Barefoot Beach

by Toby Devens

  Here’s where the miracle really happened. Within a year, Jack’s walk had taken on Lon’s California cowboy swagger. By the time he was eight, he’d developed a beautiful singing voice that my mother-in-law swore was identical to Lon’s when he’d been a choirboy at Saint Dominic’s. For Jack’s tenth birthday we went on a fishing trip to Lake Tahoe, and one night, under an ink black sky sprayed with stars, Lon spun the story, in ways only a man brilliant with words could, of a most-wanted son and how he came to be. When he was finished, Jack said, “No kidding. Wow. That is so cool.”

  The questions came later. Mostly for me, because within the year, Lon was dead.

  What reminded me of this, after more than a decade, was seeing Jack pace the beach as he talked into his iPhone that Friday morning in June. Lon had done that. Back and forth, back and forth, on the conversations with his editor when sales of his last book were flagging and he’d begun to refer to himself as Henrik Hasbeen. Back and forth, when his mother called to say his dad had been diagnosed with cancer.

  As I watched from the deck, Jack walked his endless loop, his free hand slapping a quick tattoo against his thigh the way Lon’s had done. And after Jack jammed the phone in his pocket, he sat down on the flat of Mooncussers Rock and sank his head in his hands. I’d never seen that before. From Lon, yes, during what he called “the bog times.” But not from Jack.

  My instinct was to make it better, whatever it was. Kids grow up, but parents don’t outgrow the need to chase monsters, soothe nightmares. The desire to rush to my son was almost irresistible.

  No. Let him fall. The phrase was one I’d learned from a pioneering movement-analysis professor in grad school. It was the mantra I repeated silently when one of my clients swayed wildly on a damaged leg or a new prosthesis. Steady him if you can. But if he’s out of control, don’t try to catch him. You’re no good to him if you go down. And, worst case, even if he hits the floor, it won’t be as hard as his fear of the fall. And he’ll get up stronger and wiser.

  I made myself wait on the deck until I saw Jack raise his head. Then I took the stairs slowly and, forcing a measured tempo, walked along the path to the beach. When I reached him, he was staring at the ocean, his arms wrapped around his knees. And he was laughing.

  chapter four

  Walking on sand in bare feet makes no sound and Jack hadn’t heard me approach, but when my shadow merged with his, he looked over at me and that single glance switched off his laughter.

  I gulped a relieved breath. I thought he’d been bent over in anguish, but he’d been laughing. See, I told myself. See, Nora. You worry too much.

  “Good phone call?” I asked brightly.

  “A funny call,” he said, gazing again at the ocean. “Not as in stand-up funny. Surprising funny. Good? I guess we’ll see.”

  “Tiffanie?”

  That slipped out. I tried to be Switzerland when it came to her. Neutral. At least with Jack, because (a) I got more information that way and (b) she might, God forbid, be my daughter-in-law one day. But he had to have known what I thought of her. When he’d dated that sweet Carrie back in tenth grade, the one who made it to the semifinals of the Jeopardy! Teen Tournament, I sent the girl a congratulatory e-card and posted a photo of her with Alex Trebek on my Facebook page. With Tiffanie, I just listened and lost sleep.

  “The call wasn’t from Tiffanie. But yeah, she’s involved in a way. You and I were going to talk,” he said. “We really have to, Mom. Now.”

  My heart flipped. It bounced so high on the rebound it nudged a cough from my throat.

  There was space next to Jack on Mooncussers Rock and I fervently hoped he’d pat an invitation to sit down, because my legs were suddenly too weak to hold me. But he stood up. “I’ve got pins and needles in my ass from this rock.” Wry smile. “Let’s walk.”

  It was going to be bad. He’d said Tiffanie was involved. He wanted us to be on the beach, among people, because he knew I wouldn’t make a scene in public and he was afraid I’d scream and froth at the mouth when he told me she was pregnant and he was going to quit college and live with her and the triplets over her parents’ garage. Or she’d written a sequel to Fifty Shades of Grey, only it wasn’t fiction—it was autobiographical, and she’d named names and devices. Or she . . .

