Any Mother Would

I do not think of the man in the bed. Nothing can distract me from my morning run. I’m making good time. I could run forever. I am a woman of  forty again. A woman of thirty. I am all muscle. Hard as granite and tough as sinew. An ear bud hangs from my neck, a strand of hair gone astray. Another bud fills my left ear with music. Bach’s violin concerto in A minor. The Sex Pistols. The great Sicilian songstress Rosa Balistreri. This is the only way to run — one ear cleaved by music, the other exposed to the waves upon the shore, the wind, a chorus of gulls, the fierce pounding of  my feet clad in sneakers with expensive memory foam. The veins in my legs throb, my thighs burn like slabs of meat on a grill. My lungs are heavy, head spinning but I will reach the lighthouse on the far side of the beach. The martinis were a mistake but nothing will keep me from running. I stop only once. I bend over and purge last night from my system. Seawater licks the soles of my sneakers. Crabs scuttle from a pile of driftwood. Great mountains of seaweed, washed up by the storm, litter the shoreline. The skeleton of an old fishing skiff rots in the dunes.

Fresh gullies scar the beach like broken spiderwebs. Flood water from burst rivers flows from the bluff to meet the ocean. The same winter floods that have imprisoned me in the old hotel beyond the dunes. They say there are ghosts in the old hotel but I have not seen them. The air is heavy. The corridors musty. A place full of ancient murders and dead drunken poets. I cannot breathe within its faded walls. I am alive again on this endless stretch of beach. Salt and sand cake my lips. Last night’s storm has cleaned the air, it tastes so good. The Atlantic breathes with me.

Black clouds gather and break apart. The lighthouse throws its feeble beam upon the waves. By the time I reach it, the dying light will be gone, extinguished by a beautiful winter morning.  I pick up speed. My right knee feels like it’s been jolted by an electric cattle prod but I keep running. I hope my knee doesn’t blow out. I clench my fists, bite my lower lip and pick up the pace. I shrug off the pain. My forehead is slick with sweat, lycra clings to my throbbing legs like a grotesque second skin. The lighthouse is within reach. It waits for me at the top of the bluff. I power up the rocky path. Beachgrass wraps around my ankles. It cannot hold me back. At the top of the bluff, I slow down and circle the lighthouse. I suck the salt-crusted wind. My body trembles, my knee is about to explode. I wipe away the sweaty film on the face of the smartwatch around my wrist. My ribs expand, my washboard abs tighten. I made good time. I bend over, hands on my knees. My lungs slowly deflate. My heart is steady, a beautiful rhythm. I survey the furious ocean, its waves still bring up victims of the storm. Hundreds of broken crab shells, rusted refrigerators, fishing nets, gasping fish, plastic containers, plastic bags bleeding into the sand, great slag heaps of plastic bottles. The shoreline is a graveyard of jellyfish glistening in morning sunshine. I limp around the long-abandoned lighthouse keeper’s cottage. The stench of rotting wood on the frigid wind. I need to ice my knee. The old hotel rises from the dunes beyond. An art deco monstrosity. How it still stands, I do not know. I do not want to spend another night there.

I walk along the beach where I ran moments before. The sea is already erasing my running footsteps but I follow them anyway. I want to step into one but I fear my foot won’t fit anymore. A wave breaks the shore. My earbuds hang noose-like around my neck. I have no music. The smartphone is dead in my armband. A second wave crashes, then another. I hobble from the shoreline to escape the water. The water recedes, the horizon darkens. I close my eyes and wait for a monster wave to smother me, take me out to sea. I open my eyes. The sky is clean and bright. The Atlantic at rest. There will be no rain today. I hope the roads will be cleared soon. I turn my back to the ocean and the sun warms my neck. A man probes the sand with a metal detector. He is too engrossed in a treasure hunt to wave back. A trio of women run between me and the treasure hunter. They are like me, lean, fast, determined and in their prime. I hate them for it. My knee is about to explode. I stop and pick up a handful of sand, it is soft like cookie dough. I rub the sand over my knee, working in the granules until my skin burns. My knee is red, adorned with a beautiful kaleidoscope of scratches. I pack some sand into a little ball and bring it to my lips. I want to eat it. I want it to smell like vanilla but it holds the scent of a rancid storm-tossed sea. I roll my tongue over the ball of sand and spit it out. It should be cookie dough. My son always said sand was like cookie dough. But that was on a different beach, in a different world. The treasure hunter is on his knees, pawing at the sand, puffing through reddened cheeks. I hope he finds something that makes him happy. The women are distant shadows now. They will reach the old lighthouse soon. I hope they don’t better my time. I wipe more sand from my lips. I climb the wooden stairs cutting through the dunes. I try not to think of the man in the bed in my room in the old hotel, but I see his perfect teeth, his slick hair, his slippery face. When I reach the old hotel, I turn to face the ocean, catch my breath. There should be children on the beach. There should be children exploring rockpools. There should be children flying kites, laughing in the wind.

