Survivor Girl

by Erin Teagan

  “You’re four.”

  “I’m almost five.”

  “I haven’t told your dad yet,” Claire continues, “but I think it’s time to settle in. Get a regular kind of nursing job. This medic will only be available for shoots during school holidays and summer vacation.”

  I smile. “Maybe we can have a sleepover later this summer, Isabel.”

  She grabs my face, her hands sticky with cookie. “But in a bed,” she says seriously. “Not in a tree.”

  Adam and I laugh. “Deal.”

  * * *

  The sun and sugar are starting to wake me out of my brain fog.

  And soon I’m not even shaking anymore and I take off my blanket, but the medics dabbing ointment on the many scratches on my arms and face insist they’re taking me to the local hospital to be checked out, just to be safe.

  “Come on,” Claire says. “We’re all going.” She hops down to find Isabel.

  Before I get up to climb inside the ambulance, Adam bonks me with his shoulder. “You’re the real deal, Ali.”

  I smile, starting to feel like myself again. And I’m pretty sure I have cinnamon roll on my face, and probably even on my nose, if we’re being realistic.

  Adam hands me a napkin. “Don’t you ever forget it.”

  Thirty-Seven

  When we get to the hospital, we wait in the hallway to be seen by the doctor and rechecked for smoke inhalation, and for Isabel to maybe get stitches. I’m on a chair next to Isabel’s gurney, where she sits quietly now, and Claire and Adam wait in their own chairs beside us. The quiet makes me worry about Dad, and just as it starts to feel like too much, there’s a ruckus outside the ER entrance. A car squealing into the parking area, stopping right up front and nearly taking out one of the benches along the sidewalk. Claire stands up for a better look, but I don’t have to because I’d know that car from anywhere.

  “Be right back,” I say, and before the EMT or Claire or anyone else can stop me, I’m off my chair and running across the waiting room.

  The doors open and Mom steps through in her high heels and conference suit and I almost knock her over with my hug. A hug to make up for lost time. A hug to make up for not paying attention. For avoiding the truth. When I finally pull away enough to look up at her, she has tears in her eyes.

  “I came as fast as I could,” she says. “I couldn’t get a flight, Ali. I slept in the airport, waiting. I just—”

  “It’s okay, Mom,” I say. “I did it. It’s okay. I survived.”

  “And your father?” She looks around the waiting room.

  “They’re flying him to a bigger hospital for surgery.”

  I hug Mom closer, and I can’t hold back anymore, hot tears spilling down my face. “I love you. And I missed you so much. And maybe you were right and I wasn’t ready for all of this.”

  She smiles and shakes her head. “I’ve been talking to Jake. He said you were incredible. That you saved Dad’s life. Imagine if you hadn’t been there.”

  I take a shaky breath, still not letting her go. “Do you still love him, Mom? Even if you’re divorced?”

  “Always, Ali.” She rubs my back. “Always.”

  Outside, the sun is getting lower, and an ambulance races off to another emergency. I know everything’s going to feel different now. And that maybe we won’t be like that family on TV making Friday-night homemade pizza dinners and eating our slices picnic-style in front of a movie. But maybe now that I’ve lived through two forest fires and a deadly storm, having two parents who don’t live in the same house but probably still love me just as much doesn’t seem like the crisis it did a few days ago.

  We find out from the receptionist that Dad’s been transported to a hospital close to home in northern Virginia. Claire and Isabel are going to drive to a hotel near the hospital so they can see him in the morning after his surgery. Mom waits with me as a doctor checks my throat and lungs and oxygen levels. And then we wait for Jake to come back from the cafeteria, where he went with Rick to get Adam something to eat. At last, Jake, Mom, and I leave the hospital and climb into our own car.

  Adam waves to me from across the parking lot where he stands with Rick. He has something in his hand. I run to him, not sure if I should give him a hug or just say goodbye. But when I get there, he says, “Don’t forget this,” and hands me back my compass. “Still works. It’s like indestructible.”

  “Thanks,” I say. And I hug him. I don’t even mean to; it just happens. But he hugs me back.

