My entire body blazes like I’m being roasted over a fire.
“I thought my kid might start torturing animals,” Cougar says, chuckling. “Thankfully, she’s terrified of them. Scared of a lot of things—the ocean, harmless bugs, sharks, riding a bike, even the dark. Hell, I’ve seen her jump at her own shadow. Hard to believe she’s my kid sometimes.”
Cougar kisses me on the forehead. I can’t feel it.
“Danielle, I wouldn’t want it any other way,” he says. “Your heart is in the right place. That’s all that matters.”
Danielle.
“You’re such a prick,” Jupiter says.
Cougar’s eyes widen, like he’s shocked. “What?”
“You heard me. You’d tear the wings off an angel if it meant you could fly.” Jupiter moves away from the fire, lying down with his back to the group.
“Good idea,” Cougar says. “We’re all tired. Tomorrow will be a better day. Promise, buddy.”
I can’t peel my eyes off the ground. “I’m going to build up this fire first.”
“That’s my girl.” Cougar lies down beside Cass. “Wake me up if there are any venomous critters to kill.”
He’s snoring within ten minutes. Cass falls asleep next, then Jupiter. Gus is still awake. He gets up and sits down beside me.
“You all right?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I push a stray branch into the fire.
“That sociopath thing?”
“He was just kidding around.”
“It wasn’t funny.”
No. It wasn’t. “He doesn’t understand.”
Gus puts a stick on the fire. “Want to explain?”
I hesitate but there’s nothing much to lose. I’ve already been labeled. “When I was a little kid, Cougar told me that everything has a life force, the land, trees, animals.”
“My dad said something similar. It was the reason he didn’t hunt, rarely ate meat.”
I glance sideways. Firelight licks Gus’s face. He looks earnest in the orange glow. “After...after I lost my eye, I got this idea that once an animal was dead I could breathe in its essence and maybe, if I did it right, I’d get the eye it wasn’t using anymore.” I shake my head. “It’s so dumb, but I wanted to be whole.”
“You are whole.”
That’s a nice sentiment from a perfect guy. “The breathing in thing became a habit, like a tic. I realized I couldn’t have my eye back, but maybe, if I breathed in a deer, I could be fast. A cat would make me graceful. A bird might give me the ability to fly. A squirrel would help me climb a tree without a panic attack. Anyway, I grew out of it.” I stare into the fire. “At least I thought I did.” Gus tips his head, waiting. “Sean. He was a surfer...super coordinated. That’s something I could use.”
Gus nods. “You weren’t lying about turning seventeen?”
“It’s not Cougar’s fault. My mom made it impossible for him to be around.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Don’t.” I’ve heard it all before.
He puts a few more sticks on the blaze. “Hey, I have a skill that’ll surprise you.”
“What’s that?”
“I know how to braid hair.” Gus scoots behind me. “May I?”
I nod. He undoes the elastic holding my hair, combs it through with his fingers, carefully unsnarling the strands. His fingertips massage my scalp, then gently tug. The simple act of kindness brings on tears. He separates my locks, then starts braiding them. When he’s done, he wraps his arms around me from behind and I lean back, letting him hold me. Salty rivulets run down my cheeks. I don’t bother wiping them away. If Gus notices, he doesn’t say anything.
DAY THREE
25
“Are you awake?” Cass whispers. “The fire has gone out.”
I’m awake, chewing on my twig toothbrush, so I roll over. In the early-morning gloom her face looks haggard. “How are you feeling?”
A tear dribbles across the bridge of her nose. “Worse.”
“Your head?”
“That, and everything is fuzzy, like I’m drunk.”
My chest squeezes. “You have a concussion.”
“I know. It’s getting really hard to do my job.”
“Don’t worry about your job.”
“Easy for you to say. If I mess it up, I’ll lose everything.”
“Does he know you’re still in love with him?”
Cass blinks twice. “We both have to think about his image.”
