He and his father began their mornings by squeezing oranges and brewing coffee. Officially they were nearing the end of the hurricane season, and the weather of the succeeding days was as tranquil as the first, sunny and warm. Bryce accompanied his father on visits to properties for sale. Always attentive, he collected the real estate agent's handouts, followed the tours obediently, and only offered his opinion afterward if Russell asked. On the second morning Russell persuaded his son to go fishing. However, Bryce didn't enjoy it. He wasn't adept at casting, and he grew bored and hot, standing on the pier, waiting for the fish to bite. He caught nothing, but Russell pulled in a yellow-tailed mackerel. Bryce wouldn't have admitted it to his father, but, while he had no qualms about eating fish, he didn't like to see them struggle in vain, and to watch their shimmering iridescent colors grow pale and dull in death.
"I've had enough," he said, resting his pole against the railing of the pier, "but don't let me stop you."
"Are you all right?" asked Russell, looking at him. "You seem a little peaked."
"I feel dizzy, but it's probably just the heat."
"But it's not that hot. It's not yet eighty."
"I guess it's the sun. Don't worry about me."
"If you say so." Russell sounded relieved. "I'll tell you what. This evening at sunset I'll take you to the wildlife refuge. You'll like that. One drives through it at one's leisure. It's very interesting. Your mother loves it."
It didn't strike Bryce as much of a recommendation, but he refrained from saying so.
* * *
The car inched along the wide road of white sand, with water and low, dense clumps of mangroves on either side. "We're on a dike separating the salt water from the brackish water," explained Russell. "Keep your eyes peeled." A bird guide and a pair of binoculars lay on the seat between them. "What have we here!" Russell exclaimed, as he pulled over and came to a stop. "That's an Anhinga. You can see why it's also called a snake bird."
It took Bryce a while before he noticed the thin black neck of a bird moving like a periscope through the greenish, opaque water. The body was submerged, so that the outstretched neck did look like a snake. He stared at the bird's beady eye and wondered what it would be like to see on either side of one's head. He couldn't tell if the bird was really staring back at him or not.
With a loud beating of its wings, the Anhinga suddenly flew up in the air. It was black and much larger than Bryce had thought. It landed heavily on top of some mangroves nearby, which swayed under its weight, and the sun through the shifting leaves cast wobbly fragments of light on the sluggish water.
"Watch," said Russell in a voice so low it was almost a whisper. "It will spread out its wings to dry."
It happened as he said. The Anhinga's wings, spanning four feet across, were like a lustrous black and white fan. Gradually, the mangroves ceased to sway. As the bird perched motionless, it seemed no longer an ungainly creature, but a vision of elegance. Russell continued, "It spears fish with its bill. Though it swims under the surface, it secretes no natural oils in its feathers to repel water, as a duck does, and so it must dry off in the sun periodically."
Though his father's tone was more didactic than his uncle's had been, Bryce was willing to be enlightened. "I never knew you were so interested in waterfowl," he said.
Sounding defensive, Russell replied, "When you're down here and they're all around you, you can't help but take an interest."
Bryce thought to himself, He's as sensitive as I am. I guess that's where I get it from. "I didn't mean it as a criticism," Bryce hastened to explain. "Quite the contrary. It's nice to discover that you have all this knowledge I had no idea about."
"It's hardly very extensive," said Russell, but he seemed pleased. They continued slowly down the refuge road, stopping every several hundred yards to view the birds, whose names and habits Russell continued to describe until Bryce began to know them. They got out of the car to venture onto a boardwalk built through the mangroves which led to a lookout over a wide shallow marsh. To Bryce, the mangroves' roots looked like thick, tangled gray wires arching out of water stained dark brown by the mangroves' fallen leaves. The tide was low, and some of the exposed roots were encrusted with oysters. In the silence he could clearly hear the scuttling crabs, and when he looked closely he could see dozens of them crawling insect-like in the gloom of the mangroves. The scene was so primeval that he couldn't help shuddering. Far away, on the distant mangrove islands across the marsh, were white specks of birds, which Russell, his vision aided by the binoculars, identified. At the edge of the marsh, not ten yards away, a Great Blue Heron stood on one leg, so vigilant, grave, and still that they nearly overlooked it.
