Glimmering

Mornings he would prepare breakfast. Oatmeal and raw milk and maple syrup, dark as motor oil and with an ineffably sweet, scorched taste. Sometimes eggs from their neighbor Diana, their shells tea-colored, pale yellow, the soft blue-green of a vein too near the surface of the skin. Martin and Trip would sit at the kitchen table, Trip wearing a loose worn flannel shirt and pajama pants that had belonged to John. Too big by far for his slight frame, but Martin was fearful of fabric catching against the flesh not quite healed, and it was not warm enough to go shirtless. While Trip spooned oatmeal or liquescent yolk Martin would try to engage him in conversation. Where was he from? Where had he grown up?

But Trip never replied. He would talk, uninspired musings on the weather, the eggs, how he had slept; but he would not answer questions, or ask them. At first Martin thought this, too, a manifestation of whatever disaster had befallen him. But as the weeks went by and he came to map the boy as once he had mapped canvas, he started to recognize a certain look that Trip had. Or rather, the absence of a look: a shuttering of his eyes, a retreat that Martin could observe as certainly as he could mark a falling leaf. The boy was not amnesiac, not as simple as Martin suspected. He was reticent, skittish, purposefully shy. He was in hiding.

After breakfast, and everything tidied up, they would walk to the beach. Trip was stronger, now. He could have walked by himself, and though he never said anything, he seemed to welcome Martin’s company. He did not like to be left alone in the bungalow; he did not like to be alone. Nights, sleeping on the couch in the living room, Martin would often be awakened by the boy’s cries. He would go to him, murmuring until Trip fell asleep once more. The boy claimed not to recall his nightmares. Only once, Martin let his fingertips graze Trip’s healed wrist: the boy looked at him and said, “She was already dead.”

Martin nodded, waiting for him to go on; but the boy withdrew his hand and said no more.

“The rest must have drowned,” Martin explained to Mrs. Grose one evening, surrounded by flickering candles in her cozy living room. “He said they went through the holes. He keeps saying something about a dead girl…”

Mrs. Grose sipped her brandy thoughtfully. “His sweetheart, you think?”

“I guess.” Martin stared into his glass. “He wears a wedding ring, but it’s on this finger—like mine.” He turned his hand, so that candlelight slid across the thick gold band. “And some kind of Maltese cross. She must have drowned.”

“Perhaps.” In her lap the pug snorted, and she stroked his head. “Have you tried to find his family?”

Martin shrugged, uncomfortable. “Yes. But how can I? He won’t say anything, I mean he won’t tell me where he’s from, who they are…”

Outside, in the endless shifting twilight, branches tapped against the windows, overgrown lilacs that Mrs. Grose was afraid to prune lest they never grow back. The pug yawned. Mrs. Grose shifted on the couch, cradling her brandy against her chest. “Why are you keeping him, Martin?”

He started to respond testily, but stopped. A candle sputtered, then went out. “Where could he go? If he left here—”

“He is not like you, Martin,” she said gently. “He does not have a disease. He seems strong enough, strong in the body. It would be cruel to keep him here, Martin.”

Martin ran a hand through his long greying hair. He whispered, “I know. I know. But where could he go?”

“It doesn’t matter. Not to us. I know it’s hard, Martin. It’s because you saved him—”

“I didn’t—”

“He would have died there, if not for you.” She stood, the pug tumbling from her lap with an affronted groan, and crossed the room to lay a hand upon his shoulder. “You saved him, Martin. And for some reason he’s still alive. But he has to go…”

“Reason?” The face Martin lifted to her was raw with despair. “What reason can there be? What?”

Mrs. Grose sighed. She stared past him, to where the lilacs scratched at the panes. “I do not know. Maybe none,” she said, and stooped to pick up the gasping pug. “But you must act as though there is one, anyway. Good night, my dear—”

She lowered her head to kiss him, leaving a breath of brandy and Sen-Sen upon his cheek. Her tortoiseshell eyes seemed bleary, not with that vague distant expression Martin knew so well but with something more disturbing. Genuine weariness, the detached surrender of great age to a well-earned sleep, or more.

“Adele? Are you all right? Do you feel bad?” His voice was unsteady: he had never asked her that.

“Just tired,” she replied, and began to walk heavily toward her room. “Just tired. That’s all.”

He went the next day to the beach alone. Trip seemed content to sit in the living room, gazing at the expensive array of stereo and video equipment that had been John’s.

“Sometimes it works.” Martin picked up a remote and tentatively pressed a few buttons. “But not today, I guess. I’ll be back in a while. Okay?”

Trip nodded without looking up. “Okay.”