“Maybe you should tell him how you really feel.”
“How’s that going for you?”
“Well, I—” Cass’s eyes suddenly roll back until only the whites are visible. Her body stiffens like it’s possessed. “Dad!” I slide over and cradle her head in my lap, her body jerking, head thumping against my thighs.
Scrambling to Cass’s side, Cougar says, “Get something to put in her mouth so she doesn’t swallow her tongue.”
“No. She might bite her tongue but she won’t swallow it,” I say. “Putting something in her mouth could cause asphyxiation if she vomits.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Jupiter asks, crouching by Cass’s feet.
“It’s a seizure,” I say.
Gus asks, “How do you know?”
“I saw a few when I was a kid hanging in the ER waiting for my mom to finish work.”
Gus asks, “Do we hold her down?”
I shake my head. “It should be over soon.” The sharp tang of urine fills the air as Cass loses control of her bladder. The spasms slowly ease, then stop. “Cass, can you hear me? Cass?” I rub her sternum like I’ve seen the doctors do. She doesn’t react to the pain.
“What the hell,” Jupiter says. “Why’d she have a seizure?”
I ease Cass’s head to the ground. “Sometimes they happen after a traumatic brain injury.”
“We should’ve stayed in one place, not pushed her,” Jupiter says.
Cougar snaps, “Based on what? A fifteen-year-old kid who’s parroting what her mom says? Christ, my ex isn’t even a doctor.”
Instead of shrinking away, I glare at him for a moment but bite back the retort that Sam knows more than he does about this and I do, too. And at least she can keep track of her daughter’s birthdays.
Jupiter throws up his hands. “So what the hell do you suggest we do now?”
Cougar scrubs a hand over his face. “Here are the options. One, we stay where we are, hope that Cass wakes up.”
“If we do that, can a rescue team find us?” Gus asks.
“Maybe. But the search area has to be enormous. We’re three days into this and haven’t even heard a plane. That tells me they’re looking in the wrong place. It could be a week before a search team even starts looking in our vicinity.”
“Does Cass have that much time?” Gus asks me.
Cougar waves a dismissive hand. “She has no idea. Option two, we leave Cass, mark the trail along the way, find help and bring rescuers back.”
“What if we can’t find her again?” Jupiter asks Cougar.
Cougar puts a hand on Jupiter’s shoulder. “If we stay, she’s going to die.”
Jupiter steps back. “She won’t last a day here alone. There are jaguars, snakes. Hell, even birds will feed on her. And the bugs, they’ll eat her alive! Do you even have a freaking heart?”
Cougar kicks a rock, sending it flying into the forest. “It’s not about heart. I’m trying to keep us alive.”
“By sacrificing Cass?” Jupiter shouts.
“She has a brain injury. Do you see any neurosurgeons around?”
Jupiter shakes his head and says, “That’s cold, even for you.”
Spots of color explode on Cougar’s cheeks. “You think I don’t care? I’ve known Cass for years. She’s a damn good assistant and s
omeday she hopes to be a director. She has the intelligence to make that happen. She’s sacrificed a lot for this show. We’re in talks with several major film studios for a documentary and possibly an action movie. They’ll trample each other to sign a deal just to get this footage. It’s everything we’ve worked for. But I’ve got your life, Gus’s and my own daughter’s riding on the decisions I make out here. So a little support would be appreciated.”
Jupiter shakes his head like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. We’re both probably wondering the same thing. How can Cougar even consider leaving behind a woman he once dated? I ask, “Any other options?”
Cougar glowers. “We set a deadline, a day or two, hope Cass wakes up and is strong enough to continue.”
Jupiter says, “We do that.”
My dad looks at me. He wants me to side with him. He expects it. “We wait,” I say. Gus nods.
“Okay then,” Cougar says. “I’ll go find us some food. Gus, Jupiter, we need firewood.”
“What do you want me to do?” I ask.
