Our Infinite Sadness

First Sight

Thick gray-green fog obscured the morning view, and claustrophobia crept around Ben, a stifling embrace. He recalled from childhood memories that he'd struggled for years to repress that one could seldom ever glimpse the sky here; the overcast gloom settled on him constrictively, a funereal caul.

Charlie moved about the kitchen by rote, cooking up four eggs for each of them with breakfast sausage on the side. Ben appreciated the rich protein infusion, fuel for the growth spurt, but he watched his father shovel calories into his maw and worried about the state of his arteries.

"We'll set the gym up tonight, and that's a promise," Charlie boomed. "Not just for you. I'm goin' on a program. Like I said."

Ben nodded supportively, gulping half a sunny-side-up egg.

Charlie wished Ben good luck at school. "Take it slow. Be patient. A lot slower here, easier, but we're not complacent either. Slow and steady, that's what I'm saying."

"I hear you, Dad."

"You look red-eyed. You didn't sleep well." Not a question.

"I'm always that way, first time anywhere new." It was true. Camping, hotels, sleepovers, mountain summits on hellish nights, everywhere. "I'll sleep a lot better tonight."

"Hope so."

Ben glanced down at himself, rendered a bit embarrassed by his father's silent scrutiny. "Do I look alright?"

He wore new, machine-faded jeans and a new flannel shirt, red and brown earth tone checks with thin white and black stripes. He wore bright orange Merrill rock shoes, definitely Arizona, but so be it. He had Sonoran Heights etched deep into his bones. He wore the iPhone in his breast pocket. These days he equated the phone with Facetime and therefore with Zoey. In the bathroom, dressing, he had chided himself for excessive sentimentality, wearing Zoey against his heart, but in the end he liked it and let it stand. He promised himself that he'd manage to set her aside soon enough, to attend to his little homework assignment, but why rush it? Why not bask for just one morning in the afterglow?

"You'll fit right in," Charlie promised, strapping his gun belt around his waist.

Ben nodded again.

Charlie left first.

Ben sat at the simple oak table on one of three old mismatched chairs, handed down decades ago as housewarming presents. Nothing had changed since his last visit, three years ago, neither the dark faux-walnut paneling, nor the garish yellow cabinets, nor the linoleum floor, faded from white to gray. This kitchen had been old and unchanged back when he'd been fourteen. Mom had painted the cabinets and laid the linoleum eighteen years ago, six months pregnant, in a futile attempt to drag sunlight into the somber room.

From his chair he could see, across the front landing, into the cramped living room to the small brick fireplace where across the mantle stood a row of yellowed photographs: first a wedding picture of Charlie and Mom; then a curled snap of the three of them in the hospital soon after he had been born, taken by a helpful nurse, the old print affixed to an even older photograph by a rusty paperclip, followed by the procession of his school pictures up to this year's. The first two had been taken in Forks: nursery school and kindergarten. All of the rest had been sent up from Arizona by Renée. The litany spanned his entire ignoble past— the bad haircuts, the braces, the acne. Charlie had gone to extraordinary lengths to prepare the house for cohabitation, but he hadn't taken these embarrassing old photos down, and he had changed nothing else of substance.

Dad comported himself like a big affable bear, baritone hails and hearty laughter from deep in the belly. But he had never gotten over the breakup, had never changed a single thing, had never overcome his head-over-heels first love for Mom.