  “This goes way back,” Jack was saying. Somehow I was walking. Alongside him. One bare foot in front of the other. I’d gotten a pedicure before leaving Baltimore, and on a whim I’d had my toenails painted blue. What had I been thinking? Beach equals carefree; that’s what. Not this.

  Jack took my arm as if I were an old lady in danger of toppling over. “The phone call was from the Baltimore Fertility Bank.”

  It took me a moment to recognize a name that had once sounded like poetry.

  “I called there yesterday before I left Durham. I asked them to start the process for me to contact my Donor Dad. My DD.”

  Donor Dad! DD! Freshly minted phrases I didn’t like the sound of.

  It wasn’t long after we told Jack about the circumstances surrounding his conception that he’d nicknamed #1659 “Sixteen.” For a while, after he’d helped scatter his dad’s ashes on the ocean behind the Surf Avenue house, he didn’t talk about Sixteen. Maybe he thought it would be disrespectful to Lon’s memory. Then, a few years later, he did ask some questions. What state did Sixteen live in? I didn’t know, I told him. I could only assume he’d been living in Maryland when he’d donated. The sperm bank wanted you close by. But the donation was immediately frozen to last for a long time, so by now he could be anywhere. What did he look like? I stalled on that one, trying to decide what Lon would have done, then showed him the photo of the blond kid. “Cute,” he’d said, and printed out a copy that I never saw again. The bar mitzvah of his best friend set off a round of questions. What religion was Sixteen? Which led to: Was he athletic? Good in math?

  I consulted my shrink friend. “Tell him everything you know,” Josh advised. So I did. And that seemed to satisfy Jack. But on his sixteenth birthday, after an impromptu party at a friend’s house, he came home laughing-jag drunk on Goldschläger, cocked a finger at me, and said, “Here’s a riddle for you. I’m sixteen, right? And my donor is Sixteen, right? So what’s sixteen from sixteen? Zero, right? Oh boy, I am so shitfaced.” He got grounded for a week; I agonized for months.

  “Does that mean he thinks he’s a zero?” I’d asked the same psychiatrist.

  “Every adolescent boy has self-esteem issues, Nora,” he said. “But soon they grow out of the acne and into their egos. Your son sounds pretty clever, by the way. The sixteen-from-sixteen riff. He was just showing off. I wouldn’t make a big deal of it.”

  Last year, after guzzling too many beers at a family cookout, my brother had taken Jack aside for a private conversation. Mick had been a nasty, snotty little kid and an out-of-control teen, and now he was a troubled man, probably alcoholic, thrice divorced, still ignorant and arrogant, a toxic mix. That afternoon, his decibel level had been magnified by the Guinness.

  “So, Johnny-boy, you’re eighteen next month. You gonna try to meet your . . . you know?” I’d be damned if he hadn’t patted his crotch.

  “Nah.” Jack had shrugged. “Not interested. Don’t see the point. I’ve got family.”

  “That you have,” Mick had slurred. “And we all love you.”

  I’d followed up when we got home. “Jack, you know it’s okay with me if you want to get in touch with Sixteen. I’d understand.” I’d meant it then.

  “Sure. Thanks, but no, thanks.”

  And now Sixteen was Donor Dad and Jack was hunting him down.

  “What changed?” I asked him as we walked the beach with his hand gripping my arm.

  “I did, I guess. A whole bunch of stuff got me thinking. I finally read Dad’s second book over spring break.” Banshee River, which had received a lukewarm reception from the critics. “You know how
the kid inherits his father’s love for bears? The inherited part screwed with my brain. Dad writing about it. And we studied genetics in biology last semester. Plus in my psychology class, we covered Freud. Biology is destiny and all that.”

  “A misquote,” I said. “Freud actually said anatomy is destiny. And he was wrong about that too.”

  “Whatever.” Jack scowled at me. “You’re missing the big picture. You have your total history. Grandma and Grandpa Quinn. How their grandparents survived the Irish potato famine. And the big Italian migration of the 1900s when Grandma Mimi’s family came over. You’ve got both sides covered.

