Heart Shaped Rock

by Roppe, Laura

  Dad turns another page. With each new picture, Dad or Lennox occasionally makes a comment like, “Oh,” or “Wow.”

  I don’t speak.

  “The boy and the girl welcomed their first baby. They were over the moon with joy.” Dad holds me in his large hands. I’m swaddled in a pink blanket. Mom looks on proudly. My cheeks are impossibly fat. I look like I might spontaneously combust.

  “The boy and the girl took their baby girl on grand adventures.” They stand on a dusty trail, smiling for the camera. Is that the Grand Canyon? I’m strapped to Dad’s back in a baby-backpack. I look so tiny riding on his broad shoulders.

  “The boy and the girl welcomed a second baby. This time, they were blessed with a beautiful baby boy. He made their family complete.” There’s a newborn Lennox, swaddled in blue and lying in my four-and-a-half-year-old lap as I sit on the couch. My smile looks like it must hurt my cheeks. My hair is white-blonde. Mom sits next to me, her hand supporting Lennox’s head. Dad leans into the picture and smashes his cheek against mine.

  Dad keeps flipping pages. The farther into the book he gets—and the closer we advance toward the dreaded unhappy ending of this story—the quieter the room becomes.

  “They were very happy.” Our foursome is wearing black shirts and jeans—Mom’s cheesy idea—posing down at the beach for our family Christmas card. The picture was taken about a month before Mom got sick. Lennox looks so innocent. He’s grown up so much in such a short amount of time since then. I’m smiling like an idiot. Like an idiot who doesn’t have a clue her head’s about to smash into a brick wall and her brains are about to spill out all over the floor. We’re all blissfully, foolishly, hideously unaware of what lies ahead. This is the “before” picture of our family—the “we-believe-in-happy-endings” shot. The three of us sitting here today without Mom, slumped in our chairs, this is the “after” picture.

  “And then the girl got sick. No one knows why. She just did. And the boy never left her side.” Mom sits in a recliner in the chemo ward, a tube in her arm, her head wrapped in a headscarf. She smiles and gives the camera a thumbs-up. Dad holds her hand. He’s not smiling. His face is grim.

  “The girl fought as hard as she could, but it just wasn’t enough. She was so sorry. She hoped her family would forgive her. She wanted them to know she would love them all, forever. Even when her body was gone.”

  I’ve never seen this picture before. Mom apparently snapped a self-portrait, probably on her phone. She’s wearing her favorite headscarf, the black one threaded with sliver strands Dad gave her on her last and final birthday, her forty-first. Mom holds her hand over her heart. She looks at the camera with wide, moist eyes. The corners of her mouth are slightly turned up.

  Dad touches the picture on this page, his hand shaking.

  I hear Lennox sniffle.

  I sniffle.

  After a long pause, Dad moves his hand to shut the book. Lennox touches Dad’s hand gently, calling him off. Lennox flips the page.

  A full headshot of Dad adorns the next page. He’s handsome. Rugged. Boyish. It’s from a few years ago. The caption reads: “The boy wasn’t sure he could survive without the girl. Without the girl, he thought he just might die. But, slowly... over time... and with the help and tenderness of his children, and with the love and light the girl sent down to him from heaven every single minute of every single day, a miracle happened. The boy began to heal... ”

  Dad exhales sharply. Clearly, this page has taken him by surprise. A choked sound emerges from his throat.

  Silent, soggy tears spill from my eyes and down my cheeks. I don’t dare look at Dad or Lennox.

  Lennox sniffles again and turns the next page. I’m not sure why he’s turning the page. Surely, that last page about Dad healing is the end of the book. What else is there to say?

  But Lennox is right. There is yet another page.

  On the very last page of the book, there’s a setting sun. It’s streaking orange, red, and yellow over a glimmering ocean. “One day, almost like magic, as impossible as it might have seemed, the boy found love again. His children were thrilled for him. And the girl, who had always wanted nothing but the boy’s happiness, was thrilled for him, too. In fact, the girl smiled down on him with a loving and happy heart all the rest of his days. The End.”

  The three of us sit at the table, staring in stunned silence at the last page of the book. No one moves to shut it. No one speaks for a long time.

  “Wow,” Lennox finally says.

