The Other Shore: Two Stories of Love and Death

by Paul Hina

the water, and he thinks he can hear it. It must be the same sound his dad has spent hours quietly contemplating.

  It isn't odd for his dad to so easily go back to the water in his drug-induced state. Almost all of Simon's memories of his dad outside their old house are either at the university or here at the lake.

  For three seasons of most years, he and his dad used to come here every so often, a couple hours at a time, on weekends. These were usually very quiet outings where almost nothing was said. In summer, Maggie would come with them and they would all swim. But in the spring and fall, he and his dad would come alone and quietly walk by the lake. And, though the impression these outings made on Simon at the time were never quite strong, he feels the importance of them now, hearing the water again, feeling its clarity.

  He wanted so badly to connect with his dad then, yearned for his dad to ask him questions about his life, teach him something, tell him stories. But maybe those lakeside walks were his dad's way of connecting with him. His dad was never someone who easily, openly shared emotion, but he was sharing something important with his son on these walks. He was giving him the quiet, sharing with Simon the calm of the water.

  "I don't know if you can hear me," Simon whispers, almost as much to the water as to his dad, "but I forgive you. I don't blame you for anything anymore. I understand better now."

  He looks down at his dad, and he thought he might've seen the slightest recognition from his mouth. Did it move? Was he trying to say something?

  It was probably nothing.

  Simon hears a car approaching the house. It's so quiet here, no noise can hide. A car door shuts. It must be Laura with their dinner.

  Simon stands in the middle of this silent room, staring off into nothing, waiting for the sound of the screen door to clatter shut. And when it finally hits, it wakes him a bit, shakes him from the spell of sitting in the static.

  He can hear muttering down the hall—the noise of life.

  He approaches the bed again, leans over, pushes a tuft of hair from his dad's forehead. Sy's face twitches at Simon's touch, and Simon can't help but wonder what, if anything, is going on in that head. Does he dream in these drugged-out states? Where does he go?

  Instead of staying to get sucked back into the space he's sat in the past few hours, he leaves the room. He emerges from the hallway into the living room, and moves toward Laura and Susannah's dancing shadows in the kitchen.

  He leans against a chair at the kitchen table. They haven't noticed him, yet. They're gathering things from cabinets and drawers like they've performed this choreography before. It really does seem like Laura is at home here.

  Laura has changed and showered since she was here last. Her hair is down and out of its earlier ponytail—still slightly damp at the ends. She's wearing a floral patterned summer dress that swings back and forth just above her knees as she moves. And what might seem like a couple simple changes on most women has transformed her from merely beautiful to something ethereal.

  Susannah, on the other hand, is different only in the fact that she's clearly had too much to drink. She's moving in that deliberate way people move when they're pretending they still have complete control over their faculties. Even now, she has a wine glass loosely hanging from her fingers. It still has a swallow of wine in it, which won't last long. She's already well into the bottle of wine that's sitting on the counter next to the empty bottle of champagne from earlier.

  "When did you sneak in here?" Susannah says, seeing him for the first time.

  "You don't have to set a place for me," he says, seeing the handful of silverware in her hands. "I'll just grab a slice or two."

  "You're not going to eat with us?" Laura asks, turning toward him, looking almost hurt by the implication.

  "No, that's not what I mean. I've just been sitting back there the past couple hours, and I thought I'd grab some pizza and stand at the counter or something, if that's alright. I'm kind of tired of sitting."

  "Suit yourself," Laura says, handing him a plate as she passes by, and he can smell the shower still fresh on her skin, and it's intoxicating. He wonders if his adoration is showing as she walks over to the table to set a place for her and Susannah.

  "Anybody want some wine?" Susannah asks, grabbing two glasses from an upper cabinet by the stove while she simultaneously pours herself—not without some effort—another glass.

  "I'm alright. I'll just have water," he says.

  "There's some in the fridge," Susannah says. "Laura?"

  "Sure, I'll take some," Laura says, and Simon got the impression she accepted out of pity for Susannah. There is something almost cruel about letting someone drink alone, particularly when you know the reason for their drinking is pain rather than pleasure.

