24 THENEWYORKER,DECEMBER2, 2019
program. “The woman who saw you said,
‘I just hope no one tries to take advan-
tage of him,’” the acquaintance told me.
On Emerald Isle this August, it was
German I was muttering. I might have
picked up an occasional bit of trash, but
I wasn’t carrying any equipment, just
ziplock bags of hot dogs or thick-cut
bologna to feed the snapping turtles in
the canal.
We’d been at the beach for four days
when I noticed a great many ant colo-
nies in the dirt bordering the sidewalk
between the strip mall the CVS is in
and the one the grocery store is in. The
ants were cinnamon-colored, hundreds
of thousands of them, all racing about,
searching for something to eat.
“Excuse me,” I said that afternoon
to the guy behind the counter at the
hardware store. “I was wanting to feed
some ants and wonder what you think
they might like. How would they feel
about bananas?”
The man’s face and neck were deeply
creased from age, and the sun. “Bananas?”
He took off his glasses and then put
them back on. “Naw, I’d go with candy.
Ants like that pretty good.”
I bought a bag of gummy worms
from beside the register, bit them into
thirds, and, on my way back to the house,
distributed them among the various col-
onies as evenly as I could. It made me
happy to think of the workers, present-
ing their famished queens with sugar,
and possibly being rewarded for it.
“You’re out there feeding ants candy? ”
Hugh said that night at the table, when
we were all discussing our day. “They
don’t need your help, and neither do the
stupid turtles. You mess these things up
by feeding them—you hurt them is what
you do.” It wasn’t what he said that con-
cerned me but, rather, his tone, which,
again, I wouldn’t have noticed if my sis-
ter weren’t there.
“Well, they seemed pretty happy to
me,” I said.
Gretchen patted my hand: “Don’t
listen to Hugh. He doesn’t know shit
about being an ant.”
T
his was a relatively short beach trip.
Renters were arriving on Saturday,
so the three of us had to have the house
clean and be out by 10 a.m. Gretchen
left a bit earlier than we did, and, though
I was sorry to see her go, it was a relief
to escape her judgment regarding the
life I have built with Hugh. As it was,
whenever anything good happened
during that week, whenever he was
cheerful or thoughtlessly kind, I wanted
to say, “See, this is what my relationship
is like—this!”
It was a three-hour drive to Raleigh.
I had work to do, so while Hugh drove
I sat in the back seat. “Just for a little
while,” I said. I must have fallen asleep,
though. After waking, I read for a bit,
and the next thing I knew the car wasn’t
moving. “What’s going on?” I asked, too
lazy to sit up and look out the window.
“I don’t know,” Hugh said. “An acci-
dent, maybe.”
I righted myself and was just attempt-
ing to hop into the front seat when Hugh
advanced and tapped the car in front of
us. “Now, see what you made me do!”
“Me?”
I don’t know anything about cars, but
the one he’d hit was bigger than ours,
and white. The driver was husky and
pissed-off-looking, with the sort of large,
watery eyes I’d expect to find behind
glasses. “Did you just hit me?” he asked,
walking toward us. He bent to exam-
ine his bumper, which seemed to be
made of plastic and had a pale mark on
it, possibly put there by us.
Hugh rolled down his window: “I
maybe did, but just a little.” The man
glared at what he probably assumed was
an Uber driver making extra money by
taking people to the airport, or wher-
ever that gap-toothed dope in the back
seat was headed. He gave his bumper
another once-over, then the traffic started
moving. Someone honked, and the man
got back into his car. “Hit him again,”
I said to Hugh. “But harder this time.
We need to show him who’s boss.”
“Will you please shut up,” he said.
“As a favor to me. Please.”W
hen we first got news that Hur-
ricane Florence had all but de-
stroyed the Sea Section, I felt nothing.
Part of my indifference was that I’d ex-
pected this to happen. It was inevitable.
Then, too, I wasn’t as attached to the
place as he was. I wasn’t the one who’d
be contacting the insurance company. I
wouldn’t be dropping everything to fly
to North Carolina. It wouldn’t be me
picking turds off our beds, or finding a
contractor. In that sense, I could affordto feel nothing. After looking at the pic-
tures that Bermey had sent, I shrugged
and went for a walk. At dusk, I returned
and found Hugh in our bedroom, curled
up with his face in his hands. “My house,”
he sobbed, his shoulders quaking.
“Well, one of your houses,” I said,
thinking of Florence’s other victims.
Some, like Hugh, were crying on their
beds, far from the affected area, while
others were on foldout sofas, in sleeping
bags, in the back seats of cars, or on cots
laid out like circuitry in public-school
gymnasiums. People who’d thought they
were far enough inland to be safe, who’d
had real belongings in their now ruined
houses: things that were dear to them,
and irreplaceable. The hardest-hit vic-
tims lost actual people—mates or friends
or family members swept away and swal-
lowed by floodwaters.
Then again, this was something of
a pattern for Hugh. So many of the
houses he’d lived in growing up had
been destroyed: in Beirut, in Mogadi-
shu, in Kinshasa. He’s actually sort of
bad luck that way.
I put my arms around him, and said
the things that were expected of me:
“We’ll rebuild, and it will all be fine.
Better, actually. You’ll see.” This was
how I always imagined myself in a re-
lationship: the provider, the rock, the
reassuring voice of wisdom. I had to
catch myself from saying, “I’ve got you,”
which is what people say on TV now
when they’re holding a distraught per-
son. It’s a nice sentiment, but culturally
speaking there was only a five-minute
period when you could say this without
sounding lame, and it has long passed.
I do have him, though. Through other
people’s eyes, the two of us might not
make sense, but that works in reverse as
well. I have a number of friends who are
in long-term relationships I can’t begin
to figure out. But what do I know? What
does Gretchen or Lisa or Amy? They
see me getting scolded from time to time,
getting locked out of my own house, but
where are they in the darkening rooms
when a close friend dies or rebels storm
the embassy. When the wind picks up
and the floodwaters rise. When you re-
alize you’d give anything to make that
other person stop hurting, if only so he
can tear your head off again. And you
can forgive and forget again. On and on,
hopefully. Then on and on and on.