The Descendants (26 page)

A couple ahead of us walk hand in hand.

“I love that she forgets to wash the lettuce and our salads are always pebbly.”

“I hate when she does that,” Scottie says.

“I mean, I don’t like it,” I say, “but I expect it from her. I’m used to it. It’s her. It’s Mom.” More thoughts come to me and I laugh to myself.

“What?” Scottie asks.

“I’m just thinking about the things we didn’t like.”

“Like what?” Scottie asks.

“We didn’t like people who say, ‘That’s funny’ but don’t laugh. If something’s funny, one should laugh. Or people who use the words ‘do’ and ‘did’ instead of the appropriate verb. Like ‘For lunch I “did” a salad.’ We also thought men who went to nice salons were weird.” I could go on and on. The recollections make me giddy, almost. What fun we had. What laughs we shared. I thought I was marrying a young model, just as my friends married their secretaries, kids’ nannies, and Asian women who weren’t fluent in English. I was marrying a woman who was fun and easy, and she would raise my children and stay by my side. I’m happy to have been so wrong.

“Hey, I think that, too,” Sid says. “About men who go to nice salons.”

“What are we talking about?” Alex says. “This is fucking nonsense.”

The couple ahead of us turns slightly.

“What are you looking at?” Alex says to them.

I don’t bother to reprimand her, because really, what are they looking at? I slow my pace and Alex punches Scottie in the arm.

“Ow!” Scottie screams.

“Alex! Why are we still on this pattern?”

“Hit her back, Dad,” Scottie yells.

Alex grabs Scottie’s neck.

“You’re hurting me,” Scottie says.

“That’s kind of the point,” Alex says.

I grab both children by the arm and pull them down to the sand. Sid covers his mouth with his hand and bends over, laughing silently.

“‘What do you love about Mom?’” Alex says, mimicking her sister. “Shut up, already. And stop babying her.”

I sit down between them and don’t say a word. Sid sits next to Alex. “Easy, tiger,” he says. I look at the waves crashing down on the sand. A few women walk by and give me this knowing look, as though a father with his kids is such a precious sight. It takes so little to be revered as a father. I can tell the girls are waiting for me to say something, but what can I say that hasn’t been said? I’ve shouted, I’ve reasoned, I’ve even spanked. Nothing works.

“What do you love about Mom, Scottie?” I ask, glaring at Alex.

She takes a moment to think. “Lots of stuff. She’s not old and ugly, like most moms.”

“What about you, Alex?”

“Why are we doing this?” she asks. “How did we get here in the first place?”

“Swimming with the sharks,” I say. “Scottie wanted to swim with sharks.”

“You can do that,” Sid says. “I read about it in the hotel.”

“She’s not afraid of anything,” Alex says.

She’s wrong, and besides, I think this is a statement and not something that Alex truly loves.

“Let’s get back,” I say.

I stand up and wipe the sand off of me. I look at our hotel on the cliff, pink from the sunset. The girls’ expressions when I told them about their mom made me feel so alone. They won’t ever understand me the way Joanie does. They won’t know her the way I do. I miss her despite the fact that she envisioned the rest of her life without me. I look at my daughters, utter mysteries, and for a brief moment I have a sick feeling that I don’t want to be alone in the world with these two girls. I’m relieved they haven’t asked me what it is I love about them.

28

WE GO BACK
to our room empty-handed. I call the hospital, and they assure me Joanie’s doing really well. I find myself getting happy before I remember that doing well, to them, means she’s breathing. She’s not dead. We order room service and watch a movie about World War II that is uncomfortably violent. Bloody bodies everywhere.

“The director’s showing us how it really was,” Alex says in response to my complaining. “I read that somewhere. He’s making a statement against violence.”

We all fit on the bed. The girls and I are on our stomachs, and Sid is at the opposite end of me, sitting up against the headboard.

“I wonder what Mom’s friend is doing right now,” Alex says.

“Probably watching pornos,” Scottie says.

Sid laughs. Scottie has a look of both innocence and calculation.

“Why would you say that?” I ask. “Are you being funny?”

“Reina’s dad watches pornos.”

“Do you know what a porno is?” Alex asks.

“Football highlights,” she says.

I look at Alex for a clue. Am I supposed to enlighten my daughter or let her think the wrong things?

“A porno is a movie of pretty women and ugly men having sex,” Alex says.

I can’t see Scottie’s face because she’s looking down. “Scottie?” I say.

“I know that,” she says. “I was just joking around.”

“It’s okay that you didn’t know,” Sid says.

