But the longer Walker talks about the faceless criminal to an unknown “buddy,” the more irritated I get. He’s so important, and dumb schmuck Daniel Landon can wait? No wonder Mom is depressed about the court stuff. Walker’s supposed to be helping us. It’s exactly Holden’s point—Walker’s like the disciples, saying one thing and doing another. Like Peter denying that he knows Jesus when the Roman soldiers ask, Walker seems to have forgotten he’s supposed to be fighting for us.
The “conflict” is coming across loud and clear, but not the kind between my parents and me that Walker was talking about. He sounds like the marketing department of the Essex County family court, when what he ought to be doing is filing motions and researching new arguments to show the court that my parents are doing their best in a bad situation. He’s not paying any attention to the Landons.
And when he’s forced to deal with us, he wimps out and tries to convince Mom and Dad that they should do what the court tells them. The county might as well be paying Walker’s fees.
I know my parents picked this pinhead, but who else was there to choose from in our crumby little town? He’s still talking into his phone, a clear violation of the privacy of some other client. I get up and walk out.
The receptionist looks at me funny. “Finished already?”
“All that time talking with his other clients better not show up on our bill.”
The shade trees in front of the Episcopal church cover the entire graveyard. My favorite grave is Benjamin Frisbie’s. For real. But he’s too ancient to be the one who invented the actual Frisbee. Friend Benjamin’s grave is all the way back from the road in a shady corner. It’s decorated with an avenging angel and the letters are gouged away into slight indentations you can barely see with the rain: A GOOD FRIEND AND PATRIOT.
I’ve always liked to sit on the tomb of good old Ben and sound off. He never argues or tells me I don’t know what I’m talking about. No one much comes through the graveyard, at least not on the afternoons I’ve been here. Mostly weekdays. I can’t even think the last time I saw anyone in here. Episcopalians must not like their relatives much.
I make up a poem about Walker and rework it until it rhymes perfectly with stick. Losing your temper is exhausting, though. The stone top is cool and once I lie down, it’s easier to close my eyes than stare at the shifting leafy ceiling, especially because the feeling that I might pitch my lunch at any second is getting stronger.
The voices drift in, at first almost like a dream. I’m half asleep anyway.
“So what are you thinking?” The voice—male, vaguely familiar—is some distance off. Slick question, soft enough that I know whoever he is, he’s talking to someone he’s trying to snow. “Come on. You can tell me.” And he’s a little pushy.
“Classes are…okay. The kids are mostly nice. I mean, we’ve only been here since August.”
I know that voice. And there can only be so many new students in a county as small as Essex. It’s Meredith. My Meredith. She talks slowly, as if she hasn’t really made up her mind and is thinking seriously about the question. No giggles, she’s not a silly cheerleader-type. And, even in my limited experience, it doesn’t sound like she’s flirting.
Filtered through the sun and the cool shadows, her voice takes on a mystical quality like the Ravi Shankar music from the seventies. I hold my breath, rabid for the next word, the next thought. They can’t have noticed me.
The guy speaks quietly, maybe close to her ear. “A hundred guys must have asked you out already.”
There’s only one guy I know who’s that smooth and over-anxious.
“Boo.” I lunge up from the tombstone. I see instantly that I’m right about the predator and do a clumsy two-step on the top. “Ta-da.”
Three graves away on the far side of one of the family monuments Meredith twists around, startled, then smiles when she sees it’s me. She climbs up on another tomb and dances back at me.
“To-di-do-di-do-do.” She’s laughing and flicking her hair off her shoulders. She swings her feet back and forth like a puppet, a mirror image of me atop old Ben’s grave.
The boy with her doesn’t respond so quickly. Slicko Leonard Yowell is not even smiling. My mother would be shocked.
At dinner my parents can’t leave off the harangue about the Social Services people. I guess they figure it’s all out in the open now since I’ve talked to the lawyer. Nick, though, is action man and he interrupts before I can confirm what they’re hinting at, that Walker is truly a jerk.