  “And Dad had his connection to Jack London, how his great-grandfather was this famous guy’s doctor and close friend back in Glen Ellen, what, a hundred years ago? I mean, look how even the name got passed on, which—don’t get me wrong; I like my name—but I find that a little creepy. And Dad thought what he did, writing novels about mountains and rivers and the great outdoors, was some kind of legacy.”

  “But not genetic,” I countered.

  “Kind of, through Great-grandfather Farrell. The point is,” he insisted, “I’ve got missing pieces, big ones. I look in the mirror every morning and I wonder what parts came from where.”

  Was that why the scruff of beard? Had he given up shaving to avoid the mirror?

  “Anyway, it all piled up and started to bother me. Then yesterday in the midst of a . . . uh . . . discussion, Tiffanie said, ‘You know what your problem is? You don’t know who you are.’”

  I stopped short to face him while a furious flush washed over me. “That’s ridiculous. Of course you know who you are.”

  “Look, Mom, I get that you think Tiffanie’s a bitch—”

  “Did I ever say—?”

  “Hold on. No, you’ve never said it. But you think it because we’re always fighting and you want to protect me and all. But Tiffanie’s smart. Really. She’s dean’s list. More than that, she thinks things through. She’s deep.” As deep as her cleavage in the glamour shot? I wondered snarkily. But I forced myself to give her a Swiss-neutral passport. “Okay.”

  “And she was right this time. I knew it in my gut. So”—deep breath—“I called the fertility bank. And they just called back. That was the call.” He let go of my arm, so I guessed I was on my own. “They’re emailing me a form that I have to fill out and get notarized. And then they’ll contact my DD and let him know I’m interested. And we’ll see what happens from there.”

  I kept nodding like the gulls at the water’s edge. Gulls have brains the size of walnuts.

  Jack stooped to pick up a shell, a pearlized abalone sculpted with an open spiral that ended in a curl. Like a wave. Something else to marvel at. “What was so funny was that I’ve been thinking about doing this for months and it took them less than a day to get back to me. How crazy is that?”

  He started to laugh again. I didn’t feel like laughing, but Jack’s laugh had always been infectious, and I couldn’t help myself. When we rumbled to a stop, he backed away to peer at me. “So you’re cool with this?”

  “I just want you to be happy,” I said. Which wasn’t the worst answer on the fly, even if it wasn’t the entire answer. The whole truth was that I wasn’t cool with it; I was cold with it, shiveringly, shockingly cold, as if I’d been swamped by a splash of that frigid June ocean out there. I tried to hide my gulp for air. I needed oxygen to process what effect Sixteen’s entrance, if he chose to make one, would have on Jack, on me, on Jack-and-me. If he chose not to, that was another issue.

  “Thanks,” my son said, as if he hadn’t just dropped me into deep water with a potential shark circling beneath the opaque surface.

  I thanked God for the diversion as a swell of voices and laughter came surging at us. We turned to stare at a quartet of runners racing by. In their twenties, they had no idea what they were doing to their arches by pounding away on damp sand, no idea of how little Medicare would eventually cover for podiatric services.

  “They’re trying to get their run in before this afternoon,” Jack said. “It’s supposed to go up to ninety with the humidity off the charts. Look where the sun is already. Crap! The time!” He checked his watch, Lon’s TAG Heuer, handed down from his father. “Oh great. First run of the summer and I’m going to be late picking up the dogs. I don’t even have the damn Frisbee with me.” And he sprinted off, calling behind him, “We’ll touch base later.”

  I stood for a moment, trying to take everything in. Everything.

  In my direct line of sight, a ponytailed woman in a maternity swimsuit led a tow-haired toddler into the shallow lip of ocean, laced with foam. She pointed to a pod of dolphins, not far out, arcing and diving as if they were auditioning for Disney. The little boy followed her finger and, when he spotted the show, jumped up and down with excitement. Enjoy it now, I sent a telepathic message to the mom, and memorize these simply wonderful moments. It gets complicated later.

  Just then, a purple sandpiper swooped down to land near my left foot, ambled around it on short yellow legs, and deposited a white spatter on my new blue pedicure. And I was only halfway through my colorful morning. I washed off the bird poop in the surf, took a final look at the sky shimmering even this early in the heat, and told myself, Pull yourself together. It was time to get on with my day. As my business card noted under my name and “Board-Certified Dance Movement Therapist,” my slogan was “One Step at a Time.” That’s the way I’d take this new revelation of Jack’s: one slow, tentative, faltering, probably stumbling step at a time. But you’re a movement therapist, so move! I ordered myself.