Soon they came to the observation tower in the watery heart of the refuge. The sky was turning pink, and its pastel reflection tinged the water below. Pale blue and pale pink, sea and sky seemed almost to meld. Here was so much activity, so many varied birds congregating, that Bryce was captivated and forgot to worry about himself or his father. Flocks of Ibis came flying from the west in V-formations and settled to join other Ibis feeding in the exposed tidal flats, delicately poking their long, curved orange bills in the mud. Farther in the distance, against the horizon, stood a white American Egret, its neck pulled in and its wings drawn up. Most beautiful of all to Bryce was a flock of Roseate Spoonbills leisurely feeding. They swished their bills from side to side, just breaking the surface, their reflection staining the water around them a darker pink than the sky. Disrupting this tranquility, a lone Louisiana Heron screamed and danced, flapping its wings in short hops and settling down briefly to make a commotion before taking off again.
Bryce was pleased to observe this evening ritual of the birds flying in on the wind, settling, and feeding, and he told his father so. "I'd like to come here again," he said. "I can see how one might make a habit of this."
"It's a loafer's life," said Russell. "Nothing more urgent to do than watch the birds."
Bryce laughed. "I feel I've gotten away finally. Not only from the pressures of New York, of course, but also from the lingering sadness at home." As he spoke, he felt a stab of guilt, as if, in admitting this, he were somehow being disloyal to the memory of his uncle. "I've been thinking of Uncle Bill," he hastened to add. "Did he ever come here?"
"No."
"Oh, I thought he had. I can picture him here."
"I think he would have liked it. But he was always itching to travel west." Suddenly restless, Russell began to wrap the leather cord around the binoculars. "Let's go on. I'd like to show you a Florida gator."
* * *
The days passed placidly. Bryce took time to let the sand collect between his toes, the salt spray blow through his hair. He didn't forget his flawed hopes, but it was as if he cast them into the tides and waited, not yet cleared of them, to discover in what shape they'd wash back to him.
Accompanying his father house hunting, he saw a construction worker cut down a coconut from a cluster on a tree. The man struck it open with a single blow of his machete and, tipping the halves to his open mouth, drank the milk. He was with a crew constructing a swimming pool. A large hole had been gouged out of the ground, but the foundation hadn't yet been poured. Bryce picked up a horse conch, bleached with age, from a pile of upturned earth, shook it free of sand, and held it to his ear. It was silent, having been buried for so long in the earth that it had lost the echo of the sea.
"The wind is blowing, the birds are flying, the anoles are rustling in the agave"—like a refrain, these words sang themselves in Bryce's mind as he wandered over the half-acre lot of the low green house his father was looking at. He guessed already that this was the house his father wanted to buy, and he approved. It was situated on a canal lined with other houses similar to it, and there was a small dock where Russell could moor a boat.
Bryce joined his father inside the house with the real estate agent, a middle-aged woman with a fixed smile and lacquered hair. She showed them a kitchen with modern applianc
es and a large living room opening on a screened-in patio which looked out to the canal. There were also three bedrooms, two baths.
"Enough room to put up Peggy, Joe, and the girls," commented Russell to Bryce. "That's your mother's main requirement."
"The house is twenty years old," said the agent. "It has only had two owners. Everything's in good condition."
"Nice view, isn't it," Russell remarked, as they gazed at the canal. There was a large casuarina growing near the sea wall. Bryce watched a bright red Cardinal fly up in its branches. The tide was low in the canal. A Little Blue Heron picked its way carefully over the shelves of exposed oysters.
"Yes, it is," agreed Bryce, "and in the front yard you have a coconut palm, a lime tree, and a mango."
