sleep—one hand ripping at the other, both hands tearing at his face—without waking.
Besides, he had been scratched by someone with sharp fingernails. His own nails were blunt, bitten down to the quick.
17
SOUTH OF Cielo Vista Care Home, between Corona Del Mar and Laguna, Bobby tucked the Samurai into a corner of a parking lot at a public beach. He and Julie walked down to the shore.
The sea was marbled blue and green, with thin veins of gray. The water was dark in the troughs, lighter and more colorful where the waves rose and were half pierced by the rays of the fat, low sun. In serried ranks the breakers moved toward the strand, big but not huge, wearing caps of foam that the wind snatched from them.
Surfers in black wetsuits paddled their boards out toward where the swell rose, seeking a last ride before twilight. Others, also in wetsuits, sat around a couple of big coolers, drinking hot beverages from thermos bottles or Coors from the can. The day was too cool for sunbathing, and except for the surfers, the beach was deserted.
Bobby and Julie walked south until they found a low knoll, far enough back from the water to escape the spray. They sat on the stiff grass that flourished in patches in the sandy, salt-tinged soil.
When at last she spoke, Julie said, “A place like this, with a view like this. Not a big place.”
“Doesn’t have to be. A living room, one bedroom for us and one for Thomas, maybe a cozy little den lined with books.”
“We don’t even need a dining room, but I’d like a big kitchen.”
“Yeah. A kitchen you can really live in.”
She sighed. “Music, books, real home-cooked meals instead of junk food grabbed on the fly, lots of time to sit on the porch and enjoy the view—and the three of us together.”
That was the rest of The Dream: a place by the sea and— by otherwise living simply—enough financial security to retire twenty years early.
One of the things that had drawn Bobby to Julie—and Julie to him—was their shared awareness of the shortness of life. Everyone knew that life was too short, of course, but most people pushed that thought out of mind, living as if there were endless tomorrows. If most people weren’t able to deceive themselves about death, they could not have cared so passionately about the outcome of a ball game, the plot of a soap opera, the blatherings of politicians, or a thousand other things that actually meant nothing when considered against the inevitable fall of the endless night that finally came to everyone. They could not have endured to waste a minute standing in a supermarket line and would not have suffered hours in the company of bores or fools. Maybe a world lay beyond this one, maybe even Heaven, but you couldn’t count on it; you could count only on darkness. Self-deception in this case was a blessing. Neither Bobby nor Julie was a gloom-monger. She knew how to enjoy life as well as anyone, and so did he, even if neither of them could buy the fragile illusion of immortality that served most people as a defense against the unthinkable. Their awareness expressed itself not in anxiety or depression, but in a strong resolve not to spend their lives in a hurly-burly of meaningless activity, to find a way to finance long stretches of time together in their own serene little tide pool.
As her chestnut hair streamed in the wind, Julie squinted at the far horizon, which was filling up with honey-gold light as the sinking sun drizzled toward it. “What frightens Thomas about being out in the world is people, too many people. But he’d be happy in a little house by the sea, a quiet stretch of coast, few people. I’m sure he would.”
“It’ll happen,” Bobby assured her.
“By the time we build the agency big enough to sell, the southern coast will be too expensive. But north of Santa Barbara is pretty.”
“It’s a long coast,” Bobby said, putting an arm around her. “We’ll still be able to find a place in the south. And
Besides, he had been scratched by someone with sharp fingernails. His own nails were blunt, bitten down to the quick.
17
SOUTH OF Cielo Vista Care Home, between Corona Del Mar and Laguna, Bobby tucked the Samurai into a corner of a parking lot at a public beach. He and Julie walked down to the shore.
The sea was marbled blue and green, with thin veins of gray. The water was dark in the troughs, lighter and more colorful where the waves rose and were half pierced by the rays of the fat, low sun. In serried ranks the breakers moved toward the strand, big but not huge, wearing caps of foam that the wind snatched from them.
Surfers in black wetsuits paddled their boards out toward where the swell rose, seeking a last ride before twilight. Others, also in wetsuits, sat around a couple of big coolers, drinking hot beverages from thermos bottles or Coors from the can. The day was too cool for sunbathing, and except for the surfers, the beach was deserted.
Bobby and Julie walked south until they found a low knoll, far enough back from the water to escape the spray. They sat on the stiff grass that flourished in patches in the sandy, salt-tinged soil.
When at last she spoke, Julie said, “A place like this, with a view like this. Not a big place.”
“Doesn’t have to be. A living room, one bedroom for us and one for Thomas, maybe a cozy little den lined with books.”
“We don’t even need a dining room, but I’d like a big kitchen.”
“Yeah. A kitchen you can really live in.”
She sighed. “Music, books, real home-cooked meals instead of junk food grabbed on the fly, lots of time to sit on the porch and enjoy the view—and the three of us together.”
That was the rest of The Dream: a place by the sea and— by otherwise living simply—enough financial security to retire twenty years early.
One of the things that had drawn Bobby to Julie—and Julie to him—was their shared awareness of the shortness of life. Everyone knew that life was too short, of course, but most people pushed that thought out of mind, living as if there were endless tomorrows. If most people weren’t able to deceive themselves about death, they could not have cared so passionately about the outcome of a ball game, the plot of a soap opera, the blatherings of politicians, or a thousand other things that actually meant nothing when considered against the inevitable fall of the endless night that finally came to everyone. They could not have endured to waste a minute standing in a supermarket line and would not have suffered hours in the company of bores or fools. Maybe a world lay beyond this one, maybe even Heaven, but you couldn’t count on it; you could count only on darkness. Self-deception in this case was a blessing. Neither Bobby nor Julie was a gloom-monger. She knew how to enjoy life as well as anyone, and so did he, even if neither of them could buy the fragile illusion of immortality that served most people as a defense against the unthinkable. Their awareness expressed itself not in anxiety or depression, but in a strong resolve not to spend their lives in a hurly-burly of meaningless activity, to find a way to finance long stretches of time together in their own serene little tide pool.
As her chestnut hair streamed in the wind, Julie squinted at the far horizon, which was filling up with honey-gold light as the sinking sun drizzled toward it. “What frightens Thomas about being out in the world is people, too many people. But he’d be happy in a little house by the sea, a quiet stretch of coast, few people. I’m sure he would.”
“It’ll happen,” Bobby assured her.
“By the time we build the agency big enough to sell, the southern coast will be too expensive. But north of Santa Barbara is pretty.”
“It’s a long coast,” Bobby said, putting an arm around her. “We’ll still be able to find a place in the south. And
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