  “See you again sometime?” he asks. Rick joins us and puts an arm over Adam’s shoulder, kissing him on the head.

  “Definitely.” I walk backwards toward Mom and Jake. “And just you wait—I’m going to have muscles bigger than yours!”

  “Is that a threat?” he calls, rolling up his sleeves and showing me his biceps. “Wabam!”

  “It’s a promise!”

  Jake grabs me by the elbow, pulling me across the pavement as he waves to Adam. “Come on, lovebird.”

  “What?” I’m offended. Highly offended. “I’m not in love with Adam!”

  “Sure, Ali.” He opens the back door for me and I climb inside.

  The sun is behind the trees now, and I slump against the window. Mom drives us away from the hospital and the Great Dismal Swamp, Jake talking about bear claws and fishing rods and falling trees. And I’m happy not to talk at all, letting my eyes close, holding tight to my compass, dreaming of soft beds and best friends.

  Thirty-Eight

  The next morning I’m up early, banging on Harper’s door. Her mom answers, and I push past her and run up to her room, flinging myself onto the Harper-size lump in her bed. She opens up one eye and then bounces awake. At first, it’s like we were never in a fight—we’re hugging and she’s asking if I’m okay and how I got back and telling me how she was hearing about us on the news. But then she remembers. I can see it on her face and in the way she pulls her blankets up tight to her neck.

  I take a deep breath. “My parents are divorced, Harper, and I wasn’t even admitting it to myself and that’s why I never told you.” I have to take another deep breath from the words coming out so fast. “And my dad is actually just an actor on a show that’s supposed to be reality but it’s not.” She blinks at me from her blankets. “And I told everyone at the Survivor Guy set that I’m awesome at archery.”

  Harper crawls out of her covers and sits next to me on the edge of the bed. “I knew all that pretty much.” She stretches. “Except for the telling everyone you’re awesome at archery part, which is pretty hilarious.”

  “He has a chef on set,” I say. “An actual chef that makes homemade pop tarts, and we slept in these millionaire campers. It was really crazy.”

  “I saw you on the news. Your picture. When you were missing.”

  “Oh, God, what picture did they use?”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Harper laughs. “I tried to make my mom drive us to the swamp, but she said no.”

  I look down, feeling light with relief. There’s a puzzle dumped out across her floor. “You’re going to lose some of those pieces.”

  “I hate puzzles,” she says.

  “Well, you like the idea of puzzles. You always start them, but never finish.”

  I can’t help myself. I lean over and inspect a piece, looking for its spot in the half-put-together picture of a sunflower field.

  “That’s a pretty big bandage on your head,” says Harper. “Were you really in a forest fire? Where did you sleep?”

  I find one of the end pieces of the puzzle and snap it into place. “Yeah. Under a tree.”

  She looks at me, wide-eyed. Even after all the truth I just told her about my lying, she doesn’t doubt me. And that’s why Harper is such a good friend.

  “I don’t even know how to describe it.” I think of Adam and Isabel and my dad, and I know that even if I don’t see them every day, there’s a special thing that we’ll always share. Something that even my best, closest friend will
never understand. It almost makes me feel a kind of lonely I’ve never felt before. But then Harper sits on the floor with me and helps me finish the puzzle. Even though she hates puzzles. It’s missing three pieces in the end.

  “Doesn’t always have to be perfect,” she says. “See? You don’t need all the pieces to see the picture.”

  And maybe best friends don’t have to understand all the pieces of you. “Do you want to go to the hospital with me to see Dad?”

  Harper slides into her ducky slippers with the annoying squeakers. “Pancakes first, with celebration chocolate chips and whipped cream.”

  “Hold the whipped cream,” I say, standing up. “I’m trying to grow some muscles.”

  Harper snorts and I punch her in the shoulder.

  Later, when Mom, Jake, Harper, and I get to the hospital, Dad is sitting up in bed, his leg in a cast and elevated by a big pillow. He’s watching Me in the Wild on TV. Jake jumps away from the television like he’s been shocked. “How can you watch this guy? He’s terrible!”

