The Speed of Falling Objects

by Nancy Richardson Fischer

  I glance at my mom. Hurricane Samantha is about to unleash. “I don’t think—”

  “Just hand Commander Sam the phone. I’ll take care of it,” Cougar says. “Is this the best sixteenth birthday present any kid in the world will ever get? Damn straight!”

  He remembered. He’s just a year off. For a second disappointment makes my insides slump. I hand the phone to my mom and leave the room. “I’m headed to Trix’s to study,” I call over my shoulder. Trix won’t mind if I show up a bit early. If I stay, I’ll be able to hear their fight from anywhere in the apartment.

  5

  Trix lies in the center of her parents’ bed wearing a cropped white T-shirt that shows off the sapphire stud piercing in her belly button, and tight black leggings. Her parents let us study in their bedroom since Trix shares hers with a little sister and it’s impossible to get anything done when Mai is around. Trix is holding the letter from the private detective she hired with her babysitting money. I drop my backpack, shrug off the waterproof down jacket I scored at Goodwill and take a seat on the orange ’70s-style swivel chair that fits perfectly in the faux-wood-paneled bedroom.

  “Flame out,” Trix says.

  In a nutshell, the private detective couldn’t find Trix’s biological mother, Meredith. He did find out a few things. Trix’s mom was a foster kid, but if there were any known family those records were lost in the system. Meredith spent most of her childhood in trouble and was sent to prison for a drug conviction when Trix was two, released three years later, then disappeared. That means Meredith violated her probation. There’s a standing warrant for her arrest so she has a good reason to hide out. The detective said she could be anywhere—living off the grid or even passed away. Trix’s bio dad was never listed on the birth certificate so that’s a dead end, too.

  “Waste of all my money,” Trix mutters. “Now I’ll never know why I’m named after a cereal.”

  “I’m sorry. But you have an amazing family. They chose you.”

  “And I love them, like, a ton, but how can I know where I’m going if I don’t know where I came from?”

  Mrs. Robinson pokes her head into the room, a baby on one shoulder. “Hey, Danny.”

  Trix’s adoptive mom is an imposing six foot two with brown skin and dimples that never quit. Mai, four years old, her shiny black hair in pigtails, hugs Mrs. R’s leg. Three-year-old Joe darts into the room wearing a fireman’s hat and nothing else. You can hardly see the scar from his recent cleft palate surgery. Mr. and Mrs. R adopted all seven of their kids. Trix was born addicted to crack. After her mom ditched, the Robinsons took her on as a foster baby and adopted her a few years later. Their home is too small, always chaotic, but overflowing with love.

  “Don’t stay up too late, girls,” Mrs. R says, then leads the little kids away like the Pied Piper.

  Trix sighs. “I probably have, like, a ton of hidden talents, but I’ll never know about them because I’ll never know my biological parents.”

  “Knowing who your bio parents are doesn’t necessarily help. I know my mom. She’s obsessed with insurance policies and science, being bossy and sucking the joy out of my life.” Trix laughs. “And I know Cougar’s talents, but that only makes me feel like I’m totally inferior.”

  “You can’t follow in Cougar’s footsteps so it’s almost like you don’t have a bio dad, either. Truth.”

  If there’s a hole in my heart, it just widened.

  “Change of subject,” Trix says, possibly reading my expression. “I’m going out with Tim Friday night.”

  I exhale to release the tension in my body. “Try not to devour him in one bite.”

  Trix licks her lips. “I think it’s going to be the other way around.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Guys always tell you who they are up front. Tim said he’s into sex, not commitment.”

  My head spins. Last year Trix wanted to date one guy until graduation. This year a guy who only wants sex is a plus. “Maybe Tim isn’t the best—”

  “We could find you a date if you’d put in a little effort.”

  My face gets warm. I shift in the chair, glance down—old Levis, a flannel shirt and double-knotted high-top sneakers. Safety first. “My Saturday night is already booked.” There’s a COUGAR marathon on NetCom. I unzip my backpack and pull out our biology textbook. “Ready to do some studying?”

  “Nope.”