  Dad clears his throat. “Thank you for the party, guys.”

  I’m relieved, but certainly not surprised, Dad’s not going to talk about the book.

  Lennox throws his arms around Dad’s broad shoulders and hugs him. “I love you, Dad,” he says. He looks up at the ceiling. “I love you, Mom.”

  Dad returns the hug. “Oh, buddy, I love you, too.” Dad burrows his face into Lennox’s hair. “So much.”

  When Dad finally looks up at me, I haven’t moved. I’m too stunned to process what we’ve just experienced.

  “I love you, Shay,” he says. His eyes are questioning. Pleading.

  “I love you, too.”

  He breathes deeply. “Shaynee, I’m sorry I didn’t do anything for your birthday last month. I just couldn’t... ” His voice trails off.

  I wave him off. “It’s fine, Dad. I didn’t want to do anything.”

  “I just couldn’t... ” He tries again.

  “Dad, it was great. You gave me Mom’s car, remember?”

  He sighs. “You guys really knocked yourselves out for me tonight. Thank you.”

  Lennox clutches Dad’s shoulder. “You’re welcome, Dad.”

  Dad clears his throat again. His eyes are moist. He picks up the book. “I’ve got an early meeting tomorrow morning,” he says, “so I’m gonna head to bed.” He stands up from his chair. “Good night.” He kisses the top of my head.

  “’Night, Pops.”

  Dad pulls the book right up against his chest and walks slowly down the hall toward his bedroom. He’s hunched over, like he’s carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  While I scrub the pots and pans and load the dishwasher, Lennox takes down the streamers and birthday signs and throws away the torn wrapping paper. After our chores are completed, we sit back down at the table.

  “Can I have another piece of cake?” Lennox asks.

  “Sure,” I say. “Knock yourself out.”

  He serves himself a humongous slice and sits back down at the table.

  I join him. “What was in Mom’s box for you?” He looks at me blankly, so I add, “For your twelfth birthday.”

  “Oh, I decided not to open it. Just knowing there is a box is enough. If Mom thinks I should open it on my birthday, then that’s what I’ll do. I trust her.”

  I shrug, but I’m secretly impressed. The kid’s always so damned emotionally intelligent.

  After a few bites, Lennox says, “Poor Dad.”

  I don’t say anything. Poor Dad. Poor me. Poor Lennox. It’s the new normal.

  “He doesn’t know how to... ” His voice trails off.

  I still don’t speak. Do we really need to go down this road right now? The book was hard enough. I vote we silently self-medicate with obscene amounts of chocolate cake.

  “He’s Flint,” Lennox declares, matter-of-factly.

  What? But Lennox doesn’t elaborate. He just keeps shoving chocolate cake into his mouth.

  I can’t resist. “Lenn, what are you talking about?”

  “He’s Flint,” he says again, this time with extra emphasis, as if repeating the phrase, and with flair, will make it clearer. When I shrug, he adds, “In social studies last week, we watched this documentary about chimpanzees called People of the Forest. These scientists filmed the same chimpanzee family for, like, thirty years.”

  I am totally lost. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “The female chimpanzee started out as a baby chimp and she gr
ew up and had five kids of her own. The youngest one, her baby, he was named Flint.”

  I nod. Go on.

  “The mommy chimp died. She went down to the riverbank to die, like she knew what was happening. Later, her five kids came down to the riverbank, too, and they saw her just lying there. You know, all dead and everything. They went over to her and, you know, kissed her and hugged her and petted her and stuff while she was dead. They were there for hours and hours, just touching the mommy and petting her and telling her they loved her. When it was finally time to leave, all the kids started to walk away from the riverbank. Except for Flint. Flint wouldn’t leave.”

  He shoves more cake in his mouth.

  “There was a tree right next to the mommy, hanging over the river. When Flint’s brothers and sisters started to walk away, Flint climbed up into the tree and wouldn’t come down. The other chimp-kids started calling to him, and, like, yelling for him to come down. ‘Come down, Flint. Dude, we’ve gotta go.’”

  “Wait,” I stop him. “These were cartoon-chimps? Like, this was Toy Story Chimps?”

