted and set. Ross mortared the stone but as he finished he felt Emily’s hands on his back under his shirt, caressing.
“I take it we’ve finished for the day,” he said, turning and smiling, holding her. Her eyes had already gone smoky.
“What time does Robbie get back from his practice?”
“Not until five.”
“Is the gate locked?”
“Yeah, we haven’t been round front all day.”
“Make love to me. Here. Right now.”
“Are you crazy? It’s daylight!”
“No one can see in.”
Already she was touching him, arousing him with her lips whispering in his ear her hands stroking the back of his neck. Risky love by the fountain; the aroma of roses mixed with their breathing and the sounds of a Saturday: lawn sprinklers hissing, the buzz of a mower, children at play on the street. They shared that sweet danger together.
The next morning they lie on the beach. Ross begins reading the first of Durant, ancient pre-history, and finds it hard going. He chafes at the inactivity. It is almost six months since he has stopped teaching but there were still things to do. He’d set his affairs in order buying annuities and medical plans, organizing the trip, puttering around the house at the few jobs remaining unfinished. He and Emily had looked after Justin while Robert and Anne went to Spain. He had kept himself busy.
Now simply sitting troubles him. It has no purpose. On holidays he could relax with the knowledge that he would return to work. But now there is only a long, leisurely stretch into the distance. It feels like a vacuum.
He leaves Emily and jogs on the beach: the casuarina trees waving like wind wands in the breeze, the wild sea oats clustered at the edge of the sand, the different hues of the sea. Once he stops to watch a sandpiper strutting along the shoreline. It is looking for food where the waves rush up. Each time a wave comes the little bird runs from the water, fretful of wetting its tiny feet. He laughs at it. He breathes in the sea air and feels the sun warm on his back. Simple things. They should be enough.
When he returns he swims, showers and fixes lunch. After eating Emily wants to read. Ross tries Durant again. Nothing. He putters around looking for something to fix in the cottage but he has no tools. Emily glances up from her book. She looks disgruntled.
“Ross, what’s the matter with you? You haven’t sat still for five minutes.”
“That damn faucet needs tightening.”
“We can live with it for a week.”
“Maybe you can. The dripping last night drove me crazy!”
“Well, right now you’re driving me crazy.”
“What does that mean?” he mutters.
“It means,” she says sharply, “we’ve been here one day and already you’re pacing about.”
“Is that so?” He is not ready to back down on this. He doesn’t know why.
“Look,” Emily says, sighing, “if you want to fix the faucet go into town and buy a wrench.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be perfectly fine.”
“Don’t you want to come?”
“No, Ross, I don’t. But I think you should go out for a while. I’m really not up to having a fight. You seem to need to have one.”
“I just want to fix the faucet!” he says, raising his voice, not meaning to.
“I don’t think that’s all there is to it.”
“What?”
“You’re bored.”
“I’m not bored!”
“You wanted to go to Captiva today.”
“I suggested it. That’s all. Don’t make me feel guilty.”
“I’m not trying to make you feel guilty,” she says in the soft, even voice she uses to show disgust. “This discussion is going nowhere.”
“I’ll go into town,” he replies, knowing she is right.
He drives much further than he had intended, going nowhere in particular. He is angry with himself for being so foolish with Emily. She does not need his tantrums. But he is angry with her as well for having seen so easily through him. His nagging doubts have reduced him to glass, transparent to all but himself.
What turns a man to glass?
Everyone said he was lucky: the right time, the right place, the right age, that revered golden handshake—the wrong man to retire. And thoughts of retirement evoke Arthur Felder: long hair, jean jacket with ‘Suck!’ scrawled across the back and what do you do when you’re fifty-two and an eighteen-year-old tells you to fuck off? Ross did not hate him then, but he feared him. There were strategies for that kind of boy: guidance counsellors, a vice principal visit, just talking with him trying to gain his confidence. Ross couldn’t think of one that would work. He simply watched the boy self-destruct.
People thought him to have been a good teacher, he knew, but they had known nothing of Arthur Felder. Ross told no one about him, not even Emily. And finally when Arthur was expelled for some offence against some other teacher ... that was the beginning ... when Ross first thought of leaving teaching. And while he remained he protected himself. The closeness he’d once shared with his students vanished. The History Club was disbanded. Those precious after class conferences dried up as Ross lost touch with young minds and their culture. His classes became dry affairs. He covered curriculum; nothing more. He seemed to be losing his powers. He seemed more insignificant every day.
Five years later, just before he retired, Ross met Arthur in a grocery store. He was the meat manager. He had a wife and a little boy. He said the boy was a hellion. Ross hoped it was true; hoped the boy would do to his father what the father had done to him.
And then Arthur told him he’d been his favourite teacher. Arthur was studying night school history. He needed a high school diploma to be promoted to store manager. But the history, he said, was for fun; from what Ross had given him.
Ross recalled giving him nothing.
Arthur was young and had a small future. It was enough for him. It was only just then that Ross came to hate Arthur Felder; because it had never really been his fault at all.
He finds himself entering Sanibel village. He does not remember how he arrived or what he came for. The car clock tells him two hours have passed. Emily will be worried. He decides he’d better return to the cottage. He wheels into a parking lot to turn around. Across the street is a small, white house with a sign in front and a huge live oak in the yard. The big tree dapples the walls of the building. The sign tells him it is a library.
