Lucy by the Sea (Amgash, #4)(25)

And I thought: That should have been me. I should have done that for the elderly man.

But I had not done it.

I had not wanted to wait in the very long line, as this woman was now doing.

And I learned something that day.

About myself and people, and their self-interest.

I will never forget that I did not do that for that man.





iii


Before I tell you about the friends we were making, let me say that it was one afternoon in the first week of June that William came back from his walk and said that the next day he was going to drive to Massachusetts and that Estelle would meet him at Old Sturbridge Village—there was a park there—with Bridget. “It’s been far too long,” he said, and he had a dark look as he said that.

I asked if he wanted me to go with him to help him with the drive, but he said No, it was only three hours each way, he could do that. I asked if Estelle was driving up by herself, and he said Yes, so I figured that she would not be bringing her loser boyfriend.

The next day William took off early in the morning. I had made him a tuna fish sandwich and he almost forgot it. “William,” I called, following him out the door with the sandwich and a bottle of water, “take these!” And he took them from me. “Call me if you need me,” I said, but he only waved his hand and got into the car—he had put the New York license plates back on again—and drove down the steep, rocky driveway.



* * *



—

It was funny. At first I was kind of glad to have him gone. There was a freedom to the house without him, I thought. I called a friend in New York and we spoke for a long time, and we laughed, and then I hung up and the house was silent. I went for a walk down by the water because it was low tide, and I loved seeing the different periwinkles, there were larger white ones and then many more smaller brown ones. And sometimes—not often, and not that day—a starfish. And always the seaweed, slippery and deep yellowy brown, straggled across the rocks. So I did that, and then I felt a little frightened, because I started to think my balance was not all that good anymore, and what if I fell? So that took the pleasure out of what I was doing, and also the clouds were coming in—all day it had been a beautiful shining day—and I went back up to the house, and I thought: I will read. But there was nothing I wanted to read. I could not read; as I said, I had been able to read only very little since I’d arrived. And I could not write either.

It was not yet noontime.



* * *



—

I thought then of all the people who were enduring these times alone. My friend in New York that I had just spoken to was alone. Twice a week, behind her building, she sat at one end of a table with a friend who sat at the other, far end of this table, and they visited. With William away, I thought of this differently now; I understood my friend’s predicament more, I mean. But my friend could read, and I could not. Still, she was alone.



* * *



—

I wished I could see Bob Burgess. I wished the girls would call me, but they did not, and I did not call them.



* * *



—

So I lay down on the couch and I took my iPhone and my earbuds and started to listen to some classical music. This time I did not react the way I had the few other times when I had listened to the music that David (sometimes) used to play. This was the first time I was able to feel that I was lying on a soft cloud of an almost golden color, and I did not move because I was afraid the feeling would go away. I thought: I am resting! I was able to rest, and it was extraordinary.



* * *



—

At eight o’clock, as the sun was going down, William returned. I went to the door, but he did not come in, and so I stood there. After a moment I walked outside, and his car window must have been open, because then I heard him: He was weeping. He was sobbing. I went hurriedly out to the car, and his head was leaning on the steering wheel. He looked up at me, and he could not speak; water was all over his face. And he continued to weep like that.

“Oh Pillie,” I whispered.

After another few moments he got out, and he let me hug him, but he did not hug me back. He followed me into the house and sat down on the couch, and I said, “What happened?”

And he said, “Nothing happened. It was fine. I’m just so sad, Lucy. I’m so sad.”



* * *



—

I had only seen William weep like this one time before in our lives, and it was the day he told me about his affair with Joanne. She had been a friend of both of ours from college, and he had told me three months earlier about having different affairs, but when he told me about his affair with Joanne he wept as he was weeping now. He said that day, “I’m sick, Lucy. I’m a loser.” I had never heard him say such a thing, and after a while he stopped crying. I did not cry about Joanne. I was too stricken, I was far too sad to cry. Joanne became his second wife, for seven years.



* * *



—

And now I could only watch him and wait, and he stopped his crying and said again, “It was fine, it was good to see them both.” Apparently it was not until he had said goodbye to Bridget—she had started to cry—and watched Estelle drive away with his daughter in the passenger seat that he began, as he also drove away, to cry himself.