

To Sea

To Sea

By Michael LoCurto

NEW YORK : SMITH POINT PRESS

ISBN-13: ISBN-10:

978-1475078947 1475078943

TEXT COPYRIGHT 2012 BY M. I. LOCURTO

ILLUSTRATIONS COPYRIGHT 2012 BY SEAN HUDSON

FIRST EDITION

FIRST PRINTING

2013

THIS EDITION HAS BEEN SET IN CAMBRIA TYPEFACE

For my Mother.

Smith Point Press, 001.

CHAPTER 1

When the oaks were leafless atop the hamlet of East Marion, when the winter's frost hushed close across the taupe lawns and when the light air rustled only the needles on the peaks of the tallest pines, Jon Brand rocked the porch swing slow one morning as he stared out to sea. The swing creaked. Between the crash of waves and the whisper of a chilled breeze running off the water. A breeze ran through the man's beard, up over his small, rimless glasses, making his gray eyes ache.

The swing creaked. Then bells of the neighboring church chimed in, echoing for miles between the low-lying clouds and the solemnly still, frost-bitten land.

"That damned church." Jon ripped his glasses from his face, lifted the hem of his shirt and smudged sea-misted specks across the lenses. He glanced over at the blurred steeple. "To hell with it," he mumbled. Jon placed the glasses back on his high nose. Then he took long hard blinks to refocus his eyes back into sight.

It had been four decades since he'd broken that stained glass window with that blue rubber ball. Jon's hands clenched hard enough to show the whites of his knuckles.

"It's not even my god-damned God. Damned by a false prophet. Not even my Son of Man." He loosened his grip on the air. He could feel the blood circulating back into his long fingers. "His face deserved to shatter all those years ago."

Jon pushed the porch swing slower, which allowed the creaks to resonate along with the distant clapper as it swung around the lip of the bell.

"And damned be that Robert Gully."

The name had not come to him in some years. His mind froze on the image of him...Robert Gully...who appeared on the rocky shore where white caps of murmuring sound seeped between the stones. Robert looked exactly as Jon had last remembered him. Short and stout and wearing short black hair waved up to the left.

Jon closed his eyes and he watched the whole ordeal play out. There was young Jon fiddling with the blue ball—hurling the rubber off the concrete steps and then catching it. Silently mouthing off the recorded number of consecutive catches until the ball slipped from between his fingers—and then it was Robert's turn. Jon would wait, seated on a patch of grass, and he would watch the blue rubber bounce high and then low and then through Robert's fingers. The ball dribbled away, across the street into the dunes. Back to Jon's turn. And then the crash. Jon's misstep. His falling arm guided the ball up, right through the Greek Jesus' head. Shattered to pieces. The faceless Christ.

"Not even a real faith," Jon moaned as he grabbed at the reigns of the swinging porch, silencing the creaky thing. He'd had to paint that whole church that summer. "If it wasn't for that damned Gully."

Jon looked out at the billowing waves that caught the grainy sand. The water crashed atop the land, then dragged the tan shore back into the mouth of the sea. The images of that gloomy summer drew themselves in each gray wave. The scuffed blue ball. The shattered stained glass Greek Jesus. The pink hue of whitewash and blood mixed on Jon's dry, skinned knees. And Robert Gully. Tugging on the pastor's black cloak. The little boy whispering heresy into the priest's ear.

"Damned be that Gully. And damned be that Greek Orthodox Church." Jon blinked hard and the images cleared. Robert Gully. The blue ball. The pinkish knees. The pastor's black cloak. All faded on the gray horizon.

It had been four decades since all that had happened. Four decades since the sea's last blight. Four decades and only Jon and his neighbor, the church, remained. The pastor had died some twenty years back. Robert's father had owned the farm next door. A farm that yielded corn and cabbage 'til he'd sold the land off given the fishing industry's first crash. When the town first unsettled. Four decades back. Robert's father had moved the Gullys up north. "To sell insurance," he could hear old man Gully's rough voice. "To live the dream." The farm was now yielding three-story McMansions that had sprouted up the way the corn harvest once had. One of the giant houses casts a dense shadow over the Brand's cottage every morning 'til the sun eclipses noon in the sky. From there on out, the sun shines vivid rays through the living room and kitchen until the light sinks into the sea. But only to rise again, drawing a thick Garage-Mahal outline over the Brand's place the next morning.

The bell had stopped ringing some time before, but Jon had not seemed to notice nor had seemed to care. His face hung low and his ears now focused on the hiss of cars that skipped over concrete slabs of highway far off in the distance. The bare trees tried to muffle the mechanical sounds of rubbed rubber over rock, but were too weak to catch the distant whispers in the static and still winter.

He heard the sound of his neighbor's four-wheeler ignite and slip out of the drive. "Must be time for work," Jon thought. "Mindless man drives back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. For what? To work in the big city and raise a family out in the rustic rural? Driving countless hours to pay for his oversized house. All for the dream," he sighed. "I miss the days when you worked where you lived. You lived where you worked."

"What are you mumbling about out there, Jon?" A voice called from the other side of the screen door. "Breakfast is almost done." It was Elea. His wife of twenty-five years. She spoke to the scrambled eggs, but loud enough for Jon to hear. "Stop it with your nonsense and come inside. Barry will be in any second. Sit down, already."

Jon shifted his feet over the worn wood of the back porch. He placed his hand on the door's aluminum latch and he shook off his thoughts about the neighbors. Jon turned towards the sea, giving it a long stare as he sniffed at the air's salt. A flock of gulls flew along the shore, crying for a morning's breakfast as they passed. Jon released his grip and he kicked the door. He licked the salt caught on his lips and he scowled, "I miss the feel of water beneath my feet." The sea moaned softly with small waves crashing to the sand, the rippling water sparkled gold—gold like the sun that shined the backs of the gray clouds. "I miss the sunrise over the sea." His heavy boots traced the grains in the dry deck with precision. "There is no peace with the land. My feet are still here." He looked up behind the house and he watched the sun shine through a break in the clouds—as those clouds drew a dark shadow of his neighbor's house covering the land, out to sea. He clicked the steel-tips of his boots on the deck. "You cannot be barren. I miss the taste of matured bluefish. I miss the feel of a full net of fat-bodied tuna." Jon's head fell forward. "But so dry. So long." His voice trailed off into the somber echo of crying waves and crying gulls. He gave the porch swing one last good push. He finger-combed the mist's sea-salt droplets out of his bearded curls.

And he headed to sea.

CHAPTER 2

Elea stood at the sizzling black range in the once white kitchen. Her eyes glittered, reflecting the pixilated television's sheen. Jon stumbled in from the back porch. He tripped over his untied boots that were covered with wet sand. He fell into his chair at the head of the table, sniffing at the bacon with a smile.

Elea turned the gas up—with it, the television volume. Her long black hair dangled across her back. Each lock danced, tumbling over the apron strings affixed around her thin waist. She flipped the eggs. Then she scraped at the burnt yellow film caked upon the black pan. All the while watching whatever it was on the screen. "Did you go to the bathroom?" Her voice challenged the fizz of the eggs, some dogs barking through the televisions speakers and the sea just outside the window.

"I did," he said. "But then I didn't." Jon pulled his feet from his boots, stretching his toes.

Elea shoved the spatula under the eggs and she rationed them out between three plates. Then she flipped the bacon. "You did what?" The bacon hissed.

"I did," he said. "And then I didn't." He looked out the window and he watched a sea of gulls fly overhead. "I went for a walk."

Elea turned from the television to Jon, who was frozen-eyed in his stare toward the sea. "Knock it off, Jon," she said as she walked to him. "There's nothing in it for ya." She dumped a plate of eggs in front of him and she returned to the range. "You call the market at least? I'm sure they could use a hand today."

"Elea," he said. "There is no work today—like how there was no work yesterday. Like how there was no work the day before that. No work at sea, El. No work at the market." He bit his lower lip, lifted his head and he closed his eyes. "The sea's dried up. Listen." He cuffed his hand around his ear, gesturing to Elea to do the same. But she stayed static in her stare at the screen. "The gulls," he said. "They cry of hunger. I cry of hunger. I walked along her before. I tasted her. She don't taste dry. But she is. Only the sharks remain—coming closer to shore and they are looking for the same thing we all are. But it's dry, El. Barren as a desert. Dried up." He opened his eyes and Elea gradually came back into focus.

She blinked hard and she glanced over at Jon—for but a moment—then she eyed the TV. "So you say. Well, you got only but a short time to go without work 'til it starts to cave in on not only you, but myself and your son. You better get on a boat soon or man up. Get a real job," she said. "And stop playing out in that damned sea."

Jon closed his eyes, taking long controlled breathes before he could find the words. "Fishing is a real job. My father's whole life was fishing and it bought this house." He tried to remember his father's words to his mother across the very same table. "'Fishing is the last real honest living out there. And you can be damned to ever find me behind some desk pushing pencils and papers all day'." Jon recollected the words perfectly, capturing his old man's tone. "Now, when the sea fills up in the spring, things will start to look up. I know it."

"But Jon," Elea said, turning back to the range. "What if it stays dry? The sea isn't paying the bills right now and a nine-to-five pushing papers and pencils will. Todd said he could help you find work in the city."

"Fuck Todd," Jon said. "He's not a native. He's of the city. I'm of the sea."

His bony elbows shook on the hard table. Jon suddenly felt muted. "The sea," he thought to himself, "was speaking to me. It is not dry. But it is. It cannot be long." He shifted his position on the chair. Then he looked up at his wife who was writing what was on the television into a small notebook. "It won't be long, Hon. It's just a little longer than usual. That's all. Just wait 'til spring. You'll see then."

"I hope you are right." She paused for a second, looking at him. "For your sake, I hope you are right."

The tea kettle whistled into the air, startling them both.

Elea dashed the kettle from the flame. "Tea?" she said, as if the fight before had never been. She paused for an answer, but when none was received, she mumbled, "I'll take that as a 'yes'," and she poured two steaming cups of tea.

Jon rubbed his eyes under his glasses with the sides of his long index fingers. He looked up at Elea who was keeping her conversation with the television alive—her eyes plastered to the TV. She looked older to him than he'd last remembered. The TV lit up wrinkles under her high cheek bones. Gray roots in her hair showed ever so slightly in the light. He knew she had dyed her hair by the empty hair-dye boxes in the bathroom trash basket, but he had never actually seen the gray roots before. The skin under her neck now seemed to hang a little loose, too. Not much. But just enough for him to look twice at her. "Is this really the same woman who I asked to marry me?" Jon asked himself. He pulled on the seam of the red tablecloth that hung over the small wooden table. His father had built the table the same summer when the old skipper first took Jon out to fish. Jon could barely remember that day. All he had known was that fishing was the family business. And he remembered that he had tried to match the seriousness of the matter—wearing the same stern face of his father's tight lipped expression.

Jon folded the cloth over. He rubbed the underbelly of the table. The grains were thick and smooth and ran like rivers over rocks through the notches in the wood. "This table is from the land," he mumbled to himself. "Right from this yard. It consumes the nature of the sea. It flows through this very house." He streamed his fingers along the wood for awhile. He knew that the sea would suffice. It had for his entire life. And before that, it had for his father. The famine was a fluke. But far, in the outer trenches of his mind, Jon knew this day would come. He knew that the ease of life could not come without hurdles. For this long, he had taken the sea for granted. As had his father. Jon had never thought twice about the sea and what it offered him. He never thought of what the sea gave him as a gift. He had taken all he could from it. Exploiting every catch to a sizeable profit. And when times got rough, a slight dry spell, he would have enough saved from the surplus to survive. But times were different now. Jon had not turned a profit since August. Christmas had come and gone—and now Jon was facing the new year.

He looked out the small window above the sink. Gulls flew overhead crying from a hunger in their hollow bones. The bare trees held moaning crows that had nothing to pick at. The sea's hushed waves floated away, distancing themselves from the land. "The beating heart of the sea runs right through me. Right through this house."

Elea's eyes darted towards Jon in question. "What are you babbling about?"

"Nothing."

"It's about that damned sea. I know it is." But before Elea could sink her teeth into her husband and all of his insufficiencies, a slender teenager shuffled his loose sneakers across the floor.

"Morning, Pa. Good morning, Ma." The young man grabbed the backs of his belt loops, hoisting his pants up. His high cheekbones and leathered skin resembled that of his father's, but the boy's face was clean shaven. He stood motionless in the middle of the kitchen. His fingers dancing across his cell phone keypad. He was enveloped in the conversation he held in his hands.

"Barry, I made breakfast. Go sit with your father."

"Okay, Ma," he said, not breaking his stare at his phone. "But I need to get a move on. There's a meeting for the Community Teen Service Club before first bell. I don't want to miss it." He pulled out the chair next to his father and he sat. Barry's face wore a smile that showed his bright white teeth. His hair was greased and the part on the far left of his head cascaded like a wave crashing onto his forehead. The young man wrapped his arm around his father's shoulder. "Father, you okay? Your eyes look dull."

Jon's muscles contracted. He knew Barry had heard the loud words he'd had with Elea before. Jon knew his son had heard all of the verbal lashes. But Barry always seemed to break the tension when they needed it most. As if the boy had known the exact time to enter into a situation to diffuse it. But Jon tried not to think of that. Not now. Instead, he tried to paint the image of happiness across his face. He batted down his messed hair and he buttoned up his opened shirt. "No, son. I'm just fine. Just a little tired. Didn't sleep a wink last night with all that wind."

"Well, at least it's died down. But it sure looks like snow is about to fall for days."

Jon spoke soft. "It sure does, son. It sure does." He propped himself up on his chair and he rested his lank arm around his son's shoulders. Jon felt the warmth of his son's youthfulness fervor up within him and Jon collapsed his head onto Barry's.

"Hey, Pa. Watch the hair," Barry cawed. He fought against his father's tight hold. Jon's muscles bulged and he pressed against his son's soft forearm. Barry shook against the force of a thousand sea voyages—finally the boy's resistance eased and Jon broke the hold.

Jon squinted his tired eyes into his son's bright blues. Barry winced slightly. Then he revealed his teeth again, inviting his father to smile. "The sea is strong in him," Jon thought. "He just needs more learning. More control. More time." Jon smiled. "He will save us from this dying ocean. This empty sea."

Elea dropped plates in front of the two men. "Here you are. Eggs, bacon and fresh toast." She turned to the range and then she settled an extra plate of bacon in the middle of the table.

"Looks great, Ma," Barry said. He gripped his fork back into his palm and he plunged it into the eggs that were scrambled to a golden yellow. "And tastes great, too," he added.

"Nothing I wouldn't do for my boys," she said, placing a filled glass of orange juice in front of Barry.

Elea's cell phone sounded from her apron pocket. "Oh my," she said, peering down at the phone. "I better take this inside. It's Lola. She's been at it all week with her little Jimmy." She shuffled off down the hall, slipping behind the bedroom door, slamming it shut.

Jon swallowed his eggs hard, flushing them down with the boiling hot tea. He could feel the burn of the bronze liquid leave a harsh trail to the bottom of his stomach. His vision blurred as he stared out the small kitchen window. He sniffed back the drips of moisture in his nose, catching the smell of the salty sea. He felt his pain lifting. He smiled at the waves and thought, "For a moment, the sea had been my wife—comforting me." And all his body eased.

Barry sat stilled by his father's reactions. "Okay," the boy finally said. "Time for my meeting." He got up and he stood over the trashcan next to the sink, scraping away the breakfast.

Jon focused on the image of his son.

"It's Wednesday. I have Math Club. Don't forget to tell Ma. I'll be home by dinner." Barry nodded at his father. Then the boy walked out of the house.

Jon sat quietly at the table with his hands holding his head of emptied thoughts. He took his eyes away from the window and over to the food chilling in front of him. He could hear Elea giggle into the phone over the voices of morning television anchors casting the news to the soiled pans on the range. Jon cringed. He gripped his fork deep into his hand. For he knew the truth. He knew that the suitor on the other line was not Lola, or Margie, or any woman Elea would have programmed into her cell phone and wanted him to believe. For it was a man. A man larger than himself. With a slick-shaven face. A close cut head of hair. Roughly the same age as himself.

Jon had followed his wife three months back. After years of marriage, the suspicion of infidelity aroused in him after one too many early morning phone calls—one too many breakfast dates with either Casey or Lola or Margie. He followed her to what was not the local diner but the local motel.

Elea returned to the kitchen red in the face. She closed her cell phone into her hands. She now wore dark red lipstick. Her eyes outlined in a thick black pencil. She had replaced her cream apron with a tightly fitted little blue dress that gripped at her curves.

"I'm going out to breakfast with Lola. She had a fight with her little Jimmy. She really needs me. Talk it out, you know?" Elea said, shrugging her shoulders to the heavens. "I'll be home whenever. Sometime later. We might go into town afterwards so I pre-set-recorded all of my stories. So don't go messing with the settings, Jon. Not like last time."

"I didn't even mean to. I must of sat on the remote or something." Jon bit his tongue. Then he separated his parched lips and he threw back another gulp of steaming tea. Elea dissolved from the room like mist through his blurred eyes. The pain settled in the lower breaches of his stomach. He blinked the blurry vision out and he removed his glasses. He breathed a warm sigh over the lenses, rubbing the water stains on the glass between the fold in the red tablecloth.

Jon eased his glasses back onto his face. He ran his fingers through his hair, messing it in all directions. He looked back out the window. He watched two gulls wrestling in the sky over a small brown lunch bag. The bag fell—splitting over the sandy shore. Aluminum foil scraps and plastic wrappers danced along the shoreline as the gulls pecked feverishly for food. The wrappers must have been empty—empty like the sea. And the gulls flew on out of Jon's perspective.

CHAPTER 3

Jon's boot weighed heavy on the gas. The four cylinder engine growled as it pierced the cold pistons into propulsion. Chilled air rushed in through the vents, dancing between each thick curl on Jon's chin. He swung his hands away from the steering wheel, touching the hairs with his long stony fingers, neatly tucking the untamed ends under his collar.

A week had passed since his wife's last tryst. Or so he thought. Elea took more kindly to Jon after a visit from her arrangement. She acted as if love was a new variable. But it would not last more than three weeks and Jon knew that. She would be planning breakfasts with one of her lady friends soon enough. "But who could blame her?" he thought. He had not had a day's work in six months. It was February now, and soon he would be working on his seventh jobless month.

Jon eased the sedan to a stop at an empty intersection below a hanging red stoplight. His rusted blue car quivered. He looked at the throbbing bulb with squinted eyes. He found the sun—a crease through the heavy low clouds. He sat his boot on the brake. Then he eased off it, allowing the car to roll a bit. The pistons let out a squealing sigh. Jon puffed his chest out, pointing his beard to the heavens and he thought of Barry. "There is hope. He is our hope." His mind wandered and then he drifted back to his reality. "I, though," he said, "am hopeless."

The stoplight clicked to green. The clouds huddled tightly, slowly softening the yellow light into the dull of gray. Jon pulled on his beard, then he rolled the ends back up and under his collar. The clouds seemed to loom closer under the blue car but then appeared motionless. A hush of wind crept through a crack in the window and Jon shifted his foot from stop to go.

After he had driven along for a short time, he guided the wheel through his fingers, turning left down the old schoolhouse road that was constructed for the lightest of rural traffic. But as the years passed into decades, the thin road had withered and no longer sufficed. Jon lowered the window. He could still smell the burn of new asphalt—the smell of fresh lumber axed away to expand the girth of the road.

Jon stopped at the security booth, leaning out of the car window. "I'm here for my son. Doctor's appointment," Jon said. He cranked his window back up and he nodded to the gate attendant who saluted Jon as he passed.

Leafless trees surrounding the lot held squawking crows. Gulls circled beneath the silver sky. He rounded the lot twice before settling his car beside the dusty school maintenance truck in the last row. Jon kicked his door open and he stretched his arms like wings over his head. He let a whispering roar slide past his lips and he swung his arms back to his sides. His sea-legs wobbled through the parked cars on the smooth earth 'til he spilled through the schoolhouse doors, bracing himself on the front desk. Where a woman sat, intermittently tapping on a keyboard with index fingers while holding a phone to her ear with her large left shoulder. She looked at Jon with blank eyes, nodding—"can I help you"—at him. Jon hesitated. Then the lady rolled her eyes and she went back to drumming the keys.

"Ma'am," he finally said, swiping his cap off his head. "I'd like to pick up my son. Barry Brand." He pocketed the wool cap. Then he bridged his fingers into one another.

The woman held a hand up at Jon. "Mary, hang on. I got someone here." She rested the phone next to the keyboard and she looked up at Jon. "Barry Bonds?" she said, laughingly.

"No. It's Barry Brand. I'm his father, Jon Brand." He stepped back from the desk and he slid his feet deep into his boots.

"I was just kidding, doll. You're too cute," she winked. "Vice President Brand is a real regular 'round here. Quite the kid ya got yourself there." She stopped tapping the keyboard. "He should be in lunch now," she pointed to the cafeteria. "You can just go on in there, Hon."

Jon cringed at her breasts heaving up over her small sweater. "Don't I need a pass or something?"

"No. It's right over there. Don't worry, none. I'll cover for ya if ya get called down to the principal."

Jon faked a smooth laugh. "Thank you, ma'am," he said and he pushed off the desk.

The lobby was flooded with school-spirited paraphernalia. Jon scanned over the glass cases. He was able to spot some photos from when he had attended. Just below the ceiling hung banners of the school's prized basketball and baseball club division victories traced sporadically with volleyball and soccer banners.

The door to the cafeteria was opened and his son was seated at the first table. "Barry," Jon called out. "Bar."

"Pa," Barry said, surprised. "What are you doing here?"

Jon paused for a moment, looking at the girl sitting across from Barry. Spots of freckles dotted her cheeks and she wore pink painted lips. She was dressed in a loose purple sweater and snug jeans with a light flare. She smiled teasingly at Barry. "I'd thought we would go for lunch," Jon devised quickly.

"Oh, shucks. I just ate. Plus, I got a test next period. I really can't miss it. Tomorrow ain't good either. But Friday. Friday I am open." Barry curved his lips and he revealed his straight white teeth. "Sound good?" he said, smiling at the girl.

"Aw, c'mon, Bud. We haven't gone out in years." Jon relaxed his muscles, letting out a tense sigh.

"I don't know, Pa. Ms. Sanderson'll have my neck if I miss this test."

"I'll vouch for ya. C'mon. I need to show you something." Jon's face sunk down into his jacket. His beard puffing out.

"Pa, I can't. Lay off, all right?" Barry laughed nervously.

Jon reached out, grabbing Barry's arm. "C'mon. Let's go. You can just make it up." Jon squeezed his stony fingers into his son's young soft flesh.

Barry stood up as if he knew what was good for him. He looked up at his father. "Okay, Pops. Let's go." Barry flashed an enthusiastic grin and he picked his bag up off the bench.

"Want me to tell Ms. Sanderson you caught the bug?" the girl said between spitty loud chews of bubble gum.

"Sure," Barry said. "That sounds fine." Barry lazily waved three fingers at the girl, twisting his body towards the door. "So, where are we going?" the boy asked, slipping his arms into his jacket.

"A special spot, son. It's something I think you should see now," Jon said.

Barry slowed his stride at his father's words. "You okay, Pa?"

"I'm fine, Bar. Don't you go on worrying about me. You got yourself to worry about. You're going to be a success. So don't you go on worrying about your Pops. He can fend for himself." Jon laughed and he turned to Barry. "Just think you should see this. That's all."

The ride seemed quicker than the twenty minutes that passed before Jon pulled the reigns of the car onto the backside of a dune. The ride was mostly silent between the generations. Both men listened to the sounds of the balding tires humming along the roughed concrete and the tapping of Barry's fingers across his cell phone.

Barry tilted his head to better look out the window. He rolled his eyes. Then he turned towards his father. "You made me miss my test for the beach?" Barry questioned. He flipped open his phone, "Great. No service." Then he shoved it into his pocket.

Jon nodded at Barry. Then the fisherman opened the door and immediately the smell of salt wafted up to his face.

Barry scratched his head and he rubbed his eyes. "I can't believe I'm missing my test for this. I've been here plenty of times. The old man has finally lost it." Barry sat still for a few moments. He watched his father squat over the dunes. Then the man drove his hands into the sand before he threw the grains up into the air like confetti. "Oh, dear," Barry said. "This is going to be a longer walk than I thought." Barry exited the car. He walked up behind Jon. The boy rested his hands on his father's shoulders. "You sure you okay, Pa? It's okay to tell me."

Jon froze for a moment. Then he got up to his feet. "Barry. Stop asking me that. Of course I am fine. I'm your father." He smiled at his son. But Barry stared blankly at his father's words.

"Okay. Then where to?"

"Just over that ridge. Then down that deer trail," Jon said, pointing to the cut between the dunes. "I've taken you here when you were a child. We went fishing down along the coast." He paused. "And your grandfather would take me here when he'd come home from a tour." He looked over at the dunes, watching the top heavy cattails wobble towards the sea.

"C'mon, Pa, let's get a move on. It looks like snow." Barry flipped his phone from his pocket, wincing at its servicelessness. "I can't believe I'm missing my test to get caught in the snow on the beach. I better not catch a bug now that I lied in its name. I'm doomed," he said. "I'm going to come down with something now, for sure." He snapped the phone closed and he tossed it back into his pocket.

"Barry. Lighten up. It's the perfect day. I wouldn't want to come on any other day than this one right here. Right now." Jon took Barry's hands, steadying them into his own. When Barry regained composure, Jon rubbed his stony fingers into the boy's palms.

"What are you doing?"

"Just relax. You need to relax." Jon forcibly rotated three fingers into Barry's hand. The circling patterns soothed Barry. And he smiled at his father.

"Okay, Pa. Let's go to this special spot already."

Jon's excitement carried into a speedy pace. Barry had to quicken his steps often to catch up to the swift stride of his father. Their boots crunched the icy sand—drumming faint echoes off of the dunes as four sandpipers sailed overhead.

Barry stopped with his hands atop his knees—bent over to smooth the burn in his lungs. He traced the dunes from peak to valley in awe, smiling. "Look at this, Pa. Look at this," Barry called up to his father.

"What is it?"

"Three deer, sir. Three does to be exact," he whispered loudly.

Jon sent his fingers through his beard and he scratched at his chin. "Matured?" he said. "Or little fawns?"

"Two fawns and the mother."

"What a find, son." Jon retraced his steps back towards his son. Jon eased his feet into the sand, muffling the crunch of ice. Barry placed one knee into the ground. His eyes looked exhausted.

The mother doe stepped out in front of her two fawns. She gazed deeply into Jon's eyes before running off the trail with her offspring soon to follow. Jon looked back over at Barry. The boy's shoulders were touching his knees in a squat. Jon stepped back and he frowned. He listened to the gallop sound off the dunes for some time. Then he placed his arms around Barry's forearms and Jon lifted the boy from the sand. "So, when do you hear back from colleges?"

"I'm not sure. Hopefully soon. I hope I get into State," Barry said.

"I'm sure you'll get into State. And I hope you make the right decision."

"I know, Pa. You needn't remind me." Barry frowned and he shuffled a small flat rock between his boots. "My grades could be better," he said.

"Well, we'll just have to wait and see. That's all. No sense in false hope, right?" Jon took his glasses off, rubbing them on his shirt under his jacket. Then he continued on the trail. Barry brushed the sand from his knees and he jogged up a few meters to walk at his father's side.

Up ahead, a stout pine tree poked out from a valley cut between two tall dunes. The tree marked a bend in the path, succeeded by a thick brush encompassing up over the pass. The pine's branches were mangled within one another. Its needles were short and scarce between. The brush up ahead was dried and brittle as the twigs waited for the spring months to arrive, when they will strive again with the lush of green. A large gray gull circled overhead, then settled atop the dune to the right. Jon turned his head. He could see Barry now several meters behind him. Jon shook his head and he picked at his beard. He finally could hear the waves crash. He closed his eyes to see them fall. And when he opened them, one of the fawns stood before the tunnel of leafless brush—under a mangled pine branch. The doe's thin legs shaking into the cold sand.

The smell of pine roared into Jon's nostrils as he passed the wretched tree.

"It's that doe," Barry shouted up to his father.

Jon stared at the fawn, ignoring his son's call. "He's not as strong as I thought," he said. "He might rely on man—servitude to the Son of Man." Jon blinked, refocusing on the doe. "At least I serve the sea. Barry will one day realize he too is destined to serve the sea. Realize that college is a waste. He has no will." Jon walked closer to the small fawn, outstretching his hand.

"Are you crazy?" Barry yelled. "The mother will attack you." Barry ran up, grabbing Jon around the waist. "You can't go and touch that thing. You don't know what diseases it may have. Don't be disgusting."

"I've touched deer before in my life, Bar."

"But I am here. And you are not going to do that around me."

"I can do what I want. I'm your father. I make the rules. You can't tell me what I can and cannot do." Jon weaved his fingers through Barry's, ripping his son's grip from around his waist. "Now, leave me be." The doe stood frozen in front of the two bickering. Jon then stepped forward three steps and he petted the deer atop her head. "There girl. There." Then he patted the doe's rear, sending it off, down through the tunneling brush.

Snow fell on Jon's nose and then on Barry's upper lip.

"Pa, it's starting to snow. Let's get out of here before we get attacked by the mother. Before the snow starts to come down heavy." Barry flipped his cell phone out. He stared at it for a few moments before starting back for the car. "Wait'll I tell Julie why I missed the test today. She'll freak."

"But we are almost there," Jon protested. "It's only through the thick brush. And then over the dunes. And then we are there." Jon looked down at the brush. The sand in front of him had begun to collect the first dustings of the snowfall. The small pines, few and far between, were already laced with white. But the brush-enclosed trail ahead kept the sand underneath dry. Jon turned, looking for Barry over his shoulder, but the boy was already out of sight. "He must be behind two or three dunes by now," he said in a low mumble. He stared back at the mangled pine tree one last time before he too headed back for the car. "He ain't strong. Not at all." Jon kicked up the wet sand with his slowed steps. "No hope," he proclaimed.

The brush and the pine trees and the dunes were disappearing in the thickening snow. The aroma of pine was extinguished by the covering white.

CHAPTER 4

Jon pushed his glasses to his eyes as he began to urinate. The toilet hissed as the yellow liquid kissed the white porcelain's edge. He thought of the sea. Crashing. Wave after wave. Tumbling. All to the beat of his water filling the bowl. Jon then turned his head to look for the sea through the small window in the back corner of the bathroom. But he could only see the tips of white capped pines and the icy branches of brittle oaks.

When he finished urinating, he moved to the window where the sea flooded his view—the white waves running over the rocks high on the shore.

He flipped the locked latch open, pushing the window up. A rush of gull cries crashed to his face. "It sounds like a thousand of them," he thought. "It has to be full." Jon smiled. Fifty or so gulls flew west with the push of the current. "Dry from Orient Point to here. Good luck fellas going west if there ain't nothing east." Jon laughed. Then he caught his tongue. His stomach ached. He remembered that fishless seas could force him to head west for work. He pressed his head against the screen, gaining a last glimpse of the gulls. "Sorry fellas. Best of luck. You're going to need it," he quietly moaned. The hush of the waves soon displaced the whine of the gulls and Jon watched the water shimmer a lustrous shine, rolling rays of yellow into the silver of sea. He closed his eyes 'til his chin dropped to the sill. Then he turned and he flushed the toilet.

"The sea," he whispered to the sound of the swirling water. "It is everywhere. Its sounds. They haunt me. I hear you. I feel you. Oh, sea. I am you." He switched over the hot water knob, leaned his elbows on the gray sink, waving his fingers through the slow flow of water 'til it warmed. He took off his glasses, placing them atop a folded towel. Then he tossed his face into his cupped wet hands—the water splashing against his high cheekbones, filtering down through his beard. He hovered over the sink, gasping for air with his hands holding the water for a time before he regained a steady breath and he brought his hands to his face once more. He pushed the water tight to his face this time, matting his beard against his cheeks and chin and neck.

The water whistled as it ran from the faucet. The metal sink plug tossed between the drain, creating a rhythmic patter Jon found himself blowing water droplets off his upper lip to. He looked up from the sink and he peered into the mirror spotted with dried drops of water. His vision blurred without his glasses. His eyes burned to a bright pinkish hue, quickly turning a deep red. He gazed into his fuzzy reflection, dripping with water. His beard pressed to his face. The lines under his eyes erased. He thought of what disappearing might feel like and he thought that this would be it. "Jon," he said, competing with the rush of water. "You are destined to fail. I see the sea in your eyes. Deep. Never ending." He blinked. "You will be held captive by the sea. You will lose everything to the sea. It is only your fate." He paused, mesmerized by his blurry eyes staring into him. "I see myself in you. I see myself in your reflection. I shall return soon. To sea. One day. Soon." He placed his glasses back over his eyes. He settled his breath and he steadied his tone. "And who am I to think otherwise?" He threw the towel into the sink. He waited for the rag to soak up the water where he then rung it out over his head—his hair falling into his eyes. "Who am I to think I can escape the fate of a Brand? The fate of the sea."

"Jon," Elea said with a knock at the door. "Who are you talking to?" She jiggled the locked door handle, waiting for a response. When none was given, she shouted a bit louder to contend with the sound of the sink. "Jon. Come on out. What are you doing in there? I need to start getting ready. I'm going to brunch with Margie. I need to get a move on. Hon?"

Jon ran his fingers up through his beard, spreading the hairs out awkwardly. He stared wide-eyed at himself in the mirror for a moment before he turned the knobs off, silencing the sink—allowing the roar of waves to flood the bathroom uncontested. Jon placed his left hand around the doorknob, still staring in a dazed gaze past the silver backing of the mirror, and in onto himself. "God save me. My God. Save me."

"Jon. C'mon already. What's going on in there?"

He turned the handle slow, pulling the door into his body. He stood in the doorway, stilled—the sounds of sea quickly swallowed by the drone of the television. Water on his face trickled to the ends of his beard where droplets collected, hanging heavy 'til they fell to the carpet.

"Where are your clothes?" Elea questioned. "And who were you talking to?" Elea looked at her husband who stared blankly at the floor where the water settled. Then she pushed him out of the doorway and she closed herself into the bathroom. "Get some clothes on, you pig," she said as she clicked the door locked.

"I'm fine dear. Don't worry," he said. He reached over the bed, grabbing the pajama pants he wore in his in sleep. He slipped his legs through them and he tucked his wet face into a bleach-stained blue tee-shirt. His soaked beard creating a wet ring around the neckline as he pushed his head through.

Elea opened the door silently, standing in the doorway to watch the television while she brushed her teeth. But in her line of view, Jon stood to the side of the bed with his back to her. His head to the heavens. His eyes closed. His hands fumbling in the fronts of his pants. "Jon, you are dripping," she said. And he turned around. "And are you playing with yourself? What has gotten into you? Dry yourself off and knock that off. You are disgusting. Go get a job and then you can do whatever you want in this house. But as for now, you need to grow up and stop fucking around." Her eyelids closed long and hard.

Jon stood motionless. He slowly removed his hands from his pants. He petted his beard, folding the ends under his chin and then he started for the kitchen. "I'm going to get the coffee going," he said. "Did you want a cup?"

"Sure. But wash your hands first, you pig."

Elea finished getting reading. She watched the rest of her story while Jon fixed the coffee in the kitchen.

He scratched his neck under his beard, twisting a chunk of hair into a knotted mess before smoothing the whiskers back out. "We haven't much time left," he thought, pouring grinds into the coffee machine. "We haven't much time before the sea swallows us all and spits us back out. It happened to my father. And it is now happening to me. We haven't much time. I haven't much time.

CHAPTER 5

All of East Marion was under a blanket of snow. All of the trees encased in ice.

Jon drove the blue sedan down to the East Marion Piers, where he parked next to the only car—the only other color in the lot.

The rising sun beat down hard on the crisp white land. Jon sat on his hands, giving them warmth as he stared at the masts bobbing with the tide. Eight boats tied still. Cleat-hitched and bow-lined to the dock.

He had always adored the sea. As a child, he felt a close bond with the waves. He would place both hands over his heart, close his eyes and let the waves crash against him to the beat of his blood. He felt the heart of the sea flow through him. He felt at home in the water from the start. And when he aged, the love for the voyage soon adjoined his adoration of the sea. Each summer tour, Jon would stand atop the stern—bare-chested—and take the sea head on. The water would splash up, sticking to his flesh. Salt speckling his beard and his chest hairs. He would shake his face and bits of sea would fly every which way as he growled into the current. But it would not take long for his love for the catch to succeed his love for the natural. He would soon be swept deep into the lush blue. He had acquired a greedy pride of his profits. And when he began to cast out a month after the season, or come back days late from a tour, the old men on the piers warned him of a drought. "You'll dry the seas," they scorned with glittering eyes. "You'll see. There's a balance in the waters. The Son of Man is a biological species in a biological environment—a mere speck in this vast web of life." But Jon would blow steam at them, setting out for the catch.

The shipmates feared Jon's gray bright-eyes when they set out on the cold sea. For the crew knew they had set out double—maybe even triple the tours from seasons past. But who were they to question the Captain? His intuition thus far had fattened their stomachs and widened their wallets. The extra cash helped blind the fishermen's sea-loving, now, profitable eyes.

The car aside Jon's own was his boss's—a lush, hunter green luxurious wide body that shined the sun into Jon's eyes as he passed. He grinded his teeth. He caught his knuckles deep into his palms, cracking his fingers. "How could he drive this thing while we are all trying to keep the clothes on our backs—the food on our tables? The damned sea is dry but he remains quenched." He walked up the steps to the marina house, stamping out the snow stuck on his treads and he turned back to the white lot. He could see his footprints leading right to himself. But he did not feel he was the person whose shoes made the marks in the otherwise untouched snow. He did not feel as if he was wearing those shoes that lead right to him. He felt deadened. Lifeless. His face hung without a feeling of sorrow. He wondered why he felt inert.

The wind blew a dusting of snow on the two cars windshields. Jon's beard, too, caught a light coating of white. But he did not budge at the biting wet wind.

A buoy dangled out on the sea, tolling a shallow sound over the water to the shore. He could hear the muted voice of his wife in the ringing echo mixed with a flurry of gulls that drove overhead, spitting loud cries into the air. Jon breathed in. He puffed his chest out at Mister Monroe's door and the fisherman knocked. He then turned the knob, entering into the small office.

An oil painting and photographs of vessels hung on the walls in no particular pattern.

"Jon Brand. Good ol' Jonny 'The Catch' Brand," Monroe said. He sat at his desk with a match lit over a cigarette perched from his tight pale lips. "It's been awhile, boy. How's the lady?"

Jon scanned the room before reading the headline on the newspaper in front of Monroe Bragg. 'Stream Flows Right into His Pocket'. Jon thought about it for a moment—frozen eyed on the gray paper.

"Your wife, Jonny? You there? How's the old lady?" Monroe ashed his cigarette over the news.

"Elea," Jon said. "She's doing fine. Always going out to lunch. You know how they can be."

"Ah, money-eaters. Jeanie burns a hole right through my pocket. Oh, boy. That woman thinks money was gone on made for her to spend and for her to spend, only. Let me tell you." Monroe's green eyes bulged from their sockets, surrounded in thick red lines that grew thicker with each drag of his cigarette. He stared down at the ash elongating from each pull and then he flicked the embers around the room carelessly. "How's Barry doing? That boy got it going for him. Yup. I seen it in him when he was just a babe, yanno? College bound for that one, yet?" He shot his legs up on the table, leaning back into his leather chair as he waited for Jon to respond.

