Freezing. There's a chill in my blood, among other things.
The day is cruel; not quite cold enough to make ice, but at least as cold as death. This weather could kill. I'm glad I'm warm and dry, I think.
A rustic cottage--a little finer than a shack--stood off the side of a trail that coursed through the Cape Cod National Seashore in Eastham. On a warm-sand, blue-sky summer day, my father and I walked the Nauset Marsh Trail only two, maybe three years before he died. I had no sense then we were near the edge of his life, nor did he.
We were both surprised to discover a worn beach house within the boundaries of the National Seashore. The place appeared to have been abandoned, probably about the time the land was taken by the Park Service; it looked a little run down. So we were further surprised when its occupants emerged. An elderly couple, though fit and spry, considered us coolly as we passed by, considering them quizzically. Perhaps they wanted to explain how they were there first, before the Feds and Kennedys came and took all the land for a National Park, and perhaps they wanted to complain how they could not bring even one new shingle, or ounce of paint onto the protected land to maintain their vacation home. They seemed to bear an essential rage beneath their summer contentment; I only noticed because they were not beaming with charmed pleasure, as I thought I would be if I were staying in a cottage in the midst of paradise.
I rail against the fates for many losses, many could-have-been's, and I wail to know why things had to be the way they were. Every time I could be close to him, I became mute and distant. An invisible rock stood between us whenever we were together, and I don't know who it belonged to, him or me.
The Nauset Marsh cottage is gone now, I suspect, and maybe its owners' rage is gone too, unless they passed it on to some unfortunate offspring. My father has been gone for sixteen years and eight months, but I am not sure about our rock. However, I do know the fates are still here, and I guess I hate them less, though they will always win and I will lose. But maybe they don't want to win. Maybe they love me--it's possible you know. Maybe the fates are my loving teachers trying so hard to teach me what I need to know; the lesson is letting go.
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