What the Waves Know (25 page)

Beside the food tent, I saw Lindsey standing at arm's length from the man she'd been with the day we were setting up. He held a beer in one hand while she chatted with another girl.

When I had finished a half-hour shift with Remy, I dug fifty cents out of my pocket and nodded toward the A&W stand, boasting soda fountain drinks and root beer floats.

“Go on.” She pulled fifty cents from her cash box. “Here, bring me a root beer.” Then rethinking it, she dropped the quarters back into her box and grabbed a dollar bill, waving it in the air at Riley, who was pulling a vinyl flap in the back of the tent down over the post. “You go with her.”

Riley blew air through a small hole in his lips with so much
umph
I could hear it beside the counter. Coming around the tent, he plucked the bill from between Remy's fingers. “Anything else?”

Remy tilted her head at him in an exaggerated challenge. “Please tell me that you are not sassing me.”

“No, ma'am.” Riley shook his head.

Officer Dillon passed us carrying a stack of boxes toward the wrong side of the tent. I trotted over and tugged his sleeve, pointing to the opposite counter where Remy had, in no uncertain terms, instructed us to pile them if we wished to live.

“Thanks,” he muttered. “I sure don't want to get it from the boss!”

“I hope you're here to buy a pie.” Riley and I watched Remy slap the lid of her cash box closed, eyeing Officer Dillon.

“Only if we can eat it together later.”

“Don't you ever give up?” Remy shook her head, restacking the boxes once he'd set them down.

“Never, ever,” he said and began helping her.

“Look, Dillon, it's nothing to do with you. I just don't go out, that's all.”

“It's been a long time, Remy. Don't you think it's time you started again?” His voice had softened.

“Let's get out of here before she barks at us to do something else.” Riley led the way across the square to the orange and brown A&W tent and leaned against the
counter. Plucking three straws free from a box he waved the dollar bill at a woman stacking soda bottles.

You want to go to the A&W?
my father's voice whistled back to me. We'd gone a hundred times, the two of us. To celebrate everything and to celebrate nothing at all. But that day, the one we'd spent at Potter's Creek, that was the last time he'd asked before he was swallowed by the night and disappeared forever. I could hear him asking, could trace the hope in his voice. He'd been trying to turn the ugliness from the day around, trying to apologize for the stupid dead salmon. What had Mr. Matteson said? Something about the world falling apart. But my father didn't care; he just wanted to make our tiny little universe right again. And I'd said no. I'd refused to let him.

Something inside me cracked. I felt it through my whole body. I don't know what it was, other than fragile and sharp and broken. I'd said no. For a moment I couldn't breathe. I tried to swallow, but my throat knotted up.
Why did I say no? Why the hell had I said no?
I wanted a do-over. I wanted to get in a time machine and zip back to that day. I wanted to take his hand and go to the A&W.

A universe away, I felt a tap on my arm. When I looked over the A&W counter a pretty blond woman with Dolly Parton makeup was waiting for me to do something and I could feel Riley's eyes on me.

“You want a regular root beer?” he nudged.

I nodded.

“We need three regulars.” He reached around me,
laying the money on the counter, then sputtered, “I'm not gonna be the one who goes back without my aunt's drink. Maybe the sugar will sweeten her up.”

The woman in Dolly Parton makeup slid three sodas onto the counter. She was wearing a white-and-red-striped apron that made her look like a piece of stick candy and I wanted to tell her it was all wrong. She needed black tuxedo pants with an orange stripe down the seam. But I didn't, and she swept the change into her hand, dropping it with a jingle into her pocket with a quick, “Thanks, darlin'.”

Riley took one of the bottles from my hand, twisted the cap free, and handed it back. “You see the offering pile yet?”

I shook my head.

“You want to?”

I nodded.

When I stopped by Remy's booth to hand her the root beer, Officer Dillon was behind the counter wearing an apron and slicing pies.

“We're going over to the offering pile,” Riley said.

Remy nodded, turning her attention back to Officer Dillon. “Where in the name of Jesus did you ever learn to cut a pie that way? Press, don't carve. It's not a Thanksgiving turkey.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

When I glanced back, I noticed Remy had her hand over Officer Dillon's, guiding the way he sliced her pies,
but she was studying us as we walked away, her eyes all backlit with curiosity.

The offering pile was set up beside the statue of Yemaya, and people had left everything from fish bones and shells to potted herbs. I plucked a glass marble from the pile and let it roll back into the fish bones. Several lit candles glowed around the pile, with small bits of paper tucked beneath them.

