by Megan Hart
“I have some good memories.” He shrugged. “Who said home’s the place where you go and they have to take you in?”
“Robert Frost?”
He laughed. “I guess that’s why Sandusky is still home. I came back and someone took me in.”
Someone had, but not his family.
The attendant waved us into the front car, where we sat knee against knee and buckled ourselves in tight. The Magnum might not be the fastest or the tallest anymore, and it might not have any loops, but it’s an impressive coaster just the same. Two hundred and five feet high with a one hundred-and-ninety-five-foot drop, it’s the most thrilling two minutes you’ll ever spend.
The ride to the top of the first hill takes forever, but once there, the view of the park is amazing. The breeze ruffled Alex’s hair, and the sun was bright enough to make me squint; I’d taken off my sunglasses in preparation for the plunge. We looked at each other, and when I saw the grin on his face I felt one on my own.
“Hands up,” he said.
We raised our hands.
Poised at the top of a roller coaster, I always have time to think, “why am I doing this?” I love them, the twists and drops, the stomach-sinking feeling and adrenaline rush. But at the top, with the world spread out below me, I always pause to wonder why I’m subjecting myself to the fear.
We seemed to hang over the edge for a long time before finally beginning the downward swoop. I was already bracing myself, already opening my mouth to scream.
Alex grabbed my hand.
We fell.
We flew.
I screamed, but with laughter and without breath. It was like being shot into space, twisting, turning and dropping. Soaring. And in two minutes it was all over, and the train pulled into the station with its passengers shaking and windblown. My teeth felt dry. Alex let go of my hand.
On vaguely trembling legs I got out of the car and followed him down the steps to the exit. He held open the small gate for me at the end and turned to walk backward, facing me, his face alight.
“The Magnum is the perfect fucking coaster,” he said. “They can make ’em taller, but they don’t make ’em sweeter.”
“James doesn’t like roller coasters.” It was true, but it suddenly sounded disloyal, and I wasn’t quite sure why. “He says he overdosed on them as a kid.”
“Nah. He never liked them.” Alex shook his head and made a circle in the air with a finger. “He’ll ride the Puke-a-Tron or the Barf-o-Rama twenty times in a row, but he won’t ride a coaster.”
“He’s got equilibrium.” James could go on those spinning rides without getting sick. “He’s good at turning in place.”
“But not so good at going up and down.” Alex’s hands swooped, following the curve of a coaster. “How about you, Anne?”
“I like both, I guess.” We were following another winding path, past food stands and games whose vendors implored us to take a chance on winning a stuffed toy. The scents of popcorn and fries tickled my nose, and my stomach rumbled.
He slanted me a look. “But you like coasters better.”
I gave him an equally sideways glance. “Sometimes.”
He laughed. “Me, too.”
Ahead of us was the sign for Paddlewheel Excursions, a ride the park designated Tranquil and which was in essence a staged boat ride through quirky, animated scenes and narrated by the boat’s “captains.” The last time I’d ridden it, the operators wore uniforms designed to look like old riverboat captains, complete with maroon vests and ruffled armbands. Now they wore regular park uniforms. I was disappointed.
“Wow. Paddlewheel Excursions. I haven’t been on this ride in forever.” I paused at the entrance.
“So, c’mon. Let’s go.”
“We don’t have to. There are plenty of other rides to go on.”
“So?” Alex held out a hand. “We have time.”
The ride was as hokey and charming as I remembered. The jokes were silly but made us laugh, anyway, and the ride itself was serene. We sat in the back, thigh to thigh on the narrow bench. The water in the canal was a murky green.
“I always thought they ran on a track,” I murmured as the captain of our boat revved the engine to avoid a sandbar.
“When I worked here, one of the guys almost sank one.”
“Did he?” I turned to look at Alex. “How could you do that?”
“Hit the dock hard enough, I guess you can put a hole in anything.” Alex nodded toward the dock where two other captains awaited to tie the boat in place so we could disembark.
