The Art of Floating
Page 21
“I thought you had taken a pill.”
“I had, but the brakes were loud.”
“Did you get up to look?”
Sigh. “No, I was too sleepy from the pill. I heard them through a foggy haze. I guess that’s why it took me so long to remember.”
Richard waited. “So . . . the squeal of brakes?”
“Yes.”
“There weren’t any skid marks on the road.”
“No, whoever was driving didn’t hit the brakes hard. They were just bad brakes.”
“Anything else?”
“That’s it.”
• • •
Sia turned on the television:
Channel 7: “Today the Silent Man . . .”
Channel 11: “Just this morning, the Silent Man . . .”
Fox News: “And so Toad, as he is called by his keeper, Odyssia Dane . . .”
CHAPTER 94
In the morning paper:
Fifty-five people attended the vigil for the female plover and eggs lost to a fox last week. Led by Mrs. Wysong in an uplifting rendition of “Amazing Grace,” attendees lit individual tapers from a large white candle that was set on a table near the boardwalk entrance to Beach #3. Once all tapers were lit, the large candle was extinguished.
• • •
“You went, Mom?” Sia said.
“Of course.”
“Why? You’ve never had much interest in the plovers, either way.”
“Jack did.”
“Oh,” Sia said, and her heart throbbed against the bars of its wee little cage.
CHAPTER 95
Toad’s feet were ugly things—gnarled knots of hambone straight off the butcher’s block with pinky toes so unusually stout, they were almost larger than the big toes. On top, thick blue veins protruded like worms, and there was a pale line on the outside edge of each foot, like a long thin scar that ran all the way to the heel. The bottoms were rough and callused, and strangest of all was a bit of skin stretched taut between his toes.
Sia thought it must have been uncomfortable, even painful, to walk on those feet, but while Toad was slow and somewhat ungainly, he never showed any signs of discomfort.
While he slept in the chair, Sia took pictures—first his head, which was beautiful and tender, and then his feet. She was sure that if anyone in the world knew Toad, they would be much more likely to recognize his flaws and foibles than they would his perfect face.
• • •
Though the flash went off a dozen times, Toad didn’t stir, and while she snapped away, Sia thought of her own knobs and scars that would lead people back to M and Stuart if it were ever she who got lost from life.
There was the pear-shaped mole on her left heel that she couldn’t see unless she twisted really far at the waist and tilted her head just so until her neck hurt. There was the rippled scar on the back of her knee she’d gotten falling off her bike when she was eight. There were a number of pale scars on her hands: a broken vase, a slip of a sharp knife, a pointy branch on a tree. She had three strangely placed freckles: on her upper lip, between the second and third toes on her left foot, and just above her right nipple.
On the night she and Jackson first had sex—behind the dunes on the beach—she’d shown him the three freckles, starting with the one between her toes and saving the one just above her right nipple for last.
“Memorize these,” she said. “If you ever have to identify me in the morgue, these are the markings you should look for.”
“That’s morbid,” he’d said, but he’d bent and kissed each one anyway, promising he’d never forget.
• • •
“Here.” Sia handed the prints to Richard.
He studied them. “This should help, as long as Toad’s feet looked like this before.”
“Can’t answer that.”
CHAPTER 96
Five months after Jackson’s disappearance, his mother asked for a memorial service.
Sia couldn’t say no to Jack’s mom. “You have my blessing,” she said, “but I can’t come.”
“Sia, you have to come,” Elizabeth Dane said. “You were his wife.”
“I am his wife, Elizabeth, and no, I don’t.”
Jackson’s mother looked tired and thin, and Sia could tell she had let go of hope.
“Sia, everyone agrees that there’s no way Jackson can still be alive. The chance is infinitesimal,” she said. “He would have come home by now.”
“What if he has amnesia?” Sia asked.
Amnesia wasn’t something Jackson’s mother could hope for. Not anymore.
“Will you please attend, Sia? Everyone needs you there. I need you there.”
“Everyone needs Jackson there.”
“But in his place, you.”
Sia was quiet. While she waited, Jackson’s mother tapped the fingernail of her left pinky on her knee. It didn’t make any noise.
“I’ll come, but I’m going to sit outside,” Sia said.
“Outside?”
“Yes, near a window so I can hear.”
It was more than Jackson’s mother had wished for. “We’ll get you a bench. And an umbrella if it rains.”
CHAPTER 97
At Richard’s request, Sia took Toad to Dr. Gupta for a checkup. “Just to make sure that cut is healing properly,” he said.
• • •
In addition to being trustworthy, Dr. Gupta was thorough. After asking Sia to step out of the room, she checked Toad from head to toe.
“Well?” Sia said when she returned.
Dr. Gupta looked bewildered. “The infection in the cut has cleared. It’s healing nicely. As are the minor cuts on his face, hands, and feet. He’ll have some scars but no lasting damage.”
“But . . .” Sia said. In all her years as Dr. Gupta’s patient, Sia had never seen her look bewildered.