  Simon grabs the box of pizza from the stovetop and carries it to the table. He opens the box, grabs two slices and places them on his plate. He walks over to the counter, rests against it and takes a bite of his pizza.

  "It's been years since I've had Valentino's Pizza," he says. "It's as good as I remember."

  "Your dad loves it, too. I always have to try and limit him to once a week. If I'm not home by six on any given night, you could bet a Valentino's pizza is on its way," she says, and then disappears within herself for a second before gaining her attention again. "I forgot the music."

  She moves toward the oven again, flips a switch on the speaker by the stove, and scrolls through the screen of the iPod that's connected to it. "Any requests?"

  "Whatever you want is fine with me," he says, feeling that no one in the room has much to say and that some music—any music—would be a welcome distraction.

  A piano sound rolls from the speakers. Simon's not sure what it is, but once the saxophone appears in the song, he starts to get an idea that it's Dexter Gordon. Whoever it is, it was probably not the right choice for the room. The temperature of the room called for something a little more upbeat.

  Susannah moves back across the room—sways back, really. Laura looks at her, then looks at Simon. She raises her eyebrows a little as if to acknowledge what they're both thinking about Susannah's drinking.

  But Susannah wastes no time getting reacquainted with her wine after she returns to the table. There's a slice of pizza on her plate, but other than resting her finger on the crust every so often, she hasn't eaten anything.

  "This song was a bad choice," she says, looking at Simon. "Not my fault, though. I put it on shuffle."

  "It's alright. It's good to have something on," Simon says, and then he looks at Laura. He gets the idea that she can tell he's looking. She turns toward him as if to confirm his suspicion, but then shyly looks away. There seems to be a strangeness between them suddenly. "Did you spend a lot of time at the office this afternoon?" he asks her.

  "There wasn't much to do. I had a couple calls to make, and some email to go through, but not much else. I just feel like I need to make an appearance, to have a presence at the office in case something comes up. They're still paying me, after all. Plus, I had a couple of things to do at home," she says, playfully twisting her hair with one hand while a slice of pizza hangs from the other. "How is he? Has he been awake at all?"

  "He's been out since you left," Simon says. "That reminds me though, I was wondering if he's ever said anything about his state of mind when he's out on the pain medication? Does he have any recollection of what's going on? Is his sleep during that time any different from his regular sleep?"

  "There's the water thing," Susannah says, carefully talking past her drunk tongue. "It's a recurring theme for him. But I think he wills it. He describes it as being in the middle of an endless body of water, and it's dark but for the bright light of the moon that shines down over the water. He says that the intensity of the waves in the water correspond with the intensity of the state he's in. That's how he can tell when the meds are calming down—the waves calm, too."

  "Does he describe it as if it's unsettling?" Simon asks.

  "No, he loves it.
He loves the water. He plays in it, says he races the waves."

  "Sounds unsettling to me," Laura says.

  "I suppose it does," Susannah says. "But he seems to find it calming."

  "What time does he usually get back up in the evening?" Simon asks.

  "He's been in and out a lot less consistently the past week or so. The medication usually keeps him out for a solid four hours. I guess it depends on how long he needs to sleep after it wears off. At this point though, once the pain meds wear off, the pain seems to wake him up."

  Just as Susannah finishes her thought, Miles Davis' "Darn That Dream" comes through the speaker. She closes her eyes and her head starts to sway back and forth. "Oh, this song," she says, standing up and moving toward Simon with her hand out. "Dance with me."

  "Now?"

  "Oh, come on," she says, grabbing his hand and pulling him toward her.

  It's been years since he danced with anyone like this—this close. He's both taken aback by the suddenness of her affection, and embarrassed by her presumptions. But, regardless of all the emotional noise, she's wrapped her arms over his shoulders and started swaying back and forth, waiting for him to reciprocate. He doesn't feel like he's left with much of a choice. She's obviously in a lot of pain. So, he tentatively places his hands on her hips and tries to match her body's rhythm.

  Once they've developed a rhythm, she presses her body more firmly against his and swirls