Riley untied the shell choker from around his neck and dropped it on the pile. “What you offer depends on what you need,” he said, leaving me to contemplate a half-eaten burger on the edge of the pile. “Some people leave prayers for people who are sick, other people ask for a good fishing season. The offering pile used to be for families of sailors. They used to leave gifts asking Yemaya to bring them back home safely.” I let my eyes drag across the rooftops where widow's walks still adorned the tops of homes, then dropped them back to the pile, feeling empty inside.

“You want to see the art tent?”

I nodded and turned to follow him along a hedge of beach roses that ran the entire length of the square. The bushes were exploding with fall blooms, the precise color of ripened watermelon, and sending their faint perfume into the evening air. I plucked one free just below the blossom so as not to prick myself and twirled it between my fingers.

We'd only made it a couple of steps in the direction
of the art tent when I heard someone stumble behind the roses and then break through the hedge, swearing. I recognized the man as the one Lindsey had been with earlier. He had obviously finished his first beer and cracked open another. His skin was tan and wrinkled, with deep webbed creases that gave his forehead the appearance of crab apple bark. The closer he stepped, the fouler he smelled, filling the air with stale sweat, cheap cologne, cheap beer, and cheap cigars. The truth was, he was having trouble stepping at all, tripping around like the teenage boys who hid under the docks of Tuckertown and fumbled back into the day in a cloud of sweet dopey smoke.

Lindsey scurried up behind him, grabbing his arm to steady him. “Come on, Daddy. Let's go home.” Her voice was a whisper.

“I'm fine,” he mumbled, getting his legs back under him.

“No, you're not. Come on.” Lindsey's face was red, but not so red a person couldn't tell she'd been down this road before. She pulled his arm again, sending him stumbling off balance and kicking over the offering pile.

“I ss-said I'mmmm finne.” He stood upright once more, shaking her arm off and giving her a shove that sat her right down on the half-eaten burger. “Leggo a' me!”

When he saw her on the ground, Lindsey's father stepped toward her, raising his hand like he intended to slap her.

Before I knew what I was doing, I moved in front of
her to block him, planting my feet firmly in the space between us. All the feelings of the day my father had sent me sailing through the air and crashing into the closet like a broken doll rushed in, building a wall to protect her, and I wondered if that was how my mother had felt. Lindsey's dad put a hand on my waist, trying to move me aside, but I pushed his hand away and backed closer to Lindsey, so he would be forced to go through me to reach her. The man lurched forward, knocking my shoulder in the process, before teetering in place as he tried to regain his balance.

“Stay the fuck away from her, Mr. Stuart.” Riley stepped up beside me, shoving the man back. In his state a steady wind would have been enough to topple him. He went reeling backward, bouncing off the statue of Yemaya, and landed sideways on the ground.

I looked at the man and then at Lindsey, who was fighting back tears. She hadn't moved an inch to stop her father from striking her, and what she'd said as she chucked rocks at the seagull that day came back to me:
Damn bird's too stupid to fly away.
But she was wrong. It wasn't stupid; it was wishing. It never worked, but we all did it anyway. Wishing the craziness to stop. Wishing the world as we dream it into existence.

Without thinking, I helped her to her feet and swiped the remnants of a hamburger bun from her back before knotting my sweater around her waist to hide the stain on her jeans.

“What the . . . ,” the man sputtered, rolling onto his hands and knees and struggling back to his feet. “Get your fucking hands off my daughter.”

A crowd had started to form around us, with all eyes on Riley and Mr. Stuart.

I stepped back as Riley shoved him again, sending him tipping back right into Officer Dillon, who'd run up with the sheriff at his side.

“Okay, Bob. Time to go sleep it off.” Officer Dillon took hold of the man with more gentleness than he deserved.

“That's my daughter. I can take care of her my own damned self.” The sheriff had ahold of Lindsey's dad, but I remained in front of her, just in case.

“That's right,” the sheriff agreed, patting him on the back while Officer Dillon led him away. “Just as soon as you've slept it off. Don't you worry, I'll keep watch over her till you're feeling better.”

“You better. You better . . . ,” he said, stumbling alongside Officer Dillon, who half-guided, half dropped him into the backseat of his cruiser.

“I will. Don't worry.”

Ten feet away Lindsey stood motionless, as if she was trying to figure out what to do. Carly pushed her way through the crowd.

