There was a pause. The children were up to their waists in the water and Peter dove underneath for a moment and reappeared slightly farther out. The children set to splashing themselves in the surf, their tiny bodies bobbing up and down in rhythm to the waves.
“He’s lucky to have you,” he said.
“I know that,” she said quickly.
He smiled and this time she smiled back at him and he actually laughed and she too broke into a kind of giggle. “I guess we know where you stand,” he said.
She blushed. “Well,” she said, shrugging, “what do I say?”
He chuckled again. Then: “He knows that.”
“Does he?”
“Yes.”
“I do not think he does.”
He paused and then said, “I think he’s figuring it out.”
She sipped her beer and he did the same. After a moment she said, “I wonder what happens if he does not get job. He goes crazy and drunk and passes out somewhere because he loves another girl maybe.”
Keith was silent.
“I know he has crush on Starbucks girl,” she said. “I am not stupid wife.”
Again, he said nothing.
“I let it pass. I love him,” she said, “but he can be idiot sometimes.”
“Shit,” he said, “can’t we all?”
“Not like men. I apologize for saying, but men are idiots.”
He smiled. “Well, that’s probably true.”
“Make mountain out of molehill always.”
“Yeah, there’s some of that.”
“Too much,” she said.
“Yes.”
“And your wife, she leaves you for someone else?”
He did not answer.
“I apologize,” Luda said. “I should not ask these personal questions.”
“No, it’s not that,” he said. “I don’t know. I don’t know if it was specifically for someone else or just for other stuff. She had an affair while we were married.”
“Oh,” she said. “I did not know this.”
“Well, you do now,” he said.
“I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter now. She’s gone and that’s how it is.”
“You love her still maybe?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I don’t even remember that feeling at all now.”
“You love her when you were married?”
“I must have.”
“It does not make sense to love someone and then stop,” she said. “What does it mean that human beings can do this?”
“It doesn’t mean anything.”
“It should,” she said. “And your daughter too. Too much to lose at one time.”
“Feels that way.”
“You pray for daughter maybe?”
“Not really.”
“No?”
He shook his head.
“I pray for you both then.”
“Good,” he said.
“You think of her?”
“All the time.”
“Good thoughts?”
“Sure,” he said. “And some regrets.” Quiet. The beach shushing them. Peter and the children in the surf. “The last conversation I had with her was an argument.”
“What kind of argument?”
“She was brilliant at math but she wasn’t doing anything with it. It was disappointing.”
“She was disappointing to you.”
“Yeah, she was disappointing to me. She was spending her time cheerleading and hanging out with her boyfriend. I don’t know. It didn’t make sense to me. Still doesn’t.”
“Did it make sense to her?”
“Apparently,” he said. “But she’s gifted. Was, I mean.”
“Gift for astronaut work?”
“Maybe,” he said. “Mathematics. She was gifted at math. I mean probably genius-level gifted.”
“Yes, but why this gift?”
“I don’t know. She got some of what I have, I guess.”
“No,” Luda said. “I don’t mean this question.” She paused and then said, “This good thing with numbers. You say it is like gift but then you do not think it is like gift.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No,” she stopped again. “My English is not good. Not clear.” Again a pause. Then she said, “Gift is when you give something or you get something. This is not gift she has.”
He was silent for a moment and then he said, “Why not?”
“Because she has no choice. This is just how she is.”
He looked over at her. He knew he would have told anyone else to drop the topic entirely — even Eriksson — but for some reason he was willing to listen to Luda’s commentary. He did not know why this was so, but it was. “I don’t know if there’s a difference,” he said. “You have a talent and you use it. That’s how it works.”
“That is how it works for you,” Luda said. “Maybe not for your daughter.”
“That’s how it works for everyone,” he said. “Anyway, she worked hard at other stuff. Cheerleading and she had good grades. All A’s. But I just wanted her to really be great. She had that in her.”
“She sounds great already.”
“She was,” he said. “Shit, I don’t even know what I’m talking about. None of that matters now.”
“If it matters to you then it matters. You’re the father.”
“It was never enough for me. That’s the goddamned truth. It was just never enough. I wanted her to be better. All the time.” Something had collapsed inside of him and his eyes were welling with tears. “What a goddamn idiot I was,” he said.
Luda did not respond, sitting quietly, sipping at her beer. The ocean rolled in and streamed out again. Rolled in. Streamed out. After a moment she said, “You have other good memories, though. Not just argument and disappointment.”
He breathed deeply and slowly. When he regained himself he said, “Yeah,” and his voice broke and he was silent once again. He could feel her hand, his daughter’s tiny hand, curling into his own. God how much he wanted those days back. And every day to come after.
The sea rolled in far below them.
“This is good,” she said.
He was quiet. They both were. He tried to quiet the tears but they came nonetheless, running down his cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s fine,” he muttered, smearing the tears across his face. “Shit.”
“Everything changes. This is life.”
“I guess.” He sipped at his beer again.
“Girls love their fathers always,” she said. “My father work for Russian government and everyone hate him for this. But I love him. Maybe he is good man. Maybe he is bad man. I don’t know. I love him always.”
There was a slight breeze off the sea that came in gentle puffs and ruffled at the shade umbrellas. “I wish I could have made her happy,” he said at last. “Before it was too late.”
“She decides what is happy for her, not for you.”
“Maybe,” he said.
“Stop with maybe. You and Peter are same. Both never happy here and now. Only looking for the next thing to do. You don’t even know where you are and what you have.”
The children were taking turns climbing on their father’s shoulders in the low surf, Peter’s body jumping up out of the water and the children flying backwards, laughing, into the waves.
“What do you want from your life?” Luda said.
Keith sat and watched them in the ocean. All three of them laughing, their voices rising out of the static hiss of the water as it rolled in gentle waves against the sand. “I used to be able to answer that,” he said.
“You forget. Everyone forget sometimes. Peter forgets for years. But then you remember.”
He was silent, his beer cold and wet in his hand. “I wanted to go back to work. Now I don’t even know.”
“You go back to work then,” she said.
“It’s complicated.”
“You talk to me of complicated?” She did not smile and there was an edge to her voice. “I leave my whole country to come here. What is complicated for your work? This makes mountain of molehill again.”