Duma Key

I opened my door, got out, then staggered as my bad hip locked up. If I hadn't gotten my crutch planted in time, I would have said hello to Big Pink by sprawling on her stone doorstep.

" I'll get the stuff in," Jack said. "You better go in and sit down, Mr. Freemantle. A cold drink wouldn't hurt, either. You look really tired."

iv

The traveling had caught up with me, and I was more than tired. By the time I eased into a living room armchair (listing to the left, as usual, and trying to keep my right leg as straight as possible), I was willing to admit to myself that I was exhausted.

Yet not homesick, at least not yet. As Jack went back and forth, stowing my bags in the bigger of the two bedrooms and putting the laptop on the desk in the smaller one, my eye kept being drawn to the living room's western wall, which was all glass, and the Florida room beyond it, and the Gulf of Mexico beyond that. It was a vast blue expanse, flat as a plate on that hot November afternoon, and even with the sliding glass window-wall shut, I could hear its mild and steady sighing. I thought, It has no memory. It was an odd thought, and strangely optimistic. When it came to memory - and anger - I still had my issues.

Jack came back from the guest room and sat on the arm of the couch - the perch, I thought, of a young man who wants to be gone. "You've got all your basic staples," he said, "plus salad-in-a-bag, hamburger, and one of those cooked chickens in a plastic capsule - we call em Astronaut Chickens at my house. I hope that's okay with you."

"Fine."

"Two per cent milk-"

"Also fine."

" - and Half-n-Half. I can get you real cream next time, if you want it."

"You want to clog my one remaining artery?"

He laughed. "There's a little pantry with all kinds of canned shi... stuff. The cable's hooked up, the computer's Internet-ready - I got you Wi-Fi, costs a little extra, but it's way cool - and I can get satellite installed if you want it."

I shook my head. He was a good kid, but I wanted to listen to the Gulf, sweet-talking me with words it wouldn't remember a minute later. And I wanted to listen to the house, see if it had anything to say. I had an idea maybe it did.

"The keys're in an envelope on the kitchen table - car keys, too - and a list of numbers you might need are on the fridge. I've got classes at FSU in Sarasota every day except Monday, but I'll be carrying my cell, and I'll be coming by Tuesdays and Thursdays at five unless we make a different arrangement. Is that okay?"

"Yes." I reached in my pocket and brought out my money-clip. "I want to give you a little extra. You've been great."

He waved it away. "Nah. This is a sweet gig, Mr. Freemantle. Good pay and good hours. I'd feel like a hound taking any extra."

That made me laugh, and I put my dough back in my pocket. "Okay."

"Maybe you ought to take a nap," he said, getting up.

"Maybe I will." It was odd to be treated like Grandpa Walton, but I supposed I'd better get used to it. "What happened to the other house at the north end of Casey Key?"

"Huh?"

"You said one went into the drink. What happened to the other one?"

"Far as I know, it's still there. Although if a big storm like Charley ever hits this part of the coast dead-on, it's gonna be like a going-out-of-business sale: everything must go." He walked over to me, and stuck out his hand. "Anyway, Mr. Freemantle, welcome to Florida. I hope it treats you real well."

I shook with him. "Thank you..." I hesitated, probably not long enough for him to notice, and I didn't get angry. Not at him, anyway. "Thanks for everything."

"Sure." He gave me the smallest of puzzled looks as he went out, so maybe he did notice. Maybe he did notice, at that. I didn't care. I was on my own at last. I listened to shells and gravel popping under his tires as his car started to roll. I listened to the motor fade. Less, least, gone. Now there was only the mild steady sighing of the Gulf. And the beat of my own heart, soft and low. No clocks. Not ringing, not bonging, not even ticking. I breathed deep and smelled the musty, slightly damp aroma of a place that's been shut up for a fairly long time except for the weekly (or bi-weekly) ritual airing. I thought I could also smell salt and subtropical grasses for which I as yet had no names.

Mostly I listened to the sigh of the waves, so like the breath of some large sleeping creature, and looked out through the glass wall that fronted on the water. Because of Big Pink's elevation, I couldn't see the beach at all from where I was sitting, fairly deep in the living room; from my armchair I might have been on one of those big tankers that trudge their oily courses from Venezuela to Galveston. A high haze had crept over the dome of the sky, muting the pinpricks of light on the water. To the left were three palm trees silhouetted against the sky, their fronds ruffling in the mildest of breezes: the subjects of my first tentative post-accident sketch. Don't look much like Minnesota, dere, Tom Riley had said.