Summary: 'Close to the Water's Edge'

Close to the Water’s Edge (summary) This story is about a young man who goes to Cambridge (Harvard University), and he is now gone home, visiting his mother and stepfather to celebrate his 19th birthday. The text begins with the young man out on the balcony, hearing his mother and stepfather argue. Then the story turns into a flashback about his grandmother and how she deeply wished to see the Atlantic, but only got to one time, and her husband was about to leave her stranded there, if she weren’t back on time.The young man’s mother comes out on the balcony and helps him fixing his tie, and she says to him that she is very proud of him. They went to a restaurant called Leonardo’s. The stepfather tries to talk and make conservation with the young man, but the mother comes in with an interruption. They were sitting with their food, and the young man received a great birthday cake. After the birthday dinner, the young man goes to the beach, and thinks about his life. He starts thinking about his grandmother, and that he is never going to be married. Then he takes off his clothes, and went to the water. He starts swimming, until he can’t reach the bottom. The tide has taken his clothes away, and it’s a fight to reach the shore again. He never meant to drink all the champagne and he never meant to go swimming in the first place. All he wanted was to wash the evening off him. He is looking around for his clothes on the sand, and then he collapses.[NAVN A] 1.Y