  Sighing, I climb onto the bed and lie down beside Trix. We stare up at the yellow smiley-face mobile Mai made for her parents. “Cougar called. He invited me to watch the filming of an episode of his show. He said it’s my birthday present. It’s going to be in the Peruvian rain forest...with Gus Price.”

  Trix gasps, hands and feet pounding the mattress. She turns to stare at me. “No way!”

  “Truth. Unexpected, right?”

  “More like bizarre. Cougar rarely remembers your birthday.”

  She’s right but her words prick further. “Maybe now that I’m older he wants to spend more time together?”

  Trix snorts. “What’d Samantha say?”

  “She didn’t have to say anything. The answer is always no.” The annoyed look on my mom’s face when she was talking to my dad flashes through my mind. “I hate the way she says his name. Cougar, like he’s a joke.”

  “Well, isn’t his real name John?”

  “That’s not the point. She’s awful to him. No wonder he bailed.”

  Trix toys with the gold hoop in her eyebrow. “Do you want to go?”

  I’ve seen every one of my dad’s shows, watched when my mom isn’t home. Cougar eats snakes, bugs, raw eggs and maggots to survive. He suffers in extreme heat, cold and torrential rainstorms that make his skin blister, pucker, crack, bleed. In one episode my dad almost died from a killer bee attack. In another, he was charged by a grizzly bear.

  “It’s so not you.” Trix giggles, then notices I’m not laughing. “Come on, it’s funny.”

  I scowl. “This is the first time my dad has invited me on a trip. The first time he’s included me in his job, his life. It’s a chance to spend more than a few hours with him. So what if I have to sleep in a mud hut or eat cockroaches?”

  “Seriously?”

  I can’t help a little smile. “Okay, I’d rather starve than eat a roach. But a few days without food and sleep won’t kill me. Maybe I’ll discover I have high cheekbones and a future as a supermodel. Plus it might be fun to try some of the stuff my dad does.”

  “Danny, no offense, but you’re not going to be a supermodel regardless of cheekbones, and you’re the most uncoordinated person I know.”

  “Ouch. Thanks a lot, best friend.”

  “Sorry. But come on. Your dad rappels down mountains and jumps off cliffs and shit. Heights freak you out. You’re not a good swimmer. D, your favorite sport is bowling.”

  “And vacuuming.” There’s something about the symmetry of vacuuming a room that I find soothing.

  “Don’t leopards, crocodiles and those nasty fish with teeth... What’re they called?”

  “Piranha.”

  “Yeah, piranha. Don’t all those things live in the rain forest? You’d be freaking terrified!”

  I sigh. She’s right. I’ve been known to run from an ant. “WWCD?”

  “What Would Cougar Do does not apply. Cougar would tell your mom to kiss off, make the trip, catch piranha with bare hands and fry that fishy up for dinner. But you’re not him and you won’t be able to fake it in Peru.”

  Trix is right. The old game we played to deal with problems, like bullies in my case, and Trix’s boyfriend dilemmas, WWCD, doesn’t work in this instance. “I still kind of want to go.” After I say it, it hits just how much I mean it. I want to go on a trip with my dad, sit next to him on a plane, scramble through the rain forest, build stuff, catch things and shiver in a downpour beside him.
I want to know him and to show him that I can be a daughter who doesn’t embarrass him, who’s more like him than like my mom. If Cougar knew that, things could be different.

  “Look, I’d kill to spend a night in the Amazon with Gus Price. He’s the hottest eighteen-year-old guy on the planet. When I slept with Ben, I imagined it was Gus. Richie, too, even though he has great hands. There was this thing he did, twining his fingers together, then—”

  “Stop!”

  Trix cackles. “Anyway, I agree with your mom.”

  “Why?”

  She rolls onto her side and braids a loose strand of my long hair. “You’ll just end up disappointed.”

  What she means is that I’d disappoint my dad. COUGAR’s tagline—Wits. Strength. Ingenuity—is a million miles from mine: Defective. Inferior. Embarrassment. “Maybe things will be different this time,” I venture.

