An Inconsequential Conversation About Bill Skowron and Other Things

Written by Laura Vance

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A submission for Elegant Literature's July contest, where I was given the prompt to write about home and an anchor. This short story is told from the perspective of a man with Altzheimers who, despite his lack of memory, finds his true home and comfort in his wife.

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She took me from the clean place and its sharp antiseptics when it started to get warm. She was a pretty lady, with folds around her eyes and wrinkles from smiling, I assumed. We talked in the vanilla-scented car about the 1958 World Series. I told her about Bill Skowron’s three-run homer and she nodded her head.

“I know,” she told me. Her voice tasted like warm molasses, and I realized I liked it when she spoke to me. “I was there, too.”

“You were?” I leaned forward so quickly my seatbelt locked. “I don’t care for Wisconsin much, but it was some game, wasn’t it?”

“It might have been,” she told me, a small tugging at her strained face, “if you hadn’t spilled mustard all over me after Skowron’s home run in the eighth inning.”

Skowron. Bill Skowron. I loved him.

“You know,” I told her, “Skowron was a New York Yankee in the ‘58 World Series. Hit a three-run homer in the seventh game, eighth inning. You should have heard Country Stadium. Everyone called him ‘Moose’ back then.”

Her hands were wrinkly and soft, and they were blooming white spots as they clutched the steering wheel of her Beamer. I was going to tell her I used to drive a red BMW when she said, again, “I know.”

Her voice was truly wonderful, deep and smooth like an old actress whose name I can’t recall right now. I thought about introducing myself to her, but she was so beautiful and my nerves made me choke.

After driving through endless winding tunnels of trees, our car was funneled out on a gravel road next to a beautiful coast. Golden pebbles of sand curved along the ocean’s edge as mountains of white foam crashed against themselves. Little seagulls dotted the shore, and I craned around the woman to get a better look. She didn’t seem to mind and rolled down the back left window halfway, inviting a fresh gust of ocean air to fill the BMW. The smell excited me, and I turned to the woman to tell her something. It was something very important.

“I used to go to the beach quite often,” I said, looking intently at her profile. She bore a long, strong nose and sharp-looking jaw. Her red hair was dull and graying, pulled back in a loose bun. She was really quite stunning, and I wanted to tell her how I saw a young woman earlier today with hair exactly like hers. Well, not exactly, but there was something about it that was similar. Their noses were similar, anyway.

But I had to tell her about the beach first.

“I lived in a house next to a beach, once. There were lots of windows and my… well,” I said, troubled, “Anyway, we used to go out on the houseboat every summer.” I frowned and felt my nose wrinkle.

“You and who?” she asked me gently. Her voice was soft and made my stomach tingle with warmth and something else wonderful. She was gripping the steering wheel so tight I thought she might rip it off. I wanted to tell her about something, something very important, but she had asked me a question and I didn’t want to be rude.

“Me and who did what?” I asked her, trying to be polite.

A muscle next to her mouth twitched. “Who used to go out on the boat with you?”

Oh, the boat. It was a nice houseboat, several dozen feet long with a large sail and four bedrooms below deck. When I was younger, back when it was my father's, the rocking used to make me seasick. Sometime later someone had thrown up in it, someone small but it wasn’t me, and for some reason I wasn’t angry about it.

“The houseboat was my father’s. He died when I was only twenty-two and left it to me. I learned how to do the repairs by myself. It’s all fixed up and ready to go.” Then, the brilliance of it all struck me: “Why don’t I show you the boat? We could go sailing for a while. It’s a perfect day for it, clear and bright with the perfect amount of wind. You’d love it.”

The idea seemed to make her sad, though I didn’t have the first clue why. Sailing thrilled me, but maybe it wasn’t for everyone, and she was clearly frowning.

“We can’t go sailing right now.”

I tried not to get frustrated with her as I explained it all again.

“I promise you it’s perfect sailing weather. I used to go out all the time on days like this. I would make… Well, someone used to always love to haul up the anchor, a silly, painted thing that she… She would… anyway, we’d go sailing for hours and hours. It’s wonderful, I promise you. You don’t have to be scared.”

There was something stiff about her that once was soft, but she nodded anyway.

“Alright. We’ll go sailing later.”

“Delightful!” I grinned, rubbing my hands together. I caught a whiff of ocean wind and looked out the window. A beautiful beach was below us, with rolling waves and rocky, East Coast sand. “I used to go to the beach all the time,” I told her. “A beach just like this.”