  I lean in and give Dad a kiss and he hugs my neck, not letting go for a long time. “Couldn’t be more proud of you, Ali-Gator. You saved me back there. And Isabel. And Adam too.”

  “I’m so glad you’re okay, Dad.”

  “You’re so much like your grandpa,” he tells me.

  I straighten, pulling out of his hug. “I lost the book. His guidebook.” It’s part of the swamp now. Soot. Ash.

  “You don’t need that anymore.” Dad smiles. “Plus, you still have his compass, right?”

  “Wait, you mean—” I feel around in my pocket and pull out the compass. “This was his?”

  He takes it, flipping it over in his hand. “Each of these little scratches has a big story behind it.” He pops open the cover. “When I was a kid, he always had this with him. Every time we went fishing. Every time we took a hike or went on an adventure.” He hands it back to me. “I found it in some of his things a while back and I thought you should have it.”

  I snuggle in next to him on his bed and we watch as the guy on TV breaks open a hazelnut with his bare hands and downs the meat inside. “Survival,” he says, breathless, “is keeping your nutrient levels up.”

  I shake my head. “Do you think this guy has a prop tent too?”

  “I heard he films half of his shows in a secret Hollywood studio,” Dad says, laughing and then wincing from the pain.

  I wonder about Ronnie and Theo, and picture them back with their own families, telling them all about how Survivor Guy and his daughter are just big frauds. I know they’re right, but part of me still wishes I could talk to them one more time. Apologize.

  Harper knocks over a pile of boxes of chocolate, and one of them bursts open, sending smooth brown squares across the floor. “Sorry!”

  We rush over to help her clean up, Jake mourning each lost piece.

  “I bet this was a caramel one, my favorite,” I say, tossing it toward the trash can, and it bounces off the wall and rolls back to my feet. Harper shoots and makes it. “Showoff,” I say.

  When I turn around, Mom and Dad are whisper-talking, and I feel the bubble in my stomach like always. The maybe-bubble. Like maybe this is when they’ll fall back in love with each other. Maybe this will be the time they decide to stay married.

  But then Mom stands up. “I’m going to get us some coffee from the cafeteria. Anyone want anything?”

  We shake our heads. My maybe-bubble pops, and it hurts my entire insides for a second.

  Jake and Harper open another box of candy, trying to identify all the chocolates inside.

  “Hey! I found another caramel. Want it?” Jake calls to me.

  “No thanks.” I sit in a chair next to Dad, gagging a little when I look at his leg and the pins and bandages and gauze.

  The guy on TV is weaving a blanket out of leaves now. Leaves and ivy branches. I picture his own producer handing him already-sewn-together leaves off camera, a crew of ten people standing behind him.

  “What’s going to happen to Survivor Guy?” I ask.

  Dad clears his throat and takes a sip of water. “Don’t know yet. But there’s going to be big changes. We’ll have to delay California a bit while we figure things out.”

  He’s still going. I take a deep breath, the smell of hospital cleaner and chocolate and cold oatmeal from Dad’s breakfast tray filling my lungs. But at least he’s not going right away.

  “Part of the deal is you’re going to spend summers with Jake and me,” Dad says. “We’ll be home for holidays and you can visit us anytime, and in the summer, you don’t even have to come on set if you don’t want. I can delay tapings or take breaks if you’d rather that.”

  “And Jake will officially move out of our house?” I ask, my stomach dropping.

  “I know you’ll miss him.” Dad pats my leg. “But this is a big step in the right direction for Jake. He needs to start thinking about his future. He’s an adult now.”

  Jake pops three candies into his mouth, licking melted chocolate off his fingers and rubbing his hands clean on his shorts.

  Dad laughs. “Okay, technically he’s an adult.”

  There’s a commotion in the hall, a pounding, flip-flopping sound, and I know it’s Isabel. And then she’s crashing into the room with a dozen or more balloons, all of them getting stuck in the door frame. I leap off my chair to help her, and when she sees me she lets go of the balloons and runs in for a hug, sending them all floating out into the hallway.

  “I got ’em!” Harper says, and there’s a frenzy of activity as everyone helps collect the runaway balloons.

