I hear a shudder. I feel it vibrate through me as Cherry bends down to kiss Keith’s cheek. I hold Cherry tight with my arm and with my other hand brush Keith’s hair off his forehead like he used to do to me.
“Your fucking hair’s in your eyes, Per.” That is what he used to say. “You look goofy. You look goofy, Per.”
“You don’t look goofy, Keith,” I say. “You don’t.” And my voice cracks.
I have never heard a sound like the one that Cherry is making. It is like her soul flying out. I shut my eyes tight because they are wet again.
It is harder than Gramp. Harder than Gram. Harder than anything. When I open my eyes, Cherry is being sick on the floor. She cannot stand and Gary helps me carry her back to the car.
We go to Everett General Hospital emergency room. The same place I got my arm fixed after I got beat up.
“Can we do something for her?” Gary asks the clerk at the counter.
“Please? Can’t you do anything? Give her something?” he asks the doctor.
They give Cherry a shot and a bottle of sadness pills.
I did not know you could get pills for sadness. It was something I did not know.
When we get back to the apartment, we lay Cherry down on the bed. Gary takes off her shoes, and covers her with Gram’s blanket. I stand and watch her lying there. My heart is breaking. I feel it breaking like Yo’s windshield. My heart has disappeared. It is gone. I want it back, but it has left with Keith.
“Stay with her, okay? I’ll get Sandy.” Gary hugs me and goes downstairs. I hear the engine of his Jeep rumble as he drives away. I am alone with Cherry.
Gary or Sandy would know what to do. What to say. I do not know what to do or say.
I drop to my knees next to the bed. There are black streaks of mascara over Cherry’s cheeks. Her eyes are open but her breathing is deep and slow.
I hold her head in my hands. I pat it like Keith did, over and over. Her eyes turn to me. They ask a question with no words. They ask a question that I am unable to answer.
I can only say, “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, Cherry,” I cry.
But her eyes just stare into space. They just stare.
I’m sorry,
I hear Gram say.
“We’re all so sorry,” the fishermen say.
“So sorry,” our suppliers say.
“We’re so very, very sorry,” everyone says.
54
D
iamond Girl
’s engine starts on the first try. BROOM! BROOM!
I feel it shaking under my feet. I watched Keith take her out so often I knew I could do it myself.
I can do it myself, I think. I have no trouble casting off the lines. Gary’s family stands by helplessly and I tell them what to do. Where to sit. Cherry is beside me.
I hear Keith’s voice.
I could do it blindfolded.
I could do it with my head up my ass.
I could do it with one arm behind my back and jerk off at the same time.
Keith was crude and rude, Gram always said. She would laugh.
“That boy is crude and rude!” She loved Keith and I loved Keith too.
Six people on
Diamond Girl
are as much as she can handle. Gary brought three brand-new life jackets still wrapped in plastic from the store so we would have enough. The Coast Guard says you need one PFD, personal flotation device, for each person. My head says this over and over. PFD. PFD. PFD. In time with the engine as it throbs.
We head out towards Whidbey Island. The sky is so blue it looks fake. It looks like it is painted on. Like a picture. Like Cherry’s eye-shadow. There is one big cloud shaped like a flower. I like that. A flower for Keith. Puget Sound is green and shiny.
Diamond Girl
cuts through the water.
THROB. THROB. THROB. Her engine goes.
Meagan and Kelly are quiet. They sit close to each other. Meagan ’s eyes run with tears. She liked Keith a lot, even though he called her a twerp. The one I worry about is Kelly. She has a mask face like Halloween and her eyes are dry. She is younger than I was when Gramp died.
I think I know how she feels.
I think I know what she must be thinking.
She and Keith argued. He teased her all the time. I know she feels guilty. I can see it in her eyes. I felt guilty for years about Gramp. I thought I killed him by going out for a sail. Kelly probably feels the same way. She and Keith fought just last week.
“Are those
boobs
I see, Tween?” he asked.
