odanthe, 1988

The morning sky was gray when Paul Flanner left the attorney’s office. Zipping his jacket, he walked through the mist to his rented Toyota Camry and slipped behind the wheel, thinking that the life he’d led for the past quarter century had formally ended with his signature on the sales contract.

It was early January 1988, and in the past month, he’d sold both his cars, his medical practice, and now, in this final meeting with his attorney, his home.

He hadn’t known how he would feel about selling the house, but as he’d turned the key, he’d realized he didn’t feel much of anything, other than a vague sense of completion. Earlier that morning, he’d walked through the house, room by room, one last time, hoping to remember scenes from his life. He’d thought he’d picture the Christmas tree and recall how excited his son had been when he padded downstairs in his pajamas to see the gifts that Santa had brought. He’d tried to recall the smells in the kitchen on Thanksgiving, or rainy Sunday afternoons when Martha had cooked stew, or the sounds of voices that emanated from the living room where he and his wife had hosted dozens of parties.

But as he passed from room to room, pausing a moment here and there to close his eyes, no memories sprang to life. The house, he realized, was nothing more than an empty shell, and he wondered once again why he had lived there as long as he had.

Paul exited the parking lot, turned into traffic, and made his way to the interstate, avoiding the rush of commuters coming in from the suburbs. Twenty minutes later, he turned onto Highway 70, a two-lane road that cut southeast, toward the coast of North Carolina. On the backseat, there were two large duffel bags. His airline tickets and passport were in the leather pouch on the front seat beside him. In the trunk was a medical kit and various supplies he’d been asked to bring.

Outside, the sky was a canvas of white and gray, and winter had firmly settled in. It had rained this morning for an hour, and the northerly wind made it feel colder than it was. It was neither crowded on the highway nor slick, and Paul set the cruise control a few miles over the speed limit, letting his thoughts drift back to what he had done that morning.

Britt Blackerby, his attorney, had tried one last time to talk him out of it. They’d been friends for years; six months ago, when Paul first brought up all that he wanted to do, Britt thought Paul was kidding and laughed aloud, saying, “That’ll be the day.” Only when he’d looked across the table at the face of his friend had he realized Paul was serious.

Paul had been prepared for that meeting, of course. It was the one habit he couldn’t shake, and he pushed three neatly typed pages across the table, outlining what he thought were fair prices and his specific thoughts on the proposed contracts. Britt had stared at them for a long moment before looking up.

“Is this because of Martha?” Britt had asked.

“No,” he’d answered, “it’s just something I need to do.”

In the car, Paul turned on the heater and held his hand in front of the vent, letting the air warm his fingers. Peeking in the rearview mirror, he saw the skyscrapers of Raleigh and wondered when he would see them again.

He’d sold the house to a young professional couple— the husband was an executive with Glaxo, the wife was a psychologist—who’d seen the home on the first day it was listed. They’d come back the following day and had made an offer within hours of that visit. They were the first, and only, couple to have walked through the house.

Paul wasn’t surprised. He’d been there the second time they’d walked through, and they’d spent an hour going over the features of the home. Despite their attempts to mask their feelings, Paul knew they’d buy it as soon as he’d met them. Paul showed them the features of the security system and how to open the gate that separated this neighborhood from the rest of the community; he offered the name and business card of the landscaper he used, as well as the pool maintenance company, with which he was still under contract. He explained that the marble in the foyer had been imported from Italy and that the stained-glass windows had been crafted by an artisan in Geneva. The kitchen had been remodeled only two years earlier; the SubZero refrigerator and Viking cooking range were still considered state of the art; no, he’d said, cooking for twenty or more wouldn’t be a problem. He walked them through the master suite and bath, then the other bedrooms, noticing how their eyes lingered on the hand-carved molding and sponge-painted walls. Downstairs, he pointed out the custom furniture and crystal chandelier and let them examine the Persian carpet beneath the cherry table in the formal dining room. In the library, Paul watched as the husband ran his fingers over the maple paneling, then stared at the Tiffany lamp on the corner of the desk.

“And the price,” the husband said, “includes all the furniture ?”

