Two houses away, splashing in a swimming pool, children’s laughter. It was spring break. Easter was coming. Jesus was getting ready to rise from the dead. The maple in the backyard gathered its leaves and nodded in the breeze. Bianca climbed that tree as a girlchild.
The sun would be setting soon.
Kanga watched Bianca balance on the chair, biting her lip to keep from screaming out in pain, wrapping the cord around a beam and tying a knot, the metal part of the iron hanging limp. She’d never tied a noose but figured any knot would work. She slipped her head into the large loop and began to pull it tight.
Her heart was beating fast.
“I’m coming home,” she whispered.
Kanga barked.
“Hush, girl.”
But the dog kept barking and barking like Bianca was an intruder and she was ready to attack. Bianca imagined herself kicking the chair away. Imagined falling.
Kanga kept barking.
Tears spilled down Bianca’s face.
Kanga barked and barked.
Bianca peeled herself free from the cord. She was freezing but sweating. She felt dizzy.
She stepped down from the chair and caressed Kanga, who was licking her hands and shaking her whole brown body. “Let’s go inside.”
On the bookshelf, a doll she’d found at the yard sale sat beside the bassinet, her shiny brown curls peeking from beneath a pink hood, eyes wide open, smiling. The most lifelike doll she’d ever seen. She hadn’t noticed before. The bluish haze beneath her cream-colored skin, like veins fluttering.
It’s time to go home. Her back ached. Her gut and thighs and insides were sore. She was soaking a pad and would for a couple of weeks, the nurse whose name she’d never learned had warned. The nurse promised she’d heal just fine.
She’d split open. She’d come undone. She had a story stitched to her ribs. The pen was in her hands. Its ink was red. She’d forge a bridge back.
“Time to go home,” she said again, picking up the beautiful, pink-cheeked doll.
Bianca recognized her. Something about the eyes. Gray. Like a storm over Cattle Call arena.
“Hey, little girl,” she whispered. “I know you.” She cradled the doll in her arms, squeezing tightly. The doll was a bridge back. A bridge across the ditchwater. And with Coatlicue and La Llorona and Sandra Cisneros at her side, she said, “Jubilee, honey. Let’s go home.”
Thirty-Four
Swim Back
With Jubilee
The weather never cooperated. Sun was predicted, but when Joshua awoke, only half-light glinted through the motel curtains. Bianca, not in bed, must’ve been in the bathroom already. Jayden slept like the dead, funny little zombie boy. He could sleep through an earthquake, and, as a matter of fact, had done so a few times. Joshua set the coffeepot with decaf, and pulled back the heavy drape, revealing a morning sky so thick with swamps of gray, he doubted whether the sun would push away the marina cloud cover before the afternoon. Maybe they should postpone. Spend the morning together, rather than leaving Bianca alone with Jayden and Jubilee. He hadn’t ever loved the idea, but she’d insisted.
“Bee?” he called after a few minutes, and headed toward the bathroom. The door was closed and the light on, but he couldn’t hear her jostling about in her typical morning routine. “You okay in there? You sick?”
Still nothing. His pulse fluttered, and he hated that every time she didn’t answer, he feared the worst. He told himself to calm down and tried the doorknob. Unlocked. He opened it, slowly. “Bee?”
He wasn’t sure what he was seeing. Bee lay curled on the bathroom floor, Jubilee on the toilet, staring at her. Like she’d killed her. He suppressed the urge to yell out and knelt down beside his wife, touched her cheek. She was warm. He noted the steady motion of her shoulders and back. He grasped her shoulder and shook, softly. “Bee,” he said again, “wake up.”
She opened her eyes and groaned, turned fitfully from her side onto her back, stretched out, catlike, mewling out the discomfort of her position.
“Why on earth did you sleep in the bathroom? Nausea?”
She sighed, rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. “Something like that. Where’s Jubilee?”
He nodded toward the toilet.
“Did you put her there?” he asked, and then realized the ridiculousness of his question. Of course she had. Jubilee hadn’t very well put herself in that creepy position.
