Tumble & Fall (16 page)

Arthur rocks slowly back and forth, the round leather toes of loafers lifting up from the floorboards and settling back down.

“I know you think I left because I gave up,” he says quietly. “That I wanted a different life.”

“Pretty much,” Caden quips.

“And part of that’s true. I did give up.”

Caden sits back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest, preparing himself for the speech. The speech about why the island isn’t for everyone, how his father was young, it wasn’t the life that he wanted. The speech he’s imagined and played in his head over and over for the past twelve years.

“And I did want a different life,” Arthur says. “But that’s not why I left.”

“Okay.” Caden sighs heavily. He’s trapped, and he knows it. Let him say what he needs to say. “Whatever.”

“I left for one reason. I tried to ignore it as long as I could. I tried to make it work with your mother, despite knowing it never would. I tried for years, because I loved my life. I loved the island. I tried because of you.”

“What are you talking about?”

Arthur rests his glass on the table and sits up straight in his chair. “There’s a reason why Carly isn’t here with you. Why I took you, but left her behind.”

“Didn’t think she’d be much of a hunter?” Caden jokes.

Arthur slowly shakes his head. “I didn’t take her, because she’s not mine to take.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Caden furrows his brow. “She’s not yours, but I am? Is there some twisted, rich-person law about kidnapping rights to firstborn sons?”

“No,” Arthur says. “You’re mine, as in I am your father. Your biological father.”

Caden turns to look at Arthur. “What do you mean?”

“After you were born, we knew things weren’t right. Between your mother and me, I mean. We’d always known it, always known we were playing at something that wasn’t real, but all of a sudden we were a family. And we just fell apart.” Arthur’s voice is quiet and Caden leans closer to listen. “Your mother … strayed.”

“She what?” Caden almost laughs. She
strayed
? Was she a cat?

“She slept with somebody else. Carly is not my daughter. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Caden looks out at the peak, the long ridge beyond it. He sees Carly’s face in the sky. His sister. The only one who cares anything about keeping the family together, whatever family they have left, isn’t really his family at all. Not fully. Not for real.

“Did you know right away?” he asks. For some reason it’s the only question he can find.
How did it work? Was there a test?

“Yes,” Arthur answers. “I knew the whole time Ramona was pregnant.”

“So why didn’t you leave earlier?” Caden asks. He thinks back to the dragon in the woods, the birthday presents, the robots. He is fourteen months older than Carly. His father left when he was four. “Why did you stick around so long?”

“I wanted to believe that we could fix it,” he says. “I thought that I could just pretend things were working, pretend we were a real family. But we weren’t. I think your mother couldn’t forgive herself.”

Arthur’s voice falls off and they sit together in the quiet. A hawk cuts across the horizon.

“It doesn’t excuse what I did,” Arthur says abruptly. “I’m not asking you to forgive me for not being a part of your life. I’ve just always wondered if you knew the truth. And I thought you might like to. For whatever it’s worth.”

There’s a rustling in the trees, a quick, rolling breeze, and Caden feels like he could float away on it, like he’s not really there. His body feels like a lie, a hologram, patched together from memories that aren’t really his. After a few moments he pushes himself out of the chair. His fingers feel light and tingly, and there’s a dull buzzing at his temples. The wine. “I’m gonna lie down,” he says. He feels Arthur turn to watch him leave. The screen door slams abruptly behind him.

The kitchen is quiet except for the gentle gurgle of a pot on the big antique stove. It smells like fresh herbs and tomatoes. Hanging on the wall is a rotary phone, the old-fashioned kind that takes forever to dial. Caden walks past it without a second look.

ZAN

“I have bad news, and I have more bad news.”

Nick and Zan are huddled around the hood of Nick’s car. Zan rubs the tops of her shoulders, bruised and sore from sleeping on the hard tile floor in the cramped room behind the convenience shop. The old woman—her name is Octavia, but she insisted they call her Miss Tavi—set them up with scratchy blankets and some cushions from the tattered couch, turning down the volume on a small black-and-white TV, propped high on a stack of cardboard boxes.