Paul nodded. As he left the library, he could hear their hushed, excited whispers as they followed him.

Toward the end of the hour, as they were standing at the door and getting ready to leave, they asked the question that Paul had known was coming.

“Why are you selling?”

Paul remembered looking at the husband, knowing there was more to the question than simple curiosity. There seemed to be a hint of scandal about what Paul was doing, and the price, he knew, was far too low, even had the home been sold empty.

Paul could have said that since he was alone, he had no need for a house this big anymore. Or that the home was more suited to someone younger, who didn’t mind the stairs. Or that he was planning to buy or build a different home and wanted a different decor. Or that he planned to retire, and all this was too much to take care of.

But none of those reasons were true, Instead of answering, he met the husband’s eyes.

“Why do you want to buy?” he asked instead.

His tone was friendly, and the husband took a moment to glance at his wife. She was pretty, a petite brunette about the same age as her husband, mid-thirties or so. The husband was good-looking as well and stood ramrod straight, an obvious up-and-comer who had never lacked for confidence. For a moment, they didn’t seem to understand what he meant.

“It’s the kind of house we’ve always dreamed about,” the wife finally answered.

Paul nodded. Yes, he thought, I remember feeling that way, too. Until six months ago, anyway.

“Then I hope it makes you happy,” he said.

A moment later the couple turned to leave, and Paul watched them head to their car. He waved before closing the door, but once inside, he felt his throat constrict. Staring at the husband, he realized, had reminded him of the way he’d once felt when looking at himself in the mirror. And, for a reason he couldn’t quite explain, Paul suddenly realized there were tears in his eyes.

 

 

The highway passed through Smithfield, Goldsboro, and Kinston, small towns separated by thirty miles of cotton and tobacco fields. He’d grown up in this part of the world, on a small farm outside Williamston, and the landmarks here were familiar to him. He rolled past tottering tobacco barns and farmhouses; he saw clusters of mistletoe in the high barren branches of oak trees just off the highway. Loblolly pines, clustered in long, thin strands, separated one property from the next.

In New Bern, a quaint town situated at the confluence of the Neuse and Trent Rivers, he stopped for lunch. From a deli in the historic district, he bought a sandwich and cup of coffee, and despite the chill, he settled on a bench near the Sheraton that overlooked the marina. Yachts and sailboats were moored in their slips, rocking slightly in the breeze.

Paul’s breaths puffed out in little clouds. After finishing his sandwich, he removed the lid from his cup of coffee. Watching the steam rise, he wondered about the turn of events that had brought him to this point.

It had been a long journey, he mused. His mother had died in childbirth, and as the only son of a father who farmed for a living, it hadn’t been easy. Instead of playing baseball with friends or fishing for largemouth bass and catfish, he’d spent his days weeding and peeling boll weevils from tobacco leaves twelve hours a day, beneath a hailed-up southern summer sun that permanently stained his back a golden brown. Like all children, he sometimes complained, but for the most part, he accepted the work. He knew his father needed his help, and his father was a good man. He was patient and kind, but like his own father before him, he seldom spoke unless he had reason. More often than not, their small house offered the quietude normally found in a church. Other than perfunctory questions as to how school was going or what was happening in the fields, dinners were punctuated only by the sounds of silverware tapping against the plates. After washing the dishes, his father would migrate to the living room and peruse farm reports, while Paul immersed himself in books. They didn’t have a television, and the radio was seldom turned on, except for finding out about the weather.

They were poor, and though he always had enough to eat and a warm room to sleep in, Paul was sometimes embarrassed by the clothes he wore or the fact that he never had enough money to head to the drugstore to buy a Moon-Pie or a bottle of cola like his friends. Now and then he heard snide comments about those things, but instead of fighting back, Paul devoted himself to his studies, as if trying to prove it didn’t matter. Year after year, he brought home perfect grades, and though his father was proud of his accomplishments, there was an air of melancholy about him whenever he looked over Paul’s report cards, as though he knew that they meant his son would one day leave the farm and never come back.