  After the undrinkable instant coffee, and then the conversation with Jack that left me—I suddenly realized—drained, I craved a cup of Emine and Adnan’s brew. “Black as hell, strong as death, sweet as love,” the Turkish proverb went. All that caffeine would perk me up, I told myself, and groaned at my own pun. More than coffee, though, I craved time with Em. She had a problem child. Maybe she could serve me a side of advice with the coffee.

  chapter five

  The Turquoise Café was located in the Tuckahoe Mews, a twisting alley off the main drag lined with high-end artsy-craftsy shops and specialty women’s boutiques. I trotted by Neptune’s Sister, which carried shell and coral necklaces—not my style—and silver bracelets, beautiful but pricey. I moved on past the lemon-and-lavender facade of Time and Tide Books, then ducked through the bougainvillea-draped arches of Rainbow’s End, a restaurant with a largely gay male clientele who congregated in the half-walled front garden at sunset to drink and laugh and sometimes dance to Cole Porter on the sound system.

  I made a left turn, then followed the aroma of brewing coffee and freshly baked muffins, and there I was at the Turquoise Café, a vibrant blue-green jewel set among the paler pastel shops. Through the glass storefront, I saw Emine behind the marble counter serving a customer. I rapped on the window and she looked toward me, smiled a greeting, and motioned me in.

  The café was flooded with morning light. One pale aqua wall was decorated with photographs of the Turquoise Coast, the Turkish Riviera. The opposite wall was a backdrop for an arrangement of rugs, a red-and-yellow Oushak, a Kayseri silk, and some smaller hangings. Across the ceiling, Emine had hung banners of gauzy yellow fabric that billowed with each air-conditioned draft. Under this gossamer tent, the customers sat back and slipped into slow gear, sipped coffee, and nibbled pastry or simit, the Turkish bagel. You could almost see them shed their tight winter skins.

  I headed toward one of the smaller tables against the window to drop my gym bag before placing my order at the service counter. I watched as Em exchanged a few words with her husband, waved me back, and met me halfway across the floor. She wrapped me in a hug and I felt the crispness of her white apron appliquéd with a rendition of the nazar boncuğu, the blue anti–evil eye talisman, which reputedly brought good luck or at least warded off bad. Maybe the crush of her e
mbrace pressed into me some of its power to deflect calamity. I could hope.

  She nodded at my choice of seating. “Here is good. I am taking my break.”

  The early breakfast rush was over; the counter line had thinned. Adnan and his cousin Volkan, who helped out at peak times, had the front of the house under control and Em could sit for a while, she said. We lowered ourselves into chairs cushioned in turquoise fabric and automatically extended hands across the table so we could interlace our fingers.

  “Cold,” she commented on my skin’s chill. “On such a warm day, your fingers are ice.”

  Lon used to say that my blood literally ran cold when I was frightened, sad, or worried.

  The aroma of toasted spices had given me a taste for a mug of the traditional rich Turkish coffee, or maybe for one of Em’s inventions, bicultural cardamom lattes or cinnamon and clove macchiatos. But Emine had preempted my coffee order by telling Adnan to bring us both tea. He materialized on his silent tread with a tray holding two tulip-shaped glass cups, steam rising from them, and a plate of baklava still warm from the oven.

  The atmosphere cooled in his presence. While he and I exchanged polite greetings, his wife turned her back on him and stared out the window at the Friday morning shoppers strolling by, the gulls pecking at crumbs on the cobblestones. Tension prickled the air. I knew the Haydars were going through a rough patch, something to do with Merry, because it was always something about their daughter. In her weekly phone calls from Tuckahoe to Baltimore to brief me on the off-season happenings at We Got Rhythm, Em’s end of the conversation eventually slid from business to personal and invariably to her wayward daughter. How helpless my friend felt. How alone, despite the parade of therapists with their contradictory theories and recommendations. How she and Adnan disagreed on how to handle their difficult child.