“You okay?” Riley asked.

“Fine,” Lindsey said, turning away.

“Come on, Lins.” Carly took her by the elbow and Lindsey looked grateful for it.

“Jesus, Mary, and fucking Joseph! What the hell happened here?” Remy trotted over and took hold of Riley protectively.

Mr. O'Malley followed, bringing my mother and Grandma Jo along with him.

“Bob Stuart.”

“He half in the bag again?”

“So far in you could roll the top down and still not hit his head,” Riley said.

“Are you all right?” my mother asked.

I nodded, thinking about Lindsey and remembering what Grandma Jo had said to my mother on the day she arrived:
Sometimes it is just in a thing's nature to burst into flames
. In the end, there is nothing anyone else can do about it but watch it burn.

Later that night I went out to walk Luke. He had not left my side since nearly drowning in the pipe, so I left his leash on the porch and let the night wrap around me.

Remy's lights were on, twinkling in the distance. I walked toward them slowly, kicking shells from my path as I went and sending Luke limping after them in his bandaged paw and oregano leaves. My mother had actually picked him up and snuggled him when he'd come up to her after the festival. “He smells like a jar of Ragu,” she'd said, sniffing at his paw and setting him down. “Great, now I want pasta.”

The memory sent a grin fluttering across my face. It was good that she was eating again, like an affirmation that she'd decided she wanted to live—even without my dad.

A silver sliver of moon no bigger than a bent pine needle floated over the horizon.

The soft crunch of shells followed me down the lane
to the bend by Mr. O'Malley's driveway, the closest point between the lane and the cliffs. I stopped for a second to study the black crags of Witch's Peak, listening to the
swish
of waves below. A quarter mile out, Morehead lighthouse pulsed soft halos over the water. The smell of fall roses tinged the air. I did not even feel my feet turn off the lane or step quietly into a small clearing in the meadow beside Mr. O'Malley's yard to take it all in. Remy said the deer had a habit of crushing a circle around Mr. O'Malley's salt licks. Fairy circles, my father would have said.

Out on the break wall, waves swished up one side and broke into a thousand pearls on the other. I remembered what Chief Tankin had said about Yemaya
.
I thought of Riley, his father, Mr. O'Malley, Remy, my mother, and Grandma Jo
—She will gather her children back together beside the sea
—and how and why we'd come to this place and time.

On . . . off . . . on . . .

The flashing from the Morehead lighthouse reminded me of my own memories, how I could catch the corners and angles of something but never saw the picture altogether. We had been here the night my father left, right here the night I had told him to go. But what had come next?

Sitting down, I studied the lighthouse and kicked my heels to the weeds. Now that I was listening, the world had stopped speaking to me.
Four cleansing breaths
. I could hear my grandmother's voice roll in from the day
on the beach. Blink . . . one. Blink . . . two. For a long, long time, all I heard were waves crashing below and the high-pitched
peep, peep
of singing frogs. We called them pinkletinks in Tuckertown. They were no bigger than a silver dollar, but as soon as they started chirping, you knew winter was finally over. Occasionally a cricket sang in the thrush then fell quiet again.

Off . . . on . . . off . . .

With the black sea below and the darkening sky above, the lighthouse seemed to dangle as a thread of light between two worlds, just like the fish in Potter's Creek. I had blamed my mother for my father leaving. I'd blamed God. But most of all, I'd blamed myself. Sitting there now, looking out over the ocean, I knew I had been wrong about the whole thing all along.

Before everything went wrong and I'd told him to go, I had been in my room with the anger at my parents' fighting filling me up like a bubble. It was the darkest night of my life, so it was funny that I remembered it punched through with bursts of light. Slivers of light zipping across the meadow. A kazillion stars.
Someday, I'm going to catch you a star
. . . . Six pink candles bursting to life. Pinpricks of red darting toward the waves, disappearing over the cliff—disappearing over the cliff.

Off . . .

My insides sprung like a rubber band pulled past its breaking point. My forehead turned clammy, my body cold. I felt my breathing slow until I was dizzy and had
to lie back on the cool ground, trying to force air into my chest. But my lungs would not let go of the air they had. A thousand bees swarmed into my brain, buzzing the world quiet. The smell of fall roses stuck in my nose.

