“Maybe. I just wish I knew what he was doing here, ya know? After all this time, I mean, am I supposed to jump in his arms and call him Daddy?”
I shake my head. “Let Gramzy sort it all out. I mean, she’s not his mom. She’s not going to leave you high and dry.”
“I don’t want him here. I like things the way they are.”
I’m about to say, Nothing has to change, but stop myself. When a person waltzes into your life after twelve years, it has a way of complicating things. Like Elder walking into the Shaky and sweeping Lindy off her tired feet. Like a story unfolding in your dreams for the first time, making you question what’s real and what’s not. I want to tell him everything will be okay, but I don’t know that, so I grab on to what I do know.
“He’s here to see you,” I tell him. “For whatever reason. That’s a nice thing. That’s more than my parents, whoever they are, have ever done for me.”
Jeremiah doesn’t look up, fiddles with his fishhooks. “I guess, in some ways, it feels like, if he’s here, then she should be here.”
I know what he means without him having to explain. “Your mom.”
He nods. “I always knew he was out there. Somewhere, at least. But she’ll never be…anywhere.”
I swallow hard. For once, I think I’m lucky. There’s still a possibility my own mother could turn up here, just like Jeremiah’s dad.
He sighs. “What am I supposed to say to him?”
I shrug. “I dunno. Let him do the talking.” Then I think about what I would want, if a mom and dad showed up in our mismatched living room, stood up from the couch, held out their hands for a limp shake. “Ask him to tell you who you were.”
“When?” Jeremiah asks, confused.
“Then,” I say. “When you were brand-new.” His fishhooks quietly chime against one another, like he’s strumming a guitar. “I mean, technically, he’s the only one who knows.”
I walk my bike home, my bag like a big old hunch on my back. I guide the handlebars forward.
I try not to look back at them, but I can’t help it. Jeremiah fidgets on the porch swing. His dad folds his hands at the tall, wiry knees of his lap. They don’t look like they’re saying much. Maybe they’re just taking one another in, letting the empty space between them jam up and fill for the first time.
I hear the ocean do the same. It pushes out from where it rests at the horizon and rushes up to the shore. My insides jitter with the memory of all the salt water I’ve swallowed.
The ocean knows what I can’t.
Whatever I’m dreaming is important to who I am and why I’m here. And, like Ted wondered, now I know what I want these dreams to be. I want them to be about a mother and a father. I want the people turning up in them to be a part of me, the same way Jeremiah’s dad turned up here.
The tires of my bike spray sand, like pixie dust, as I cross over to our place, drop my bike to the grass, and climb up the tall porch stairs.
I step inside. Lindy’s sitting with our ocean puzzle, and as the door slams behind me, she stamps out a cigarette, real fast. She raises both arms like she’s surrendering, but I’m not in the mood for our game. I drop my backpack and slump on the couch next to her, twirling my fingers around a loose button on the cushion.
“What’s up?” She leans over the jigsaw, studying it. We’re working on a section of light hitting the water, all the dark colors bleeding into a silver gleam. Her hands run over the loose pieces, searching. I splay my legs out, lean my head back, and sigh.
“Jeremiah’s dad’s in town. He’s the man on the boardwalk.”
Lindy’s gaze shoots up. “That’s Jeremiah’s dad?”
I nod. “Mm-hmm.”
“I thought he looked familiar.”
“He looks just like Jeremiah.” I twist the button around and around the loose string. “Do you ever think about my mother and father?” I ask. “Like, if they were to come back?”
Lindy shoos the thought away. “Don’t worry about that.”
“But what would happen?” I ask.
“We’d deal with it.”
“I know I shouldn’t, but I think about them. About who they are.”
She doesn’t take her eyes away from the puzzle.
“I always think about how…the parts of me might be in them.”
“What do you mean?” she murmurs. I watch her fingers run over the pieces, the chipped polish on her nails, the big moonstone ring on her thumb.
