The Palmer Pool

35 | History

"No lifeguard on duty, swim at your own risk," the sign sticking out of the sand warned in red letters. I dropped my towel on the sand and stood at the edge of the water. A sun-bleached blonde toddler surrounded by sand toys stared at me the way little kids without any awareness of social norms do, then went back to dumping shovelfuls of wet sand into the front of her swimsuit.

It was the Saturday after Labor Day. I'd told my dad I had a job interview at a local catering company and drove to Lighthouse Beach. I knew I probably wouldn't get away with lying about my whereabouts so soon after disappearing for days, but there was one thing I had to do.

The sky was low and grey and even though it was still hot, the beach was nearly empty. The first week of school was over and I was actually glad to dive back into the world of AP Biology and Literature, World History and U.S. Government, college applications, piles of homework and sleep deprivation. Anything to get my mind off everything that had happened in the summer.

Late one night that week, I broke down and did a Google search to clear my conscience. I quickly found out that Frank Harrison didn't die of a head injury in August of 1953. He passed away only two years later, at age 45, after a "short illness". I was relieved that I wasn't complicit in a homicide or involuntary manslaughter. I quickly closed my laptop because I was afraid that with one more search, I'd spiral into something I wouldn't be able to pull myself out of for hours.

I opened my laptop again anyway and inhaled deeply through my teeth. "Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap," I whispered to myself as I exhaled.

If it was that easy to find Frank's obituary, I might find Pete's just as quickly. Or find out if he was still alive. With trembling hands, I searched for him using both of his last names: Harrison and Brennan, along with his birthdate. They were both common names, but none of the birthdates matched.

As I scrolled through the results, I had no idea what I hoped to find. Nothing I could discover would make my heart ache any less. I wasn't ready to find his obituary and get a sanitized summary of how his life proceeded without me, all with a loving wife and kids and grandkids and Euchre with friends and winters in Florida and a lifelong member of St. Somebody's Church and the Knights of Columbus. Though a detailed account of his life full of adventures as a bachelor wasn't really what I wanted to see either.

I couldn't find a trace of him, dead or alive. It nagged at me that he seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth. Without dying. Because during my searches, I discovered that between obituaries and cemetery records, it was easy to track down dead people. Maybe Pete lived a quiet life and never made it into any news articles or discovered social media and was still out there somewhere.

Or maybe he didn't want to be found. That last night, Pete had said something to me about not being around anymore. Before finding Frank's obituary, I was afraid that Frank died as a result of their fight. Did Pete run from Palmer because he feared the same thing and didn't get the chance to learn that Frank was actually fine?

On Friday afternoon, I dropped my backpack on the floor of my room and noticed something new pinned to the cork board over my desk. The group at Lighthouse Beach smiled at me from the photograph my dad must have swiped after Grandpa's funeral. "Swimming at Lighthouse Beach, August 1953."

I walked along the beach until nobody was around, then bent down to touch the water. The gentle waves lapped against my hands and ankles and I closed my eyes. The wind whipped my hair around my face and a bigger wave rolled in and knocked me off balance. I fell on my butt into the foam and opened my eyes to a slightly different scene; a blue sky, white capped waves, a bigger crowd down by the lighthouse. I smiled. I was getting better at this.