“Yeah, sorry. It was a rough night.” She lurched forward, straining to lift herself up to sitting, but her belly pinned her back. “I’m too fat to sit,” she muttered, chuckling.
He helped her up and said, “You’re gorgeous. Even when you’ve been sick all night and sleeping on the floor. No one lights a candle to you, Bee.”
She smiled, her face brightening. Maybe she was forgiving him. He inched forward.
“I wish you would’ve woken me up though, I could’ve helped you. Held your hair back.”
Using the bathtub ledge as stabilizer, she wobbled up to standing, picked up Jubilee, less childlike than usual, he noted. Held her awkwardly, facing outward. Like a toy. Or was he imagining things? Was he wishful thinking?
“Here, can you take her?” she asked, handing Jubilee over. “I need a shower.”
“Of course. And your decaf is brewing, my dear.”
“Such a gentleman, Joshy.”
“Anything for my wife.”
This time, she smiled, her whole face glowing, and he couldn’t help himself, he leaned forward and kissed her. She sank against him, allowing herself to be kissed, and he knew they were going to be okay. They were going to get through this.
At ten a.m., he dropped them off with a picnic basket and blanket at Mission Beach near the roller coaster. He wanted to go with them, set them up on the sand like he always did, but she shooed him away, saying she could take care of herself and the kids. “You don’t have to do everything for us. I am capable, Josh.”
She tucked Jubilee under her arm and weaved her fingers through Jayden’s. She looked like she was hiding a beach ball under her dress. Joshua felt guilty leaving. Matty and Handro were waiting for him at Comic-Con, and he’d wanted to go since he was a kid, but the timing felt wrong. “I could stay.”
“We’ll be fine. Go have fun. Give my brother and Handro a kiss from me.”
“Or you could come with me. Give it to them yourself.”
“It’s sold out, Josh. We don’t have tickets. Besides, we’ll have more fun at the beach. Comics are your thing.”
“Really. It’s no problem. I’d rather stay with you and the kids.” He wanted her to notice how he’d referred to Jubilee as a kid. He was joining her. He wasn’t letting her go.
Her eyebrows furrowed, her forehead wrinkled. He could see he’d made her mad, again. “Don’t you trust me anymore, Josh? Or did you ever?”
He sighed. If he didn’t trust her, then how could he expect anyone else to? “Fine, I’ll go. But I have my cell phone so call if you need anything. I’ll come right back. The convention center’s only a few minutes away.”
She nodded and held Jayden’s hand in one hand and all their stuff and Jubilee in the other, then padded away in her sandals, kicking up dirt behind her.
“Bye, Dada,” Jayden called, turning back and waving with his free hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of Bee and Jubilee and the new baby.”
Comic-con crawled with heroes. But Joshua wasn’t in the mood for comics. Weeks earlier, Bee had encouraged him to dress up as Superman. She’d said Joshua was their superman, but he hadn’t wanted to. Now, seeing everyone else dressed up, he felt out of place. Always a sore thumb. He should’ve let her buy the damn costume.
The convention center was so crowded, he plodded elbow to costumed elbow through the boothed aisles where attendees huddled, blocking rows, excited for the chance to find othe
r fans of their ilk. When he was a kid, he was Beast because both Beast and him were oversized, took up too much space, had big hands and feet. Joshua had been teased for his gorilla nose, his long ape arms and gait. Kids were awful. But Beast and him fought social rejection. They used their keen wit to create a better world for both mutant and man. Every time he’d hung a poster on campus declaring “Black Lives Matter,” “Some Bruises Are on the Inside: Stop Bullying,” “Marriage Is about Love, Not Gender,” or “Take Back the Night: End Domestic Violence,” he was Beast, turning blue, growing fur, fighting for change. No one ever knew that about him, why he related with Beast, besides Bee.
He’d told her one night, in bed. She’d said, “You’re a beautiful Beast.”
He’d laughed. “You’re mixing stories. I don’t mean the Disney movie.”
She’d shrugged. “Either way. You’re beautiful,” kissing his arms, his hands, his nose.
