Christian Kiefer - The Infinite Tides

She turned from him and peered out toward the ocean and after a moment she said, “Look at Petruso.”

He looked up to where Peter and the two children ran back and forth in the surf, laughing.

“What do you see there?” she said.

“A very happy man.”

“Yes, because he maybe gets better job.”

“And because he’s here with you and the kids.”

“Not so much that,” she said. “More for job.”

“That can be an important thing.”

She sat next to him in the folding chair and then reached back and opened the cooler. “Beer?” she said.

He nodded and she handed him one and then opened one for herself and they sat without speaking for a long moment, both drinking, lost in whatever thoughts they each had in the twinned separateness of their lives.

“I know it is important,” she said at last. “He is a man. I know that work at Target is not for him. It is not what he is meant to do here. I know this.”

“It’s a shit job for anyone.”

“Yes, I know it’s shitty job.”

He looked at her and smiled.

“Shitty job,” she said again. She looked at him but she was not smiling. “But how does job only make him happy. Everything else is same. What if he does not get this job? What happens then?”

“I don’t know. He keeps looking for another job.”

“He does not even look for this job. You make this happen. If he is unhappy then why does he not keep looking for new job? Anyway, he was not so happy at Golosiiv. He says he was so happy at Golosiiv but he is not scientist so he is complaining always there. He remembers different than I remember.”

Keith sat and watched the surf. Peter had jumped backwards into the water and the children were following him out in silence. He waved to them and Luda waved back. “Be careful!” she yelled. He waved again and turned his attention back to the children.

“I don’t know what to say,” Keith said.

“I know there’s no answer to question.”

There was a pause. The children were up to their waists in the water and Peter dove underneath for a moment and reappeared slightly farther out. The children set to splashing themselves in the surf, their tiny bodies bobbing up and down in rhythm to the waves.

“He’s lucky to have you,” he said.

“I know that,” she said quickly.

He smiled and this time she smiled back at him and he actually laughed and she too broke into a kind of giggle. “I guess we know where you stand,” he said.

She blushed. “Well,” she said, shrugging, “what do I say?”

He chuckled again. Then: “He knows that.”

“Does he?”

“Yes.”

“I do not think he does.”

He paused and then said, “I think he’s figuring it out.”

She sipped her beer and he did the same. After a moment she said, “I wonder what happens if he does not get job. He goes crazy and drunk and passes out somewhere because he loves another girl maybe.”

Keith was silent.

“I know he has crush on Starbucks girl,” she said. “I am not stupid wife.”

Again, he said nothing.

“I let it pass. I love him,” she said, “but he can be idiot sometimes.”

“Shit,” he said, “can’t we all?”

“Not like men. I apologize for saying, but men are idiots.”

He smiled. “Well, that’s probably true.”

“Make mountain out of molehill always.”

“Yeah, there’s some of that.”

“Too much,” she said.

“Yes.”

“And your wife, she leaves you for someone else?”

He did not answer.

“I apologize,” Luda said. “I should not ask these personal questions.”

“No, it’s not that,” he said. “I don’t know. I don’t know if it was specifically for someone else or just for other stuff. She had an affair while we were married.”

“Oh,” she said. “I did not know this.”

“Well, you do now,” he said.

“I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter now. She’s gone and that’s how it is.”

“You love her still maybe?”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I don’t even remember that feeling at all now.”

“You love her when you were married?”

“I must have.”

“It does not make sense to love someone and then stop,” she said. “What does it mean that human beings can do this?”

“It doesn’t mean anything.”

“It should,” she said. “And your daughter too. Too much to lose at one time.”

“Feels that way.”

“You pray for daughter maybe?”

“Not really.”

“No?”

He shook his head.

“I pray for you both then.”

“Good,” he said.

“You think of her?”

“All the time.”

“Good thoughts?”

“Sure,” he said. “And some regrets.” Quiet. The beach shushing them. Peter and the children in the surf. “The last conversation I had with her was an argument.”

“What kind of argument?”

“She was brilliant at math but she wasn’t doing anything with it. It was disappointing.”

“She was disappointing to you.”

“Yeah, she was disappointing to me. She was spending her time cheerleading and hanging out with her boyfriend. I don’t know. It didn’t make sense to me. Still doesn’t.”

“Did it make sense to her?”

“Apparently,” he said. “But she’s gifted. Was, I mean.”

“Gift for astronaut work?”

“Maybe,” he said. “Mathematics. She was gifted at math. I mean probably genius-level gifted.”

“Yes, but why this gift?”

“I don’t know. She got some of what I have, I guess.”

“No,” Luda said. “I don’t mean this question.” She paused and then said, “This good thing with numbers. You say it is like gift but then you do not think it is like gift.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No,” she stopped again. “My English is not good. Not clear.” Again a pause. Then she said, “Gift is when you give something or you get something. This is not gift she has.”

He was silent for a moment and then he said, “Why not?”

“Because she has no choice. This is just how she is.”

He looked over at her. He knew he would have told anyone else to drop the topic entirely — even Eriksson — but for some reason he was willing to listen to Luda’s commentary. He did not know why this was so, but it was. “I don’t know if there’s a difference,” he said. “You have a talent and you use it. That’s how it works.”

“That is how it works for you,” Luda said. “Maybe not for your daughter.”

“That’s how it works for everyone,” he said. “Anyway, she worked hard at other stuff. Cheerleading and she had good grades. All A’s. But I just wanted her to really be great. She had that in her.”

“She sounds great already.”

“She was,” he said. “Shit, I don’t even know what I’m talking about. None of that matters now.”

“If it matters to you then it matters. You’re the father.”

“It was never enough for me. That’s the goddamned truth. It was just never enough. I wanted her to be better. All the time.” Something had collapsed inside of him and his eyes were welling with tears. “What a goddamn idiot I was,” he said.

Luda did not respond, sitting quietly, sipping at her beer. The ocean rolled in and streamed out again. Rolled in. Streamed out. After a moment she said, “You have other good memories, though. Not just argument and disappointment.”

He breathed deeply and slowly. When he regained himself he said, “Yeah,” and his voice broke and he was silent once again. He could feel her hand, his daughter’s tiny hand, curling into his own. God how much he wanted those days back. And every day to come after.

The sea rolled in far below them.