SE Wilson ~ The End of Summer

It was a Friday late in the season—after Labor Day—and the beach­es were most­ly desert­ed, save for a few fam­i­lies and the fish­er­man on the piers. We got a first floor room at the Seabreeze motel. A bright blue motor lodge from the 1960s with a dis­tant view of the ocean and a pool in the court­yard that would soon be drained for the off sea­son. Our car was the only one in the park­ing lot. While I helped my son into the room, seag­ulls silent­ly cir­cled above us like vultures.

He took a nap and I watched him sleep. He always looked like his moth­er but as his fea­tures sunk and sharp­ened, as his eyes tired, his sev­en-year-old face began look­ing more and more like mine. He slept on his side, his hands near his slight­ly part­ed lips, the blan­ket to his chin. He almost looked peaceful.

I was sur­prised his moth­er let me take him on the trip. But when I let the idea of a beach vaca­tion slip, he told her. He was just too excit­ed, too hap­py. And his doc­tors said that it was a good idea, that maybe it was the med­i­cine he need­ed. So she agreed.

After Tony woke up we went to the din­er across the street for din­ner. Tony wasn’t hun­gry but he had to eat and I thought some chick­en ten­ders and fries would do him good. The din­er was most­ly emp­ty and we sat in a booth against the large win­dows that over­looked the qui­et street. The wait­ress was an old­er woman who said “sug­ar” and “dear.” She looked at my son with com­pas­sion­ate eyes and spoke soft­ly and gave us looks of sym­pa­thy. She even touched my shoul­der in a way sim­i­lar to the priests at the children’s hos­pi­tal. I looked down at the table.

Tony col­ored while we wait­ed for our food. He was care­ful and stayed in the lines. I asked him if he want­ed to play tic-tac-toe but he said he wasn’t in the mood and con­tin­ued to col­or the sail­boats. He sipped at his 7‑Up. The wait­ress brought the food and a bot­tle of ketchup and asked us if we need­ed any­thing else.

“This is good,” I said. “Thank you.”

She clasped her hands at her waist and gave a sad sort of smile before she walked away.“Chicken ten­ders look good.”

“Yeah,” Tony said.

He took a few small bites, chew­ing slow­ly and swal­low­ing. Suddenly he went pale and threw up on the table, on his plate of chick­en ten­ders and on the pic­ture of the col­or­ful sail­boats. It spilled into his lap. The wait­ress hur­ried over, reas­sur­ing us it was fine, that they would clean it up and for us not to wor­ry. She asked if he would like any­thing, per­haps anoth­er 7‑Up for his stom­ach or a new order of chick­en ten­ders. I told her we should go and she boxed up my food and we paid and left. At the motel I cleaned and bathed him. He was embar­rassed and cried in the tub. I told him it was noth­ing to be embar­rassed about, that it’s hap­pened to a lot of peo­ple, even his Uncle Joey, who threw up all over the floor of an IHOP in college.

“I wish mama was here,” he said. “I want to go home.”

That stung.

“I know son. But tomor­row we’ll have a good day. You’ll see.”

That night I couldn’t sleep. I could hear my son whim­per as he slept. The cur­tains were thick and the room was too dark so I got up and sep­a­rat­ed the cur­tains to allow for some light to pen­e­trate the dark­ness, to allow for me to see my son. When he was a baby, I would often stay in his room long after he fell asleep just to make sure he was okay. The motel room had a read­ing chair that I turned to face him and I sat down. His skin looked like porce­lain in the moon­light and I lis­tened to his breath and felt mine tight­en and stick in my chest. Eventually I fell asleep but awoke as the sun rose and spilled warm light across the floor.

It was beach day.

I let Tony sleep in and qui­et­ly got ready. He woke up nau­seous but began feel­ing bet­ter, even look­ing for­ward to the after­noon ahead.

“Do you think we’ll find a shark tooth?” he asked while we brushed our teeth together.

I looked at him in the mirror.

“I think so,” I said. “We’ve alway man­aged to find one before.”

“One, two, three,” he said.

We both spit and smiled. His first adult tooth was just com­ing in.

The beach was busier than the day before. Families sat under large col­or­ful umbrel­las. The adults ate snacks and drank cold bev­er­ages watch­ing the young chil­dren run in and out of the waves while the old­er kids, the teenagers, were far­ther out, body surf­ing or throw­ing foot­balls. Everyone was tan and toned.

We set up near an emp­ty life­guard tow­er, as far away from oth­er peo­ple as we could. Tony took off his shirt. Instead of run­ning into the ocean, he sat in the shade. The sun­screen made him look even more pale, espe­cial­ly in con­trast with his dark blue swim­ming suit. He stared down at his feet, his arms wrapped behind his knees. Then he looked up, watch­ing the oth­er kids play in the white water. They screeched with joy.

“Want to build a sand­cas­tle?” I asked.

“Okay,” he said.

I grabbed the can­vas bag full of shov­els, buck­ets, and molds. I held Tony’s hand as we walked down toward the water. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the sun was warm. We knelt in the wet sand and began build­ing, fill­ing the buck­ets and molds, pack­ing the sand in tight.

“Where should this cas­tle be?”

“Hmmm,” he said. “How about Australia?”

“An Australian cas­tle should def­i­nite­ly have a moat with alligators.”

“Australia has crocodiles.”

“Oh yeah. My mistake.”

I smiled and tou­sled his hair.

First we con­struct­ed the tow­ers, then the walls between them. We care­ful­ly added lit­tle round win­dows with our thumbs. My big thumb dam­aged a tow­er and Tony laughed and I laughed too. He want­ed a big moat so we used the biggest shov­el and dug it deep, being care­ful not to col­lapse the cas­tle. As the tide came in it slow­ly filled the moat with sea water. We sat crossed legged and watched.

“We almost for­got,” I said.

I pulled out a small toy alligator—crocodile—from the can­vas bag, putting the bright green plas­tic in the water that sur­round­ed our cas­tle. When I looked at Tony he stared at it with a blank expres­sion. I wasn’t sure what he was seeing.

“Feeling okay?”

He looked at me and he looked tired.

“Yeah.”

“Pretty great sand­cas­tle, huh?”

“It’s not our best,” he said, and he was right. The edges weren’t crisp and it sagged in some places.

“Still fit for king,” I said, soft­ly sock­ing his arm with my fist, winking.

“I’m hot.”

“Want to go in the ocean?”

“Okay.”

I lift­ed him and held him like I did when he was just a tod­dler. His chin nes­tled into my neck and his arms around my shoulders.

The water was cold­er than I thought it would be and Tony recoiled when he felt it and hung on tighter.

“Want to go far­ther?” I asked.

He nod­ded his head.

As we went deep­er, the water ris­ing above my waist, over Tony’s waist, the waves became more and more pow­er­ful. I turned my back against the ocean, pro­tect­ing my son from its force, and he looked over my shoul­der, out at the end­less expanse of noth­ing­ness, where the water deep­ened and dark­ened. Back on the beach I saw that our cas­tle had already begun to crum­ble. Suddenly the sky turned dark and the wind grew. I held onto him as tight as I could, not want­i­ng to ever let go, as the swelling sea broke around us.

~

SE Wilson lives in North Carolina. His work has appeared in Chiron Review, Streetlight Magazine, The Louisville Review, and New World Writing Quarterly.