I looked at Alex closely. “Was it you?”
For a moment he looked stunned, then started to laugh. “No. I cleaned toilets.”
My surprise must have shown on my face. “I always thought—”
America’s not a place comfortable with a class system. We’re all equal, even when we aren’t. Nobody would ever have admitted aloud that the restroom attendants tended to be not as…socially presentable…as the people they hired to operate the rides and serve the food.
“See what a bad attitude will get you?” He shrugged.
We got off the boat. I thanked the young captain, who still looked embarrassed about his close call with the sandbar. I heard his friends ribbing him as we left.
“So. You cleaned toilets. For how long?”
“Two seasons. Then I moved into full-time maintenance.”
“You worked here a long time,” I said.
“Until I was twenty-one. I met a guy at a club who was hiring people in his factory overseas. He put me into transportation and distribution. Two years later I had my own business.”
“And now,” I teased, “you’re a bazillionaire.”
“From cleaning crappers to self-made man,” Alex said, not boasting but not downplaying his success, either. “From shit to shine.”
I needed a drink and stopped to buy two large fresh-squeezed lemonades. The drink was tart and cold and puckered my mouth. It was delicious. It was liquid summer.
James had told me the big fight with Alex was during his senior year of college, when they were both twenty-one. I’d always assumed alcohol was somehow involved. Booze has made and broken many relationships.
“And you’ve never been back until now?” I asked.
Alex shook the ice in his cup before sipping. “No.”
He’d left the country when he was twenty-one upon the invitation of a guy he met at a club and after a fight with his best friend so catastrophic neither of them would discuss the cause. Or maybe I was extrapolating and the fight had been of such minor consequence, the rest of it coincidence, that neither felt the need to comment.
I poised on the edge of asking for details but then backed off. Asking him to elaborate would mean I’d have to admit I didn’t know, and what sort of wife wouldn’t know something like that about her husband? I didn’t know Alex Kennedy well enough not to care what he thought about my marriage.
“Well, we’re glad to have you now.” It was the right sort of thing to say, I thought, but he only gave me another of his slow glances and a smirk.
“I said I’d treat you to lunch at a fancy place,” he said. “But I’m starving for a good burger and some nachos.”
That sounded better to me than something hoity-toity, anyway. Even in the casual resort atmosphere, I felt under-dressed for a place nicer than a burger stand. We grabbed food and found a table, where we ate and talked.
He was better at listening than he was at sharing, with a knack for drawing answers out of me I’d have withheld from someone else. He was both subtle and forthright, asking questions that might have sounded rude from someone who wasn’t at the same time so disarming. It’s easy to be interesting for someone who’s interested, and I found myself waxing poetic on subjects I hadn’t touched in a long time.
“I just wanted to help people,” I said, when he asked me why I hadn’t gone back to work after the funding for the shelter failed. “I don’t want to work at Kroger, bagging groc
eries. Or in a factory, putting lids on jars. And besides, if we have kids…”
He was leaning back in his chair, but his body weight shifted when I said that. “Do you want kids?”
“James and I have been talking about it.”
“That’s not what I asked you.”
The breeze had picked up and gotten colder. I looked at the sky. It had grown darker while we talked. The rumble of the roller coasters masked faraway thunder.
“It’s going to storm.”
“Yeah. It might.” He looked back at me. I must’ve looked disturbed. “You want to go.”
He didn’t ask. He just knew. I thought about shrugging it off, protesting I was fine, but I didn’t.
“Yes,” I said. “I don’t like being on the water in a storm.”
We made our way back to the marina. The water had turned choppy and gray. The sky wasn’t black, not yet, but the clouds were no longer fluffy white sheep.
Alex moved fast without rushing. Steady. He unrigged, we pushed off and he pointed us toward home. I gripped the Skeeter’s sides. I didn’t have a life vest on. I wouldn’t let go long enough to grab one.
