The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac

by Kris D'Agostino

  We pass through the small plaza, where an elaborate fountain filled with pocket change bears a copper plaque dedicating the beach to JFK. The Kennedy compound is a few miles away, a popular destination for tourists, although eight-foot hedges obscure most of it.

  Chip and I sit in the sand. Windbreakers zipped up against the gathering breeze. Our father is on a bench behind us. Elissa and our mother have conspired to slowly break his habit of wearing only pajamas and bathrobes. So, against his will, they’ve forced him into jeans and a plaid button-down. He cradles his head in his hands. Every so often he looks around. The seawall runs behind him, separating the beach from the parking lot. The sound of waves lapping up onto the shore. Dozens of small sailboats moored out in the bay.

  “You like living at home?” I ask Chip.

  “I like that the family’s all together,” he says. He leans forward, pushing his bare feet into the sand. “Italian families stay together. In Italy that’s what they do. They live together for as long as they can.”

  “Well, listen, I think helping them out is pretty noble of you,” I say.

  “I know you don’t like being stuck there,” he says in return, “but just being there helps. He needs it.”

  My brother puts his arms around me, drawing me into a bear hug.

  “Get off me,” I say, struggling against his grip. He’s stronger than me and I have to wait until he lets go.

  “You love it,” Chip says.

  “I do not,” I say.

  The ferry whistle blows across the water, at the docks, as the seven o’clock Hy-Line departs for Martha’s Vineyard.

  “Don’t you like hugs?” Chip asks.

  “I do,” I say, “just not from you or Dad.”

  Down the beach, Elissa and our mother are walking toward us through the shallows. Elissa’s sweatpants are rolled up to her knees and she dips her hands into the water to pull up a dead crab. She pantomimes it pinching her throat.

  “Think she’s gonna be able to handle a kid?” Chip asks.

  “She’s gonna have a hard time.”

  “But see, we’ll all be there to help her,” Chip says. “That’s what I’m talking about. Like we were there for Dad.”

  “You really believe that?” I say.

  “Dad?” Chip calls out, over his shoulder. “You okay?”

  Our father looks up. “I’m great,” he says.

  My brother and I sit without talking as the sun inches toward the horizon behind us. We watch Elissa and our mother approach.

  “Heads up,” Elissa says. She throws the crab into Chip’s lap. He bolts to his feet.

  “Gross,” he says. The women laugh. They go to the bench and sit with Dad. After a while, Chip and I get up to join them. The five of us watch the sky and the boats and the seagulls and all of it.

  “Your mother tells me you went for a job interview?” my father says, turning slightly to address me with his eyes.

  “Right before we left,” I say.

  “How did it go?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Is it something you want?”

  “I think so,” I say. I throw up my hands. “Yeah. It’s something I want. It would mean more money. More money I could throw at this house thing.”

  “I’m sure you did great,” my mother says, reaching over to touch my face with her hand. There is a smell of burnt hot dogs on the wind.

  “Cal, I need your help,” my father says.

  “Please, Dad,” I say.

  “No, really, this time I’m serious,” he says. He looks at me again. “I need you to help me write a letter,” he says. “So I can get back up in the air.”

  There are so many boats out on the water. They heel from side to side.

  “Sure,” I tell him. “I’ll help you write a letter.”

  THE LOBSTERS ARE OVERCOOKED. They have the consistency of rubber cement. Still, they taste pretty good, and by citronella candlelight we dine around the picnic table in the front yard. Chip eats with his hands, tears the lobster apart, licks melted butter off his fingers.

  “Delicious,” he says.

  After dinner, Grandma takes Elissa and Chip to get ice cream. My father and I sit down in the kitchen to write the letter. My mother, faithful archivist of every scrap of Moretti documentation, has collected all the paperwork accumulated throughout the course of his illness. A thick manila folder bursting with doctors’ reports, evaluations, and test results, hospital bills, and notarized letters. She drops it on the table with a thud.

  “Holy fuck, Mom,” I say. “How do you keep track of all this?”