A library will offer some peace.
It is only two rooms, their walls lined with shelves. It is quiet, musty and empty but for a studious looking young woman with long, honey blonde hair and horn-rimmed glasses. She glances up from her desk.
“Good afternoon, sir.”
“Hello,” Ross says, smiling to match her smile.
“Can I help you with something?”
“No, just browsing,” he answers, shambling toward the stacks. Already he feels calmer.
His eyes search the book spines with practised skill. His fingers touch titles softly. He moves quickly away from the fiction section. He has never liked fiction, never understood Emily’s need for novels.
His preference is history: mapping humanity. It had led him into his own research. He remembers fondly the proud moment of the letter: a missive from the Quebec Historical Society; a promise to publish his work on early French Canada. They’d offered money. The money was unimportant. But when the article had come out there were telephone calls from professors. They were surprised Ross was merely a teacher. Merely a teacher. They’d laughed about that in the history office. Still, he was proud. He’d tried not to show it but it was there. He’d felt significant then.
“Excuse me, sir,” the librarian’s voice intrudes. “I’ll have to close soon.”
He has stayed too long. She does not know him. There is a wariness in her eyes.
“Good Lord,” he says, smiling, trying to put her at ease, “what time is it?”
“Nearly five o’clock. I really have to close up.”
“I’m sorry. I just ...” He does not want this young woman to distrust him.
“Are you sure there’s nothing I can help you with?” Her voice is uneasy.
He is in the history section. Strange what habit can do. It gives him an idea, something to dispel her worry.
“You see I’m a teacher, I mean a retired teacher, and I’m interested in local history.”
“Oh?” she says. “On vacation?”
“Kind of. Would you have something about the island itself?”
“Of course. But you’re in the wrong section. We keep local history over here by the desk. We get quite a few requests for it.”
“I’ll only be here a week. Perhaps something brief?”
“Would you be interested in the original natives? There’s quite a lot on them: the Calusa. They even say Ponce de Leon landed here. Pine Island, I think. And if you have time there’s lots to see.”
Durant is too distant; too obvious a retirement task. He needs something closer to his current circumstance.
“Really? Sounds intriguing miss ...”
“My name’s Angela.”
“And I’m Ross Porter. Nice to meet you, Angela.”
“I just love local history.” She smiles again, her fears assuaged. “This book has maps of the area. You can actually go and see some of the things they mention.”
“Where?”
“Oh, there’s Mound Key just south on the mainland and the Ding Darling Wildlife Preserve, right here on Sanibel. You can rent a canoe and go into the mangrove canals. I’ve done it myself. It’s quite safe. There are ancient shell mounds built by the Calusa hundreds of years ago and who knows” — she grins impishly — “you might even locate the fountain of youth old Ponce was supposed to be looking for.”
“Angela,” he says, ignoring the little joke on his age, “you’ve just saved my marriage. I think this should do the trick perfectly.”
“That’s wonderful, Mr. Porter.”
“I’m looking forward to this,” he says.
He hurries home. He examines himself more objectively and finds Ross Porter a happier man. Angela has given him books; enough for a solid beginning. They sit on the front seat beside him. He pats them with that touch which others reserve for their pets. Still, he does not recognize their import, the new direction they have offered him or the places to which they will eventually guide him.
This is a step, he tells himself.
He does not feel so empty.
When he returns he sees Emily on the veranda. She appears tense but as she watches him exit the car and walk spryly toward her, she smiles. She meets him halfway, as she always has.
“Ross Porter, where in heaven’s name have you been?” She puts her hands on his shoulders and shakes them. “I’ve been sitting here hours! What are you laughing about?”
“Oh, nothing much,” he says, “I just found the tools to fix that faucet.”
“Oh,” she replies with a twinge of disappointment.
“These!” He proffers the books.
“How can you fix a faucet with those?”
“By doing what you said. Ignore it,” he says, smiling. “I’m sorry, Em. I did all this planning for the trip and forgot myself. Oh, I thought the Durant would keep me occupied, but I felt kind of duty bound to read them.”
“So what have you got?”
“Histories.”
“Naturally.” She pats his arm.
“Local histories. I talked to a young woman in the Sanibel library ...”
“Oh really?” She chuckles sardonically.
“And she told me about some places to see. Remember when we went to Quebec ...”
“Of course ...”
“... To finish my research?”
“It was wonderful.”
“Well, we can do the same here! Oh, I won’t drag you along if you don’t want to go. But I’d love to share this. Look, I know it sounds foolish but I needed something.”
She pauses a moment, then as they walk back to the cottage she puts her arm through his.
“While you were gone I had time to think. I know all of this has been hard on you, Ross. I’m sorry I was so unpleasant before.”
“No, it was me. The faucet thing was stupid.”
“No, it wasn’t. It opened up things we hadn’t talked over.”
“We will,” he says, not wanting to think of that now. “Would you like to read these books with me?”
“Any novels on the subject?” she replies lightly, knowing him; his signals.
“Well there might be. We could ask Angela.”
“From the library?”
“Yeah. This could be fun!”
“It’s good to see you happy.”