The Art of Floating (6 page)

A
s soon as Jilly's car was out of sight, Sia stepped into her flip-flops and headed for the spot where she'd found Toad. She left a note on the counter that read,
Gone to beach. Back soon.
She didn't know if he would be able to read it—maybe he only read German or Spanish or a dialect spoken only in three small villages in northern Slovenia that had only recently been preserved as a written language—but she didn't know what else to do.

The sun was higher now, pressed like a disk against a flat metallic sky. Though it was still quiet on the bay side, Sia knew that if she rounded the bend to the ocean side, moms and their little ones would be scattered here and there, splayed out under umbrellas with blankets, buckets, shovels, and coolers of juice drinks. The sand had already absorbed the day's heat and was regurgitating it in heavy waves that threatened to swallow her, but she had to see if she'd missed anything, and she had to check before the tide came in. Maybe Toad had left something behind, something she hadn't seen in the confusion of discovering him. That moment, and the minutes following it, had been simultaneously focused and blurred. She remembered every moment precisely but still, whenever she thought of it, the fish in her middle started twittering and she felt as if she were looking at the whole thing through a gauzy shroud.

•  •  •

At the teepee, which marked the midway point between her house and the clam shack, Sia paused and poked her head inside. Clearly it had been built by older kids, strong kids who must have hauled the biggest logs from half a mile down the beach where large debris often washed up from the sea.

Jackson would have been impressed by the teepee and would have spent at least half an hour studying its architecture—how the kids had managed to balance every log perfectly, how many logs they'd used, how they'd done it on a slope, and so on. He also would have wondered why they'd built so close to the water, knowing that eventually high tide would wash it out to sea, but this he would have chalked up to inexperience. Sia, on the other hand, knew it was because kids think nothing of impermanence.

Here.

Gone.

•  •  •

The Dogcatcher cut through lanes and yards to get to the spot before Sia, and once there, she lay behind the ridge of sand so that she was once again hidden.

•  •  •

Sia continued on, thinking that more than anything she wanted to find a sign planted in the sand where she'd found Toad that read, “Lost: One grown man in black suit. If you find him, please call 978-555-0198” or a beautiful woman standing in the same place, holding up a photo of Toad and asking everyone who passed, “Have you seen my husband?”

Either of those scenarios would have suited Sia just fine, but when she got to the place where Toad had appeared, there was nothing. No sign. No woman, beautiful or otherwise. Just sand, grass, water, and sky. Even the breeze was gone. The only things left behind were their footprints—she, Toad, and Gumper—and another frail set that looked as if it might have been made by a flock of birds or a small child.

Sia walked in circles. She searched in the tall grass and shallow water for even the smallest clue to this man's identity. She looked for a wallet, a briefcase, shoes, a watch, anything at all that might give her a hint. But aside from the footprints, it was as if he had never been there at all. Even the grass where he'd stood had already been fortified by the sun, and though a few blades were trampled and broken, the rest stood sturdy and strong.

Maybe,
she thought,
Toad had been standing in this very place for centuries. Frozen in time here on this beach, my beach, invisible, year after year, the victim of some ancient curse by a brokenhearted lover. And then earlier today, just as Gumper and I arrived, the curse was mysteriously lifted and he suddenly became visible again.

Bah,
she thought,
I sound like Jilly
.

Though Sia had walked this stretch of beach thousands of times and found dozens of weird, out-of-place objects—including a rusty, salt-encrusted iron, three pairs of high-heeled sneakers, and a dining room table—this was only the second time she'd walked it with the intention of looking for something specific.

The first time?

To look for Jackson.

And while she'd completed that first walk on a day just as clear and bright as this one, it had been awful. Horrible. So terrible that at the end of it when she'd returned home empty-handed, she'd never wanted to walk on the beach again.

“Not even his footprints,” she'd murmured while M had unbuttoned her blouse, raised her arms over her head, and slipped her into a long nightgown just as she had when she was a girl.

•  •  •

Sia pressed her hand to her belly. The fish flipped and flopped. She thought of Mr. Carp's feeding instructions to the boy who buys a goldfish*:

Never feed him a lot.

Never more than a spot.

Or something may happen.

You never know what.

How much sadness, she thought, is too much?