  “Welcome to my world,” she says. “I’m treating myself to a bath.”

  “Okay,” I say. I spread the papers out onto the table. He sits across from me. He has changed back into his bathrobe. He looks like a teenager awaiting punishment for staying out too late. “First things first,” I say. “What exactly do we need to achieve with this letter?”

  He seems to ponder the question.

  “We need to convince the FAA I’m healthy enough to fly,” he says. “I have all the necessary forms, all the doctors’ notes, the charts and test results, graphs, scans, X-rays. We just need a cover letter to tie everything together.”

  “All right,” I say. “We can do that.”

  He shows me an e-mail from his oncologist. In it, a plan is laid out in regard to petitioning the FAA to reinstate his pilot’s license. Basically, the doctor points out the trouble spots that need to be addressed. The biggest hurdle appears to be proving that my father is no longer a coronary risk. That he won’t keel over from a heart attack because of all the medication he is on and the shock that the stem cell transplant has put his body through. In the eyes of the FAA, a coronary risk is a massive problem for their pilots, one they are very reluctant (with good reason) to overlook.

  “I’m fucked,” he says.

  “No, you aren’t,” I say, but really I don’t know what I’m talking about. “We’ll just take another shot at it. Persistence, okay? Don’t try to rush anything.”

  “It’s been a year and a half.”

  “You’ll fly again. I promise.”

  Together we sort through everything, piece by piece, chart by chart. We select what we think is important to include in his application. Anything new the FAA might be interested in knowing. Anything that might sway them to give him a medical clearance.

  We leaf through endless blood-work charts. Glucose levels, creatinine levels, protein totals. Lipid panels. HDL versus LDL. Iron count. There is a lengthy typed profile of his case history. The whole disease chronicled from first diagnosis through the stem cell transplant. Included in that is a letter explaining that he has developed hypercoagulability as a result of the myeloma. This means his blood clots too easily—creating even further risk of a heart attack.

  Once we have what we consider to be a nice cross section of test results and recommendations and diagrams showing that the cancer has successfully moved into remission, we draft the letter. It is simple, plainspoken. In it, I instruct my father to write about his love of aviation, his passion for flying. I tell him to write about how much he misses the plane, misses running ground checks. Misses engine maintenance. I tell him to write about the time his father took him to an air show in White Plains as a child and how he knew right away that he was meant to fly. I know it is easy for him to write about these things. I have long felt my father is only truly content and worry-free when he is flying. He finds catharsis behind the yoke of a plane, and only there.

  When we finish, it is late. The ice cream has all been eaten. Everyone is asleep.

  We are alone. The house is quiet around us.

  “I still have to pass the nuclear stress test,” he says.

  “Don’t think about it,” I tell him.

  “It’s all I think about,” he says.

  AFTER HE HAS gone off to join my mother and the rest of them in slumber land, I sit on the couch with the Pace University information packet spread out acros
s the coffee table. I leaf through its contents. I try to imagine myself sitting in the grass with fellow students, discussing behavior modification for three-year-olds. This is not the future I saw for myself, and I remain confident the well-known film company will be in touch any day with good news. Still, it’s always best to have a backup plan—I’m sure I read that somewhere. So plan B is back to grad school. Plan B is the John W. Manley School for the foreseeable future. It isn’t a choice I really want to commit to, but it might be the best thing for me and for my family.

  There is an application included in the folder. I fill it out. I answer all of the questions. I write the personal statement in my notebook with the intention of later transferring it to the computer. I write about my family. I write about working at the John W. Manley School with Arham and how he has earned a special place in my heart. How my relationship with this tiny person has helped usher a once-lacking sense of selflessness into my life.

  The sun is brightening the lower portions of the sky by the time I finish. I put the application papers into a large envelope, the same kind my father and I used for his FAA plea.

  Then I go to sleep.