“Stay with your patient,” Cougar snaps.
His words sting but I let them fall away and move closer to Cass, fan her with a leaf to keep away the insects. I think about what Jupiter said about the angel’s wings. Cass would’ve located the angel, torn the wings off, hidden the crime, then filmed Cougar while people cheered his incredible ability to fly. That’s how devoted she is to my dad and his show.
There’s no room for you. He doesn’t even have space in his life for perfect people.
Does that mean Cougar would leave me, too?
I’m not sure.
26
I spend most of the day waiting for Cass to wake while Jupiter and Gus collect armfuls of sticks and add them to the fire that Cougar built despite the rain, a braided palm roof on forked sticks protecting the flame. When the rain goes from a drizzle to a heavy downpour, we all crouch beneath the shelter, cold, disheartened, worried. I’ve never seen rain come down this hard. It’s impossible to see more than a few feet away and the dirt instantly turns to soup, popping as droplets strike like tiny mallets.
Cougar hunts for hours but returns at dusk, soaked through, with only a small black-and-white-striped lizard. He cooks it over the flame, then divides it between us. Two bites of meat aren’t nearly enough to quell my hunger. I drink a bottle of water to fill my empty belly. Cass hasn’t moved. Jupiter helps me tuck the second poncho around her body. We slide her closer to the fire so she stays warm.
“Confessionals,” Cougar says, pulling out Cass’s camera.
Jupiter shakes his head. “Not in the mood.”
“Come on, what else do you have going on? Think of the kids,” Cougar says with a nod at Gus and me. “It’ll help pass the time and you can impart some wisdom.”
Jupiter grimaces but then nods. Cougar has that effect on people. He’s a planet with its own magnetic pull.
“What do you want to know?” Jupiter asks.
Cougar says, “What was the best day of your life?”
“Best day? Lots of ’em.” Jupiter weaves his fingers together. “The most recent one was with my mom. She had a double mastectomy. Went through chemo and radiation. Never complained, not even after the surgery or when she was puking her guts out. A month ago, I went with her to a doctor’s appointment. We got the news she’s cancer-free. Walking out of that building, it was like I was floating a foot off the ground.”
“Were you always close?” Gus asks.
“Dad left after I was born. Mom raised me alone. She didn’t remarry until I was grown. She was tough as nails, pushed me hard in school, refused to let me be mediocre at anything, insisted on college.” He twists a dreadlock between long fingers. “Took me too long to realize her sacrifices, but she waited and I came around. So yeah, we’re really close now. Mom and my little sister are probably worried sick.”
Cougar turns to Gus. “Best moment? Make sure it’s PG. My kid isn’t sixteen yet.”
Gus looks over, waiting for me to correct Cougar. “Go on,” I say. “Best day?”
Gus stares into the fire, his face lit by the dancing flames. “Any night my dad and I took in the stars. He knew every constellation. In the summer, we’d go out to the dock near our house, lie down on the worn wood and he’d tell me stories about Orion, Cassiopeia, the Herdsman and Sagittarius. My favorite was Cygnus, the swan. In mythology he was really the Greek god Zeus. He’d changed himself into a swan to win a beautiful woman’s love.”
“Sounds like your dad was a cool guy,” Jupiter says.
Gus smiles. “Yeah. He was a commercial pilot, but I think he wanted to be an astronaut, see the stars up close.”
“Why didn’t he go for it?” Cougar asks.
“My guess? He wanted to be a dad more than fly to distant planets.”
Cougar nods. “No judgment. It’s a tough path—lots of sacrifice. Not everyone is cut out to follow his dreams.”
I stare at the dirt. He doesn’t get it. I blush, but for once it’s not for me.
Cougar says, “I thought you were going to say the night you won best actor at the SAG Awards. VeeVee Kellerman was your date, right?”
When I look up, Gus meets my gaze. “Yeah, I guess that was pretty cool.”
“Best moment,” Cougar asks me.