Then she imagined that wee fish growing inside her—just millimeters at first—but then faster and faster as Toad's sadness multiplied until it was growing by centimeters or more. And finally, when it got too big for her innards, its head would pop out of her ear and its tail out of her girly parts, and she would have to have special clothes made to accommodate the new protuberances.

The Windwill house was fat and voluptuous with rooms lolling off every which way like rolls of chub from its hips and thighs, and two turrets protruding from its front like a perfect pair of tits. Unlike most homes on Water Street, it sat with its back to the sea, and though most years it was white with black shutters, just weeks before Jackson disappeared, Mrs. Windwill, in an unusually whimsical move, had painted it antique pink.

Though the house could have been considered ugly, it was, in fact, just the opposite. Beautiful and seductive. One of those houses folks couldn't take their eyes from.

Built in 1850, it was situated at the crux of things where the beach met the edge of town, right at the point where if something interesting happened on either side, Mrs. Windwill could see it. Some people speculated that was the reason she'd begged Mr. Windwill to buy the house back in the 1950s, but when teased about such a notion, Mrs. Windwill waved her hands and insisted that was just hogwash.

“When we bought this house,” she said, “there was nothing going on but the change of seasons.”

To keep it from giving in to the salty wind, the Windwills painted the clapboards every other year and replaced the roof every five.

The house had a wide, yawning porch where the Windwills sat each evening, sometimes even in the winter when most people had long since retired to their front rooms and fireplaces. They were sturdy, resilient New England stock, either immune to the cut of winter's icy wind or too damn stubborn to give in to it.

Throughout the years, Mrs. Windwill had made it her job to witness everything that happened on that particular stretch of Water Street, and sometimes she knew so much, it was like she had a crystal ball that could see into the darkest corners: the alleyway behind the ice cream shop where teenagers met to make out, the copse of trees above the river walk, the deep stairwell that led to the dry cleaner.

“Jackson's fallen on the ice,” she told Sia on the phone one afternoon during a particularly bad nor'easter. “He's bleeding something awful. Get him to the hospital for stitches.”

And “834 ABX,” she told police when a rogue teen from the next town over sideswiped Sia's car in the middle of the night.

“What were you doing up at three thirty in the morning?” Sia asked.

“Insomnia,” Mrs. Windwill said.

The police tracked down the boy before dawn.

No matter what happened on that stretch of Water Street during the past fifty years, Mrs. Windwill had seen it.

Except for Jackson's disappearance.

•  •  •

“You didn't see a thing?” Richard asked again and again (and again) during those first weeks after Jackson disappeared. “You didn't see Jackson Dane walking toward town? You didn't see him heading back?”

Mrs. Windwill shook her head wildly and a mixture of tears and sweat flew off her cheeks.

“You didn't see him on the beach behind the house?”

“I didn't see anything,” she answered.

No one could believe it. Not Richard. Not Sia. Not M or Jilly. Not Mr. Windwill, who sometimes suspected that his wife had powers of seeing beyond anything he could understand. Not even Mrs. Windwill herself.

Once Sia was bedbound, her ability to put words on the page vanished right along with Jackson and her previous understanding of how the world was supposed to work. One day she could run words together into tight, beautiful sentences, and the next they were blowing around in her brain like scraps of litter on a windy beach.

tendril

vacuum

stifle

cringe

 

As she lay sweating in the dark house, random words tumbled past. “What the hell does that mean?” she muttered out loud from the bed as she tried to sort through them.

twinkle

crawl

soak

 

“Sia,” Jilly said, “hush. Relax. Don't worry about it right now.”

basket            sore

stricken

 

Ha. Easy for her to say.

Kremlin

white

•  •  •

“I can't write anymore,” Sia said to her therapist when she made an unprecedented house call two weeks after Jack disappeared. “I can't even pick up a pen.”

“How does that feel?”

“How do you think it feels?”

“In the past, when something has gone wrong in your life, what have you done to cope? To heal?”

“I've written.”

“Hmmmmm. What do you think the universe is telling you now?”

“Shut up and die.”

At the waterfront playground, a gaggle of eleven-year-olds jumped rope to a brand-new rhyme:

Sexy, sassy Sia Dane

wrote good books

and found much fame.

Sexy, sassy Sia Dane

lost her husband

what a shame.

(boo hoo!)

Sexy, sassy Sia Dane

closed her house up

down the lane.