  Trix shakes her head. “Look, if you and Cougar were going to have a close father-daughter relationship, you would have one. Truth.”

  It hurts enough to make my eyes sting. This is Trix’s version of tough love, but today it’s too harsh. I turn my head away.

  “Danny?”

  “Give me a sec.” I can count on two hands the hours spent with my father in the nine years since he left. Phone calls are sporadic, rarely for Christmas, off and on for my birthday, usually from an airport, after a celebrity-filled party, or from halfway around the world. I roll off the bed, grab my backpack and jacket, head to the door. I tug on a still-damp hat and steel myself for the cold walk home.

  Trix calls out, “I’m just trying to protect you.”

  I hesitate, then turn around. “I used to be a tomboy.”

  Her eyebrows shoot up. “Excuse me?”

  “Truth.”

  She scrunches up her face, like she’s trying to imagine the impossible. “O-kay.”

  “When my dad was around we climbed trees, swam in rivers, even went rock climbing. I had zero fears of heights, the dark, water, speed or the snakes we saw at our campsite.” Trix is giving me a super skeptical look so I don’t add that we once saw a bear. We crouched behind a bush until it finished eating berries and wandered off. Cougar called me his best buddy as we walked back to camp.

  Trix points out, “You’re scared of everything now.”

  I nod. “What happened changed me. Which is weird, since losing my eye wasn’t the result of some death-defying act or bear attack, just a run-of-the-mill accident.”

  Trix slithers on her belly to the end of her parents’ bed and rests her chin on folded hands. “You never talk about that night.”

  “Talking doesn’t change it.”

  Trix holds up the detective’s letter. “Neither does hiring a private investigator. We’re in the same boat.”

  But she’s wrong. I had a chance to be Cougar’s buddy forever. I’d do anything to take back that moment in the woods. The split second when it all went wrong. Trix doesn’t understand. Cougar doesn’t want to be my father and it’s my fault. Truth.

  6

  My mom sits at the kitchen table with a small tape recorder beside her laptop, earbuds in. She’s transcribing one of the ER doctors’ notes to make extra money. She doesn’t look up, mention her fight with my dad, the trip, or ask if I want to go to Peru. I don’t mention it, either. Every relationship is a balancing act. As long as we don’t mention my dad, ours remains steady.

  I give her shoulder a squeeze as I pass. “Night.” My mom squeezes my hand back. That’s as close as we ever come to a hug. Sometimes I think it’s because I used up all her physical affection after the accident. I was terrified to be alone and always wanted her on my right side, where I could see her, refusing to sleep unless her hand rested in mine.

  * * *

  At the top of the stairs, I pause. Instead of going into my bedroom, I walk to the end of the hall. Above the linen closet is the outline of a door leading to the attic. Using the pole kept in the closet, I hook the handle, pull down a folding ladder and then hesitate. The attic is dark, dusty, and there are spiderwebs in every corner and crevice. The worst part is that I have to walk five steps in total darkness before my outstretched fingers find the string hanging from the bulb.

  I climb up and manage not to trip over the dark threshold. Even now, at almost seventeen, my heart knocks like bony knees until I find the string. Weak light illuminates the unopened boxes my mom packed after her parents died. Old prints lean against the walls beside stacks of textbooks from premed classes. A steamer trunk rests in the corner. It contains climbing ropes, harnesses and shoes my mom put away after she got pregnant. A pang shoots through my chest. This attic is the place dreams go to die.

  The first time I climbed up here alone, I was nine. I’d had a nightmare that my dad’s sky blue eyes were filled with black ink that leaked down his cheeks. His mouth was gone, replaced with a patch of white skin, and his light brown hair had turned white. When I woke, I’d desperately needed to see a picture of my dad, but I knew my mom had put them all in a box when we’d moved. So I crept past my mom’s bedroom and up the ladder, petrified of the dark, but more terrified that Cougar’s face had been mutilated. In a cardboard box hidden behind biology and chemistry books, I found photos of my dad and tried to memorize his face.

