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Authors: Stacey Donovan

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Dive (16 page)

BOOK: Dive
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When the Wave Comes

 

Like everybody else in the world, it seemed, we had headed toward the ocean. It was at least five years ago, during a dry, sweltering August. Ours and a million other cars inched by the
BEACH
signs along the highway. The car was packed with sand chairs, beach umbrellas, and fishing poles.

 

| | |

 

Wadbreath was sprawled out on the backseat, and my sister and I were all the way in the back of the old red station wagon. I was searching for the bag that held the hard-boiled eggs and giving Baby Teeth a bird lecture.

 

“There are at least ninety species of sparrows recorded in North America. You can look at them and wonder how they stay alive, they’re so small. But sparrows are able to live in places where other birds find it hard to survive. Isn’t that great?” I loved knowing stuff like this. My dad had told me about the birds, in just this way. That’s how I remembered, why I said it this way. “Do you know how many ninety is?”

“What?” my sister said. She had wanted to sit in the front with my mother and, for spite, pretended she couldn’t hear me. But when Baby Teeth pretended in this way, she wanted everyone to know. “WHAT? WHAT? WHAT?”

“Stop it,” my mother said. I assumed my mother was talking to my sister, whose dreadful attitude was, to my mother’s mind, I’m sure, infecting the whole gang. My mother didn’t like it when we were finally all together and everybody didn’t pretend to be overjoyed. I have to remind myself that this was five years ago.

 

“Only some sparrows are good singers. A canary is a sparrow; did you know that? Canaries have terrific voices.” I could still smell the eggs, but I couldn’t find them.

“Virginia, did you hear me?”

“We’re almost there,” my father called, to no one in particular, but happily. He was always in a good mood when we were in the car going somewhere. When we really traveled, to places we’d never been, like zoos or lakes, we always got lost.

 

My father refused to look at a map, though my mother’s hands always held one during those journeys. She’d point out that he’d inevitably taken a wrong turn, and he’d ignore her. It was like he was driving in a dream, making up the directions as he went along. Eventually his smile would fade, unable, I guess, to sustain itself against my mother’s complaints.

“Will you stop ruining the trip before we even get there?” he’d say, and finally grab the map.

“I just don’t want to get there tomorrow,” she’d answer, head turned smugly to the window.

It was my opinion that he wanted to get lost.

 

At least he knew the way to the beach. After parking in one of the numbered “fields,” each holding hundreds of cars, it seemed to take forever to walk to the shore. Especially weighed down with beach stuff. Everybody squinted against the immense summer sun. It was ninety-eight degrees and not even noon. A real scorcher, that’s what the deep voice on the radio had said while we drove. I never found the eggs. That’s because Wadnod, who later confessed, had secretly eaten them all.

 

A storm was expected later that day, and the ocean confirmed the voice on the radio. The waves were impossibly huge and wild. The water was not blue that day, but white. White with the whipping sea spray and breaking waves.

 

Baby Teeth begged my father to put her down as they stood at the edge of the water. Her tears made it clear that she was afraid. I was scared too. But I was also drawn to it, in the same way I was pulled toward sleep when I closed my eyes. The embracing waves, the floating surrender. The problem with the ocean was that it was just too big. It could swallow somebody.

 

Because I knew that in the ocean were tremendous monsters with vicious teeth. Just looking at the water, I felt the feeling that washed over me as I lay in bed at night, when I could still think but my thoughts were dunking and floating at the same time. When life was bobbing behind my eyes in a haphazard, sprawling way. The spray of the surf as it flew through the scorching air was a cool relief against my skin. But when I looked out at the ocean and was struck by how dangerous it was, everything inside me seemed to clatter, like breaking shells. My dad finally put Baby Teeth down. She dropped her tube into the sand. “Not me,” she said, and ran as fast as her petrified three-year-old legs would carry her.

“Do you want to go in with me?” he asked, his grinning face looming above me.

“I don’t know.” The surf was so cool, but the waves were so big.

“Just hold my hand,” he offered, “and when the wave comes, we dive under. Just hold on to my hand.”