“First,” Dr. Gupta began, “there’s a strange gathering of cartilage between a number of his toes and tiny bits of it in between most of his fingers.”
“I know.”
“Did the doctor note it when Toad was first examined?”
“Richard didn’t say anything about it, so I imagine not. But I think the doctor was focused on the cuts.”
“And has it been there since you found him?”
“Yes, but there’s more now. Like it’s growing or something.”
“And this?” Dr. Gupta turned Toad’s head to the right and pointed at the bright wound behind his left ear.
“Yes,” Sia said, “that’s been there since I found him, too. Is it infected?”
Dr. Gupta shook her head. “No, the hot red color indicates infection and there’s a small amount of pus, but it’s clean.” She paused. “I trust you’ve seen this as well?” She shifted Toad’s head in the other direction and pointed to a similar wound behind his right ear.
Sia leaned forward. “No, Dr. G, that one wasn’t there before. I don’t even think it was there yesterday.”
“Are you sure?”
Sia touched the skin behind Toad’s right ear and lifted the lobe. The wound was smaller, but open the same way as the other. A star-shaped pucker with a slit in it. “I’m very sure,” she said. “What are these things?”
Dr. Gupta sighed. “As you well know, Sia, I’m a pretty conventional person, in my medical practice and my life, but the only thing I can think is . . .”
“Ssshhh,” Sia jumped in. “If you’re about to say gills, don’t. Just say there is some reasonable explanation for all this.”
Dr. Gupta sat down next to Toad and put her hand on his. “Okay. Okay,” she said. “I am sure there is a reasonable explanation for all this.”
She didn’t look convinced.
CHAPTER 98
The next day’s headline?
GILLS!
•
• •
“It wasn’t me, Sia,” Dr. Gupta said into the phone. “You know that. I don’t talk to reporters and I am very serious about confidentiality.”
“Then who, Dr. G?”
“One of the secretaries, I imagine. She probably listened at the door. I apologize. I underestimated the effect Toad is having on folks . . . here and around the world.”
“This is terrible, Dr. G. Toad has enough attention on him.”
“I know. And if you need me in the future . . . if you want me to check Toad again . . . I’ll come to you.”
• • •
That night when Toad fell asleep in the chair by the window, Sia looked again at the wound behind his right ear. She was hoping she and Dr. Gupta had imagined it. But there it was . . . bigger even than the day before.
• • •
blue
green
red . . . red
blue
green
red . . . red . . . red
CHAPTER 99
True: “The Universe is made of stories, not of atoms.”*
False: All stories have happy endings.
CHAPTER 100
Three times Sia drove to the white warehouse to wait for the Dogcatcher. Three times the Dogcatcher didn’t show.
• • •
The fourth time, Sia parked at the mouth of the long, winding road, left her car behind, and kept close to the tree line as she made her way to the building. Then, staying low, she crouched behind the far back corner to wait. She didn’t want to be seen, even though as far as she knew, there was no one to see her. When she got bored, she circled the building, trying to get a peek at what was inside. At least that. But there were no windows, no cracks, and the heavy, steel door was locked.
Warm and sleepy, she lay down and dozed off. The grass was cool.
Then what could have been five minutes or five hours later, Sia heard, “You found me.”
She rolled onto her side, shielded her eyes, and saw the Dogcatcher leaning over her.
“I did?” Sia said. She couldn’t wake up enough to make sense of things. She felt drowsy and floppy. The kind of sleepy that makes it impossible to squeeze your hands into fists.
“Yes, finally. FINALLY.”
Sia sat up on her elbows and shook her head. “What do you mean? Finally?”
“I’ve been waiting for you to visit. Did you bring Gumper?” The Dogcatcher looked around.
Gumper? Sia was confused and hot. She needed water. Her tongue felt like a piece of burlap and the insides of her cheeks were woolly. “No, I didn’t bring Gumper.” She managed to sit up and crawl out of the sun into the shade of the building. “What is this place?”
The Dogcatcher turned to the building and looked at it as if it had just appeared out of nowhere. “This place?” She pointed to the building. It was so white Sia wondered if someone washed it every day.
“Yes, this building. Do you go in there?”
The Dogcatcher dodged her question. “I know you watch me.”
“You know?”
“Of course. I can see you there.” The Dogcatcher pointed to the sky.
“What do you mean, you can see me there?”
“Up there, floating, following.”
“You can see me when I’m up there?” Sia couldn’t believe it. She felt strange and as always, as if she were spinning in circles with the Dogcatcher.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I don’t know how. The same way I see everything. The same way I see lost things.”
“But no one can see me. Not Jilly or Gumper or Toad. My mother can’t even see me and she tries really hard.”
“I can. I’ve seen you ever since Gumper-Man left.”
Sia stopped short. “What do you know about my husband?”
The Dogcatcher walked away. She scratched at her head and the back of her thigh. She was heading toward the woods again.
“Hey, what’s in this building?” Sia called.
The Dogcatcher kept moving.
“Wait!” Sia called. She pulled herself onto her knees. “Are you going in there again today?” She pointed to the copse of trees.