The work habits honed in the fields extended to other areas of Paul’s life. Not only did he graduate valedictorian of his class, he became an excellent athlete as well. When he was cut from the football team as a freshman, the coach recommended that he try cross-country running. When he realized that effort, not genetics, usually separated the winners from losers in races, he started rising at five in the morning so he could squeeze two workouts into a day. It worked; he attended Duke University on a full athletic scholarship and was their top runner for four years, in addition to excelling in the classroom. In his four years there, he relaxed his vigilance once and nearly died as a result, but he never let it happen again. He double majored in chemistry and biology and graduated summa cum laude. That year he also became an all-American by finishing third at the national cross-country meet.

After the race, he gave the medal to his father and said that he had done all this for him.

“No,” his father replied, “you ran for you. I just hope you’re running toward something, not away from something.”

That night, Paul stared at the ceiling as he lay in bed, trying to figure out what his father had meant. In his mind, he was running toward something, toward everything. A better life. Financial stability. A way to help his father. Respect. Freedom from worry. Happiness.

In February of his senior year, after learning he’d been accepted to medical school at Vanderbilt, he went to visit his father and told him the good news. His father said that he was pleased for him, But later that night, long after his father should have been asleep, Paul looked out the window and saw him, a lonely figure standing near the fence post, staring out over the fields.

Three weeks later, his father died of a heart attack while tilling in preparation for the spring.

Paul was devastated by the loss, but instead of taking time to mourn, he avoided his memories by throwing himself even further into work. He enrolled at Vanderbilt early, went to summer school and took three classes to get ahead in his studies, then added extra classes in the fall to an already full schedule. After that, his life became a blur. He went to class, did his labwork, and studied until the early morning hours. He ran five miles a day and always timed his runs, trying to improve with each passing year. He avoided nightclubs and bars; he ignored the goings-on of the school athletic teams. He bought a television on a whim, but he never unpacked it from the box and sold it a year later. Though shy around girls, he was introduced to Martha, a sweet-tempered blonde from Georgia who was working at the medical school library, and when he never got around to asking her out, she took it upon herself to do so. Though worried about the frantic pace he held himself to, she nonetheless accepted his proposal, and they walked the aisle ten months later. With finals looming, there was no time for a honeymoon, but he promised they’d head someplace nice when school was out. They never got around to it. Mark, their son, was born a year later, and in the first two years of his son’s life, Paul never once changed a diaper or rocked the boy to sleep.

Rather, he studied at the kitchen table, staring at diagrams of human physiology or studying chemical equations, taking notes, and acing one exam after the next. He graduated at the top of his class in three years and moved the family to Baltimore to do his surgical residency at Johns Hopkins. Surgery, he knew by then, was his calling. Many specialties require a great deal of human interaction and handholding; Paul was not particularly good at either. But surgery was different; patients weren’t as interested in communication skills as they were in ability, and Paul had not only the confidence to put them at ease before the operation, but the skill to do whatever was required. He thrived in that environment. In the last two years of his residency, Paul worked ninety hours a week and slept four hours a night but, oddly, showed no signs of fatigue.

After his residency, he completed a fellowship in cranial-facial surgery and moved the family to Raleigh, where he joined a practice with another surgeon just as the population was beginning to boom. As the only specialists in that field in the community, their practice grew. By thirty-four, he’d paid off his debts from medical school. By thirty-six, he was associated with every major hospital in the area and did the bulk of his work at the University of North Carolina Medical Center, There, he participated in a joint clinical study with physicians from the Mayo Clinic on neurofibromas. A year later, he had an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine concerning cleft palates. Another article on hemangiomas followed four months later and helped to redefine surgical procedures for infants in that field. His reputation grew, and after operating successfully on Senator Norton’s daughter, who’d been disfigured in a car accident, he made the front page of The Wall Street Journal.

In addition to reconstructive work, he was one of the first physicians in North Carolina to expand his practice to include plastic surgery, and he caught the wave just as it started to swell. His practice boomed, his income multiplied, and he started to accumulate things. He purchased a BMW, then a Mercedes, then a Porsche, then another Mercedes. He and Martha built the home of their dreams. He bought stocks and bonds and shares in a dozen different mutual funds. When he realized he couldn’t keep up with the intricacies of the market, he hired a money manager. After that, his money began doubling every four years. Then, when he had more than he’d ever need for the rest of his life, it began to triple.