She slowly nodded her head and didn’t say much else for the ride, which I didn’t mind. The beach was wonderful, and being next to her made me calm and somewhat sleepy. I was glad when we finally arrived at a house, and I wondered if it would be too much of an imposition to ask if the people inside would let me rest in one of their beds.

I tried to get out of the BMW, but my arms were shaking too much and I couldn’t seem to lift myself from the seat. The lady was at my door a few moments later and helped me out, and I saw her BMW was red, just like mine was years ago. She smelled wonderful, like warm vanilla, and I suppressed the briefest and strangest urge to put my lips on her cheek. The impulse was gone in an instant, replaced by an abrupt awe of the house before us. It was large and distinctly beach-like, with looming windows and seashells lined along the porch rail. There was something vaguely familiar about those shells, and I wanted to touch them, but I was ushered inside by the vanilla-scented woman and forgot all about them.

She laid me on a comfortable recliner and began to clink around in the kitchen. The water started to run and I caught a faint scent of lemon as the sound of a knife hitting a cutting board filled the room. Mounted above the fireplace was a large picture of two grinning young people. The woman was dressed in a billowing white gown next to a grinning man with cropped, dark hair.

“Now there’s a handsome looking man,” I called over my shoulder. “Do you know him?”

The woman was by my side a minute later, handing me a saucered cup of tea with a shaking hand. It tasted of delicious lemons, and I wondered how she anticipated I would like lemons in my tea.

“Yes, I do know him. He is very handsome, isn’t he? Sometimes I think he gets more handsome as time goes on.”

“The lady is very beautiful, too. I love her dress. She looks quite happy.”

“I imagine she must have been.” Her voice cracked toward the end, and I pretended not to notice in case she was embarrassed.

When I finished my tea, she helped me up a large staircase and into a room with a fluffy bed and a generous overlook of the ocean. I wanted to tell her about how I, too, used to live next to the ocean, and something else that was very important, but she was instructing me to rest before dinner. And because I wanted to make her happy, I shuffled on some soft pajamas that smelled of vanilla and let her help me beneath the sheets. As she left, she told me she’d wake me in three hours, when we’d eat some clam chowder and cob salad. I nodded, unsure of how to tell her that I didn’t want her to go yet, but she closed the door and I was left alone.

I was certainly tired, but there was a rhythm in my heart that wouldn’t let me doze off to sleep. The waves crashing below me were too distracting, and although I found a small comfort in the sounds of dinner being prepared below me, I wanted everything to go quiet. I tossed and turned and stuffed my ears and held my breath, but nothing was working. An hour must have passed before she peaked her head through the door and she noticed I was still awake.

Wordlessly, she entered the room and opened the window. There were tears in her eyes as she turned back to me, her loose hair flying in the salty breeze. I wanted to hold her but my body was frustratingly uncooperative.

“Are you alright?” I asked her, trying to make my voice as gentle and nice as hers. I hoped it would comfort her the same way. She sat next to me on the fluffy bed, and after a great deal of effort, I propped myself against the headboard. She didn’t say anything, and as I apparently never had the right thing to say, I took her head in my hands and wiped a leaky tear with my thumb. She appeared to want to cry more after that, and the embarrassment from my failed comforting attempts almost stopped me from consoling her. But I said it anyway, the important thing I must have been trying to tell her all along.

“It’s going to be alright. Everything will be okay.” I held her face there in my hands, willing her to understand. It seemed obvious that someone as good and as warm and as safe as this woman would be alright, but she seemed sort of aloof in that area.

“I’m sorry if it’s my fault,” I told her, sincerely. “I’m not trying to be a burden. I promise I’ve been trying very hard to fall asleep.”

She nodded, the motion stiff and exhausted all at once. “Perhaps it’s my fault.”

Such an idea seemed ridiculous to me, so I laughed, which made her smile. I felt something like electricity jolt through me and I realized I wanted to make her smile again. She was so lovely when she was happy.

“Go on, lay back down,” she told me in a quiet voice.

So, of course I did exactly as she said and inched my head back on my pillow. It shocked me when she eased herself beside me, but I welcomed it all the same. The gesture made me a little nervous, but mostly calm, and a warm buzz soon spread throughout my body. We were both on our backs, facing the white ceiling, breathing in unison as the blanket slowly rose and fell on our chests. Tentatively, I felt her hand brush against mine, and my fingers slid into hers as if they had known exactly how to do so all their life. With her hand in mine, the world went quiet. There was nothing but the two of us and the salty, ocean breeze, and I was happy for it. It was in that paradise where I found myself able to slip into a peaceful sleep next to the beautiful woman beside me, which was the only thing that made me sure she wasn’t a dream.