Sexy, sassy Sia Dane

how many days

until she's sane?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

. . .

I
n sans serif black-and-white letters, the sign in front of the Unitarian Church on Pleasant Street delivered bits of wisdom and encouragement to all who passed: folks who ate breakfast at the local diner, mailed letters at the post office, declared themselves Democrats or Republicans at Town Hall, and opened their hearts to therapists in the offices neatly tucked away above the art galleries and jewelry shops. Even the looky-loos who flooded the town in summertime, clippity-clopping along the brick sidewalks in yellow Crocs and “Life Is Good” T-shirts, bathed in its light.

It was a beacon that penetrated the fog:

Mistakes are the portals of discovery.
(James Joyce)

A motivational coach:

Great spirits have always encountered
violent opposition from mediocre minds.
(Albert Einstein)

A therapist:

To become a father is not hard.
To be a father is.
(Wilhelm Busch)

A cheerleader:

Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die today.
(James Dean)

A spiritual guide:

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
(Helen Keller)

Every few weeks, the message changed. On the day Jackson disappeared, it read:

We can do no great things,
only small things with great love.
(Mother Teresa)

“I
would write all this down,” Sia said out loud. To the gulls? To the grass? To the waves? To the spot where Toad had stood just hours before?

“I should write all this down.”

But . . .

their

limber

observe

lurk

heart

with

slide

cinnamon

•  •  •

The Dogcatcher cocked her head, and as an opaque crab pinched her toe, she swallowed hard and grunted.

“I
am not hanging signs or running an ad,” Sia said.

“Yes, you are,” Jackson said.

“No, I'm not.”

“You have to, Sia. This dog is lost. Look at him. He's huge and healthy. Someone's been feeding him. Brushing him. Taking care of him. They're probably looking for him right now.”

“Bull. This dog is ours. This, dear husband, is Gumper.”

Jackson stopped. “Gumper?”

“Gumper.”

“The dog you dreamed about?”

“The very one.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know.”

Jackson sighed. He looked at the dog destined to be Gumper who was sitting quietly on the big flat rock in the garden. Even then, fifty pounds ago, it was too big for him, but somehow he made it look comfortable.

“Jack, look at this guy,” Sia said. And Gumper, with no more than a little prodding, cocked his humongous head to one side and bleated. “Clearly he's come home.”

“But he's not home, Sia. He's someone else's dog that wandered into our backyard while we were barbecuing at your parents' house.”

“He's home.”

“No,” Jack insisted, “he's not.”

They stayed like that—hands on hips, chins jutting out—until Gumper stood and walked toward them. He took his time, and when he finally reached the spot where they stood, he halted between them, shook hard, and lay down so that his weight was spread evenly across their feet—half on Sia's, half on Jackson's.

“See?” Sia said.

•  •  •

After Jackson went into the house, Sia leaned down to talk to Gumper. “Hey, handsome,” she whispered in his ear.

He tilted his head.

“You're here to stay, right?”

He leaned forward and licked her chin.

“Ugh. Jackson's right about one thing. You are stinky,” she said, and she buried her face in his fur. “Let's go inside.”

From behind, Gumper looked more like a bear than a dog. His great hind end undulated back and forth, and his enormous balls protruded from the thicket of fur, advertising his worth. Once he'd explored the house from mudroom to attic, he padded to the bathroom and climbed into the tub as if he were just plain sick and tired of being dirty. The tub was a snug fit, but with a little give and take, Jackson and Sia managed to lather him up a few times and get him rinsed. Afterward Sia brushed him with an old hairbrush, and once clean, he lumbered into the kitchen and ate a giant bowl of beef stew. That night, he stretched out along the end of their bed and slept until morning.

•  •  •

A few days later, Sia acquiesced to Jackson's quiet moral press and wrote the following ad:

FOUND

Big dog. Black. Furry. Giant head.

Does not answer to Moose or Grover.

Likes salmon and bagels. Loves beach. Loves people.

Now loves me.

Then she drew a sketch of Gumper's head and copied the sign fifteen times on light blue paper at the copy shop.

When Mrs. Snyder, who ran the cash register, pointed at the sketch and said, “What's this?” Sia huffed. “It's a picture of the dog,” she said.

“Really?” Mrs. Snyder said. “It looks more like a dragon.” She held it up to see it better.

