by Pam McGaffin
“Why did you say it, then?” My voice rises. “Why?”
“Ida, stop. I know you want answers, but I don’t have them. I may never have them. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is.”
“I’m not asking about Dad! I’m asking about you, why you said what you said.”
“Said what?”
“Oh, my God!” That. He. May. Be. Alive.
Mom flinches, recovers, expression hardening. “Don’t you yell at me!” she hisses through her teeth.
I scream, right in her face, before I dash up the stairs. Anywhere would be better than here.
A raw, gusty wind sweeps the last of yesterday’s rain clouds from the sky. I walk headlong into it, relishing the sting on my skin. Good thing I packed a blanket.
I left without telling Mom where I was going. She’ll be mad but I don’t care.
I walk all the way over to the marina on the east side of town. I don’t go to Dad’s mooring on J dock. I don’t think I could stand the sight of his empty berth. Instead, I just take in all the idle fishing boats, their sharp angles and pointy masts broken and bent in reflection on the water.
How many photos of Dad do we have with this scene in the background? There must be dozens, all from the deck of the Lady Rose. Departures and arrivals, both. In spring, he was always fresh-faced and humming as he tended to last-minute details. I never knew the names of the songs he hummed because he never sang the words, but I might recognize the melody if I heard one again.
Was there anything different about the morning he left for Alaska? I can be sure of certain things because they never changed. Like all fishermen, Dad had his good luck ritual. He would wear his red sweater because it matched the Lady Rose’s red hull, and he’d put up the Croatian flag. He’d give two long toots of his horn to signal leaving port. Before all that, he’d hug and kiss “his girls” and tell me to take care of Mom with a wink in her direction. Then he‘d climb on the boat, and Mom would take his picture with our old Brownie camera. I don’t remember the wink this time, but he must have done it. He always did.
I walk north toward the Port dock then turn west and follow the channel. The giant maple tree outside Sound Seafoods is shedding its big yellow leaves. The wind sends them spiraling down to the sidewalk to be trampled into squishy brown sludge. The windows to the cannery are dark except for a couple of dim lights here and there.
If he’s alive, where is he? And why hasn’t he come home?
Did he have a fight with Mom? Was it over me? The one I’ll never forget was over me, or rather the gifts Dad brought back for me. I never found out what happened to that coat. It was a beauty, too. Real fur, and pure white—the softest, most elegant thing I had ever seen, let alone worn, and it was mine. Until Mom took it away. One day, it was hanging in our closet in its plastic garment bag. The next day it was gone.
When I asked Mom where it was, she couldn’t look me in the eyes. That’s when I knew.
So did Dad. He threw down the newspaper he’d been reading and stomped over. “You didn’t get rid of it, did you?”
She held her finger up to her mouth and glanced in my direction, but Dad wouldn’t be silenced.
“Did you?”
She nodded, and I started to cry.
“Why?” Dad was yelling now.
Mom squeezed her eyes closed, as if trying to shut him out. “Because it was completely inappropriate and impractical for a six-year-old, that’s why.” Her eyes popped open. She wheeled around to face him. “You buy her these expensive gifts that she’s just going to ruin or lose.”
“I still have the jade bracelet,” I protested, tears streaming down my face, but they weren’t listening.
“Honestly, where’s she going to wear something like that?”
“I don’t know,” Dad said, throwing his arms in the air. “Outside, maybe?”
“And white!”
“Ida deserves to have pretty things. What’s the harm?”
“Ida deserves to have a father who’s actually around on her birthday. That coat was nothing but guilt talking.”
I’ll never forget what Mom said next. It was just an offhand comment. She didn’t need to say it, but she couldn’t stop herself from telling the truth—her truth.
“Besides,” she said in a low voice. “It makes her look ridiculous.”
I think Dad might have forgiven her about the coat were it not for that comment. I might have, too. After that year, he hid my special gifts.
I reach under my parka and finger the gold locket he got me for my tenth birthday. He had it inscribed: For my sweet Ida Rose, Love always, Dad.