Sandy made the mistake of telling Keith that Kelly got her first bra.
“Drop dead, you fart-face! Drop dead!” Kelly shrieked.
He just laughed at her. We all did.
Drop dead.
Drop dead, Keith.
I know her words cannot be unsaid. They float behind her eyes. I know this. I hold her hand while I work the tiller.
“I didn’t mean it,” she whispers to me. “I swear I never meant it.”
“I know,” I tell her. “We all know. It’s okay. It will be okay.”
I am doing Keith’s job. It is up to me.
Steering. That is what he used to do. When I think of this, my tears come and I cannot see clearly. I let go of Kelly’s hand and Cherry puts her arms around me. I give the tiller to Gary, and he guides Keith’s boat.
We go out into the strait, and head into the current, until we feel it is the right place. The perfect place. A place Keith would want to be.
Spread my ashes out in the Sound,
he told me.
I want to travel the world for free.
I said that I would.
“I promise,” I told him.
And I keep my promise.
When we toss Keith’s ashes out into the water, the seagulls swoop and flap overhead. They think we are giving them food, but it is only Keith.
We have to laugh because Keith would have roared and yelled, “Fuck you! Fuck you, birds!”
He never liked seagulls. Not one bit.
“Fuck you, birds!” We all call out.
It is the first time I have ever said that word.
I will not say it ever again.
Keith’s ashes fall with a clump onto the water like little pieces of gravel. Some of his dust flies back into my eyes and makes me tear up. Cherry cannot look at all and hides her face until we tell her he is all gone. He is gone.
A seal pops up next to
Diamond Girl
. He swims around and around and follows us all the way back to the slip. I think it is Keith telling us he is okay. I think this is true. This is
echt
. The seal hangs around
Diamond Girl
for hours. We feed it fish that we steal from Marty’s bait pail and sit on
Diamond Girl
until it is dark and talk. We do not want to leave. It is like the last time we are with Keith.
Cherry asks Gary about the first time he met Keith. The first time he saw him.
“He just walked up from the docks into the store. Said he just sailed in from Portland. His rigging was in pieces. His jenny tattered. Said he was on his way to Canada. That he needed a job for a few weeks. It seems now like I knew him forever,” and Gary chokes up.
Gary’s family leaves together and we watch them from
Diamond Girl
’s cockpit as they drive away. When they are gone, Cherry gives me a sadness pill and tells me about her dad. I swallow it dry and it sticks in my throat. It tastes like that finger stuff Gram used to paint on me when I bit my nails.
Cherry leans against me. Her head is on my chest. I stroke her hair with my fingers.
“I just turned eighteen. He can’t touch me now,” she says. “Nobody can.”
“You look a lot older. I thought you were twenty.” I wish I knew she had a birthday. I would have given her a present.
“Thank you, Per,” she says, and looks pleased even though she is still crying.
We both take another pill, and wait for our sadness to go away.
It is hard to tell how old people are. For example, Gary seems older than he really is and Keith always seemed younger. He will never get older now. He will stay the same age as he was. I think about this as I hold Cherry.
“My dad is such an asshole.” She talks about her family and about Keith.
“He beat him up for me. Keith beat the crap out of him for me,” she says, and starts to cry harder. Her tears drip down my arm. “We were gonna be married. He wanted to marry me. I loved him, Perry. I really did,” she sobs.
We do not want to leave the cockpit. We do not want to stop talking about Keith.
“I will never stop loving him,” she tells me. She says that she wants to die.
“He was the best thing that ever happened to me and he loved me back. He loved me back. I know he did,” she cries.
“
You
were the best,” I tell her. “
You
were the best thing that ever happened to him. That is the truth. It is
echt,
” I say. It is
true,
I think, and hold her close.
We take another pill each.
Sadness pills.
It is such a crock.
A gyp.
They do not work.
And we cry.
55
After we run out of the sadness pills, I wake up at the same time each night. The clock flashes two-zero-one. My heart hurts when I breathe and my eyes are wet. Whenever I wake up, I remember Keith is dead. He is gone like our pills.
