It was late Summer. The trees bent lazily in the thick heat. Large black flies floated heavily around a sweating pitcher of lemonade. There was a half eaten ham sandwich and a balled up baseball jersey sitting abandoned on a wicker table. Samuel Hardy was called in to lunch by his mother. Matty Fey waited on the Sam's porch, just as Sam had waited for Matty to eat his ham sandwich. Both their mother's refused to feed anyone but their own. "Your father and me ain't working day and night to feed the Hardy's." Matty's mother had told him. He imagined Sam's mother has said something similar to Sam.
"All set!" Sam lunged through the screen door wiping mayonnaise from his chin, "Let's go!"
Matty stumbled after Sam who was half a year older and about two years taller. The two boys crouched down in a thicket. It was too hot for anything to be out and about but a small garter snake sliding through the grass. The boys paid it no mind. They had more pressing matters to attend to.
"You get them?" Matty asked crouching down low on the dirt.
"Yeah, had to wait until she was out taking a phone call in the parlor, though. She's got eyes in the back of her head, my mom!"
Sam reached into the pocket of his cut off's and produced a pack of red tip matches.
"Good, I left it them in the hollow of that climbing tree over there,"The smaller boy tossed his head to the left, "The one Jerry Yew fell out of last Summer."
"And broke his arm, yeah, I know it…" Jerry Yew was a seventh grader, two grades ahead of Matty and Sam. After he fell out of the tree, he had let them sign his cast. He was all right, Jerry Yew.
"So, tonight, then?"Sam crouched lower to stare into Matty's eyes. Matty wiped the sweat from his forehead, and returned the stare.
"Tonight."
That was the last Summer day Matty Fey was to run around a free and careless boy. Sam Hardy didn't come around anymore. he couldn't stand the sight of his friend, the sound of his labored breathing through damaged lungs. His torso bound and bandaged up like a mummy. No, he couldn't stand to see his friend like that…but worse than seeing his friend was seeing Mrs. Fey's accusing stare. Ben had supplied the matches, after all. Ben had had the idea after watching a firework display down in Boston on the Fourth of July. Ben was half a year older. Ben wasn't burned. A few years later, when Ben was 14, the Hardy's moved away. For some years, Ben managed to nearly forget about Matty Fey. After High School, Ben moved across the country to go to college. After college, Ben moved further west to the coast. The farther he moved, the less he was reminded of home…of that late Summer day.
The beach was deserted, good. Ben liked it best when there were no distractions. He plunged into the cool pacific and began to swim. Lap after lap, the water encasing him dulling his senses. The waves were fat and generously rolled with the motion of his body. Swimming was Ben's catharsis, his form of meditation, his secret to sanity.
When he returned home, his wife was already awake, she was smashing an avocado into a blender full of bananas and mango chunks. Breakfast. Perfect.
"Hey, your mom called." She yelled over the sound of the whirling blender.
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah, call her back. She says it's important."
"I will…" Ben went to turn on the shower for a rinse.
"No, Ben, now! She's going to think I forgot to tell you!"
They were a year married, and Kaia was still self conscious around Ben's mother. It was endearing, he thought. He laughed,
"Allright, jeeze."
Ben kissed Kaia on her forehead , and picked up his phone.
"Mom! Kaia said you called…" he began walking to the bedroom, the sound of the blender whirring behind him.
Kaia knocked on the bedroom door. He couldn't still possibly be talking to his mother, it had been 20 minutes already. When Ben didn't answer she pushed open the door and entered the room. Ben was sitting with his head in his hands, still in his swim trunks, on the edge of the bed.
"Ben-" she said softly, placing his smoothie on the bamboo night stand.
"He's dead-Matty Fey. All these years, and he died--finally." Kaia nodded. She knew the story, after a few too many Johnny Walker Blacks, Ben had told her the story. It was their fifth-sixth date? She put her arms around her husband's shoulders.
"Well, he's not in pain, anymore, and that's a blessing,"she said.
"Yeah, yeah, I guess it is." Ben wiped his eyes, and smiled. "He sure held on, though-or his mother wouldn't let him go, more likely. She was never going to let that boy die peacefully."
"It must've have been an impossible situation for her, I cannot imagine." Kaia was right. Kaia was usually right.
Ben stepped off the plane and made his way into the airport. He grabbed his lone back pack, this wasn't going to be a long stay. He would go to the funeral and leave. He wouldn't speak to anyone unless he head to. He hadn't even wanted to go to the damn thing. Kaia convinced him to go, for closure, she said.
He hailed a cab, and booked his room. "Overnight. That's it. Check out 11 am, and I am gone."
The funeral was service was touching, photos of the smiling young boy with sandy blonde hair and an impish smile were displayed in prominent gold frames surrounded by white carnations. After, the guests relocated to the buffet. Food, food and more food to feed the emptiness. to fill the hole.
Ben was relieved that no one seemed to recognize him. He felt like he might have made his peace with Matty. He could finally leave that late Summer day behind.
"Benjamin Hardy?" Ben turned. A small shriveled woman stood before him. She might have been 50, but she looked twenty years older. She had a black pill box hat on her head with a sheer black veil obscuring her face, but Ben knew it was her. Mrs. Fey.
"Mrs. Fey, yes. I am so sorry for your loss. He-Matty was my best friend, you know?"
"I know, Dear. It must have been very difficult for you, growing up with that memory. Seeing Matty like that. Yes, very difficult."
She dabbed her eyes with a tissue.
"I wish I could have been there more, I wish I could have done something for him. To ease his suffering--"
"We all wish that, don't we? Mr. Fey died 15 years ago, a bit after your family moved. I think he died of grief." Mrs. Fey gazed into
Ben's eyes. There it was, that accusing stare, those steely blue eyes cutting through him, making him want to sink into the floor.
"I didn't know that. I am sorry, Mrs. Fey. I am sure it's been very difficult-"
"Do you if I could have bottled his pain and drank it all myself, I would have? I would have died to give him one day free of pain.
I would have taken all the pain of the world and swallowed like a capsule just to let him live one day a regular boy again." She wasn't crying, she was still looking, unblinking into Ben's eyes.
"Of course. Of course, I don't know what to say, Mrs. Fey-"Ben felt tears singing his eyes. Why had he come here?
"But I couldn't let him die. If I let him die, I would have freed myself from all the pain, his and mine, and then I might have forgotten him--what was I to do? Just forget my boy and move on?!" she raised her voice, Ben stepped back, "Just die to escape like his father?!"
People were staring at them, now, and Mrs. Fey breathed deeply, steadying herself.
"Sorry…"Ben whispered…suddenly he was 10 years old again, staring at his shoes, his face was aflame with shame.
"You know, Ben Hardy, you ought to be." Mrs. Fey turned and walked away.
Ben left the funeral, shaking. He began walking. He walked for an hour before he reached his old house. The lights were on, someone was home. He continued until he reached the thicket and then the tree. He leaned against the old trunk, next to the hollow. The wind picked up and whistled through the grass in the thicket. Ben sank to the ground, and his tears fell freely, fiercely.
The ocean was bathed in that rosy gold glow that only the Californiasun can bestow. Ben dove into the cool water of the pacific, bobbing and weaving the rhythm of the waves. With each lap he felt his mind lighten and float with his body. He toweled himself off and journeyed back up the beach toward home.