He wandered the gauntlet of booths and displays, costumed and trench-coated folks fighting each other for an inch of space as they rushed to their heroes, hoping to get close enough to their favorite author or publisher for an autographed picture that would one day validate their lifelong passion. They could, old man or old woman with a grandchild on their lap, say, “I met him,” pulling out an autographed photo of the Hulk, “Or, at least, the person who wrote him.”
Joshua found Matty and Handro’s booth on the printed plan, and trudged through the crowd to get to them. They sat behind a black-tarped sign displaying Matty’s comic book, Crimson Knight, emblemed with a red hawk on a shield. “Hey, guys,” he called out, waving.
“Hey there, Josh.”
“Hiya, Joshy!”
They were smiling and stood to hug Joshua as he scooted into Matty’s booth.
“You having fun?” Matty asked.
“It’s sort of overwhelming.”
“It can be crazy. Handro hates it here.” Matty poked Handro, who rolled his eyes dramatically. “But he comes with me every year anyway.” Matty pulled Handro close and kissed him. Joshua had never seen Matty so openly show his affection for Handro. Comic-Con had made him giddy. “How’re Bee and Jayden?”
Joshua cleared his throat. “I’m worried about Bee.”
As if an alarm had sounded, Matty’s eyebrows rose and he pulled away from Handro. “Why? What’s up?” Matty’s voice and demeanor changed so abruptly that Joshua felt compelled to fess up, like a shamed child confessing to a parent what he’d done wrong. He told him about the social worker and Olivia, about Ms. McCall and the adoption. About the dead fish. He admitted how worried he was and how weird she’d been acting.
Matty crossed his arms over his chest and lifted a hand to his chin as Joshua spoke, frowning. He didn’t say anything, and Joshua let everything spill out.
When he finished unloading what he’d kept bottled since he married Bee, Matty took a deep breath that moved his shoulders, no, his whole body. Then he just wilted. He leaned his arms against his booth of comics, so his body shrank from over six feet tall to a crouched small thing, in grief.
“Matty?” Handro said, putting his arm on his back.
He kept his head down so long, people at other booths were beginning to stare. Matty’s hands on the table showed his raw cuticles, the blood-dark scabs where he’d chewed at his skin. Joshua didn’t know what to say. He stood there for an uncomfortable length of time, trying to keep from looking at the passersby gawking at the crying comic book writer behind the red hawk sign. Finally Matty took a deep breath and wiped his face with his hands. “Did she tell you how Dad killed himself?”
Joshua sucked in his breath sharply. “He what?” She’d never said a word.
“She never told you?” He seemed as surprised as Joshua. “Shit. I figured. She’s been so angry about it. I thought she would have said something . . . We don’t understand it. Not completely. He’d gotten sober. My mom won’t talk about it. But she found him with an empty twelve-pack. In the bathtub. He’d drowned himself. We know it must’ve been suicide. But Mom insisted he just fell asleep. That it was an accident.”
Joshua’s stomach lurched. What an awful way to die. Something hummed in his eardrum. Something Bee had said, after they’d married. She was watching the yellow jackets in the jelly water on the neighbor’s balcony and said drowning would be the worst way to die.
And the bathtub. She’d thought Jayden was drowning.
Matty broke his thoughts. “Sometimes I think my mom is the delusional one. When Bee and I were growing up, Mom told us it was an accident the first time too. When Dad laced his Prozac with beer.”
Her dad had committed suicide? Why hadn’t Bee told him? Why would she keep something that huge from him?
“Jubilee keeps her from having to deal with that.” Matty sighed, his expression pensive. “Since she came home, I’ve tried to keep her from having to deal with that.” He folded his arms across his chest.
The humming in Joshua’s ear grew louder. He pictured those yellow jackets again. Bee curled up beside the toilet, screaming that Jayden was drowning. But she wouldn’t hurt Jayden. Joshua told the guys how on the car ride over, she’d talked as lucid as he’d ever heard her talk about Jubilee. Like she understood. Like she knew Jubilee was a doll.
