“It’s beautiful,” Anna said, wiping the corner of her eye with the knuckle of her index finger.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” she replied. “I’ve been cooped up too long.” She gestured toward the ocean. “This is breathtaking. I mean, really. What do you expect?”
It had been a lifetime since I’d driven the length of the PCH. I’d nearly forgotten just how beautiful it was. The pandemic forced me to pause and take a look at many things, not all of which were beautiful to see. I was grateful I was able to view each and every one of them with open eyes.
“Wait till you see Big Sur from the Bixby Bridge.” I gave her a kiss. “You’ll bawl like a baby.”
The entire drive was scenic, but parts of it were far more beautiful than others. For 600 miles, the highway followed the coast, taking the most natural route along the edge of the countryside’s valleys, hills, cliffs, and mountains.
When driving south, the left side of the vehicle gave views of rock ledges, homes that overlooked the sea, small fishing villages, and sprawling cities. On the right, the Pacific Ocean lashed against the California coast.
I looked at Hap. “When was the last time you took this drive? All the way?”
His gaze fell to the ground between his feet. When he looked up, he bore an odd sense of content. “I’m going to guess it was with you and your brother. Two days before you left for boot camp.”
It was the last time I could recall seeing my brother alive. I was sure I saw him between our coastal drive and when I left for basic training, but my mind had no recollection of it.
Recalling the trip along the coast was easy. The four of us sat in silence, taking everything in until we reached San Clemente, at which point we ate dinner together at a local Mexican restaurant.
I gazed blankly beyond Hap, at the ocean. The meal was the last time we’d eaten together as a family.
“Remember Brandon betting me he could eat that hot pepper?” I asked. “Spit the fucker out and ran to the bathroom after one bite?”
“Drank half a gallon of milk trying to make that burn go away,” Hap said with a laugh. “What kind of brother dares his only sibling to eat an entire habanero, anyway?”
I shifted my focus from the coast to Hap. “That was a good trip.”
“One of my favorites,” he agreed.
I nodded in agreement. “Last time we were—”
I paused, not knowing what I intended to say.
Hap cleared his throat. “Let’s get this show on the road. If we don’t, we won’t be home ‘till dark.”
We continued south, slowing to take photos of the Bixby Bridge. We gawked at Big Sur’s beauty, admired the rock formations off the coast of San Luis Obispo, and paused to take in the sand dunes at Montaña de Oro State Park. Morrow Bay and Morrow Rock caused Anna to shed another tear.
It seemed if she wasn’t crying, she was snapping pictures with her cell phone, hoping to keep them to jog her memory at some point in the future.
I glanced in the rearview mirror, at Hap. “Did you keep all the pictures you took of us on that trip?”
“When we drove this the last time?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Sure did. Have ‘em at home,” he replied. “Maybe we could grab ‘em when we’re that way.”
“I’d like that.”
Anna patted her hand against my right thigh. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Anna glanced over her shoulder. “How has Marge been?”
“Why don’t you tell me?” Hap grunted. “You’re the one that’s over there all afternoon.”
“I go over there for an hour,” she rebutted. “That’s not all day.”
“Well,” Hap replied. “I may or may not stop by for long enough to get a glass of tea. I don’t think that constitutes a conversation.”
“Fine,” Anna huffed.
Hap glanced out the window. “It’s going to have to be,” he retorted. “Because my business isn’t your business.”
“Next time you ask me something, you’re going to get a big fat nothing in return,” Anna said. “No-thing. Zero. Zilch. Nada.”
“You vomit information like a compromised dam spews water,” Hap said with a laugh. “You’ll leak out enough to keep me entertained.”
“Not anymore,” she warned.
I liked seeing Hap argue with her. It let me know that he’d accepted her into his life, and into his heart.
We continued along the coast until we reached San Diego, with Anna talking nearly all the way. After stopping at Hap’s house to pick up a box of photographs, we took the freeway back to Los Angeles.
Upon reaching our home, we each fixed a plate of leftover meatloaf and sat at the dinner table.
Hap ate with one hand as he pilfered through the photos with the other. He flipped one across the table.
“Remember that?” he asked.
It was a picture of my brother’s bloody forearm.
I’d caught a four-foot long kingsnake and was teasing Brandon with it. As soon as I released its head, it bit him on the forearm so hard it drew blood. Hap ended up taking him to the doctor, primarily due to my mother’s insistence that the snake was possibly poisonous.
“Mom was madder than hell about that,” I said.
“She sure was.”
“How old was I?”
“Well, I bought you that shirt on the Christmas before your thirteenth birthday, so I’m going to guess you were about thirteen. Give or take.”
“Probably right,” I agreed. “Brian Hudson got me interested in snakes and he moved away at the end of eighth grade.”
“What about this?” he asked, flipping another across the table.
I handed Anna the picture of Brandon’s arm and reached for the other one.
It was a picture of us on Halloween. We couldn’t have been much older than four and five. I was dressed as a cowboy, and Brandon was dressed as an Indian. His face was marked with warpaint. A headband that covered nearly all his forehead was fitted with three turkey feathers.
Still looking at the picture of my brother and I, I laughed. “I kind of remember that. Not really. I remember Halloween with him, though. We’d make you walk so far behind us that no one knew you were with us.”
“It didn’t really matter if I was there or not, nobody in the neighborhood would have let anything happen to you little shits. Everyone knew everyone. Hell, the neighbors used to call us and say, ‘Isn’t it time to eat, Hap? Your two turds are in our back yard looking for horned toads.’”
“Things have sure changed,” I agreed. “Can’t wear an Indian costume these days. Somebody’d call the news and turn you in for race shaming. Times were different back then, no doubt.”
I looked over the photo and handed it to Anna.
“Here,” he flipped another across the table. “What about that?”
The photo was faded so much that gray and yellow were the only prominent colors. It was a photo of my mother, holding a baby.
“Is that Brandon?” I asked.
“It’s you.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “That’s got to be—”