“Like, maybe they love to swim. And collect things. Maybe they’re curious, like me.”
“You are pretty good at marveling at the world. You’re a thinker.” She goes back to the puzzle, flipping one small piece back and forth in her hand.
“I don’t know. I guess I can only imagine who they are based on who I am. It feels backwards.”
“Connections aren’t made in just one direction.” She moves the piece across the smooth table. Then she swallows, like she’s pushing a worry down her throat. I know she doesn’t like thinking about the past. Mine or hers. “What’s this about?”
“I don’t know. It’s just…” I hesitate. “There were years before you,” I say. “Two until you. Until the me I am now. Where did they go?”
She places the piece in the puzzle with a soft smack. “I don’t know.”
“Do you know somebody named Ti—” I’m about to ask when I see her fingers move toward something at her neck.
A necklace.
But it’s not the moon snail necklace I made to match mine. It’s all sparkly, with some kind of charm or pendant dangling from the end.
“What’s that?” I point.
“Elder gave it to me.”
“What’s hanging from it?” I ask.
“An anchor.”
“So, like…a deadweight?”
“No. Like where we met. At the Shaky. At the docks.”
I shrug and reach for my own moon snail necklace.
She holds out her wrist. “Don’t worry. I’m keeping mine here.” The rope is tied around the leather cuff on her wrist. The shell dangles off like a charm.
But she always said she wore the moon snail necklace close to her heart.
I breathe in the stale memory of her cigarettes. The gold anchor hangs at the little pocket between her neck and chest. It fits like a perfectly kept secret, one I can ask a million questions about but never really get at, no matter how hard I try. I shake my head back and forth, fast. If I could shake off Elder and the necklace and Lindy’s googly eyes, if I could shed it all like a stuffy winter coat, I would.
“Now, do I know somebody named who?” she asks.
I shake my head. “Never mind.” Whatever’s in me is mine to figure out.
I turn my attention to the countertop and gesture to the science-experiment bread on the counter. “Anything?”
“Nada.”
“Too bad.”
“I think it should be moist,” she tells me. “Isn’t that how mold grows?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
“It lives where it’s wet.”
“You could have told me that sooner.”
She laughs.
“So what do I do?”
I can see her trying to remember. “I think I put it in a little baggie. In the fridge. I feel like there was this whole comparing and contrasting thing going on. Between the dry countertop and the cold fridge.”
“Yeah. That’s a good idea.” I stand up and move toward the refrigerator and open it. I package a new slice of bread, placing it in the back of the fridge. It’s better than waiting for mold to grow where it can’t.
I’m thinking about the stale bread when I hear Lindy say, “They don’t disappear.”
“What doesn’t?”
“Those years. They’re a part o
f you.” She clutches her hand to her chest. “They’re somewhere, inside.”
I bring my hand up to feel for my own heart. Maybe I’m the wreck of a ship. The remains of a disaster at sea. Maybe I’m the stuff of fairy tales, a baby in a bundle left at the shore’s doorstep, abandoned, so two parents can live a better life without me. It’s hard to imagine it could be one or the other, so black-and-white.
There’s more to every story. There must be more to mine.
As I thwack the stale slice of bread against the counter, listening for the dull thud, seeing nothing fuzzy or funked or even close to being mold, I know I’ll have to find a way to get closer to the truth of these stories. There’s a link, I’m certain, between what’s there when I close my eyes to dream at night and what’s real.
It lives where it’s wet.
“I’ll be right back,” I tell Lindy before I grab an empty glass jar and slip open the screen door. The afternoon sun slashes in a wiry glint across the porch. I wind around toward the back, take the steps over the dune, and rush to the ocean.
I see the waves slide up the shore and back. Over and over. It’s a tease. A game. But each time the ocean retreats, it leaves a little something behind.
It’s like those scientists uncovering secret after secret of the Titanic. Clue after clue. I wonder what kind of clue I might be. After all, I was washed up here, too. Then I wonder what secrets the ocean’s still holding on to.