“Hey, guys,” Nick says, swallowing a whole tomato slice like a circus flamethrower. He loves his vitamins. “I’ve got the solution. They can’t serve any more court papers if you’re not around to be served. And they can’t haul Daniel in for chemo, either. Why don’t we take off? It is a houseboat.” He practically screams the second syllable.
It’s the first real connection he’s made to my situation. The first moment when I’m sure he understands that things are getting serious. But I know too that he’s a joker, so I play along.
“I like it,” I say. “Sign Nick and me both up as homeschooled. You’re in for one, might as well go for broke. We’ll take this tub around the world. How educational is that?”
Dad rests his hand on Mom’s arm to keep her seated, a safe distance from these crazy boys. And he’s the one with the red hair. “Don’t you guys have homework?”
In the cabin Nick flings himself on the bottom bunk. I go to fit my right foot on the ladder, but miss. My left side swings around and crashes into the bedpost.
“Fuck.” I try again and miss. “Double fuck.”
About that time Nick realizes I’m not goofing around. He scrambles up and stands there with his hands out to help me. I bat his hands away.
Disgusted, I mimic a whine. “More, sir. Please, sir, can I have some more?”
“Maybe it’s time to switch bunks,” he says, no small amount of pain in a voice that cracks on the vowels.
“You are such a punk.” My fist hits his stomach, high enough to stun him but not cause collapse. You have to remember I’ve had Joe practicing on me for years. “Time to switch bunks? Like you’ve been planning this for weeks? Waiting for just the right moment of weakness? The truth finally out?”
“Yikes, I was only trying to help.” He flings himself back on his bunk. “If it’s just you’ve had too much to drink, fine. Keep the stupid bunk. Just cut out the scotch tomorrow night.”
Neither of us laughs at his pitiful attempt at humor. I take off my shoes and socks. Strip to boxers and put on my sweats. Holding on to the ladder for balance, I jam the bio textbook onto my bunk with a notebook and pencil for the problems at the end of the chapter. Even hang up my jeans on the hook on the wall. With one hand on each side of the ladder, I wait for the swell of the river to pass. Wind from the south shifts the boat off the marsh in a steady rise. Then I start with the bottom rung and climb, more slowly, more deliberately, each foot on each rung, like a toddler goes up the stairs.
CHAPTER NINE
By the time I finish chapter five, about the neurology of pain, in the bio book, Nick’s snoring. This stuff is really interesting. Seriously. When you’re trying to translate puking and shivers and instant headaches into cold scientific fact, it helps to see how it all connects. If my parents ever ask my opinion, I’ll sound halfway intelligent for a change.
Outside, the last of autumn’s cicadas complain in long Morse code phrases, a certifiable madhouse of white noise. Across the phragmite stalks the deep voice of one lone bull toad blats out a warning to the cars on Route 17 above his head. Watch out, watch out, state police cruiser lurking. Every local knows the police sit in the empty Dairy Queen lot, ticket pads at the ready, mean, evil. Almost like magic, I hear the siren and red lights flicker across the cabin ceiling. What is it with policemen? They can’t let people enjoy a little fresh air without calling it speeding, showing off their badges and their power to punish. It’s all about rules for rules’ sake. Holden had it rig
ht.
No sounds from the upper deck or drifting forward from the back cabin. The parents are in retreat, gone to bed at nine instead of their usual midnight. Lately it seems as if they mimic my own escape to bed, hiding their exhaustion until I admit mine. I close my eyes. I’m too tired to climb down and turn out the light clipped to Nick’s headboard. Poor guy, he’s caught in the middle, helpless, unable to stop the opposition or even punt to protect his team.
He’s not much older than Holden’s sister Phoebe. But boys are different, really out of it as to what other people are feeling. This whole protect-my-poor-sick-brother thing, where did that come from anyway? Who would have guessed he paid enough attention to know Mom and Dad were in trouble? For Nick homeschooling would be pure torture. His friends are his life. He’s the soccer star, the team’s savior. His volunteering to leave those friends to save the Landons from a court order says a lot about what kind of guy he is. But it also means The Disease has caught him, too. If he was holding out hope for a cure, he would be lobbying for something altogether different than a cruise around the Chesapeake Bay on the Nirvana.