I push through the revolving doors of the old hotel. I fall into the nearest chair, dig my nails deep into its worn velvet arms. The lobby heaves like a sinking ship. I am sure I am the colour of seaweed. The boy wears a bow tie and red waistcoat. He is the age my son will never be. His voice cracks when he asks me if I’m ok. I ask for ice cubes wrapped in a towel, a glass of water, a bloody mary, and the card key to my room. No, I tell him, I don’t need a doctor. I don’t want breakfast. I press the towel-wrapped ice cubes against my knee and look at the sickly clock above the front desk. Surely, the man still sleeps in my room. He could not be awake – not after four glasses of bourbon on the rocks and two and a half Xanax tablets. The Bloody Mary is good but the glass of water is better. I ask the boy for another, extra ice, two slices of lemon. The bridge to the mainland is still flooded, he says, but the ferry should be operating this evening. I suck on an ice cube, spit it into my hand and rub it across my neck. The boy watches the ice melt in droplets that run down my neck. I don’t mind. He’s an awkward boy. I hope he doesn’t hate women by the time he is my age.

I sign for the bill, watch the restless families wear out the lobby carpet, children lost among the piles of luggage. The girl at the front desk pleads for quiet and turns up the radio. Another storm is brewing out at sea courtesy of atmospheric river that won’t go away. Something called a bomb cyclone. The ferry will leave earlier than expected – in one hour. Not enough time and I can’t leave my car. I’ll have to ride out the storm. I ice my knee again and tie the towel around it. I step into the elevator and a boy in a red waistcoat smiles. It’s one of those old hand-operated ones with a lever. It’s not the boy who served me drinks in the lobby but he could be. He is the age my soon will never be. They all are. My room is on the top floor. I splurged for the suite in all its faded glory. I splurged for the sea view. The boy doesn’t hold out his hand when I leave the elevator but I know he expects something. I brush silver hair from my eyes and kiss him on the cheek. The doors of the elevator close with a clap of thunder. My lips are warm from the boy’s flushed cheek. I suppress a laugh even though no one is around to hear it. Did I excite him? Unnerve him? Disgust him? I am old enough to be his… well, you know.

I step into the corridor. It is colder here than on the storm-swept beach. I put a hand on the dark, panelled wall. Grains of wood swirl like pools of blood. I drag my hand along the wall as I walk, careful not to put too much pressure on my knee. The ice cubes have melted through the towel. It hangs like a sad, dead thing. A creature left by the ocean on the broken shore. I reach my room at the far end of the corridor. I swipe the card key and the little light on the lock goes green. I open the door. I smell booze, stale sheets, an unflushed toilet. Wind shakes the window beyond the bed. The window is wide, this will be a good place to watch the bomb cyclone break over the horizon. I step into the room and the man in the bed stirs.

*                                                 

We met in the hotel bar last night. My mood was sour, the vegetarian option I had at dinner was a sorry affair. Limp bucatini drowning in a weak tomato sauce, cheap olive oil. Shavings of pecorino tasted like wood chips. My mother would never order pasta in a restaurant and she was right. I should always remember to listen to the dead. The first martini in the hotel bar made up for dinner, though, and by the time the piano player started In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning, my edge had been blunted. It was my fourth night in the old hotel, two longer than I had planned. I always escaped the city on my son’s anniversary but now marooned by the winter floods, I longed to return to the familiar, no matter how bleak that might be.

By the time my second martini was just a half-chewed olive in a smudged glass, his gaze was upon me. Eyes crawled over my muscular legs, wiry arms in my black sleeveless dress. He sat at the other end of the bar. He took in my wind-lined, but beautiful face. I looked at the dead screen of my phone. I pursed my mouth, the lipstick held perfectly. The bartender brought me a drink I didn’t order. The man at the other end of the bar nodded. He is the same age my son should be.

He was by my side before my lips touched the rim of the glass. He looked into his old-fashioned and looked at me. I didn’t smile. His face was familiar, a look of the old neighbourhood — dark and brawny, the power of the street. There were dozens of boys like him in my son’s school. Alpha pricks, kings of the world – everything my son wasn’t. He dipped a stubby finger into his drink, twirled it like a straw. He needed a shave.

“I know you.” His voice is deep, thick with the drink. I still wouldn’t crack a smile but I played the game.

“You should. You’ve been watching me all evening.”