I guess I was old enough to appreciate it, because I never lost it. And today, I hope it will help me find out what really happened to him. I’ve also brought the torn photo of the two of us.
When I get to the turnoff that snakes down to Sunset Beach, I realize I’ve just walked the entire width of town. I keep going straight, onto a dirt path that skirts the bluff. Down below is where kids like to carve their names, graduation years, and the initials of girlfriends and boyfriends, but I ignore all that and go straight to my special tree. Older and bigger than the other dwarfs, it arches over a rock shelf,
making the perfect little shelter. I take my blanket out of my backpack and spread it underneath. With the wind howling off the harbor and the waves crashing against the shore below, this sap-scented cocoon feels like love.
Once I’m comfortable, I reach into my coat pocket, take out the photo, and set it down on the blanket in front of me. Next, I pull the locket out from under my shirt. Gazing skyward through the branches, I ask the universe for a sign, something obvious that will tell me whether he’s dead or alive. I count to ten, but nothing happens, no thunderclaps or lightning bolts, just the wind, the waves, and the agonized cries of a seagull.
I must be going crazy. The wind coming through the trees is starting to sound like voices. Wait. Those are voices. Male voices.
I stand up and wait for the blood to prickle back into my legs. The voices seem to be coming from the woods behind me. I venture into the trees until I spot the whites of their T-shirts. Ducking behind a fat hemlock, I keep myself hidden while I count one, two, three … six boys standing around in a circle. The two boys I can’t see are in the middle, fighting. I hear the scuffle of their feet, the huff of their bodies, the slap of skin on skin.
“Hey, Chink,” yells one of them.
“He’s no Chink. He’s Charlie,” says another. “Where’d you learn to fight? Vietnam?”
The circle parts just enough for me to see two bodies grappling. The smaller of the two has straight black hair. He must be Charlie. The boys push off each other, and the bigger one throws a punch the smaller one manages to block. The circle closes again, and I hear a loud uulf, followed by a thud and then the wet, guttural sounds of someone being pummeled.
They’re going to kill that poor kid if I don’t do something. But what can I do? There are seven of them, not counting the kid being pummeled. What would Emma Peel on The Avengers do if she didn’t know karate? … Create a diversion. I pick up a pinecone from the ground and throw it as hard as I can. It bounces harmlessly off one boy’s shoe. He doesn’t even feel it. I pick up another and throw it. And another. Finally, one of them turns around.
“Hey, who’s doing that?”
Behind his shoulder, I see the black-haired boy standing. Our eyes meet. His face is flushed, but you wouldn’t know he’s been fighting. Not so the kid on the ground, who’s holding his stomach. As I turn to run, I hear one of them say, “Anyway, he’s down. Fight’s over. Time to pay up.”
Pay up? What? Was that fight a bet? Just goes to show, you can’t tell a book by its cover, as Dad would say. Maybe that was the sign from the universe. But what does a fight in the woods have to do with anything?
I get back to my tree and pack up my stuff. Where’s the photo of me and Dad? It was right here on my blanket. I shake the blanket, but nothing falls out except for tree needle
s. I scan the ground. Nothing. Heart in my throat, I walk to the edge of the outcrop and look below.
No photo. But I do see a crow lift off from the rocks. Its blue-black wings catch the light as it flaps and glides, riding the wind up and down and finally away, out of sight. I think of a story Dad told me about Raven stealing the light—first the stars, then the moon, then the biggest prize of all, the sun. Crows are like ravens. I’ve heard they like to collect shiny objects. Did that bird make off with my photograph? Or is this the sign from the universe I was looking for?
If so, I have no idea what it means. What I do know is that all this thinking and wondering is making my head hurt. I wish I’d never heard Mom say what she did. Hope is cruel. I pack up my blanket, searching one last time for Dad’s photo. It’s getting dark when I start the long walk home.
I know I’m in trouble when Nana opens the door without me having to knock. “Thank God in Heaven!” she says, shooing me in. She closes the door behind me, takes me by the shoulders. “You had your mother very worried.”
Mom’s tennis shoes squeak on the linoleum as she rushes in from the kitchen. “Where the hell have you been?”
