The hearse is parked in the driveway, back doors wide open. A few of us wait around for the body to be brought out. A crisp black mourning ribbon hangs on the front door of the house with Kevin’s army medal pinned to it.
He and I sometimes walked into town together but didn’t spend gobs of time with each other . . . still . . . his suicide was sudden. Aren’t all suicides? Rumor has it he shot himself; others say he OD’d. Does it really matter how he did it?
The last time Kevin and I talked he was thinking of enlisting for a third tour. I should’ve just listened. Instead, I unwound a long string about how the war was a waste, a travesty, a killing machine. I wish now I hadn’t sounded so dismissive.
It’s ghoulish, waiting here to see the body. I head to the beach. Someone calls, “Tessa, where you going?” But I don’t respond.
The beach is cold and wintery. Occasionally someone walks a dog or a jet plane flies over, otherwise there’s only the faint shushing of a lazy ocean. Actually, it’s the Long Island Sound, the real ocean with its noisier, cresting waves is around the bend, though exactly where the water bends, I can’t say.
As the sky darkens, the wind picks up, and the cries of the seagulls lessen. I phone my sister. Again, it goes to voicemail. Again, I text her: “Marla, where are you? Mom isn’t home yet. I’m starving, going to the diner, meet me there.”
Beams of light from the old-fashioned lampposts hopscotch along the streets that make up the small forgettable town. The diner is squished between a bank and post office. Our mother worked there when we were little. If Louise is serving, she’ll feed us for free. Let’s hope.
The little bell tingles when I push the door open. A few people sit in the wooden booths. I take a counter stool next to an older man.
“You alone tonight?” Louise asks, one hand gripping an empty glass, the other pouring water from a pitcher. She and my mother are close.
“Marla’s supposed to meet me.”
“You want to wait or . . . why don’t you order . . . how about the special, meat loaf and sweet potato?”
“Thanks, sounds great.” In the adjacent blue-tinted mirror I notice the man glance at me and smile, which I ignore.
Each time the front door opens I turn with renewed hope.
“Waiting for someone important?” the man asks. Not wanting to be rude, I nod at him in the mirror, then turn away, but not before noting his determined chin and white shirt open at the throat.
“How’s your mom?” Louise places the food before me.
“She’s good.”
“The woman never takes time for a deep breath. Let me know if there’s anything more . . .” But already she’s moving down the counter to clear plates.
“Enjoy the meal, you’re a beautiful woman,” his tone serious but not flirtatious, then he’s out the door.
People have remarked on my being pretty. Beautiful, though, that’s a bit stronger.
Louise, her tired dark hair pulled into a ponytail, refills the water glass.
“Who was the man on the stool who left,” I ask, because Louise doesn’t miss much.
“He’s house sitting somewhere up on the beach. How’s the food?
*
Nina hauls the sack of wet dishtowels to the hospital autoclave. The towels reek like the stray dogs her husband brings home. When she complains, Scotty says no one’s asking her to take care of the mutts. True. Except the dogs’ nasty odors drive her mad. She can’t help but plop the animal in a bathtub. How could she let her girls near such a dirty mongrel? The reluctant dog is never pleased and soon runs into the wettest dirt it can find, and there’s plenty around the house. Come to think of it, it’s been a while since he’s brought home a dog.
She drops the sack in the autoclave, last chore of the day, and heads toward the path out that avoids the wards, which are filled with wounded soldiers who leave holes in her heart. The sweet, young blasted-to-pieces kids are hooked up to contraptions or lie there too depressed to even blink. They aren’t much older than her girls. If someone calls out to her, she always stops to say a few words, which can end up being a bad night, their helplessness a reminder of her own.
On the lawn beyond the sun porch where patients convalesce or meet visitors, she pauses for a breath of air.
“Hey, no one’s come to see me. Say hello.”
“Such a young, handsome man without visitors, how’s that possible?” He has all four limbs, thank God.
“If you sit I can tell you about it.”
“It’s a bit cold to sit outside.” But she takes the chair next to his. A wintery breeze scatters the dry leaves on the grass.
“Why are you here?” He doesn’t look sick; maybe it’s stuff in his head. She’s seen a lot of that in the waiting rooms. “A bit of something, all fixed now. I leave in a few days. I have a question? Who are you?”
She laughs. “Big question.”
“How about a name?”
“Nina. And you?”
“Peter.”
“Where were you stationed?”
“Finished one tour in the I and two in the A, those exotic places being destroyed in the name of goodness called Bush. After 9/11, thought it was my duty to join the Marines. One has only to walk through the vet hospital to see the results of such foolishness.”
“Sadly, they keep the place busy.”
“I bet you could use a drink?” His smile is pretty, strangely gentle.
“Why do you say that?”
“Anyone who works here would. You do work here?”
“In the cafeteria kitchen. Awful job. Pay’s okay, sort of.”
He produces a small silver flask. Offers it to her.
“What’s in it?”
“It won’t kill you. Scotch.”