He turned the colour of my perfect lipstick. “No. I mean, yes, I have been.” He takes a drink. “Because I know you, know you. You’re Mrs di Vita, aren’t you. I went to school with your son.”

My son, my Vincent. I didn’t rush to the restroom to throw up, I didn’t smash my glass on the bar. The floor didn’t open up and devour me. I was still there, despite the momentary collapse of time, drinking with someone from the past, my son’s past. A boy from the old neighbourhood who became a man. My son never became a man.

He knocked back the dregs of his glass and ordered two shots of bourbon. I shook my head and he downed the two shots before I had a chance to catch my breath.

I drummed my fingers on the stem of the martini glass. I stared at the man as he stared at the bar. I tried to imagine his high school face. He knew my son but I couldn’t place him. I coughed, reminded myself to breathe. He invaded my space and put a monstrous hand on my shoulder.

“You don’t remember me. I’m Pete. Pete Grasso. We never met, well not really but I remember you from the funeral all those years ago.”

His breath was sickly-sweet, drenched in bourbon. Years ago? It was yesterday. It is today. It is tomorrow. That is what I should have said, but as I raised a finger for another martini, this is what came out: “Did you know Vincent well?”

His voice was as quiet as my own. “Not really. Vinny and I ran with different crews, you know? But I always liked him. Crazy time, all the messing around we got up to back then. Yep, Vinny sure was a good guy. Poor, poor Vinny. It was a terrible accident.”

I didn’t cry at the funeral and I wasn’t going to cry now, not here in this old hotel beside the furious ocean in front of a man who knew my son. Vinny? No one called him Vinny. No one, not ever.

“A terrible accident.” And he ordered another drink. He took a sip, slid off the stool, and steadied himself against the bar. “Nature calls.” I knew he would say something stupid like that. He was tall, slouched and glassy-eyed. There was an odd beauty in his physical wreckage. He put a hand on my bare shoulder again, stroked my cheek. “You were so beautiful at the funeral,” he said. He shuffled to the restroom and I remembered to breathe again. I pushed away the empty martini glass and fumbled with the clasp of my faux leather handbag. I rummaged inside, brushed my hand against the .38 my ex-husband gave me years ago. He left it on the kitchen table with a note telling me to stay safe and take care before he walked out into the night. I dug deeper until I found the packet of Xanax. I ordered another bourbon and crushed two and a half tablets into the glass.

     *                                                           

The suite is drenched in grey light. The colour of the sea. He stirs again, a misshapen lump under thick blankets. His clothes lie at the foot of the bed, his shoes inexplicably on the bedside table. I open the window. A growling breeze holds me. I see myself running on the beach, chasing the endless horizon. I can’t wait for tomorrow’s run. I pull back the covers. The beast is revealed, his breathing steady and deep. The 300 thread count pillow case is damp with spittle. His body is hairless and hard like mine, but he has youth on his side. I wipe thick curls from his brow. I peel off my clothes and my beautiful runner’s body is before him. Men would have worshipped me in ancient times. I turn and go to bathroom. I am baptised in a luxurious shower, hot water bounces off me like bullets. The suite is heavy with steam and I wrap myself in a sinful terrycloth robe adorned with the hotel crest.

I punch my son’s birthday into the safe on the shelf above the mini-fridge hidden in a cavernous walk-in closet and take out my handbag. I sit on the sofa where I spent the night. He got nothing from me. No one ever called my son Vinny. No one who was a friend. But Vincent had no friends. He only had tormentors. He only had me, but it wasn’t enough. I open the robe at the legs and place the handbag on my bare lap. Heat rises from my thighs. There is no pain in my knee. I open the handbag.

*

I am not a violent woman. I have never raised my voice in anger. I have never banged my fist on a table. I have never poked, punched, kicked or slapped another person — although I have had occasion to do so. I have never pulled the wings off a fly, never crushed a cockroach beneath my heel. And yet, the gun is loaded. It is not heavy in my silken hand. I may possess the body of a goddess who runs, but I have a child’s hands, smooth like glass worn down by the sea. Hands too small for my wrists. Fingers like overcooked pasta. But when the time comes, I will squeeze the trigger. That’s what you do, you squeeze it. Never pull it. The gun is a part of me, an extension of my iron-sculpted arms, and I mean to use it. I have to kill a man. Any mother would.

 

 

Jayson Carcione was born in New Jersey and raised in New York. He now lives in Cork, Ireland, where he works for the Irish Examiner newspaper. His short fiction has appeared in The Forge, Lunate, Epoque Press, Passengers Journal, Across the Margin, Dark Winter Literary Magazine, Idle Ink, and Pigeon Review. His fiction was also highly commended in the 2020 Sean O’Faoláin International Short Story Competition.