Matty nodded. “I know what you mean.” He unfolded his arms and leaned forward. “She was a mess. Mom wanted Bee to stay at the hospital or go back to Abuela’s with her, at first, but Bee didn’t want to be with Mom. Honestly, I don’t think Bee wanted to be with me either, but she thought of me as the lesser evil. Mom was there when Dad died. She didn’t save him. When Bee came home from the hospital, she kept saying, ‘She almost drowned.’ Handro and I figured out she meant Jubilee because she’d hold her up and tell us, ‘My baby.’ It was scary. Then one morning, she kind of snapped out of it. She came to the breakfast table and said, ‘We need to get Jubilee a high chair.’ And that was that.”
Handro was nodding, his eyebrows knitted.
Joshua’s head hurt. Jubilee had almost drowned. He felt a prickling on the back of his neck. Something was wrong. He felt the same tingling when Bee had told him she was pregnant, and when Olivia had taken Jayden to the motel, the night she left him and got arrested. Joshua shouldn’t have left Bee with Jayden. A humming in his ears, pulling him. Something wasn’t right. He shouldn’t have come to Comic-Con and left them alone at the beach.
“I need to go,” he said, and he rushed back through the crowd, stumbling through the parking lot, then speeding the few miles back to the beach from the convention center, past Sea World, exiting at Mission Beach, cursing the full lot. Even on a stormy, cloudy day, the beach was crowded. He finally found a space, threw quarters into the meter, jogged toward the sand, past the roller coaster, the tattoo parlors, the concession stand, the surfers and children rinsing themselves in the outdoor showers.
He scanned the packed afternoon shoreline for Bee’s red dress, for Jayden’s curly dark hair. The waves crashed against the surf. The image of Bee huddled beside the bathtub screaming at him that his kid was drowning. The image of Bee or Jayden drowned on that damn horror island. This morning, Bee on the bathroom floor, Jubilee above her. Why had he left them alone?
At the edge of the sand, where children splashed water in buckets and ran from the waves before their feet or knees or hips submerged, Joshua spotted Jayden, his little brown body glistening with salt crystals. Joshua breathed relief. He was safe. God, he’d been worried for nothing. He wanted to laugh at his stupid self for mistrusting Bee. He smiled broadly and waved at Jayden, who turned around just then, as if he sensed his father nearby. But the prickling at Joshua’s neck returned. Something still wasn’t right.
Jayden was frowning. “Dada!” He motioned for Joshua to hurry.
“Where’s Bee?” he yelled back, clomping through the sand, his boots sinking in.
“Out there!” Jayden screamed, poin
ting toward the ocean.
Joshua ran, panting, his muscles burning. He caught up to Jayden on the wet sand. Jayden wasn’t just frowning, but crying. “Where’s Bee?”
Jayden pulled Joshua’s arm and pointed to where Bee was swimming several hundred feet into the water, at the end of the massive algae-covered posts supporting the pier. He could barely make her out among the surfers, but knew her tangled, dark hair, her bright-red bathing suit. A bloodstain against the gray sky and water.
“Why’s she out there?” His heart raced. He felt sick. He pulled off his boots.
“Jubilee.”
“What happened?” Joshua yanked his wallet, cell phone, keys, loose change, and inhaler from his jeans pockets and dropped them inside his boots on the wet sand.
“The wave pulled her away from me,” Jayden cried. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’ll get them.” He hugged Jayden. “Sit down. Don’t move. I’ll be back.”
Joshua made sure the boy sat on the sand before he ran to the water and dove in. He hadn’t been swimming in the ocean since the one unsuccessful time his freshman year in college when he’d tried learning to surf. He fought each wave crashing against his face and body, free-stroking with all the power he could muster. Swim, Joshy. Don’t you dare fucking let her drown.
His lungs already burned. Why hadn’t a lifeguard seen her? A surfer? Why had no one else helped her? Maybe no one else realized the danger. Maybe they just saw a woman taking a swim.
He fought the waves. You’re not a strong swimmer. The current’s too strong. He felt a familiar burning in his chest and knew he would need his inhaler soon if he couldn’t keep calm. Even if he could keep calm, his asthma was flaring. Breathe. One, two, three. Breathe. He could see Bianca bobbing near the end of the pier, where an undercurrent could pull her under. Or out to sea. Swim, goddamn you.
Jubilee Page 30