  I’m in the attic now to find my passport. It’ll be here somewhere, because my mom believes in the adage out of sight, out of mind. I get that I’m not going to Peru, that it’s best to let the idea of the trip drift away like a cloud. But I guess I just want to hold my passport...to know that someday I can go somewhere with my dad.

  Sitting cross-legged, I open a cardboard box. On top are framed pictures. There’s a blurry shot of my parents setting up a tent. It’s probably the summer they met. My dad was teaching a rock-climbing course in Yosemite. My mom was his student. In the shot, her hair is in a messy ponytail, huge grin lopsided. My dad is laughing. They look young, happy and free.

  The next photo is of my mom in the hospital with me in her arms. She’s looking down like she can’t believe what she’s holding; like maybe there was a mistake and someone will take this baby back so she can return to her real life. Cougar stands to the side of the bed. One hand grips the metal rail. He’s looking out the window. When I was six and they were fighting more than talking, my mom told me that my dad never wanted children. People think little kids won’t remember the things they say, but they do if it’s bad enough.

  The final framed picture in the box is an eight-by-ten of a campsite in Yosemite. I know I’m seven because it’s the last photo I willingly let anyone take of me. The late-afternoon light makes the pine trees in the background look like tombstones. I’m standing by a tent wearing a bright blue hat, my blond braids running halfway down my jacket, and jeans ripped over one knee. Cougar works on the fire, his red plaid shirt lit by the flames. My mom is peeling potatoes, head down, long hair twisted into a tight bun. We’re separate, foreshadowing the end of our family. A friend of Cougar’s took the shot. My mom was furious he was there. It was supposed to be a family weekend, but Cougar wanted to climb with his buddy. So she had to hang at camp with me. That was the night everything changed. A ghost pain sears through my left eye.

  If you and Cougar were going to have a close father-daughter relationship, you would have one. Truth, Trix reminds me.

  Deeper in the box is a Velcro strap attached to a small sticky leather patch. I wore the patch for several months to hide my mangled eyeball and again after the enucleation. That’s the surgery that removed my damaged eye and replaced it with an orbital implant. Later, my prosthetic eye was fitted over the implant so that it would move like a normal eye and no one would know I was a freak. Out of sight, out of mind. I toss the patch aside, but something stuck to the back plunks to the wooden floor. It’s a red disk. Turning it over in my fingers, I recall the feel of the rough clay before the memory of what it is rises to the surface.
>
  Cougar couldn’t be there for my surgery, so he’d sent his favorite book, The Phantom Tollbooth. My mom read it to me each night until the painkillers kicked in. It was about a little boy named Milo who gets a package in the mail. It’s a make-believe tollbooth. He uses a coin to drive through the booth in his electric car and suddenly finds himself in the Lands Beyond, where he has incredible adventures that are designed to give him the insights and knowledge he needs to fight demons, save princesses and find his way home.

  After I went back to school, I made a coin in ceramics class to match the red plastic one that came with my book and sent it to my dad in one of the countless letters I wrote him. He’d picked the story. I was sure that if he had the coin, we could meet in the Lands Beyond. My little kid brain figured it was a place he’d love to go. A place where we could return to being buddies and he could show me how to be brave again. But he never wrote back.

  Blood whooshes in my ears as it pushes through arteries, returning to my heart, then surging again. Why is the coin I sent Cougar in this box? I should leave the past alone. I should.

  Mining beneath a mound of hospital bills, I find a stack of letters bound with a string. My childish handwriting in red crayon is on the front of each envelope. Beneath it is my mother’s neat cursive. I remember watching her address every letter. I licked the back of the envelopes, put on the stamps. She took them to work to mail them. Right? There must be at least fifty letters in this pile. I didn’t give up writing for over a year and wrote more after the nightmares started. Tearing open the top envelope, I withdraw a lined sheet of paper with messy letters that slant to the right.

  Dear Dad,

  I’m sorry. I was bad. I miss u.

  xo Danny

  I rifle through more...

  Dear Dad,

  My eye hurtz. I have headakes that make me barf. Mom says I look like a pirite with my patch. I hate it. I’m sory.

  xo Danny

  Dear Dad,