That was the other thing about Doc Corless. When he did decide to talk, he threw out a big net, then he hauled in the answers and filleted the biggest one on the spot. He never threw one back.
“Couldn’t it mean that you’ve stumbled onto somebody who actually cares about you?”
Charlie limped out of the exam room. Quack army doctor, he thought. What does he know about love?
* * *
Charlie counted out enough cash from his last unemployment check so Amy could get through the end of the month. He tucked it in an envelope and wrote a note on the back that said he’d leave the truck parked at the bus station with the key under the floor mat. He left his guitar on the couch and considered telling her it was OK to pawn it. He thought better of it. She could make up her own mind about that. He left the trailer unlocked and headed for the bus station.
“Where to, buddy?” the ticket agent asked.
Charlie hadn’t thought about where. He remembered Amy and her plans to wait tables like a college kid.
“Myrtle Beach?” he asked. He didn’t know if it was in North or South Carolina, so he didn’t volunteer.
“The way it works is you tell me where you want to go, and I sell you a ticket,” the man said.
“Myrtle Beach,” Charlie said. “I wanta see the ocean.” He slid a small handful of bills and change toward the man without counting it.
“That’ll get you a little past Ashville.”
Charlie added a smaller wad of cash to the pile. He tried to sort the money with one hand.
“What happened to your arm?”
“Vietnam,” Charlie said.
The ticket man smoothed the bills and counted the change. “This’ll get you there, but it won’t get you back.”
For the first time in months, Charlie wished he had a drink. “Good,” he said. “’Cause I ain’t coming back.”
* * *
The bus was almost empty during the ride across the Smokies. Charlie sat at the very back by the window. The moon burned high in the sky, as hot as his conscience. He couldn’t rid himself of his last memory of Amy standing in the doorway with her skinny shoulders hunched and her arms folded across her chest like she was trying to keep her heart from spilling out on the ground. If he was home, he and Amy would be in bed by now, his weak arm over her chest, her body curled inward on his, her butt nestled into the bend of his waist. He could almost smell the scent of shampoo on the back of her neck.
He slept off and on, waking only when they took on passengers at stops like Knotty Branch or Swan Pond, graveled arcs in the road just wide enough to park the bus. The sun was up when they parked in the terminal at Myrtle Beach.
Charlie ate breakfast in a coffee shop before he took the short walk to the beach. The wind stood his hair up straight, then flattened it again so hard that his scalp tingled. Seagulls floated along, then stopped in midair, their forward movement exactly balanced by the wind in their faces and their pounding wings. The ocean touched the skyline in the far-off distance. Rolling gray water heaved and billowed like a dirty sheet hanging on a clothesline before it flattened and rushed toward the beach. The sight of it made Charlie’s stomach lift into his chest. The water stopped just at his feet, paused, then ran back the way it came. It seemed to huddle out on the horizon to gather its strength and roar at him again.
He noticed a woman not much older than Amy sitting on a beach towel, watching her toddler play in the sand. He tottered to his mom, who pulled him to her lap and hugged him. The baby giggled and looked toward Charlie, a half-eaten Cheerio in his hand, his nose running, and sand crusting on his face.
Charlie wanted to tell her about Amy, but instead he said, “Babies are a handful, ain’t they?”
Mom wiped the baby’s nose so hard that the little guy twisted his head away, grimaced, and cried for ten seconds before he was grinning again. She looked exhausted. “He’s worth it,” she said.
Charlie smiled as he waded out to meet the waves. Something squished under his foot. He slipped, staggered, then found his balance again by waving his good arm around. He bent to examine the place where he had just stepped. The tide had retreated once more, leaving nothing but a cup full of ocean trapped in his footprint. He stood in the moist sand and waited for the water to return and spill over his feet. He listened to the roar of the ocean, the baby’s laughter, the sound of his heart beating faster and faster.