Reynold Junker

&More--Sept/Oct 2014

Summer's End

Reynold Junker

Unfailingly, every day, around the time the cicadas began to hum and the light became slightly more orange, the question would be raised: “Is it time for a round of gimlets?"

Gimlet Summer - Drinking Gimlets in Late Summer - Esquire, Leslie Pariseau

Michael D’Angelo woke with a start in a small bedroom filled with the hush of late afternoon quiet. He must have been napping – though not for long. His mouth was free of the dry chalk and cotton taste of deep sleep. His head was perfectly clear. He looked at the bedside table–a gin gimlet–fresh lime, glass frosted. The ice cubes showed no sign of melting. He listened. The only sound was summer sunlight settling into hidden corners.

Michael pulled himself up to a sitting position and dropped his legs over the edge of the bed. Bare feet met bare wood. There was a dusting of sand around his ankles and between his toes. His swim trunks were damp. He’d come in from the beach, made himself the drink then lay down for a minute. He sipped the drink. The cold of the ice, the tang of the gin, and the sweet-sour bite of lime caressed his tongue. Life was good.

He carried the drink to one of the two large windows that filled the front of the room and looked out at the beach below and beyond to the breaking surf. No one.

He hoped he hadn't slept through dinner again. He walked out of the bedroom into the hall. He checked each of the other three bedrooms. In each the double beds were neatly made, The shades were drawn. He heard a faucet dripping–water against porcelain–a slow drip. At the top of the narrow steps to the dining room he paused to listen for sounds of cooking, eating or cleaning up. He listened for the sound of something, anything. “Molly?” he called. “Molly? Anyone?”

Michael took another sip of the gimlet. The ice hadn't melted at all. Time seemed to have stopped, and, if time had stopped, what better place for it to stop–the right drink at the right time.

The dining room table was set for a dinner. Sunlight caught in the bowls of eight crystal wineglasses–a dinner party. He’d have to dress. He continued through the living room out onto the slate floor of the front porch. A large blue-faded-to-gray beach towel hung across the back of a wicker rocker near the front door. He draped the towel over his shoulders and stepped onto the shaded sand of the beachfront. Rocker and door squeaked at his touch.

He climbed the sand dune in front of the house and turned to look back. No one. He held his drink up to catch the westering sunlight, toasted the house, and sipped. He turned east to the ocean, toasted, and sipped again. He sipped slowly, lingeringly, as though lingering would extend the day.

He started for the water, jogging, pacing himself, careful not to spill the drink. At water's edge, he dropped the towel and crouched to plant the drink in the cool sand. As he raised himself he looked back to the house and saw something, someone, move in the window of the room where he’d wakened. He waved. Someone, a shadow from where he stood, waved back. Molly?

In the surf the water was a cool brace against his sun-warmed skin. Wading out he dipped his fingertips into the water. For some distant and dimly remembered but once important reason, he paused to make the sign of the cross – forehead, heart, left shoulder, right shoulder And, for maybe the same reason, he lightly kissed the salt wet tips of his fingers.

Catching his breath and holding it, Michael dove under the tumbling curl of a breaking wave. Submerged, he opened his eyes and took in the beauty of the blue-green water and the stone-pebbled, broken-shelled sand whirling around him. The blurred blues and greens caught in the sunlight-shafted water, washed to clear and again to blur by the waves breaking over him. Again and then again.

The salt of the water smarted his eyes as he pulled himself up and out and dove again. Again and then again. Blurred. Clear. Blurred. Clear. He felt a kind of clumsiness lifting out of him. At the water's edge the ice in his gimlet began to melt.

"And this is how you found him?" the attending nurse asked. She was holding both of the younger woman's hands in hers. They were seated together in the bedroom of the small hospice apartment. The younger woman’s hair was damp with snow, her jacket and gloves folded neatly beside her. The sweet odor of disinfectant hung lightly in the air. On a single bed by a single window an older man was lying on his back, seemingly asleep. Fading twilight filled the room. Somewhere in the hall a pneumatic door opened and then whispered closed. An outside chill passed into the room.

“Your father was always one of our favorites. Everyone here loved him. I’m so sorry.”

"He was comfortable here," the younger woman answered. "I was only gone fifteen minutes–twenty, maybe. I was out getting something for his dinner. He’d said he was going to make himself a drink–a gin gimlet and then take a nap."

“There is no gin here.” The nurse withdrew a hand leaving it free to gesture. “You know it’s not allowed–his doctor’s orders were very clear on that."

“No, no. I know. It was our game–our private game since my mother died and my father stopped drinking. A gin gimlet had always been their summer drink–his and my mother Molly’s.”

"Did he say or do anything unusual?"

"No. Not really. He told me he loved me and then he kissed me goodnight. He was only going to take a nap. Maybe that was unusual–kissing me goodnight when he was only going to take a nap. Why do you ask?"

"Because he looks like he's smiling. He looks happy, like he’s asleep and having a really nice dream,"

"He does. He's been doing more than a bit of that lately, dreaming. He’s really loved telling me about his dreams."

On the table at Michael D’Angelo’s bedside the ice in the otherwise empty glass had completely melted.