The wind fought us, and though we made progress toward home, it was slow and rough. Spray whipped our faces every so often. I tipped my face to the sky, no longer needing my sunglasses to protect my eyes from the glare. Was the rain coming? The lightning and thunder?
I saw the blue-white flash of it from far away and heard the hint of a rumble. My stomach lurched. We were halfway between the Point and home.
I could swim. If the boat sank, I could swim. I knew I could. But people drowned all the time in sudden squalls because they weren’t prepared, because they’d taken chances, because they’d been stupid. Even people who could swim. Even those who’d won medals for it. And still, I couldn’t make my fingers let go of the boat’s sides long enough to grab up the faded orange life vest.
Alex muttered a curse when the wind came up and tried to steal the sail. He yelled for me to grab a rope, pull a knot, something I didn’t understand. I didn’t know how to sail. I’d never learned.
The boat rocked and jumped on sudden waves. One took us higher than expected, and when we dropped into the valley it left behind my stomach heaved into my throat. Up. Down. A roller coaster without exhilaration. Without the safety of brakes and seatbelts.
The rain coming across the water looked like lace curtains or the scrolling of the numbers and symbols on the black screen in the opening frames of The Matrix. It looked like the tornado from The Wizard of Oz, its curving dinosaur neck bringing doom.
The Skeeter was small, and it rocked when Alex shifted his weight to bend next to me. I drew in a breath, not screaming but heart pounding so fast and hard it hurt. My fingers gripped tighter, my knuckles white.
“Don’t worry!” He had to shout over the sound of the wind. “We’re almost home!”
The storm reared up in full force when we were just a few feet from the shore. Alex jumped out to tie the Skeeter up onto the small wooden dock James’s grandparents had built. The sail snapped and fluttered. I caught a face full of wet fabric and gasped at how cold it was.
Once we were safely on shore, my fingers unkinked. I helped him tie everything down and secure the Skeeter. The waves were storm-sized but still did no more than tickle the beach; this wasn’t the ocean, after all.
The rain came down in fat, stinging splatters. Drops struck the top of my head, my arms, got in my eyes and ears. We ran into the house and skidded on the tile floor. Alex slammed the door and the sound of the storm outside muted at once. I heard heavy breathing and realized it was me.
“You’re shivering.” He grabbed up a dishtowel from the counter and handed it to me.
I held it for a moment, the fabric inadequate to do more than wipe my face. I did that.
“My father,” I said, and stopped. My teeth chattered like dice in a cup.
Alex dripped, waiting for me to speak. Lightning from outside reflected in the puddle at his feet. I tried again.
“My father,” I said, “took me out on a boat. We were supposed to be fishing. It started to get dark.”
He ran a hand through his wet hair, smoothing it back from his forehead. Water ran down his face, off his nose and chin. His eyes caught the green light from the microwave.
“The storm came up fast. We weren’t too far out. But I didn’t know how to sail. And…he was…”
He was drinking, as he almost always was when he wasn’t at work. He’d filled his cup again and again from the jug of “iced tea” in the red-and-white cooler between his feet. The sun made him thirsty, he said. I was ten and had tasted what was in his cup. I didn’t see how it could quench his thirst.
Alex’s shoes squeaked on the tile as he came closer. His hand on my shoulder felt heavier than it should have, an undeserved weight. He meant it to be caring, but his understanding was too intimate to be borne. I didn’t want to be beholden to him for his compassion.
I shook off the memory. “We didn’t drown, obviously.”
“But you were scared. You’re still scared, remembering it.”
“I was ten. I didn’t know any better. My dad wouldn’t have done anything to hurt me.”
Gentle but firm, Alex squeezed the tension in my shoulder. He found the trigger point. My body wanted to melt into that simple touch, to give up the coils of anxiety woven into my muscles. I didn’t move, and we stayed like that, linked by the touch of his fingertips.
