Page 24 of The Beachgoers
It must feel like some safe place to be, behind those big hands of his. Hands that block his sight, and block his own difficult emotion. But when Kyle looks up, expelling a long breath, Jason’s eyes are open and watching him.
“Hey,hey,” Kyle says. “There you are.” He quickly looks around and drags a chair to the bed. “You’re up, man,” he adds while unbuttoning his suit jacket and sitting.
Then? Nothing. Nothing except Kyle clearing his throat. And taking in the sight of Jason’s face, up close. And his hospital gown. And asking if Jason feels okay. “You need anything? You good for a visit?”
Jason barely nods, but Kyle sees it. You can tell by the way he scoots his chair even closer and briefly clasps Jason’s arm—Kyle’s hand wavering on its way there, on its way maneuvering wires and tubes taped securely in place.
But he manages, then leans close. “How’re you doing, guy? Okay?”
“Yeah.” Jason’s voice is hoarse, and quiet. “You know.”
“I get it. Shit. Hey, listen, I just came from the funeral. Your brother’s.”
Jason’s eyes drop closed, but open again a second later.
“It was really moving, man.” Kyle’s serious as he talks. His inflections, few. “So many people, the church was mobbed.” He pauses and turns up his hands. “Everyone loved your brother. And you, too, guy. They all missed you there. So let me tell you a little about it, okay?”
“Okay.” Jason’s voice comes raspy with fatigue, and disuse. Raspy with hours of lying there and talking to no one.
“Oh, wait.” Kyle reaches into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “I brought you something,” he says, pulling out an old photograph. It’s a snapshot of four boys standing on the banks of the Stony Point marsh. Two sneakered boys dressed in striped tops and shorts each hold a toy boat. The other two boys wear camping vests over their cargo shorts. The vest pockets are stuffed with rocks and sticks. Their hiking sandals are caked with mud; more mud is smeared as camouflage beneath their eyes. One of those boys holds a plastic machine gun; the other, a canteen. “My dad took this, remember?” Kyle asks.
When Jason raises his hand off the bed, Kyle gives him the picture. Jason brings it closer to his face, tipping the photo so the light hits it.
“That was the day me and Shane first met you and your brother. You and Neil. Remember?” Kyle asks. “That’s Shane holding the red sailboat beside me. And there you are. Holding the gun beside your brother.”
When he talks, Jason’s voice is little more than a whisper. “We bombed your boats in the marsh.”
“That’s right!” Kyle leans his elbows on his knees and clasps his hands. And drops his head for a long second before looking at Jason again. “So anyway, last night… well… Well, I said a few words at Neil’s wake. And I showed that picture,” he says, nodding at the photo Jason still holds.
Jason looks closely at it for several seconds before handing it back to Kyle.
“Yeah, so. You know, there was nothing but love at the wake yesterday, and at the funeral today at St. Bernard’s. The people, Jason. I mean, your brother will be sorely missed,” Kyle tells him as he reaches inside his suit jacket and slips the photograph back in the pocket there. “Every pew was filled. It was nice there, at the church, the way the sunshine came in the stained-glass windows. And the priest’s blessing at the end, well, don’t worry. I know Neil went through a nightmare, but believe me, the priest prayed for his soul. It was very comforting, the way the incense was burning. And the way the priest stood there at the coffin. Right there, he asked the good Lord to open the gates of the kingdom for His servant. For Neil.” Kyle presses his lips together and nods. “And you know something, Barlow?”
“What’s that?”
“It felt like those gates reallydidopen.”
Jason barely squints at Kyle. “Believe what you want. What you need to.”
Kyle looks toward the window, then back at Jason still watching him. “I believe Neil’s at peace.”
Jason nods. Just once. After that, he only breathes. In and out. Silently—as the machines around him monitor and gauge and track his every move, his breath, his pulse.
“Oh, here, here.” Kyle reaches into his suit’s side pocket. “I brought you this from the church. It’s the prayer card they gave out for Neil. It’s got a nice verse about the beach on back. But your father? Said that instead of a scenic shot, he wantedNeil’spicture on the front. See? Above it, it says,In Loving Memory. And then Neil’s name and date of birth and, well, when he died,” Kyle says, pointing to the picture, “they’re beneath his picture. Only twenty-seven, man. Gone way too soon.” He holds up the prayer card so Jason sees the front, where there’s a snapshot of Neil on the beach. He’s got on a tee; a sea breeze blows his dark, messy hair; his smile is wide. “I’ll read you the prayer, okay?”
“Sure, Kyle.”
“Okay.” Kyle clears his throat, reads the verse silently first, then looks at Jason. “So, here we go.” He fidgets with the card and clears his throat again. “I think that what your father was after here was that Neil didn’t suffer. That the Lord, you know, He steers the ship in the seas of our lives… and maybe He was there for your brother, at the end. So anyway, here’s the verse—which it says is Psalm 89:9.” Again Kyle clears his throat. “Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, Thou stillest them.” Kyle only looks at the words, then. His eyes, they tear up and he swipes at them. “Shit, did the waves rise that day, no? But you can rest easy, man. Because your dad nailed it with this verse. I think that God above stilled those waves for your brother. Yeah.” A pause, then, as he hands Jason the card. “So he’s in a good place now. No suffering.”
Just then, there’s a light tap at the door as a nurse walks in. She’s young, in her twenties, and dressed in navy scrubs. Her thick, sandy blonde hair is pulled back in a low twist; a stethoscope hangs around her neck; her voice is soothing as she nods at Kyle, then talks to Jason.
“Hey, Jason,” she says, lifting a clipboard from a rack at the foot of his bed. She scans a page, puts the clipboard back and walks around the bed. Touching his arm, she bends closer. “How’re you feeling today? Need anything?”
Jason shakes his head, no.
“What do you have there?” she asks, motioning to the card he still holds.
“It’s a prayer card,” Kyle explains. “I’m Kyle. A good friend of Jason’s and just came from his brother’s funeral.”