  WE COMMITTEE IN the driveway outside the house. Everything is a committee with these people. This time, negotiations revolve around what to take with us to the beach. I suggest a moderate amount of amenities. Chip and my mother are pushing to bring everything we own of a seaside-related nature. They load the SUV with enough gear to shelter, feed, and entertain a small country.

  “Thanks for the help, Cal,” Chip says as he stacks folding sun chairs.

  “I’ve got everything I need,” I say, showing them my towel and magazine.

  “What about sunscreen?” my grandmother warns. She has waddled out from the house to deliver us something wrapped in mounds of tinfoil. “You’ve got to use sunscreen. Grandma spent too much time in the sun as a little girl, and do you know how many cancers the doctors have taken off me?”

  “How many, Grandma?” Chip asks.

  “Thirty-two,” she says. “And counting.”

  “Jesus,” my father says. “Let’s go.”

  “Let’s bring the kayak,” Chip says.

  “We don’t need the kayak,” I say.

  “Yes, we do,” Chip insists.

  “What a wonderful idea,” our mother says. “Elissa can have a nice ride in the kayak. It will be good for the baby.”

  “How exactly does that work?” I ask.

  “It will be soothing,” our mother says.

  “Please, let’s not bring the kayak,” I say.

  “Put the kayak on top and let’s be done with it,” our father says. He throws his hands at us in disgust and gets in the car.

  “Why’s he sitting in the back?” Elissa asks.

  “I don’t know,” our mother says.

  “I don’t even think they allow kayaks in the water here,” I try to point out.

  “This is Cape Cod,” Chip says. “They allow kayaks everywhere.”

  “Let’s not go nuts here, people,” I say. “It’s bad enough we have to bring five beach chairs and a giant blanket and three umbrellas and footballs and Frisbees and a cooler and magazines and eight kinds of sunblock and visors and paddleball and God knows what else. Can’t we just go to the beach and relax like a normal family? Without all the bullshit?”

  My father rolls the window down to address us all.

  “Your mother wants the kayak. You know the kayak’s coming. Why fight it?”

  “My head is about to explode,” I say.

  “Chill, man,” Chip says. “It’ll be fun.”

  “Elissa, won’t you like a nice ride in the kayak?” our mother asks. Elissa shrugs.

  “I made sandwiches,” our grandmother says suddenly, thrusting the lumpy tinfoil package into my face.

  “We get lunch at the beach, Grandma,” I say. This confuses her.

  “I went through all the trouble.”

  “Take the sandwiches,” our mother says.

  “Let’s go,” our father says.

  At the beach, I swim. Chip, Elissa, and I wade through chest-deep water to a sandbar. The salt feels good drying on my shoulders. The sun is warming. Elissa floats on her back, her stomach bubbling out. The people on the beach are far away.

  “You think there are sharks around here?” Chip asks.

  “Are you afraid?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” he says.

  “This is the bay,” I tell him.

  “What about bay sharks?” he asks.

  I DECLINE TO join my family on their “fun” walk along the beach.

  “Bring me back a grilled cheese from the snack shack,” I instruct.

  After they depart, I sit watching the umbrella poles. All three of them. I fix my gaze on the one closest to me. I squint. I line it up with a buoy out on the water. I pinpoint its exact position against the horizon. The wind has picked up and is shaking the poles rather violently. They sway and jitter and I am convinced they will uproot themselves in unison at any moment and tumble off toward the parking lot, wreaking havoc, ruining sand castles, and rousing sunbathers from blissful naps. I will have to chase after the umbrellas, a spectacle for all to see. All the girls on the beach. All the mothers. All the grandparents. The handicapped. The overweight. They will watch as I flail around, hopelessly trying to reclaim the runaway shading. I am sweating profusely thinking about this. My fingers are slipping on the magazine. It is suddenly hard to hold. Where are they with the goddamn food already?

  To take my mind off this horrifying scenario, I count the number of girls near my chair whom I would have sex with. I stop at eighteen, realizing my standards have fallen to fantastic new lows. My eyes wander back to the umbrella poles. Have they moved a few millimeters upward or am I losing my mind? They seem to be swaying an awful lot in the breeze.