  “No,” Lennox says, frustrated. “It was real chimps.” He sighs. “The chimps didn’t actually talk, Shay, I was just translating for you. Duh.”

  I roll my eyes.

  “I’m not an idiot. So, anyway, everyone was leaving, but Flint was in the tree. And he wouldn’t leave, no matter how much they yelled at him. Finally, the brothers and sisters sort of shrugged their chimpy shoulders and walked away. But Flint just stayed in the tree.” Lennox pauses for full effect before he continues. “The narrator guy in the movie said,”—and, here, Lennox lowers his voice in mimicry of a seasoned radio announcer—“and Flint... never... left... that... tree. He stayed up there and... died... of ... grief.’”

  I’m appalled. Is he making a joke? I put my head in my hands.

  “So, Dad’s Flint,” Lennox declares calmly, popping yet another bite of chocolate cake into his mouth.

  “We’re all Flint,” I retort, my chest suddenly thumping. I feel heat rising in my cheeks.

  “No, Shay. We can’t all three of us be Flint. That’s the whole point. Some of us have to be the chimps that walk away.”

  I pause briefly. I know I shouldn’t tell him, but I can’t help myself. “I’m Flint,” I say quietly, not looking at him. It’s the most honest thing I’ve said to anyone in a very long time. I can hardly breathe in anticipation of his response.

  “You can’t be Flint, Shay.” He continues chowing down on another bite of cake. Clearly, he doesn’t comprehend the nature of what I’ve just confessed to him. “Dad is Flint,” he repeats, talking with his mouth full. “You and Dad can’t both be Flint. If both of you are Flint, then where does that leave me?”

  I don’t know.

  And, frankly, I don’t care.

  I’ve already said too much. So now, I just don’t speak.

  Chapter 5

  “Woohoo!” Tiffany screams as we peel away from my house in her car. “Thank God it’s Friday,” she shouts, and cranks up the music.

  “Tonight, I’m Fun Shaynee,” I declare. “Show me the fun.” After the drama of the past couple days at my house, I’m actually, surprisingly, in the mood to let loose.

  “Well, Fun Shaynee, you picked a good night to make an appearance. Kellan says this party’s gonna be redonkulously fun.”

  “Oh my gawd, Tiffany. What is that?” I sniff the air and crack my window.

  “What?”

  “What do you mean, ‘what’? Did you bathe in perfume?”

  “It’s Britney Spears: Curious. You like?” She puckers her lips at me.

  “No, I don’t like. I can’t breathe.” I open the window even farther.

  “Listen to me, Shaynee Sullivan: Sex appeal is fifty percent what you’ve got, and fifty percent what you think you’ve got. I’m just doing my fifty percent.”

  “It smells more like you’re doing your eighty or ninety percent.”

  Tiffany laughs.

  “So, when are we meeting up with Kellan for the party?”

  “He’ll text me when his shift ends in a couple hours. Until then, we’ll just have to find some way to amuse ourselves.”

  “And how do you propose we do that?”

  She picks up two industrial-looking walkie-talkies from her lap. “With some extremely juvenile fun, my dear.”

  “Juvenile, as in ‘juvenile delinquent?’” I ask, arching my eyebrows.

  “Never.” She feigns indignation. “Juvenile as in ‘hella fun.’”

  “Well, all righty, then.”

  “Yeah, it’s a pretty elaborate plan, so hang on to your socks.” Before I can ask another question, she hands me one of the walkie-talkies. “Talk,” she commands.

  “That’s your elaborate plan? Talking into walkie-talkies?”

  “Yep.”

  “Genius.”

  We proceed to talk to each other through our electric contraptions from our respective car seats, a mere eighteen inches apart, for the entire drive to the beach. “Breaker-breaker, nine, I’ve got an oh-five-niner in process on Taylor Street. Do you copy?” Tiffany says. She lifts her finger off her “talk” button and official-sounding static spews out.

  “Breaker, breaker, I read you loud and clear,” I respond. “I’ve got an astronaut overhead, probably a sky bear, must be looking for a five-oh-two. Do you copy?”

  I release the talk button to emit loud, exaggerated static.

  “Roger that,” Tiffany says, breaking into the white noise streaming out of the device in my hand. “I copy that.”

  We break into fits of giggles.

