Lucy by the Sea (6)

—

I felt terribly sad, like a child, and I thought of the children’s book Heidi that I had read in my youth, and of how she had been sent somewhere and she was so sad that she walked in her sleep. For some reason this image of Heidi kept going through my mind. I would not be able to go home, and this sank into me deeper all the time.





And then:

On the television, William and I watched as New York suddenly exploded with a ghastliness that I seemed almost not able to take in. Every night William and I watched as New York City arrived to us in horrifying scenes, picture after picture of people being taken to emergency rooms, on ventilators, hospital workers without the right masks or gloves, and people kept dying and dying. Ambulances rushing down the streets. These were streets that I knew, this was my home!

I watched it, believing it, I mean I knew it was happening is what I mean, but to describe my mind as I watched this is difficult. It was as though there was a distance between the television and myself. And of course there was. But my mind felt like it had stepped back and was watching it from a real distance, even as I felt the sense of horror. Even now, many months later, I have a memory of watching a pale yellow image on the television, it must have been the nurses in their garb, or maybe people wrapped in blankets on their way into the hospitals, but in my mind is this strange yellowish memory from watching the television on those nights. We (I) became addicted—it seemed to me—to watching the news on the television every night.



—

I worried about the ambulance workers, that they would all get sick, and the people working in the hospitals too. I thought of a blind man I sometimes helped off the bus near the bus stop by my apartment, and I was worried about him, would he now dare take anyone’s arm? And the bus drivers too! All those people they came into contact with—!



—

And also I noticed something about myself as I watched the news during this time. Which is that my eyes would drop to the floor, I mean I could not look at it all the time. I thought: It is as though somebody is lying to me, and I cannot look at someone who is lying to me. I did not think the news was lying to me—as I said, I understood it was all true; I only want to tell you that for a number of days—and it turned into weeks—I looked at the floor frequently as we watched the news at night.



—

It is interesting how people endure things.





We called Becka every day during this time, and she said, Mom, it’s awful, there are refrigerator trucks right outside our apartment building filled with people who have died, they’re right there when I go outside, and also I can see them through the window. “Oh dear God,” I said. “Don’t go outside!” And she said she didn’t except when they really needed something. When we hung up I walked around and around the house. I did not know where to put my mind.





There was a feeling of mutedness.



—

Like my ears were plugged up as though I was underwater.





William had been right. Becka was now working from home, and her husband, Trey, was teaching his classes online. Becka said, “I’m trying to work in our bedroom and Trey works in the living room, and he complains that he can still hear me. We can’t go out— What are we supposed to do? God, he gets so irritated,” she said.



—

In Connecticut, Chrissy and her husband, Michael, were also working from home. Michael’s parents had said they would stay in Florida so the two of them could have the house. There was a small guesthouse on the property. “I’m glad we’re not stuck together in that, at least we have this whole place,” Chrissy said.

ix

After the two weeks of quarantine, Bob Burgess came over to check on us. Apparently he had texted William that he would stop by, but William had gone out to get his first five thousand steps anyway, so I was alone when Bob drove up the driveway. I went out and met him; he was standing on the small lawn area by the cliff, and he asked, Did I want to come out and sit with him? He had brought a fold-up lawn chair, and there were fold-up lawn chairs on the porch of the house we were in. So I put on my spring coat with William’s big cardigan over it and went and got one of the lawn chairs to go out and sit with Bob. He was wearing a mask that looked homemade, cloth with flowers in it, and I said, “Hold on,” and I went back inside and got a mask from William’s room—I found them in the clear plastic bag—and then we sat far apart from each other on the lawn chairs, I mean farther than we would have if not for the pandemic.

“Weird time,” Bob said, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, and I said, “Yes, it is so weird.”

And it was so cold up there on top of that cliff, the wind was whipping around, but Bob did not seem cold; I put William’s sweater partly over my head.

Bob leaned back and looked around, and I understood that he was shy—this came to me then—so I said, “Bob, I can’t believe how good you’ve been to us. God. Thank you. And thank you for the wine too.”

He looked at me then, he had pale blue eyes, and there was, I saw, a kind of sweet sadness to him. He was a big man, though not fat, and he had a gentleness in his face that made him look younger than he probably was, though with the mask it was hard to tell. “No problem. Glad to help you out. You know, William’s been a friend of Pam’s for years, so I was glad to be able to help you folks.” I felt a sense of almost guilt—this was the woman, Bob’s ex-wife, who had been sleeping with William way back, but Bob gave no indication that he knew of this or, if he did, that it was still a problem in any way. He said, “My wife, Margaret, would be here, but to be honest she has a little prejudice against New Yorkers.” He said this without guile, and I liked him for it. I said, “You mean, just because we’re from New York?” And he waved a hand and said, “Oh yeah, a lot of people up here feel that way, that New Yorkers think they’re better than others,” and I said, “I get it.” Because I did.