"You can do a great deal with these lots," said the agent brightly.
"I see they're building a swimming pool next door," Bryce continued, making conversation.
"You could probably build one here, too," said the agent. "There's a ratio regulating building to lot size, and I believe you have some leeway. Would you like me to check that out for you?"
"You might as well," said Russell, "although I'm not really thinking about a pool. Still, it doesn't hurt to know. I like the house, and I like the canal access. I'll think about it and call you."
"Don't wait too long," said the agent. "These mid-priced houses go quickly."
"They call two hundred twenty-five thousand dollars a mid priced house?" Russell complained to Bryce once they were alone. "You can practically buy a plantation in Mississippi for that."
"Then why don't you?" said Bryce.
"But I don't want one. I want a vacation house on Sanibel."
"You're on an island where a lot of the land is protected from development. That's why homes are expensive. There's only so much more that can be built. The house is probably a good investment."
"Unless Sanibel gets hit by a hurricane."
"That's true. If you can afford it, you should get insurance.”
"How much do you think I should offer?" asked Russell.
Bryce shrugged. "I don't know. What do you think?"
At dinner in a fish restaurant, a happier choice for Bryce, the house was their major topic of conversation. On the one hand, Russell was nervous about the expense, but he seemed to have his heart set on the green house. "I'll call your mother when we get back and discuss it with her. I've seen a lot of properties but none I like so well, and we've already been here a week."
"I know. The time seemed to go slowly at first, and then it went quickly."
"I find it often does on vacation," said Russell. "The weather's been just fine, hasn't it?"
"Perfect."
However, when they came out of the restaurant, Bryce realized that he had spoken too soon. The placid, seemingly changeless calm was gone. During dinner a new weather had blown in. The wind gusted hard at their backs, the trees tossed wildly. They could feel a storm brewing, but they had no idea how fierce it would be.
The sky darkened, the clouds gathered. Night was falling, but Bryce noticed, as they got into the car, a momentary illusion of light. This time he was driving, and his father was beside him.
The rain began at first so faintly—a ripple in the atmosphere, a sprinkle on the windshield. Yet almost instantly, the clouds burst open, and the rain descended in sheets and torrents. The wipers struggled to keep the windshield clear. It was hard to drive. In the downpour, on the glistening road, the headlights and the lights of the oncoming traffic reflected back at Bryce, dazzling his eyes. He drove slowly. He was not afraid. He thought that the casuarinas and the tall pines growing at either side of the road, at first wind-whipped and then drenched, were beautiful.
Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the rain slackened off. The wind died down. It seemed the storm was passing, but this was only a breather, for soon it was entering its greatest fury.
The flash of lightning severed the lull. The boom of thunder absorbed it. In the far distance, long jagged cracks seemed to rend the sky. Like sinking arrows of light, they disappeared. The heavens were not truly shattered.
Now the lightning appeared as a diffuse brightness hard to place, glowing in the darkness. The thunder followed, close and deafening. In the moving car, Bryce and Russell were speechless, mesmerized. They weren't far from the condominium when Bryce saw a sudden brilliance swallow up everything in front of them.
He kept going. He couldn't tell where he was when the lightning struck, but they both heard the crackling and saw sparks scatter from the top of the utility pole. "That was the transformer," his father clarified, looking back as they drove past. "There went our power."
His conclusion proved correct. Inside the condominium they stumbled in darkness. Feeling his way from wall to wall, Bryce found the kitchen and located a drawer where he remembered having seen a flashlight, candles, candlesticks, and matches. He laid the flashlight on the counter. He lit the candles in the candlesticks, which he placed one by one in the few rooms.
Outside the storm continued, flashing and grumbling. Russell tried the phone, but it was dead. He couldn't call Mary. "We might as well relax and wait it out," said Bryce. He fixed them both drinks of white rum and freshly squeezed orange juice. He used half of a tray of melting ice. They sat across the room from each other in the candle-lit darkness, sipping their drinks, silent, lost in their own thoughts. It was pleasant, Bryce reflected, to be comfortable, sheltered, and dry, growing mellow with rum while the storm raged. For once neither he nor his father felt a need to make conversation, and it was a relief. He let his mind drift.