Now I get why Holden worries about Phoebe. As cool as she is, she’s still a little kid and any halfway decent big brother would care. I feel like rereading that scene with Phoebe’s suitcase, but the book is buried in my backpack, down that irritating ladder. So I just think about it instead. She sees his struggle and she thinks if she’s with him, it’ll help. Just like Nick putting himself in the same boat with me to make it easier for me. He just leapt right in, probably didn’t even think about what he’d be giving up. Phoebe too. She’s so sure she can fix it. And then Holden has to be the responsible one, to save her from throwing herself under the train. So he tricks her into going home.
I’m trying to figure out what hidden motivation Nick could have, whether there’s another angle, but his offer seems real enough. He said straight-out that we should switch bunks. No secret agenda there, because there’s way less headroom up here. No one would opt for the top bunk if they had a choice.
But Phoebe gives up on going with Holden. She lets him drag her suitcase home. That’s not so simple. I guess it’s possible she’s just pretending to be fooled, a kind of sneaky way to box him in, force him to keep his promise to come home. Girls are so much better at that kind of deception.
Take Meredith. When she calls me at night—her mother has eased up on the three calls a week to any one boy—she’s forever talking about something we’ll do next summer or when I come back to school. For a smart girl, she’s acting pretty dumb. The odds are not good on another summer for me. I don’t have the nerve to call her on it, though, because I like thinking about it too. And the last thing I want is to argue. Her calls—funny monologue-type run-ons—are a lifeline from the wreck of my life. She goes on and on about stuff in history and the school cliques and the football games, and I just listen. It’s the only time all day I stop thinking about my worthless body and the destruction it’s spreading in my family.
Phoebe’s like that for Holden, his lifeline. Everything else may stink, but Phoebe’s there, the same cheerful, glad-to-see-her-big-brother, predictable kid. Of course he likes how she takes his screw-ups in stride without judging him. Her faith in him. And her conviction that it will all work out. He admires her faith because he doesn’t have it. I get that. Nick’s partly the same way, not that I’d ever tell him straight-out. He doesn’t need more kudos on top of the endless soccer awards to swell his head.
Still, he’s going to turn out all right when I’m gone. When he needs to talk things over, he’ll have Joe. His other big brother. Joe’s like a safety net. He’ll help Nick learn the important stuff. How to step away from Dad’s steel-trap control of his emotions and Mom’s falling apart at the least little thing. Round and round my brain floats between Phoebe lugging that suitcase and Nick proposing a world cruise, until it all melts into a dream of the Bermuda Triangle and an endless expanse of green ocean. I sleep.
My parents argue all weekend about that fathead Walker and the Essex County Social Services witch. And about Mexico and the brand-new cure Mom’s heard about from her buddy Miss T. Undertaker. Nick’s suggestion to flee is like the tip of the iceberg. Dad starts in about wanting to take the boat downstream. Just a little overnight adventure, he calls it. Not like they don’t know the river well from Mom having grown up in Urbanna and all. But he’s enamored with the idea of a family road trip, an adventure on waves instead of wheels. It’s probably because he’s excited that for a change Nick has no soccer games on Saturday and a check for a big edit job has just arrived.
“We could leave after lunch if that gives you more time to get ready,” Dad says.
Mom’s so used to being the opposition she can’t help herself. “I hate to waste the money on fuel.”
He’s ready for that. “It’ll be a good break for everyone. Take in a little fresh scenery, catch a few fish, laugh a little. There won’t be many more warm weekends like this. Come on, let’s do it for the boys.” Through the open windows I can hear the clink of Dad’s spoon in his coffee mug and her silence as she scrambles to think of a rebuttal.
Nick groans from his bunk at Dad’s sticking us into the role of bait for his blackmail. I was already awake, but bracing myself to get out from the warm covers. October mornings on the water are a little nippy until the sun gets geared up.