Miss Tavi had tried to convince them she needed to tidy up, and picked up a broom from the corner. But Nick tucked the broom away, warming her a cup of Lipton’s tea and insisting she lie down and rest. Sometime in the middle of the night, Zan woke to the sound of running water, and saw, through the windowed door, Miss Tavi mopping the linoleum floor. She wondered if she should keep the old woman company, but Miss Tavi looked strangely at peace as she worked.

As Zan dozed back to sleep, Nick tossed and settled in, one arm resting softly against her back. She thought about moving, but she didn’t want to wake him. And it felt nice to sleep so close to somebody again.

When they woke it was nearly dawn, and Miss Tavi’s son had returned.

Over a quick breakfast of weak coffee and Peanut M&Ms, the man introduced himself as Dwayne Robert. Zan wasn’t sure if
Robert
was his last name, or if he always went by two first names, and so she did her best to avoid addressing him directly. Which wasn’t difficult. Aside from asking a few questions about the trouble with Nick’s car, Dwayne Robert had very little to say, and soon excused himself to get to work in the garage.

Now he looks at them, his forehead glistening with perspiration, a pained grimace twisting his face. He wipes his hands on the dirty rag hanging from his back pocket and slams the hood shut. “Your water pump is shot,” he says, leaning against the driver’s side door.

“I know that,” Nick says. “What’s the other bad news?”

“The other bad news,” Dwayne Robert says slowly, with what Zan suspects is the tiniest bit of satisfaction twinkling in his black, almond-shaped eyes, “is that everything else is shot, too.”

Nick crosses his arms over his chest. He seems to be trying to stand taller. Zan could tell when she’d suggested they wait for somebody to look at the car, somebody other than Nick, that he hadn’t quite warmed to the idea of a second opinion. “What do you mean, everything else?”

Dwayne Robert chuckles. “I mean everything, man,” he drawls, taking a long sip of his coffee. His accent is less pronounced than his mother’s, but it’s clear he was born somewhere else. “It’s a miracle this car got you anywhere. Where you say you come from again?”

“Martha’s Vineyard,” Zan offers. Dwayne Robert whistles through his teeth, and Nick gives her a sideways look. Zan wishes she’d kept her mouth shut.

“Well, you have somebody looking out for you, to get you so far,” he says, shaking his head. “I can take it apart if you want, but, you know.” Dwayne Robert trails off, glancing wistfully out through the open garage door. “Maybe we don’t have that kind of time.”

Nick tugs at the ends of his short blond hair. There’s something about seeing him—usually unflappably calm and reserved—now so visibly concerned, that hits Zan, the weight of worry quickly settling into her bones. For all she knows, they could be stuck on the mainland for good. Forget about Vanessa. How will they ever get home?

Zan takes a few steps toward the door, grateful for a cool breeze that has picked up, turning the intense midmorning heat almost bearable. She closes her eyes and tries to remember the way she felt yesterday, when it had all been an adventure, a game, and Leo had seemed close by. Now, she can’t find the fun—or Leo—anywhere. She thinks about what Dwayne Robert said. If it was true, and Leo had been looking out for them, what does it mean that they’ve ended up here?

Maybe this is what she deserves. Maybe Leo hadn’t been watching them, guiding them, at all. Maybe, instead, she’s being punished for wasting her time, Nick’s time, hot on the trail of something that has nothing to do with her. Who said Leo wasn’t entitled to secrets? Does she really have the right to know absolutely everything about him?

As if through a fog, she hears low voices, Nick and Dwayne Robert talking in the shop. Suddenly, she’s crying. She hasn’t cried once since the predictions started coming in. It seemed too abstract, and far away. And then, with the announcement, when it started to get closer and feel more real, she was already too lost in Leo’s mystery to fully appreciate what it all might mean.

Is this really how it works? The end of everything, and they’re stuck, miles away from home, without a car or a plan? She hasn’t even called her parents. And Joni, her sister. What about Joni? It’s been almost seven years since they’ve spoken, and even longer since Joni has been home. Could the world really end without her ever seeing her sister again? All of a sudden, finding Vanessa, unraveling Leo’s truth, whatever it was, doesn’t seem so important.

Nick sits down on the hard concrete beside her. Zan hurries to wipe the fresh tears from the corners of her eyes. She can feel Nick averting his eyes, giving her space and time to clean herself up. “Are you okay?” he asks softly.

