Old Man

“I’m taking the summer off,” Lia told me. “I need to start over. I need to leave the past, and if I can’t do that in here”—she touched her fingers to her heart—“then I have to do it geographically.”

We were licking our wounds at a bar. Slouched over lacquered pine, this sounded like a good idea at eleven on a gloomy winter night. I told her I would come with her.

“Really, Nick?” Lia gushed, her voice as sweet as whatever it was she was drinking. Like strawberries and candy. “I would love that.”

We dreamt up all kinds of starry-eyed plans that night…first, we’d head south for warmth, because winter and grief had turned us bitter. Then, we’d head west for deserts and dry air and peyote, because why not? Lia wanted this not to be a trip, but a journey. Finally, we’d end up in California, on the opposite coast from where we’d begun, and bum it on the beach for a bit before taking the long way home through the northern part of the country. Just thinking about what salty air would taste like or how expansive red rocks would be in person made us forget about everything, just for one night.

Lia wasn’t my girlfriend, and she wasn’t my sister, but something in between. We’d grown up together and when tragedy hit our small town, we were both in the center of it. Danny was my best friend, the toddler next to me in photos taped to my parents’ refrigerator. In other ones, framed in dark mahogany, we wore caps and gowns. Tacked to my bulletin board, in Little League uniforms and at birthday parties—the history of our life together was everywhere in my house. My parents grieved him like they’d lost a son, which seemed accurate since I felt like I was mourning a brother.

Lia had been Danny’s girlfriend. All through high school and college, the proverbial small-town romance. The most beautiful girl, wanted by everyone, and Danny, who was as affable as a guy could be. They both had lights in them that lit up the whole world, or at least our town. By default, as the third wheel, that light was cast on me as well.

Then, Danny wrecked his car, and everything went dark. And no, it wasn’t a drunk driving thing—it was just an accident. But he died, and Lia and I both went down in the grave with him. Our friendship changed; there was a gaping hole where what once connected us was gone. We needed each other more, but it was hard to grasp each other without the wash of sorrow knocking us over. A trauma bond.

Months after the bitter November night where I sucked down shots of Fireball and Lia’s thirst for fruity cocktails seemed unquenchable, the plan that had begun as a mirage was taking place. Lia, a grad student, had five weeks off between sessions and lots of money saved up. I was still waiting tables, having never gone back to school after Danny. It was easy to quit. My parents were apathetic about my being a college drop-out, and now a jobless one, but they were happy to bankroll my road trip with Lia. I think my mom had some rose-colored dream that Lia and I were going to end up together and that would seal off the gap where Danny used to be.

We pretty much had a basic plan, which was to say we had no plan at all. It was based on our drunken dream, heading south first. Lia had all kinds of maps saved in the GPS and a notebook full of places she wanted to check out. She had an Instagram feed full of overlanders—people traveling with the journey as the purpose, not the destination.

“We’re gonna grasp the hell out of life this summer,” she told me, forcing glee from behind the wheel of the brand-new Bronco her parents had lent her for the trip. Anything that would put a little bit of shine back in her eyes was worth it to them.

But we didn’t follow the plan-that-wasn’t-a-plan. We went south, but that was all. We hit beaches, but Lia was fonder of the hotel stays than our idea of camping as much as possible. It wasn’t as easy to find legal camping with the kind of aesthetics we wanted: directly on the beach, preferably under a full moon, in a temperate climate. The southern part of the country was humid and buggy. Hotels had clean showers and comfortable beds.

One night, on a remote beach in Hatteras, Lia kissed me before we walked back to the Air BnB we were staying at.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” she told me. But she was happy. That morning, she said, she’d seen a man running on the shore. And she felt…moved by him.

“He was old, Nick. Like really old. All weathered and bent and practically naked and running, like he was a track star. And then, he stopped and dove into the ocean and just like…battled the waves. And then he got out and he freaking saluted the sun and did a whole bunch of yoga poses or tai chi or whatever you call it. And he was smiling the whole time.

“And that, Nick, is what I want out of this trip. I want to feel alive again. That’s what Danny would want.” It wasn’t quite a full moon, but there was a light on her face anyhow. She was the most unburdened I’d seen her in a year, there on a tiny speck of land with the Atlantic all around us—all because of an old man.