  We arrive at Mission Boulevard, the main drag along the beach, and hang a right, heading north along the shoreline. Now that we’re here at our destination, we commence phase two of our elaborate itinerary—we cruise up and down the boulevard, over and over again, talking to each other through our walkie-talkies all the while.

  “This is the life!” Tiffany shouts.

  I laugh. Yes, it is. “We’re so dope, we’re illegal in fifty-five states!” I shout out my open window. God, I’ve needed to have some mindless fun.

  Tiffany laughs. “You’re such a weirdo, Shay.”

  We’re heading south, talking into our walkie-talkies, when I notice that a teenager driving alongside us in a minivan sharply brakes the moment he sees our walkie-talkies. As if we’re cops, or something. This gives me an idea. “Pull up alongside that guy.”

  She complies, bringing me right alongside the guy’s driver’s-side window, and I mouth, “Pull over.” The boy’s face goes pale, but he pulls his minivan over to the shoulder, as instructed.

  “Tiff, go get him. I’ll stay here and make you sound official.”

  Tiffany snorts. “Got it.”

  She gets out of the car and swaggers slowly over to the confused boy’s window, like she’s the warden of a Southern prison (who happens to wear jangling, bedazzled accessories). I crouch down low in my car seat and furtively speak into my walkie-talkie, spewing some pretty off-the-chain-sounding gobble-de-gook, if I do say so myself. “Unit five-seven-four, we have a three-one-eight over on Island Street. Do you copy?” I mumble. “Unit seven-one-four, can you check out a three-one-seven in the area of Beach Boulevard and Fourteenth?”

  I sneak a peek at Tiffany. She raps on the boy’s window with palpable disdain. Oh man, she’s practically scratching her belly and chewing tobacco.

  The boy rolls down his window. He’s bug-eyed and agitated.

  “Hello,” Tiffany huffs, her voice two octaves lower than normal. She’s pressing her talk button so I can hear the exchange from my seat in the car. “May I see your license, please?” Did she just use a faux Southern accent?

  His hands shaking, the nearly pre-pubescent boy hands Tiffany a neatly folded piece of paper. “It’s my temporary license,” his voice cracks. “I just got my license yesterday.”

  Tiffany shoots me a quick glance that says, Bingo. “There’s been a report of a bank
robbery in the area,” she mutters in her Boss Hogg voice, “and the description of the assailant’s car matches yours.”

  I can see the boy’s profile. He looks like he’s going to pee his pants. “Are you, like, an undercover cop?” he asks, wide-eyed. He seems to have an epiphany: “Oh my God, are you, like, Twenty-One Jump Street or something?”

  Tiffany smirks at him. Then she puts her head down (chomping on her imaginary tobacco I suppose) and examines the kid’s temporary license. I’m absolutely dying from my vantage point in the car.

  From the static, I can tell that Tiffany has released her finger on the “talk” button. That’s my cue. “Breaker, breaker, unit six-two-oh, repeat, unit six-two-oh, come in.”

  Tiffany compresses the “talk” button again so I can hear the conversation. “No, young man,” she mutters, “we’re just concerned citizens. We’re part of a volunteer task force, just trying to keep our streets safe.” She lets him digest that pile of crap for a moment and then adds, “Lucky for you, you don’t match the description of the bank robber.” She hands his paper license back to him. “You can go.”

  His exhale is audible, even through my walkie-talkie. With shaky hands placed precisely at the ten and two o’clock positions on his steering wheel, the boy slowly pulls his minivan back into traffic.

  Tiffany jogs back to her car and throws herself into the driver’s seat, squealing. “Did you see that? That was insane. I thought he was gonna hurl.”

  “I thought he was gonna crap his pants.” I can’t remember the last time I laughed like this. This feels incredible.

  Tiffany starts her car and pulls back into traffic.

  “Okay, your turn next,” she commands. “You’ve got to feel the rush.”

  It’s so outside of my comfort zone, so unlike me... but I’m feeling almost euphoric. This is such a relief from the darkness I’ve been drowning in for so long. I can be anybody I want to be. I’m not Poor Little Shaynee Sullivan right now. I’m part of a volunteer task force, keeping our streets safe. “I’ll do it,” I declare, and Tiffany whoops in celebration.