Zan nods and sniffles. “Yeah.” She smiles. “Just, you know, taking it all in, I guess.”

She feels Nick’s arm hovering somewhere in the neighborhood of her shoulder, before his hand settles onto the top of her back. She feels his hesitation, but also his warmth, his relentless need, like an involuntary twitch, to make everything all right. She can’t believe how long it’s been since she’s sat this way with somebody, not talking but together, understanding. It makes sense, she thinks. Leo chose both of them to be in his life for a reason. They are connected, and Zan suddenly remembers what it’s like to have a friend.

She lets her head fall on Nick’s shoulder, feels him tense and then soften.

“He says he’ll give us a ride,” Nick says eventually. “Wherever we want. He thinks there might still be buses running, out of Chinatown. We could go check.”

Zan stares at the lonely gas pumps, the deserted highway stretching endlessly before them. “What do you think we should do?” she asks. She knows what he’ll say. She can’t blame him. It was crazy, what they did, leaving home at a time like this. Who wouldn’t want to go back? Still, she’s relieved not to have to make the decision herself.

“Honestly?” Nick sighs. “I think we should keep looking.”

Zan sits up. “Really?”

Nick nods. “We’ve come this far,” he says. “And, I don’t know … I know it sounds crazy, but isn’t this exactly the kind of thing that Leo would have loved? Running around on some wild adventure, not turning back, not giving up, no matter what happens?”

Zan smiles. She feels the tears prickling behind her eyes again, but they are new tears, tears of relief. Relief, not just that they can keep going, that there’s still a chance they might find what they’re looking for, but also relief that she was right:

Nick isn’t just her friend. He’s the one person in the world who knew Leo almost as well as she did.

*   *   *

Dwayne Robert pulls his car around front, a restored old station wagon that could comfortably fit a family of ten and smells vaguely of ripe fruit and incense.

Nick stands near the curb, a pile of blankets and a cooler at his feet.

“What’s all this?” Zan asks as he pulls open the creaky back door.

“Just some stuff my dad keeps around, for camping and stuff, or when we miss the last boat and have to sleep in the car.” Nick shrugs. “Thought it might come in handy.”

Zan peers at him, holding back a smile. Of course he’d be prepared. She imagines Nick and his dad roasting marshmallows at a campsite in one of the state parks on the Cape, or curling up with scratchy blankets in different parts of the clunker car. She knew Nick spent every hour that he wasn’t in school (and many hours when he should have been) on his dad’s boat, but she’d never really understood how much time they must have spent together. She can’t imagine being that way with Daniel or Miranda, who prize independence above all else. She knows it’s why Miranda never really warmed to Leo. She hated that her daughter was so wrapped up in another person, especially when that person was a boy.

At the thought of her parents, Zan’s heart sinks. It’s been over twenty-four hours. She knows she should get to a real phone and call. But the only thing worse than leaving for so long, without letting them know where she is, would be the horrifically strained and awkward conversation they’d have to have when they finally spoke. There wouldn’t be screaming, or crying, Zan knows. There would be shame, and disappointment, and quiet.

Lots of quiet.

After loading them up with bags of pretzels and bottled water, Miss Tavi waves goodbye from outside the garage. Zan feels a surprising lump in her throat as she waves back. The asteroid, the rocket, the entire Northern Hemisphere, it had all been too much to make her feel much of anything. But Miss Tavi is different. She isn’t a continent. She isn’t even an island. She’s just a frightened old lady who cleans to stay calm. Zan watches her shrink beneath the high neon sign and hopes with everything she has that somehow, Miss Tavi will be all right.

The receipt with Vanessa’s address flutters on the long bench seat between Zan and Dwayne Robert. Zan pins it down with the palm of her hand. Dwayne promised he knew the way, but Zan is suddenly aware that they are, technically, being held hostage in a weird-smelling car with a strange man, driving empty streets on a day when the whole world has better things to do than come to their rescue.

Things like pray, apparently. As soon as they turn off the commercial strip of highway and into the clustered streets of two-family homes, they are forced to stop behind what appears to be a parading church sermon. The muffled voice of a pastor is shouting through a bullhorn, and Zan can barely make out the shape of a van far ahead, rolling through the streets, a Sunday service-on-wheels.