  “I got new underpants for kindergarten!” Isabel tells me, completely oblivious of the commotion she’s caused.

  I give her a squeeze. “I missed you already, Isabel.”

  And then she springs onto Dad’s hospital bed, captivated by the Me in the Wild guy chasing a giant turkey through a field on TV.

  When Mom comes back, she has a full tray of coffees and hot chocolates. I see her hesitate when she spots Claire and Isabel, but half a second later, she’s back to smiling and probably nobody even noticed except for me.

  And maybe Jake, who stands by my side.

  “You must be the famous Isabel,” Mom says to Isabel, shaking her hand.

  “I’m five.” Isabel holds up her hand. “And I have new underpants.”

  “She’s four,” Claire corrects from where she sits by the windows.

  Mom grins. “Well, but it looks to me like you’re almost five. At least.”

  Isabel nods vigorously.

  “Mom, she can have my hot chocolate,” I offer.

  “Oh! I knew we’d have more visitors this morning, so I got extra.”

  She hands them out and then we all sit around Dad: Claire and Isabel, me and Harper, Jake and Mom, sipping our warm drinks in the cool hospital. Mom and Claire talk about the terrible coffee, Jake and Dad roll their eyes at Wild Guy’s attempt to start a fire, and Harper puts an arm over my shoulder, showing me her hot chocolate mustache. “Think I’ll get a date to the middle school dance?” she says, fluttering her eyes.

  “Who wants to see my new underpants?” Isabel asks, standing up.

  Jake tickle-tackles her off the bed before she can flash us or fall over onto Dad’s leg.

  “Inappropriate, Isabel,” Claire scolds, trying to be serious, but she looks at Dad and they can’t help but laugh.

  And when I look at Mom, I see that she’s laughing too.

  Isabel’s balloons are scattered around the ceiling and I think about how, even though my parents aren’t together anymore and Jake is moving across the country, somehow it feels like my family is bigger than before. It’s far from perfect. And there are definitely some pieces missing in our puzzle. But maybe it’s like Harper says. You can still see the big picture through all the missing parts.

  “Fine!” Isabel flings her arms out in surrender, knocking over Jake’s hot chocolate.

  And then everyone is up, Harper and
Jake nearly hitting heads to stop the spill from spreading, Claire reaching over and plucking Isabel from the scene, and Mom whisking her own coffee out of the way.

  Maybe it’s weird, but I’m kind of liking how all the pieces are coming together. The maybe-bubble in my stomach starts to feel more like a hope-bubble. Because through swamp fire and lightning strikes, and even across thousands of miles of country, this family just might survive.

  one

  “LOOK, MADELINE.” Brooke holds up a pair of weird scissors. “For your nose hairs,” she says, about three times louder than necessary.

  I yank them out of her hand and throw them back onto the pile of junk. “You’re such a newborn,” I say. Who’s going to buy a pair of used nose-hair clippers? I lean over and write FREE on the tag, then reach for a silvery, rusted contraption with a one-fingered handle. One of Grandpa’s secret scientific instruments? It squeaks as I open and close it.

  “It’s an eyelash curler, dummy.”

  I toss it back onto the folding table set up in Grandpa’s living room. What in the world was my famous scientist grandfather doing with an eyelash curler?

  “I’m not a dummy.” Even though I’m the younger sister, I’m the one who inherited all the family genius. I point to a cracked bowl. “If you’re so smart, what’s this?”

  Brooke smiles. “Fingernail bath. Do I have to teach you everything?”

  “It’s called a crucible. For science experiments,” I say, tightening my ponytail. “Can you say cah-ru-ci-ble?”

  “This is boring. I’m going outside with Dad.” Brooke flounces out the door to the patio tables for sale in the front yard.

  I rifle through the stuff on the table one more time, just to make sure I haven’t missed something. My plastic bag is already bulging with Grandpa’s unused Eppendorf tubes and an ancient-looking tong that was probably instrumental in at least one of his scientific discoveries. From underneath an old magazine I grab a timer that looks like an amoeba and then take my seat behind the table, watching strangers walk in and out of Grandpa’s house.