“It might. I’m just that tired.” But she takes the flask and after a small sip, takes another longer one.
He watches her closely. “Someone like you should be able to get an easier job, no?”
“I’m a mother of two with a war-wounded husband and I’m grateful for the salary.” Why would she say all that? Jesus!
“A mother of two. How’s that possible?”
“Very.”
“But you’re so young.”
“Yes, that’s still true, I suppose.”
“Do you live nearby?” he asks, as if it matters.
“Grew up in Long Island, not far from the hospital and now home is in the next town, a few miles east,” she says, not sure why.
“I’m here for awhile now. But I have a cabin in California that I built myself. Imagine if you will a secluded wooded area, a bottle of whatever, two hammocks swinging gently as the night sky fills with enormous diamonds, where the mornings arrive offering promise without consequence. I wish you could see it.” He holds out the flask.
Ashy darkness begins to blur the sharp edges of nearby houses. She should get going, and she will, soon.
Driving the empty stretch of road home, Nina rolls down her window, the night air cold. Gnarled trees and scruffy brush fill one side of the road, on the other the sandy embankment of the beach. The ease between a man and woman, she forgot it was possible. He asked a lot of questions yet wasn’t intrusive. How did he manage that? His rather poetic description of his California cabin surprised her. She isn’t used to a man sharing feelings so freely.
She drives slowly, lingering in the unexpected haze of the past hour or so, which will dissipate soon enough with the push and pull of the needs at home. Hopefully Scotty won’t provoke Marla who feels duty-bound to let nothing pass unchallenged. Tessa, a year younger, is more circumspect.
Turning onto the dead-end road, the car coasts down the rutted driveway to the house at the bottom. The buzz of Scotty’s chain saw greets her from out back. He likes fixing stuff, and there’s plenty to keep him busy. Their furniture is old and breakage is constant; he won’t toss anything out. Except for now and then tending bar for Rico, his shattered coccyx keeps him at home. He doesn’t complain. In his own rough mind, he believes most things in life are supposed to be difficult.
“Where’ve you been?” Tessa calls out as she enters.
“What?”
“Kevin died and Marla didn’t meet me at the diner and why are you late?” Green eyes steady on her.
Crime and punishment, it never fails. “I worked overtime, extra money. Awful about Kevin, terrible. I’m sure Marla will be home soon.”
Tessa stares at her, mute.
“Maybe Marla mentioned something to Scotty,” she mumbles.
With Tessa shadowing her, she strides through the railroad of rooms and opens the back door to a small plot of woodsy land that Scotty owns with his kid brother, Hack. Scotty wants them to clear-cut some of it to make space for a storage shed. Yellowed leaves are raked into neat piles. The thick roots beneath two old trees are coated with the sand that’s been trekked through the house.
Under the dim backdoor light, Scotty works on a broken wicker chair, and gives her a don’t disturb-me-look.
“Did Marla say anything about where she was going today, any appointments or stuff?”
“Nope, probably cavorting with some sex-starved boy. No point treating her like a baby.” He glances at the screwdriver he’s holding, then down at the upturned chair. Dismissed. She goes back inside. He doesn’t give a shit about Marla. Not his daughter. The human condition: what’s not yours reaches in, but not that deep. Oh, God, she hates these kinds of thoughts, and shakes her head, catches Tessa—also not his daughter—watching her the way she always does, skeptically, as if Nina knows more than she’s telling. “It’s okay, lovey, if Scotty knew anything, he’d say.”
“Why are you so worried?” Nina asks.
“I’m going to the beach. Maybe Marla’s there with friends.”
“It’s dark out, and . . .”
“I won’t be long.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“But I do.” She grabs a flashlight from the kitchen drawer.
They follow the thin yellow stream of light along a footpath down toward the water. It’s cold, cloudy and moonless, quiet, too. Clearly, no one’s frolicking on the beach.
Halfway down, the flashlight picks up a faint outline of something lying in the sand. They head toward it. Getting closer, they begin to run. Nina’s shoes fill with sand, as if trying to hold her back from the unbearable. “It’s Marla,” Nina screams and drops to her knees. She shakes her daughter’s slim shoulder. Has to be alive, must be, she prays, refuses anything else, and continues to shout “Marla, Marla,” again and again because this isn’t happening. Tessa tries to get past her, get closer, but Nina can’t move.
Marla’s eyes open, not dead, oh God, not dead, but unseeing. She’s sleeping off something. Nina’s heart continues its triple beat, but the initial fright now fury.
They get Marla upright, walk her back to the house. Once inside, Nina lights into her daughter, what is she on, who gave her stuff, her voice loud in her ears, but she can’t help it. Threatening, scolding, she orders Marla to remain at home after class or Nina will find her, wherever she is, and drag her back. Marla wears a stony expression, clearly too zonked to take in any of it.
__________________________________
From The Angle of Falling Light: A Novel by Beverly Gologorsky. Used with permission of the publisher, Seven Stories Press. Copyright © 2025 by Beverly Gologorsky.