The Dogcatcher turned. “Yes.”
“What’s in there?”
“More trees.” And then she was gone.
Sia rose, stumbled to the door of the building, and pushed. She punched it and yanked the handle. But the door didn’t budge. Finally, she gave up and leaned against it. The steel burned against her cheek.
• • •
“Margarita?” Jil said.
“Please.”
“Strong?”
“Yep.”
“You okay?”
“I don’t know.”
“Hungry?”
“Not really.”
“Tell me about it?”
“Later.”
The phone rang. Jilly picked it up. “Melissa Cho.” She held it out to Sia.
Sia shook her head.
“You’ve got to talk to her sometime. You offered her an exclusive.”
“Did I mean it?”
“Yes.”
“Next week,” Sia said.
“Come by in a few days,” Jilly said into the phone, then hung up.
• • •
Sia talked normally to Toad, as if he might respond:
“Toad, would you like tea or coffee?”
“Toad, the newspaper is here. Would you like to look at it?”
“Toad, this is a very funny movie. Have you seen it before?”
And when he slept, she studied him. The webbing between his fingers and toes that seemed to be thickening. And the puckered wound behind each ear.
CHAPTER 101
Dr. Dillard was stout, squat, and bald with no neck, short legs, and swollen, truncated arms.
“Bumbling boob,” Sia said, watching him roll out of the car, but he surprised her. He was quite agile, and moved steadily, gracefully even, skimming along the driveway, the sidewalk, and through her front door as if his feet were roller balls and he could simply glide in any direction he liked without a lick of effort.
“Weird,” Jilly said when Sia relayed all this later in the day. “It’s like he’s battery operated.”
He also smelled as smooth as he moved. Sia expected mothballs or cigarettes but instead picked up a balmy, tropical, mildly pleasing scent as he rolled past her. Even so, there was no way she was going to ascribe greatness to him, which was exactly what he wanted . . . and expected.
“He’s just too smooth, too round, too sure of himself,” she told Jilly. “I felt like if I took my eyes off him for a second, he would roll under the couch or into a crack in the floor and disappear like a marble . . . pulling Toad right along with him.”
• • •
The worst? He stopped to chat up the reporters on his way in. So much for privacy.
• • •
As Dr. Dillard eyeballed Toad, Sia fantasized about (1) shoving him out the door into a bank of sand and (2) jabbing him and his god-awful pomposity in the snout with a hot poker. Instead she forced herself to say, “Dr. Dillard, you remember Toad.”
And then forced herself not to follow through on one of her two fantasies as he said, “Ah, there you are, my friend,” and rolled to Toad’s side to set a hand on his shoulder. “The world’s greatest mystery.”
Yech. Sia hated him. His boldness. The assumed intimacy. The fat hand on Toad’s shoulder. The I-may-be-on-TV-at-any-moment-so-I’d-better-sound-profound-condescending-overly-dramatic tone of voice.
“Thank you, Mrs. Dane,” Dr. Dillard said. “But before I speak to the Silent Man, I’d like to talk to you. I have questions.”
As he yammered on, words began to rain down hard and fast around Sia
. As wither, spittle, swipe, and an tumbled down, she said, “I think I’ll need an umbrella for this.”
“Excuse me?” Dr. Dillard said. “It’s not raining.”
Sia didn’t answer right away—bump, zipper, if—as she considered how easy it would or wouldn’t be to put a bucket near her feet to catch all the stray words.
Dr. Dillard looked at Richard, who held up a finger.
“Odyssia?” Richard said.
“Sorry,” Sia said, ignoring clip and extremely as they drifted past, “but I’m off-limits, Dr. Dillard. Anything I know or think about Toad or where he came from, Richard can tell you.”
For the first time, Dr. Dillard sputtered, and Sia caught a glimpse of the dull hue beneath his glossy polish. “But . . .”
“I realize you were hoping you’d get two stories for the price of one—my husband and Toad—but that’s not going to happen.”
Richard stood and moved to Sia’s side.
“I’m not talking to you,” Sia continued, “about Jackson or Toad. I’ve let you into my home because Richard asked me to, and I’ve given you access to my houseguest for the same reason.”
“Houseguest?” Dr. Dillard said. “The Silent Man is not a houseguest.”
“Yes,” Sia mimicked his nasally tone, “the Silent Man is.”
Although Sia had pretty much abandoned hope that a psychologist could actually help a person in need, she had a certain amount of respect for the fact that they tried. Crawling to the edge of someone’s bubbling broth and leaping in . . . that was brave. Hopeless in many cases, but brave.
But Dr. Dillard? He was a different species of psychologist. A walking ego. An in-it-for-myself guy who wanted the glory of God. His mantra: You are healed! And though Sia dreaded leaving Toad in the rump-roast hands of this man who touted himself—on his own website—as a genius at unfolding the layers of the human psyche, she had no choice.
“I’m here,” Richard said as she packed up her laptop. “I won’t let anything happen to Toad while you’re gone. Nothing will change.”