He heard his father snoring. He wondered if he himself had dozed off as well. "Dad, it's time to go to bed." As Bryce got up to rouse his father, he felt a tingling, then a numbness, in his left leg. But he could walk, after all, and he didn't mention it. Yet he was depressed at the thought of what it might mean. He had gone a long time without an exacerbation. He had almost forgotten that he wasn't really well.
"Dad." He nudged his father's shoulder.
"Wha-at?"
"You don't want to sleep here all night. Why don't you go to bed?"
"Is it still raining?"
"Yes, but not as hard. The storm's not over, but it's moved. Its center is farther away. We don't have power back yet.”
Bryce took his father's empty glass and his own and rinsed them in the sink. He accidentally dropped the orange juicer, but luckily nothing broke. He left the glasses and the juicer in the sink. When he returned from the kitchen, his father was standing up.
"Guess I'll turn in now," Russell said. "Sorry I fell asleep on you."
"It's all right. I think I slept a little, too. I'll see you in the morning."
Bryce undressed in his room, blew out the candle on the dresser, and went to bed. Far off, the heavens split and mended and shed rain on the earth, while he slept. He was dreaming.
He woke in pitch dark with a feeling of terror. He sat bolt upright in bed. He heard the distinct sound of a car door slamming. Disoriented, he wasn't sure if the noise was in his dream, or if it was what had taken him from it. After that sound he was aware of the quiet: the rain must have stopped. He listened carefully, but didn't hear the sound again. He tried to turn on the light, but the power was still out. He lifted the shade. The window was dark. He got up out of bed and made his way to the living room. It, too, was dark, but he knew by feel where the door was, and he opened it. Wearing only the nightshirt he had slept in, he went outside.
The rain had ceased. The sky was still too obscured to reveal many stars. All around him was darkness except for one shocking illumination. It came from inside their rented car.
Approaching, Bryce saw that the interior light was on, flooding the windows. The car looked empty. As he went towards it, he realized he was acting incautiously. Someone might be inside, crouching on the floor.
But no one was. The car was unlocked, as either he or his father might have left it. He opened the door and inspected the in
terior. The radio was still in the dashboard, the rental agreement in the glove compartment. A map of Florida lay on the floor below the front passenger seat. It seemed that nothing had been disturbed. He peered into the darkness surrounding the car- at the parking lot, the grounds of the condominium complex, the adjacent street. The only movements he discerned were palm trees waving in the breeze: no car, no human, no animal, nothing else at all. In the eerie night, waiting for he knew not what, he suddenly remembered his dream. It was a nightmare.
In his dream a death had occurred. It wasn't his own death, nor his uncle's death, nor the death of any other relative. No, he had dreamed that Paul was dead, and that he had come back to New York and discovered it after the fact. No one had told him.
The dream exposed a solitude so piercing that his waking loneliness was a shadow of it. His feeling of abandonment, of having been excluded, was as terrible as the realization of loss. Under the thin nightshirt he could feel his heart beating. Surely Paul wasn't dead, though he had dreamed it.
In the dream was despair, yet he didn't despair now. Paul, he thought, may be back in New York. I’m ready to call him at last, he decided. And, having waited so long, he knew that he could wait until the morning.
He reached into the car and switched off the light. This time he was careful to lock the doors. He listened: a whimper of wind in the trees, and then nothing.
It didn't seem yet that everything had returned to normal. He found himself imagining that the storm had obliterated the world so that it could be born anew. He could almost believe that he had entered into a world that was just coming into existence.
He was wide awake, though it felt like dreaming. He heard the door to the house open, saw the arc of a flashlight falling across the entrance, and his father's face lit weirdly above it. "Bryce, what are you doing out there? Come inside, for Pete's sake."
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