For a while after that we broke from the coast, heading to Nashville, where Lia bought cowboy boots that were turquoise and hellishly expensive. Where we both donned hats and dripped sweat while country music pulsed around us. It wasn’t feeding Lia the same way, so we tried Gatlinburg, Tennessee next, but the mountains—which made it easier to breathe for me—were not what Lia wanted.

So by the beginning of July, we were back to coastal towns. We drove to Key West, then to Punta Gorda. We went to South Padre Island and Galveston in Texas. We discarded the idea of the southwest and returned to Florida, to St. Pete’s and then up to South Carolina. There was literally no rhyme or reason—our path looked like a dropped ball of string. Lia would say, after a few days in one spot, where to next, Nick? And I would reply with the first thing that popped into my head. Lia liked to drive, and she held my hand a lot. She kept telling me it was just chaste affection—and it was, in her end, anyhow.

I was probably falling in love with her, but if that wasn’t what she wanted I was okay with keeping that to myself. Anything to see her smile. I found myself almost stupefied by this in-love thing, by the realization of how Danny must have felt every day. It was powerful and all-encompassing. I would have done anything for her.

The interesting thing that was happening was that Lia was convinced that she was seeing God. I know the story is jumping around here, but that’s kind of how the trip felt. But after we left the mountains, at every beach we visited, Lia saw the same man. I saw him too, a few times, so I’m not so sure that it was God. In Key West, on that first morning after we returned to the coast, I dragged myself out of the divine cloud of a hotel bed to join Lia for her early morning walk.

“Oh my God!” she exclaimed, moments after we touched sand, my eyes still bleary behind my sunglasses. “There he is!”

And there he was: the man, or God, running right past us like he was about to leap imaginary hurdles, only to turn and dive into the ocean. In Hatteras, it had been choppy and angry but here, the water was clear and cerulean. After he swam, he did just as Lia predicted. She excitedly grasped my arm as if we were witnessing a miracle.

“Yoga! Look at him…oh my God, same thing! This can’t be the same guy, we’re hundreds of miles away from Hatteras!”

I didn’t point out the unlikely prospect that it was indeed the same guy, and it was just one of those crazy glitch-in-the matrix-moments. Lia was lit up like a torch and that day was one of the first best days of our trip. We spent it lying on white sand, frying under the southern sun, and talking about Danny. In a good way. Not crying or lamenting about the unfairness of a life cut short too soon. We told each other stories that we both knew, listening in the way children listen to a well-loved bedtime book over and over. You know the outcome, but you want to hear it anyhow.

Lia was a fan of getting dressed up and going out to eat, documenting everything on her social media. Between that and the generous funds my parents were funneling me and the brand-new cactus gray Bronco we were cruising around in, it felt more like we were influencers than nomads, but whatever. That night we lazily stretched out our meal, sipping white wine so slowly that we never got drunk, and Lia kissed me, again.

“I’m sorry Nick,” she giggled. “I know I should stop doing that. Its just…I feel happy, again. You know? I’ve been terrified I’d never feel happy again, you know? And instead of feeling guilty about that, I feel okay with it. Like Danny would be happy we’re together exploring the world.”

“You mean exploring one quarter of the United States,” I joked, both to avoid the moment and to keep her laughing.

Then she saw the old guy running in Punta Gorda, and again in Texas. She started to think I had some sort of magical power to just know where to go. She became staunch in her conviction that the man was God, the way old ladies who go to church every single Sunday believe in salvation. If not God, he was definitely some type of guardian angel. While we drove, we would speculate on the possibilities of what the man really was.

Those conversations were wonderful. It was a thing Danny had loved about Lia—how open she was to mystical matters, to the power of the universe, to love. How smart and intellectual she was behind these speculations. How spiritual she was, way deep down. I had never had such intimate conversations with Lia, before this summer, but I was beginning to understand why Danny had loved her. It wasn’t just a feeling, or an attraction. It went beyond that, deep into my core.

“Maybe the guy is Danny,” Lia said one afternoon, a rare moment when I was driving the Bronco and she had her feet up on the dashboard. She was wearing a ballcap that belonged to me and mirrored Aviators, and her hair spun all around her in wispy knots from the windows being down. For someone who loved hotels and central air and fine dining, Lia was totally okay with the wind and the dirt of the open road blowing on us for hours.