 

Though I couldn’t tell him, I knew that he knew I was scared. He kept smiling and nodding at me the way I’d seen people look at babies. But I couldn’t say anything. I wanted to go, even though I was scared. Just me and my dad. When I finally reached out my hand for his, I think I stopped breathing. I had just seen
Moby Dick,
and Gregory Peck had died a brutal death in that movie, strapped to the back of the whale. I knew how to swim, that much I knew, but not in a wild ocean. Not in an ululating sea like this.

 

A lot of whooping noises and splashing usually followed my father as he went into the water. “Getting acquainted,” he called it. But not today. Today we stood as still as telephone poles.

 

“Ready?” he said. “Just hold on.” And, without waiting for an answer, tugged at my hand, dragging me into the deep. The terror was under my feet, where there was nothing. Nothing but the swirl of my mind, spinning in the grip of my daddy’s hand. Just hold on, I told myself.

 

The white waves crashed around us, brutal and spitting. And what fools we were, rushing to meet them! I must’ve opened my mouth in horror, or to say something, because suddenly it was full of salt, burning, when my father yelled, “Dive!” and let go of my hand.

 

I saw him disappear into the monstrosity of the sea at the same instant I was struck by it, tumbling me over and over in a ridiculous, unending somersault. I rolled and spun, the sea filling my mouth and ears, my eyes, wide open.

 

Finally I hit the shore. The sand ran inside my bathing suit, into my ears, finding the hidden folds of skin like biting teeth. I hit the shore in a heap. My eyes stung from salt that cut like glass. Then the tears were gone. In their place for anyone to see was a new terror. My father.

 

“You didn’t dive!” I heard him say. “If you don’t dive, you sink, you get pulled under! You end up like this.” I saw his hand above me as I sprawled across the sand. His mouth was wide, just like the sea, and spread into a grin.

“You said hold on.” I was on my knees, wiping the sand from my unsmiling face.

 

“I dove under, and then when the wave passed, I could stand,” my father said. “I thought you were with me on this.”

“But you
said
hold on.” I hated him. “I thought you were with
me.”

“But you can’t hold on
and
dive. You need
both
hands to dive.”

“Why didn’t you say so before?” What I hated the most was that I had
believed
him. “You lied to me.”

“No, please.” He laughed and reached to help me stand up. “I didn’t lie. I just thought you would know . . . but you . . . it’s my fault.”

 

I would not let him help me and twisted from his grasp. “But you know what, V? Next time, you won’t forget.”

 

I might
never
forget, that’s what I knew. I didn’t know what else I’d remember.

Roaring

 

The bloody sheets are still on his bed. When we left the hospital last Friday, Edward moved into the guest room upstairs at home and Dad took my brother’s room on the first floor. It was obvious that my father wouldn’t be climbing any stairs. We lived this new way for all of two days. One weekend. Today is Monday, my dad is back in the hospital, and the bloody sheets are still on his bed.

 

| | |

 

Last week, following Thursday’s dreadful scene full of fever and rash and delirium, Dr. Sweeney and the hematologist appeared in the room. They said there was nothing else they could do if my dad refused to try the plethora of experimental medications that was available. The plethora? My dad was not experiencing any active infections at this time. Nobody said anything about a cure.

 

“So I’ll go home,” my dad said. If you feel you’ll be more comfortable there. Private-duty nurses, hospice, alternatives were available. They were very careful about how they said all this, but every word was exaggerated.
Alternatives
blared loud as a car horn. My dad said, “If I’m going to die, I’ll do it at home.” That’s when the doctors blinked, like my dad was a bully tossing sand in their eyes, and they looked away.

 

But nobody said he was going to hemorrhage. Or that he would sleep all weekend and then his blood would stop clotting and start spilling out all over the sheets.

 

And my dad said, not like this. I’m not going like this, covered in blood; he said it. He had just woken up. It was this morning. Both blankets, since he was always cold, were soaked in blood. We all stood there, gaping at the sight, as if
we
had been wounded. My dad groaned. That’s when I grabbed the blankets and my mother grabbed my dad’s robe. Edward ran outside to start the car. Baby Teeth had already left for school, which was a relief. We rushed back to the hospital.

