Page 3 of Tourist Season
“I have no idea what you just said.”
“Chairs, for Christ’s sake, Harper.”
“Not the Wassily chairs,” I say, pressing the back of my hand to my forehead. “I amaghast.”
“I thought you promised me pastrami.”
“Indeed.” I give him a little bow and head to the fridge,opening the stainless-steel door with the intention of finding the pastrami and provolone. But I find more than meat and cheese. I don’t turn around when I say, “That super-special sugar bowl … Is it green?”
“Yes. With a Swarovski crystal on the lid.”
I lift the lid of the bowl that sits eye level on a shelf in the fridge and sigh. “So … like … this one?” I turn to face Arthur with the sugar bowl in hand. The momentary burst of surprise in his eyes quickly dissolves into a glare, as though the bowl itself is at fault.
“I didn’t put that in there,” he declares. And though I could argue that no one is coming into his home to steal his shoes or place his sugar bowl somewhere he won’t find it, I don’t. It won’t accomplish anything more than upsetting him, because he simply doesn’t remember. Just like one day soon, he won’t remember me.
He drags a newspaper close to him, fidgeting with the corner of a page as he watches me for a long moment before finally lowering his gaze. He never used to do that. Fidget with things. Stare at me as though he can’t work me out. Ever since I came to Cape Carnage, he’s been the one person who truly understood me. But now, it’s as though walls are forming between us, ones we put up to preserve the person he still wants to be. And maybe that’s the hardest part of watching his slow decline.
I clear my throat and pull my phone from my back pocket, starting a message. “I bet Lukas put your sugar bowl in the fridge by accident. I’ll text him now to let him know.”
I’m throwing you under your grandfather’s judgy bus.
“Yes. Thank you. He mustn’t do that again,” Arthur says with a disgruntled cluck of his tongue. “It must have been Lukas. Tell him he must treat my belongings with more care next time he comes.”
My phone vibrates.
Fucksakes, Harper. One of the stills just exploded. I have literally no idea what the fuck I’m doing. I don’t need to be run over by the judgy bus.
Too late. It’ll make him happy. Under the judgy bus you go. Just lie there and accept your fate.
Fuck you.
“Lukas has been a little distracted lately, I think,” I say, then chew my dark grin into submission as the anticipation of winning a round of our game of sabotage buzzes through my veins.
“You’re right. Lukas is a bit absent-minded these days. Tell him I need him to come clean the gutters. The fresh air will do him some good.”
Judgy Bus says you’re coming to get some fresh air with the gutters.
But I hate heights.
You know, the septic alarm went off the other day. I was going to callsomeone out to fix it, but I could offer that instead?
Tell him I’ll be over on Wednesday.
I truly hate you.
“Done. Lukas will come by on Wednesday.” I grin as I slide my phone back into my pocket and wash my hands a second time under the weight of Arthur’s sharp, assessing gaze. His grunt of approval quickly follows. “How are things going at the distillery? Has he filled you in?”
If the revitalization of Lancaster Distillery were happening two years ago, Arthur would have given me a running list of everything going well and everything going awry. But now, he hesitates. He drums crooked fingers on the cherrywood table. “It’s fine,” he finally says, returning his attention to the newspaper. And I smile, because even though I know it’snotfine, I don’t want him to stress about something that will only manifest in other ways. Like sugar bowls in the fridge. Or a phantom shoe thief who stalks through the house as he sleeps.
“I’m glad to hear it.”
I finish making Arthur’s sandwich. He requests some light background music: Mozart’s operaDon Giovanni. Nothing like the tale of a supernatural statue besting an arrogant nobleman to set the tone for your lunch after finding your wayward embellished sugar bowl, I guess.
But who am I to complain? It makes him happy. And despite the sharp words that often cut their way free of his tongue, he’s a good man … I think. At the very least, alonelyman. So, I sit withhim as he eats. We talk about the town. The tourists who are starting to appear. He reminisces about moments from long ago, ones that are still easier to remember with his Alzheimer’s than the more recent experiences he struggles to recall. He tells me about the Cape Carnage he used to know, when it was an isolated place. Before food festivals, and shipwreck tours, and nighttime ghost walks with lanterns and costumes. Before repainted trim on Victorian houses and karaoke at the Buoy and Beacon Pub.
He talks about the kind of town where grief was not just a legacy, but a presence, as real as the fog that obscures the rocks that rest among the waves, waiting to crush hulls and claim lives. When Arthur was young, life was never easy in an isolated fishing village like Cape Carnage, which relies on the treacherous waters off northern Maine’s remote coastline for its livelihood. Death was only a bad storm or a hidden rock or a hard winter away. It’s not the town I know, though the echo of it still remains in the monuments to lost ships erected at the top of the promontory, facing the sea. But when he tells me the tales of Cape Carnage, I feel as though I’m the steward of those stories. Like he wants me to hold on to memories he knows are slipping away.
When Arthur has finished his meal, I give him his pills and wash up before settling him in the library. Even though my stomach is growling and a caffeine headache is starting to buzz through my brain, I stay with Arthur until he falls asleep in his favorite recliner for his post-lunch nap, a book splayed across his lap.