"Barry," Jon said. "He is doing just dandy, I guess. He's still over at East Marion High. Vice President of his class and all." He dug his hands into his pockets.

"Ah, so what he plan on studying at university?"

"Well, we aren't sure yet. A doctor is respectable. But so is a lawyer." Jon took his hat off. He looked out the window, watching the small waves crash against the dock. "But we are weighing out all of his options, yanno?"

"Oh, I see. But what interests him? Is he an ol' fish mongrel? He is a Brand, yanno? He might not be cut out for the whole schoolin' thing." Monroe rubbed the bottom of his lip with the filter of his cigarette. The man's gray hair was oiled and slicked over to the right of his head. His stomach protruded outward—tugging at the lowermost buttons on his faded blue button down. "You got to let the boy think for himself, Jonny. You can't go on pressin' him to save the world, now, when you can't even save yourself."

Jon's arms tensed. He dropped his hat to his feet. "He does what he wants, sir. He's a smart boy. He'll show the world. Save us from this curse. Barry'll fix things right." But Jon's face cringed with his words. He could not believe them. He did not believe them. The bell on the buoy at sea rang out loudly—the chime pressing through the seams of the marina house. Jon looked back into the green in Monroe's eyes and a relaxation flooded through Jon's vessels. His muscles eased. He settled a distance between his stance. "You are right, sir. The boy got to choose for himself." Jon bit at his lies. He knew he needed the sea. He needed a voyage soon or his house would become a boarded up image of failure.

"Don't go on buttering me all up, Brand. You cursed these here seas. Now we're all out on our asses. Your father was a greedy man, but you," Monroe snuffed his cigarette into the table. He pointed the steaming stick up at Jon. "But you—you caused the end of ten-thousand voyages to come. You made all of mankind—the gulls—all the world go hungry." Monroe planted his feet firmly on the floor, kicking his feet deep into their soles. "We have been through a lot, Brand. A lot of good and a little bad. But the little bad outweighs the good, one-hundredfold. I am afraid your greed has caused the deterioration of this fishing company. The old men warned you and your father, but y'all never listened. And when you took to the seas, under the guidance and greed of your father, the sea had to teach the Brands who is truly the almighty and all powerful. The balance needs to be kept. And now, Jon," Monroe cuffed his eyelids. He looked into Jon's graying eyes. "I have to ban you from the Piers."

"But Mister Monroe, the Brands are a staple on the docks."

"But nothing," Monroe said with an interrupted foot stomp. "The men been callin' me to do this for some time, now. Ya had to see this comin', Jonny. And it just so happened that you came in today. Son, this was inevitable. Just think of today as fate. If it wasn't today, it would have been tomorrow, or the next day, or the next week, or the next month. But it was fate you came in today. Sorry, son. Perhaps ya look west. Go to the city for work. But a Brand is no longer welcome on these here docks." Monroe got out from behind his desk. He placed his heavy arm around Jon. "You got to understand that I am runnin' a business. A business with nature. And nature always wins. I don't want to go on pissin' Mother Nature off anymore than ya already have. Ya name's the plague 'round here, Jonny. Good riddance and good luck, son. So long." And Monroe casually walked Jon through the door, clicking it locked behind him.

The flesh on Jon's face hung loose off his cheekbones. His beard shifted quickly in the passing wind. Stray ice and sand embedded into his thick curls. His mind regained a cool contentment on his jobless future. He thought he should be angered. Elea would burn him at the stake. Eat at his heart if she knew he was banned. But he felt at ease. He had known for some time the inevitability of his greed. He felt an easeful stream of blood pump out of his chest. He turned his head to the sea to watch the masts bob above the treeline. He could see the ship that was his. 'The Catch of a Lucky Brand' ran across the back of the boat, chipped and wearing away from a salty decay. It was named for his father who ran tours for several years until Jon got to head the hull.

James Brand had become infamous on the Atlantic for pushing his luck all too often. He would run tour after tour, regardless of rough seas forecasted, driving his ship to the limit. Never flinching. Not James Brand. He would grind his teeth—turn his hardened face at the sea and stare out until he got the sea to break. James Brand was a true grit fisherman in the old East Marion days. But his legend will be remembered for his greed. He had caught the flu, growing gravely ill in the height of season back when Jon was still in high school. James refused to back down from the catch. He refused to take a loss from his illness. He listened to no one but the pride in his heart that he had claimed was the voice of the sea guiding him. "The sea's are swelling. They are ripe for the pickin's," James pleaded. But it was his greed that would get him. That voyage proved to be his last. The sea that he loved had sheltered him from medicines needed to survive. And James Brand was thrown overboard as a last plea he had made with his crew. "She's won," he had said. "And she deserves the taste of my flesh."

Jon tried at the cabin door of the Lucky Brand but it only wiggled on its hinges. "Locked. Blast," Jon called out. His knees wobbled with the waves until he straightened them. Then he searched the ship 'til he found a hammer in the deckbox. He threw the metal heavy on the lock. The clash of steel echoed loud, but low against the thick snow. "That was easy," he said, and he entered in out of the white.

The cabin carried a smell of must. A thick covering of dust clung atop all inside. Charts hung with erased lines of penciled voyages. He inspected the room that had once been his home. He glanced over at a photo wedged between the glass cases of dials and meters. The photograph painted a young boy with bluish eyes held in the thick arms of a man on the dock. "The Brand curse," he thought. "What a hock of crap." Jon continued to stare into the window of the picture. "The sea will get us all," he moaned. His lips separated—then they quivered until his head shook uncontrollably. He pulled on his beard, twisting the ends into small dreads before he shimmied the picture out from the glass, wiping off the filth along his jeans. His eyes retraced the cabin for a final time and then he exited. He left the door open behind him as he walked to the end of the dock with his head fixed on the decaying boards below his feet.

When he reached the end, he stood back on the weight of his heels, allowing the tips of his boots to hang over the edge—watching them wiggling with the pressing tide. He ran his fingers through his beard, evening out the twisted curls. He looked at the picture, again. He could feel his father's presence beat down on him—as if the man was next to him, casting lines. Intense heat rushed through Jon's body, down into his cold fingers, causing him to let loose of the photograph. He held his breath, closed his eyes and he felt a sudden lightness to him. As if he was floating above the sea—above the world. But when he opened his eyes, he felt heavy again and he could see his image staring back at him through the white caps of the water—through the valleys and crests of waves. The photo was gaining water over its top until the image swaggered to the seabed. In the depths of his stomach, Jon felt a tight knot form. His knees began to wobble. He felt as if he was to fall into the sea. He felt a need to settle to the bottom with his father. Jon closed his eyes and he began to rock his weight towards the tops of his toes.

"Jon. Get the hell off my docks. What did I just tell you, boy? You ain't welcome 'round these parts no more. You cursed." Monroe started towards the docks with his fists pumping up to the heavens. Jon turned around quickly, nodded at Monroe and the fisherman headed for his car. Jon pulled at his neck, rolling his long fingers over his full larynx. Then he worked his fingers at the undergrowth of his beard. Monroe shook his hands under his arms. The large man shivered his lips at the cold before walking back into his office.

Jon was alone. He felt alone. He stared back out to the sea, watching the masts of ships dance with the waves. The wooden vessels banging—squeaking against the rotting dock. This would be his last time down at the Piers. He had known that much.

CHAPTER 6

When the snow faded from the mounds piled up on the sides of roads, when the bare trees began to bud and when the song of native birds returned to the shoreline, winter had succumbed to spring.

Gulls swamped the skies for the early spring catch. But all of their calls still came up empty. The rare carcass washing up ashore would find its way into the stomachs of the land predators who patrolled the shorelines. Raccoons, seldom, but mostly wild dogs preyed. These mutts would storm the shore from behind the dunes, grabbing the soft salty meat before the birds could swoop down at it. The gulls were stuck to circling around the break of waves. Diving down for food often, yet, unsuccessful—winding up with beaks filled with the saltwater of the sea.

The drab browned land started to green. Mother Nature's fertility pinched at the nose with stinging pollens mixed with the salt misted air. The oaks began to fill out their brown branches with light green buds on the verge of filling out into dense blankets. Intermittent pines poked between the oaks, spreading their long needles into the grasp of the waxy oak leaves to be.

Jon stood with his shins against the smooth porcelain lip of the toilet. He glanced to the corner of the room looking through the small water-stained window behind him to watch the spring unfold. He shook off the last bits of urine and he gripped the windows ledge. An old man with his dog jogged along the upper edges of the shore, avoiding the small break of waves. The dog ran ahead, dancing in circles on the wind rippled sand as he waited for his silver haired master.

The old man rested his tired head low between his shoulders. He fought his eyes to glean up at his dog. But the man was engaged in a battle to be lost, and often, he dropped his eyes back down to the sand.

Jon licked his lips, bringing a few of his long whiskers back into his mouth. He chewed on the hairs and he watched the old man stumble through the sand for a short while. Then Jon watched the dog. It ran in circles, kicking sand up all around. The dog wore a short brown coat. Mid-sized. "A mix between the neighbor's lab and a dirty stray," Jon thought, laughing—eyeing the older man who tried to pick up his pace to that of the dog. "The man is useless. I just wonder if he knows it," Jon said. "Poor bastard, doesn't even know his own worthlessness." Jon fetched his eyes back up to the dog ahead, watching the mutt roll on the sand. The dog's legs scratched up at the air above. Then the dog dug his paws into the spongy sand, shaking the loose grains from his fur before he dashed under an oncoming wave crashing atop him. The old man stopped in his stuttered steps. He waved his fist at the dog as it reemerged from the sea. Jon leaned his ear to the pane. He could hear the man's raspy voice cry between the barks of his mutt, the howl of the gulls and the whisper of the waves.

Jon wiped his eyes. He shook off his thoughts. Then he dressed himself quickly, thereafter, and he filled the kettle with water in the kitchen. He had managed to avoid the awkward words of morning salutations with his wife. A distant good-morning nod was all that was shared. Elea's legs were still under the covers. Her eyes fixed to the television at the foot of the bed. A pad with plot notes of the show in her lap. "In case they call me for the big prize," she'd say. "In case they ask me what happened the day before. I'm ready. I'll know."

Jon turned the gas on. He watched the flame climb up along the kettle. Then he walked to the backdoor, unlatching the lock, kicking the metal door open with his boot. He threw his shoulders back, opening up his lungs—breathing in the warm salt up his nostrils. The sun shined off the thick clouds tumbling in off the sea. The bell atop the steeple in the church rang out in a faint echo. The long tones were muffled—softer than in the winter's months when the trees that separated the Brand cottage from the Greek Orthodox Church were bare. But now, the oaks, towering and beginning to green, filled the space in-between. Jon pulled his beard to a single point at his chin. His tongue smacked his brittle lips with moisture.

The fisherman stood, watching the water for the morning. Barry had patted Jon's back good-morning and goodbye all in one swipe. Elea reported that her breakfast date with Casey had been canceled. "His wife must still be in town," he thought. His eyes never breaking their stare out to the sea—out to the distant horizon. A single nod to Barry and then to Elea was all it took for them to continue with their daily routines.

Jon threw his feet out to a wide stance. He toyed with the sand in front of him with the steel-tips of his boots. All the while, his stare stayed fixed to the gray clouds merging with the gray ocean out in the now shallow distance.

Jon unlatched the car key from his belt loop, tucking it into his leathery palm as he marched to the sedan. He slipped his forefinger through the small key loop to his second knuckle before his thin finger gauged too thick. He tried on to his middle finger, unsuccessful. Then lastly, onto the pinky, where the metal slid to the base of his finger. He smiled slightly, spinning the key ring around his pinky.

The clouds moved in over the house. Elea stretched her head out of the window and she watched her husband slip out of the drive. Her lean shoulders shrugged with her palms faced open to the heavens. Jon turned his head quickly, ignoring his wife's plea for reasoning—driving down the road.

The house had been far out of sight for several blocks before Jon turned the radio over to the classical music station. He lowered the volume to match the sedan's low hum as he putted the four-cylinder slowly. He looked up and he watched the light gray clouds turn to charcoal. He reached over, opening the glove box, pulling out a worn box of cigarettes. He flipped the carton open, slipping a stick between his fingers, tossing the end over a match flame.

The pack had belonged to Gus, who had left them in Jon's car in the beginning of the season two years back. Gus was a hardy man. Tall and thick. Jon and Gus had gone out for drinks the night he had left the tobacco in the car. They went out to celebrate Gus's move down to a house-boat anchored along the Gulf of Mexico. Jon could remember Gus's clean shaven face. The rolls of fat stored under the old man's chin. The sharp eyes he wore when he took a drag of his cigarette.

Jon rolled the window down a crack. He shifted his cigarette between his middle and ring fingers. The way Gus had done. Jon gently rested his lips on the filter, piercing his eyes in attempt to imitate Gus's inhalation. Jon stopped at a stop sign and he looked at himself in the rear view mirror. He hung the cigarette loosely out of the left corner of his mouth. He cut slits in his eyes. His pupils widened with the loss of light brought in by clouds tumbling in off the coast—over the car. He blinked his eyes hard. Then he tossed the half smoked cigarette out of the window. "Shit hurts," he coughed. "How do people smoke these damned things." He folded a stick of gum into his mouth and he eased the gas pedal down, turning the car onto the highway.

He drove forty minutes to the west which brought him along the south shore. The clouds seemed to follow Jon—but never did a drop of rain fall for the duration of the drive.

A small green drawbridge came into sight on the horizon. Jon slowed. Then he stopped the car on the bridge. He watched the gray of clouds still the sky. The gray reflection rippled loosely into the bay. "I want to go back," he said. "I need to cast the nets. I must rake in the sea." He exited the car, leaving the door to swing with the wind rushing down the bay. "No longer for the profits. Oh no. But for the kiss of the sea. The salt water on my lips. The love of all things lost—the once was—and the never will be again." Jon leaned over the green rail, watching his face move in the waves of the gray bay.

There was a vast parking lot not far ahead that spanned over a half mile long and quarter mile wide. Emptied. Jon got back in the car, driving over the bridge, parking to the right of the lot.

He stood beside his car and he stared back at the green bridge. He tapped his fingers from pinky to index finger on the roof of the car 'til he broke his stare and he made for a tear in the fence and down a sandy path beyond the torn chain-links.

The clouds warped to an all encompassing black in the sky. There was no longer any distinctive light passing through to the land. Jon held his jacket tight to his body. He zipped it up to his neck in defense against the cold breeze rushing in off the sea. The air was heavy—filled with a rich scent of budding flowers poking through the sand aside the thick brush. His mind rushed with the memories of his past. The luscious smell of a shoreline spring. The summers spent lazily on the beach where large waves curled with surfers pouring out of the ends. He saw the images of short beach trunks on men and body enclosing one-pieces on the women. He saw the white-nosed lifeguards perched on high mounds of sand—up high in their white wicker chairs. Jon shook his head, rolling his eyes back into a reality where he saw a precession of five to six footers crashing hard against the white sand. There was a group of twenty or so gulls bobbing over the harsh crests before disappearing into the deep troughs out in the distance. A few stray gulls wobbled nearby, pecking for food along the outermost stretches of the ocean.

Jon looked back down the path in which he came. He remembered it being a lot farther from the shore in his past. He had not been to this beach since he was a child with his father. But he knew he had not created the length of the path to be longer in his distant memory. "Erosions that bad," he scoffed. "The beach is a quarter of what it once was." He squeezed his face tight and it came upon him a sudden feeling of enclosure. He felt as if the dunes had squeezed him to the shore. As if the dunes were pushing him into the water. Jon shook nervously and he stepped back from the ocean a bit. A feeling of loneliness rushed through him. He looked down the beach. He was the sole human on the shore and he felt he was the reason why no one was there. "I'm toxic," he thought. "Look how I drive all others away." He looked out at the dark horizon and he felt the world was left to him. Everyone who had cared about him, no longer cared. "Not even Barry. Not even my own son or my own wife lay their faith in me." He dropped to one knee. Then he settled his bottom onto the sand. He shifted his buttocks from left to right, creating a seat as he watched the stray gulls pass, lightly squawking at him as they wobbled by.

He felt alone. But after a moment, he looked up and he could see the group of gulls floating on the ocean. He smiled, mumbling, "My sea," loud enough for a passing gull to turn its head at Jon. "It cannot be too late for me. It just can't," he said with passion. But the excitement soon faded. His lips turned to stone. "It is too late. God-damned sea is empty. It's closed up." He rushed his fingers deep into the sand at his sides. A sharp squall sprawled from the ocean, kissing his ears. He looked up and he could see the group of gulls in the distance flurry upward—flying farther out to sea—casting large specks of white across the charcoal skyline.

Jon turned his head from the spray of the sea. He now stared back at the dunes as he brushed his sandy hands on his pants. He watched the cattails bend with the wind until his eyes caught a shadow in the distance distorted from the whipping sand. It moved closer, trotting along the shoreline.

The winds died down some. The sand fell. And the shadow turned into a man. He grew appendages. And soon a flop of snowy white hair sat on his head. A green jacket then appeared, covering a denim vest. He jogged with his feet in front of his torso. Jon began to see sand kicking up from the old man's heavy steps.

Jon could then see the whites in the man's eyes. The fisherman nodded, smiling at his elder. Then Jon quickly looked out at the horizon. But when the man came to pass, he stopped his fumbling steps and he held his hands to his knees.

"Hey there, fella," the man said between huffs of breath. "Looks like we're going to have some amount of rain in a bit, eh?" The man lifted his head to Jon, keeping his hands on his knees. The old man's face cast deep wrinkles spreading like spilled ink on his peachy face.

"Looks like it, sir." The wind began to pick up velocity. The sand began to sweep up against them again.

"Gee, and this wind. Where is it all coming from? It was sunny not more than an hour ago. And now all this? It sure makes a man wonder what He is thinking up there all day." The man pointed to the dark low clouds overhead. "He must be angry with someone. And it sure ain't me." The man laughed. Then he stopped and he cast a set of stern eyes onto Jon. "So, what did you do to Him?"

Jon broke his stare from the sea. He looked up into the old man's eyes. "What do you mean by that?"

"Mean by what? The weather's pretty bad. That's all."

"No. That last part. What did you mean by it?" Jon felt his muscles hug his bones.

"Oh, I'm sure you didn't do anything to anger Him. He is all loving, you know." The man regained his breath before stepping closer to Jon, dangling his arm around Jon's shoulder.

"Then why did he summon Abraham to sacrifice Isaac?" Jon ridiculed. "Abraham was willing to sacrifice his only son. Did you know that?" Jon shifted his weight, forcing the old man's arm off of his shoulder.

"'It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned,' says the Book of Hebrew. Life was given through Isaac as an offering. Total faith, my son. No one died and yet life was born from the sacrifice of the Son of Man. We live eternally through faith." The old man hugged Jon tight, kissing the side of his beard. "So, what is it, son, that you have done to anger our Father?"

Jon stepped back from the man, sneering at him. "What makes you so sure I angered him? What makes you so sure it wasn't you? Or anyone else for that matter?"

"I know a little." The old man unzipped his jacket, revealing a thick band of white plastic tucked into the collar of a black shirt. "The anger towards your God is strong in your voice, son. Let it out. He only loves you."

Jon looked up at the clouds. A drop of a rain splashed down on his glasses.

The gulls had returned to the waves, bobbing over the crests and falling into the troughs. Jon looked back out to sea. Back to the gulls.

"What denomination are you, Padre?"

"The denomination of Love," he answered quickly. "It does not matter to you, my son. I speak in all languages. All denominations to Him. Be not afraid."

Jon ran his fingers through his beard. He tucked the ends under his neck. "Padre, I am not a church-going man," he said. "But I feel the weight of His power on me greatly. I feel as if I am alone. I feel as if I am the only one who can make the fish return for my family—for my community. I have strong urges that I am the Abraham. That I must sacrifice myself. Not my son. But myself to my father—the great vast blue—to sea." Jon looked out at the waves pressing with the wind. "He had given me life until my greed took that life away and now I am dead. Or dying. The sea had once spoken to me, fed me, and provided for my family. But now it is silent." Jon looked into the priest's sagging eyes that waned from the strong salty wind. "The sea is my maker, Padre. And I am just man. Flawed. I took advantage of His grace and now I must sacrifice myself for the reckoning of my offspring." Jon watched a lightning bolt cut the sky over the sea. Then he looked back to the dark horizon. "I cannot rely on my offspring to save me. I must save him. I must save the sea."

The priest zipped his jacket back up over his collar. He picked up a flat rock the size of his palm. Then he skipped it over a wave already breaking. "You see that sand there?" The priest pointed to the white grains tumbling under the water. "Those grains once saw sunlight. Absorbed the warm sun for hours. And then a number of events occurred. First, the wind drove the grains this way and that. Then, a passerby collected a few grains on his or her feet and dropped them closer to the shoreline. And as the tide moved in, the waves began to grab the sand. Swallow them. But this is only done when it is their time. And when the water washes away the old, in comes the new. Her pulse pushes new grains to the shore, out from under the cold dark sea. Out into the warm bright sun." The priest looked over at Jon who drew a puzzled looked across his face. "Look, my son, I am not a crazy old man, although you may think I am. Think of it like this." The priest bent over, grabbing a fist full of sand. "Here, open your hands."

Jon obeyed and the priest dumped the wet sand into Jon's hands.

"Why did you do that?"

"Just hear me out." The priest wiped away a significant amount of sand from Jon's hands. Then the priest pushed the grains deep into Jon's palm. "Look there," the old man said. "You see the grains? You see the single grains?"

Jon nodded, staring into his hands.

"This one. This one is you." He pointed to about a thousand grains at once, but seemingly stared at one. "And this one is me," he said with his pointed finger slightly to the right of the grain representation of Jon.

Jon nodded.

The priest swirled his finger in Jon's sand-filled hand. "We are but one grain in this vast sandy beach. And when it is your time, you will make it closer to the shoreline. And you too will be swallowed by the sea. But that time is not yet." The old man leaned in, kissing Jon's beard again—hugging him briefly. "It is not even close to your time. So enjoy the sun and absorb all the rays that you can before you get old like me." The old man patted Jon's back. Then the priest crouched over, hugging his knees into his chest, letting out a heavy sigh. "Okay, son, I need to get on my way. The sun isn't going to come out today, that's for sure. I need to make it back home before the cold rain comes." He frowned. "And then I'd catch a cold."

Jon's mouth hung open. Unable to comprise even the simplest of sentences. His body drooped forward towards the ocean. He then broke his silent stare and he looked over to the priest who had already started back down the beach. "Nice to meet you, Padre," he shouted. "And thank you for the talk." But Jon had not been thankful. No amount of His men could help Jon or sway his thoughts. Jon knew the sea was his Father. Not some deity held high above the clouds—some all loving thing. For Jon, the sea took vengeance—soothing those who sacrificed in the end. Something the priest, surely, knew nothing of.

The sea could be reasoned with. "The man in the clouds is ominous," Jon thought. "False." He looked back down at the sand. He tried to gather his thoughts into some sort of emotion. But he felt exhausted. Weak. His face was stern. Neither happy—nor sad. He looked back up at the priest to try and produce a false smile in his direction. But the old man had jogged off. He was already beginning to grow back into the shadowy figure of before.

Jon swallowed hard and he got up to his feet. He stepped his heavy boots into the foam of the receding tide. A rush of cold water sunk into his socks. "Not today," he thought. "Too soon." He turned to the dunes and he began to walk up the beach—back through the sway of cattails—back between the low lying flowers in the bayberry brush.

CHAPTER 7

The grass had greened from the dormancy of winters brown. Now, soft to the touch—long and overgrown—and hugging the asphalt roadside where parishioners parked car after car, lining the thin road for the Sunday morning service. All slamming doors, all walking up the dewy grass to the tolling church.

Jon jumped from his bed. He threw the blankets off his chest and he glanced over at the digital clock flashing nine twenty-two. He looked over at Elea. She was wrapped around several blankets. Her soft face cushioned a small indentation into the pillow. Her cheeks—still and soft. He shifted his weight aside her, hanging his arm around her waist. His hand grabbed at her stomach. A smooth exhalation escaped his lips as his head fell back into the pillow. He wanted to hear his wife—the woman he loved—sigh relief into his ears. He wanted to set his fingertips into her skin. He wanted to feel her blood pump with his. There was a great deal of things he wanted to do. Things he had not done in some time.

"Jon," she moaned. "Leave me alone. Sunday's are my only days to sleep in. No stories on TV today. Only cartoons and those boring political shows."

"But the cars, Elea. They woke me up," Jon pleaded. "And we haven't had sex in..." he paused. "I can't remember how long." He thought of all the times she must have had all of the things he had wanted from his wife. And a frown settled on his face.

"Eight months and two weeks, Jon. That's how long," she reported, not once opening her eyes, throwing the blankets up over her head. "Jon, leave me alone. We can't force these things. They will just, you know, come." Her body sunk into the mattress.

Jon sat up. He bit his tongue to ease any drops falling from his eyes. Then he distanced himself from Elea. He dangled his feet over the sides of the bed. He looked over his shoulder—out the bedroom window. He could see the oaks take to their full green. The sun began to fill in the horizon. The sound's small waves pummeled the shoreline, then eased back into the sea. His thin lips coiled upward. He shoved his feet into his boots and he headed out to the back porch.

Elea remained in the bed. Without turning to him. Without questioning his whereabouts. Without opening her eyes.

Jon pushed the porch swing slowly. The swing creaked loud against the waves. White bubbles foamed to the edges of the shore where the gentle wind blew the sea suds up into the air. Jon grabbed the swing. The creaks stopped. And the sea roared in over the land. He watched the waves and the trees and all the world swaying before him. He walked around the swing, tracing the wooden backing with his long fingers before he sat. His back pressed to the brittle dowels. Occasionally he kicked at the porch to rush into the air. But he mainly just thought. He thought of the sea and where he fit in with it. He knew he loved it. He most definitely knew that. He knew it was his maker. But he did not know how or when it would all fit together. He tilted his head back, trying to cease his thoughts of the sea. He tried to ease his thoughts of the conversation with the priest the week prior.

Jon kicked the porch hard, jolting the swing into an uneven sway. He jumped to his feet, leaning up over the porch. He looked out to the horizon. He could see an image of Elea dancing atop the low white waves. She was dressed in a shapely blue dress. Her hair took the motion of the waves crashing down onto her shoulders. He smiled, remembering in glimpses all of the times when she was all to himself. He reached over the porch, joining her hands into his own and they danced across the dark blue sea.

"Pa," Barry called out through the screen door. "What are you doing?" Barry stared at his father dancing on the porch by himself.

Jon stopped moving—quickly pushing his hands down to his sides, straightening out the seams on his pants. He lifted his head. Then he cleared his throat. "Son," he finally said. "You're up quite early."

Barry flipped his phone open, looking down at it. "It's ten twenty-nine. Ten thirty. It's not too early, Pa." Barry pushed the screen door open, letting the metal crash back into the frame. "What are you doing out here? Did you eat yet?" Barry's eyebrows narrowed.

"No, I haven't. I just came out here for a little air. Finally getting some warm mornings. No more frost from here on out."

"That's good."

Jon rested his hands on Barry's shoulders. Then the man lifted his left hand to Barry's right cheek, rubbing over the boy's high cheekbone. Then Jon brought his hand back down on his son's shoulder. "You know, son. Life comes at you from all directions," he said. "And sometimes, it just hits you in a blind spot when you are least expecting it. You'll find yourself swept up by a sudden wave and before you know it, you are beached—faced down in the sand." Jon slid his hands into his pockets and he forced a grin at his son.

Barry smiled back, shielding the sun from his eyes with a hand above his brow. "Pa, I know you are hard on your luck. But don't sweat it. It can only get better. The seas can't stay dry forever. That's just impossible. The fish will surely return soon. They just have to." Barry relaxed his stance. He forced Jon's hands from his pocket, interlacing them with his own. "Pa," he said. "You're a good father. I mean, not always. But you try hard. I'll give you that."

Jon tried to sustain the grin plastered across his face. But he failed and his lips quivered back down to an angled frown. "Thanks, son." But that was all Jon could say. He wanted to tell him about Monroe. He wanted to tell him about Elea. He wanted to tell him about the sea. But he could not bring himself to. So he waited—staring out at the bright blue sea. Just watching the waves press on.

"You want to head out for a walk. Along the shore? It's quite the day for it, if I don't say so myself." Barry started down the steps, tugging on Jon's jacket to follow. "C'mon, Pa. Let's go," he called.

Jon smiled. This time a natural grin. "He finally wants to go to sea," he thought. "And with me."

Barry jogged to the small strip of rocks before the sand met the low-tide waves. He bent over, rummaging through the stones 'til he raised a flat tan one the size of a half-dollar. The boy ran back to his father, placing the rock in the man's hand. "I bet I can skip one farther than you."

Jon closed his hand over the cold stone, petting the smooth surface with the tips of his fingers. "I bet you can't," he yelled up at Barry who sprinted back to the break. Jon chased after him. Then Jon tilted his shoulder to the side and he hurled the stone, skipping it eight times along the flat sea. "Beat that," he snarled.

Barry picked up several rocks, inspecting them with great detail before he flung one that bounced twice, then sunk out of sight.

"That's what you get when you try and contest a professional rock-skipper," Jon mocked. Then he pointed his chin to the sea, allowing the breeze to blow on his neck. He reached his arm around Barry's chest, locking his left hand around his right wrist, squeezing his son in for a great hug.

"Pa," Barry wheezed. "You're choking me."

Jon let loose some slack in his grip, sliding his hand off his wrist to clasped hands before he broke his grip entirely and he rustled Barry's hair. "I love you, son," he said in a relaxed tone that seemed almost foreign. The grunt-rasp of his voice was gone. A subtle cheer tailed the ends of each word passing through his lips.

The two walked for a ways, taking in the silent hum of the small crashes besides them. The suns golden rays kissed the two men brightly. Jon could not break the smile from his face if he had tried. His mind was cleared from the toxins that had poisoned him for the past few months. He felt alive, one-hundredfold. He watched himself reflect off the water in ripples of light and sea foam as three gulls fluttered overhead, crying with emptied stomachs before they settled upon the calm sea a few yards out.

"You hungry, Bar?" Jon asked his son as they watched the gulls float with ease over the bobs of the sea.

"Yea. I could go for some grub. I'm sure Ma has put the bacon and the eggs on by now. She must be furious with us for leaving like that. You know how she gets."

Jon stopped. He dug his boots into the wet sand. He called after Barry who started to head back home. "Barry," his voice had lost all its jubilance, returning back to a grunted monotone. "I think I should tell you something about Elea," he paused. "I mean, your mother."

Barry stopped, turning back towards his father. The tide had come in now, gliding up over Barry's shoes and he sunk into the shore.

"Your mother has been unfaithful to me." He pulled his feet from the sand. "And to you. I followed her to a motel a few months back when she was supposed to meet Margie for lunch."

"Couldn't be, Pa. Ma wouldn't do something like that. I'm sure she can explain. And that was months ago," Barry pleaded with vigor—fury in his voice.

"It's true, Bar. Believe me, son. I didn't want to believe it either."

One of the gulls floating on the sea cawed. Another flew closer to land. Jon shifted his vision, and with it, his mind, briefly away to the sea—shining a hue of cornflowers in early bloom.

"Believe it, Barry."

The boy walked slowly up to the bank of rocks. He immersed his hands into the stony shoreline, grabbing as many rocks as his fists could fit. Then he darted back to the water—falling ankle-deep into the shallow sound as he threw the fistful of stones into the calm of the sea. The two gulls farthest from the shore cawed and flew out of the path of hurled rocks. But the closer gull remained. Still. And was struck with a flurry of stones. The lone gull squawked loudly. Then it fell to the side. Head under water.

"I don't believe you," Barry yelled, now throwing fists full of sand into the sea—at the dead gull. "You are a liar. You are a useless father and you can't even get a job to support us. If she did do it, I don't blame her. You useless man. You can't live off the sea forever." Barry sniffed. "You need to grow up and do what's right for us. Stop thinking only for yourself for once." Barry walked out of the water, brushing off the sand caked up on his hands.

"I know you are angry. But you need to understand."

"Understand what? That our family is falling apart. What else is there to understand?"

Jon's eyes grew narrow. His fists clenched tight, showing the whites of his knuckles. "Listen, Barry Brand. You need to grow up. You cannot go onto college acting like an immature country-boy hick from rural Americana. You'll get eaten alive by city-folk. The world is an immense place, son. And you haven't a clue of how it works." Jon's brow wrinkled. Shadows caught in the troughs. Shined sweat gleamed on the crests. "You're going to wind up being a fisherman like me. Like your grandfather. I fought with this concept in my head for a long while now and I can no longer fight it. Barry, I figured it; you aren't made out for college. You aren't made for the indoors. You're made for the sea. And it isn't right for your parents to push you into something you aren't made out to do." Jon petted the whiskers under his nose. Then he shoved his hands into his pockets. "And I can no longer provide for us with the sea's blessing. It is my destiny to make things right with Her," Jon said, pointing out to sea. "It is my duty to make sure that this ocean can provide for you and your family like it once did for me and mine. Like it once did for my father and his. You're a Brand, Barry. And the sea is your calling." Jon paused for a moment, looking over to his son. The boy's legs soaked with sea.

"You are crazy, Pa. You truly are. You accuse your own wife and disrespect your own son. You are something else. You are the reason this family is drowning. It isn't me. It isn't her. It is you. And you need to fix things right, quick, or I will." Barry's voice was shallow. It held a low undertone. His blue eyes turned a light gray—thrown into both fire and water.

The dead gull washed ashore. The tide pushing the bird to a rest at the soles of Barry's shoes. He looked down at the stilled thing, kicked it over face down, and then he turned on the sea and he headed back to the house.

Jon's eyes teared as he stared at the bell now tolling up in the steeple. He remembered the priest and how he did not reveal his fellowship. "Barry," he shouted up ahead. "Wait. Let's go to church. The next service is starting. Let's go."

Barry stopped. He walked back towards his father slowly. "We haven't been to church since I made my Communion. And, besides, that church isn't even our church. They speak all Greek in there." Barry's face cringed, showing wrinkles along the sides of his cheeks. "I'm not going," he said, walking back to the house.

"Barry. Wait."

Barry stopped, again—turning. "What?"

"Let's just go for the love. All churches are a fellowship of love. Let's just go in and relax."

"No. I'm hungry. I'm going to see if Ma put the eggs on yet." And Barry continued with a slow saunter through the swish of tumbling rocks.

Jon stood aside the lifeless gull. "I'm sorry, little guy. You need to excuse my son," he said, tossing wet sand over the carcass. He watched Barry walk down the bank of stones, up the yard of tall grass, and to the back porch before he disappeared behind the door to the kitchen. Jon signaled the sign of the cross over the gull, whispering the Lord's Prayer up until he forgot the verses. He tugged on his beard. Then he shuffled his feet through the sand 'til he reached the church. He paused at the steps, looking up at the stained-glass Greek Jesus. He signed the cross over the Man's glass heart and he walked through the doors of his fellowship of love.

CHAPTER 8

The church doors opened and out stepped the priest. Behind him poured the parishioners. All stumbling down the concrete steps to their cars. All driving off under a sun held high in the afternoon sky.

Jon was the last to exit. His shoulders fell back and his eyes focused to the sand where his boots sunk in heavy. The waves were rougher than that mornings—crashing high on the shore where a line of wrecked scallops and clams settled on the bed of rocks. Jon's feet wobbled to the porch steps where he entered the house and into the silence of the kitchen.

"Jon where are you?" read a yellow note stuck to the kitchen table. "Lola picked me up to go shopping. Be home later. –Elea."

Jon ripped the sticky piece of paper off the table, reducing it down to a ball he rolled around in his hand.

"Lola," he said. "I'm sure it's with Lola, all right." Jon pulled at his beard. He tore off a piece of bread, piling the doughy whiteness into his mouth, discarding the brown crust in the trash on top of Elea's note. "Lola or Margie or whoever. All lies. All infidelity," Jon said between chews. He walked into the living room. He looked at the décor stagnated from his childhood. Pictures of his father's past. Pictures of his own past. Souvenir thimbles from port-towns. Babushka dolls from his grandmother's childhood showcased on the mantel. An oil painting of a snowy mountain range propped up above it all. All laced with thick fuzzy films of dust.

The faint laugh of a child filled the house. Jon looked up and out the window to across the street at his neighbors. They ran with plastic bats gripped between their hands, hurling plastic balls in a messed reality of wiffleball. Jon frowned and he closed the window, silencing the sounds of the family on the unnatural lush of fertilized green grass. Jon walked back in front of the mountain range in his living room. He looked deep into the snowy whiteness that covered the oily brushstrokes of the green conifers lining the ridge. "My girl in the mountains," he said, tracing the peaks to the valleys. He reached down to his belt loop, clicking the car key off into his hand, swirling the key ring around his pinky. "My girl left me for the real mountains. Just like the Gully's. East Marion can't hold its own no more," he said. "Fishing's dead here. Life is only habitable inland. In the mountains."

Jon looked back out the window. The father grabbed his son, flipping the boy over. Then the two rolled around in the grass. The mother jumped alongside, joining in not long thereafter. Green grass stained their knees. The sun stained their souls—incasing the family with bright rays of elation. They smiled and Jon could hear their laughs loud through the glass.

"False," he mumbled. "Their love is false. Dependant on man. Dependant on a two-to-three hour drive west—five days a week." He clenched down hard around the metal key and he started for the back door. For the car.

CHAPTER 9

Inside New Jersey, deep in the pines of Lambertville, Jon sat across the table in a hole-in-the-wall bar with his woman of the mountains, Lauren Connors. She had sat next to him all through grade school until Mr. Connors took a job in the city and he moved his family one state over. She no longer sat huddled over—but she now sat up tall and slim. She batted her green eyes slow in the smoky tavern the same way she had done when they were young. And it still made Jon blush all these years later. The two sat to the silence of the low radio, exchanging eyes often as they picked at their food with matte silver forks—swirling and tipping their drinks bottoms-up down into their stomachs.

"I've waited five years for that call, mister," she said, tugging at the lapels of her purple businesswoman suit cutting low on her thin, flat chest. "Five years, can you believe it? That long since the reunion. Gosh darn, does time fly."

Jon sat back. He swirled the amber liquid slow in his glass, tipping it back frequently as he nodded at Lauren.

"I wish we all got together more frequently. I mean, it's great that you were in town and had my number and all. But why only have reunions on decades. Most of us still live in the tri-state, even," she said. "I even bumped into Robert Gully not more than a month back."

"Gully?" Jon questioned. "You saw Robert?"

"Yea, in the market. Or was it the Wal-Mart. Or the Target. Or the K-Mart. I don't know. One of those marts. He's doing well, though. Three kids and the head of his firm. Lives on the river in Teaneck, now. You should see his wife's nose job." Lauren felt the tip of her nose—pointing and prodding it with her fingers. "You think I need one?"

"Need one what?"

"Some work done?"

"Some what done?"

"A nose job, silly," she flicked her nose and stuck her tongue out, "I think it needs some shaping. A little sculpting."

"Your nose looks fine," Jon said. He gulped down half of his drink, finishing with a tight lipped grin. "No need in fixing what's intended for you."

"Or all the needs in the world to fix what our parents gave us." She held her nose down with two fingers, looking past Jon and at her reflection in an old ale advertisement mirror. "C'mon, Jon, it could use a little trim, don't you think?"

