Huron

The beach was a narrow path of silt and slate nestled between the lake and a rocky outcropping of stone blocks and rebar created when the Alpena Municipal Department had plowed the remnants of some old buildings down on to the shoreline to prevent erosion. The beach isn’t even really a beach, Marc thought. Not in the way people imagine beaches. It was quiet, too late in the season for tourists. Even tidal waves spoke softly. He thought of the ocean shore’s majestic roar. This was an admonishment for speaking too loudly in a library. 

Dani stood a few feet away from him, her arms at her side, her hand just beyond his reach. She hasn’t looked at me all day, he thought. Not really.

“You’re watching the boat,” she said, never turning her gaze from the lake.

It was true. He had seen the freighter silhouetted against the light blue of the evening horizon and kept watching it plod along, desperate for a distraction from the awkwardness between them. It was low in the water, heavy with freight. Soon, he thought, it would turn south, down the Detroit River, out, across, and through the canal at Welland on the way to moor at Hamilton. 

“It’s a ship, not a boat,” he said. “Ships carry boats. You know that.”

“I do,” she said, never taking her eyes from gentle rolling waves.

“Are you trying to pick a fight?” His voice was flat, with no hint of anger or frustration. He thought, Is this who I am now? So matter-of-fact? A heavy breath, not quite a sigh, escaped Dani’s lips.

“No,” she said, “I don’t want to fight, Marc.”

This was a mistake, he thought and then said, “I know this didn’t work out and I feel stupid now. I just wanted to do… something. It felt like we ought to do something and I thought it would be nice,“ he said, “to do something together. Like we used to.” 

Marc had planned the day for weeks. Anniversaries are emotional times. That’s what the therapist said, anyway. Of course, it hadn’t been nice. The Stygian beach. A blanket too flimsy to resist the light breeze. Cold containers of chicken that should have been warm served with pasta salad that wasn’t quite cold. Plastic wine glasses. The opposite of a magical day when people fall in love. 

“I understand,“ she said. “I think we all want to be able to feel like we can do something. That we have control.”

“We could go,” he offered.

“No,” she said. “Let’s stay a little longer. It feels like we should stay a little longer.”

They stood in silence as the light blue of the sky turned to navy and darkness crept up. He could barely make out the freighter now, as it started its turn. The temperature had dropped so he took off his sweater and offered it to her. She took it and draped it over her shoulders, more a reflex than a choice after so many years together. 

Dani said, “Do you remember that last vacation?”

“Up in Vermillion? The scuba lessons?” he said. “Yeah, I remember. It was a good trip. Maybe the best.” It would have to be, he thought. There wouldn’t be anymore. 

“I keep thinking back to that last summer. I remember the campfire that melted the water jug, and the fish at Brown’s that was so good we ordered three more before we were half-way done. I felt guilty feeding it to the gulls, but you just called it…”

“Gull welfare,” he said and laughed a genuine laugh. That’s what it’s like, he thought, to feel happy. But Dani only nodded, an acknowledgment that those were the words he said, but she didn’t laugh or crinkle the edge of her lip up in a smirk. Dani didn’t laugh now. Not at inside jokes, not at the movies, not even at the absurdity of therapy. 

A moment passed and she said, “That day at the lessons, the instructor, the one who ran the orientation, told us about all the lost ships. Like the Edmund Fitzgerald, but thousands of them. She told us they’re still there. All of them. Right where they sank. Never getting to their destination, stuck in the muck at the bottom of the lake with no one coming to get them. Ever.” 

“I don’t see what that…” he started.

“I know you don’t, Marc,” she said. “We were supposed to have this… journey. But now I’m stuck. And no one’s coming for me.”

“That’s what I was trying to say, Dani. That I’m sorry, ”

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “I’ve always said that to you, even if you didn’t believe me. I never thought it was your fault.”

 “I know,” Marc said. “This isn’t about blame for what happened. There are two kinds of ‘sorry’. There’s the ‘sorry’ that’s for what happened and the kind that’s for what happened after.”

“An apology is for when you’ve done something,” she said. 

Or nothing, he thought. Nothing is what he’d done. He’d processed things in his own time. Not fast enough for him, too fast for her. But they’d muddled through together, until that day in Dr. Hoyle’s office. He’d thought that she was there too, ready to step into what was next. Not forgetting. Just… letting go. When you can laugh about it, that’s acceptance, isn’t it? One minute your son is second line All-State and the next he’s a freshman at Evergreen Cemetery.

“It’s nothing you did or said.” For a moment, she seemed closer to him, even though she still stood just out of reach. "Once it happened, there was never any other way it could have been,” she said. “Those ships were sunk the moment they left port. They just didn’t know it.”

“I guess we should go,” Marc said.

They walked slowly back up the beach in silence. Looking back, out across the lake, Marc saw darkness had cloaked the freighter. He knew it was sailing on to a port where it would unload and rise high in the water. He wondered if, free of its burden, it would turn back or make passage out the St. Lawrence and into the sea.