I hesitate. Not because I don’t have one. I do. It’s just that I’m not sure how my dad will react.
“Come on, buddy. I really want to know.”
I take the leap. “Every day that I’m here. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s a chance to get to know you better.”
“If a plane crash and getting lost in the rain forest tops your list, your mom needs to up her game,” Cougar says.
No one laughs. A trickle of sweat runs down my back. My plan was to have this conversation in private, definitely not on film, but there hasn’t been a chance. I’m not sure what’s going to happen, when we’ll be rescued, if I’ll even make it. I need to do this now and hope Cougar will edit it out. No matter what my mom did to me, to us, I don’t want to publicly shame her. “You probably think I didn’t want you around, or that maybe I blamed you? For what happened?”
“You should’ve stayed at camp,” Cougar says.
I was seven. “I know. And after that, things got really messed up.” I swallow, my throat so dry it clicks. “What I’m trying to say is that I did want you around. I wrote you letters.”
“Never got them,” he says, still filming.
This is the moment where everything between us changes forever. “Mom didn’t send them.” I wait for his reaction.
“What’d they say, the letters?”
“That I missed you, that I wanted you to come back and make me brave again, that I never blamed you for what happened. They were also about the book you sent—The Phantom Tollbooth. I thought we could meet in the Lands Beyond. Have adventures, like before—”
Cougar grimaces. “I never realized just how much your mom hated me.”
“Um. I don’t think Mom meant—”
Cougar snaps, “Don’t defend her.”
“I’m not! Mom resented you, yes, but she also read me the book you sent every night, for months and months.”
“Enough with the book. I never sent a fucking book.”
The earth has tilted and I can’t find my balance. My mind slows...sticks...repeats. I never sent a fucking book—I never sent a fucking book—I never sent a fucking book. “But it was wrapped. There was a card from you. Mom said it was your favorite book as a kid.”
“I think we’ve established that your mother is a liar.”
Do you know the definition of a narcissist?
I wait for my dad to say he understands that he didn’t just lose those letters; he lost me. I lost him, too. Now we both know. Now we move on, together. But he doesn’t say a word. I never sent a f
ucking book. I’m an asteroid hurtling toward earth. Nothing can stop impact.
“After what happened, you moved out.”
Cougar snorts. “Samantha made it clear she didn’t want me around.”
“What about me?” I ask. “After it... After, I was terrified of what was happening to me. By the time my brain had adjusted, I’d changed and you were gone.”
“Your mom was better suited to handle things. And we were fighting. That kind of energy wasn’t good for you.”
I leave my body, float above the fire, watch this conversation between father and daughter from a safe distance. “I thought you stopped visiting because you didn’t love me anymore, because I was scared of everything, defective, inferior, an embarrassment. Before, I’d been a tomboy, your buddy.”
Cougar lowers the camera. “Danny, things change. Let’s leave it at that.”
He brushes a red-and-black segmented insect off his leg. It lands on my knee, long antennae twitching. I flinch, then force myself to flick it away. The connection that has been obvious all along happens in a single breath. You still terrified of bugs?
That’s what my dad asked when he called to invite me on the trip. If my heart is a house, every door slams. The windows shatter. But even though the damage is done, I still need to hear the words. “Did you know?”
“Know what?”
“Cass’s plan. To make me the joke of your episode.”
“You’re upset about that?” Cougar snorts. “Danielle, it wasn’t about you being a joke. I’d never let my own kid be a laughingstock. It was meant to be sweet, fun, no harm, no foul. You got the chance to be on my show, spend time with Gus, and we got a little levity and a great hook for the episode. It was win-win.”
I recall what Cougar said to Gus, right after the plane crash. People were dead. Others were gravely injured. My dad squeezed Gus’s shoulder and said, We’re still going to film this episode as planned.
Of course Cougar knew. It was his idea. Truth.
27
The Speed of Falling Objects Page 15