Offshore, the bulb of the lighthouse flickered on top of a pillar of white like a birthday candle. I clenched my teeth, refusing to turn away from the memory this time. Fighting to hold my ground like I'd done with Lindsey's dad. Keys. There were keys. Car keys. The spit of shells. Taillights going down the lane. Taillights shrinking into tiny specks the size of a lit cigarette. A thud. Taillights disappearing over the black rocks. The screech of metal scraping over stone that seemed to go on forever before stopping with a sickening crunch.

Vomit was rising in my throat. I stumbled to my feet.
Let go, Be! Goddamn it, let go!

Thump.
The door shutting.
Thump, thump, thump
. My backpack bouncing down the stairs after him.

Somewhere far, far away I heard the heavy thud of a door closing, and it was not until I saw a huge lumbering frame walking across the lawn clutching a square of white that I realized it was not pounding out of my thoughts. The memory was flooding over me, and I thought I would drown inside it like a great wave when Mr. O'Malley stopped halfway across his yard to set the brick of salt in place for his deer. For a moment, I wondered if he had seen me sitting there. Then he teetered, bobbed, and fell into the weeds with a grunt. Another grunt, then a hor
rible gasping cough. Like the ones Remy fretted over all the time.

Luke hobbled to his feet with a yap and, forgetting all about his injured leg, bolted for the spot where Mr. O'Malley had crumpled. Halfway there, he stopped and ran back to me, yipping wildly and biting at my hand until I'd shaken the memory clean and fought my way to the surface. Stumbling to my feet, I ran after Luke.

Mr. O'Malley was lying there holding his left arm, and for a minute I thought maybe he'd hurt it in the fall. Then I saw his face: it was white as the salt lick that had fallen on its corner beside him. He squinted up at me. “Gert?” That was it. Then his head rolled unnaturally to one side, his eyes staring off into the weeds as blank as the dead seagull's beside Merchant's Hardware.

Wait, Mr. O'Malley, wait. I am getting help
. The promise hung silently in the air, and all of a sudden, I knew—Mr. O'Malley was dying. He was dying and didn't even know I was there.

“W-wait.” I did not know whether Mr. O'Malley was already dead, but I knew he was dying. “Wait, Mr. O'Malley! I'm getting help!”

The cottage was dark now. It was a good thing Remy was not a believer in locking doors, because I barreled right through hers without checking, although with the energy surging through me, I would have gone through it just the same. An old umbrella stand toppled to the floor, and Remy blasted into the room carrying a baseball bat,
her long johns twisted up around her and red curls shooting out in every which way.

“What the . . . Jeeez-usss, Izabella! What in blazes? Are you gonna come storming through my door like this every damnable night just to see if I'll go completely fucking insane?” Remy hollered.

“M-M-M-Mr. O'Malley,” I gasped. The words labored from my throat all forced and crinkled, but they were as determined as I had been to get to the other side of Remy's front door and were coming through one way or the other.

Remy froze up solid. To hear my voice garbling out Mr. O'Malley's name like a lunatic put her right into a state of hysteria.

“What? What about Mr. O'Malley?” I don't even think she realized that she'd grabbed me by both arms and was shaking me dizzy. “Izabella, what?!”

“He's in th-th-the yard. He needs h-h-h-help.” My lungs were overblown balloons threatening to pop right there on the living room floor. But they had lasted long enough. Just as she'd done when Riley had disappeared over the rocks, Remy grabbed her two-way handset and bolted outside with Luke yapping, leading the way, and me at her heels.

The radio squelched alive in her hand as she ran.

“Jim! Jim! Son of a bitch! Fuck! Pick up the goddamn radio! Get me a fucking ambulance
now
!” she screamed, choking down panic.

Erch.
The radio burped. “Remy! What the hell is going on?”

“Just get a fucking ambulance. Dad's,” she howled.

“Oh, shit,” said the voice in the beat-up black handset.

“Now!”

“They're on the way, baby. Sit tight. It's going to be okay. We're coming. It's okay. I'll meet you there.”

I closed my eyes and felt my chest tighten, then explode. My mother's voice spun toward me. I could feel her holding me back, refusing to let go.
It's going to be okay, okay, okay. It's okay, Iz. He's just going home. We'll catch the ferry in the morning and meet him.

But it wasn't okay. It would never be okay again.

I ran after Remy and caught up as she landed on top of Mr. O'Malley with two hands on his chest. She didn't even stop to see if he was breathing. I guess you just know, when you love someone that much.

