That Old Cape Magic

the ash with sand and water, and hisfather would at last become part of the grit of the world. How different was that, really, from pouring the contents of the urn off the end of a dock or over the side of a boat?
    Well, it
was
different. Plus, now that he looked more carefully, he saw the tide was already in. The water might not come any farther up the beach.
    WIFE
    Is it possible you haven’t scattered your father’s ashes because you need him in some way?
    HUSBAND
(stern, cold)
    Need him? My
father?
I didn’t need him alive. Why would I need him dead?
    He took a deep breath, kicked his sandals aside and, gripping his father with both hands, entered the surf.
    Driving back to Wellfleet, completely soaked, Griffin noticed what had been shrouded in fog when he was coming from the other direction. There, arranged in a horseshoe just as he remembered them, were the cottages where he and his parents and the Brownings had stayed that summer. At first, he wasn’t sure he trusted his eyes. That he should stumble on the place now seemed beyond improbable, as if the physical world were suddenly and mysteriously linked to his own psychic necessity. Having passed the entrance, he pulled onto the shoulder and backed up, his tires grinding on the gravel in the stillness.
    On second thought, maybe it wasn’t the same place. The sign, OFFSHORE COTTAGES, WEEKLY/MONTHLY RENTALS , didn’t ring any bells, and in the center of the horseshoe, where the playgroundhad been, there was now an in-ground pool enclosed by a chain-link fence. Beyond this were a shuffleboard court and several stone barbecue pits topped with heavy metal grates. But after more than four decades wouldn’t it have been even stranger if there
weren’t
significant changes? More difficult to reconcile was his memory of being able to walk to the beach that summer, which had to be a good half mile away. Had he conflated elements of the Browning summer with other vacations? Perhaps he’d added the detail of walking to the beach when he wrote about it as an adult, and it had been assimilated as memory.
    About half the cottages looked occupied. Otherwise identical, each was painted a different pastel color and named—Sea Breeze, High Tide, Quarter Deck, Scallop Shell. Did he actually remember his parents making fun of the kitschy names, or was this just something they would’ve done? It was still only seven-thirty, too early to call his mother and ask. Besides, even after talking to her, he still wouldn’t know.
    If these were the same cottages, then Dunwanderin would have been theirs—two-thirds of the way up the right-hand side of the horseshoe. It faced diagonally across the pool patio toward what would have been the Browning cottage. Feeling his sleepless exhaustion drag him down, Griffin put the car in park and closed his eyes, allowing himself to become again a twelve-year-old boy in the backseat of his parents’ car. The memory of their arrival here that first day was suddenly there, more vivid and detailed than ever before—his mother and father just staring at the cottage, neither making any move to get out. What they were doing, he knew from experience, was comparing the actual cottage with the description of it they’d been sent last January by the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce, the brochure’s
charming
becoming
tiny; rustic
becoming
dingy; fully equipped
becoming
attic furnished
. In other words, crappy.
    “Good,” said his father finally, his voice full of false cheer, “there’s a deck.”
    “That?” said his mother, pointing. The warped, splintered boards weren’t even bordered by railings, and tall, spiky black weeds were sticking up between the planks. “You call that a deck?”
    “Hey, there’s a table and four chairs, right? Perfect for us. You, me, Jackeroo and Al.” Clearly, he’d come to a decision, and he meant to make the best of the situation. It had been a long drive from the Mid-fucking-west, and Griffin’s mother had been angry the whole way, failing to cheer up even when they crossed the Sagamore and his father had bravely broken into “That Old Cape Magic.” The New York State Thruway motel where they’d stayed the night before had been crappy, and this was going to be crappier still.
    A screen door banged on the other side of the compound, and a little girl, shrieking with delight, came running toward them, her brother at her heels. They both stopped near the swing set, heads cocked, taking the measure of the