Jon sat stilled. He stared over at the red brick wall splattered with intermittent black bricks. He thought of if he too moved to the mountains way back when, how different things would be. Would he know the sea like how he knows it now? Would he even care if he didn't? Would he only care about rivers and mountains and plastic noses and Teaneck, New Jersey?

He broke his stare and he swirled his drink before pouring the last of it into his mouth. The whisky warmed his stomach. He looked down at Lauren's emptied glass. Then he looked up into her mossy green eyes. His lips curled downward, losing all life.

"Oh, we have so much to catch up on, Jonny," she said, smiling. "Let me fill this up for you." And she walked to the bar. Jon's eyes traced the shadows of her curves cutting through the smoky yellow light shedding from lanterns stemmed above each table.

He smiled. He liked how Lauren looked as an adult. Her brown pigtails had turned into long blonde hair flowing down onto her shoulders—hugging her petite face. "She's too perfect," he thought. "She's beautiful in every way. But she is too perfect. Too—," he paused, searching for the words in his mind for a moment until it came to him. "Too unnatural. She is nothing of the sea. She is consumed with false beauty. She is a magazine ad." He frowned, pulling on his beard. He looked up at Lauren returning with his whisky. He pushed his bottom to the edge of the seat and he grabbed the glass before it hit the table. His taste for Lauren had succumbed to his taste for warm scotch over ice. His eyes grew leaner with each tip of his glass to his lips. He had no longer been caught spellbound by her handsome clothing—her perfected hair—her picket fence of white teeth orchestrating a smooth professional monotone. He felt awake. Alive. And he gulped down his drink, returning to the bar before Lauren had even taken a sip of her bright pink drink named after a flamingo or something he would never remember. Their conversations thus far had taken them down the old memory lane, but Jon had begun to blur the night into the thin-blooded reality of the darkling dive bar one state over in the mountains. He was four pours of scotch to her two pinky drinks and he was motioning for another. The barkeeper poured a triple shot of blended whisky that curved through the thick cubes of ice.

"So, do you ever shave anymore, or what?" she said. "Or do you keep growing it out like a wild beast? I bet you are a wild beast." She leaned herself forward, allowing her necklace to fall away from her flesh—the pendant swinging between her breasts. She dampened a napkin in her water glass. Then she brought it to her lips, patting them softly. She then patted her neck, down to her bare chest before she rested the napkin back on the table.

"I shave sometimes. But not often. The beard is good for the ocean. Keeps the wind off the face." Jon's memory flashed back to a tour out at sea. Three seasons back. "This beard has kept me warm many-a-time," he said. "You get lost at sea for a few days. A storm throws you up north in the dead of winter. You got yourself staring at subzero winds blowing in from the arctic. A beard is a man's only defense on days like that." He focused on the light over Lauren's head. Then he slowly shifted his eyes back down to the necklace bobbing from breast to breast. He blinked hard and long. Then he looked back into Lauren's eyes but she looked down at the table quick.

"But didn't you say there were no fish to catch? Then why the beard still?"

Jon took a long sip at his whisky before pushing the glass down to the table hard. "It'll open up," he said. "No doubt. She'll open up soon enough. And I'll be ready." He pulled on his beard, curling the ends under his collar. "I'll be ready for her."

Lauren pushed herself back, thrusting out her chest as she glanced over at the paraphernalia of the town's history splattered across the brick walls between beer ads and liquor posters. She leaned forward and she draped a thin white sweater over her shoulders. "Getting chilly in here," she said. "Isn't it?"

He nodded. Then he sipped on his drink. His eyes had colored to a bloodshot red. His lips shivered to a dark purple-blue around the outer edges.

The night pressed onward. He had finished his fifth and then his sixth drinks through the mumbled conversation with his childhood love before she felt it was time to leave. Time to abandon any and all thoughts of the romantic evening she had wished for. She slipped her arms through the sleeves of her sweater. "I'm afraid I must be going, Jonny. I have errands to run tomorrow before court," she said. "But we should do this again real soon. Maybe dinner instead of a bar, though."

"Sure thing," he said, showing her off to her car.

"You aren't leaving too?"

"No. In a bit. Figured one or two more drinks in me before I head off. Got a long drive home."

"Those two don't go together," she said. "You can always stay over my place. Leave early in the morning."

Jon stepped back from her car. He tried to press the hairs standing on ends down, but he was unsuccessful. "No need. I can drive a team of drunken sailors drunk. I can drive an old beater two hundred miles on straight paved roads."

Lauren leaned in and she kissed Jon on the side of his cheek. She caught the edge of his lips and the edge of his beard. She giggled, wiping at her mouth. "That tickled. You should really shave. You'd look much more handsome," she said. "More professional."

She got into the car and Jon closed the door shut on her. She geared the car in reverse to the fringe of the asphalt. Then she propelled forward and down the road.

Jon stared at the car until it disappeared over a hill, where he then returned to the bar for a double scotch with no ice. He swished the warm liquid between his teeth, closing his eyes as the aromas floated down his esophagus. His mind had drifted to the memories of the sea—to the ideals he placed in the image of Lauren. He could not compare the two. They were completely different in concepts. "The sea, my God," he proclaimed aloud, "is my savior. And will save my family again." The bartender shot eyes over at Jon who sat at the end of the mahogany bar, mumbling to himself. He noticed the bold looks from the barkeeper, so Jon moved himself to a table to keep to himself. To keep to his liquor and his mumbled thoughts that floated up over the music, at times. He could not drive out the images of his body walking step by step into the salty sea 'til his head disappeared under the crash of dark blue waves. His hands beat heavy on the table. He grabbed at the glass of liquor. His eyes were tired, surrounded in fiery red veins. He could only think of the sea as the natural balance of life. Where Lauren counteracted the sea as an unnatural force—an unnatural being. And then he thought of all of Lambertville and all of New Jersey and of East Marion—and all the world. All of the urban and suburban towns throughout the world. "All unnatural. The deterioration of what this God has given us," he cried out until the barkeeper grabbed Jon under his arms, throwing him out onto his bottom.

"Go home, you crazy," the bartender yelled. "You had enough, my friend. I am cutting you off. Go home and clean yourself up. The only thing that is unnatural is you. So clean up and sober up and tomorrow you'll be natural again."

"This whole bar is unnatural. This whole town. All of humanity." He pulled himself up onto the hood of his car. He looked up at the sky until it was cut off by the tall peaks of mountains not far in the distance. "'The foxes have holes and the birds of the sky have their nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.'"

"Get the hell out of here, you crazy. And if the man stops you, you didn't come from here." The barkeeper spat at the ground and he walked back into the bar.

Jon shifted his key into the ignition. The car sparked into propulsion, in route two hundred miles east—back to his East Marion.

It was late and he was drunk and the roads were cleared and straight. He had no troubles guiding the sedan through the wide-open roadways. And not before long, he pulled into his driveway as the sun was dawning—casting a Victorian-estate shadow up over him. He looked at himself in the rearview mirror. His face wore dark blue crescents under his still red eyes. His pupils were wide, hugged with a slice of gray, thrown into both fire and water. He turned the key over and the car stopped its hum, settling into the drive. He let the sound of the waves crash into his mind. He smiled and then he closed his eyes—falling into a dense slumber.

His mind escaped back to voyages past out at sea. Dreams encapsulated Jon back to the times of joy and prosperity. A time of profits. He kissed each fish that they caught in their nets. He kissed the blurred faces of each crew member.

"Where have you been?" awoke him with a slap across the upper part of his cheek. His beard unable to catch the force behind Elea's opened hand. "You disappeared all day and all night and then you show up passed out and hung over in your car."

Jon rubbed at his eyes. He then jumped at the sight of Elea's hand rearing back for another swipe. He placed his hands on the steering wheel, stretching his arms, locking his elbows. "I went out with Bennie for a few drinks." He scratched at his beard, pulling out pieces of napkin that had embedded in his whiskers. "I must've had a little too many and dozed off in the drive when I got home."

"Bennie?" she questioned, keeping her hand up and ready to strike.

"First mate, Bennie. Bennie Flannigan from Orient, Bennie. He's out of work, too."

She dragged her hand down to her side. She pulled at the seams of her skirt and she headed back to the house. "If you want breakfast, toast and eggs are out. Barry finished his. You'll just have to nuke yours up a bit." She walked through the front door. The metal slamming shut behind her.

Jon took a deep breath. Then he cracked his knuckles back one at a time on the steering wheel. He felt a rush of guilt flood over him. He got out of the car, walking to the yard to watch the small waves pound against the shore. He closed his eyes. Then he whispered softly to the sound, "I'm home. To the sea," and he headed for the back porch—to the kitchen.

CHAPTER 10

Three weeks passed before Jon touched scotch again. This time, it was to ease his tired bones after the Brand traditional Easter hike down along the beach. The pours steadily increased 'til the night was but a warm blur layered with dreams—and then it was morning.

His eyes peeled back slow, sticky with sleep stuck between the lids. The sun shined over the land, making all the earth bright. While the neighbor's house shadowed over the Brands. Jon looked over at Elea. Her body curled up in a ball. Her face, nose up, the only bit of her body showing. He could only make shadows for her eyes in the dark of morning. But he knew she was sound asleep. He slipped out of the bed, slow, not to disturb her, and he walked to the bathroom.

"I'm naked," he mumbled, closing the door behind him. He looked down at the stream of bright yellow urine flow into the bowl. He rubbed at his genitalia—scratching. "Did we sleep together?" he said baffled. Then he shook himself off and he washed his hands.

The bathroom window had been opened a little more than halfway, allowing the sounds of the seascape to pour in. A scarlet cardinal flew towards the window. Then it darted to the left where a nest had been built under the drainpipe. He could hear the high pitched squeals of hunger from a single chick perched up in the nest. Jon unlatched the screen from the window. He pulled his head out, watching the red male regurgitate into his youngling's beak—the babe pecking deep into the male's mouth. "Sacrificing for his young," he thought. "We can only learn from nature itself or we can't learn anything at all." He looked out to the small waves pushing against the shore and he sighed. "I know what is right. I need to come clean with them all. It is my duty as the man of the house. It is my will to better them all." He looked back towards the sea as a tear ran slow to the peak of his high cheekbone. "It's too late for me, but not for Barry."

Jon pulled his head in from the window and he washed his hands clean. He placed a pair of pajama pants on, threw a robe over his shoulders and he walked out of the bathroom into the bedroom encased by the banter of the Monday morning newscast.

"You are up early, mister," Elea said, turning the volume down. She was wrapped with a red bed sheet hugging her bare body. "Thought you'd sleep in after the workout we had last night. I haven't felt that good in years. What did you do? Where did you learn that? And what is her name?" Elea giggled. Then she dropped the sheet down, exposing herself to her husband.

Jon shuffled his feet nervously. "Whose name?" he said quickly. "I haven't been seeing anyone."

"Don't be silly. I'm not accusing you of anything. I was simply congratulating you on a job well done. Gosh, maybe that is why we haven't had sex in so long. You are too tightly wound." Elea crawled to the edge of the bed. She rubbed his back for a bit. Then she placed her arms around his waist. "We are just going to have to loosen up those strings one by one and fix you on up."

Jon's head twitched nervously in and out of Elea's eyes until he found himself staring out the window, looking for the sea through the sun's sharp rays. "Elea," he shouted. Then he paused, realizing his loud tone. "Elea," he said more quietly. "I need to tell you something."

She wrapped her legs around his thighs as she kissed at his neck. "What is it, Jon," she whispered into his ear.

"I need to tell you about Bennie. Not Bennie. But who I was with when I told you I went for drinks with Bennie." Jon detached Elea's legs from his. He stepped back from the bed. "I went to see Lauren. Connors. From grade school. Remember her from the reunion? She lived on Cedar Street. Was in all of my classes. Well, I went to Jersey to see her for a few drinks. I lied to her. Told her I was in town. Fishing convention or something like that."

"A fishing convention in the middle of New Jersey? Seriously, Jon?"

"We didn't do anything. Just talked at a bar. Then I got too drunk. She drove home. Then I must've passed out in the car after the drive home. I lied to you, El. I'm sorry. I've never lied to you. I've never cheated on you. I am sorry."

Elea wrapped the sheet back up over herself. She stared down at her body of red. An elderly man was crying on the television. The interviewer was consoling the worried old man.

"Say something. Be mad. Tell me off. Hit me. Do something." Jon stood at the base of the bed with his hands catching his face.

"What do you want me to say? That I am mad? Because I'm not. I'm not mad at you at all. How could I be? You get all wound up over meeting an old friend over a couple of drinks and wind up telling me as if the world would end if you didn't. Jon, the world keeps spinning whether you like it or not. It is not going to stop for you." She paused for a moment. Then she placed her pajamas on slowly. "Jon, I've been seeing another man for five years. Five years I have been going out for drinks. Five years I have been sneaking off to motels. Five years I have been living my life while you have been caught up in your own world that you seem to think spins solely for you. With your head in the clouds. Your heart in the sea. Jon," she said. "No one cares about you, or the sea. You are the only one who stares at the water all day. You are the only one who is crazy enough to devote a life to something that does not even have a life. You are old. You have a son and a wife and a family, now. You need to grow up and live life for them and not yourself. You need to open your eyes and get your head out from under the sea."

Jon paused. He looked into Elea's eyes that would not blink as she now stared into the television. "But the sea—it is alive."

"What are you even talking about?"

"The sea. It is alive. You said that the sea has no life. But it does. It has brought life to us. It has provided for us. It has the strength and the power to provide. And it has the strength and the power to kill. It has fed us. It has paid for this house and all we fill it with. It is alive as much as you or I—and more so. More so than that television, at least." His face had become red with compassion. He loved the sea and he would be damned if anyone were to preach its name in vain.

She pumped up the TV volume, looking Jon in the eyes as she crossed her legs. "You are crazy. Your blood is nearly boiling. You are insane. First off. Millions of people are watching this program right now. You going to tell me that that isn't real? Second. The ocean is not something to be worshiped. You are toying with God and he is not pleased by your heresy. There is a church next door. I recommend you ask for whatever salvation He is willing to pity upon you before He damns you to a hell so fiery for your idolism and pagan worship of the sea. I suggest you drown your sins in holy water and save yourself quick before you lose your house, your family and your own life. May God have mercy on your soul, Jon. May God have mercy." She stepped off the bed and she walked into the bathroom, slamming the door closed.

Jon stood at the edge of the bed. He thought over the words Elea had delivered. He had known of her infidelity for some time. So it was not her revealing that that phased him. But it was the nonchalantlessness of it all. She seemed to not have a care in the world. Her adultery did not seem to be sin in her eyes. It all seemed as false as the imitated reality broadcasted over the television screen.

And then Jon felt a sudden feeling of his life ending right there. The feeling of a shadow casting over his head. Over all of his body. Deepening in an encompassing black. He knew there was no time to save himself, let alone his marriage. But he knew he had to save his son. And the words she had said, "... drown yourself in holy water..." resonated in Jon's mind. It was starting to come together. He stared out the window. The sun's rays had risen just high enough over the neighbor's house where the light shed about the sound. He watched the waves continually crash to the shore as if it were in slow motion. "Drown myself in holy water," he thought. "The holy sea stands at my feet. At my doorstep. The answers lie right in my backyard. Drown myself in the holy water and salvation shall rain on my family. Over all this earth." Jon rubbed his eyes and the waves returned to normalcy.

"Get the tea on," Elea shouted through the closed door. "This way it'll be ready for breakfast. I'll make eggs once I'm out. Barry should be up by now, too. So don't start anything at the table. Last thing we need is to have Barry worrying about us. He has enough stress with school on his mind."

Jon shook his head in agreement without her seeing his motions.

He ran the sink water into the pot and he threw the kettle over the stove. He turned the gas up as Barry tapped his shoulder twice as a sign for good morning. Headphones hugged the boy's ears. His eyes and his fingers glued to his phone. Jon ignored his son and the fisherman toyed with the flame 'til it was perfected, blowing fire under the metal pot and he walked to the table.

Elea walked in not long after. She wore a smile across her slim face. "Morning, Bar," she said. "How are you this delightful morning? Got that biology test today, or what?"

"Second period," Barry said quickly, between spoonfuls of oatmeal sloppily filling his mouth. "I'm ready, though. Studied all night." He gobbled down the rest of the oatmeal and he wiped the loose oats from the edges of his lips.

"Good luck, Bar," Elea said. She looked over at Jon, signaling him with her eyes to wish luck on their son.

"Good luck, son." Jon passed the oats in his bowl with his spoon. "Break a leg." Jon smiled slightly and he looked at Barry for a second. Then he glanced back down at his food.

"Want some eggs with that, Bar?"

"No, I'm heading out now to study a bit before first bell," he said. "Thanks, though."

Barry collected his bowl and his cup, placing them in the sink. He said his goodbyes and left for school.

Elea poured oats in a bowl. She stared at them for a moment before she dumped them back into the box. She ran her fingers quick across her cell phone—giggling and smiling and then she walked back into the bedroom.

She soon returned. But not in her pajamas—but in a pink and red floral print spring dress. "Going off shopping and to breakfast with Margie," she said, not stopping, walking out the front door. But Jon knew it was off to the local motel. Or off to the bar. Or off to wherever it would be with her second man and not with Margie.

Jon sat back in his chair. He pushed the cold oats from side to side. He whooshed his tea through his teeth. He watched the treetops sway with the wind blowing off the sea. An array of colored birds flew from pine to oak to brush to sand and then back up to the clouds. Jon smiled, listening to the songs of the birds in conversation blend with the ocean in a harmonizing melody. He closed his eyes and he started to hum along with the song of the earth—"...and the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."

CHAPTER 11

Barry rolled his head between two pillows. He closed his eyes as if they would block out the sounds of Elea and Jon bickering on the other side of bedroom doors. The window shades held the sun back, but a ray crept through a small opening at the bottom of the sill. Barry could feel the warmth of the sun shining under his chin. He painfully tried to flood the voices of his parents with the sound of his own thoughts. But Elea's sharp words pierced through the wooden door—through the feathered pillows—through Barry's shallow thoughts.

"If you think it's best to fail on us now, then so be it—." And then her words vanished into silence, surmounted by Jon's deep muffled tone.

Barry's face cringed as he released the pillow from around his ears. He then leaned his ear to the wall to hear the lost words from across the hall. But all he could hear was the high pitched notes of his mother.

"I'll show them," Barry thought. "I'll set them straight. And then force them to grow up." His hands rolled into fist. Then he let his fingers spill flat onto the bed sheets.

"I'd leave you too if it weren't for Barry and this house," sang sharply through the wall.

Barry's eyes widened. "The house," he whispered. "Their weak spot." He sat up and he cracked each one of his fingers back, sending off a continuous snap that filled the room. "The house it is."

Silence enveloped all the house, 'til Barry could hear Jon slip out of the bedroom. The sound of the door carefully creaking—the sound of the man's steps sinking into the floorboards. And after a short time, Barry could hear Elea barge through. Then she knocked on Barry's door before she swung it open. "Time for breakfast, Hon," she said in her best motherly accent. "What would you like to start your day?" She ruffled Barry's hair, kissing the side of his cheek. She walked to the window, setting the sun free to roam about the room. "So, Bar. What will it be?"

Barry squinted his eyes from the sunlight. "What was all that?"

"What was all what?"

"Before," he said. "With Pa. Did you two just fight?"

"No, dear. Don't be silly," Elea said quickly. Her eyes darting about the walls. "I love your father. We would never do such a thing."

Barry bit his lower lip. He racked his mind about what he believed he had heard. "I thought you two were arguing before."

"We were just discussing some bills. Some finances. That's all. But we weren't fighting. Maybe just a few loud tones. But never fighting."

Barry shoved his hands into his pockets. He picked at the cuticle on his thumb with his forefinger, scratching away the dry crust of scabs accumulated from a prior pick. "I guess I'll have some toast. Cereal. I'm not that hungry," he raised his shirt, patting his stomach with his hand. "Had a lot of dinner last night."

"Okay, Bar." She looked into his eyes. "Come out when you are dressed. It'll be ready in five," she said. Her voice trailing to the kitchen.

Barry dressed quickly. He walked into the buzz of the kitchen where Jon sat with his hands folded in his lap—the remnants of crusty toast on his plate and the residue of milky wheat left in the bottom of his bowl. His eyes were closed. He seemed to be in the depths of some outer worldly thoughts that consumed all of him. Enough of him to silence out Elea washing dishes, the television, and Barry's feet pattering upon the kitchen floor.

"Morning, Pa."

Jon's face jolted up. A quick smile traced his beard. But it soon faded. "Morning," he said. "You're breakfast is ready. Eat up before the toast freezes."

"You're toast is cold? I'll just make some fresh toast," Elea interjected over Jon's words as she scrubbed soapy dishes through the sink water.

"It's fine," Barry said. "Still warm."

"Good, 'cause I'm heading out to town to get some things with Lola. She needs some curtains and, you know, I could always pick up a few things," she laughed.

Barry squinted a stare towards Elea. But then he blinked. His eyes rounded and he sighed. His knuckles bunched up into fists for a moment. Then he slowly released the tension. "Cut the shit," Barry said smoothly. "Just cut it already." His eyes blinked out a droplet of water that ran down his hairless face. "I know where you go when you go out with friends. Pa told me. He told me all about it. And stop lying about you and Pa. I know you two fight all the time. And you just go and play the perfect little housewife. With your shows and your breakfasts. All with a serviced smile every morning. Please, Ma, just cut it."

Elea stepped back from the sink, dropping a small juice glass into a bowl—sending shards of sharp glass throughout the soapy sink. She seemed not to notice. Or she ignored the shattering sound, standing motionless for only a second, frowning. Then she quickly smiled, turning towards Barry and Jon. "What are you talking about, Hon?" She turned back to the sink and she continued to wash the dishes. Her eyes to the TV screen.

"You two fight constantly behind closed doors as if I wouldn't know. And you go to motels and sleep with other men. Pa told me. He told me everything. He followed you. He knows. He's just not man enough to confront you."

Jon sat with his eyes closed. His hands in his lap. He tapped his left foot against the leg of the table in a monotonous beat that coincided with his slowed, controlled heartbeat. "To the beat of the waves out at sea," he thought. He drifted deep within his own thoughts, sheltering out the heated conversation between his son and his wife.

Elea feverously scrubbed a plate for some time before she placed it in the drying rack. Then she twisted off the water. She turned to the table to face her men, but Barry had already made for the door. Jon sat stilled, continued to his thoughts.

"You just are going to sit there with your head in the clouds? With your head in the sea?" Elea said as she ran after her son. "Barry. Come back. I'll explain. He is lying. Whatever he told you, he is lying. He always does." But it was too late. Barry had sprinted down the block and he was out of shouting distance. Her yell powerless over the sound of pounding waves and the knell of the church's bell.

She returned to an emptied kitchen. Jon's chair ajar from the table. His plate placed aside the sink filled with broken glass. She looked to the back door where she found her husband rocking his weight between his toes and his heels with his hands locked behind his back. "Your head in the clouds?" she grunted. "I should have known it was in the sea. Right where it belongs—drowning in the sea." Elea threw his plate to the floor. The remaining uneaten crust skidding to the back door. She kicked the porcelain shards from her path as she opened the door, shouting, "What did you tell our boy? What did you tell him? What poisons did you feed him? You better watch yourself, mister, or you will find yourself in a real hole. No job, no money, now," she pinched her forefinger and thumb together, shaking her hand between his stony gray eyes. "And you are this close to losing it all."

"It is what it is," Jon said softly. He opened his eyes to peer out at the now foggy horizon. "I'll fix things right. Things will get better, in time." His lips pressed firmly.

"Well, the time is now. The time is right now, Jon." She looked down at her hands. A deep red veined from her wrist down to her thumb. She winced at the sight, catching the wound with her apron, squeezing the cloth tightly around the cut. "Damned thing. This damned thing. I'm going to be late now." She turned for the kitchen where Jon could hear the sound of water running from the sink alongside the sounds of his wife muttering obscenities and the muffled voices on the television.

He continued to balance his weight between the balls of his feet to the backs of his heels. The fog began to lift as the sun grew higher in the sky. The stray gulls that flew overhead were now visible—not once falling to the sea for a fish in their sights.

Jon loosened his lips to moisten the dry corners of his mouth. "My time will come soon," he thought, watching the waves crash, eating away at the shore. "As soon as I see him again. The old Padre. He will know when."

Jon continued to sway 'til he heard the sound of the sedan's tires sputter out of the drive—fading down the road.

He walked to the bed of rocks above the break, continuing down the coastline along the stony path. The fog eventually eased. The sun shining down a mid-spring warmth that caught Jon's high cheeks. "I'm coming soon," he said, directed towards the deafening waves. "I'll be home soon."

CHAPTER 12

Spring passed into summer—thick green leaves reflected off the cool blue water. Summer then faded, falling into autumn. The leaves yellowed and burnt red—then they browned and felled. The gulls that flew against the coastline came in fewer numbers. The stronger ones outliving the starved. The sandpipers stuck to the brush, foraging for insects up high in the dunes, not even chancing a trip to the shore. Fall then ended abruptly with cold. And still, no fish to angle.

A year of stagnancy shed away. Still no work, or sign thereof for Jon. Fights boiled each morning between sheets. Yet each breakfast was prepared by a smiling wife—a loving mother watching the TV with a keen eye. All the while keeping her notes for the hopes of tomorrow—for the hopes that she will win the big prize. That they will call her up. Ask her some petty trivia from the show the day prior. And she will just flip through her notes, reciting the answer with ease. She knows not to talk too much. That they don't like that. Time is money. Answer quickly. Get in and get out. She has run the conversation over a million times in her head. "It's all about the vacation," she'd say. "Eyes on the prize."

And each morning, her men sat silent across one another—enveloped in the hum of the television as they waited for their food to be served by her. They knew that smiles would be delivered with each dish. As if it was when the oceans were filled with fish. When Jon flooded his home with prosperity. When voyages yielded huge gains and no questions. But now—jobless for nearly two years, an adulterous wife of five plus years, and the dwindling funds from surpluses past—Elea's tone had certainly changed behind closed doors. But her breakfasting voice had remained uplifting.

Jon had raked through the folds in his mind for the year. The sea and the old priest's words consumed all of the fisherman's thoughts. He exerted all of himself towards decoding the priest's guidance. Jon began to build walls with his whimsical thoughts between himself and society—between himself and his family.

He traveled back to the beach over the green drawbridge, repeatedly. But never again did he see the old man. "He has to come back," he thought. "He wouldn't just leave me like that." Jon continued on to visit a beach—any beach—two to three times a week until he found himself visiting Her every day. "I need to talk to him again. He has something else to tell me. I know it. I feel it. I cannot give up. He'll come. I know it." And every time he thought he had figured out his destiny—his goal—his reason for living—he would question himself and start all over, driving back to the seashore in search for answers.

As time pressed on, with each drive, Jon would find himself in a daydream with his eyes to the heavens, staring out at the fluff of clouds morphing into images that he swore were messages from Him. Messages from his Father. His words. His guidance lining the edges of cumulous and airplane trails. And yet, all the while, as the sky and the leaves and all the earth changed—the sea still remained. Pounding away at the land. And as the sea remained, Jon remained. Unchanged. Like clockwork, timed and assured, Jon would find his way to the shore. Be it in his yard or a daytrip to a nearby beach-town. He would find his feet shifting over sand. Pushing the grains between his toes as the salty air tugged at his beard. He no longer wanted the sea. He needed it.

Barry's grades had slipped. Not much. Half a mark. But half a mark enough for Elea to confront him. Enough for Elea to force Jon to talk to their son.

"Biology is tough. And so is Calculus," Barry would plea. "I'm trying my best." But for the Brands, Barry's so-called best would not be enough. And with every push at Barry, the boy would push his anger down in a single gulp—accepting his penance of sarcasm from Elea and the now lack of caring from his father. As Jon's eyes had now been fixated on the sea through windows or through walls when there were no windows to look out of.

Then the spring returned—warming all the earth with rain and fog. The oaks still hung onto seldom browned leaves and had yet to bud with yellows and greens. The echoes of the church bell still resonated through the bare oaks—through the thin needles of the tall pines. And the sound still brought in smalls waves crashing to the shore below the bed of washed out stones.

Jon's drives to the shore had expanded farther out west. And with every drive, he held onto the notions of exploring the coastline to find the answers. To find the priest.

Jon took the car out onto the highway. Then he turned down the side streets for a more scenic view—taking the long winding roads of the north shore—roads that weaved through heavy hills aside steep cliffs falling into the sea. He trotted along in second gear, well below the speed limits. And when he spotted a closely following car in his rearview mirror, he would wait 'til the cliffs passed and the road gave way to lush green grass where he would pull his car to the shoulder. "What beauty resides along these shores," he thought, parked on the side of the road. "The cliffs on the opposing side. The Connecticut shoreline—hills seen in the distance. All natural. All beauty. The sea crashing against these narrow cliffs—these steep ridges. All things that I want to feel. The cold rush of the sea flush against my chest. The water rising above my head. My sacrificial gift received, and I, therefore, taken." His voice echoed through a narrow tunnel of aged oaks hanging their almost bare branches over the road. The few dried leaves rustling in the wind. "But they—they who pass, speeding along this road. They do not see." Then a gust swept in, tearing the few remaining leaves from their branches.

Jon pulled back onto the road. He mused himself with the views along the slim roadways—often dodging his car out of oncoming traffic as his eyes drifted off the pavement. "What beauty truly lies along such natural wonders. And what peace I can find here. There is love in this soil. There is true religion in this sea." Jon began to well up tears in the corners of his eyes, but he swiftly blinked them out, refocusing in on the steep upward hills rolling before him. His mind switched back to the priest. To the thoughts of Abraham. The car had made it to the crest of a hill and Jon could see a ridge over the water with dignified cuts etched from stormy seas past. He blinked and he could see the outlining of an aged man with a tall beard reflecting in the shadows.

"Abraham?" Jon called out. "I see your face. I see your eyes. I see your beard. This must be the spot. This must be part of an answer. Finally." Jon pulled the car to the edge of a long driveway. "I see you Abraham," he yelled. "I see you clearly. But speak. Speak to me, my God, my sea, my Abraham. I am yours. I will do anything to absolve myself from this sin. I sacrifice myself to your will." He closed his eyes. He envisioned the image of the man in the earth diving off the cliff into the sea; then, moments later, arise out of the water into the clouds.

Jon's eyes shifted quick below his closed lids. A few tears trickled down his cheeks, sinking deep into his beard. The wind had picked up some speed, rushing alongside the rusted car—chilling the path of tears on Jon's cheeks. He opened his eyes and he tugged at his beard, combing his fingers through it, tucking the ends under. He bit on the cuticles of his thumbs. Then he toyed with the clutch, shifting the car into first, then back into second, rolling down the backside of the hill.

Houses then appeared along the southern side of the road. They were oversized, when in view. And the ones hidden behind great thick limbs of climbing brush, tall foreign and native trees alike, he assumed those were massive as well. "How do you fill up all those rooms, anyhow?" he thought. He found no interest in the cedar shingles and the stucco facades lining the southern side. But he was fixated on the edges of land along the north in search of Isaac—or another sign of Abraham. But the cliffs were becoming smooth—less rigid as he drove farther west. The waves no longer slamming against the protruding land, but gliding above smooth sand.

Clouds began to thicken in off the sound. They hung low over the road. Jon reached his head out of the car window. He sniffed the air. The smell of sea was strong. His hands gripped the wheel hard as he concentrated on the fading lines painted on the roadway as his wandering mind and his wondering eyes drifted towards the never before seen beauty. "I've lived on this Island all of my life and I have never seen such spectacle and awe. There is so much that I have never seen or have never been subjected to seeing. The workforce of the sea, or any occupation, disrupts our minds from any and all real natural manifestation. The true gifts of this land given by Him." Then he looked to the south, releasing a sigh of aggravation. "Unless you live on the southern side of this road. Then you can surely pay for the natural views we should all be subjected to. But now such views are scribed into real estate contracts organized by the pen of man. Orchestrated by sin." He could see a man in a black suit smoking a cigar off the balcony on the third floor of a white stucco house with blue shutters—four times the size of Jon's cottage back in East Marion. The estate was enclosed in an aged brick fence, twined with veins of ivy and leafless brush. Jon sighed again. He looked back to the sound, now at the level of his car, and he pulled to the side of the road.

The clouds turned to a gray graphite hue penciled across the sky. Branches of tall oaks on the south side of the road waved with the increasing gusts from the north, blowing in off of the shore. Stray grains of sand twirled in the arms of the wind, whipping Jon's face through the car window 'til he spun the glass closed. He situated a tee-shirt around his face to guard against the grains whirling around outside. He looked into his eyes—into himself—in the rearview mirror for a short while. Then he took a deep breath and he stepped out of the car, starting for the sea.

The ocean had turned as gray as the washed out road. The clouds overhead began to grow blacker. The wind became silent and the particles caught up in the gusts fell to the floor. Jon untied the makeshift bandana, shoving the tee-shirt in his back pocket.

He looked out at the patch of sand enclosed by two steep cliffs no more than a half a mile to the left and half a mile to the right. He stared out to the west, scanning the cliff for a picture of Isaac in the land. But any protruding land up high on the cliff cast no shadow in the sunless sky. And below the ridge was smoothed—freshly eroded by the hungry sea. "I know he is here. I saw his father. Where is the son?" Jon said aloud. He looked to the left, examining the eastern cliff. It was creased in the middle, creating a peak towards the top filled with lush green conifers amounting to a single towering pine dangling roots over the edge—its needles hanging high above the sea. The cliff was smoothed on either side of the crease and he could make no signs of a man's face. But Jon could not take his eyes away from the crease in the cliff. He tried to make a nose peering out from the ridge, but he found no cheekbones drawn into the earth.

Jon looked up at the pine's roots swaying in the wind, as dark clouds swooped in overhead. The trees on the ridge then stopped swaying. The wind stopped. And the needles on the crowns folded, shedding to the ocean—plummeting several hundred feet to the salty surface.

Jon looked out at the waves pounding against the base of the cliff where hundreds of green needles floated above the foamy white. "Isaac is there. A sign," he thought. "This is surely the day. Isaac, I feel you." Jon's eyes grew red. He blinked long and hard. He gazed back to the eastern cliff and he instantly pieced together a face in the earth. A child. A hairless face. Low cheekbones. Bobbed hair. Wide eyes.

Jon observed the cliff carefully. He could not comprehend why he had not seen the image earlier. He had surely scanned both of the ridges with great detail in the search of the very image he now was able to see. "I knew you were here, Isaac. I knew you were not just some pine tree cliff, but a face in this earth. You just had to be here."

Jon ran his fingers through his long beard, tucking the ends into his collar. The wind had begun to pick up again. The sand danced across the shoreline. His eyes teared at the wind for a moment, but soon, he grew accustomed to it. He looked back at the eastern cliff and he found that the great pine tree at the peak had vanished. He wiped his eyes with the tee-shirt—but still no tree. He rubbed at his eyes again. Then he turned and he looked back at the cliff. This time, to his surprise, he could not find the image of the young man in the land. "They were both just here. I just saw them. They cannot just vanish in thin air. That would be impossible." Jon set his head back into his shoulders. Then he spat at the waves cresting and falling into the sand. "I know I just saw them," he said mumbling, fumbling along the shore towards the westward ridge.

His thoughts were consumed with the real and what he had thought to be real. The images of the trees dying before his eyes, shedding their needles. The images of Abraham and Isaac in the cliffsides. He toiled with the facts of chance and what was and what could have been, or what wasn't at all. But he could not pinpoint the truths in reality between what his mind had devised and what he felt his God had portrayed solely for his eyes—and as a true answer to his destiny.

He had walked a good distance, closing in on the beginning of the steep western ledge before he turned towards the sea. He could see a break in the dark clouds—a light gray opening in the sky. He turned towards the east and the opening in the sky rested a glimmer of light above a figure walking towards him. It wore a silvery necklace reflecting brightly off his black clothing. Jon took a deep breath in. Then he turned back to the west. "The pine was right there," he said aloud, pointing to the east, at the top of the cliff that was now bare. "The damned thing was there." He looked out to the sea for the needles floating above the whitecaps. But he could only see the foaming white of the sea crashing against the land, spraying up into the sky.

Jon shoved his hands into his pockets. He looked down at the sand. His thoughts had been cleared. He walked back to the east and he could see the figure was only a few moments away from contact. Jon could make out the white plastic collar pressed against the man's neck—the fluffy white hair atop his head. "Padre?" he called softly. Jon then ran closer to the east, closer to the figure, calling out louder, "Padre? Is that you? Padre?"

The figure came into full sight now, as he walked to an unchanged slow beat towards Jon. "My son," the priest called out. "I knew I would find the day when I would see you again. What is it that brings you out to this harbor on such a miserable day?"

Jon rested his hands on the tops of his knees to slow his breathe. "Just following the voice of the sea," he said. "I don't know why I am here."

The old priest rested his forefinger on his lower lip. "Ah, I see, my son. But I think you know why you are here. We do not just go and do something. Go places. Make decisions based on a limb of hope, or desire. We make all decisions with carefully plotted maneuvers. Be it planned in our slumbers or in our conscious thoughts—but we always know exactly where we are going. So, I take it, you know exactly where you are headed?" The old man paused, looking out towards the foamy sea rushing against the edge of the western cliff. "Am I right, my son?"

Jon straightened his posture. He placed his hands firmly at his sides as he worked the words of the priest in his mind with his own thoughts. "I guess you are right."

"You guess?" the old man said with a snicker.

"I know," Jon said with assertion. "I know why I am here. I know what my destiny has become. These cliffs—this ocean, speak to me, Padre. They whisper the words of my future. The ocean has guided me here. To this harbor. Today. These hills have taken me to His harbor. These cliffs have shown me the way to my destiny. A sure way to save my family. A way to save myself." Jon took the tee-shirt from his back pocket and he wiped a strand of tears falling from his eyes. He looked out to the sea. He felt his heart beat to the crash of each wave against the sand. He looked back up at the priest, who smiled at him. "Padre, do you know what I mean?"

"I do. I do, my son."

The two stood, staring out at the black sea for a long while, listening to the secret whispers of the sound pressing to the shore.

Jon looked up at the priest after a time, breaking the silence. "What brings you here, Padre? We are nearly fifty miles from where we met last."

"And seems as fifty years and not merely one." The priest paused. Then he turned to the cliffs and then back to the sea. "I moved to the seminary a couple of miles east of here. I had guided my congregation for sixty years. The majority of my life. And God called on me to move on. My thoughts consumed with Him, and in time, I was gone. I moved on, my son. God works always. And he always works mysteriously. I thought I would end all my years working for the love of my town. But I was made to realize that you cannot ever own the land you live on. But you are only a mere servant to Him, and His land. Thus I let the land speak to me. And now I am here, spreading the good word to future men of God. Future men who shall make work visible by love. We, as man, need only to leave ourselves open to Him and He will surely answer all our prayers. Always."

The gray opening in the clouds began to tighten and swirl. The trees on the cliffs on either side began to sway feverishly. Yet the two men had not felt a bit of the wind.

A dog ran in from the west and soon converged on the two. Jon stepped back at once. He set his feet in the sand, ready to run to the east.

"Don't run, my son. If you run, you will show fear. If you run, you will only cause him to chase after you. Stay put. Be at ease. He has no interest in your taste. But such a beast feeds off of fear. So be at ease, and he will leave you be." The priest spoke with his hands signing the cross or what Jon believed to be the sign of the cross as the man's words took to angelic tones.