And still he worked. He scheduled surgeries not only during the week, but on Saturday as well. He spent Sunday afternoons in the office. By the time he was forty-five, the pace he kept eventually burned out his partner, who left to work with another group of doctors.

In the first few years after Mark was born, Martha often talked about having another child. In time, she stopped bringing it up. Though she forced him to take vacations, he did so reluctantly, and in the end, she took to visiting her parents with Mark and leaving Paul at home. Paul found time to go to some of the major events in his son’s life, those things that happened once or twice a year, but he missed most everything else.

He convinced himself that he was working for the family. Or for Martha, who’d struggled with him in the early years. Or for the memory of his father. Or for Mark’s future. But deep down, he knew he was doing it for himself.

If he could list his major regret about those years now, it would he about his son; yet despite Paul’s absence from his life, Mark surprised him by deciding to become a doctor. After Mark had been accepted to medical school, Paul spread the word around the hospital corridors, pleased by the thought that his son would join him in the profession. Now, he thought, they would have more time together, and he remembered taking Mark to lunch in the hopes of convincing him to become a surgeon. Mark simply shook his head.

“That’s your life,” Mark told him, “and it’s not a life that interests me at all. To be honest, I feel sorry for you.”

The words stung. They had an argument. Mark made bitter accusations, Paul grew furious, and Mark ended up storming out of the restaurant, Paul refused to talk to him for the next couple of weeks, and Mark made no attempt to make amends. Weeks turned into months, then into years. Though Mark continued the warm relationship he had with his mother, he avoided coming home when he knew his father was around.

Paul handled the estrangement with his son in the only way he knew. His workload stayed the same, he ran his usual five miles a day; in the mornings, he studied the financial pages in the newspaper. But he could see the sadness in Martha’s eyes, and there were moments, usually late at night, when he wondered how to repair the rift with his son. Part of him wanted to pick up the phone and call, but he never found the will to do so. Mark, he knew from Martha, was doing fine without him. Instead of becoming a surgeon, Mark became a family practitioner, and after taking several months to develop the skills he needed, he left the country to volunteer his services to an international relief organization. Though it was noble, Paul couldn’t help but think he’d done it to be as far away from his father as possible.

Two weeks after Mark had gone, Martha filed for divorce.

If Mark’s words had once made him angry, Martha’s words left him stunned. He started to try to talk her out of it, but Martha gently cut him off.

“Will you really miss me?” she said. “We hardly know each other anymore.”

“I can change,” he said.

Martha smiled. “I know you can. And you should. But you should do it because you want to, not because you think I want you to.”

Paul spent the next couple of weeks in a daze, and a month after that, after he had completed a routine operation, sixty-two-year-old Jill Torrelson of Rodanthe, North Carolina, died in the recovery room.

It was that terrible event, following on the heels of the others, he knew, that had led him to this road now.

 

 

After finishing his coffee, Paul got back in the car and made his way to the highway again. In forty-five minutes, he’d reached Morehead City. He crossed over the bridge to Beaufort, followed the turns, then headed down east, toward Cedar Island.

There was a peaceful beauty to the coastal lowlands, and he slowed the car, taking it all in. Life, he knew, was different here. As he drove, he marveled at the people driving in the opposite direction who waved at him, and the group of older men, sitting on a bench outside a gas station, who seemed to have nothing better to do than watch the cars pass by.

In midafternoon, he caught the ferry to Ocracoke, a village at the southern end of the Outer Banks. There were only four other cars on the ferry, and on the two-hour ride, he visited with a few of the other passengers. He spent the night at a motel in Ocracoke, woke when the white ball of light rose over the water, had an early breakfast, and then spent the next few hours walking through the rustic village, watching people ready their homes for the storm brewing off the coast.

When he was finally ready, he tossed the duffel hag into his car and began the drive northward, to the place he had to go.

