Chapter 4: Loose Change, 1984

by Elizabeth McWillams

My father’s mother, who was well into her eighties, would spend her summers on Cape Cod. Many times my father brought us there as children. Her husband had long since past, a good four years before I was even born, so it would just be Mamie, as we called her, my father and older sister. Mamie stayed at a well-appointed resort and would rent an apartment, while we would book a standard hotel room. She was inactive, spending most of her time reading, playing bridge and crocheting, so we would visit with her only at meals.

Mamie was formal and so was the resort so we were all supposed to be on our best behavior. Before dinner we would meet in the lounge for cocktails and appetizers. I was always amazed at how the wicker chair cushions matched the draperies, which in turn matched the carpet. All bright blues, greens and pinks in a garish floral print. A waitress in a pressed black skirt and starched collared shirt would bring gin and tonics for my father and grandmother and Shirley Temples for us girls. Drinks were always accompanied with a bowl of honey-roasted peanuts and shrimp cocktail. I remember struggling to get the shell off the tip of the tail and then finally, triumphantly, dragging it through as much of the cocktail sauce as I could possibly heap on top. Then I would turn to the bowl of peanuts and grab a handful, cocktail sauce still smeared all over my fingers. That tangy combination of cocktail sauce and roasted sugar was a delight and I licked my fingers, enjoying every last bit of it. My older sister kicked me under the table and looked at me askance. I thrust my hands into my lap and looked about sheepishly to see who had noticed. Luckily, Mamie and Dad were looking out the windows at the beach and sunset and paying little attention to my poor table manners, or to each other, for that matter.

Mamie would always arrive at dinner in her jewels. She favored brooches, and had a collection of diamond, sapphire, ruby and emerald insects that would change every night to match her silk dresses. Tonight she was wearing her honeybee. The antennae stuck out with little diamond tips and the legs, four of them, would cling on to her dress, sometimes snagging a thread. I wondered how she didn’t continuously poke herself. She also wore a bracelet every day that she would show me from time to time. It was made of a series of thin gold plates, each inscribed with the initials and date of birth of her four children and, at that time, 16 grandchildren. When I asked, she would find my gold plate and read it to me, her fingers trembling just slightly as she worked at separating one plate from the next. It’s funny how, for a child, seeing your initials and date of birth inscribed in gold makes you somehow real, official. “Look,” I wanted to announce to the table, “I really do exist! It says so on my grandmother’s bracelet.”

After cocktail hour we would move in to the dining room and begin a three-course meal, which invariably began with vichyssoise and ended with fresh berries and cream, my favorite. I wish I could remember the conversations between my father and grandmother, but there is little I can recall other than what we ate and how the wait staff folded the dinner napkins to look like swans, and how there was often a loud clattering that interrupted the cordial tone of the dining room from the kitchen hidden behind a swinging door. But those are the details that are important to children – the sensory specifics of what filled your belly and how the colors made you feel and the sounds and smells that would weave into your thoughts and create a poignant memory that really isn’t about much of anything at all. Except, perhaps, the general emotion of the moment – the tensions, apprehensions, relief or pleasures of an instant.

For me, the tones of those summer evenings on Cape Cod were reserved and polite, tinged on the edges with sadness and an overall feeling of unfamiliarity. I imagine that my father and grandmother struggled for polite conversation, and returned time and again to his books and the courses he taught at the college. Or to remembering my father’s sisters and their antics as teenagers and how they are faring now that it is their turn to be mothers. There may have also been additional retellings of my grandfather’s business partners, their wives and children, or the neighbor’s pet that was such a nuisance with its incessant barking. But these stories would peter out and a small pool of silence and worry would creep in, steadily swelling into a pond until someone would lurch forward with the next rehashed tale. I could feel the collective sigh of relief and boredom as we all settled back into our dinner spoons and linen tablecloth, waiting for the waitress to take our dishes away and bring the receipt. I remember my grandmother’s small blue eyes blinking at me expectantly from behind her glasses, very much like my father’s do today.