“One, two, three . . . ,” I heard her whisper as she pushed blood through his heart. Every time she hit ten, she lurched forward to puff into his mouth. “Goddamn it, Dad! Don't you dare! I am not doing this, not again. Don't you dare leave me!”

Behind us, the faint sound of sirens made their way closer and red lights cut through the night, flickering on and off like fireflies. Shell bits spat into the air as the first police cruiser skidded off the lane, spinning into a half doughnut in the field. Officer Dillon jumped out of the driver's seat before it had completely stopped moving. Three steps and he was on his knees beside Mr.
O'Malley, taking over the pumping while Remy focused on the puffing.

“Come on, Tom.”
Pump.
“The ambulance is on its way.”
Pump.
“Don't you let go. Come on!”

A minute later the sheriff pulled in, leading the way for an ambulance. Three men bounded from it, followed by Riley and his dad galloping toward Remy.

“Dad?” The sheriff knelt beside Mr. O'Malley, feeling for a pulse in his neck. “We're all right here. It's going to be okay.”

Remy continued breathing for her father while the medics strapped him onto a gurney and loaded him into the ambulance.

They had just gotten him in when my mother ran panting into the yard. Grandma Jo galloped up behind her, pulling a sweater over her naked breasts and fighting with the knit of the fabric, which had tangled around her. My mother looked at Mr. O'Malley, covering a small whimper with one hand. One medic ran to the ambulance's driver's seat while another tried to pull Remy, who was turning blue breathing for two people, off Mr. O'Malley.

“Get your fucking hands off me!” she panted. “He's my father and I know how he likes to breathe!”

The medic looked thoroughly baffled but decided to take over the chest pumping instead of risking life and limb fighting Remy.

“His finger m-m-moved,” I yelled. The world stopped, only for a second, but it most definitely stopped. Remy
stopped puffing, the medic stopped pumping, the driver stopped turning his key, Riley and his dad stopped heading for the patrol car. Everyone stared at Mr. O'Malley's fingers wiggling, except my mother and Grandma Jo, who were staring straight at me.

They were still staring when the ambulance sped away, leaving us alone in the yard. The night had grown black as Yemaya's skin, but not so black that I could not see tears streaming down my mother's face. It took a minute for me to realize they were coming down mine, too—for Mr. O'Malley, for my father, for the voice I barely recognized.

The memories that had begun to wriggle loose in the field before Mr. O'Malley collapsed came back to me then, as complete pictures connecting one to the next with breathtaking speed. To let them in meant inviting the pain to come, too—and it did. But for the first time in eight years, I knew it could not destroy me. It wasn't in my nature to burst into flames. I cried as they came; I cried aloud until the tears would no longer come.

Grandma Jo slid her arms around me, guiding me to the ground. My mother sat on the other side, running her fingers through my hair like my dad once had. We sat staring into the darkness for forever that night, hip to hip, watching the lighthouse. I had always thought that my mother had my grandmother's nose. That I had my mother's hair. In this very moment, though, it was not the stubborn chain of DNA that glued us together, but the
frailty of love for the same man—the persistent ache left by his leaving.

After all my mother's years of digging to free my voice, she now seemed content to sit in silence listening to the waves wash in beneath us.
Shhh,
they whispered.
Yemaya
, I thought, and I imagined her sweet voice lifting from the shells, her thin hand reaching from the waves, cupped and waiting.
Let go.

Grandma Jo put a hand on my knee, giving it a squeeze.

My mother stared at the waves, biting her top lip. After a minute, she pulled a cigarette from her sweater and lit it. When the match finally took, I could see her lashes were wet and clumped together in the corners. I wondered whether she was crying over the sound of my voice or the lack of my father's. Maybe it was both.

“I wasn't fast enough,” I whispered.

“Nobody was fast enough, Izabella. You were only six.” I could not remember my mother ever calling me by my full name.

The tears renewed, and I didn't know where to start hurting first. There were taillights heading for the cliff. And then they were gone. A crash. The weight of my voice on top of it had kept the memories buried for eight years; now they heaved free, shaking my chest until it ached.

The secret tucked away for so very long burned in my throat. My mother turned to look at me and I could tell she saw him there—the spark in my eyes, the way I wore his freckles across my nose. “I told him to go.”

There was silence. A long silence.

“I told him I hated him.” I felt my throat buckle and forced it open. I could not carry the secret any longer. “It never would have happened if it weren't for me. He told me. He wanted to fly.”