  A slender teenager in a flower-patterned two-piece is doing impressive handsprings and cartwheels not ten yards in front of me. Her three sisters, likewise attired, cheer her on. “Again,” they say. “Double with a twist this time.”

  What is it about gymnastics? Body contortions. Lithe, smooth appendages, curling and swinging to meet at the dark, secret vertices of the female anatomy. The sweet, fecund smells that build in those places. The soft, warm embrace. Leotards. Sports bras. Short shorts. Tight material of the stretching kind. Bikinis. These things draw my eye.

  The sweat builds. The magazine is nothing more than a pretense now and I don’t even bother to send token glances in its direction. I wonder how long, under the guidelines of public etiquette involving felony-aged teens, I am allowed to stare at the girls before I am required to look away. I turn my head to the left and watch an extremely hairy, bald gentleman wince as his wife smears suntan lotion over his already burnt shoulders. Back to the floor exercises. I am openly gawking now as one of the sisters has joined up and both girls are hurling their sleek, tapered bodies through the air. It is as if they are performing solely for my enjoyment. They smile and laugh. Then I remember the umbrellas. Surely they are about to pop forth from their securing and ruin the moment.

  My family returns, sand billowing around them as they trudge wearily back to our encampment. I hear them above all the noise of the beach crowd.

  “Here’s your grilled cheese, dick,” Chip says with a smile as he throws a soggy paper bag into my lap. The gymnasts continue their display. Elissa catches me staring.

  “Those girls are twelve,” she says.

  “If that,” my father adds.

  “Honestly, Calvin,” my mother says. “They are a little young looking.”

  “I wasn’t staring.”

  I watch them flip and flop and plop. Arranging themselves once again on the sun chairs and blankets. At least I don’t have to worry about the umbrellas anymore. It’s someone else’s problem now. Let the wind blow them clear to Truro for all I care. We are a family at the beach. Like other families in so many ways, yet unique in our own quirks and strangeness.

 
ELISSA, CHIP, AND I wander the Cape Cod Mall on Iyannough Road. We try on sunglasses at the sunglasses kiosk. We eat soft-serve ice cream. We scan the titles at the megaplex and decide it would be hilarious to watch The Devil Wears Prada. We regret the decision almost immediately. Afterward we drive home in silence, back to the cottage where everyone over the age of thirty is already asleep. I can hear my father snoring from the living room.

  Elissa and I are sharing the back room, with its two full-size beds. Chip has opted for the pullout couch in the living room. In the morning, we play minigolf at Pirate’s Cove, a pirate-themed tourist trap. When Chip hits his ball off one of the holes into a small lake containing life-size animatronic buccaneers battling on the bows of a fake clipper ship, he accuses us all of conspiring to cheat against him.

  The well-known film company never calls and I start to worry. I make Chip drive me to the Internet café on Main Street, in “downtown” Hyannis. I send an e-mail to Charlotte, inquiring as to whether the position has been filled.

  WE SIT OUTSIDE at our favorite clam shack along the Hyannis docks. We open shellfish into our mouths. Our mother makes a toast. She raises her glass of house white. A faint mist drifts in off the bay. Fishermen guide their boats back for the night. Foghorns blare out. A family is posing for snapshots in front of a fake shark. The last traces of sunlight are flickering away. I can’t help but notice Elissa drawing stares from other families seated near us. Her appetite is insatiable. Doctor’s orders say no shellfish for the pregnant teen, but my sister has no trouble polishing off three hot dogs and a full plate of fries.

  “Is that good for the baby?” I ask her.

  “It’s food,” she says, ignoring me.

  “Last summer at this time,” our mother begins, “we didn’t even know your father was sick. And now, with a little luck and a lot of doctors’ visits, only a year later, he’s still with us. Hopefully we’ll all be here again next year.”

  “With one addition,” Elissa says.

  Chip and I have beers, our grandmother is drinking seltzer, Elissa and the old man have indulged in virgin piña coladas. We raise our drinks.