“I knew!” She turns to face me. “I know what they are, I just thought they were called something else. Reina calls them masturbation movies. She plays them when her parents aren’t home, and one time she invited boys so she could see if they grew down there. One did.”

“Reina sounds awesome,” Sid says. “I’m digging her more and more.”

“Were you there?” I ask. “Have you seen one of these movies?”

“No,” Scottie says.

“Scottie,” Alex says, kicking Sid in the ribs. “Reina is a fuckedup ho bag, and you need to stay away from her. I’ve already told you that. Do you want to end up like me?”

“Yes,” Scottie says.

“I mean the earlier me, when I was yelling at Mom.”

“No,” Scottie says.

“Well, Reina is going to be a crackhead, and she’s going to get used. She’s a twat. Say it.”

“Twat,” Scottie says. She gets up and runs across the room, saying, “Twat twat twat twat twat.”

“Holy shit,” Sid says. “This is some messed-up parenting. Isn’t it?”

Alex shrugs. “Maybe. I guess we’ll see.”

“I don’t get it,” I say. “I don’t know what to do. These things she does, they keep happening.”

“It will go away,” Alex says.

“Will it? I mean, look at how you kids talk. In front of me, especially. It’s like you don’t respect authority.”

The kids stare at the television. I tell them to get out. I’m going to bed.

IT’S ALMOST
midnight and I’m still wide awake. I get up to use the bathroom and see that the hall bathroom light is on and the door is slightly open. I’m suddenly afraid to catch Alex doing something bad, like snorting lines off the toilet bowl. I almost turn around but gently approach and peek inside and see Scottie in front of the wall-to-wall bathroom mirror. She’s standing on top of the counter, her legs on either side of the sink. She slides into a stiff pose and holds it for a few seconds before finding another. She’s modeling. I’m about to say something, to tell her she needs to go to bed, but then she pushes her arms against the sides of her breasts to form cleavage and I don’t want her to know what I’ve seen. She looks in the mirror and then down at her body, as if the mirror’s wrong. Then I hear her have a dialogue with herself: “Why didn’t you ever stop her?
I didn’t know how.
You didn’t notice, you bastard. Come here.”

She leans into the mirror and starts kissing it, openmouthed, her tongue on the glass. Her hands are pressed against the mirror. Then I hear, “Ooh, baby. Put your junk in my trunk. Get your condom, baby. The one that glows.”

Oh God. I walk away as quietly as possible and lean against the wall and take deep breaths. Then I panic, thinking that she’s imitating her sister and Sid, and I go to the main room to make sure Sid is sleeping on the foldout bed. I see a lump on the bed and wonder if it’s really his body or if he put pillows under the covers. I rush over, my heart racing. His head turns and he looks right at me.

“Hey,” he says.

I feel foolish for being out of breath and standing over him. The moonlight cuts a line down my chest. “Hey,” I say.

“Checking on me?”

“I couldn’t sleep. Scottie. She’s in the bathroom.” I stop talking.

“Yeah?” he says and sits up.

“She’s playacting.” I don’t know how to say it. I don’t need to say it. “She’s kissing the mirror.”

“Oh,” he says. “I used to do some messed-up things as a kid. Still do.”

I feel wide awake, which always makes me angry in the middle of the night. I’m useless without sleep. I can’t get myself to go back to my own room. I sit on the end of the bed by his feet. “I’m worried about my daughters,” I say. “I’m worried there’s something wrong with them.”

Sid rubs his eyes.

“Forget it,” I say. “Sorry for waking you up.”

“It’s going to get worse,” he says. “After your wife dies.” He holds the blanket up to his chin.

“What does Alex say about it? What does she say to you?”

“She doesn’t.”

“What do you mean? I heard her say she talks to you.”

“No,” he says. “We don’t talk about our issues. We just…I don’t know. We just deal with them together by not talking.”

“Do you have any more of that pot?” I ask. “I can’t sleep. I need to sleep.”

He lifts up his pillow and retrieves a joint.

“You sleep with it?”

He ignores me and lights it, then draws his knees up and hands it to me.

I look at the joint. Joanie liked it, but I never did. “Never mind,” I say. “I don’t want it.”

“You can take it out to the patio,” he says.

“No,” I say. “I really don’t want it.” I think a part of me was trying to impress this idiot, and now I feel foolish.

He puts it out on a magazine on the side table. “I don’t want it, either. But thanks for letting me, you know, smoke. It helps.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Whatever. I can’t deal with all these things you kids do right now. It makes you moody, though, I’ve noticed. The pot.”

He drums his fingers on his quilt. I look around the room. There’s a TV remote on the bed. I press a few buttons.