The mutt's muscles were tight, shining through his slick black coat. Jon tensed as the dog barked. He cowered and his knees buckled. "It is going to kill me. How can I be calm?" Jon pleaded.

"Be at ease, my son. And you shall be at peace."

The dog focused solely on Jon—not once looking over at the priest. Jon set his shoulders down with a vast exhalation of air. He felt his knees wiggle within their sockets, and then, all at once, his muscles eased.

"Now pet him. Show him you are at peace. Show him you are not afraid. And he will not bite."

Jon outstretched his hand and he started to tremble. He could feel the hot breathe of the beast snarling at the approach of the hand. He began to shake more and more and his body tensed up quickly. The dog instantly lunged forward, biting Jon's hand, severing the tip of his pinky. "Damned bastard," he shrieked, pulling his hand back above his head, ready to slap the dog. "You little... I'll show you..."

"No you will not, my son. You will be at ease. You tensed up. The dog only sensed your fear. Be at ease. Be at peace."

Jon looked down at his pinky. It was severed to the base of his cuticle. He winced from the pain. But then he slowly cleared his mind from all tension and the pain lifted. He loosely swayed his head back and forth. He loosened his arms and his muscles relaxed. Then he easefully leaned in, petting the dog on the head, scratching it behind the ears. The dog growled for only a moment. Then the mutt hid his teeth under his lips and sat down on the sandy shore. The dog opened his mouth quickly, causing Jon to step back. But when the dog's long tongue emerged, licking Jon's wounded pinky, he laughed, looking up at the priest.

The priest nodded, smiling at Jon. "You see. Be at ease, and you will be at peace. Accept the fate we are given and there will be no pain. He will guide us for always, but we justly need to keep ourselves open to His message." The old priest looked up at the swirling clouds overhead. The patch of gray shrunk to a small conical speck in the sky. "He is looking out for us all, my son. He is looking out for us all."

The clouds began to swirl with more fervor 'til a waterspout had formed in the center of the harbor. The sand began to wisp up into the sky. The smell of salt and pine filled the air. The strong wind altered Jon's balance. He watched the waterspout twirl around, beginning to gain speed and girth. The whitecaps to the west splashed with intensity—the foaming mist feeding the swirling water tornado. He looked back to the east, watching the dog running to the pine ledge. The priest, too, had made off along the shore, up towards the east. "Padre, where are you going? What shall I do?" Jon yelled up over the roar of wind and water.

The priest stopped for only a moment, turning back towards Jon. "You know what you need to do. Just keep yourself open for His word. For His love." The priest turned back to the east, continuing to walk quickly. A thick fog rolled in from the south, encompassing the priest—devouring the old man into a dusty figure in the distance 'til he was out of Jon's sight. The waterspout then fell back into the sound and the wind dulled to a low roar.

The sun then rained over all the land, pushing the black clouds out to sea. Jon sat on his hams on the sand of the shore. He looked down at his pinky finger. The tip had been removed, but the blood had stopped. New skin began to form over the wound. He touched it and it felt as if he had lost the skin months ago and not only a few moments before. He shrugged his shoulders then he buried his hands deep into the cold sand as he looked out at the harbor. The small waves gently fell over, sinking into the sand as pine needles washed up from the pressing tide. He looked over at the eastern cliff. Then he looked back to the needles beaching themselves and he mumbled, "I know what I must do. In time. When He tells me when. In time."

CHAPTER 13

Elea exited the bathroom yawning. Jon was still fast asleep. The sun's rays glared through the sill, blanketing the bed. She walked to him, slipping into the sunlight, eclipsing his head. Her eyes widened. The muscles in her neck tightened as she swallowed.

"Get up and get a job," she shouted at him. "You don't deserve to sleep in. The sun is rising and the air is warming." She reached over, throwing the blankets off of the bed, allowing the sun to float across his flesh. He felt a cold rush though his body, but his flesh was warmed by the sun. "Now get up and get ready. You lazy piece of..." She paused. Her face loosened and she smiled briefly on a thought. "You are going to head west. To the city. Go to that job fair that is going on all week. Todd mentioned it two weeks ago at dinner." Her smile widened as her hands dashed across her cellular phone. "I'll text up Margie and ask her to ask her Todd about it. I'm sure he could find you an in somewhere. Margie owes me for putting up with all her troubles, anyhow." She relaxed, sitting sidesaddle on the foot of the bed.

Jon yawned. He rubbed his eyes. Then he rolled over, away from Elea. He looked out the window—out at the waves glistening in the sunlight.

"Stop flopping around, mister," Elea said, flipping her phone closed. "You have a date with destiny today."

"Destiny," he mumbled, continuing to stare out at the pressing waves. "I know my destiny. It lies in the sea. Deep within me." He took a long breath and then he slowly released the stale air out of his nose.

"Stop your mumbling about the sea. It's time to move on, Jon. Give it up. Now, where is your suit?"

"My destiny lies on the seafloor. Not on an island of iron and steel and glass all trying to reach the high heavens."

Elea walked to the closet. "You need to look your best. Where is it, Jon?"

"The suit I wore to your brother's wedding? The gray pinstriped one?"

"Yea, or the blue one. Whichever you want. Just make sure you tie the tie correctly. And no mention of the sea. You don't want to come off anymore incompetent than you already are."

"I haven't worn the gray one since your brother's wedding. And that had to be almost ten years ago," he said. "And the blue one was my father's old suit." Jon sat up on the front of the bed. He watched Elea comb through the closet. Then he turned his head and he looked back out the window behind him. The tide was in, now, and the waves were low. The sun reflected a shimmer across the sound beyond the pane of glass mirroring the raging arms of Elea digging through the closet. And it all brought a light smile across his face. "The sea, Elea, it is where I belong. It is all I know. I will make things right, soon. I will save us, surely. It just needs to be the perfect time. And then you will see. You and Barry will see. He will see."

"I don't have any more time to wait and see. You tell us this always. Just wait and I'll save us. You haven't saved us in two years." She paused. "Fuck. Jon. Two years. You need to man up, already. Barry needs tuition money for college. We are coming up on the end of our savings. We can no longer just wait. Barry and I can no longer just wait. You need to take responsibility as the man of this house and get a job. Whether it is up to your standards or not. As long as it brings an income into this house, it should be good enough for you."

Jon pinched his beard to a single point. Then he turned to Elea who stood with the blue suit in her arms.

"What is James doing now?"

"James is..."

"...Is in the city. Working for his brother." She threw the suit on Jon, standing over him with her finger in his face.

"And what is Robert doing for work?"

"Robert is..."

"Robert is in the city. Working for his father." Her voice was climbing in volume.

"Quiet. Barry."

"Listen," she spoke more softly now. "Go to that job fair, Jon, and earn a real days work. A real honest days work." Elea huffed at Jon who had been stuck in a dazed out stare to sea. His eyes strained from the gentle breeze filtering through the screened window. He blinked out two tears that rolled into his beard on either side of his face. The stressed blink cut off his wondering mind and he shifted his head back towards Elea. "I will go," he said, and he walked passed her into the bathroom.

"Okay. See? That was easy enough. Just go and get a job, please. Your family will thank you." Elea paused and she pressed her head against the closed bathroom door. She sighed and then she headed to the kitchen. "I'll get breakfast on. You'll need the energy for your big day." Elea smiled. She emptied three eggs into the frying pan and she laid out six slices of bread atop the grates in the toaster oven.

Breakfast came and then went. Barry shoved the food down his throat. Then he walked out the door with his last slice of toast still in hand. Elea stuck to the cleaning of the dishes as she watched her TV. And Jon headed out to the car, dressed in the blue suit that nipped at his armpits. He hung the jacket up onto a hanger in the backseat before sitting himself in the car. He tugged at the white sleeves hugging his wrists closely. Then he twisted the black onyx cufflinks in circles as he thought nervously about the job fair. He had not been in the city in some years. Just the thought of the metropolis frightened him. "The big buildings," he mumbled. "And all those people in all those streets. All inside all those big, tall buildings. It's unnatural. No one is supposed to live in a city. No one should live in what the hands of man and machine have created. No one should enter such a demonic place." He shivered. Then he pulled the car into reverse—out of the driveway. "The sea is all I need. The true and honest and holy sea." Jon shifted into first gear, heading west.

Once on the road, the car seemed to drive itself as Jon's thoughts meandered about, propelling the car to the places in which he daydreamed. "Lauren," he thought. "I must see her one last time. I'll drive along the coast and make my way to her house. I'll surprise her." He thought of her smile—her dark green eyes. "She'll be surprised. And thrilled, no doubt," he added. A smile creased the center of his face. The images of the sea washed across his glossy gray eyes. Shadows of Lauren's smile lay like translucent film over the sea in his mind—over the gray roads and blue sky.

It was noon by the time Jon rode through the foothills of Lambertville. A mountainous terrain blocked the horizon in the shallow distance. The sun's backlight blackened a sea of green pine needles on the backside of the great hill. The winter had begun to wind down and the warmth and comfort of spring started to blanket over the earth. Jon's head full of waves cleared. The picturesque mirages of Lauren faded into the jagged mountaintops. He shivered and his head fell into his shoulders. "This tie," he moaned. "It's killing me." He loosened the knot, slipping the tie out of his collar, throwing it to the backseat. The mountains made him sweat. He missed the sea. He missed the sound of the waves pushing in against the smooth sand. He missed the gulls cry—the sandpipers tweet.

He passed the pub where the two had met last. Then he drove just around the bend to Lauren's house. He looked at the time flash across the dash. "One-thirty," he mumbled. "Three and a half hours 'til she'll be home." He pulled the sedan into the white pebbled driveway in front of her white vinyl house. "I'll just wait here 'til she comes home. She'll be happy. I just know it." He unbuttoned his dress shirt and he slipped into a tee-shirt that had been sitting on the backseat of the car.

Jon pulled his seat back, tilting the chair so his eyes were level with the sky. He watched the stray white clouds tumble about in the light blue. He rolled the window down a crack, sniffing in the warm air 'til his eyes shuttered closed, and he drifted into a gentle slumber.

CHAPTER 14

"Jon? What are you doing here?" were the words that caught Jon between a snoring inhale and a whishing exhale. "You didn't even call. You think you can just show up here? It is Tuesday, Jon. Tuesday. I have work tomorrow. Tuesday's, I relax, and I go to bed early. And you are here. You just can't do these things, you know." Lauren pressed her hands into the sides of her hips. She opened the car door and she pushed back Jon's hair that hung in strands across his eyes. "Come on in," she said, more relaxed. "How long have you been sleeping out here? And what's with the fancy getup? Planning on taking me out on a hot date?"

Jon's throat was coarse and dry. "I must've been snoring," he thought, rubbing the sleepiness from his eyes. "I'm wearing a suit—." He searched his mind for a story. "Because I am going to take you out. Wherever you like to go around these earthbound lands of yours." Jon lifted himself from the car, taking his dress shirt, tie and jacket from the backseat, following Lauren to her door.

"How sweet. Well then, you can surprise me anytime you like, mister." Lauren twisted her key into the door, swinging her arm up, inviting Jon into her home with a warm, "After you."

Jon eyed the place quickly. He admired the fine interior motif of the country scattered about the home. "Nice place," he said. "I like the decorations. I didn't realize you had a thing for old farm antiques. I guess the country never left you, eh?"

"Oh, those things. I don't even know what half the stuff is. Now-a-days you just hire someone to throw all this crap together in your house to give it that good ol' fashioned cozy feel. I don't have time to be bothered with those things anymore. I can only be bothered with the things that give me the funds to fill up this gargantuan house."

Jon frowned. He toyed with a miniature red wagon fixed with rust. A linen doll stiffly stuffed sat in the back. "Oh," he said. "Well, I guess tell your decorator I like what she did with the place."

"It's a he."

"What's a he?"

"My decorator. She is a he. He comes in once a year and changes it up a bit." She waved her hands up, looking at the wagon. "You see, I didn't even know that ol' wagon was over there. Go figure."

"You mean you change it? I don't think the decorations in my house have been changed much since when I was a child." Jon scratched at his beard. "No, we changed the couches around when we got the cable when Barry was little, yet."

"You mean you still have those old Babushka dolls on the mantle below that old snowy painting? And those boxes filled with thimbles?"

"Yup. Got another case going now, too. Once people know you got a collection, it becomes their collection too, but for you to hold on to."

"Ugh," she said enthusiastically. "I know what you mean. My mother told my aunt she liked things with pigs when we were little, as a joke. And my aunt took it serious and within a few years, our house was flooded with stupid piggy trinkets. Pig potholders. Pig salt and pepper shakers. Pig everything. And my mother never bought a single pig thing. It was all from people who just thought my mother loved pigs." Lauren laughed briefly, losing the spot in her thoughts. "But that is too funny about your house, Jon. You'll always be set in your ways. You'll always be particular." She leaned against the wall, staring into Jon's eyes in a steady silence before she pushed herself off and to the bathroom. "Okay, Jon. I need to use the little girl's room and get ready. Look about the house. Entertain yourself while I freshen up. There are wine-coolers in the fridge. The remotes are on the table."

Jon looked around for a bit before sitting himself at the large oak table in the dining room. He knocked on its surface, nodding his head in approval at the dense sound pouring from the tight fibers. He looked out of the window above the sink—at the little trinkets held high on the ledge. He smiled. But then he quickly frowned. "I bet they hold no meaning to her. I bet Mr. Decorator set those up there for just another twenty-five ninety-nine." He looked past the ledge—out at the bright vinyl white picket fence enclosing her small manicured backyard. Past her yard, there was the tan vinyl siding of the strategically placed house behind her own. He began to miss the sea. "I am in a cookie cutter house," he said. "I bet the whole neighborhood looks the same. I bet the whole block hires Mr. Goddamn-Decorator." He pulled at his beard for awhile. Then he rested his hands on top of the smooth white tablecloth. "A town of plastic boxes enclosed in plastic picket fences filled with plastic people." He looked down at his hands and he inspected his fingernails. The dirt from under them seemed to be magnified in the pristine of Lauren's house. He brushed his hands to his sides, off of the white tablecloth.

"I'm ready," Lauren said, emerging from down the hall. She wrapped her arms around Jon's chest. She leaned in-between him and the back of the chair, swinging her head around his, locking his lips onto her own. "So," she sighed. "I've been meaning to do that for awhile." She smiled, leaning back, clasping Jon's hand through her own, and bringing him up to his feet. "So, where are you taking me?"

Jon rummaged through his congested mind for the correct words as a blank stare froze across his face for a moment. "I figured we'd go to a place you'd like. I don't know of many, or for that matter, any places up in these mountains."

"We aren't in the mountains. We are in Lambertville, New Jersey. Suburbia, USA. Just because we aren't near the sea doesn't mean we are in the mountains. You need to get off your Island more often." She winked and she headed for the front door with his hands in hers. "Let's go to Loreto's. They make the best prime rib-eye on this side of the mountain," she said with a slight laugh tailing off her words.

Dinner came and then went. They both got the prime rib-eye paired with pinot, eating over mundane dinner side talk. Nerves controlled her subjects. The sea flooded his own. And when it was time to leave, Jon swiftly paid the check with wrought bills crumpled in the fronts of his pockets. Then he slipped Lauren's jacket over her narrow shoulders.

Her arms sank when he lightly patted the suede jacket down. "Thank you, mister, for all of your kindness and hospitality," she said. "Dinner was lovely."

Jon shied away. Then his eyes widened. "You picked the place," he said. "I just paid the check." He thought of all the things he had to spend money on for his family, but he did not have the funds to put forth. New clothes for Barry and school books and college. And for Elea—all the monetary useless things she demanded as necessities. Jon's stomach growled. He thought about the bloody meat that sat in his stomach and the costly price it represented in his life. "I simply am a lie and a fake. A no good. This, in time, will all be over soon," he said loudly as he slammed Lauren into the car, making his way around to his side. He paused before he opened the door, looking up at the peak of the mountain ridge in the far distance. "I am a long way from home, Abraham. I am coming home." He rubbed his nose and he tugged the chin of his beard before he got into the car, driving to the pub not far down the main street.

The two seated themselves at the same table they had courted the last time. Lauren had a way about her that she liked to keep things simple. The way they always were. When they had been in grade school, she would always sit at the same lunch bench on the far right corner. And when they had changed the configuration of the cafeteria at the beginning of the third grade, she sat in the closest bench possible to the old set up.

She ordered two whisky sours, one for the each of them. She sipped hers slowly and frequently in the time Jon downed three to himself over silent conversations interrupted by quaint remarks over the playlist streaming from the jukebox.

"I haven't heard this tune in ages," she said. "I was hoping to keep it that way." Lauren frowned, tilting her glass up, pouring the cool fermented liquid down her throat. The chilled ice crashed to her red lips. She placed the glass down with a thump. She looked into Jon's frozen eyes. She could tell he had little interest in the pub and its jukebox. But he held a sullen interest in the whisky he kept at. "Let's boogey," she said, causing Jon to blink out his wayward thoughts, bringing him back into the reality in which he had been a part of, but had surely forgotten. "Let's get out of this dump. You want to go for a drive? I'd love to go for a drive with you."

Jon ran his fingers over his eyes. Then he floated his long digits down across his face. "Where to? I haven't got a clue where I am."

"I figured we could just drive around. See where the roads take us." She paused, batting her eyes. Then she set her forefinger on the base of her lower lip. "And maybe park the car, and, you know, just talk or something."

Jon's cold eyes warmed. "I'd like that." He smiled cordially and the two drove off, following the street lights 'til the lights disappeared, giving way to the moonlight, and they then followed that. They drove for about an hour or so until they reached a small park with no name. There were no signs posted and no lights affixed. But the shadows of wooden and plastic play-sets elongated from the moon's white light in the tree-bound opened land.

"Here is good," she said, speaking the first words of the car ride. "Pull into there. In that spot there." She pointed to the stall in the farthest corner hidden from the main road—directly under the moonlight that they had been following. "Here is a good spot."

"You say this like you've been here before."

Lauren smiled. She looked down at the floor mats. "I like to take drives on the weekends sometimes. Or after a long trial. It gets lonely in such a big house with no one to share it with." Her eyes rolled up with her head, slowly following his eyes to meet with hers. She unbuckled her seatbelt, leaning over the console, unbuckling his—sliding her hand from the buckle of the seat to the buckle of his belt. "I declare that these must go." She unhitched the metal clasp, pulling the belt from the loops of his pants. The sound of the leather passing over the wool sent a deafening whoosh through the car, sending his muscles into a tizzy as her hands pulled his pants from his flesh. "And I declare that this comes off as well," she said, unbuttoning her blouse. "And this," as she slid her skirt off her legs. She reached over, taking off his shirt. Then she wrapped her fingers around the tight waistband of his undergarments. "And I do believe that these must go as well if we are to conduct any business here tonight."

"Am I under contract or something, Miss?" Jon giggled nervously.

She pulled her seat back and she climbed into the backseat, lying across the bunk. "You are now, mister. Now give me what I deserve," she smiled, winking at him. "Give me what you have wanted to give me ever since I was a little girl."

Jon clumsily fell over the driver's seat, landing atop Lauren on the back bunk. His knees falling into her stomach as she grumbled and wheezed a bit, laughing off the awkwardness all the while.

The two toiled under the moonlight for a short time. The alcohol was still alive in them and little romanticism was practiced. "This doesn't feel like Elea," Jon thought. "I just want to stop. I just want to get this over with but I don't want to embarrass her." He frowned as his body pulsed into hers. "I would have loved this as a child, but I am no longer that child. I am a man. A husband. A father. And I am nearing my end. I am adulterous and contrite." Lauren moaned loudly and he fell off of her.

"Well, that was something that should have happened a long time ago if I had never moved," she said with a wink.

Jon leaned over her. His head hitting the overhead panel. He looked out of the car, watching the lights of a plane flicker across the sky. He felt his body pulse warm blood furiously through his arteries—his heart jumping from his chest. A tingle ran to the tips of his fingers and the thoughts of his wife back at home caused guilt to flood through his thoughts. "I know she's adulterous. More so than I," he thought. "But I am better than her. I am better than what I have just done. I must return home and make things right. I must set things right with Elea and Barry. I must return to sea." He felt a tear well up in his left eye, but he caught the liquid in his palm before it could roll and fall atop Lauren's stomach. He turned his head from the window and he stared into Lauren. "I'm tired," he lied. "Mind if I just drop you off and I head home? I got a long day tomorrow." He leaned his arm over the front seat. He grabbed his shirt, throwing it quickly over his head. "It's cold outside," he said, slipping his legs back into his dress pants.

"I thought you didn't have a job. What are you so busy with tomorrow that makes you so quick to leave? Was it not good? Does your wife do better?"

"No. I mean, this has nothing to do with Elea."

"So, it wasn't good?"

"It was. I just need to fix some things around the house tomorrow. The Babushka's are dirty. The thimbles are dusty. I told Elea I would clean the house tomorrow. There's a lot to be done." Jon climbed over the console, sitting in the driver's seat while Lauren remained naked across the bunk in the back.

"We shouldn't've done this. It was my mistake. I knew it would have been. You are a married man." She dressed quickly, exiting out of the back, returning to the passenger side seat. "I am sorry. I didn't want to make things hard for you. I guess I was just thinking all for myself. Like I said. It gets lonely in such a big house. I just want a man around, I guess." She paused, trying to stare into Jon's eyes—but they shifted all about the car nervously. "You can just take me home."

Jon turned the key over in silence. The ride back seemed shorter than the scenic and slow drive to. And when he pulled to her house, he parked to the curb. They nodded casually and departed with a subtle, "Good-bye." No kiss—no hug—no eye contact.

The bright stars dimmed, fading behind clouds lining a cold front. Rain soon fell. The drops digging small holes into the earth. The sound of owls hooting over mice hushed to the patter of the rain pounding whatever it pounced upon. Lightning etched sharp white lines through the nighttime sky. The echoes of thunder bounced from mountaintop to mountaintop, sliding down the valleys and to the ears of Jon, who had been driving for some time now.

He looked at the time shining off the dash. "Two-thirty, already?" he said. "Elea is going to batter me, for sure." The windshield wipers waved the water fast. The headlights shined dimly—the beams stunted in the heavy rain that kept falling faster and harder. Jon leaned forward, pushing his glasses closer to his eyes. He squinted, trying to see through the veil of water.

He had made it over state boarders by now. The mountains were a mere backdrop blacked out by the dark clouds. But the land lit up rigidly when white bolts landed somewhere, surely, deep in the forest.

He pulled the car to the side of the highway, killing the engine. He waited—listening to the heavy taps of water drumming natural rhythms on the rooftop until an hour passed and he turned the ignition back over, driving slowly on the high-speed throughway. "I won't be home 'til dawn or close there to, anyhow," he said. "I might as well take my time." Jon tugged at his beard. Then he threw on the high beams—the lights dancing through the thick forest lining the road.

After a short time, the conifers began to separate from one another. Their crowns capping lower to the ground. The rain continued to fall heavy. The drops growing in size, clicking louder on the car's roof. The sound soothed Jon's thoughts—soothing his memories of the mountains and the tall trees that had surrounded him in the parking lot with Lauren. He could hear the moan in her voice. Her soft whimper between the loud clicks of rain and booms of thunder. Jon rolled down the window. He looked up at the sky—but he could see only black. The rain began to wet his hair and speck his glasses. He stopped the car again—this time on the highway. He wiped his lenses on the inside of his shirt. Then he rubbed his eyes with his long fingers. He could see a break in the clouds, now, where a single star faintly shined through. He brushed the rain from his glasses again and he stared in at the lone star amidst the rain swollen clouds. He swallowed hard. Then he pushed down on the gas, continuing along the road until sand had surrounded him on all sides—the sound of the oceans crash to land nearing.

He slowed the sedan to a stop on the shoulder. He clicked down the brightness of the headlights. The rain had yet to break, pounding hard, still. "I miss you," he said as he opened his door—sinking his feet into the sandy surface. "I promise I won't go back to those oversized hills. I'll stay true to you. The sand below my feet. The waves crashing at my flesh." He wiped his face of the moisture. He could not tell if he was crying, but he felt like he could have been. The rain pressed his hair to his head. His beard hung stringy with water dripping from the longer hairs dangling off his chin. He stared up at the star shining a solo flickering dance in the sky. Then he dredged his feet through the sand towards the sea.

He removed a small flask from his inside pocket, pouring a healthy gulp of whisky down his throat. Gravity set in on him instantly as he threw his head back forward. His knees weakened and he fell smooth into the sand, face first—grains pressing up to his teeth. He quickly sat upright, spitting the sand from his mouth. He could feel the grains in his teeth. The particles nested in his beard. The sand stuck up all against him. He looked to the ocean and he thought, "I can clean my face there. The water will clean me. It can clean me from my fall. It can clean me of this sinful sand."

He batted his beard as if it were a piñata. The sand spilling freely from his whiskers with each swipe with his paw. He eased himself into the water, squatting on his hams. The waves foamed white bubbles that quickly popped by the harsh rain falling from the black sky. He watched the pattern of the popping sea bubbles for quite awhile through his water-spotted vision until he leaned his chest forward a bit. Then he watched his reflection wiggle back at him. He sifted his fingers through the shallow water, 'til he sunk his hands deep into the sand, gripping the grains between his long fingers. Then he rushed his hands out of the water, shaking the sand from his flesh. But the grains were still stuck to him. So he drove his hands back into the water, letting the sand shed from his skin. He brushed the sand from his body for bit. Then he cupped his hands, capturing the sea, splashing the salty water to his face and then over all his body.

He sat back on his hams again for some time, letting the heavy rain fall atop him—drenching him 'til he got up and he walked back to the highway—back to his car—his shoes seeping out the sea with every step. "I can't drive home all soaked," he thought. "I'll catch a cold, surely. I'll get the sneezes and all that jazz." He shivered at the thought of even becoming ill. He kicked his pants from his legs. He removed his jacket and his shirt from his body. He slipped from his undergarments. Then he rolled all his clothes up into a ball, throwing them in an emptied plastic bag he had found on the back seat. And as he closed the back door, the sound of sirens screamed quick and short. He looked over his shoulder and he caught the glimpses of red and blue lights flashing against his wet, cold flesh. He looked down at his naked body and he covered his genitalia with his fingers.

"It's not what you think, officer," he shouted. Then he paused. "Actually, I am not sure what you think. But I am not doing anything wrong, sir."

The police officer sat in his car, chuckling at the sight of Jon—a middle-aged man, medium long hair, long grizzled beard, stark naked in the rain on the side of his highway. The officer waved Jon over to the cruiser.

Jon proceeded with caution. His hands still over his manhood.

"What in God's name, man?" the officer said. "You lose your clothes? You wash up ashore? What the hell happened to you, man?" The police officer laughed loudly. Then he stopped. "I just want an answer, man. You aren't going to be arrested. You'll probably just become an office story for later." The officer laughed again.

Jon wiped the water from his glasses. Then he peered into the patrol car. "It was raining so hard, sir, that I pulled my car off the highway. I then got lost and found myself at this here beach and decided to go look out at the waves. I then got soaked, you see, from the rain and the waves and I removed my clothes before the cold could set into my bones." Jon shivered from the cold rain falling atop him.

"Are you drunk, man?" the officer asked with tight lips, trying not to laugh.

"No, sir. Just a drink earlier, but not drunk. No, sir."

"Alright, sir." The police officer leaned over to the passenger seat. He leaned out of the patrol car window, handing Jon a large white towel. "Take this to dry yourself up a bit and then wrap yourself up in it. No one wants to see your hairy ass." The officer rolled his window up 'til only a slight crack was opened. "I was hoping you were ragingly drunk and that your situation was scandalous and absurd." The police officer frowned as he shut off the flashing lights. "I am disappointed in your story, though it is true, and thus, as a citizen of this town, I guess I should be proud of the lack of shenanigans here tonight." He loosened his lips and he zipped his window back down, extending his hand to shake Jon's. "Thank you, citizen. Carry on, and have a safe trip home."

Jon nodded. He shoved the towel up under his arm to protect its dryness and he ran to his car. Once inside, he wrapped himself up in the dry cottony warmth. He turned the heat up to the highest setting. He flipped the wipers on and he looked through the windshield—out at the dunes. The rain eased to a stop. The clouds passed. The stars and the moon began to shed a dull light over all the earth. He could see cliffs in the distance as dark shadows beneath the starlit sky. He thought of the images of Abraham and Isaac in the cliffs back at the harbor on the north shore. He strained his eyes, staring at the darkling hillsides—but he could only make out the outer linings of the cliffs. He tried to place the faces of either man in the earth, but he could not see them. He could not feel them.

Jon sighed deeply. Then he backed out from the sandy patch. "I'll meet you soon," he said. "And then I won't need to look for you in the sides of roughed cliffs, no more. Your face has been exposed to me in a message from my creator. I know it is soon. I have seen you. And you have set your eyes onto me." Jon wiped the water from his glasses in the dry towel. He tugged at his beard, pulling out the remaining grains of sand that had yet to fall out.

He cracked his fingers back over the steering wheel and he returned to the road.

The sun began to crest over the ocean behind him—the images of man now drawn into the hillsides.

CHAPTER 15

April sprung upon East Marion with a cold front hanging heavy overhead for two weeks. Strong storms popped out of the cool sunless sky. The grass grew lush and full.

Elea had set up several job interviews for Jon. Margie's husband, Todd—the "carpetbagging financial consultant," Jon would mumble—who was also on the town board, and who was always trying to lend a helping hand, did just that for the Brands.

"I know firms, Jonny," Todd had said the week prior at Barry's spring choir concert. "We're on a freeze over by me." The curtains had dropped and Todd whispered over the Pledge of Allegiance, "Yanno, shit's hittin' the fan. Don't want investors jumpin' ship. But it's hittin' the fan, all right." Todd had whispered over the orchestra, band and into the choir before he offered his hand to the fallen Brands—and Elea took hold.

"You got two in Midtown on Monday. One on Tuesday. Wednesday, Thursday—nothing, yet. And Friday, three on the Island," Elea said, checking off a list with her fingernail in the air as Jon sat at the kitchen table with his feet up out of his boots. He stared in at the silhouette images of his wife between the doorframe of the kitchen. The sun's backlight etching her in gold.

Jon sat back in his chair. He thought of Todd's manicured house opposed his own, built with the blood of his father. "His own hands. His own design and life went into this house," he mumbled softly, tapping his foot on the graying wood floor boards. "And these people. These, Todd McGuire's, think they can just move in here. Become prominent members on the town board so they can manipulate a style of life they think they can buy." Jon did not want to see his fishing town get sold out to materialism. He did not want to see the begriming of East Marion's soul. The obliteration of the balance of life—the balance of the nature he would always remember and would always love with all of himself. "Soon enough, neon and florescent lights will line these streets. Corporate stores with banks as their managers, not man, will edge each intersection. Only to sprawl out all over the main street. All to accommodate the needs of these newcomers. Fucking the needs of the us—the old—the needs of all mankind."

Jon accepted the interviews from Todd, and Elea booked them. But Jon did not attend any of them. He'd call the public relations bureaus in the mornings, rescheduling. He was thankful for Todd's compassion. Jon knew the man's heart was in the right place. And Jon, even though on land, stilled lived by the code of the sea. The brotherhood love of your crew. For on the sea, you cannot survive on your own. You need your fellowman. The man beside you. The man at the hull. The man on the bow. Todd lived in East Marion, and no matter how much Jon might despise him, Todd and Jon were of the same ship.

Instead of going to the interviews, Jon would drive along the shore for the day, discovering new coves, bays and beaches. All of which delivered a completely different view of the sea taking over the land. And whether raining waters or raining rays of sunshine, Jon would step out of his car and head for the sea. He'd wash his hands and arms with the salty waves crashing against his shins. And after the day spent at the shore, he would dry his body of the sea with the towel given to him by the police officer and he'd get back into his car, retracing the tires back home.

Several weeks of rain and lies had passed 'til Easter came. The façade of normalcy—"for Barry's sake," Elea would reason—was painted over the vicious reality of the demise of the Brands. And Easter—this Easter, was the day the sun finally broke through the clouds. Bright shining rays of light crested up over the treetops for the first time in weeks. The vibrancy of life flowed through the heart of the earth, warming the damp ground. The light slipped in through the bedroom window. The warmth settling over Jon's left eyelid, forcing it open, and he sat up in the bed. Elea was still sleeping, but a sudden nudge of his foot against her thigh lifted her eyes open. She gazed into Jon while she focused in and out of her dreams and into the morning light.

"Happy Easter," he said, scratching his pink eyes strained from the sun. He folded the blankets off of his legs and he leaped up onto the floor. "You ready for the hike?"

Elea bent her elbows, propping herself up. "A hike? Today? Is it going to rain?" she started rubbing her eyes. "I don't know about going for a hike this Easter, Jon. I'm really just not quite up for it."

"Yes, El. A hike." He paused, looking down at the wooden floor boards. He rubbed his toenails along the grains. "I've done it every year ever since I have been placed on this good earth. You know that. And I am not about to stop now because you simply do not feel like it."

Elea looked up at Jon. She could see the anger building in his eyes. He had not been firm on anything for the past several months. And such a quick verbal outlash by him frightened her. "All right, I'll go," she said. "I'll go wake up Barry and start up breakfast. Eggs fine?"

"Eggs are perfect." The tension built up in Jon's shoulders eased. He laid his feet flat on the floor. He looked out the window. Then he looked back over at Elea. The sun's rays accentuated her curves, highlighting shadows under her breasts. He remembered when they held up perkily. But gravity began to settle upon them as they now hung a little lower than his mind recalled. But nonetheless, he had found himself attracted to her, still.

"What are you staring at, you perv?"

Jon paused for a moment. Then he directed his eyes back out towards the window to watch the waves crash to the shore. "Nothing," he said. "Just nothing." He glanced back over at Elea and he smiled as he undressed her with his eyes.

She slipped her pants off. And then she unbuttoned the sleeping shirt she had been wearing.

He stood stilled. Silent in her nude presence. He had not seen his wife naked in some time now. So long, he could not recall the last time. Her breasts hung low like how he had seen through her shirt. But they were now bare and they looked sad, coming to fine points at the ends of her browned nipples.

"Come over here, Jon," she said softly. "Let's make this quick so Barry don't catch us. And be quiet. We can't be making all sorts of noise. It's still early, yet."

Jon rubbed his toes against the floor. He looked away from Elea—out the window staring at the waves. "Cover yourself. Damn you, Elea. We can't do this now. I don't know if we can do this ever. Things have changed. Drastically changed. I don't think we could follow through with this right now. Cover yourself." He stood at the base of the bed with the sun now up in his eyes, blinding his view of the sea. "Please, Elea. Please cover yourself." He stood stilled for a few moments. Then he headed to the bathroom, leaving his wife lying naked in the bed behind him.

Breakfast came and then went. Elea cooked up eggs, scrambled, served with toast and, as always, with a smile. The television streamed the static sound of the Easter Parade in the city to the west, keeping the room from slipping into silence.

Barry had a frown plastered across his face over the fact of the day being Easter and the family hike that was sure to come soon after breakfast. It was not spoken of, but surely, it was to come. It had occurred every year, every Easter, except for when April rain showers—and one year, snow—canceled the hike to sea.

The drive was long. Almost two hours through roads that wound around tight corners. Jon slipped the sedan under newly budded trees covering the old roadways in route to the southern shoreline. He pushed his foot to the gas lightly, easing off on dips in the road, seldom tapping on the brake on the sharper turns. He focused on the branches of the trees that spat out clumps of green and red and yellow buds. He could make out the miniaturized sized leaves forming while he stopped at stop signs. And when he drove again, the buds bunched together like a large crowd at a baseball game, shading in the bright colors as a whole. "Such wondrous life extending from the branches that only a month ago would have seemed dead," he thought.

Elea sat stilled with her eyelids closed over. Her head resting softly on the headrest. Her neck bobbing this way and that while Jon guided the car around the curves in the road.

He looked over at her sleeping and he sighed deeply. "She is missing the beauty of nature," he thought. "She is missing out on the one time of the year when mother nature births." He frowned at her jilted neck bouncing from either side of the headrest. Then he looked in the rearview mirror at Barry. The boy's chin propped up on the ledge of the backseat window. Jon could hear Barry humming a tune. But the fisherman could not decode the song between the overpowering hums of the sedans engine. His son's eyes clung to the images quickly passing him by. Buzzing and humming blips of striated colors of life and roadway 'til the vibrations of the car beneath him—the putter of the engine and the rubbing tires—surely set Barry into a trance of his own ideas. And he shut his eyes off to the natural beauty of trees hanging over the road. The road in which Jon chose to emphasize the beauty of nature, rather than taking the quicker, less natural, more concrete route.

Jon parked the car half on the road and half on a collapsed dune falling up over the asphalt. There were tall grasses flattened aside a small sand path blazed by the hooves of deer who traveled from bay to sea over the cracked roadway. The car shook for a moment, then Jon switched the ignition over, ceasing the engine. The whoosh of wind to steel and glass rattled the car, nudging Elea and Barry both back into a reality.

Jon tapped on the steering wheel. He looked over at his family. Then he exited the car. The other two followed suit, closing the doors behind them in unison. The clash of metal echoing out to sea without any tall trees to capture the resonating sounds. Their faces loosened, capturing the warmth of the sun 'til the wind breezed by bringing a chill that tightened their cheeks. Jon held his neck out. He shot his nose up, sniffing the salty sea mist passing by. A small, sullen smile drew across his face that hid behind his thick beard. Elea kicked sand over her shoes and she bit on the cuticles of her forefingers. She wrapped a sweater over her shoulders. Then she zipped it up to the collar, shoving her hands deep within the pockets. Barry nervously combed the back of his head with his fingers swirling his hair between his nails. Jon looked out at the sun. It seemed to float above them. The clouds were light and wispy and seemed to hold little to no substance at all. He traced the frail white lines with his finger. His other hand shielding the sun from his eyes.

"Onward," Jon announced. But he already began to walk down the deer paved path.

The hike had been conducted every year ever since James Brand was but a babe. And now, Jon's family kept the flame of tradition alive—a saunter down by the sea on the day of their savior's resurrection.

"This path isn't even made for humans," Barry whined. "And I bet it's filled with deer ticks."

"We got to keep tradition alive," Jon said, walking quickly. Elea, not far behind his stride, stayed silent. And Barry, behind them, alone, tapped unsendable text messages—no service this far out to sea.

The path thinned out, allowing the trio to walk in a single file. Thus, they kept quiet and Jon slowed down their pace to view the vast grass covered dunes surrounding them on all sides. The sounds of ocean and bay were not far off. The light rush of waves could be heard in the distance—along with the soft cry of sandpipers and gulls seldom passing overhead. After a short while, the path opened up and the flattened grass path expanded outward. Elea quickened her pace to join Jon at his side, who had shifted his head this way and that to capture the joyous rapture of all the beauties unfolding as he made his way down into a sandy valley between the high dunes. Barry quickened his pace as well. But he still fell short behind the strides of his parents. Elea would look back at Barry, motioning him to come beside his father. But Barry would look off the path, out at the dunes, anything but at his parents, avoiding the contact that his mother tried to gain.

She tried to act as if this Easter was like any other Easter. She smiled and she walked at the side of her husband, trying to displace the anxiety of the marriage along with the lack of funds filtering into the home. She tried to protect her son. She tried to assure their boy that things would be all right in the long run. She tried to hide the internal fighting—the lies between herself and her husband. She tried to see her family as at peace, drawing an elegant façade over the truth—the reality of the demise within the Brand household. However, Barry, not blind to the truth, could see all of the tension building.