I clearly remember, however, one specific detail – an actual memory, so to speak. After dinner on one of those evenings, we said goodnight to Mamie and then turned to walk back to our hotel room. The night was clear and warm. The smell of freshly cut grass lingered in the air from the direction of the putting green and I could hear the break of the waves on the beach across the road. The moon and stars speckled a sky that was a deep cobalt blue, and not yet black, so the evening must have been a relatively young one. My sister and I walked a few steps ahead of my father, as was our tendency. I could hear his heavy footfall behind us and the occasional jingle of loose coins in his pocket. My father always had loose coins. They would fall out of his pocket when he sat down in his armchair and we would often discover them at the bottom of the washing machine when changing the loads. My sister and I hoarded them and gloated over who had accumulated the most, saving them to buy creamees at the ice cream stand on a particularly hot day or to purchase colorful yarn at Ben Franklin on a rainy one. We would tie the yarn to a safety pin, stick it in a couch cushion and weave friendship bracelets or anklets to give to our friends. My sister wore about six or seven such bracelets herself.

In any event, I noticed that the jingling in my father’s pocket had suddenly ceased. I turned around and saw my father a few paces back, standing still and looking out at the waves. The wind ruffled his hair. The moon cast a reflection of white light on the ocean’s surface, much like a bridal veil, and the sound of the waves pulling at the shoreline provided a soft, low symphony that was both melancholy and timeless.

“What are you stopping for?” I asked.

“Just looking,” came my father’s reply. My sister and I glanced at each other. It was rare to catch my father in a quiet moment. He always seemed to move through his day with purpose. And although it was obvious that his mind was forever full of literature, theses and history, it seemed that his thoughts about them were directed, never meandering – how do I create a bridge between these ideas for my students? How do I demonstrate that Cooper’s Leatherstocking embodies the pioneering spirit in a way that will inspire them? Or he would be distracted by the craft of a sentence that had most recently stalled him while writing his latest scholarly book. “Aware of the warping effect of all callings, Hawthorne nonetheless strove to find a mediating way of life in which the Puritan character….”.   His thoughts to me seemed so busy, tireless in their pursuit of resolution, but they did not allow pause for the present moment, or reflection on his own personal past. He was the mad professor, forging a path through the storm of his evolving ideas but oblivious of his immediate surroundings, oblivious even of himself. I wondered sometimes if he noticed when he was thirsty, tired or lonely for company.

“I used to come to this beach when I was a boy,” my father offered. “I worked as a landscaper during the summers. This was back when mother and father still had their summer house here….” His voice trailed off.

“Oh,” I said, unsure of how to reply to my father’s unusual reminiscing. I pulled a rosehip from a nearby bush and nibbled at it absentmindedly. My mother always reminded us of the health benefits of a fresh rosehip and I rather liked the tart, sour flavor.

“Well, anyway, one summer I came to this beach during a work break and fell asleep right over there on the sand. My boss always worked us really hard. But I fell asleep with my arms up over my head and burned my armpits so badly that they blistered and I couldn’t lower my arms for days without excruciating pain.”

“Ouch, that’s a dangerous burn,” I remarked.

“Yes, it was,” my father said. “My boss fired me for taking too much time off work while the blisters healed. Father told me I had been irresponsible and held it against me.”

“That doesn’t seem fair,” I said. “No wonder they nicknamed him Grumpy.”

My father laughed a little and then fell silent again. I spit out the rosehip seeds and then chucked the fruit into the bushes. “Dinner for the ants!” I giggled.

Just then, my father reached for my hand and pulled me closer to him. I was startled as physical affection of this nature between us had stopped, somewhat awkwardly, a few years back. We stood there, hand in hand, for a silent moment, never making eye contact but looking out at the beach instead. The waves continued their slow, ceaseless work of sculpting the shoreline and the wind carried on with rustling the leaves of the rosehip bushes and seagrass. I heard my father sigh, rather sadly it seemed to me, and then he dropped my hand and returned his own into his pant pockets. The loose change quietly jingled as we made our way back to our hotel room, my sister and I a good two steps ahead of our father.