“I took a walk.”
“For four hours?” Mom’s hands are clenched in fists on her hips. Her eyes are wild. “Did it ever occur to you that we might wonder where you were? This I don’t need, Ida. I’ve already had a husband disappear on me.”
My eyes travel from her angry face to her hands, balled into fists, dripping soapy water onto her pants. “Who could blame him!”
She strikes. Her wet fingers sting my cheek. My tongue tastes the soap from her hand. I ball it up on my tongue and spit it out on Mom’s clean carpet. Before she can go after me again, I run upstairs to my room and slam the door. Belly on the bed, face buried in my pillow, I ask myself why he left us, why he left me, and without so much as a phone call or a letter. He obviously doesn’t care. I hope that’s not true. I hope I’m dead wrong. But try as I might to imagine something different, that’s the only meaning of “alive” that makes sense.
CHAPTER 7
Groggy
Drunk from having consumed a lot of grog, a watered-down rum
I just got a D on an algebra quiz I didn’t study for, and I don’t even care. Equations and homework are for my friends with normal lives, friends with two parents and nothing to worry about but grades and what they’re going to wear tomorrow. The stuff of life all seems so small and separate to me now, like I’m looking through the wrong end of a telescope.
I can’t stop thinking about Dad living somewhere else with another woman or maybe another family. I tie my brain in knots wondering how he might have done it. Was his life with us so awful that he had to escape? I know Mom can be a bitch at times, but I thought he loved me. Was he just biding his time until he could run away? Do I really want him to be alive if it means he’s left us? Do I want him dead if it means the opposite? God, stop these questions!
“Ida? Are you with us?” Mrs. Smith, my English teacher, stands in front of the class with the attendance book in her hands. She’s staring at me, waiting.
“Here,” my voice croaks.
She goes through the rest of the Ps and the Ss and then says a name I don’t recognize. “Samuel Tap-o-sok. Am I pronouncing that correctly?”
“Top … o … soak.”
I’ve been so wrapped up in thoughts of Dad I didn’t notice we have a new student in class. I turn around to see the owner of the voice—a boy with shiny black hair. Oh my God, could it be? He’s much tidier than the last time I saw him. His hair has been cut and his white shirt has those just-bought crease marks in it, but I recognize the eyes that locked onto mine that day in the woods.
“I go by Sam,” he tells the teacher. He looks at me, and I realize I’m staring at him with my mouth open. I shut it and turn around.
Mrs. Smith tells the class that Sam’s family came here from San Diego and that his father’s in the Navy. She asks Sam if there’s anything he’d like to add, and he says no.
Because he seems shy, Mrs. Smith makes a point of calling on him as much as possible for a new lesson she’s introducing: American poetry. No, he doesn’t have a favorite poet. Yes, he likes poetry okay, but sometimes finds it hard to understand. He doesn’t say anything earth shattering, but he speaks in such a way that he sounds thoughtful, with clear words and distinct syllables, not all mashed together and lazy like most people talk.
We finally meet when our teacher breaks the class into study groups and puts us together, along with Ralph Tucker and Julie Simon. Each group is given a list of poets. We are to choose one and give a report to the rest of the class, reading and interpreting one of our poet’s works and giving a short biography that includes when and where the writer lived and some major events and influences in their life. This will count as 30 percent of our grade.
Julie immediately takes charge of our group, reciting the list of poets and poems as if the rest of us can’t read. When she gets to Edgar Allen Poe and The Raven, she stops. “Ooh, we should do him,” she says. “It’s almost Halloween.”
I don’t much care who we do. I’m just watching Sam. He nods his agreement, so I shrug and say, “Okay.”
We find the poem in our English anthology, and Ralph whimpers when he sees how long it is.
“We’re going to read this whole thing?” he says.
“I’ll help you with it, Ralph-ie,” Julie says like she’s talking to a toddler.
That leaves me and Sam to work on the biography.