I cannot think and my pillow is wet. I need to use Kleenex. I see a shadow in the room. Cherry is standing by the window staring. I get up and grab her hands. They are like ice. Her face is dry. Her breath comes in sharp pants like a dog. Like a running dog. I lead her back to bed. She lies on her back, but her eyes are open. When I know she will stay put, I go back to Gram’s couch, wrap Gram’s afghan around myself, and shiver like I have a fever.
When the alarm goes off in the morning, Cherry is still in bed.
She is not dressed and her privates are showing.
“Get up, Cherry. You need to get up,” I tell her. I cannot look at her body. Her eyes are wide. They do not blink.
“We’ve got to go to work. You have to get up.” I look in the dresser drawer and find a pair of her clean panties. They are blue and have stars on them.
“Get up, Cherry. Please?” I ask, and cover her privates with her panties.
She does not move.
I thought we were getting better. I thought our sadness was leaving us. On Wednesday, we even cleaned the apartment together. Cherry scrubbed the kitchen and I scoured the bathroom shower. After we finished, I started the washing machine while Cherry went into the bedroom to gather up all our dirty clothes.
She did not come back.
I found her sitting on the floor with Keith’s stained jeans held to her breast.
“We have to keep these, Perry. Don’t wash these, okay?” I could hardly understand her words she was sobbing so hard. I heard her gulping.
She spent the rest of the day in bed covered with Keith’s dirty clothes. His socks. His underwear. She would not let me wash them. Instead, she took a flannel shirt, covered her face, and breathed deeply through it. She looked like a ghost except she had clothes on her face.
She sleeps later and later each morning.
Today she is not even talking.
When I walk back into the bedroom, she still has no clothes on. I pull her up and slide her panties up one leg. Her thighs flop and I have a hard time lifting her bottom. Her boobs are rolling around. I cannot find a bra so I pull a sweatshirt over her head. I grab her pink sweatpants out of the middle drawer.
She is like a big stuffed doll from the Evergreen State Fair. Like one of those you can win by throwing a ball into a hole. I always tried, but I never did win one. Gram would ask me what I would do with a doll that big anyway.
Now I know. It would be really hard to dress.
“Come on, Cherry. You are hard to dress.” She makes no sound.
She wakes up a little when I push her upright. I pull her to make her stand and lead her over to the kitchen table. She stumbles once and I catch her. I have to press her shoulders down to make her sit.
She has not eaten in two days.
I fix oatmeal, set a bowl in front of her, and give her a spoon.
“Come on, Cherry, you have to eat,” I tell her, “or you will get sick.”
She lifts the spoon and slides the cereal into her mouth. I am glad because I did not want to feed her. That would be spooky. As if she were a big baby.
By the time we get downstairs to the store, we are an hour late. Charles, the newest guy, is at the register, so I decide to have Cherry help me unpack boxes.
Boxes are good. You do not have to think to unpack them. First you slice them with the cutter, second you pry open the cardboard, and third you lift the stuff out. Popcorn filler drops to the floor. I get a broom and sweep it up. I do not think. It feels good not to think.
Gary brings Sandy and the girls in to help.
We need a lot of help at the store without Keith.
I have to set the alarm extra early each morning so there is time to help Cherry get dressed. I cannot sleep because I need to be ready to put her back to bed when she gets up in the middle of the night to stare at
Diamond Girl
through the window. I am so tired, and so sad, there is an ocean of hurt in my heart.
My eyes open. It is late.
There is a voice. Keith’s voice.
Take care of her, Per. Take care . . .
I hear Gram.
Careful . . .
I see the moon shining over the floor.
Cherry is not at the window, but I hear a noise.
It is coming from the kitchen.
Drawers open. One. Two. I hear them slide.
I get up. It might be a burglar. The bedroom door is open and I look inside. Cherry’s bed is empty. I walk into the kitchen.