“Well, he's as big as a dragon,” Sia said. “And I'm a writer, Mrs. Snyder, not an artist.”

“You should have had Jackson draw it. He's a wonderful artist.”

Sia rolled her eyes. “Yes,” she said, “I know. Saint Jackson would have done a better job.”

Later that day she tacked the signs on fifteen flagpoles around town, placed the ad in the daily paper, and returned home to wait.

•  •  •

For three weeks, nothing. No calls about the ad. No e-mails. Not a word. But then, just as Jackson was beginning to consider Gumper a part of the family, the doorbell rang. Sia peeked through the window.

It was the Dogcatcher.

“Yes?” Sia said through the closed door. “Can I help you?”

“I must speak to you,” the Dogcatcher pipped.

When Sia didn't open the door, the Dogcatcher began to knock.

And knock.

And knock.

A light, insistent rapping.

Sia peeked out again. As always, the Dogcatcher was a mess. She looked like an old, overused mop, and in the hand that wasn't knocking, she gripped one of Sia's blue signs about Gumper.

Sia opened the door a crack. “You need to speak to me?” she asked, trying not to let the woman's sadness send her heart into empathetic spasms. “About what?”

The woman raised her hand and shook the sign harder. “About this.”

Sia turned to see if Gumper was behind her, but he was nowhere to be seen.

“Okay, how can I help you?” Sia wished Jackson were still home, but he'd left for work before sunrise.

The Dogcatcher held up the sign higher. “You found this dog?”

Sia looked up at the sign and nodded.

“You hung this sign?”

Sia nodded again.

“And do you still have this dog?”

Sia almost nodded a third time, but instead she said, “Why do you want to know? Have you lost this dog?”

“Ah,” the Dogcatcher said, “ah.” There was a long pause. “I think I know this dog,” she finally said. “And I need to know if this is the dog you know.”

What?
Sia thought.
Do I
know
this dog? What kind of a question is that? Did I
find
this dog? Yes. Do I still
have
this dog? Yes. But do I know
this
dog?

“I'm not sure what you mean,” Sia said. “You think you
know
this dog?”

“Yes, yes, that is what I said, and yes, that is exactly what I mean.”

Sia took a deep breath. “Well, is the dog yours?” She very much wanted to bring the conversation back to something that made sense.

“I didn't say that,” the Dogcatcher answered. “I said—”

“I know what you said.”

They stood there for a moment—the Dogcatcher shaking the sign and Sia wagging her head back and forth in disbelief.

“Well,” the Dogcatcher finally said, “I don't see the dog now. I smell him, but I don't see him.” She lifted her nose and poked it as close to the entryway as Sia would allow. Then she sniffed three short, loud sniffs.

“No,” Sia said, “you're right. The dog was here, but he's not now.” It was a lie, but not a total lie. Gumper was not
right
there.

“Fine,” the Dogcatcher said, leaning close to Sia and sniffing again. “But if you see him, tell him I'm looking for him.” She handed Sia a business card with a dog's pawprint stamped in black ink. Nothing else. “Give him this.”

“Give him this?” Sia said. She looked at the card and then at the woman. Give Gumper a business card? “But there's no name or phone number on this card,” she finally said.

“He doesn't need it. He is a dog, you know. The card will do. He'll know well enough.” And the Dogcatcher turned and hurried across the porch and down the steps to the sidewalk. When she reached the street, she swung left, then right, and finally settling in the direction of town, scurried along the road and disappeared around the bend.

•  •  •

That night, when Sia told Jackson about the Dogcatcher and showed him the card, he laughed so hard he fell off his chair. “Hon, she's just some crackpot. Harmless, I'm sure. Probably collects lost-dog signs and visits the finder families with her card as something to do. She's lonely, isn't she?” He reached over and rubbed Sia's belly, where other people's loneliness always took root.

She nodded.

“Harmless,” he said.

Strangely, the woman's visit confirmed to Jackson that Gumper was theirs to keep. From that moment on, Gumper was one of the family.

•  •  •

Shortly before they all went to bed, the Dogcatcher walked along Sia's road watching Gumper happily galumph through the house. The lights were on and his big head was visible in the windows wherever he went. He was happy. Home. She heard Sia calling him, “Gumper! Gumper!” And the Dogcatcher said it in her head, “Gumper galumph. Gumper galumph.” She watched until the lights went out.