I assumed that meant “together,” but he makes no move to even talk to me. Days go by. Okay, if he doesn’t want to work with me, I don’t want to work with him. This whole assignment is stupid. Why do we have to learn poetry, anyway? Poetry, like math, is for kids like … like Julie Simon. She doesn’t lie awake at night wondering if her dad is dead or alive. She doesn’t wonder if anyone gives a fig about her. She knows.
“ARE you mad at me?” Dena is in the next stall in the girls’ bathroom. If I didn’t know her voice, I could surely identify her by her white go-go boots. “You seem mad.”
“I’m not mad.”
“Then what?”
“I’m just—I don’t know—confused. It’s … confusing.”
I flush. Dena flushes. We meet at the mirror. She puts her arm around my shoulders. “It’s okay. You don’t need to explain.” Her face brightens. “Hey, Sophie, Gerry, and I are going to this party Saturday night at the haunted house. Wanna come?”
The haunted house out on Highway 20 is a notorious drinking hangout. Everybody knows this. “My mom would never let me go.”
Dena’s frosted pink lips curl into a grin. “That’s why we have the cover party.”
“The cover party?”
“Jill’s having a Halloween party. We tell our folks we’re going there—”
“And go to the haunted house instead,” I finish.
“Bingo.”
“I don’t know.” I puff my cheeks in and out, mulling it over. “It’s …”
“What?”
“Well, Halloween feels … different. It’s like death and ghosts and stuff aren’t funny anymore.”
“Aw, Ida.” She leans over and gives me a hug.
“On the other hand, I’d really like to get out of the house,” I say over her shoulder. We part. “I’ll think about it.”
She claps me on the back so hard I cough.
HALLOWEEN is on a Tuesday this year, but all the parties are on the weekend before. I don’t have a costume so Dena loans me a peasant blouse and a wide red skirt, which I love because it hides my hips and thighs and gives me an actual waist. I’ll be going as a gypsy, which also requires that I wear lots of makeup and necklaces. When we’re done putting me together, I pose in front of Dena’s mirror, trying to look mysterious. Dena is Glinda, the Good Witch of the North. She’s somehow managed to find an old hoop skirt to bell out her long pink dress. Her crown is a big Folgers coffee can covered with tin foil an
d glitter with a strip of elastic to hold it onto her head. Her wand is the cardboard tube from a clothes hanger wrapped with duct tape and topped with a Christmas tree star ornament. She twirls around to give me the full effect.
“Wow!”
“The only thing is I can’t sit down.” She sits on the end of her bed and her skirt pops over her head, revealing her flowered underpants in all their glory. We both collapse in giggles. Then Dena gets the hiccups. This makes it difficult for me to apply lipstick to her lips. I end up getting some on her teeth and nose, which triggers another round of hilarity, and I almost lose myself in the moment before I remember. Oh, yeah. Dad’s gone, and I’m acting all happy.
“Are you girls just about ready?” Uncle Pat calls through the door.
When we emerge, he hands Dena his keys and tells us to be careful. Now that she has her license, she jumps at any opportunity to drive, even if it’s just Uncle Pat’s rusty truck. She puts her hoop skirt, crown, and wand in a big garbage sack, which she throws in the space behind the front seats. Now she’s a deflated good witch, but much more comfortable for the drive over to the school to pick up Sophie, who’s dressed as Raggedy Ann, and Gerry, who’s also a witch, but the black kind.
I lose at rock-paper-scissors, so I have to ride in the bed of the truck on the way out to the haunted house, but the weather is so mild, I don’t mind. Sitting against the back of the cab between Uncle Pat’s crab pots, it stinks, but I’m mostly out of the wind. As we roll down the highway, I’m reminded of the view from the stern of the Lady Rose and that strange sensation of going backwards while you’re going forwards. Mom, of course, would die if she knew I was back here rattling around with the crabbing gear. That just adds to the thrill of watching the pavement unspool before me.
We stop at the end of a long dirt road behind a line of haphazardly parked cars. The house is across a mushy field overgrown with tall weeds and blackberry bushes.
Before we set off, Dena ducks behind the truck and assembles her costume. Then she reaches into the cab and grabs her dad’s massive flashlight.