“Red.”
Dad laughs with her because she’s caught him laying it on so thick, but it doesn’t stop the debate.
She says, “Have you asked them? They probably don’t even want to go. If they had their choice, they’d spend the weekend with their friends. Not their old, fuddy-duddy parents.”
“Well, that’d be okay too. We can drop them off and go, just the two of us.” What a faker.
Nick kicks the bottom of the bunk, his laughter stifled in the pillow. I’m all yawns and stretches, enjoying the normality of this discussion, wondering if she will relent. That yearning in Dad’s voice, how can she not give in? Having me around all the time must be a pretty grim reminder that their life is going to hell. If I were them, I’d leap at the chance for a break.
While they counter each other with more pros and cons, I start planning the weekend at Mack’s. He’s been raving about his redone basement. The twins can come over for a movie. Mr. Petriano brought an old TV/VCR combo home from the school-board auction and they let Mack paint the cinder-block walls with all their leftover paint. Psychedelic, he’s been bragging, but I haven’t seen it yet.
His growing obsession with sixties terms scares me a little. If I say anything about it, he shuts down, like you do when some geek starts explaining how to write HTML code. If you listen to Dad’s version of back then (and to everything you read or see in movies), drugs were a huge part of that scene, but in a way that made their crowd seem like innocents compared with kids now and the stuff they’re into these days. Even though Mack insists he’s only tried drugs once, and only marijuana, he talks about parties and people we never liked before. It’s so damn obvious that he thinks I’m out of touch.
Dad’s silence lately when the subject comes up is noticeable too. It’s not like him. He used to be so adamant, taking every chance to talk about how a little experimentation leads to worse and about the friends he lost to overdoses. He describes the whole withdrawal from activities and from people until you’re alone in a room worrying about the next fix. It makes me think there’s some guilty link between that bad time in his life and his refusal to let the doctors give me chemicals.
Mack can’t be but so far gone if he keeps inviting me to the new basement when I’ve made my stand on the drugs clearer than clear.
“The stereo’s pretty basic,” he qualified the invite on the third go-round. “Not as comfy as Meredith and Juliann’s basement with the two couches, but still…” He waited for me to say yes, but I was more curious about what he’d use to convince me. “It deserves to be christened.”
I’m remembering all of M
ack’s reasoning as the debate about the boat trip lingers. Sliding down the ladder, I scramble for jeans and a sweatshirt. Dad won’t give it up.
“It may be our last chance.” He hesitates. “Winter coming, I mean.”
Mom must think I’m asleep. “What if something happens while we’re away? Misty says Daniel could crash at any time. Carla Petriano wouldn’t have a clue where to start. She’d probably feed him cookies.”
“He knows the routine. He might as well learn how to handle some of these details.”
“Needles and medicine and restricted activities? Not the kind of details a boy his age needs to handle. It’s bad enough he feels lousy all the time.”
“He says he has good days.”
“You can’t really believe that with the way he looks. What if tomorrow, while we’re cruising along to ‘Good Day Sunshine,’ he has a bad day?”
“Sweetie, you can’t protect him from all the bad things in the world.”
“That is the understatement of the year.” Her voice cracks.
There’s a long pause before Dad speaks. “I think we need this trip. For the family.” And when she doesn’t answer, he announces in his most fatherly voice, “It’s decided then. We’ll leave in an hour.” His footsteps stop outside our cabin door.
“We heard.” Nick groans again, this time an exaggeration to make his point. But Dad just laughs.
We don’t leave until eleven because Mom has to make a grocery run. She’s definitely in her bomb-shelter preparedness mode. When I volunteer to go with her, she doesn’t object, which only proves she’s preoccupied, not that she’s changed her mind about germs. On the way over to Food Lion she drives about ten miles an hour. I can’t figure what’s bothering her about all of this beyond what she’s said, but I’m working on getting up my nerve to ask her to stop by the twins’ house. I need to talk to Meredith about Halloween.
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