The Longest Ride

the beach!” Her breath is in my ear, suddenly seductive, a new tack. Her face is so close, I imagine I can feel the brush of her long lashes, the heat of her breath. “It is 1946. Can you remember this? It is the morning after we first made love,” she says. “If you swallow, you will be there again. You will be at the beach with me. Do you remember when you came out of your room? I poured you a glass of orange juice and I handed it to you. I am handing it to you now…”

“You’re not here.”

“I am here and I am handing you the glass!” she insists. When I open my eyes, I see her holding it. “You need to drink right now.”

She moves the glass toward me and tilts it toward my lips. “Swallow!” she commands. “It does not matter if you spill some in the car!”

It’s crazy, but it’s the last comment – about spilling in the car – that gets to me most. More than anything, it reminds me of Ruth and the demanding tone she would use whenever she needed me to do something important. I try to swallow, feeling nothing but sandpaper at first and then… something else, something that stops my breathing altogether.

And for an instant, I feel nothing but panic.

The instinct to survive is powerful, and I can no more control what happens next than I can control my own heartbeat. At that moment, I swallow automatically, and after that I keep swallowing, the tender soreness giving way to a coppery, acidic taste, and I keep swallowing even after the taste finally passes to my stomach.

Throughout all this, my head remains pressed against the steering wheel, and I continue to pant like an overheated dog until finally my breathing returns to normal. And as my breath returns, so too do the memories.
     

     
    Ruth and I had breakfast with her parents and then spent the rest of the morning at the beach while her parents read on the porch. Patches of clouds had begun to form on the horizon and the wind had picked up since the day before. As the afternoon wound down, Ruth’s parents strolled down to see whether we would like to join them on an expedition to Kitty Hawk, where Orville and Wilbur Wright made history by flying the first airplane. I had been there when I was young, and though I was willing to go again, Ruth shook her head. She’d rather relax on her last day, she told them.

An hour later, they were gone. By then the sky had turned gray, and Ruth and I meandered back to the house. In the kitchen, I wrapped my arms around her as we stood gazing out the window. Then, without a word, I took her hand and led her to my room.

Though my vision is hazy, I can make out Ruth sitting beside me again. Perhaps it is wishful thinking, but I could swear she’s wearing the robe she’d worn the night we first made love.

“Thank you,” I say. “For helping me catch my breath.”

“You knew what you had to do,” she says. “I am just here to remind you.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“You would have,” she says with certainty. Then, toying with the neckline of her robe, she says almost seductively: “You were very forward with me that day at the beach. Before we were married. When my parents went to Kitty Hawk.”

“Yes,” I admit. “I knew we had hours to ourselves.”

“Well… it was a surprise.”

“It shouldn’t have been,” I say. “We were alone and you were beautiful.”

She tugs at the robe. “I should have taken it as a warning.”

“Warning?”

“Of things to come,” she says. “Until that weekend, I was not sure you were… passionate. But after that weekend, I sometimes found myself wishing for the old Ira. The shy one, the one who always showed restraint. Especially when I wanted to sleep in.”

“Was I that bad?”

“No,” she says, tilting her head back to gaze at me through heavy-lidded eyes. “Quite the contrary.”

We spent the afternoon tangled in the sheets, making love with even greater passion than the night before. The room was warm, and our bodies glistened with sweat, her hair wet near the roots. Afterward, as Ruth showered, the rain began, and I sat in the kitchen, listening as it pounded against the tin roof, as content as I had ever been.

Her parents returned soon after that, drenched by the downpour. By then, Ruth and I were busy in the kitchen, preparing dinner. Over a simple meal of spaghetti with meat sauce, the four of us sat around the table as her father talked about their day, the conversation somehow segueing as it