The glass is cool in my hands, and I twist off the top.
Swallowing it is capturing it. And if I can steal it, I can know it. My own way of tracking the wreckage of my past. I crouch to my knees, cup my hands around the glass, and wait for the tide to crawl in. Then I bring the glass low, letting the water bubble up and over my sandals and into the jar. It swells and sloshes over my feet, filling up the glass, and then the water slips away, snatching at the earth like a runaway crab.
All these years, I’ve been collecting the shells. The remains. What the ocean brought up to shore and left behind.
But now, I’ve trapped the source. A watery mix of sand and seaweed, yellowed and salty, swirling in its own murky glow. I bring the jar to my lips and take a sip.
Adventure Park was slow in the rain. The swing carousel sat still. The seats of the Ferris wheel looked like a rainbow of buckets, rocking at the very top.
But the arcade was packed. Tink waited her turn at the Skee-Ball machines, listening as the ball clamored up the ramp, then sank into the holes with a song of beeps. It was almost impossible to hear with the other games going off and kids shouting at the Half Court Hoops, but Tink was in tune, Queen of Skee-Ball, at least that’s what Len and Kimmy called her. She sank the hundred slots like it was nothing, and prize tickets would spool out of the machine. She was careful to fold them into a neat, rectangular stack that she stuffed in her pocket to buy the rainbow bracelets from the prize stand.
She glanced at Alexis, who stood behind the glass case at the stand, looking lonely and bored. Tink was next in line, and the Skee-Ball machine at the farthest end was almost free. One curly-haired kid had only two balls left.
But she looked back at Alexis, who was steadily rocking her elbows at the counter. She looked like she was willing to talk to anybody. So Tink decided to leave her place.
She squeezed through the crowds, keeping her eye out for Len and Kimmy at the Whac-A-Mole, and made her way to the prize stand, just as Alexis swooped up, waving.
Tink waved back, inching closer, until she realized Alexis’s gaze was somewhere behind Tink. Wasn’t it always these days?
She turned around. Coop. Of course.
“Hey.” Alexis half smiled at her, then her smile widened as Coop came forward. He clutched the sleeves of his hoodie with his fingers, stretching them over his palms as if he was cold. She brightened. “Hey! Come on back.”
He was obedient, slipped himself inside the little door that Alexis shuffled open, but she didn’t let Tink in. Tink stayed outside the stand, trying to figure out why she bothered to even make her way over.
Alexis turned her back to Tink, stuck her chest out toward Coop, and dipped her head to one side, like she was in flirt mode. “So, a bunch of us are going to Tawny’s after I get off. You in?”
“Sure. So, what’s going on here?” he asked, and Tink watched as he ran his fingers up and down Alexis’s arm, tracing it, over and over again. She felt somewhat sick.
“The usual. Bunch of nerd kids trying to get enough prizes to win junk like this.” She took her other arm and ran it dizzyingly across the prize wall.
Tink could feel the wad of tickets stuck in the back pocket of her shorts and felt dopey. While Coop was running his fingers up and down her sister’s arm, she was worried about collecting a bunch of cheap, plastic bracelets to send up her own.
She swung around from the counter and looked for Kimmy and Len in the chaos. They were no longer at the Whac-A-Mole. She shouldn’t have strayed so far from the Skee-Ball machines. They probably had no idea where she was.
Alexis giggled behind her, and when Tink turned around, Coop’s lips were at her ear just as Alexis pulled away. She caught Tink’s eye, and her smile turned shy, not quite sorry, just sort of weirdly proud and ashamed at the same time.
“I’ll see you later,” Tink told Alexis, trying to leave the awkward moment as soon as possible.
“Tell Mom I’ll be at Tawny’s tonight,” she called out.