“Maybe,” I agreed.

Lia leaned back, smiling. “Like maybe he’s with us, you know? He wants us to heal and move on and live our lives, right Nick? You seem better too.”

And she was right, kind of. I was still hurting, but it was a different kind of hurt. It was a needle prick compared to grief, but it was the needle prick of unrequited love, over and over, in the same spot until it felt sort of numb. If Lia had given me one crumb of hope that she felt more, wanted more, dreamt of more, I might have told her how I felt. But she maintained her it doesn’t mean anything status. Her kisses felt virtuous and faithful, as if she were infusing me with her spirit. But wasn’t that what love was supposed to feel like too?

But I was feeling lighter, there was no doubt about that. Salt and sun had cleansed me, and seeing Lia come back to life where the land met the sea was cathartic. Seeing her belief in God—literally, believing he was running on the beach in the body of an old man everywhere she went—filled me up a bit. Knowing I was her partner on this journey of self-healing, that I was doing right by Danny, I guess, filled me up more.

Eventually, we ended up back in North Carolina. We liked the remoteness of Hatteras, the dogs that everyone had everywhere, the day trips back and forth the long stretch of Outer Banks. We’d suffer through the millions of stop lights and peak season tourists to get to the southern shores. Lia loved the wild horses, driving the Bronco on the beach, and the outdoor sand bars we found. It was August, and it was blisteringly hot, and we were heading home soon. Lia continued to see the old man, to come alive, and as our days wore down and our skin was brown and Lia’s hair was nearly white it was so bleached, we found ourselves reminiscing about the trip before it was even over.

“Nick, this is a pinnacle in our life, you know. This summer. Danny’s death was the worst thing we’ve been through, but this? This is one of the best.” We were at Pea Island, a beach of stones and rough sand, sitting on a sandbar, our shorts wet, and muddy sand caked into our feet. The next day, we would begin the journey back north, taking it slow, but this time with a destination in mind instead of just wandering. This time, with an end point.

The next morning, with the Bronco packed and the sun barely over the horizon, I suggested one last beach walk. We pulled over into an empty restaurant parking lot in Nags Head and walked hand in hand to the ocean. Holding hands was commonplace now, and it was something I was going to miss tremendously when Lia went back to grad school, and I tried to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. It felt like an anchor.

Just as I had known he would be, the man was running on the beach. God, Danny…or just a man. It didn’t matter. The morning sun grew blinding in a matter of minutes as we watched him run and swim and emerge from the water. Lia put her hands in her back pockets and raised her face to the sun when the old man did, closing her eyes and smiling along with him. Tears ran down her cheeks.

“Thank you, Danny,” Lia whispered, barely audible over the crash of the surf. She turned to me, squinting at the light. “And thank you Nick. What a perfect end to this summer—you and your magical ability to always know where to go. I’d follow you anywhere, you know that, right?”

I’d like to tell you that we went home, and Lia realized that she really was in love with me, and we spent every summer of our lives traveling like we did that year. What happened was more predictable. We went our own ways, staying close via text and Facebook, meeting up for a drink and a trip down memory lane over the holidays.

I never told Lia about the guy who was traveling the country the same summer as us. She hated the doom and gloom of the news and never watched it, let alone read a newspaper, but I did. The first morning, when she saw “God”, I had already read about him. He was a dude, an old man, traveling the country with the intent of doing his run/swim/yoga routine on every beach he could. He had a whole blog and everything, but he was old school. He didn’t have Instagram and he didn’t take any photos, just wrote a journal about where he’d been and where he was going. He only had about a hundred followers. Lia never came across him.

But I followed him religiously, and when Lia asked me to pick the next place, I’d go where the old man was going. I mean, I couldn’t predict the exact day and time he would be doing his thing, but she always seemed to see him. Maybe Lia was right and maybe there was something mystical at work.

All I know is that my role that summer was to stay by Lia’s side, to read the old man’s blog and tell her where we should travel to next. Maybe it really was Danny, somehow putting it all together to breathe life back into us. And it did bring us back to life—all of it. Not just the old man, but the wildness of the open air, the lack of a plan, the rejuvenating powers of salt and sea air.

Lia learned what it meant to be alive again. Her belief in God and the power of the universe healed her. And me?

I learned about love.