The Outer Banks, he thought, were both strange and mystical. With saw grass speckling the rolling dunes and maritime oaks bent sideways with the never-ending sea breeze, it was a place like no other. The islands had once been connected to the mainland, but after the last ice age, the sea had flooded the area to the immediate west, forming the Pamlico Sound, Until the 1950s, there wasn’t a highway on this series of islands, and people had to drive along the beach to reach the homes beyond the dunes. Even now it was part of the culture, and as he drove, he could see tire tracks near the water’s edge.

The sky had cleared in places, and though the clouds raced angrily toward the horizon, the sun sometimes squinted through, making the world glow fiercely white. Over the roar of the engine, he could hear the violence of the ocean.

At this time of year, the Outer Banks were largely empty, and he had this stretch of roadway to himself, In the solitude, his thoughts returned to Martha.

The divorce had become final only a few months earlier, but it had been amicable. He knew she was seeing someone, and he suspected she’d been seeing him even before they’d separated, but it wasn’t important. These days, nothing seemed important.

When she left, Paul remembered cutting back on his schedule, thinking he needed time to sort things out. But months later, instead of going back to his regular routine, he cut back even more. He still ran regularly but found he no longer had any interest in reading the financial pages in the morning. For as long as he could remember, he’d needed only six hours of sleep a night; but strangely, the more he cut back on the pace of his previous life, the more hours he seemed to need to feel rested.

There were other, physical changes as well. For the first time in years, Paul felt the muscles in his shoulders relax. The lines in his face, grown deep over the years, were still prominent, but the intensity he once saw in his reflection had been replaced with a sort of weary melancholy. And though it was probably his imagination, it seemed as if his graying hair had finally stopped receding.

At one time, he had thought he had it all. He’d run and run, he’d reached the pinnacle of success; yet now, he realized he’d never taken his father’s advice. All his life, he’d been running away from something, not toward something, and in his heart, he knew it had all been in vain.

He was fifty-four and alone in the world, and as he stared at the vacant stretch of asphalt unfolding before him, he couldn’t help but wonder why on earth he’d run so hard.

Knowing he was close now, Paul settled in for the final leg of his journey. He was staying at a small bed-and-breakfast just off the highway, and when he reached the outskirts of Rodanthe, he took in his surroundings. Downtown, if you could call it that, consisted of various businesses that seemed to offer just about everything. The general store sold hardware and fishing gear as well as groceries; the gas station sold tires and auto parts as well as the services of a mechanic.

He had no reason to ask for directions, and a minute later, he pulled off the highway onto a short gravel drive, thinking the Inn at Rodanthe was more charming than he’d imagined it would be. It was an aging white Victorian with black shutters and a welcoming front porch. On the railings were potted pansies in full bloom, and an American flag fluttered in the wind.

He grabbed his gear and slung the bags over his shoulder, then walked up the steps and went inside. The floor was heart pine, scuffed by years of sandy feet, and without the formality of his former home. On his left, there was a cozy sitting room, brightly lit by two large windows framing the fireplace. He could smell fresh coffee and saw that a small platter of cookies had been set out for his arrival. On the right, he assumed he’d find the proprietor, and he went that way.

Though he saw a small desk where he was supposed to check in, no one was behind it. In the corner, he saw the room keys; the key chains were small statues of lighthouses. When he reached the desk, he rang the bell, requesting service.

He waited, then rang again, and this time he heard what sounded like a muffled cry coming from somewhere in the rear of the house. Leaving his gear, he stepped around the desk and pushed through a set of swinging doors that led to the kitchen. On the counter were three unpacked grocery bags.

The back door was open, beckoning him that way, and the porch creaked as he stepped outside. On the left, he saw a couple of rocking chairs and a small table between them; on the right, he saw the source of the noise.

She was standing in the corner; overlooking the ocean. Like him, she was wearing faded jeans, but she was enveloped by a thick turtleneck sweater. Her light brown hair was pinned back, a few loose tendrils whipping in the wind. He watched as she turned, startled at the sound of his boots on the porch. Behind her, a dozen terns rode the updrafts, and a coffee cup was perched on the railing.

Paul glanced away, then found his eyes drawn to her again. Even though she was crying, he could tell she was pretty, but there was something in the sad way she shifted her weight that let him know she didn’t realize it. And that, he would always think when looking back on this moment, had only served to make her even more appealing.