Tink could barely murmur a “Sure thing” before rushing her gaze across the entire room, looking for Len and Kimmy, anywhere. She reached into her back pocket and clutched the tickets in her hand. It was enough to get a few more bracelets, but she’d probably look dumb, anyway. What had Kimmy said it looked like? Like she had a Slinky toy strapped to her arm?
She let the tickets fall to the floor. Some lucky kid would swoop them up and get a bunch of junk from her sister, who was currently being nibbled and picked over like she was on the menu at a buffet feast.
She walked to the exit and out into the rain. She let the rain prickle her bare shoulders. It felt warm and comforting, in this weird way, like the rain was a cloak she could slip on and become invisible beneath.
The park was small. Just the mini-golf course, a Ferris wheel, and the swings. She walked to the wheel and fingered the bracelets on her arm. How many more did she need to make it to her elbow? She whipped her head back and forth, a reminder of no, no, what did it matter? Cheap junk, like Alexis had said.
She looked back to the arcade entrance. Coop stood beneath the awning and smacked the bottom of a pack of cigarettes against his thigh. When he lit one, he gazed out, and she thought she saw him nod at her.
She shook her head of rain and wandered toward the awning.
Coop took a long drag of his cigarette, closed his eyes, and let out the smoke. She thought of Len, fumbling with cigarettes at the marsh. What would it matter if she tried, too?
“Can I have a cigarette?” she asked.
He reached into his tight jeans and offered the pack. She swallowed hard, pulled out the long white cigarette from the crumpled box. She slipped it between her fingers, pretending like she knew exactly what she was doing.
“Need a light?” Coop asked.
She nodded.
He flicked the lighter, that click-click-click sound, and tried to light her cigarette, but she wasn’t sure what to do. So he traded cigarettes with her. “Like this.” He puffed her cigarette at the same time as the click-click-click. Then he offered it back.
She brought the cigarette to her lips, trying not to feel weird that his lips had touched it, too. She guessed that’s how it worked. She breathed in the smoke, let it fill her lungs, warm and sweet and terrible. She wondered how Alexis kissed his smoky lips. She wondered if taking a cigarette from his smoky lips was like kissing them. She wondered why she was doing this at all. As if her lungs
couldn’t answer the question either, she felt a surge of saliva and smoke, but she couldn’t cough, not in front of Coop, so she tried to swallow and instead let out a giant hacking bellow from her throat.
But Coop didn’t seem to care or even notice. He flicked the ashes from his own cigarette to the ground.
“How’s your canoe?” she asked.
He shrugged. “You’re right. It needed a turtle.”
“I thought so.” She smiled.
“I can’t wait for summer to be over. Every year, I think something is going to change. That it’s going to be the summer of a lifetime, ya know?”
Tink nodded and coughed again, trying to catch her breath. She knew exactly. “It’s never the summer of a lifetime,” she managed to croak out.
“The promise of summer is way too much.”
He sounded like a poet. She knew Alexis kept a notebook of poems she wrote. Alexis didn’t write all bubbly with hearts over the i’s, the way she used to. She wrote in black pen and her handwriting was awful, and when Tink found it underneath her bed, she pored through soggy, sad poems about tears and rain and blackened hearts. Maybe this is what Alexis liked about Coop. Maybe they were their own kind of sad poem, together.
Tink brought the cigarette to her side.
“The fall. That’s when things kind of find their place, ya know?” Coop asked, like he didn’t care to hear the answer. “But just as it’s lining up all nice, that’s it. The year ends. And you think, ‘Where did it go?’ ”
Tink whispered, repeated his words. “Where did it go?”
“Right?” he asked.
She was pretty sure she agreed. She was pretty sure that the passage of time was probably worthless, every day exactly the same, and they would leave Barnes Bluff and go back to school, and she’d be rid of Kimmy, sure, but there’d just be every other girl, whispering and tittering over something she didn’t understand, being ten steps behind when it came to noticing the cute kid, and it was all really old when it was supposed to be new, wasn’t it?
“Right,” she agreed.
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