The flash of lightning and almost instantaneous crash of thunder made me jump. I slipped a little, but Alex was there with a hand under my elbow and a firm forearm for me to grab. I didn’t fall.
The power went out with a bleat from the microwave and came back on a moment later with a similar, electronic cry. Another rumble followed another flash, and the power stayed out. Night hadn’t fallen but the afternoon had gone dark enough to cast the kitchen into shadow.
Darkness reveals as much as it hides, sometimes. We were touching, hand to shoulder, hand to arm, hand to elbow. We dripped. We breathed. My teeth had stopped chattering, because of the heat.
“He was drunk,” I said.
Alex’s fingers squeezed again. I never said that aloud. We all knew, my sisters and my mother and I, but we never said it aloud. I never even said it to James, the man to whom I’d bound my life.
“He couldn’t get us back in. The water came over the sides and up to my knees, and I thought we were going to die. I was ten,” I said again, like it was important.
Alex said nothing, but we moved closer to each other anyway. The hem of his jeans caressed the skin of my foot revealed by my flip-flop. His shirt dripped onto my bare arm, and the water was cold.
“Families suck,” Alex said.
The power came back on. We moved apart. By the time James came home, I’d made dinner and we ate while they laughed together and I put a smile on and pretended it was real.
My mother was dithering. I didn’t know whether to scream or take pity on her and simply remove the choices that had sent her into such a frenzy. The air in the attic was so hot it was like breathing steam.
“Mom, just pick out a couple and let’s get downstairs. Or better yet, bring the boxes downstairs and we’ll look at them there.”
“Oh, no, no,” my mother said, her hands fluttering like birds over the carefully labeled boxes of photographs. “I’ll just be a minute. There are so many nice ones….”
I bit my tongue against a sharp retort and craned my neck to see the pictures she’d lifted. There were a lot of nice ones. Nobody could ever say my parents weren’t photogenic, not even in the butt-ugly 1970s prairie-style wedding gown and brown tuxedo with the yellow ruffled shirt.
“How about this one?” She held up a portrait-size photo of the two of them. She had Farrah Fawcett wings in her hair and he had mutton-chop sideburns. They looked happy.
“Perfect.”
“I don’t know.” She dithered some more, going back and forth from
one to the next, the only difference between the two was the width of their smiles. “This one is nice, too….”
The heat sapped my patience; so had the lack of sleep the night before. I’d dreamed again of the weight of stones in my pockets and water closing over my head. “Mom. Just pick one!”
She looked up. “You pick, Anne. You’re so good at that sort of thing.”
I reached for the one closer to me. “This one.” I put it in the pile of others she’d chosen for the collage Patricia wanted to put together.
“Oh, but that one—”
I gathered them up and tucked them into the manila envelope for safekeeping. “I have to get out of here before I pass out. I’ll take these.”
Without waiting for her answer, I ducked through the low-hanging eaves and down the set of pull-down stairs. Compared to the stifling heat of the attic, the second floor felt like the arctic. My vision blurred for a moment and I swallowed hard against a swirl of nausea. I could blame it on the attic, but I almost always felt a twinge of stomach upset whenever I stood in the place I was now.
The stairs from the first floor came out in the middle of the second level. We had no upper hallway, just a square cordoned off by banister railing surrounding the stairs. The three bedrooms and the bathroom all opened off this square. As they’d always been, the doors were cracked open to keep the breeze flowing.
Mary, at home for the summer while she waited to return to law school in Pennsylvania, had taken over the room that had been mine and Patricia’s. Claire had the room she’d shared with Mary all to herself. They still shared the single bathroom, but with only two instead of four, the fighting for the shower probably never reached the epic proportions it had when we all lived at home.
The door to my parents’ bedroom was closed, the only one to ever remain that way. Closed to keep in the cooler air from the shadowed side of the house, and the air from their window air conditioner. Closed to keep us out, as children, when our dad had “a headache” and needed to “rest.” A closed door that shut us out but didn’t keep us from hearing the shouting.