The path soon opened up into a shallow meadow. The flattened grass widening between a mass of dune walls.

Elea stopped to tie her shoe. "Jon, hold up," she said, bending over, loosening the laces in her sneakers. "I need to fix my sock. It bunched all up on me." She looked back at Barry catching up. She stared into his eyes until she locked his into her own. After knotting her shoe laces tight, she stood up, brushing the loose sand from her pants, smiling at Barry who was now at his parents' side. "All right, I'm ready." She walked up to Jon, slipping her hand onto his palm, sliding her fingers against his. Then she looked up into Jon's eyes. "So Barry, how is everything going in school? Almost done, eh? Must be pretty exciting." She broke her stare, looking back to their son.

Barry opened his mouth, not ready to speak, and he cleared his throat. "I guess it can be exciting," he said, shifting his feet through the flattened grass. "You know, it is what it is. It doesn't make me any different if I graduate high school or not." He looked up from the ground and he caught the eyes of his father. "I couldn't even get into State. So, what's the use."

"Aw, Bar. That's a sour outlook," Elea said. "There's always community college. Just bring your grades up there. Then you'll surely get into State, no doubt. Maybe even get a scholarship since your father ain't helping, none." She kicked sand over Jon's boots. Then she continued with Barry. "Graduating high school is certainly something to be proud of. It brings you one step closer to graduating college. Just think. Once you graduate college, then you will be able to survive in this crazy world with ease. You'll be on top of the world. You'll be smarter than your average bear." Elea smiled, patting Barry on his back. Then she looked to Jon, who dusted the sand off his boots, looking out to the peaks of the tallest dunes—listening for the sea—looking for the sea. "And you won't have to rely on nature for an income, for that matter. You can become your own boss. Make yourself a high priority for you and your family. Be able to pay for the roof over their heads. The possibilities are endless, Bar. Endless."

Jon pulled his hand out of Elea's. He tugged at his beard, folding the ends under his collar. He watched a group of sandpipers dance over the dunes sprinkled with wisps of beach grass. The small birds pecked for stray insects on the tall blades. Jon's lips stiffened. His eyes grew glassy over their light gray hue. He briefly stared back at Elea in disappointment of her words. Then he looked over at Barry. "Son," he said softly, just over the sound of waves and wind. "You don't want to have to rely on the sea to support yourself and then, one day, your family. If you take Her for granted, she'll cut your nose to spite your face." Jon continued to pull on the whiskers on the chin of his beard, rolling the ends under the collar of his shirt. "You don't want to live off the inheritance of your father. You don't want to place your son's education in jeopardy because you are dipping into the funds to put food on the table." He paused for a moment, watching the sandpipers jump—startled in unison—then fly off over the blind side of the dunes to sea. "You don't want to be at the mercy of Her. You don't want to be in such a state." Jon blinked his eyes hard.

Elea looked at Jon sharply. The sun beat down, angled behind her head, creating a backlit halo shining through her thick black locks. Her face reddened and she focused in on Jon's eyes. "You have dipped into Barry's college fund?" she exclaimed loudly. Her voice overpowered the whispers of the ocean and the cry of the gulls. "You are telling me you have been stealing money from our own son's college fund? How do you expect us to pay for it now? You think that you can just fix things right? You think the sea will just fix things on up for us, don't you? And just as I began to loosen up with you, I now learn this. That you really are a no-good. A lousy excuse for a man." Elea looked back at Barry out of the corner of her eye and she bit her tongue. She had so much more to share with Jon, but she did not want to subject Barry to the verbal beating Jon was sure to receive. She paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. She relaxed herself, lowering the tone of her voice. "You better make things right, Jon. That is all I got to say to you. You better go and make things right somehow. Or God help you."

Barry stood stilled, frightened by the controlled tones in his mother's voice. The boy fixed his eyes on the folded over grass his feet pressed upon. He pushed his hands deep into his pockets, stretching out the seams in the bottom. He had heard his parents fight before, but only through walls and doors and pillows. He had never seen his mother's eyes fill with such rage.

Jon stood with his head held high. His eyes fixed on the flight of three gulls gliding overhead. They cawed softly. Then they dipped behind the dunes to the sea. Jon took his hands out of his pockets, cracking each one of his knuckles back individually. He folded his fingers into one another, making loose fists before he extended his digits out, reaching for Elea's hands. "Don't worry, Hon. Don't you worry one bit," he said smoothly. "Things will be set straight, soon enough."

Elea took her hands out of his, shoving her fingers into her pockets. Her eyes still filled with intense anger. Her eyebrows tilting with fury.

"What if I don't want to go to college," Barry interjected. "What if I don't want to go to no school that is going to teach me the ill morals of man—the ways to lie and cheat your way up to the top? I've been doing some thinking lately, and I feel I must go to the sea. I mean, I'm not good enough for State. But I am and always will be a Brand. I feel I must do what Brands do. And live for the sea." Barry paused. He looked at the dunes as if he could see through them. "Live for Her. I don't want to go to no community college."

Jon's tense lips loosened a bit, curving upwards. He looked over at Barry, placing his hands on his son's shoulders.

"Don't you go on supporting this crap, Jon," Elea said quickly. "Barry, you need to go to college. Look at your father. You do not want to end up like him. He's quickly becoming an old timer of the sea and now he cannot land a job in the real world because he has spent his entire life out on the ocean chasing fish all around the world. And once the tides change, once the fish are gone, he goes out of work and it destroys his marriage. Sinking his family. You don't want that, Bar." Elea looked over at Jon. "You don't want that for your first and only born."

Jon rubbed his son's shoulders. Barry felt at ease. He looked up at his father and their eyes locked for a moment and then the moment passed. The two had the family tradition embedded within them. The Brand profession of the sea was enrooted in Barry, and Jon had known it all along. He had doubted him at times. But the Brand in Barry, Jon knew, was sure to expose itself and shine. Jon knew what he must do now. He knew he had to do his son right and give all of himself to replenish Her—the sea. Jon knew that he must set the balance of man and nature straight once and for all. His eyes sunk into their sockets.

The breeze stopped. The air stilled. The warm sun blanketed all the earth and the three relaxed, taking in the rays with ease. Jon looked out to the dunes—out to the grass standing up, motionless in the air. Then he looked over to Elea, who had turned her back on Barry and himself. He patted her on the back. She tensed up, shaking him off of her quickly.

"Get off me Jon. I don't want to be touched," she croaked. "Let's just go to the sea so we can just go home." She twisted her arms across her chest.

Barry began to walk along the path, leading the way to sea while Elea and Jon walked slow behind in a side by side silence. Barry discarded his sluggish steps for more strong, more powerful strides through the beaten down grass. His pace doubled the pace of his parents. He held his head high, observing all that surrounded him as if he had been born that very day—as if he had never taken the journey to the sea before. An excitement ran through him that he had never felt before. He felt powerful. He no longer felt meek and helpless in a poor rural town. He knew then and there, all at once, that college would not do. That he would need the sea like his father needed the sea. He just wanted to be able to fulfill this goal. This dream. But he knew his mother would force him into college in the coming fall. He knew that Elea would not allow him to set out for the sea. He knew that Elea would make him become the person that Elea would want him to become. She did not want to hear his own will. She would not allow him to fulfill his destiny to Her. He could understand why. But he also knew an office life would simply not suffice. He knew the sea ran through his arteries. He could feel the sea pump from his heart—nourishing each limb—each corner of his body. He leaned his head back, sniffing in the salty air. He had never felt so alive. His chest opened up. He could feel the salt move through him. He felt as if he was one with the water. One with the sea. A feeling had swept in over him. A feeling he could not, and would never be able to describe. But he knew it was right. He knew he was made for the sea.

Barry was well ahead now. The grass path had turned to sand. A thickening brush of bayberry, beach plum and beach heather began to bunch up to an intertwining tunneling cove just high enough to pass under. The sun was shielded out by the thickets of branches and newly green buds with small pinkish flowers popping out around bunched up lavender berries. And once he was under, once Barry was in, the shady tunnel chilled his skin. A light breeze blew in from behind. The chirps of sandpipers and king fishers echoed spring songs 'til the tunnel of branches and buds collapsed and the brush fell back, creeping alongside the trail as the sun and the sound of sea enveloped him whole.

Barry's lead increased. The sights and sounds of his parents were minutes behind him. Jon and Elea walked slowly in silence. She stared at the grassy path below her feet as Jon combed over the high points of dunes. He looked for the sea. But he could only see the tall beach grass and the chipmunks and the sandpipers that scurried about. The gentle wind blew the budding leaves slow, giving the brush life. But Elea kept her head down, looking only at the land before her feet—watching the grass turn to sand. Her eyes glistening as the grains sparkled like stars hung in a nighttime sky.

The two continued. Still silent. Silent all the way to the tunneling cove of wooly brush. Still silent—listening to their steps echo overhead and down along the arms of branches. They could see footprints—Barry's footprints—sunken into the smooth sand. They followed them. Those shallow little holes for feet 'til they reached Barry. The boy's feet falling right into his next steps. He was bent over just around the bend in the path. Stilled. Silent. He stood as motionless as the swaying brush beside him. His lips perched open. His tongue licked by the wind.

"Bar, keep going, it's only a bit more farther," Jon called ahead. "The sea, Bar. It's only about a hundred yards more. Not much further, son." Jon tugged at his beard. Then he threw his hands into his pockets. He approached Barry with his slow stride, resting his hand on his son's broad, bent over back. "Come on, son. Get up. Not much more to go. The view is worth it."

"Pa. Look at that," Barry said, slowly and calmly. His voice stumbling a bit as each word trailed off in a nervous stutter. "That deer," he pointed over next to some thickets and collapsed beach grass on the side of the trail. "It dead."

Jon looked down Barry's arm, tracing the boy's forefinger down the bayberry and beach grass pushed to the sand—a red paste covering the tips of green blades. Red puddles coagulated on the ground under the deer's mouth. A slit torn in its decomposing stomach, dotted with the buzz of flies.

"What are you boy's staring at?" Elea said, making her way from behind. "Let's just go to the sea and go home already. We have been out here forever. I just want to go back." She made it to them and she looked over to what they had been staring at in complete silence. She froze momentarily. Then she screamed loud enough to send all the sandpipers and king fishers to fly out from the surrounding brush for a mile in all directions. She stepped back with several staggered steps. Then she ran back down the trail.

Jon and Barry stood up. They stared at the rotting deer for some time in an awkward silence. Jon leaned in closer to gain a better perspective. He could see maggots crawling through the chewed meat, exposing the ribs of the decaying doe. He held onto his beard, as if he was protecting it from the carcass. He pinched his lips closed, cutting off his air supply from the grotesque stench. He stepped back to Barry's side. The two stood stilled. A tear trickled down either side of Barry's cheeks which he quickly wiped away. Jon looked over at Barry. Then Jon wrapped both arms around his son for a tight, long embrace.

"It's okay, son," Jon whispered assuringly into Barry's ear. "These things happen in nature. We are born to this earth. We do what we are destined to do. And then we simply fade when it is our time. We return to the earth."

"When do we know?"

"Know what?"

"Know when it is our time to fade?"

Jon loosened his grip around Barry. The man paused for a moment. Then he glanced over at the dunes before he settled on a cool stare down at the dead deer. "You will know it is your time when you look out to sea and She no longer calls your name. No matter how hard you shout Her name, She remains silent to your call." Jon looked out at the tall dunes cutting off the view to water—and a stream of tears fell from his eyes. "That is how you will know, son. That is how you will know you are finished."

Barry brought Jon in closer, tightening his grip around his father. The two remained silent for some time, slowly withdrawing their emotions 'til their eyes dried to a blurry pinky red and they let go of each other.

Jon brushed the drops from his beard, wiping the residue on his hands along the sides of his jeans, where he felt several little bumps on the denim seams. He pressed against his sides quickly. Then he looked down to see hundreds—thousands of ticks leeched onto his legs. He frantically brushed them—flicking them to the sand as he examined his jeans and shirt, leaning in closer to get a better look at the decaying deer.

"Exactly what I thought," Jon exclaimed. "That deer is infested with ticks, Bar. Brush them sons of bitches off you before you get the Lyme's disease." Jon swept the sides of his legs quickly. Nervously.

Barry followed suit. But he stopped when he got to cleaning off his shoes. "Pa," he shouted. "Look at your shoes. Quick, Pa. Look at your shoes." Barry jumped up and he buried his feet into the sandy ground. The outers of his shoes were covered in a thick blanket of pinhead sized deer ticks crawling slow and close together, creating the image of a mass of dirt wiggling across his shoes.

Jon looked down at his shoes, discovering the same thing as Barry. "These damned things are everywhere. We got to get out of here. This dead deer is a curse. It is a bad sign, son. These ticks are everywhere. Let's jet to the car, quick," Jon said, brushing off the tiny parasites from his shoes and legs and shirt. He began to run back down the path to the car. Barry pulled his feet from the sand, brushing at the tops of his shoes frantically as he staggered along the path, not far behind Jon.

Elea swatted at her legs. She picked at the ticks she too discovered while waiting for the two back by the car. "These bastards are everywhere, Jon," she shouted. "You, no-good. The warmth today must've hatched these fucks. But we just had to go to the sea today, didn't we?"

Jon batted his shoes with his long, lean fingers, looking up at his wife. "We go every Easter, Elea. What would ever make this year any different." He sniffed the salty air loudly up into his nose. He blinked hard. Then he refocused in on her brown eyes that looked lighter under the bright blue sky.

Elea looked over Jon. The two sparred off for a few moments in a deep stare. Barry had stopped picking at his shoes, watching the tiny ticks crawl up the broadside of his calf as he listened in on his parents argue. He stood silent. Set into a deep gaze that dove off into extrapolated thoughts of arson. He saw the green and brown earth flame red. The clear night sky filling with a crawling, deep black cloud billowing under the sparkling stars. He saw it all crashing down before his eyes. The deterioration of their home. The ruin of the family as a whole—their house in flames.

Elea and Jon bickered for a while longer as they picked and pecked at the many ticks stuck to them 'til they scanned themselves clean and got into the four-door. The ride home was as silent as the depths of the sea.

Jon took the quicker route home—the interstate paved with smooth concrete slabs of gray. The trees lining the expressway were a light green coloring of new budding leaves to be. The light blue sky drew no clouds.

By the time they got back to East Marion, Elea had dozed off into a light slumber. Barry exited the car quickly, walking off behind the house along the sea. And Jon sat, watching his son disappear behind the dunes. His wife's lips quivered beside him as her throat gargled with deep inhalations of air.

"Should I wake her?" he thought. "Or should I just leave her?" He nudged her bicep. Then he slammed the car door as he exited, waking her instantly.

Jon headed for the kitchen—to the upper right cabinet over the refrigerator. He passed a tall clear bottle, then a short green bottle before he pulled out a tall brown bottle. He poured its contents out over ice prepared in a clear glass. He filled it to the top, allowing a small amount to spill over, settling around the circular base of the cup on the counter. He threw the bottle into the large pocket of his sweatshirt. He picked up the glass, heading out the back door—out onto the back porch.

"The sea. I need the sea," he exclaimed. "I need to relax with my sea." Jon brought the glass to his lips, tilting it back quickly. The ice pushing up to his face, chilling his nose, wetting his mustache. When the liquid was all but consumed and all that remained was the ice, he wiped at his wet beard and he refilled the cup halfway. He looked out at the small waves crashing in on the sand. Then he looked over at the rock bed just above the break. He then stared up at the sun. A light perspiration began to accumulate between the squinted wrinkles on his forehead. He took a small sip at his glass and he heard the church bells call out fifteen times. "Must be three o'clock service," he thought. "I should go. Repent my sins. The Greek God is fully capable of hearing my sins." He threw the glass and the bottle to the bed of rocks, shattering them both—the tan liquid sinking between the smoothed, hot stones. And he walked away from the sea and into the church.

CHAPTER 16

Jon slept on his stomach in the sand. The sun rose slow over the neighbor's large house. The sandpipers call resonated off the strong waves. A stray sandpiper stepped on his head—the bird's beak pecking at the whiskers on his chin—awakening Jon with his hands already waving about.

"These damned pipers," he yelled. "Stop messin' with me." He swatted at his beard. Then he got to his feet quickly, kicking sand up at the piper retreating back to the dunes.

The sun was well above the land now.

Jon picked his beard nervously whenever he heard the sandpipers chirp in the dunes. But he soon relaxed, walking to the beat of the waves. The sun shone as if it came right out of the ocean. The water rippling rays of light in an intoxicating pattern of repetitiveness. The fisherman blinked hard—his head staggering back and forth. Then he steadied himself and he looked out at the point where rippled distortion met the clear blue sky. He leaned over, regurgitating into the low waves. His body swaying with the current pressing in from the east.

"Yesterday was Easter," he mumbled between spits of phlegm. He looked out at the sun, smiling. "I repent. I shall serve. I repent." Jon slowly closed his eyes, blinking out tears.

He looked down, watching bits of his vomit drift through his legs—rubbing up against his skin. He jumped back, splashing about the water, eventually falling to the shore. His clothes covered in a film of sand. He sat with his back arched to the sky. His mouth perched open. "Oh," he cried. "I need to walk this hangover off. Come on body." Jon lifted his dehydrated self out of the sand and he headed west down along the sea. He washed his face in the passing waves. His knees wobbled. His feet sinking into the sand.

After a couple of hours of walking, Jon found a cove cut from the cliffs with charred wood and burnt sand surrounded by a couple of felled trees used as benches.

"This overhang will block the sun," he said to himself, pressing three fingers into his forearm. When he released, a white flash gleamed and then it faded quickly back to red. Jon winced and he rubbed his arm. "Damned sunburned. Goddamn son of a bitch." He kicked the charred wood with his left foot, then with his right and then again with his left foot before tripping over a large log not burnt all the way through and he fell on his right arm.

"Goddamned sunburn," he shouted. His voice echoing back to him under the low ceiling of the cliffside. Jon picked himself up out of the carbon pit and he sat down on one of the trees. The sea's salt had rubbed its bark down to a smooth finish. Jon batted at his clothes. He removed the fine chards sticking to him. Then he pecked at his beard, discarding grains of sand and fragments of burnt wood. He took slow, deep breathes and he closed his eyes, relaxing his body to the smooth sound of the waves tumbling over the sand.

By the time he opened his eyes, the sun had sunk down two-thirds below the water. A crisp breeze blew in off the sea, biting at his cheeks. He quivered his head, jerking it quickly back and forth.

"Geez," he said, scratching at his beard. "Must have dozed off for a few." He ran his fingers over the lids of his eyes, yawning. The sea reflected all the purples, oranges and reds of the setting sun sky. There was a whisper of hums from the water running up over the sand before falling back into the sea. Jon shivered at the cold evening air coming in off the shore. He got up from the driftwood log. He stretched his muscles, bending over, touching the upper rubbers on the toes of his boots and then he looked out at the sun sink below the gold horizon. Then all the world turned dark. A sliver of moon dangled among a bed of speckling stars. Jon began to walk along shore where the waves peaks—painted white by the moon—lined the divide between water and land. He trudged through the low tide—sometimes falling into the low tide—'til he walked up on the shore, tucking himself between the gully of two large dunes, casting a dark shadow on him. The soothing sound of waves comforted him. He felt safe hidden from the moon's light. He cleaned his glasses with the bottom hem of his shirt. Then he placed the frames back over his nose. He looked up at the stars twinkling a silent song. He closed his eyes and he imagined they were singing the lullaby his mother had sung to him on the shore behind the home that was now his. He could not make out the words from his memory, but he could remember the tune, and he hummed the gentle hum of the song the stars could not sing.

Jon's mouth pulsed with the smooth sounds buzzing from behind his lips. The vibrations drifting him into a slumber beneath the bright blinking sky. And as Jon slept under the sliced moon and the twinkling stars—the waves tore at the shore, the mice scurried across the cool sand, and the nights wind wisped up grains of sand tangling in the long whiskers on Jon's cheeks and chin.

The sun rose over the cliffs and the moon faded into the lightening blue sky. The sun's warm rays struck Jon's red sunburnt skin—awakening him with a twinge of pain.

"Morning, already?" Jon questioned. He looked up at the sun rising slow above the cliffs behind him. His eyes then scanned over the steep dunes to a small opening with a chain link fence surrounding a small patch of asphalt.

Jon picked his body up out of the sand. He brushed the grains from his clothes as he walked quickly to the enclosed area. He peered in at a small sign dangling with one screw in the top left corner. "Private," Jon read aloud. "Please keep gate locked."

He ran his fingers through the curls in his beard, picking at the grains embedded within his whiskers, throwing the sand to the ground. His feet stumbled through the uneven sand and the thick rocks lining the shore until he reached the smooth paved stones that led up the cliff and to the gate. He rested himself on a bench made of recycled plastics. He watched a group of people down, over to the left on the sand. He hid himself behind a large stone, making sure his viewpoint was out of the reach of his prey.

A small African-American child, who wore small braids close to her head, played in the sand in front of a large Caucasian woman and a thin tan woman. The large woman offered the little girl water from a small plastic bottle. Then the woman squeezed the water over the child's head before handing the bottle to the girl. Jon could hear the young child squeal with chilled delight. And then he could hear the higher tones of the thin woman's voice trailing off through the gusts of wind passing up over his ear behind the tall rock.

Jon swallowed hard and he looked up at the sun. It had moved out up over the cliff, directly overhead. Its rays dancing through the needles of the pines lacing the side of the steep hill. The young child abandoned the drink and she went back to tossing about the sand. Her think calves waving in the wind. Her stubbed toes clenching the air tightly with her bottom pressed deep into the sand.

Behind Jon, a small white sports car with an elderly man who wore oversized sunglasses folded the morning newspaper under his arm and then he started his car. On his retreat from the lot, he leaned out of his window, offering his paper to a young mother who hoisted her youngling from a small car seat. She declined and the white car sped off. Jon whipped his head around quick. He took in the social interactions of the beach. The day had begun all around him. The people of the earth had begun to interact under the shining rays of the mid-April sun. He slid his glasses off to the edge of his nose. Then he huffed a fog over each lens, wiping the condensation off on the bottom of his shirt as he started for the parking lot.

Jon licked his lips with his parched, white tongue. His legs, now stabilized on the hardened ground, swayed his steps slowly. He felt the weight of his beard pulling down the lowers of his jaw, tugging his head down to the ground.

"I need some water," he thought. "My mouth is so dry." He licked his lips again, but more quickly. "A town can't be far in. A main street is sure to be only a couple blocks up. Long Island ain't too long." Jon dusted the sand from his boots and he began to walk up the road built into the steep cliffs of the north fork.

As he walked, the hills alternated. And when they crested upward, he leaned into the hill—exposed to the warm rays of light untouched by the leaves of trees. And when the hill would peak, he would soon fall into low lying shady troughs. This continued for a little over a mile until Jon could make out a single traffic light hanging along a wire in the middle of a crossroads. The light bobbed in suspension—a monotone red blinking in all four directions.

He took to the right, heading west down the road enclosed by trees on either side with trunks tied tight with vines.

"These small roads were never built for all this damned traffic," he moaned when cars buzzed passed his staggering steps. But the walk was short. And in no time, he began to see storefronts lit up with the day's sales lining the sidewalk. "I really could use a cold drink," he said, licking his lips with his dry tongue. "Wonder if a guy could find a bar 'round these parts." He stood in front of a novelty gift shop, the kind that sells greeting cards and lotto tickets, and he traced his shadow in the storefront window with his finger. His jaw dropping low and his legs wobbling a bit under the weight of his body beneath the warming sun. After his finger ran over the outline of his head, tracing the outer edges of his scruffed beard, he looked down the road, catching the sight of a dark windowed building with neon beer bottles cheersing—glistening. The door swung open in the distance and a tall gentleman wearing a denim jacket and denim jeans, holding a cigarette in one hand, a lighter in the other, leaned against the side of the bar.

Jon wiped his hand over the smudged tracing of his face on the glass and he raced over towards the bar. "A glass of water and a tall pour of scotch should do," he thought. "And perhaps a sandwich to fill me proper." He patted on his stomach and a shallow echo sounded. As he walked, he watched the traffic glide passed him. He gazed at his reflection glow in and out of perspective on the fancy, high buffed cars. He could see his hair all matted and oily—his beard uneven, pressed in on the right side. His clothes—soiled and sandy. He had spent the last two days on the coast and he surely had looked like it.

"Spare a cig?" Jon asked as he tapped the man's denim shoulder.

The man nodded, pulling a cigarette from behind his ear, presenting it to Jon.

"How 'bout a light?"

The man fiddled around his front pockets with his upper lip stiffened in his quest until he drew a lighter, flicking fire in front of Jon's mouth.

"Thanks, man. I could really use one of these right now."

"Sure looks it," the man said, turning his back, flipping up his collar. "That and a shower, pal," he mumbled, throwing his half smoked butt down the gutter, heading back into the bar.

Jon stood with his back pressed against the side of the building. He relaxed his muscles, letting the stucco wall press into his back as he watched the white stick in his mouth crawl into smooth gray ashes towards his lips.

When he smoked all but the filter, he loosened his grip on the soft sponge, letting it drop between his feet. He pushed himself off the wall. He bent his knees, closing his eyes. He shoved his hands into his front pockets, widening his mouth as he released a smooth smoky yawn that fell into his beard. Then he walked into the tavern, sitting at the end of the bar on the far corner away from the door.

"Make it a double scotch and a tall glass of water," he said.

The bartender nodded.

Jon folded over a paper napkin that was left in front of him until the bartender returned with his order. The fisherman then tipped the glass of water to his lips, swallowing its contents in a single gulp before he moved to the scotch, doing the same. Then he waved to the bartender for another scotch—which Jon would then drink slower.

Once the second drink arrived, Jon placed his nose in the glass. He savored the sweet smell, loosening the muscles in his face. He looked down the bar instantly locking eyes with a woman who sipped on a pink drink frothed with foam on the top of the high glass. She tipped the drink slightly towards herself, wrapping her painted pink lips around the white straw with two yellow lines stripping down into the glass. Her eyes batted quickly. Then she looked back up into Jon's eyes buried within his sunburned face—his nose in his scotch. Her blonde hair hung loosely over her white blouse snuggly fitted around her busty chest. Her capri jeans tightly hugged her thick ankles where her thick feet slipped into dirtied white sandals.

Two more drinks passed through Jon's lips. And by this time, the woman had winked and smiled her way to the stool beside him.

"Mona," she said softly. "My name; it's Mona. I haven't seen you 'round here, ever. You must be new." She smiled, motioning two beers to the bartender. "So, how you like it?" She winked and she edged her seat closer to Jon. But he could not hear her over the jukebox streaming monotonic classic rock. He simply nodded and he tipped his drink back at her. "You new 'round these parts?" she said again.

"I'm from the sea," he said, pushing his drink onto the coaster.

"Now don't be silly. No one is from the sea." She paused, drinking on her beer. "You must mean you are a fisherman? Or a captain? Or something of that sort?"

"I mean what I mean, miss. Take no interest in me. I am from the sea, and that is how it is." Jon turned his shoulder from the woman. Then he rimmed his drink with his finger 'til it hissed a smooth whistle.

She leaned over, placing her hand on his inner thigh. Then she pressed her lips to his ear. "It's okay," she said softly. "You sailors are all the same. But trust me, once you go for a ride with ol' Mona, you'll find your land legs real quick." She winked, running her hand further up his thigh and into his front pocket. "Let's just get to know each other a little better over a few drinks, and then we'll see where this night takes us, Hon."

Jon stared into his scotch. He watched the amber liquid wiggle under the dim lighting. He heard only fragments of her words, muffled by the crooners in the quarter jukebox.

She ordered another round. And then a third. And soon after, a forth. And then a fifth. They had gotten drunk. But Jon's lips did not loosen. Mona controlled the conversation, mumbling about her mundane life as a divorced, middle-aged woman, still drinking in the same bar she drank in as a teen. All of which Jon reluctantly listened to between the loud songs from the jukebox that played the same tracks from when Mona first came to the bar. They sat for a long while before Mona tapped a pack of cigarettes into her palm and she walked to the door with Jon following close behind.

She leaned against the stucco wall. Then she lit the end of her cigarette, sucking in the smoke, exhaling into foggy conversation. "I usually don't talk to guys I never met before," she said. "Especially in a bar. Got to be safe these days, you know."

Jon frowned. "I'd rather not spark her up anymore than she already is," he thought. "She lives in this bar. She has probably slept with everyone in there. I know it. She can't fool me." He took a cigarette from her and she lit the stick in his mouth.

"Let's go to the sound. It's so beautiful there at dusk. Have you ever seen the sunset below the waves there, yet?"

"No, I haven't," he lied. "But I can imagine it is lovely."

She puffed hard on her cigarette, decreasing its contents quickly into her lungs. "Oh, then we must go. I'll show you my special spot there. It's simply to die for." She winked, wrapping her lips around her cigarette, blowing smoke out of her nose. "Come on, stranger. Let's go." She took his hand and they headed down the main street, veering down a desolate road taking them to the sea.

They walked with drunken steps under the falling sun sky with sporadic streetlights switching on. They walked for what seemed to be longer than they had expected, with the sun completely behind the waves when they arrived to the sound.

"Oh, shucks," Mona said, snapping her fingers. "We missed it. We missed all the beautiful colors across the sky. We missed the sunset." She frowned. Then she collapsed to the shore. "I wanted you to see it." She slumped her head between her broad shoulders, shoving her hands into the sand at her sides.

"Don't worry, miss," Jon said, placing his hand in her hair, petting it back towards her neck. "I have seen the sunset many times out at sea. I know the magic it can bring. I know the life it breathes. I have seen the sun drop behind the waves my whole life. I know it is beautiful. Those blues. Those purples. Pinks. Reds. Oranges." He looked out at the darkling sky cast its shadow over the sea and all earth. He took his hand off Mona's head and he sat himself beside her.

She picked her head up and she smiled. "You haven't spoken all night. Not a peep. That was beautiful. I guess you don't need to speak much when you can spit stuff like that out." Her language was roughened—filled with the native accent picked up in the bar. He listened to very little of her rhetoric. But he heard enough to hear the ignorance and the arrogance embedded within her speech. The wants and desires that hid behind each word leaving her lips—washing away out to sea. "The dark is pretty too," she said, pointing up at the stars forming behind them. "It's like someone turned out the lights and it's time to cuddle up under the covers." Mona shifted her weight in the sand, draping her heavy arms around his waist. "It's just beautiful."

Jon tensed and he frowned. His body felt light and loose. His mouth was dry. "The light is pretty good, too, though." He tried to take to his feet but Mona wrapped her arms tighter around him, pushing him back to the sand.

"Trying to get away, eh?" Her lips smirked crookedly. "No one gets away from ol' Mona." She laughed a drunken laugh, easing herself to Jon's side.

The ocean was soft but it brought in a rough breeze strong enough to blow specks of sand over the two.

"Not a cloud in sight," she said. "Not a one." She smiled, kissing her fingertips, blowing her kisses to the blanket of stars covering the black sky. "I can never pick just one," she said. "You know, to wish on." She rolled off Jon, hanging her hands behind her head. "So I just blow a kiss to them all and hope that all of my dreams come true." She winked at Jon and she kissed her fingertips again. But this time she ran them across his lips—then down, deep into his beard.

Jon stiffened. Then he shifted away from Mona. He connected the stars into constellations. He felt light. He felt the bob of the ocean as if it were underneath him. He felt as if he were floating on the surface of the sea and a ceiling of endless stars dangled, suspended above him. He felt his blood—thinned by the abundance of alcohol—beat heavy warmth through his wrists and his neck. He felt like he was back at home. He felt he was of the sea.

"You sure are quiet." She shifted her curves flirtatiously against him and the sand. "You look so stiff. Like you are getting chilly. Here, let me warm you on up." Mona pinned Jon to the sand. "It's already dark, can you believe it?"

Jon nodded, trying to wiggle room between the sand, him, and Mona. "I don't think I like where this is going," he said.

"It's going all right." She slid her hand across his chest, running her fingers loosely over his stomach, then into his waistband. "And these are going off first."

Jon tried to move. But her hand was on his penis. All five fingers wrapped around it. She had control. His consciousness wanted to stop. But his loins were just getting started. "I'm a married man."

"I don't care," she said. "Tonight you're Mona's." She grabbed at his penis and it grew in her hand. "Tonight you are mine. Under all of my stars." She kissed the tips of her fingers for a third time, blowing her love to the stars.

Jon tried to loosen her grip from him again, but the alcohol weakened him and his instincts took over his morality. Mona slipped her capris off. Then she took off her shirt. She shimmied Jon's appendages from his clothes, burying them into the sand as she drunkenly stumbled back on top of him.

Her moans where muffled by the crashes of waves as she rocked and rode him 'til they both screamed up over the waves before falling back to earth, motionless in the sand.

She lifted herself off of him and Jon found himself pressed into the sand. He stared up at the white slice of a moon in the sky. He blinked quickly and rings around the moon radiated out into the shine of stars. He rubbed his eyes under his glasses. Then he headed for the sea—running full speed until he crashed into the waves.

From the shore, Mona could barely make out his position. But she could hear his limbs flapping in the shallow water to the north. She covered her breasts with her arms and she bent over in the search for the touch of her clothes.

Jon continued to flop about the waves. Then he got down to his knees with the water cresting up over his face, where he began to shout a prayer to the heavens. "Wash me of my sins, Father," he shouted through huffs of sea rushing over his face—into his mouth. "Wash me of my forbidden sins. Take me home. I am nearly ready. I am yours. I am yours." Jon fell face first into the water. Then he picked himself up out of the waves, heading back to the shoreline where Mona was clothed with Jon's clothing piled up next to her.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "I am sorry, but I don't think I have gotten your name yet."

Jon walked unhurriedly. His legs far apart from one another. His arms dangled—dripping water from his body. "My name?" he said. "My name is Mare. Mare Abyss."

Mona frowned at his answer. But she decided not to question the response from the man who had just tossed about the waves, shouting a plea for forgiveness to the heavens. "That is an interesting name," she said, now scared of his mysterious qualities. She paused. Then she pointed at his clothes neatly folded on the sand at her feet. "Your clothes. I found them. You want to put them on and head back into town? It's quite dark here. It isn't safe, you know." She shook slightly. Then she headed for the streetlamp lighting up the exit towards the road.

Jon placed his clothes over his wet body. Then he jogged up to Mona who paced under the light.

"Come on, Mare. Let's head back to town. It's getting cold. And late. I need to head to bed." She watched Jon take his strides slowly towards her as he kept looking back out to sea. "You lost or something? You really live out on the sea or something? What is your deal?"

"I live out on the north fork. Way out east. But I reside on the waves of the Atlantic." He pulled the water from his beard. He pushed his glasses up on his nose, watching the waves roll in. "I need to get back home. I've been wandering about the coast for the last few days. Living on the sand." He paused, turning to look into Mona's eyes. "I have seen the sunset on this sound. I slept between these dunes and these cliffs the last few nights. And then I made it to the bar this afternoon."

Mona began to walk down the street, motioning Jon to follow. "Well, how far out you live? You need a lift home?"

Jon did not want to accept her offer, but he knew he had to get home. His feet hurt and his skin was burnt. "Surely. I mean, that would be a great help. I need to head home. I need to get to my Marion."

She shook her head. Her firm smile reflected the yellow streetlamp off her teeth.

The walk back was swift. And before long, the two made it passed the main street storefronts and to the bar where Mona's car was the last auto left on the strip. Her car's black paint glistening streaks of the white moon into their eyes. She opened the passenger door for Jon, slamming it shut behind him. Jon felt a burning in his legs but he could not decipher if it was from the sunburn or from the excessive mileage accrued on his journey westward. He touched the backs of his knees, trying to translate the pain. But he could not. And he slowly drifted into a slumber to the skipping beats of concrete slabs beneath Mona's car tires.

CHAPTER 17

Mona hummed along with the gentle tune streaming through the radio. Jon's body took the shape of the passenger door until the car bounced into the depths of a pothole, awaking him from his sleep. His body straightened in his seat. He rubbed his eyes. Then he searched the grassy darkness for signs posted of their whereabouts. But it was too dark. And he could not decipher trees from signs and signs from trees.

He looked over at the driver. Her eyes fixed to the striped yellow lines paralleled to her left. Then she glanced over at the single solid white line to her right, catching the eyes of Jon.

"You up?" she asked.

Jon ran his fingers down his beard. His eyes burned a bright crimson shade of bloodshotedness around his cool gray stare out the window into the oblivion. "Yea," he said, turning to her. "I'm up all right."

"Good. Are we almost there? I didn't realize you lived this far out."

"Yea. It's a bit of a ways," he smiled, relaxing himself into the foamed seat. He felt his sleep weakened eyes shutter to the beat of the rhythmic bumps below him. "This should be good," he said, unlatching the belt from its fastener.

"What should be good?"

"Right here," he said, nodding his head at the land outside the window. "Right here should be fine. I can walk the rest."

Mona's mouth opened wide. "I can surely drive you home. It's the least I could do."

"You have done quite enough. This will be just fine. I insist."

Mona pulled the car to the shoulder. The right side sinking into the grass. She turned the ignition off, resting her hands on the top of the steering wheel. She looked straight through the windshield. The sound of waves echoed off the low lying clouds in the background. "I have driven you all this way while you slept." The words left her mouth quickly. "Not to mention you are still wet from the time you ran into the water, yelling out to whatever God it is that you follow." She switched the doors unlocked with the flick of a button. Then she looked into Jon's eyes. "And I know your name is not Mare. But if you really want to just go, and never meet again—I suggest you leave right now. Just go." Water fell from the corners of her eyes, dripping down to her white blouse.

Jon sat stilled. His eyes blankly staring out of the window. His ears keenly listening to the faint waves crashing up over the rolling hills along the roadside. He noticed the words stop pouring from Mona's mouth and he turned his head, focusing in on her. He first saw the glistening path of tears falling down her face. He watched the moisture collect, spreading in dense circles on her blouse. He blinked hard. Then he looked back into her eyes before exiting the car without a sound.

Jon heard the ignition switch over. Then the sound of the tires sprawling across the concrete slabs in perpetual beats—distancing down the road. He stopped, rubbed his feet in the dark tall grass, listening—ka-lump after ka-lump—over the concrete. But he did not turn to look.

The moon's dulled light shined off the smudged glare across his glasses, causing Jon to squint slightly.

The thick damp grass smelt of the salty sea. The waves in the shallow distance made Jon shiver—making him think of the swing that swayed in suspension on his back porch. He had sat in his father's lap and listened to the old man's stories of over exaggerated Atlantic voyages. Jon had even sat with his own son, sharing his own indulgences of the sea. But Jon had now spent the past year swinging in the woes of his own denial. His own defeat. His own downfall. The swing had swung to a new beat—slowed and creased with squeaky creaks. The swing took no mind to the man who sat in its britches. And justly, it caught the sea's misty breeze, swaying each day away into the moonlight.

The grass shortened to nothingness, subsiding to sand. Jon's feet shuffled slowly through the soft ground, collecting grains in his boots, curling around his toes.

"Damned sand," he muttered aloud. "Always did despise you." He removed his shoes and he peeled off his socks, tossing them to the dunes. "Always was a man of the sea, myself." Jon gripped the sand between his toes.