 

| | | | | |

 

That was this morning, all the blood. And now it’s afternoon. I’m walking along the street trying to remember and forget everything at once. I don’t want to forget anything about my dad. I don’t want to remember this morning. The sun is shining into my eyes in such a way that I’m blind if I tilt my head. I even want to remember that. It’s Monday afternoon, after school. I wish I could forget how heavy those blankets were. I went to school today.

 

I saw Jane in school and told her that I was going straight back to the hospital with Edward this afternoon. That was a lie. I’m going home to meet Edward and Baby Teeth first. When I get home, what I’m going to do is take the bloody sheets off the bed. I don’t want Baby Teeth to see that.

What I told Jane is true enough. The real truth is that I just can’t stand the thought of being near her today. When I’m with her, I feel like stuff is being dragged out of me. As I’m being emptied, another part of me fills with worry. Will she kiss me again? When?

 

| | |

 

I wonder if it matters to her as much as it does to me. She said she wanted to do everything once. Like Rimbaud. Rimbaud wanted to do everything once. Is that all? I don’t really know what she meant by that. “Nobody’s serious when they’re seventeen.” That’s another Rimbaud line. What about fifteen, I wonder. What’s that supposed to be like? How serious are we now? I read that Rimbaud stopped writing when he was nineteen. He was “disillusioned.” Why? It’s hard to find the true meaning in things. Especially what Jane means. I can’t wait to be with her, but then I can’t stand it when I am.

 

So I walk along, blinded by the day, when a car races by at a phenomenal speed, the radio blaring impossibly loud. It stops me, foot in the air. When I hear it, I want to remember how it came out of nowhere, into my thoughts at the moment I was thinking about Jane, practically blind. Even though I can’t see it yet, I want it to mark the moment, like a gunshot marks the start of a race. I want to remember this moment in ten years because it seems so important, the ground vibrating beneath my feet as I stand, marking. Perhaps in ten years I will know what it means. So what is this feeling? It’s not longing for the past; that’s nostalgia. What about the opposite of nostalgia? Longing for the present? But if I’m not already in the present, where can I be?

 

| | |

 

That’s when I hear the roaring. Initially I think it must be the noise inside my own head. The noise of confusion. Then I hear a big slam. My head is bent into the blind angle, so I can’t see anything at all. I jerk reflexively at the roaring. The slamming car door. I look up. The green VW. THE GREEN VW. The murderous Lucky-wrecking car. Outside that door is Eileen. The car roars away.

 

“Hey, V.” Eileen tries to smile. “Saw you by accident.”

“What! Whose car is that?” It
is
my head that’s roaring.

“Listen, I know it’s been a while, too long, I know, but we really need to talk.” Eileen’s eyes have widened as she looks at me.

“Whose car is that?”

“Look. I didn’t know what happened.” She also looks ready to run, her legs bent forward, heels off the sidewalk.

Like an animal, my mind says. “Who’s driving that car?” I say.

“I can’t believe it myself, V. I’m just getting a ride home and suddenly Grant is telling me everything about some ground-zero morning—you know, like
bad
—and a dog got hit and I say ‘What, you mean V’s Lucky?’ and he begs me not to tell you—” She finally takes a breath.

“Stop!” I say. “What are you talking about?” The words sound like they’re coming from the ground, not anywhere near my mouth. It’s all so far away. “Sullivan was there?
Whose
car is it, Eileen? Please?”

“Shit, V.” She stops, stares at the sidewalk. “Grant.”

 

“That’s
Sullivan’s
car?” Ground zero? Did I hear that?

“It’s his father’s car, but he didn’t mean it. Lucky came out of nowhere. He really, really didn’t mean it.” Eileen’s heel kicks the ground.

“Sullivan . . . How do you know what he meant?” Something’s rumbling beneath my words, like a train slowing down.

“I know because he just told me; what do you think, he’s some kind of killer? We just passed you and he just told me.”

“In Sullivan’s car? You?” Why am I asking these imbecile questions? It’s like my brain is slowing down. Out of nowhere, she said.

BOOK: Dive
13.22Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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