He looked up at the sky of sparkling stars blaze holes into the black night. He watched the moon's shine slip in and out of lacy clouds. But soon, the thin silky clouds began to draw into dark plumes of smoke collapsing over the moon and stars—smothering the light into a blanket of black.

A pungent smell of chard wood and gasoline descended upon him. He stopped, letting his feet sink into the soft grains. He closed his eyes and he tilted his head back, pointing the chin-tip of his beard to the horizon. He sniffed in the fiery smell burning in the distance. He rubbed the hairs under his nose, flattening them down to the ridge of his upper lip, licking the ends with the point of his tongue.

"The smell of sea and fury," he whispered. "Hatred fills this crisp spring air." He opened his eyes and he watched the sky above him fill with ever-blackening smoke. "No lightning in this sky." He sniffed the air again. "And a rich smell of gasoline. This is man's work. This is hatred."

Jon frowned. He dug his feet deeper into the sand on the side of the highway. He was a hundred meters or so 'til he had to turn off the highway to the road to his house. The smooth sound of waves echoed over the hills—over a dim crackle of fire in the distance. The smoke bit at his eyes. Tears boiled 'til drops fell smoothly down his face. He pulled his feet from the sand and he continued down the path aside the highway. He watched the smoke bubble overhead, listening to the crackling fire slowly overpower the crash of waves.

When Jon made it to the street of his house, he could see the new-age Victorians aside a ranch burning—his ranch—his house. The smoke blocked the bell held high in the steeple. He stopped at the cross-section, watching the high flames reflect off the gentle waves rolling in along the coast. Orange and red strings of fire flickered through the ripples. Bright light danced on the dark waves. The sand flooded with a black fog hanging around Jon's ankles. He stood motionless. The smoke worked its way up his legs 'til it entangled all his body—poisoning his lungs. He leaned over, letting the smoke hold him up as he watched a skinny dog strut from the dunes, over the road in front of him, and then run off down the shore. The dog's skinny frame hung its black fur loosely off its bones as the beast stared back at Jon from the shoreline, growling, and then the mutt continued into the crash of waves, engulfed by the dark blue water. Jon rubbed the stub of his left pinky—his left thumb tracing over the missing knuckles.

The house in front of him continued to burn up to the heavens. Thickets of black draped over all of East Marion as a gentle sea breeze swept the plume over the low waves out to sea.

His frozen stance shattered once the voice of his wife sounded over the crackles of the wooden house—over the crashes of waves to the sand. Jon's eyes scanned from the red sea to the red house to the woman with palms pressed to her face. A woman holding her worries in the depths of her opened hands doused in droplets of tears running from her eyes. Jon sunk to his knees in a slight crouch before he began to run towards the fire. The memories he had made in the house inundated his mind as the house flooded upward in a heated fury to the dark heaven above. He ran without the knowledge of running. Time stood still, wrapped within the blanket of smoke—wrapped within his captivated thoughts burning at his mind.

Elea stood stilled at the base of the house, catching the heat radiating from the flames. All she had, all she knew, all she had done—all melting, burning and dying.

Jon made it to her quickly. He swooped her into his arms and he carried her to the rock bed along the shore. He rested her on the cool rocks as they could still feel the heat of the house on their faces—thick smoke pressing up to their flesh.

Elea picked her tired body up off the rocks as she dried her sobbing eyes. She looked into Jon's eyes. Then she made for the sea with a bucket wretched in her fingers. She sunk the bucket into the sea, filling it, running back towards the house, dumping its contents on the enflamed porch swing—hissing as the water eased the flames only temporarily. She ran back to the shore and repeated. But Jon hugged her in her pursuit back towards the house.

"It's no use, El," he said with his arms wrapped tight around her 'til she dropped the bucket to the rocks. "The house it too far gone. It's no use. It's gone."

Jon's beard sat heavy on Elea's cheek. She started to cry again. She loosened her nerves and she sunk her weight into him. She could not remember the last time she had given herself to him. She could not remember the last time she let him comfort her. The sound of sirens echoed in the distance. Jon laid Elea back down to the cool bed of rocks. He shifted her hair off her forehead with his fingers combing the strains back along her scalp. His heart pumped a beat against her head, soothing her as she silently released a string of tears falling into Jon's beard.

She looked into his eyes, still reddened from the lack of sleep, the excess of alcohol and the smoke that had now filled the air—and she stopped crying. He looked at her, weak and defenseless. He then looked up at the house collapse inward, shooting up a large spur of fire into the sky followed by a mushroom plume of black smoke. Jon tucked Elea's face into his chest. Then he rolled her face back out after the flash of heat receded.

"I hold you," he said, looking into her tear swollen eyes. "I encapsulate you. I protect you." He paused, looking at the sea's reflective image of the demise of a household. "My arms protect you from all that is thrown at you. My body is my sacrifice to you." He squeezed Elea in close. He released a long breathe of air, catching the lobe of her ear, making her twinge slightly. "I am your protector. I will save you from all this."

Elea looked up at Jon's face in search of his stern gray eyes—but they remained fixed on the warm colors beating off the rippling waves crashing to the shore as piercing sirens screamed and flashing lights danced off the black smoke skyline.

CHAPTER 18

The boom of waves echoed off the clouds of smoke. Blistering flames reflected off the rippling tide. Jon looked out to the sea. He could feel warm tears sliding down his cheeks. He watched the yellow and white lights of two fire engines sparkle off the red sea. He could see the trucks dropping anchor atop the rocky shore beside them. Men then jumped from the truck, running hoses into the shallow sound—pumping the salty sea over the house. Three men with clean yellow fire-coats stood nearby. They pointed at the house as another section of the roof caved in. Jon could see the men's mouths move, but the fisherman could only hear the roar of waves that the rising tide brought to his feet.

Elea took Jon's hand, shaking it with her nerves. His eyes blinked for the first time in a long while. Then, all at once, Jon heard the engines growl and the house hiss as the sea smothered the flames. He caught himself as rocks tumbled beneath his feet. His head jerked from the hose in the water to the burning house. Then he heard Elea whimper next to him. Her head hunched over. Her long black hair hanging over her swollen eyes. Her fingers standing out on their ends, casting jagged shadows lit by the fire out onto the red sea. Jon stood over Elea. He watched her shiver 'til her eyes collapsed into his and then he bent over and he hugged her tight as they watched the salty water extinguish their house.

Police officers sat in a nearby car filing paperwork. They then gave their questions to Jon and Elea, followed by their condolences and the number to the local motel down the road.

The flames had turned to smoldering embers. The engines had receded back to the firehouse. The tide moved back out to sea.

Elea hung her head on Jon's chest as they sat on the rocks, watching the smoke lift off the burnt frame. He could see the iron oven—the white paint smeared with black soot. He could see the blue shingles—the few left—peeling back their paint, exposing their woody, smoke stained grains. And he could see two chains dangling a phantom swing on the back porch.

"You think it was him?" Jon asked, raising Elea up off his chest.

"Who else could it have been?"

"No lightning in the sky, that's for sure." Jon licked his lips. He could taste the fresh fire on his tongue. "And I smelt the gasoline from way down the road," he said, pointing to the street leading to the highway.

Elea sat up. She dried her face with her hands and she looked deep into Jon's red eyes.

"Well. Where is he?" he asked.

"The last I saw him, he was with you." Elea eyed the black sound. "When you two went for that walk after we got home from the hike. I thought you two had run off."

"Where to, El? Where to?"

"I haven't the slightest..." Elea fought off tears, but she lost the battle. "I haven't the slightest..." her words cut off into sobs.

Jon got up off the rocks. He walked to the sound rippling a string of moonlight out to the horizon. He kicked sand into the cascading waves—watching the image of the still moon held high in the sky distort over the moving ocean. Elea laid her head on the cool rocks. She took shallow, sob-ridden breathes as she watched the black image of her husband in the backlight of the moon.

"Quit it with that damned sea," Elea said with fervor. But she did not lift her head from the rocks. "It has been nothing but trouble. It has done nothing other than plant the seeds to your downfall." Elea took a deep, steady breath, and she sat herself up. "You have a family, Jon. You need to provide for them. You need to provide for me. The house is gone, Jon. You need to step up."

Jon stilled. The luminous white extinguished on the sound. His silhouette darkened, and a gust of wind threw the sand into the air.

"Are you even listening to me, Jon? Are you listening to any of these words?" Jon hid behind the sound of the waves and the intermittent gusts of wind. Elea tried to find her husband on the shoreline, but she was blinded by dense clouds sweeping up over the moon. She wiped stray tears from her cheeks and she collapsed back to the stones. "My T.V. What if they call me today? What if today is the day? Fuck, Jon. What if today was my day?"

Jon heard the rocks grind as Elea fell back down to them. He heard her cry less and less the more he walked farther away from her. "He set fire to my temple to create a new one. A temple of his own," Jon whispered to the sea. "My Isaac, you will succeed." Jon bent over and he cupped water from a passing wave into his hands, throwing the sea over his face. "I am your Abraham. I am ready. Tell me when I shall be yours."

The moon shined through the clouds and the shore lit up with white light. Jon cleaned his glasses swiftly on his shirt, placing them back on his nose. He looked up at the church—the bell glistening the moon's light—the stained glass Jesus reflecting a dim glow. And on the steps, the radiance of life. A small lad. Knees tucked into his cheeks.

"Barry?" Jon called. "Barry? Is that you, son?"

The shadow on the steps elongated.

"Barry? Barry?" Jon ran towards the church.

"Jon, you found him? Did you find Barry?" Elea yelled out in the distance.

But when Jon reached the steps, there was nobody there. No Barry. Just a mangled black plastic garbage bag wrapped around the banister.

"Jon, you find him? Tell me. How is he? Jon, how is he?" Elea's voice was not far behind now. Jon turned around and he felt Elea's hand on his back. "Where is Barry?"

Jon leaned over the banister, ripping the plastic bag off of the steps. He threw it hard at Elea. But the bag caught the wind, and the plastic drifted back into Jon's hands before tumbling down the coast. "There is no Barry here." Jon looked into Elea's eyes until she brought hers into his, and then he shifted his stare back to sea. "But he is here, somewhere. His hands are green with guilt and red with blood." Jon sat down on the steps. He took Elea's hand and he brought her down to his side. "He is hiding in the dunes."

"How are you so sure?"

"He is my son."

"He's mine, too, yanno."

Jon rubbed Elea's head with his own. He petted her hair over her ear 'til she fell into his lap. "Ah, but he is my son. A Brand." Jon paused. Then he whispered—"My Isaac."

Jon emptied sand from his pocket, throwing it into the wind.

Elea's eyes fluttered a bit, but then they closed and she slipped into sleep.

Jon remained awake. Steadfast. He listened to the waves through the night until the morning sun hushed gentle violets, crimsons and oranges off of the horizon—over the morning sea. He yawned, wiping the sleeplessness from his eyes. He watched the sea paint a mirage with the soft spring colors of the sky.

He could see the image of a person casting a black shadow tailing across the vibrant sea.

Jon thought it to be the old man and his dog that sometimes passed each morning. But Jon could see no mutt at the man's side. Jon looked over at his burnt house. Black jagged sticks shot up from the earth. The microwave and the television melted into a single mass on the countertop. And all the other household things that were now the once was.

Jon looked back at the oncoming traveler. The thing's shadow bobbing over the sheen of the sea.

"My Isaac."

CHAPTER 19

The April sun was strong. The spring's warmth settled on the concrete steps—flowing over all the sand. The flowers on the dunes wiggled with the weight of the bees suckling at the buds—pollinating under the same sky as Barry, who slowly walked alone along the shore in the distance. Jon sat still on the steps. Elea stayed silent in her slumber. Her head resting in Jon's lap.

Jon could hear the sound of his neighbor's four-wheeler back out of the drive. Jon turned his head and he could see the thing creep slowly, pausing in front of Jon's house. The man at the wheel zipped down his window with the push of a button, staring out at the chard view. The man shook his head in either disgust or sorrow or just because he could.

The truck then drove off unhurriedly.

Jon glanced back over at Barry who had enclosed in on the church's shoreline. The boy kicked rocks in the sand—intermittently skipping flat stones across the flat sound.

Jon sat back, combing Elea's hair over her ear as he watched his son take form under the young sun. "Tilt the back," Jon whispered under his breath. "Cast back. Flick the wrist." Jon nodded at the toss from his son. As if Jon knew good things would come just by the form Barry had learned from his father—seemingly practicing to perfection.

Jon caressed Elea's head off of his lap, gently placing her head on the top step, and he walked to the sea—to his son.

"Bar," he called. "Barry. Wait up, son. Wait up."

Barry looked away from the sea, meeting eyes with Jon, whose smile was lost in his beard. Barry stuttered in his steps. His feet sinking into the sand as he backpedaled. Then he turned, regaining his composure, and he started to run in the direction in which he came.

"Barry," Jon yelled. His hands cuffed around his mouth like a bullhorn. "It's all right. Trust me. I am your father. I am your protector and savior." Jon's voice echoed over the sound—stopping Barry in his steps. "You have my word, son."

Barry paused. He watched the sun kiss the lip of the bell high in the steeple.

"Bar. It doesn't matter what happened last night. It is in the past now." Jon's voice grew softer as he walked closer to Barry.

"I goofed," Barry finally said. "I lost control."

Jon hung his arms around his son's shoulders. "You didn't goof. You didn't do anything wrong." Jon patted his son on the back—guiding the boy to face the sea. They peered out to the violet horizon, speckled with dabs of oranges and blues. "You did nothing wrong," Jon assured him. "Your actions are the product of a deceitful mother and a damned father. You did nothing wrong. Such an act is biblical. And just a sign from above, my son."

Barry stood stilled. He stared out at the sea, listening to his father's doctrine 'til Jon patted Barry on the back, directing him to look at the charred house.

"You are the next generation of Brands. My son. I can't get over that sometimes, you know? My son will grow up to be the next Brand of East Marion. The tides will shift by then. The seas will be at ease." Jon paused, looking down at his sand covered boots. "The seas will be at ease, my son. Soon. I can promise you that. The seas will be in agreement with East Marion again. And, my son, the next Brand, will be able to angle the high seas with ease. Just like your grandfather and your now, ill-fated father."

Jon tugged at his beard. Sandpipers pecked at the sand to the right and the seas small waves crashed to the left. Barry remained silent. And Jon continued to preach.

"Only in time. Only in time will the fates be aligned and the debts paid. Greed will get you nowhere, son. If my life is an example of anything to you. Greed will get you nowhere but to the bottom of the barrel. The very bottom. And you will see it only when you are there. At the bottom of life. There is no escaping the confines of greed against nature. No escape. No fairness when you play unfair yourself."

Jon and Barry made it to the bed of rocks in front of their house. They froze on its obscurity. Barry shifted his feet slowly. Then he rubbed his father's broad shoulders. "I'm sorry for what I have done. I really goofed. I didn't think it through, you know? I didn't think it through." Tears welled in Barry's eyes. Then they slowly ran down his bare-skinned cheeks to the rocks below. Jon curled his forefinger against the baggy skin under Barry's right eye, catching a tear as it dripped.

"I won't have no crying." Jon slid his hand to Barry's shoulder, patting him three times. "You hear? No sense in it." Barry wiped the tears from his cheek, sniffling in his sorrow. "It's an act of God. An act of the sea. This is all on me, son. It is all on me. The almighty sea is taking me back. Don't you see? It's calling me back. My maker is calling me back." Jon pulled on his beard, tucking the ends under his collar. "The sea, my son, it calls me. It acted through you. It punishes my greed. My sorrow is a mere reflection of this sound—this sea—this ocean. I will return shortly. This act of hatred is an act of the sea. Through my maker—your maker—through you and onto me. You had no say in this. You only did what the sea told you to do."

"But I did it, father. I set it ablaze," Barry said unblinkingly—staring at the blistered house. "My hands. These hands." Barry fell to the bed of rocks. The stones cackling as his knees crashed upon them. "The gasoline, the matches, and the fire. Oh, the fire. I did it, father. It was me."

Jon wrapped his arms under Barry's shoulders, hoisting him back up to his feet. "Don't say such heresy. It was not you. It was an act against me. It was me. It was the vast blue chastising me. Threatening me. Putting me in my place." Jon kissed the side of Barry's cheek. The man's whiskers pressing into his son's hardened cheeks. "Never disobey your father. Never speak against his word." Jon looked back at the church—at the bell high in the steeple. The ormolu shine of the bell reflected back into his eyes. Then he looked down at Elea still asleep on the church steps. "Your mother," he said. "It is your duty, my son, your duty to watch after her." Jon locked his eyes into Barry's. "For I can no longer help. I can no longer care for her. I cannot."

Barry nodded in agreement. Then he brought his father in for a hug.

"You were at your friends last night. A regular ol' sleepover. The kind you had when you were just a child," Jon fabricated. "You watched silly movies and played video games. You stayed up all night talking of girls you have crushes on and played card games and giggled 'til the sun rose up over the horizon." Jon pulled off of Barry, looking at the house. A small tendril of smoke trickled out from the center of the rubble. "You did all these things. You were not here last night. The fire is my burden. Not yours. I go down with the ship."

A swift breeze rushed over the coastline filling the air with the smell of the roasted house. The oaks in front of them rustled their budding branches reaching up towards the endless sky. A chorus of gulls cawed in the near distance. The sun enveloped all the land. The vibrancy of color in the sky faded to a bright light blue merging with the dark blue sea on the horizon. Barry's eyes grew full and white. They lost the saddened redness they had not long before. Jon looked at his son with half-closed eyes. Barry hung his head, exhausted. His feet shifting, digging into the rocks. Jon's heart throbbed agonizingly. His breath came up in long gasps. Jon looked back at the water moving in on the land with the push of the waves—the sand glittering beneath the salty liquid. Then he turned back towards the house, looking beyond at the clustering of Victorians on the old farm saturated with the morning sun. The large oaks yellowed with fresh buds. Then fluffed gray clouds passed in front of the sun, casting a shadow over the land.

"You son of a bitch," Elea called out. Her steps echoing over the rocky shore. Her hair messed in front of her face. The sun slipped through the clouds. The bright rays piercing her swollen eyes. "You burnt this house, you devil. You ungrateful bitch. You..." Her words chattered against her teeth. She reared her hand back towards the church, laying her fingers flat against Barry's cheek. "You devil."

The sound closed in behind them. Barry fell to the rocks. His face grew red like the sun.

"It was not him," Jon said. "It is my fault. I take the blame."

"But it was him, Jon. It was you, Barry. You ungrateful ass." Elea lunged for her son with both hands clenched into fists. But Jon wrapped his arms around her waist and he gracefully threw her down to the rocks with ease.

"It was not him, El. It was an act of nature." Jon went cold within his seclusion. He quivered and tears began to roll slowly into his beard. "It was an act of the ocean. An act unto me. From the sea."

Elea grew stiff. Then she softened, falling to the rocks. "Stop it, Jon. Just stop it. You are crazy. And stop protecting your son. He must owe up to his actions. He must pay." Elea's sobs cut her off. Her head dropping to the smoothed stones.

Barry leaned over. He cupped her head into his hands—remembering what his father had told him. "It was not me, mother. I was at Jerry's," he lied. "We played cards and watched movies." He looked up at his father who was deep in thought as he looked out towards the vast sea.

"But the gas. The smell of gasoline. The flames. The fire." Elea looked up at Barry. "You did it. You did it, I know it. You set our life on fire."

Barry moved his hands around Elea's head, hugging her. "But I didn't. I went out. I wasn't here to do it."

Jon placed his arms around his son and his wife. But he kept a keen eye on the waves slowly tumbling to the shore. "No one did this. It was a higher being. It is more complex than either of you will ever know." Jon looked to Barry, then to Elea, then back out to the sea. "A sign from God that the end is near."

"Knock it off with that goddamned sea," Elea pushed her hands into Jon's chest. But he hugged her in close and she soon grew weak, collapsing into him. "Stop it. Just stop it. The ocean is not controlling your life. The sea is nothing more than that—the sea. It is the ocean, Jon. Not a God. It is nothing more, nothing less. Let it be."

"But it is much more than the water and the fish and the waves and the salt. It is eating at us all. It is eating at the land. It is eating away at my flesh." Jon pushed Elea into Barry. Then Jon began to walk to the smoldering house. His hands whirled up to the heavens as he talked. "It is what moves us. Us Brands are the children of the sea. And it will swallow us all if things are not set straight. The laws of man reside in that there ocean. The sea will devour me whole one day." Jon turned to the sea. "And only then will the world be back to normal. Only then will the land and the sea and the Son of Man will coincide in harmony."

The waves grew large. A clear light reflected off of the sea—speaking to him. He knew what he was destined for. It shot clear into his heart—breathing new life into his soul. He knew he could make things right. He knew he could bring life back to this family.

Jon turned from the sea and he walked to the house, stopping when he reached the base of the porch.

"Can it be restored?" Barry's voice rested on Jon's ear.

Jon relaxed his head. His chin touching his chest. Then he looked over at the car out of the side of his glasses. It was saved—aside from the white blips of sprayed salt from the hoses. "The salt killed this land. The salting of this earth will make life impossible here." Jon pulled his beard. Then he rubbed his hand on the chains that once held the porch swing. He brought his hands to his mouth, licking the tips of his fingers. "This salted house has become a victim of the sea, son. Everything will be weathered. Corroded. Dead."

Elea stayed back on the coast. She sat on the rocks above the sandy shoreline. Her eyes honed in on her two men—sun soaked in front of the blackened house. Her mind wrestled with the deceptive words they had conspired against her. She had seen the earth swallow the house with flames. And now she saw the salty black product it had left them in the shine of the day. And it came upon her that she was alone on the shore and all of the world. She felt the wish of death upon her. But the feeling quickly left, as the shore closed in on her—the sound brushing over her outstretched feet. Elea sprang up in alarm, rushing to the house. The whole coast was breathing with fear. She stumbled to the steps and she locked eyes with Jon, who was crouched over the mountain range that once hung over the mantel in their living room. The cliffs melted into the valleys. The snowy white treetops blistered and torn.

She sniffled in, smelling the charred wood—the burnt salt rushing through her. "We need to leave this place," she said. "This house is haunted. The sea—this ocean has destroyed our home." She kicked over the painting—the canvas crumbling in on itself. Her eyes grew wide with wonder at the incineration of the art. The mountain range in their living room had been there before her. She was told that it was the first item of décor James Brand had placed in the shorefront house. No water in the painting, only tall trees, snow and lofty cliffs shining brightly over the fireplace.

Jon moved restlessly over the empty frame 'til he broke it in two. "It was painted by my father," he said over his shoulder. "I'll remember those snowy cliffs 'til the day I die." He looked back down at the ground where the splintered frame rested atop the chunks of burnt canvas. He collected the pieces into a pile. Then he brushed them over the blackened floor.

The house was covered in black soot. Nothing was salvageable. Everything was burnt and then salted—ruined—destroyed.

Barry placed his hand on his father's back. Elea moved to the kitchen where she poked at the melted TV. Then she banged the smoked pots and pans over her sooty oven. "She's not going to take this easily," Barry said soft into Jon's ear. "She's going to hold this against you 'til the day you die." Barry smoothed out the rough edges on Jon's shoulders.

"Let her," Jon said. "She will be at ease in a short time. This whole town will be at ease in a short time." The wind ran through the open house. The sun tucked back under the clouds from the north. "You, my son, you need to stay strong for her. Protect her as best you can. And then you will live off the land. Live off the heart of this land. And live off the sea." He paused for a moment, turning towards Barry. The man rested his hand on the boy's flop of black hair. "You will do what Brands do best. Only when things are set right. Only when He tells me when to set things right." Jon's eyes gleaned up out of the opened roof for a second. Then he looked into Barry's full blue eyes. The clouds began to drip thick drops of water 'til they grew small and steady. Elea ran to the car, sitting in the driver's seat for shelter. Barry soon following her.

"Father," Barry shouted. "Come in the car. The rain ain't holding up." Barry stopped at the door of the car. His hair curled across his forehead and over his eyes. "Come on," he shouted one last time before slipping into the backseat of the blue sedan.

But Jon stayed stilled in the house 'til the heavy rain uncovered a speck of red under the destroyed mantel. A round speck of red amidst a blackened house filled with blackened objects. Jon kicked the red thing. Black dust and the glossy red paint peeled off of what was a wooden doll. "The babushkas," Jon cried. The big doll was burnt. Spots of wood seared through—the red paint melted with the blue and the white polka dots—the face, charred. Jon leaned over, tinkering with the doll, trying to separate the pieces. "It's stuck," he said. "I can't open it." He twisted it and then he hit the doll until it split in two, unveiling its contents in perfect condition. "They survived," he yelled, falling to the sooty floor. Then he got up to his feet. The rain now pounded hard on him. "They survived the fire." Jon wiped the rain from his glasses with his smoked stained hands. He laughed at the sight. "The father saved the family. The babushkas. They made it. The father sacrificed himself to save the others. Of course." The house smoldered steam up at the falling rain. "I hear you clearly, Father. The father saves the family. The father protects them all." Jon encased the perfected dolls back into the ruined larger one. Then he ran out of the house, down to the shore. He shook the dolls up to the heavens—his feet wading in the roaring sound. "Only say the word, and I shall be healed. I am yours, my Father. But only say the word and I shall be the healer." Jon reared his arm back, heaving the dolls into the stormy waves. "Heal me."

CHAPTER 20

The warmth of summer settled in early. The Brands moved into the local motel that Elea knew all too well with her other man. The sun grew stronger with each day passing. The gulls flew as if they had been flying for days before touching the sand or the waves—endlessly circling for food that was nonexistent. The sandpipers reappeared from behind the red wooden dune fences—pecking at the shore in search of crustaceans and insects that were less frequent than seasons prior. Elea had left for the first three days to—what she told Jon—"to find herself" in this crazy circumstance. But Jon took that line to mean she was wrapped in the arms of her other man in a different motel. But when Elea returned, no questions were asked and no accusations were made and life went on as usual—as usual as living out of a motel could be.

The morning rolled in over the island. Elea peeled back the plastic on three frozen breakfast entrées. She then tossed them in the microwave and she watched the meals rotate clockwise around the humming machine 'til it beeped the food to a warmed perfection. An old wooden box of a television played her shows across the room, keeping the Brand morning soundtrack intact.

"I hope you like yours well-done," she said to Jon, dropping a plastic tray in front of him. "How about you, Bar? Well-done good?" Elea sat herself at the small table in the one room motel room, placing the other two meals in front of herself and her son, keeping her eyes on the TV.

Barry nodded, not knowing any other answer. For breakfast had been well-done and in the microwave for the past three weeks. He turned the microwaved eggs and potatoes around in the plastic container before eating the contents quickly. A yellow light shed in through the white curtains in the back of the room behind the bed and the cot laid out for Barry. "Time for school," Barry said, throwing the plastic tray into the trash. "Only a few more weeks of this hell and I'm done."

"But you'll have college," Elea said, eyeing the TV, scribbling notes. "You'll have college in the fall." She smiled, looking over at Jon for a reassuring confirmation. But he shifted his man-made eggs in his plastic tray with his plastic fork, failing to meet eyes with Elea until she nudged his arm into his breakfast. "Right, Jon? College?"

"If that is what he wishes," he said. "Then college it will be." Jon cleaned the eggs from his elbow. "But, you know, college is not for everyone. Especially for Brands. The sea is our college." Jon winked at Barry who caught his father's gesture before the boy closed the door behind him.

Elea came around the table. She brought her chair with her and she sat next to Jon. She muted the television and she tried to read Jon's face without saying anything for a few moments. "You shouldn't feed him such thoughts, Jon," she said, finally. "He is going to college. And that is that."

Jon forked down the last of his faux heated breakfast, pushing the plastic to the center of the table.

"Are you going to respond to this matter, or are you going to just sit there silent?"

Jon nodded, swallowing the last of the crumbs before smiling. "Yes, dear."

"What?"

"Yes, dear. Whatever it is you said. Yes, dear." Jon pulled at his beard.

"Are you even listening."

Jon nodded. "Yes, dear."

Elea's lips pressed tight against one another. Her eyes peering firmly into Jon's dull grays. "Okay, then. We need to discuss something else." She paused for a moment, gathering the food waste on the table into the wastebasket. Then she returned to Jon's side. "We need to discuss our living situation. The house."

"What about it?" he said. "We rebuild once the insurance clears."

"About that, exactly." Elea paused. Then she began to craft her words with care. "That land is poisoned. It is cursed. You said so yourself, Jon. Nothing good will come of it. The salt has destroyed all life there. And besides, we can get a pretty penny for that land. Then we can move upstate. You said it yourself, Jon—the salt of the earth. That land is a goldmine for us right now. It will pay for a new house. It will pay for Barry's college."

"The salt of the earth," he said. "The salting of the earth. The salt kills all life, preserving the dead in its own time. Yet killing all life." Jon took his glasses into his hand. He huffed a steamy hot fog on the lenses, cleaning them with the inside helm of his shirt. He sat back in the chair and he placed his glasses back over his eyes. "That land is my home, Elea. That land is the land of the Brands. I cannot sell it. I cannot let that land go. I cannot sell my part of the sea for a sea of mountain ranges outside my living room."

"Jon, you are overreacting," she said. "And you are not thinking logically. You've been out of work for nearly two years. The sea is a dead end, Jon. We need to live. This fire could be our opportunity. Open your eyes, Jon. My brother, Ethan, will surely let us live in his guest house on the farm until our cottage is built in the mountainside." She looked into Jon's weary eyes. "And Ethan is sure to let you work on the farm. And all the colleges for Barry, Jon. He'll get such a fine education up there. We can sell the land and live up north. Can't you see it, Jon? An opportunity."

"There are only lakes up north. Fresh water. No ocean. No salt. No sea. I cannot work on a farm. I farm the seas, El," he said. "Not the land. I cannot leave the shores. I cannot leave the sea for the land. Blasphemy." He hit the table with a heavy fist. Then he calmed himself with closed eyes.

The phone rang off the side table next to the bed. The dull ring floating on the yellow haze of the sunlit room.

Jon sat on the edge of the bed, placing the phone on his shoulder. "Yes, this is he. A meeting? But why?"

"Barry has missed twenty five of the last forty classes—," a woman's voice spoke soft but sharp. "And on the days he does decide to grace my class with his presence, his jeans are soaked of the sea and he smells like clams. And I am not sure if he will graduate if he continues down a path like that," Ms. Carla Fitter said—Barry's first period economics teacher and high school principal.

"But..."

"Mr. Brand, I know about the fire. I know it must be difficult. But we have services for Barry. In the mean time, Mr. Brand, your son still needs to go to school." She spoke as if she sat high in a chair, looking down upon her prey. "We are going to have to have a meeting. And that is that."

"A meeting?"

"Yes, Mr. Brand. A conference."

"How about Wednesday?"

"Tuesday. Tomorrow. Does eleven work?" She took charge and Jon lost control.

"Tomorrow at eleven?"

"Great. See you, then."

Jon sat with the phone buzzing a dial tone for a few moments before he returned to Elea at the table. She sipped on a large mug of coffee, wearing a long sleeping gown, looking over her notes as commercials interrupted her show.

"What's at eleven tomorrow?"

"Ms. Fitter."

"Barry's principal?"

"And economics teacher." Jon twirled on his mustache. "She wants to meet with us tomorrow. About Barry."

Elea took a long sip of coffee. Then she looked up at Jon who was now seated at the table. He drank his own coffee with the newspaper in his lap.

"What about Barry?" she asked.

He took his time to swallow. "Missing some classes."

"He's going to flunk." Elea pushed her coffee away from her and she threw the hot liquid into Jon's face. "You asshole. You infected our son with your craziness. The sea is just the sea. It is water. We live on land. It is nothing special. It is just the sea."

Jon blotted the coffee from his wiry face with a towel. "The sea is the beginning. It is the place where all life was created. From the water. From the salt. The secret to life—and to all humanity—lies in the womb of the sea. And in the end, the sea is where we all return."

Elea threw the mug to the floor. The porcelain shatter echoing—pieces spinning to their feet. "I'm done. You are crazy and you have passed it onto Barry. I need to go. I don't know if I can come back." She went to the side of the bed, grabbing a small purse and a light jacket. She then opened the door. A burst of light shined into the room—on Jon—and then it closed.

Jon sat in silence. Then he moved to the window. He parted the shades and he watched Elea—the blue sedan—pull out of the lot and onto the road. A yellow-blue shine bounced off the windshield before the car disappeared behind the pines on the roadside. Jon looked up at the sun and the glossy, glassy rays seemed to dance off his lenses, distorting the image with mirrored light. He looked back out at the road, watching a car pass. He folded his glasses into his hands and the car vanished before him. He placed his glasses back on, and the car reappeared. He swiped his glasses off again and he looked into the sun. The most beautiful shine of yellows and oranges and reds pulsed into him. He pulled himself away from the shades—backing up until his legs hit the bed.

"I cannot believe I have never seen it before," he thought. His face glowed like the sun. "I cannot believe it. My entire life, a fake. A hoax. Seen through a false perception of life." He inspected his glasses. Then he threw them on the bed. "Through glass. Unnatural. My whole life. My entire life seen through devils work. Who are we to decide what proper vision is? I have deceived myself. No longer shall I see through the lenses of the unnatural. I vow to seek my existence—my true fate—through the eyes my God has given me. I shall seek the sea with my own eyes."

Jon buttoned the top button on his shirt and he walked out the door—down the stairs—across the lot—down a wooded path—and to the sea.

CHAPTER 21

The sun's rays shined a bright haze over the beach. The sky faded with the sea on the horizon. And the sand meshed with the water where the waves broke. Jon looked down at his feet that seemed to float above the blurry sand. The world was natural. For the first time since Jon was six—the world was the way he was designed to see it. "The way it should be," he thought. "I knew we were closer to nature than we believed." He squinted at the portrait of the beach and he smiled. It was real.

He walked along the shore, listening to the gulls flying overhead, or so he believed. He had to trust his ears, for his eyes were blind to the birds high in the sky. Jon kicked shells at the waves, watching the cloudy image of the sea fold in on the land. For the first time, the image was not defined. It was distorted. Blurry. "The way it should be."

He stopped on the shore—the waves kissing his boots. He thought of where he blended in with the water. How he would return to the sea. He tried to envision himself above the break where the clouds would be—but he could not picture it on this cloudless day. "This place is not right," he thought. "I do not blend in with Her here. This is not right." Jon looked around. He watched a small group of sandpipers waddle past him, squeaking sharp chirps into the windless air. A wave moved in and the birds flew off over the water, disappearing quickly out of Jon's view.

Then he sat on the shore until the sun touched the sea and the entire world was a pink and lavender hue with a yellow blur fading under the horizon.

He still smelled the coffee from Elea tossing her mug-full in his face earlier. The sun soon gave way to the moon and a cool breeze brushed in over the waves—dancing with the sand—bringing Jon to his feet. He started back for the wooded path. The darkness enclosed deep within himself. The dim moonlight allowed him only to see the first few trees—thick outlines of trunks. Once he was well down the path, he could see the weaved web of browns and greens of the small forest until an orange glow beamed from out ahead. The light grew thicker and thicker in a distorted blurry glow until he reached the end of the path, stepping out onto the lighted parking lot. The wind stopped. The lights droned a heavy buzz cutting through the silence. Jon's vision of the hazy tint of orange made him see the buzzes in shifting lines—bouncing to the buzzing beat filling the air. It made him sick. The world shifted this way and that quickly, making him dizzy. His entire world was a blurry buzzing orange. He closed his eyes and he walked straight, or what he believed was straight—opening his eyes after several steps to readjust himself into lines. He began to gain confidence, walking longer before he opened his eyes. He felt he had controlled his environment with the sound of the lights. He trusted his senses. All until a sudden screech of tires filled the air, roaring above the buzzing lights.

A car—a blue car—was inches from his legs. The car quickly faded into the orange and he too faded back into the buzz. Jon's world was fading, weaving in on itself in his natural vision.

"Jon? What are you doing wandering about the parking lot?" The car's window rolled down and Elea peered out. "And where are your glasses?"

Jon walked over to Elea until he could see the brown in her eyes. "I wanted to go out. I wanted to go out and really see. With my own eyes. With the eyes my God intended me to see with."

Elea rolled the window up and she pulled the car into an opened space in the lot. The engine ceased and Elea stepped out. "Your glasses?"

"On the bed."

"Is Barry home from school?"

Jon tugged on his beard and he walked towards Elea. "I'm not sure. I've been out all day."

"By the water?"

"It is my home, El. Where else would I be?"

Elea leaned up against the car. She pulled a cigarette from her purse, flicking a light over the end.

"When did you pick that up?"

Elea's first drag was long and thick. "In high school. Just been off them for a few decades." She sipped on the stick and she looked at Jon dangling under the orange light. "I talked to Ethan today. He said it would be okay. And he said his friend's wife is realtor." She took another drag. "He said she can get us a real deal. Real quick."

"But I cannot leave the sea, Elea," he said. "I cannot."

"Listen to me, Jon. We are moving upstate. We can deal with us afterwards. Let's just move upstate until Barry gets settled into a good college and then we can patch things up or go our separate ways." She kissed the cigarette, sucking the smoke deep into her lungs. "Do this not for me. Not for you. But for Barry."

Jon remembered the words of Ms. Fitter on the phone earlier. Of Barry's sea stained jeans and his sandy shoes. Jon knew it was too late. He knew that he must return to the sea for Barry. For Barry was a Brand. The sea was the boy's home. All he had ever known. He might be forced into a college upstate, but he would soon return to the sea like his father—like a Brand.

Jon knew he, himself, would return before the autumn washed away all the leaves from the trees. Before Barry would be forced into college. "Okay, Elea."

Elea's eyes widened with surprise by the ease of her persuasion. "You mean you will come up north?"

Jon nodded.

"You'll do it for Barry?"

Jon nodded.

"You'll work on the farm? Ethan said you can."

Jon nodded.

Elea stepped out her cigarette and she fell into Jon's arms. "Thank you, Jon. Barry thanks you. He just can't say it now. But he will one day." Elea pushed herself off Jon in a rush, pressing the wrinkles in her clothes out with flat hands up against her body. She nodded at Jon. Then she walked towards the motel, fading into the blurry orange glow—shifting to the sound of heels pattering over the stairs—the door closing—and then Jon slipped back into the buzz of the orange lights overhead.

Jon felt himself fading into his environment. The orange rained on him and all the land around him. He was no longer defined and he flowed out onto the world. He had finally seen the truth. He was beginning to see the natural world through his natural vision. He was no longer blinded by the clear images painted by the glass in front of his eyes. The images he now saw were true. Real. He had returned to nature.

Jon walked to the stairs and he made for the motel room. But before he entered, with his hand on the doorknob, he looked over the edge, above the orange lot—above the buzz of the lights—out at the moon's reflective string of light across the sea. Jon rubbed his eyes. Then he looked out at all the blurred world before him. "And now I must return to sea."

CHAPTER 22

The sea's air rushed against the motel walls. The doorframe glowed with the morning sun. Bits of microwaved waffles and strawberry preservatives mixed with melted butter stuck in the corners of Jon's lips. His plate was but a smear of pinky puddles coagulating back into solid butter. His glasses thrown bottom up aside his coffee and plate—his eyes tracing the fuzz of gray columns, shadows of people and boldfaced headlines on the newspaper.

Elea watched the TV from her seat at the table.

"You can't see without your eyes on," Elea said. "You are blind without them." She reached over the table fighting his glasses back onto his face. "There," she said. "Now you can see just fine."

Jon pushed the paper to the table. Then he threw his glasses on top of the news. "I can see just fine." He feverishly scanned over the articles. Then he looked up at Elea. Her eyes sunk into black holes. Her tight red lips faded into her white cheeks. "I don't need these to see anymore." The sun behind the door rose up through the window, shining a halo glow around Elea. He smiled at the blindness of his wife's face. He thought how he liked the way she looked right now. "She is returning to the sun," he thought. He looked out the window. He could see the light green leaves of the oaks and the dark green needles of the pines blending with the bright yellow rays of the sun held in the white and blue sky. "All of us are returning," he thought. "All of us."

"What are you smiling about?"

"It just seems so natural," he said. "My natural vision. It makes sense. I see life. I see life returning to nature. Naturally." He reached out to touch Elea across the table. But he only waved at the air above the crumbs of waffles and the pinkish butter.

"Knock it off and put these back on." Elea got up from her seat. She placed his glasses over his nose. "You are going nuts, Jon. You are going absolutely nuts." She walked off to the bathroom, closing the door behind her. "Hurry up and clean up and get dressed, Jon," she called from the other room. "We need to leave in ten minutes or we'll be late."

Jon pulled his glasses to the top of his head. He studied the bathroom door. The wooden grains disappeared into a solid brown mass fading into the cream color of the walls. He dropped the glass back in front of his eyes and the door sprung into the rigidity of lines. He frowned. Then he gathered stray crumbs onto his paper plate and he tipped the garbage into the can as he moved to the window. The sun slowly crept up over the tree tops. He could just make out the reflective glow on the water through the trees in the distance. "Not close enough," he mumbled. "This motel. It is not close enough. Not like my house. Not like my Brand house. I cannot move to the mountains—upstate—away from all this. I cannot. And I will not." He could hear the roar of the ocean—the fizz of water crawling up over the sand. "If we go, I'll go but for a short while, and justly, a short while, when I return to the sea, Barry will not be far behind. For the seas will open up with fish and he will come back. He is a Brand. He will surely come back."

"Stop looking for the sea out there." Elea stood in the haze of the motel room. She pulled at her skirt on her thighs, wiggling the fabric down her legs.

"I'm not," he said, pretending to throw more trash into the can. "I was just throwing away my plate."

"I saw you looking out the window. Don't lie." She pulled on the downward curl of her lips and she walked out the front door. "Let's get a move on. We're going to be late."

Jon stood at the window for awhile longer. He watched the sun—now well above the trees—glare off the sides of his lenses. He heard Elea's heels clicking down the cement steps. Then he heard them pattering across the asphalt parking lot before he could hear the light roar of the four-cylinders turning over. Jon gulped down of remnants of coffee in his cup and he walked to the car.

Elea nodded as he entered. "Took you long enough." She shifted the clutch and the car jumped back and out of the lot.

Jon cranked his window down, smiling as the air rushed into his face.

"Roll that up," she said. "It'll mess my hair."

Jon looked over at Elea out of the corner of his glasses. Her hair drew dark outlines around her blurred face.

"Roll it up, Jon, or I'll pull over."

He closed his eyes. The wind smacked ripples into his whiskers.

"Come on, Jon," she said. "This ain't some joke." Elea reached over Jon for the crank on the door, but she could not reach it. "Roll it up, already." She sunk her hand into his burly face and the car fell off of the asphalt onto the sandy shoulder to a stop. "I'll just do it myself," she said, unbuckling her belt. She leaned over, pressing on Jon's legs, and she rolled the window up. "There," she said. "Was that so hard?" And she shifted the car back into gear—back onto the road.

They traveled listening to the soundtrack of the road. The rubbing of rubber over the pavement—the loud ka-lumps into potholes and the disjointed shifts in the road—all which seemed to resonate throughout the car, building a distance between the two. Jon sat pushed against the window. His glasses clicking against the glass with every misstep of the car's tires over the uneven road. He looked out of the corner of his eye so that he could see in his natural vision. He watched the roadside morph from trees to grass to trees to road and then to the shine of metal cars clustered on a blacktop lot. Then all his world stopped and Elea got out of the car.

"Okay Jon," she said. "You let me do all the talking. Don't you go on and open your big mouth about the sea and all. Keep it simple. Yes's and no's only. Nothing else. Nothing about the sea. You got that? No mention of the sea. And agree with whatever I say. Okay?"

Jon exited the car. He looked up at Elea through the lenses on his face. She looked beautiful. Professional. "Sure thing, Captain." He pulled his glasses up on his head, watching her blur into the early summer sky. Gulls flew high overhead, while crows flew low, landing on the tops of trees and on telephone wires. The sun encompassed the land and all those under it. Life right there seemed bright—filled with the melody of the sea. The rush of waves could be heard in the shallow distance. The sea always seemed to be just over the next hill or just beyond the next band of trees when you got this far out east. You could always hear it. Even when you could not hear it, you thought you did. The crows began to caw and the gulls began to cry and a rush of wind blew in over the land. The gulls landed on the lamps spread across the blacktop lot. The crows all jumped from the trees and the lines, blackening the bright sky. Jon shivered as he watched the sun reappear after the crows flew off over the treeline. His eyelids pierced tight. Then he turned into the school—into the haze of the artificial florescence shining down on the students, 'til the bell rang and the teens slipped behind doors. Jon and Elea stood in the middle of the hallway where papers passed by like tumbleweeds under the humming tubes of light.

"This way, Jon," Elea said.

Jon pushed his glasses onto his head. The hall blurred into a solid yellowish hue. The crème colored concrete walls shined a matte fluorescent glow radiating off the high-gloss yellow and white checkered linoleum floor, bouncing back off the walls in a loop of awkward artificiality until Jon dropped his glasses back in front of his eyes and the hallway jumped back into place.

"Stop fooling around. Her office is this way. I remember from the conferences last year." Jon stood motionless, letting the stillness of the high school descend upon him. "Hurry," she called. "Or we'll be late. You wouldn't want to be late. It's the whole reason why we are here. Because Barry is either late or doesn't show. Hurry," she called again. "We mustn't be late."

Elea took her steps into a double-time pace. Her heels clicking loudly. Her image reflecting loosely off of the high buffed floor.

Jon walked behind her—slowly. He watched her long legs wiggle on the linoleum squares. He pushed his glasses back on top of his head and he watched Elea drift into her reflected image on the floor floating up into the fluorescent lights overhead. He blinked and he dropped his glasses back over his eyes, hurrying to her side.

"You think he'll graduate?" Jon twisted on the stems of his glasses.

"Of course he will." He is practically a genius. How couldn't he?" Elea looked at Jon as if telling him not to contemplate her question. Not even to answer it. Just nod and smile. Which, of course, he did.

Jon looked through a small window on a door. He watched the teacher in her seat. Her students sat in their desks, all with their heads dangling over papers in their neat rows of five. Their arms all scribbling away. Jon pulled on his beard. He could remember sitting in those desks, back when he was Barry's age. Jon had dropped out, taking to the seas at sixteen. His father, his mentor, his teacher, taught him all the knowledge man needed to know. His old man taught him the way of the sea. The bare essentials of humanity learned on the waves. Where life is a sixteen foot island of planks atop a bottomless sea of death. Where camaraderie is the only necessary means of survival. "After high school, he'll go to the seas. He is a Brand," he thought, looking into the classroom. "He is made for the sea. And then he will learn. He is made from the sea. He is a Brand." Jon smiled and he walked right into Elea, who had stopped in front of a closed, windowless door. She pushed him off of her. Then she pulled on her skirt, evening out the hemline on the bottom.

"Now, remember what I said back at the motel." She pasted red lipstick across her lips fast, rubbing them together to smooth out the paint. "Let me lead," she said unblinkingly. "I'll do all the talking."

Jon nodded.

"And you do all the nodding and 'yesing'."

"Yes," Jon nodded.

"I'm serious. We need Barry to graduate. And we don't need you messing things up for him. All right?"

"But we don't need him to graduate. He's old enough to make his own decisions. We need Barry to find himself. Find the sea. His true calling."

"Knock it off with that," she said. "Leave all that sea nonsense outside this door. We do need him to graduate. For his own good. He can thank us later."

"No Brand has graduated yet," he said. "And we have all done just fine." He shoved his hands into his pockets, turning on Elea.

"Seriously, Jon. Knock it off. Drop the whole sea thing for just ten minutes. That's all I ask of you. Ten minutes. Until I smooth things over with Ms. Fitter. And then everything will be fine. You even listening to me?"

Jon nodded. He smiled and then he opened the door for Elea. "After you."

Elea plastered a faux smile on her face and she walked into Ms. Fitter's office.

"Good morning, Elea. And Jon." Ms. Fitter reached out, shaking their hands. She smiled, eyeing two chairs in front of her desk for the Brands to sit themselves into. The Principal unbuttoned her blazer. Then she sat behind a lightly stained oak desk messed with papers, fake apples and other teacherly paraphernalia. "Thank you ever so much for meeting today," Ms. Fitter said.

"Oh, it is no problem at all," Elea said. "Anything for our little Barry." She flashed her teeth and she giggled a sigh.

Jon nodded.

Ms. Fitter moved up to the edge of her chair. She leaned her elbows on top of a pile of papers, looking down to Elea. Then she looked over to Jon, whose eyes wandered about the room every which way except for into Ms. Fitter's own eyes. "You see, Ms. Brand, Barry has been missing quite a few classes over this last quarter." She opened a manila folder and she scanned over papers before looking back up at the Brands. "I know it isn't like Mr. V.P. at all. He's always been quite the shining star here at East Marion High. That is why I have cut him some slack. But now I'm beginning to think he has taken advantage of me."

"Oh, I so know what you mean, Carla," Elea said. "Can I call you Carla?"

Ms. Fitter nodded.

"Barry has been doing the same thing to me at home," Elea said. "Not listening or nothing."

"It seems to me this all started around the time of the fire." Carla Fitter opened a draw in her desk and she presented a pamphlet to Elea. "Here at East Marion High, we have an excellent staff of councilors who can recommend psychiatrists to discuss medications and treatment, you know?"

"Oh, yes. This sounds very good for Barry. You know, we want the very best for our son. And he has been off lately."

"He don't need no pills," Jon broke in.

"Well, pills are not always the answer. But we don't want to rule out what is best for your son." Carla sat back in her chair. She looked over at Elea, who was nudging Jon.

"What did we discuss before?" Elea's lips pressed tight. Her eyes honed in on Jon, then causally back to Ms. Carla Fitter. "We just want what is best for our son. We will discuss options with the doctors, of course."

"I don't want him to take no pills, damnit," Jon started. "He don't need them."

"We can discuss this later...," Elea began until Jon cut her off.

"He just needs the medicine of the open air. The sea in his face. The sun beating down on his back." Jon got up from his seat. He reached into Elea's purse, taking out the car keys. "Man ain't made to be cooped up inside all day. Man is made for the outdoors. And Brands are made for the sea. The open waters. The Atlantic." The sun shined in through the window, glowing onto Jon's face. "Ain't nothing wrong with my son. He is called by the sea. He is drawn to it. That's all. Ain't nothing wrong with him. It's this world. This manmade world. Everything is wrong with this damned world. And you," Jon pointed down at Elea. "And you, too," Jon pointed to Ms. Fitter. "Your school is no place for a Brand. He can get all his knowledge from the sea. The ocean." Jon flipped his chair over, crashing the wood against the oak desk. "You learn from the real—nature. Not from the lies in books flawed by man." Jon kicked the chair against the desk before bursting out of the office.

"You can only learn when there are no walls," he screamed, running down the hall crowded with Barry's peers. "I must make the sea right," he continued. "I must make the sea right again. For Him. For Him. For Barry. My penance. Things must be made right. Back to normalcy." He pushed his way through the confused crowd—sprawling out into the parking lot—into the blue sedan—onto the highway—west.

CHAPTER 23

The sea was miles behind him. The earth cut jaggedly high alongside the road. The tall land blasted away so that man could pass on by. Thickets of brush on the roadside accumulated into long brown and green masses catching the peripherals of Jon's onesightedness on the blacktop blinking with white strips. He drove slowly along the highway. His eyes drifted to the mountains often. The sun sat low in the sky. Then the light ducked behind a swaddling of gray clouds and all the land absorbed the darkling shadows of the twilight dusk. A foggy haze drifted in over the car, steaming up the windshield—moisture clinging in fine droplets to the seams of the glass. He drove for four hours—patient and calm. His eyes fixed on the mountains now. His swerved on the road, looking out to the land beside him until he caught 'Lambertville' glowing white on a green exit sign. He steered hard off the ramp. His hands clenching the wheel, slipping the car into a smooth turn. "Almost there," he whispered. "Almost."

The sun dipped well below the high mountains. The dark of night eased into the land. Jon stopped at a red stoplight and he looked in his rearview mirror. He stared at the tall peaks of mountains layered—standing tall beside one another. He removed his glasses and the mountains faded into a sea of dark green and black. And then he looked beyond the mirror—out in front of him at an intertwining of trees and brush climbing high to the heavens, above the break of the horizon—cutting off the horizon. "A wall of land is less peaceful than an endless sea. The land is too rigid. No peace," he thought. "No horizons. Just walls of land unable to see through to the other side." The light changed over to green and a chorus of horns beeped behind him. He slapped his glasses back over his eyes and he waved out the window to the dismay of his followers.

He continued down the road 'til he settled the blue sedan along the curb of a white vinyl sided, two story house enclosed in a white vinyl fence—like all the others surrounding it.

"And here I am," he said aloud. "Back in the world of mountains and plastic."

The house was dark except for one room to the right on the second story faced with two windows. The room was dimly lit through the cream colored curtains with the shadowy glow of a woman dancing from sill to sill 'til she stopped and she peered through the shades, down at the blue sedan. His gray eyes met the green in her own. Then she turned back into the shadow that then grew large against the curtains until she vanished, only to appear at the front door within seconds.

Jon exited the car and he made for the house. Her face was veiled by the canopy over the door. And when her face finally drew color, a smile lit by the moon, he held her tight to his body, kissing at her lips.

"You should have called," Lauren said. "I'm working on a big case. Day four in court." She backed off his body. She pulled at her dark blue silk pajamas clinging to her skin.

Jon tugged on his beard. He held a smile in her favor. "I don't mean to intrude." He drew his hands down to his sides. "But I just had to see you tonight."

They sat on a white leather couch in front of a large black television hanging like a picture on the wall—broadcasting the local news. The two sat, listening, sipping on the coffee she served with ice cubes. The only words spoken when she commented on the commercial advertisements streaming between the reports.

"It really looks as if that dog is talking," she said. "His lips move just like a real humans."

"Computers," he said. "These damned computers these days. They will make anything seem possible. Feeding us falsehoods of reality."

"Geez, Jon. Lighten up. Don't be so sour about it," she said, pulling off his arm. "It's cute."

He straightened up, trying to loosen his tight muscles, but he could not. His eyes stared at the flat television screen unblinkingly as he looked introspectively into himself and into the sea. He saw himself alone—lost in the depths of a forest where tall ceilings of green leaves and brown walls of bark held him captive. His mouth was dry. He quenched for water while in a sea of land. His body longed for the ocean—the savory blood of his Christ—to feed his liquid body—to quench his buoyant soul. Jon blinked and he faded back into the white couch. His muscles were now loose. His body hung to the backing of the white leather.

"It's quite hot for June," she said. "It usually doesn't get this hot at night 'til August. Late August at that." She pulled at her pajamas uncomfortably. "I'll be back. I'm going to slip into something more comfortable." She got up, walked down the hall and into a room with the click of a door closing behind her.

Jon nodded and he faded back into himself. He thought of how he was going to soon have sex with Lauren and then leave. He thought of driving to the sea. To the edge of New Jersey. To bury himself under the sand as a rising tide rode in over him. He felt it was tonight. "St. Jean Basptiste Day is celebrated all around the world tonight," he thought. "And it is tonight, I, Jon, son of the Lord, and the ever-fruitful sea, shall celebrate His gift of life and baptize myself. Breathe life back into the sea. Give life to my son." His eyes rolled over in bright lights of rapture behind the veil of his imaginings of his soul lifting his liquid body. He felt light. His mind filled with translucent thoughts of ecstasy and self-worth. But he soon blinked himself out of his thoughts, focusing in on the sports report on the television. Men dribbled basketballs and shoved them down into nets. Jon flexed his fingers, but he could not feel them. His body still felt light. He felt he was not in control of the commands in his brain. His fingers and toes twitched. He felt he was a mere observer of his own life. A simple viewer of a life he could have never seen coming.

"More coffee," she interjected into his thoughts from the next room over. There was a silence and then a grunt of approval from Jon. "You like it with the ice or do you want it hot?"

"Hot."

"I should have known you didn't like the new invention of iced coffee." The creak of the microwave door opened and then slammed closed—buzzing throughout the house until it beeped. Then the door opened—closed—and Lauren returned to the living room with his hot coffee cupped between her hands. "You being so particular," she said. "I should have known to serve it to you hot to begin with."

"No worries," he said. "I like it cold or hot all the same. I just happen to prefer it hot." He smiled, sipping slowly on the artificially warmed brew. The coffee made his heart race and he unzipped his jacket and he unbuttoned the top two buttons on his shirt.

"Coffee little too warm?"

"No," he said, blowing ripples into the brown liquid. "It's just right."

They sat silently for a few moments as Jon drank at the cup never leaving his hands 'til he placed it empty on the table.

"You know African elephants?" he said, interrupting the silence.

"Yea, of course I know elephants," she said.

"No. African elephants. And not desert ones. But the ones that live in the jungle. African jungle elephants. You know of those elephants?"

"Sure. I know about them."

He sat back into the couch. Then he hurled himself forward to the edge of the cushion, looking into her green eyes. "They have developed a network of highways in the jungles in Africa. They are the world's largest land species and probably the most sophisticated."

"And what are we?"

"Listen." Hear me out." He waited until he knew she would no longer disrupt him. And then he continued. "Well, they converse on a lower decidable of sound than what humans can interpret. The low tonality of elephant speech can travel for a few miles through the thickets of forest in the jungle. To warn each other of danger. To warn each other of humans."

"And that makes them smarter than us?"

He folded his glasses into his hand and he stared into her distorted image. Then he looked over at the light raining from television. "They never disobeyed nature. They have learned to survive with humans. Even adapting a language blind to our ears so they can still communicate without the interruption of savage humans exploiting them—killing them to make piano keys. They never exploited humans."

"What are you talking about?" Lauren eyed Jon who pulled at his beard, still staring blankly into the television. She moved in close to him, smoothing out his shoulders. "Relax, Jon. Just relax." She unbuttoned the rest of the buttons on his shirt and she slid her hand through the hairy flesh of his chest. "Relax and stop being so crazy. I missed you too, but no need to get crazy about it."

Jon placed his glasses on the table. He looked into a blur of green that he knew were Lauren's eyes. They were greener than he had ever seen—shining bright in the dull of her shadowy face. Jon's world grew small as his background closed in on him in the blurry darkness of night. The whole world to him was Lauren's body in which he saw with his hands. Her neck was smooth. He reached down and he felt her warm chest—her ripe dimples at their rounded peaks. He felt the rush of a wave brush up against him. The grains of the ocean floor on his feet. Her body floated against his. They became liquid. They became one. He felt suspended in the ocean—then above the sea—then back on the white couch—naked—alone—staring at the television streaming the news.

"Did you want to stay over?" Lauren entered in through the kitchen—back in her pajamas. She sat beside Jon. She threw a white robe over his body. She pulled at her dark blue silk pajamas, showing the finest of details of her slim curves.

"No. I cannot." Jon threw the robe to the floor. He jumped into his pants and he quickly buttoned up his shirt and he zipped up his jacket. "I must leave."

"But you just got here."

"I should not have come. I should have called first. I should not have come." Jon kissed the side of her cheek. He smiled. Then he walked to the door.

"But it is so late, Jon. You mustn't drive home now. The highway, Jon," she said. "Only the crazies are on the highway now. Sleep over and leave in the morning."

Jon rested his hand on the doorknob, looking back at Lauren who waited, leaning up over the back of the white couch. "Tonight was good," he said. "In its instance. It was pure and real and good." He looked past Lauren—at the television screen behind her—the bright pixilated colors of light flashing across the screen. Then he looked back into her green eyes. "Goodbye and goodnight."

Jon walked out to the car. He turned the ignition over and he drove away from the white plastic house. He knew it grew smaller in the rearview mirror, but he did not glance over at it. He kept his eyes on the road and he seldom looked up at the dark sky where he could make out the gray clouds glowing from unsheathing a full moon.

He drove back onto the highway. At the tallest peak of the road he could see the moon's shine on the sea out over the horizon. The car then descended down the hill and a mountain peak in front of him cut off the horizon—cutting off his view of the sea. "Not tonight," he thought. "Not tonight. It is not right. Close. But not right. Not here. Not away from my home. Not here." He kept his eyes open to the road but he could see images of his future blur before him. He slipped through the darkness of the night. He thought briefly of the hell he would catch from Elea for leaving her at the meeting. His mind then floated to how he must save Barry. Then he was back on the sea. Back to saving Barry. Back to saving the sea.

The car bounced over the breaks in the concrete road 'til he parked the sedan outside the motel aside an array of cars in the orange lot. He listened to the sea lightly groan in the distance. He thought back to the language of elephants. "The sea," he thought. "It speaks, but only in tonalities lower than I can perceive. I know it speaks to me. I feel it moving me. But I cannot hear it fully." He stood outside the car with his arms loose at his sides. His body silently still as he listened for the sounds he believed were in the sea's mist. But all he could hear was the buzzing lights that illuminated the lot. "I know the voice is here," he thought. "I know you speak to me, my God. My sea. I am yours." He paused, opening his eyes and he was in front of the sea—ankles deep in the sea. He looked out at the waves tumbling over his feet. He bent over, sinking his hands into the wet sand. He closed his eyes again. "Lord," he said. "'I am not ready to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed'."

He cupped the wet sand in his hands, pouring it over his head. Then he pushed the grains up into his beard. Jon opened his eyes. He fell to the shore, sprawling out atop a cool bed of rocks. The cold stones chilled his body against the warm air blowing in off the summer sea. He watched the waves curling under as if he had never seen them crash before. Then he sat back on the cool rocks, closed his eyes, watching the waves crash behind his lids.

CHAPTER 24

The sun rose up over the horizon—up over Jon, asleep on the shore. His face flat to the sand. When he finally got to his feet, grains fell from his whiskers. A group of gulls whose cries drenched the air flew off the shore into the backlight of the sunrise. He watched the white birds 'til they turned to yellow. Then he cupped his hands in the receding tide, splashing the cool water over his face. His glasses dripping with sea. His beard matted with the sand and the water and the salt. He lifted himself up, brushing the sand from his clothing and skin. Then he kissed his left hand, patting a small pool of ocean with the tips of his fingers. "I'll be back," he said softly. "I shall return soon." He kicked the sand, walking away from the ocean, away from the rising sun, and through the wooded path back to the motel.

He walked to the beat of the waves behind him. His feet sloshed around in his soggy socks. When he made it to the lot, he looked up at the motel sign. He paused. Memory Motel was written in tubes of light fixed to a rusted blue and yellow steel sign. The sun shined on the sign, illuminating the gaseous tubes to a neon glow. Jon chuckled briefly, nodding at the sign before walking through the lot to his car.

The trunk was open. Black garbage bags lay lumpy on the spare tire and on the right side of the back seat. Jon pushed down on the trunk, slamming it shut. "Elea must be doing laundry," he thought. "She must've left it open." He traced the contours of the car, streaking his forefinger across the edges of the glass windows. Then he sat on the hood and he looked out at the sun slowly creeping up into the midday sky. He closed his eyes, watching the sun shine through his eyelids. He listened to the sea growl up over the treetops. "It must be rising," he said aloud. "The tide must be rising."

"The sea this," Elea called out. "The sea that. That is all it ever is with you." She walked down the stairs with two more garbage bags dangling from the grip of her fingers. "Must you always start with the damned sea? Let it be." She threw the bags at Jon who was leaning back, eyes closed, and smiling—'til the bags hit him. Then he tumbled off the hood to the asphalt, cutting the side of his face on the car. He could feel the warmth of blood trickling down the side of his face. But he did not bother to wipe it. Rather, he let the red sink into his beard.

Elea stood over Jon. His eyes blinded from the sun behind her, but he could see the shadow of his wife looming over him. Her black hair hung over her face. The whites in her eyes glowed like the sun haloing around her head. "Besides, Jon," she said. "We are moving today. Ethan said the carriage house is ready."

"Upstate?" he said. "Already? I thought we would wait until Barry graduated high school."

Elea shifted her weight and the sun shined into Jon's eyes. "Ethan talked to the principal over at Middletown High. Told him about our circumstance and he agreed to let Barry finished out the year up there." Elea smiled, licking the fronts of her teeth. "Barring he successfully passes the finals. And we all know schools downstate are much more advanced than the ones upstate. Barry'll pass with flying colors. He'll be fine."

"And what if he doesn't pass?"

"There are no what ifs," she said. "He will pass. I am sure of it."

Jon pulled at his beard. He could feel the warm blood caked to his cheeks. He pulled himself back up onto the car, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets. "I'm just saying." He paused, watching the sun high above the clouds in the sky. "I'm just saying, what if he doesn't settle in right? I feel it would be better if Barry finished school down here. I mean, it's only three more weeks and then he'll be done. And then we can be done. We can move upstate, then. Makes no sense in rushing this sort of thing."

"No, Jon. I've decided it's best we go now. God knows Barry needs the change now. Bless him if he'd pass on his own now. He just needs a little push. And the move up north will be just the push he needs." She watched Jon motionlessly gaze at the bright sun. "He mustn't be lost in the sea," she said. "Like someone I know. He could use a little fresh mountain air. We all could."

Jon looked away from the sun, down into Elea's eyes—the brown shining a blinding orange from his stare at the sun. "The sea is in his body," he said. "It is in his soul. It is in you, too, Elea. Don't deny."

"What are you talking about? The sea. The water. The ocean. It is out there. It is not in me." She pointed to herself, banging her chest with her fists. Then she pointed out to the sea towards the opening in the trees—the wooded pathway to the ocean. "The sea is out there." She looked over at Jon, then she glanced back to the pathway where the sun fell on the shadow of a figure. The person held his head down, staring at his feet. The hair on his head caught the light breeze, twisting his black curls up into the air. His blue jeans were soaked with sea—stuck with sand. He held several books in the clutches under his arm. Then he looked up, meeting eyes with his mother—then into the gray eyes of his father.

"Barry," Elea cried. "Where were you?"

"To sea," Jon mumbled.

"I went for a walk," Barry said.

"To sea," Jon mumbled, again.

"Shut up, you. Let him speak for himself for once."

"I went to watch the waves come in for a while." Barry was now beside his parents. At the blue sedan in the washed out parking lot.

"Okay. We got to get a move on." Elea picked up the two bags. She shoved them into the back seat of the car. "Barry," she said. "You are going to finish off the year upstate. At Uncle Ethan's. In Middletown. Upstate."

"But there are only three weeks left here. Why will I finished up there when I'm almost done down here." He then grumbled and grunted, unable to form words from his frustrations. "But I don't want to move," he finally said. "My home is here. My home is near the sea. I'll miss the hiss of the waves. The cool water batting against my ankles." His face grew red. His eyes wandered up at the sky. "I don't want to live up in the mountains. My home is the sea."

"You'll live up there and you'll like it." Elea looked down at Jon. She silenced him with her eyes. He looked away from her fast—up to the clouds dancing around the bright sun. "It'll be over before you know it. The principal up there said you can attend due to our special circumstance with the house and the fire and all. And then you'll start college fresh. Three Community Colleges within a half-hour drive. You'll forget all about high school. You'll forget all about the sea. It is for your own good, Barry."

"Pa, you going to let her do this?" Barry said. "You just going to let her move us upstate? Us Brands? Aren't we of the sea? Tell her, Pa. Tell her."

Jon sat up against the car. He did not move or motion the acknowledgement of his son's protest. Jon kept his head to the sky, watching a set of gulls fly in over the treeline, settling atop the rusted blue and yellow Memory Motel.

"You listening to me? Pa? You there?" Barry hit Jon's shoulders with heavy fists 'til Jon looked into Barry's blue eyes. "I know you hear me. Listen. Don't let her do this."

Jon blinked slowly. He grinned with lips tightly pressed that soon fell into a solemn frown.

"Okay boys," Elea said. "Get in. We're moving out." Elea sat herself in the driver's seat and she turned the key over. The engine hummed loud under the cloudless summer sky—over the cry of the gulls suspended on the sign.

"I won't go," Barry huffed. "I won't leave the sea. It is as much a part of me as it is either of you two. And I mustn't leave it behind."

Jon opened the passenger side door and he sat himself next to Elea. He looked out at Barry who stood helplessly in the cracked, washed out parking lot. The sun's shine shimmered the greasy sea in his hair. His blue eyes welled with tears. His voice coarse and heavy. "But I don't want to. I promise to be of no more trouble. I'll go to college, no problem. We don't have to move upstate, though. I'll go to college, just let's stay here. Let's stay in East Marion."

Jon nodded at Barry with a stern grin. The man blinked his eyes slow as if telling his son everything would be all right. That Jon would watch over him. That Barry must trust his old man.

The boy nodded. He stopped fussing—closing the passenger side door for his father. Then Barry sat himself behind Jon.

"Uncle Ethan had the guest house all cleaned out last week so we can just move on in 'til we go and find a place of our own." Elea shifted the sedan into drive, sliding the car out of the lot.

Jon watched the neon sign grow small in the sideview mirror until the Memory Motel faded behind the pines along the roadway and into the past.

"We'll all just love it up there. The cool, fresh mountain air. The green of the trees. The lush grass of the valleys hidden in the dense forests. A sea of wood and leaves. Something new, but something precious and grand. You two will just love it," she said. "You'll just have to adapt. That's all." Elea smiled, pressing hard on the gas pedal—the packed out blue sedan bouncing heavy from concrete slab to concrete slab along the old highway.

CHAPTER 25

Jon stood in front of the bedroom window, looking out to a sea of wheat. He watched the sun rise behind an old wooden post and rail with a rooster atop who called to his hens in the coop not far off down the vale. Jon watched the trees on the mountainside shine bright greens off the red sun cresting up over the valley—where cows stood in groups of threes or fours or fives, near the trees and near the post and rail.

Jon turned to the bed—to Elea. He watched his wife still sleeping under a large comforter embroidered with tractors and scarecrows and roosters and cows. Her face smiled even though her lips were not perched. There was a certain subtleness to her. How she slept. Where she seemed weightless and at ease.

The rooster's caw echoed loudly into the carriage house. The screech descending upon Elea. Her eyes opened, and then they closed and she tossed over to the other side of the bed.

Jon turned back to the window, pulling his glasses down to the tip of his nose, watching the sun grow taller than the rooster on the rail. "Today I fish the land," he thought. "Today I reel in the wheat." He shifted the robe on his body. Then he pulled on his beard and he pushed his glasses up high on his nose, walking to the bathroom.

The window was open. He scanned over several pines lining the edge of the woods, fragrancing the house. He tilted his back and he watched the pines dance in the morning breeze. And as he began to urinate into the toilet, he could hear the sound of waves crashing in on the shore. He looked back out the window and he could see the rush of the sea—the uproar of waves—the angst of the ocean. But when he finished urinating, the sound of water ceased, the blue sea faded back to the green needles pecking on the windowsill. "I am gone," he thought. "I am nothing on land. I do not belong here."

"Jon," Elea called. "You in there? It's just beautiful out. Jon? You in there?"

Jon shook the last drips of urine out of himself and he flushed the toilet. "Yea, El," he called. "I'm in here." He opened the door.

His wife slipped into her morning coat as she gazed into the television at the foot of the bed.

"You hear that?" she smiled, muting the television. "You just hear that?" She perched her ear to the opened window. The rooster cawed on cue. "You hear it?"

Jon fought his frown, lifting the left side of his lip in a half smile. "Yea," he said. "It's just great." He looked up at Elea, who, for the first time in years, was smiling. Truly smiling. She looked like the woman he married twenty-five years back. She looked like the free spirit—the young lover who never knew when to go home—the little girl who would kiss at his lips with great urgency. He had not seen her smile. He had not seen her eyes smile. He had not seen his wife in such a state of love in some time. His lips loosened and a smooth grin shaped around his thick beard.

"Pancakes and eggs?" She ran her fingers through the curls in his beard, bringing his face to her own, kissing him. "Some bacon, too?" She was reborn. The mountain air took a hold over her. She had achieved what she had wanted. Her soul had been lifted. All of her misery was left on the Island.

"Pancakes and eggs and bacon," he said, smiling. "Sounds grand." He let his wife go from his arms and she walked down the stairs.

He went back to the window. He watched the sun rise up over the land. The tree branches waved in a unified motion. The leaves turned and twisted this way and then that—shifting from silver to green in a wave cascading from tree to tree along the mountainside before crashing into the shores of golden wheat in the valley. The sea was everywhere it was not. The ocean could not escape him. The sea was in his soul. The salty water ran through his veins. The sea took control over him. He could not settle for the land. He knew he would return to the sea.

"Ready," Elea called from the downstairs kitchen. "Come and get at it boys. Breakfast's ready."

"She's absolutely insane." Jon turned from the window and he walked down the stairs. "But she is certainly happy." He shrugged his shoulders, turning his head back to the window—watching the sun dipping out of view as he descended down the steps.

"Morning, Bar." Jon slapped his hand heavy on Barry's back, causing him to mess eggs into his cheek.

"Thanks, Pa." Barry wiped the breakfast from his face, continuing to fork at his food.

"Double serving. Eat up, Hon." Elea dropped a steaming plate in front of Jon. "You got a big day of work on the farm ahead of you." She smiled and she returned to the range. She nibbled at a plate of her own as she stood frozen-eyed in front of the TV hanging under the cabinets.

Barry scarfed down the last bits of bacon followed by three small white pills before heading for the front door. "Well, I'm off," he said smiling widely. "First day in the new school." He waved his hands along the thighs of his jeans. Then he nuzzled his hands into his front pockets.

"Good luck, son," Elea said, giving Barry a hug as she placed a brown bag of lunch in his arms.

"Go get 'em." Jon said. His eyes wandered around his plate. His fork scrapped at the porcelain. "Good luck."

Barry walked out the door. Elea smiled at her son, no longer possessed by the sea, and safe in the bosom of the mountains. "He'll do just fine," she whispered loudly. "I know it. He'll do just fine."

"It's only three weeks. He better do fine." Jon piled the last of the eggs on his fork and he swallowed.

Elea frowned at Jon. Then she turned her lips upwards into a tight smile. "Okay mister," she said. "Time to get ready for a day's full of work." And with that being said, a knock sounded at the carriage door as it opened.

"Good morning, folks." A tall, plump man worked his way through the large door, bowing his head towards the Brands. "Ready there ol' bro-in-law?" Ethan said with a tight laugh that bounced his large stomach loosely. "We got machines to be tendin' to. They don't gone go and run themselves, yanno." He tilted his head towards the carriage door and he walked out. "We work sunrise to sunset out here on this farm. I don't know what you're used to out on them boats. But this here farm work is a day and a half full."

Jon got up from his seat, heading out on after Ethan. Jon nodded goodbye to Elea, who did not see his gesture, as her eyes flashed from her notebook to the television screen.

Jon caught up to Ethan, now walking along the farmer's side. "Farming the sea is work in your sleep," Jon said. "You ain't never off the clock. When the fish call, you clock in. When they ain't calling, you are preparing for when they do." Jon watched the sun scorch over the wheat fields out to the horizon on one side and to a wall of green mountains on the other. "Yep. You're never not working when you're out on the sea."

The two men walked to one of two large green machines massing larger than any vessel Jon had ever taken out to sea. "This here the cultivator combine," Ethan said. "This baby right here is my sickle."

Jon pulled his beard and he chuckled lightly. "You mean you don't use horses? You don't use your hands? You just use this big ol' machine to do all the work?"

"Well, it's hard work getting it goin' all proper." Ethan rested his hands on top of his high stomach. "And plus, it's hot out today. And then other days, it be cold." Ethan climbed up on the ribbed steps leading him to the combine's cockpit. "This here is man's work. Don't let it kid ya, sea-man. This here land is just as hard to fish."

"But the product is right there. And you are casting out with a twenty ton machine." Jon boarded the combine, sitting himself next to Ethan. "Where is the skill in cultivation?"

Ethan frowned. Then he started up the machine. Several red-winged black birds scattered from the field. "The skill is in havin' a good crop." Ethan dug his hands into a bag of sunflower seeds, shoving a good amount into his mouth. "The skill is in addin' just 'nuff fertilizer to yield gains. The skill is cultivatin' a product that will sell on today's market and still make yaself a profit."

"But the wheat is right there. We are fishing for what is right in front of our faces."

"But we are fishing into what I like to think is a good year." Ethan pulled some levers forward, then a couple back, and the machine began to move out towards the uncultivated wheat. "Just enough rain. Just enough sun. And just enough time to get the harvest in." Ethan smiled, handing the bag of seeds over to Jon. "And now we just got to fish it out and bail it up and take it to market." Ethan chomped on some more seeds, smiling a seedy black smile at Jon. "And there is a lot of skill in that. There is a lot of skill in faith. There is a lot of skill in His power to nurture the soil for us."

Jon shoved a fistful of seeds into his mouth. He cracked one shell at a time between his front teeth. "Faith is a funny thing, Ethan," Jon said between cracking seeds. "It is something you visit every Sunday. Maybe even a prayer a night. Or perhaps a look to the heavens when you feel blessed or damned." Jon looked over at Ethan who began to work at the combine, cultivating the harvest with the loud green machine. "And then when you need it most, like a rush of water over you, it consumes you whole. You don't know what it is or how it happened, but you know He is sitting with you. You know He is one with you. You know He is infused with your soul and every action you make is in accordance with Him." Jon spat out a wad of waterlogged seeds into the freshly cut wheat. "And then you return to your maker. You return to the sea. You fulfill your duties and you let your name live on." Jon patted Ethan on his back. Then the fisherman jumped from the combine, tumbling into the moist dirt.

The machine seized and Ethan climbed down the combine. He pulled Jon up from the muddy field. "Look here, fella," Ethan said. "You can't just go on jumpin' off this here machine. You've could've gotten yourself run over. Or worse—cultivated." Ethan eyed Jon stiffly. Then the farmer loosened his stare and he wiped the mud from Jon's clothes. "You just need to relax more. You got yourself a job now. Elea told me how rough it was. The famine of fish. Too much damned pollution in them damned waters. You know with the global warmin', they sayin' we farmer's gunna lose the rain. I guess I'll be climbin' in the same boat as you pretty soon. Rain totals been droppin' off the charts. But not this year. So go figure. Let's just hope those liberal hippies are full of it and ain't no global warmin' gone go affectin' us, now." Ethan patted his front pants pockets. His eyebrows rose up. "Got me some smokes," he said. "Want a drag?"

Jon nodded. Ethan began to walk out to a large sycamore where two cows huddled under the shade of the leaves in the corner of the field. "Can't smoke 'round all the money, though. Liable to blow the whole shit up with one puff of the thing." Ethan laughed. He dragged a match across the book, catching the edge of the cigarette on fire. "Tobacco'll kill ya," he moaned. "But it'll sure put ya at ease." Ethan smiled, tapping a cigarette from the carton into Jon's fingers.

"No thanks," Jon said. "I don't smoke."

"Ah, phooey. Just take a couple a drags then call it quits. Just somethin' to sip on while conversatin'." Ethan gripped his cigarette, shielding the embered end with the palm of his hand, lighting Jon's cigarette with one pull.

Jon took short shallow drags. But he mostly left the butt at his side. "It hurts my throat," he said, coughing. "I can never hold it down."

Ethan laughed. Then he took a deep, long puff. "Sorry for snappin' on ya earlier," he said with smoke billowing from his mouth with every word. "Just my passion lies in this here soil. My entire life. My soul. My love for my family." He patted Jon on his back and the farmer looked out at the harvested wheat field before them. "This here field provides shelter for my family. Supports the house of God in this community. And I am blessed for it. Not one day goes by where I don't thank Him for it. Not one day." Ethan paused on his words, staring out at the golden glow of his life under the sun high above the land.

"I used to be God out there," Jon said. "I used to play God, at least."

Ethan looked away from the field, into Jon's gray eyes.

Jon folded his glasses into his hand, watching the sun's rays quiver in the clear blue sky. "The sea was mine. I would grab all that I could. One time on a run to Canada for fresh tuna, my mate spotted a buck swimming across the inlet on Sandy Hook. So we rode up alongside him and I stuck it with the gaff. We threw it in the ice box. Sold half of it at port to a restaurant and we ate the rest over two nights." Jon's eyes waved with the sun's rays in a blur about the vast sky. The bright sun turned to cosmic reds and oranges and yellows, morphing into blues and violets. "The sea meant everything to me. I wanted to conquer it. And now I realize you cannot conquer something like the sea. You must let it consume you. You let yourself become the enemy. You become the sea." Jon stared out at the mountainside folding into the sky.

"You all right, brother?" Ethan nudged Jon's shoulder. "You okay?"

Jon placed his glasses back on. He blinked out the spots of color and the land fell out of the sky. "I'm fine," he said. "I just miss it. That's all."

"Well, at least you still gotcha wife and kid. God bless Him for that." Ethan smiled.

"God fuck Him." Jon bit his tongue. He flicked the butt to the ground, kicking at the grass. "Elea's been seeing another man for years. I followed her one day two years back. Five years, I figure. But it could be more. It could be less."

"Ah, shucks, Jonny. I'm sure you got it all wrong."

"No. I don't. I've followed her to the motel three times. And all three times she committed the sin of sins. And on top of that, she laid down with him in the motel we stayed at after the fire. For weeks I could smell his smell on her neck. I could smell his sweat. I could feel his body in the room. And she would go on. Cooking breakfast, smiling. Kissing our beloved son before he went on his merry little way to school. As if she did nothing wrong at all. As if it all was all right. All okay." Jon bent over. He picked a blade of grass and he chewed on the end. "And now we are here. And now I am here. To fish the land. To live in haste. To question my Lord. To dream of the day when I shall return to sea."

Ethan tossed his cigarette to the ground. Then he went to Jon's side. "I best be gettin' back to the combine. She's-a callin' my name." Ethan rubbed Jon's shoulders. The farmer looked out at the large green machine propped up on its thick black wheels. Tall grains of wheat stood before it—ready to be harvested—ready for market. Ethan's eyes lit up. His life set before him in full bloom. And he loved it. And the land loved him. He had found his inner peace with life and the land and his creator.

"Why don't ya take the day off and make things right with the ol' lady." Ethan winked at Jon, walking back to the machine. Jon watched the man grow smaller in time. Then the farmer shifted the combine into gear and he cultivated the heart of the land.

Jon sat under the sycamore, shaded by the hands of branches—the fingers of leaves—and the fisherman watched the sun's rays hug all the earth and all those on it.

CHAPTER 26

The rooster crowed at the first glimmers of sun shedding through light lacey clouds. Jon slowly opened his eyes, adjusting to the brightness of the luminosity. The bed was emptied beside him. It had been when he woke up for over a month now. Things seemed to be fitting into place. As if they had lived in the carriage house all their lives. Jon began to believe that Elea had forgotten all about East Marion—and the sea that once sang outside their window—the ocean that roared day in and day out. She had grown accustomed to the role of the housemother up north in the cozy carriage house just behind her elder brother's oversized mountainside cottage. She would wake before dawn each morning and she would have breakfast waiting for her two men when they awoke themselves, or with help from the rooster out on the post and rail.

Jon kicked the blankets off of himself. He got up and he stood in front of the large window. He watched the rooster throw his head back, cawing up at the rising sun just beyond the valley of wheat. "He knows what he wants," Jon said softly. "He calls on the day and then he heads to the coop. His whole life means something. And then for us—for humans—for man—we need self-significance. When all we too are designed for is procreation." Jon's voice began to increase in volume. "To re-inhabit this earth. To keep our species fit. Yet, we try and create for the good of all mankind. When in truth, we fail, and all we do is create the foreign—the pollution—the manmade. We've lost sense of our true significance. It is in that very loss of ideology—the lost knowledge, or the repressed thought of our true significance—that will cause our demise. But not I."

The rooster jumped from the rail, and he waddled to the coop.

Jon pulled on his beard and he licked his dry lips. "I will live my life for my son. I will live the life destined for me. For him. I will live my life to procreate and to make this earth habitable for my namesake. For my offspring." He blinked his eyes with long, drawn out pauses. Wrinkles swelled in over his eyelids. Then he walked down the stairs to the kitchen.

The room was a perfect white. Outfitted with splattered patterns of dairy cows on the walls and tractor décor picked out by Eleanor, Ethan's wife. Elea would have painted the room a matte, flat yellow with accented oranges. But this was not her house. Not yet. But she still smiled when she poured the pancake batter into perfect circles on the frying pan next to sizzling bacon, filling the room with the lush smell of grease as Jon walked down the stairs. He floated on the buzz of the voices blaring from the television and the fizz of breakfast. Barry sat with his back to the stairs. He wore a hood over his head and headphones over his ears. He held a fork in his hand, scraping the last of viscous pancakes he piled up into his mouth. His eyes moved with Jon 'til his father sat beside him at the table.

Elea placed a plate in front of Jon. "Beautiful morning," she said. "A good day to cultivate. A good day to sip some lemonade on the porch." Elea smiled at Jon and then at Barry before tending to the newly poured batch of pancakes while she watched the television.

Barry peeled the hood off his head and he ran his hands over his freshly shaved cranium. Then he took the headphones off. He wobbled his head a bit from side to side, testing the gravity of a lockless head of hair. "You like it?" he said to his father. "It's just too damn hot up here. No breeze."

Jon leaned over. He ran his hand over the top of Barry's head. "It's smooth," Jon said. "Must feel good in the sun."

"I put sunscreen on it. I'm afraid it might burn."

"Nah. Just wear a cap from time to time."

"I'd rather the sunscreen."

Jon reached in, taking another swipe over his son's head before the man started eating his breakfast. Barry walked his plate over to the sink. Then he returned to his father's side.

"You know," Barry said. "I miss the sea. The forests here aren't really forests. They eventually end. They eventually go into someone's backyard—someone's claimed land. The sea," he said. "The sea—it never ends." Barry ran his hands over his head. Faint bass lines pulsed from the headphones on the table. Elea flipped the pancakes and the bacon, mesmerized by the television.

"I miss it too, Bar," Jon said. The sea flooded his mind with a rush of thoughts and memories. The time he wrestled a bluefish and it bit off his right pinky. The time Ralphie died in his sleep and Jon had to ice old Ralph to keep him persevered 'til they made port two days later. And the time Jon noticed the fish were leaving—standing on the dock in Newfoundland with no tuna to call to port for the fourth time in a month. The beginning of famine. The abrupt end of greed. Jon had a million thoughts and no words. He looked out the window over the sink where he could see the lush green of oaks and of sycamores swimming in the wind. "I miss it too."

Barry picked up his headphones, draping them around his neck. Then the boy leaned into his father, hugging him briefly. "I'll talk to you later," Barry said. "Last week of this summer school gym class. Then it's official. I graduate." Barry smiled, rubbing his smooth scalp. "And then off to Community College." His smile stiffened. His lips evened out. "I plan on going back, you know. I can't live without it forever, that's for sure."

Jon smiled, pulling at his beard. "Me too, son. It will come back to life soon enough. And we shall both return to what us Brands are destined for." Jon winked, patting Barry on the shoulder before swiping over the stubbles of hair on the boy's head. "We'll most certainly return."

Barry lifted the headphones onto his ears and he kissed his mother goodbye.

"Here's your lunch, Bar." Barry turned his back to his mother. Elea opened Barry's knapsack, dropping in a brown bag of lunch.

"Thanks, Mom," Barry said loudly over his headphones.

Elea nodded. Then she lifted the black pads from his ears. "And don't forget to take your pills at noon," she said. "It'll throw it all off even if you miss it just once."

Barry grinned sorely. She returned the phones to his ears and he walked out the door.

"Bar—," Jon shouted. "Barry." Jon ran to the door, swinging it open. Barry was a hundred yards from the house down the road. "Barry," he shouted, again.

Barry lifted one of the pads off his ear, turning to Jon. "You say something?" he yelled.

Jon nodded.

Barry laid his headphones lax around his neck, but he did not turn his body.

"Remember one thing, Barry," Jon walked towards his son. The boy stood stilled with a long black shadow trailing behind him over the road. "Remember that the sea is a living thing. A breathing, living thing that is wiser than you or I. And it will swallow you up even if you are deep inland. The sea is a powerful thing, Bar. Someday you will see this. And you will realize that you are replaceable, but the sea—the sea, Bar, is forever." Jon now stood at his son's side. Jon laid his hand on Barry's shaved head, tracing his son's jaw line 'til the man's hand rested on the boy's chin. "I love you and I will take care of you. No matter the cost." Jon leaned in and he kissed Barry's left cheek. And then Jon kissed his son's right cheek. "I love you, Barry."

Barry's muscles froze. Then he jumped back from his father. "What are you doing?"

"I love you," he said. "You are my son. One and only. The keeper of my namesake. And I love you. I will do whatever it takes for you to succeed in life. You are the next generation. I will soon fade. But you—you will soon flourish. It is only natural. It is only life."

Barry relaxed. Then he hugged his father. "Relax, Pa. Get some rest or watch some television today. Don't go out and farm. Get some rest."

Jon looked over at the valley. A quarter of the land still needed to be harvested. He knew that would be about two weeks of work. "Not today, son."

Barry looked over at the field. Then he nodded at his father. "A sea of gold," Barry said. "Fishing for wheat." They laughed quietly and Jon rested his hand on his son's shoulder.

"The sea will flourish with fish again." Jon took his glasses off. He folded them into his pocket.

Barry looked into Jon's large gray eyes staring into nothingness.

"You will make a fine captain. Follow your heart to sea and you will be plentiful. But do not let greed overtake you. Let Her guide you. Listen to the ocean, Barry. Listen to the waves—the gulls—the whispers of the vast sea when no other life is around you. Listen to the sea." Jon placed his glasses back on his nose. He looked over at the rising sun dip behind the only cloud in the sky—a large fluff of white suspended in the light blueness—an endless reflection of the sea.

Barry backed away from Jon, smiling. "All right, Pa," he said. "I'm going to be late. I can't be late or I'll fail and Ma will kill me."

"Take care, Bar. Just remember. The sea."

Barry nodded and he winked at his father. The boy placed his headphones back over his ears and he walked down the road. Jon stood at the end of the drive. He watched his son walk 'til he fell behind the hill and some trees alongside the road swallowed his image. The large sun soon rounded out from behind the large cloud and Jon smiled at its bright return before he walked back to the carriage house.

"Hey, brother. Get on ready. We're headin' out in five." Ethan came from around the corner, waving at Jon. "Get out of 'em PJs and into some jeans. The wheat's a-calling your name, Jonny." Ethan smiled, slapping his knees as he continued to the garage.

Jon made it to the house, changing into his workwear for the day. A light gray tee-shirt, washed out blue jeans and black leather boots. He pulled at his beard. He could feel the moisture of sweat building up on his cheeks. "It's going to be a hot one today," he thought. "Barry got it right with that bald head of his." He ran his fingers through his long, untamed hair and through the long whiskers on his face. "This is not like the sea. It's arid. Too dry here." He finger combed his whiskers down to his face.

"You know," Elea said, coming out of the bathroom. "I told him I'd never see him again when we would move up here. And I meant it, Jon."

"Okay," he said, fiddling with his boots—tightening the already tightened laces.

"I knew you wouldn't respond. But, well, I thought you should know. I figured we could work on us up here. A fresh start. You know? Does that work for you?" She untied her robe and she walked to the foot of the bed, resting there.

"It does," he said, now picking at his fingernails, not once looking up at his wife. "I guess it does."

"Okay, well, you better get out to the harvest. We'll talk more about this later," she said, getting up off the bed, fastening her robe closed. She leaned over, hugging Jon. "I just thought you should know, that's all."

Jon nodded. He reached his arms around Elea, patting her back 'til she let go and she walked down the stairs. He looked over out the window, watching the gold wheat sway in the wind like how the blue waves moved in on the land back on the shores of East Marion. Then he tightened his boots again and he headed for the garage.

Ethan sat at the helm of one of the combines. He checked off boxes on a clipboard, intermittently shaking his head in agreement with what it was he was reading.

Jon stomped his feet on the concrete floor until Ethan looked down at Jon, smiling. "Come on up here, brother," Ethan said. "We're almost ready to go out." He checked off another box. "On these real scorchers, we really gotta make sure these machines are runnin' shipshape." He looked into Jon's eyes. "Or they'll liable to cease up and die on ya right out on the harvest."

"That then cuts into profits," Jon said, cutting off Ethan. "Like when the nets rip on us in the middle of a hearty catch." Jon looked out at the sky that now held no clouds—just the sun in a sea of clear light blue. "The day would be ruined. We'd miss the fish and we'd miss out on a day of profits."

Ethan smiled and he nodded at Jon. "Yea, kinda like that."

Jon pulled on the long hair on his head and on the whiskers on his face. Sweat peaked at the tops of his cheeks and droplets balled up on his forehead. "A real scorcher, eh?"

"I've seen worse." Ethan checked off a box. "Wait 'til you get out onto the field. No shade out there. No shade for acres. Just you, the land, and the almighty sun."

Jon continued to pull on his hair.

"We can shave ya down before we go out," he said. "This is nothing like the sea. Some days you want as little clothes on as possible. The sun is unbearable at points. But we press on. It gives us life and the food we eat. We must press on."

Jon thought of Barry. Jon thought of the boy's shaved head. "It must be cool," he said. "The sun must feel good, beating down on your head and all."

Ethan ran his hand over his own close cut hair, smiling. "It sure a lot cooler than that jacket on your face." Ethan reached out, pulling on Jon's beard. "You gotta let it go or you'll suffocate out there."

"Okay, let's do it. Shave me down."

"Yea?" Ethan checked off the last box. He rested the clipboard on the dash of the combine.

"Yea. Why not. I'm sure I'll feel cleansed and brand new." Jon ran his fingers deep into his beard. "A rebirth. Shedding some skin." He smiled, jumping from the combine. "You got a buzzer?"

"Uh-huh. Eleanor's got one in the bathroom cupboard." Ethan jumped from the combine, running towards the cottage. "I'll be back in a hot minute. We'll do it right out here," he shouted back at Jon. "Hold on."

Jon nodded, waiting 'til Ethan returned with a pair of scissors, a hair buzzer and a long orange extension cord.

"All right, brother," Ethan said. "Sit here and lean back. It won't hurt one bit." Ethan and Jon laughed, as Jon sat in the chair, leaning his head back.

Ethan grabbed large chunks of Jon's greasy brown locks, trimming them down to the base of his scalp. Snip after snip. Ethan continued down to Jon's beard before the farmer ran the electric buzzer over Jon's head and face 'til only small fine hairs shot up. Ethan then dumped a bucket of water over Jon's head, washing away the bits of hair that clung to his body.

"There," Ethan said. "You feel like a new man?" Ethan ran his fingers over the smooth short hairs on Jon's head.

"I feel light." Jon pulled the flesh on his chin into the ghost of his beard. He shook his head back and forth and it felt light and fast. He did it again. Then he held his head, squinting his eyes in a brief pain.

Ethan dumped another bucket over Jon's head, before drying his brother-in-law's face in a towel. "Smooth as a baby's bottom," Ethan laughed. "You better sunscreen that thing on up today or you'll surely be sorry." Ethan lathered his hands up with sunscreen, rubbing his arms and legs and head before handing the tube to Jon. "This ain't no joke out here. The sun will find you and eat you alive."

Jon shook his head, coating his body in a thick cream of white. Then he climbed aboard one combine as Ethan climbed into the cockpit of the other. "Strap yourself in, brother," Ethan shouted from his green machine. "And turn your radio on so we can keep in touch as we on the harvest."

Jon waved and nodded. They started up the combines, heading out of the garage under the bright yellow sun—setting out for the golden field of wheat. Jon could fell the rays of the sun rain on his head with great intensity. The warmth sinking into his skull—into all his bones. A sheet of moisture poured from his skin, soaking his shirt. Jon felt tall in the high machine. The vibrations numbed his body, making him feel as if he were floating. The sun's rays bounced off the glass of his lenses, hypnotizing him.

"You got a handle on that thing?" Ethan's voice streamed in through the radio in a dull static. "Keep your eyes on the rows, brother."

Jon hit the talk button on the radio. "Ten-four." He tilted his head forward, looking beyond the range of his glasses. Jon watched the long strains of wheat lose definition, turning into a shimmering sheet of gold. He smiled. Then he tilted his head back up to look out of his glasses and up at the freshly cut grain behind Ethan's combine.

"Pull up around me," Ethan said. "We're here." His arm waved out of the cockpit, pointing to his right. "Over here."

Jon turned the wheel, pulling up beside Ethan. "Gorgeous day."

"You say that now," Ethan chuckled. "Wait 'til its noon and you're only halfway through the day. Tell me the type of day it is then." Ethan winked. Then he cracked his knuckles on the steering wheel. "Okay, brother. We do it like this. I take the lead and you follow up behind me on the right."

"Like mowing a lawn."

"Like mowing a very expensive lawn," Ethan cut in. "So make sure you keep it straight and don't scalp the land. Nice and easy. Just like the last time."

Jon nodded. Ethan shook his head.

"Okay then, brother," the farmer said. "Let's roll."

"Let's roll."

"Count to five after I start and then follow and keep the distance."

Jon nodded.

Ethan started out.

Jon then counted to five silently in his head before going out after Ethan. Jon looked ahead at the vast valley of gold and brown 'til his eyes hit a wall of green. He scanned the outer limits of his view on all sides and all angles—and the horizon was cut off by the high mountains in all directions. "The land has limits," he thought. "The mountains hold us in from the sea." Then he looked up to the sky and he smiled. "But I can always see your reflection when I look to the heavens. Your soul cast backwards for all those on land to see."

"You okay, brother," Ethan's voice came in over the radio. "Keep your combine on track, bud. You're all over the field."

Jon looked out in front of him. He straightened his machine following beside Ethan's to the right. The fisherman then looked behind him. He could see the jagged edge he had created. "Sorry, Ethan," he said. "I'm still getting used to it."

"It's okay. I'll straighten it on out on the cut back. Just try and pay attention to the wheat as you drive and soon it will come with ease."

Jon focused on the golden grains dancing in the light wind. He guided the combine in a straight line over the troughs and peaks in the valley. "It will come naturally in time. No worries. Ten-four."

"Ten-four." Jon tried to keep his mind on the gilded stalks of wheat as he drove the combine behind Ethan's lead. But the fisherman's mind continually drifted away—out to sea. The machine's engine—the loud roaring drone—reminded him of the roar of waves crashing high on the shoreline during a summer storm. The vibrations numbed his body. He felt as if he was swaying over waves on a vessel suspended on dark blue waters. Then he saw his body ascend from the vessel to the heavens. And he looked down and he could see himself below—sailing on a sea of gold in a large green vessel—his body at the helm—complete with a burly beard and a large flop of hair. Jon ran his hands over his head. He felt the warm flesh under the prickles of short hairs poking through his scalp. The sound of water rushed all around him. He could see that it had started to rain on his body, below. But he was above the rain—above the clouds. Barry then appeared on the shoreline, not far from the green vessel manned by the mirage of Jon. Barry was older—in his mid-thirties—and he wore a beard like the one Jon once had. Barry stood motionless, staring out to sea. The sound of water began to rush louder and louder. And then Jon could feel the green vessel sinking into the sea of gold. Then he saw fish swelling in from the waves, collecting at Barry's feet. And then, suddenly, it all stopped. The sound of water stopped. The images of the sea erased. And Jon found himself back at the wheel of the large green combine that had sunk into the earth.

"Whoa! You all right, brother?"

Jon blinked hard. He pressed down the gas on the combine, watching the fifty inch tires spin in place. "What happened?"

"A wet spring leads to a muddy summer." Ethan cracked his fingers back, hopping into Jon's combine. Ethan looked out at the sun kissing the tips of the mountaintops. "It's getting late," he said. "And this could turn into a three hour project in a second."

"How could this machine just sink like this, though?" Jon rubbed his bare chin. Then he rubbed the tires embedded in the mud.

"A sink hole. No worries. It wasn't your fault. It could have been me if I had you leading." Ethan smiled, patting Jon on the back. "All right, let's get in mine and head back to the garage. We'll pull this bad-boy out first thing early tomorrow morning. Let's get at it at dawn. So say, five-thirty. Meet me in the garage. Prepare to get muddy. Wear your worst clothes and bring an extra set, to-boot." Ethan climbed back into his combine and Jon followed. "Let me just finish off this row so we can start fresh tomorrow."

Jon nodded.

Ethan ran the combine to the end of the field before he drove back towards the garage.

Jon lifted his glasses off his nose, folding them into his breast pocket. He looked out, watching the red sky push a blurry yellow sun behind the black mountains. Jon slipped his hand into the bag of sunflower seeds, chomping down and sucking the salt from the shells.

Ethan followed suit and the two sat, listening to the beat of the six pistons pumping into their cylinders.

Jon showered, ate and then he sat in his bed with his back flush to the mattress. Elea was on her side, silently sleeping. The night was dark. The curtains drifted from side to side as a light breeze cut into the room. Jon could smell the scent of pine rushing in—tickling his nose. "When I wake up, it will be the day," he thought. "The Assumption is upon us. And I shall return." Jon sniffed at the pine, frowning. "I miss the smell of the sea's mist." But then he smiled. "But I shall return and breathe the salty sea. Breathe in the ocean to give life." He closed his eyes. He could see the green ship on the sea of gold from his vision before the combine sunk into the earth. The vessel, like in his earlier vision, was manned by himself. But this time the man wore a clean shaved face and a buzzed head of hair. The golden sea below began to knock at the green vessel until a large wave overcame the ship and all that was left was the gold sea. Jon felt weightless. The image of the gold sea flattened out, turning back into a field of wavering wheat and Jon nodded off into sleep.

CHAPTER 27

The morning was five hours in—lit only by the thin slice of the moon. Jon looked out of the bedroom window, watching the lights flicker on and off in Ethan's house up on the hill, until they were all off and stayed off. Jon went on to scan across the early morning sky. The tall pines on the mountainside swiped up at the moon 'til the slice sunk slowly into the needles. Jon hung over Elea. His eyes unblinking—still staring at the moon through the trees. He then broke his stare and he leaned over her—kissing her forehead.

Elea snored. Her body was limp with sleep. Her head peaked out from under several blankets piled atop her. He combed her hair behind her ear with his fingers.

"I love you," he said. "I will fix things now." Jon ran his hands along the stubbles of short whiskers on his chin. "I have a job sent from the Lord. I must go. You will understand." He kissed her forehead for a second time. Then he walked out of the room. He blessed the closed door of Barry's new room—signing the cross with his right hand. Then he walked down the stairs. He stepped slowly, sinking his weight quietly into each step 'til he reached the bottom where he strapped black leather boots on his feet. He then walked out the door, closing it softly and without a sound.

"What's going on, brother?" Ethan said, turning the corner, waving.

"Moring," Jon sighed. "Good morning."

Ethan swung his arms around his body, catching his hands together into fists, cracking his knuckles back. "You ready to pull that combine right on out of the mud, now? If we pull her out and fix her on up quick, now, we'll get in on the harvest 'round noon," Ethan smiled. He walked to the garage, pulling a clipboard out from the back of his pants. "And I can live with starting at noon, surely, with your help out on the field."

"Ethan," Jon said. "I can't make the harvest today."

"Well, that'll be all right, I guess. You'd been busting tail out there. I think I can handle Her myself, today." Ethan checked off a box on the clipboard. Then he checked off another. "Let's just finish the checklist and then get that mudder on out and we'll go our ways."

Jon shuffled his feet, walking into the garage. "I can't help you with that combine, either." He drove his fingers over the short hair on his head. He lifted his glasses up from his eyes. "Today is the Assumption," he said. "The Feast of the Assumption. The celebration of Mary ascending to heaven—body and soul." He folded his glasses into his hands. Then he placed his hands into his jacket pockets.

Ethan checked off another box. He looked up, eying the man's blind stillness. "We can go to mass at noon if you'd like."

"It's not like that." Jon withdrew his hands from his pockets. He cracked each of his fingers back. "I need to go to sea. I need to see the sea. I must walk into the ocean." Jon looked out of the garage—at the black shadows of pine trees in the woods.

"Walk into the ocean, you say?" Ethan coughed.

Jon looked back at the farmer blurred against the large green machine.

"Elea said you'd lend a hand on the farm and you barely lent a pinky." Ethan tugged on his right pinky. He took a deep breath, relaxing his muscles. "I am sorry, Jon."

Jon looked down at his pinky fingers—the right missing a knuckle and the left one almost gone.

"We need to man the fields, Jon. We need to harvest before it rots. The fields are soggier than I thought and if we don't harvest now, we gonna lose the crop. And on top of all that, you drove that goddamned combine into the goddamned earth." Ethan calmed himself with deep breaths before continuing. "I mean the field absorbed the combine. Not your fault, Jon. But we have work to be gotten done. We need to do what nature and fate has intended for us. And now, for the sake of your family, Jon, you must tend to the harvest. Stop swimming against the tide. Stop it with that sea. You are upstate now. Think of the land and the fruit that it bears. Fish the land, Jon. Nurture the soil, now. Forget the sea."

"I need to go, though," Jon said. "Brand tradition. I must."

"But we gotta pull the combine from the field before it sinks in any further."

Jon pulled his glasses back over his eyes. He looked out to the blue sedan glimmering gray under the fluorescence of flood lights. "I need to go, Ethan. I can help you later, or something. I promise. I will help you."

"Jon, knock it off," Ethan said. "I can drive you to the lake up north at noon for lunch and you can walk into the water then."

Jon shifted his feet. Then he headed to the car.

"You'll lose a day's pay, yanno," Ethan shouted. "Surely, a day's worth."

Jon stopped for a moment before waving Ethan off—continuing for the car.

"Think of Barry, Jon. Think of your son. Elea, too. You need to support them. You can't keep chasing your fairytale dreams of living off the sea. You need to work, now. I can set you up good. Get a house. Work the fields. An honest day's work. The good ol' American Dream, Jonny. You can have it," he said. "It's all right here. Got a Wal-Mart just down the road and everything. What else could you ask for?"

Jon opened the door. He locked himself in. The hum of the car echoed off the dark sky.

Ethan walked to the edge of the garage, watching the car slip quickly out of sight.

Jon took to the highway—driving south. The earth was unsubstantial in the dark of morning. The land moved quickly beside him. The moon turned a warm orange before finally dipping out of sight under the horizon, and then all the earth turned gray. Thickening clouds allowed only but a faint streak of sunlight to peak out onto the land, edging the mountains with a dewy golden flame. The daybreak had a quality of birth and memory. It brought Jon back. He remembered all of the times he fished out on the vast sea. And then, all at once, the feeling of landlessness encapsulated him. He could sense fish beneath him—running through him. He was the ocean. For a brief time. But he had now grown apart from it. He was no longer the sea. He was now lost on the land. Lost in the rural suburbs of Upstate, New York.

He remembered the blessing of his father—the gift of his ship—and how Jon had wished to give the blessing to his own kin. He remembered when the sea was filled with fish. He remembered when he could spend days out on the opened waters, coming home with steep pockets. Never empty handed.

He drove the car steadily on the highway. His head bobbing in and out of his thoughts. He was distant from the land now. He thought, "Some change has birthed and it will not be long before we crash and the new tide rolls in." And at that moment, the wind began to blow the car between the stripes of white lines. He shifted the car down a gear, gripping his hands tightly around the wheel. The sun lost its shine, nodding behind the clouds. Grains of sandy dirt wisped down the steep highway. And as he drove, the mountainous background soon turned to a low lying valley—that soon turned into a city.

The clouds were a heavy gray now. The wind tossed the small sedan around the road and over a bridge where Jon drove over what seemed to be a sea of fog 'til he took to a small main street along the northern shore of the Island, where open windowed houses closely lined the street.

Jon could hear the rustle of green leaves flapping in the air—the flutter of dried needles blowing across the street—the groan of aching tree limbs. He eased off the gas to inspect the dark houses 'til the settlements turned to brush and stout pines—then into the sandy shores of the sound.

Jon pulled the car to the side of the road. The tires sinking into the shoulder. He looked out to the sea. He could see two cliffs on either side of him. The two cliffs that he was looking for, although, they now seemed different, eroded, and perhaps they were not the cliffs he was looking for, after all.

"Where are you," he called out, looking to the cliff on the left. "Where are you, Abraham." And then he looked to the right. "And you, Isaac?"

The sky had become a solid gray ceiling of fog and mist that seemed within reach. Jon looked back out to the cliffs, and the clouds swallowed them whole. The wind brushed sand up on him, hitting his glasses, smacking his fleshy face.

"Where are you, Padre?" he called. "Where are you, Lord?" Jon began to well up with tears. The whites in his eyes grew a deep red.

The cliffs came in and out of the fog. The faces of Abraham and Isaac not defined in the shadows of land.

Jon sniffed the air. He could smell both the moisture from the sound and the water filled clouds overhead. The wind groaned, dropping the clouds lower over Jon. A hard rain had begun to fall sideways, splashing into the wet sea. He ran back to the car. The heavy drops magnifying the view from his glasses.

Jon closed the door, locking it before driving back on the road with his windshield wipers waving fast.

"The Lord is not here," he moaned. "I thought He would be. By the cliffs of Abraham and Isaac. Where the priest showed me the way to sea. Where I sacrificed my finger to the dog." He stopped on his words. "The priest. Where I first met the Padre of Love." He remembered the first time he had seen the priest. The Padre. He could see the crisp white hair on the old man's head in-between the swipes of the wiper blades.

"To the ocean," he said. "To the heart of the sea. To the Atlantic."

Jon drove east, straight into the heavy rain clicking loud against the car. The wind drifted him in and out of lanes on the empty highway. His eyes took long hard blinks. He had no strength left in him. He had given into the elements. He drove the car over vast lands of blacktop 'til the tires spun over the green metal drawbridge.

He parked the car beside the road, near the small tear in the chain-link fence. He looked down over at the large parking lot, emptied, and he turned off the car.

He fought to open the door against the fists of sandy wind pounding at the steel. The clouds touched the earth now. The sand bit at his eyes. The rain spotting his glasses. He tried to look around, but he was blinded by the all the earth. He climbed through the fence, unfolding into the dunes where some cattails were bent and some uprooted—disappearing up into the wind—up into the clouds.

The ocean roared like a jet engine. The large waves came into sight—eight feet in height—cascading down to the sand. Foamy salt water blew up in the air. Rain and sand and wind and ocean smacked Jon's face. The angst of the sea made him feel at home. He felt suspended in the clouds—or at least above the waves. The land and the sea and the clouds were one—a gray existence surrounding him with a rush of gray noise ringing out from the perpetual crashes of gray waves.

The tide rode in, settling at the tips of Jon's feet, sinking them into the moist sand with ease. He folded his glasses into his hands, throwing them into the cloudy sea. "A false reality," Jon called out. "A false perception through the invention of convex glass. Unnatural." Jon looked out at the low clouds in a blurred, distorted vision of nearsightedness. He heard the faint cry of a gull in the distance. Then suddenly, the gull appeared through the thick fog alongside two other gulls flying not far behind, and they landed on the bob of the ocean. Jon smiled at the birds. Then they flew off behind the shallow cloud curtain where Jon could make out the images of a bearded man and the clean shaven face of an adolescent etched into the foggy mist. The wind picked up strong and the images drew out in thick black outlines.

"Abraham," he called out, shouting over the screams of the sea. "Isaac." Jon fell to both knees. He cupped the saltwater and the sand in his hands, throwing the grains into a crashing wave. "I knew you would be here. I knew you would help me."

Jon was very tired. The wind wailed over the waves, whipping up a sandy sea-foam sticking in the stubbles on his face. "It is over now," he thought. "I think I knew it would be. But it is now. Truly now." The clouds glowed briefly. Then they twisted back to black. The images of Abraham and Isaac sat overhead. Jon stared into the shadowy eyes of the fog. He stood up—the tide now up to his knees.

He bent over, stroking the frothy gray water and he thought of the biblical father and son. "The angel stopped Abraham. Where is my angel?" He cupped the ocean in his hands, dripping the water down his face, baptizing himself. "I am the sea. I am the ocean. I am the water that gives life." Jon knelt back into the water, throwing the ocean over all of his body. "I am the sea. I am the ocean. I am one with myself. I am one with my father."

The ocean roared thunderously. The wind whipped sand and specks of ocean and rain harder into his flesh.

Jon stood back up. His feet waded in the water.

He blessed the sea.

The three gulls reappeared above the break.

"This is gone," he thought. "This is dead and I am alone."

The black clouds swallowed the shadowy images of Abraham and Isaac. Then panic fell upon Jon. "Why would I stay in a dead place?" He thought back to the East Marion piers. When the fish flowed from the docks. "I must go," he said firmly. "I must go and flood the sea with fish."

He fell back down to his knees. The water rising to his chest. He drove his hands into the wet sand, lifting a shell from the sea, snapping it in two. He grazed his forefinger along the edge of the shell and a warm red liquid spilled into the dark water. "I need to be saved," he said, remembering the Assumption. Remembering how Mary ascended into heaven—body and soul. Jon thought how he could do the same. A sacrifice for the earth. A sacrifice for the sea. A sacrifice for his son. He knew now how he could make things right. He knew he had to answer to his God—his father—his sea. A large wave broke and the three gulls vanished behind the veil of black fog and sea and clouds.

Jon sat on his hams, smiling as he watched the gulls float away with ease. Then he looked about the shore—back to the green dunes shivering—where a man traced along the high shore, walking with jagged steps, fighting against the strong wind.

"Padre?" Jon whispered. He got up to his feet and he started for the shore. "Padre," he said louder. "Is that you? Padre?" Jon rubbed his eyes. He was dripping with water. The man up shore shifted, blending with the tall dunes in a blur of rain and sand mixed with Jon's true eyesight. "Padre? Padre? Is it you, Father?"

The old man came into Jon's vision and Jon fell into the Padre's arms. "You all right, son?" the priest said. "Must be something if you out to sea on such a stormy morning."

"Oh, Padre," Jon said. "Am I happy to see you."

"What demons got your heart, son?"

Jon pushed himself from the priest, falling back into a pool of ocean collected up high on the shore.

"Can't quite stay on your feet, now, can ya?" The priest leaned over, lifting Jon from the water. "Now, what is it that is on your mind, son? Be at ease and let His love, His land, His sea—His gifts to us, encapsulate you."

The priest's brown eyes blurred in and out of the hard rain. Jon looked blindly into the priests words. "What are you talking about, Padre?"

"I'm saying—let His word guide you, my son. Let His teachings and His goodwill show you the way towards the path of true happiness. The path towards true salvation and love. I'm saying," the priest rested his hands on Jon's shoulders, "let love consume your life."

Jon shook off the priest. The fisherman looked out to the rough waters. "Some storm," he said, looking back at the priest.

"Why is it that you came here today?"

"The Assumption, Padre. The Assumption of Mary—Mother of Mother's—to heaven," he said. "It's a family tradition to walk into the water and cleanse your soul to the heavens on this day. To the sea."

"And it says to do this in the bible?"

"I am not sure. But my family has done it ever since I can remember." Jon looked to the dunes. He watched the cattails whip fast in the quick wind. "I thought I would get a message if I came, Padre. I thought I would get an answer."

The priest looked out at the high waves. "Do you ever think the weather is directed towards one person? Like, how on a funeral, it rains. Or the sunniest of sunny days on a picnic that was planned months ago."

"At times, yes, Padre."

"Do you believe that this wicked weather right now is directed at you, my son?"

"Yes, Padre. I do," he said, falling to his knees. "I feel as if this world is against me. Nature, and in particular, the sea," he said. "It runs through me."

"Why, that is absurd. The sea is way out there and we are way over here. There is no way such a thing is possible."

"But it is, Padre. It is."

"The weather is not determined solely for one person and one person alone. It is mere coincidence if it rains on one's parade." The priest waved his hands up to the heavens. The clouds then lightened and the rain eased to a light mist all at once. "Just patterns in the sky, my son. Nothing more. Nothing less."

The ocean raged loudly for a brief moment. Then the sea hushed to a murmur of whispering ripples curling low to the sand.

The calm of the water descended upon Jon. His fear was lifted.

"About that message you spoke about," the priest said. "You think you got it, my son?"

Jon rubbed his eyes, trying to focus in on the priest. "I'm not sure, Padre," he said. "I'm not quite sure, at all."

"Ah, my son," he said. "Open your eyes and let the love rain down upon you. Let the love run through you." The priest bent over, picking up a pair of glasses washing up to his feet. "Did you happen to drop these, my son?"

Jon leaned in. He could make out the metal frames—the convexed glass in the priest's hand. "Yes, Padre. I must've dropped them earlier."

"You'd've had a hard time driving home without them, now, eh?"

Jon wiped at the lenses on the inside hem of his shirt before placing the glasses over his eyes. He blinked hard, focusing in on the priest, who Jon could now see was smiling at him.

"Now, that's better, isn't it?" The priest ran his hand over Jon's smoothed head.

The sun shined brightly, pushing aside the gray of clouds.

Jon smiled and he nodded. "Yes, Padre. It is much better now." He looked over at the cattails high on the dunes, stretching out up at the light blue sky.

"You see more clearly now, my son?"

"Much," he said. "I see much more clearly." Jon pulled his glasses off his nose. Then he dropped them back over his eyes and he smiled. "Clear."

A flock of gulls flew overhead. The birds cried loudly—sharply—with no clouds for their call to echo off of. They kept on flying, looking for food until they drove off out of sight down the coast.

The two men hugged briefly, nodding to one another, before Jon ran to the path through the dunes back to his car. "I need to go back to work," Jon called to the sea. "Sorry. I need to go."

The priest nodded, and then he turned to watch the gentle sea wash grains from the shoreline under, pressing up new sand to shine beneath the warmth of the summer's sun.

"This tide has certainly changed," Jon thought, hanging onto the opened car door. He looked for the sea behind him, but the dunes cut off the view. He closed his eyes—listening. Listening for his name between the whispers of wind and sea. But it was silent. He nodded at the waves beyond the dunes—smiling—and he ducked into the sedan.

He turned the key over, sitting motionless in the hum of the car for a short while—the shine of the sun glaring through his glasses. He twisted the air under his chin for a moment. Then he shifted the car into gear—receding back down the road—over the drawbridge.

