by Mary Amato
“Seahorses often mate for life.” He smiled. “They don’t swim in schools, the way other fish do. They are generally loners, but they have this beautiful little ritual. Every morning, the female visits her male mate. They just hang out together. It’s like mom and dad eating breakfast and reading the paper.”
More laughter.
He held up his hand. “And here’s the sweetest part. They often change to a brighter color when they are together. Beautiful, right?”
The audience loved it.
My heart pounding, I walked down the aisle toward a microphone and stood in line. I could see Cassie, or rather the back of her head, sitting in the front row, the woman next to her most likely her mom. Three people in line asked questions, and I couldn’t tell you what they were about or what my father’s answers were. And then suddenly, I was standing in front of the microphone, and the woman was calling on me. She said something about how happy she was that young people were curious, and Keanu nodded yes, isn’t it wonderful to see young people here today?
Words just walked out of my mouth, the strange calm of my voice amplified. “I have a comment and a question. You obviously care a lot about seahorses. It must make you feel really good to know that you are helping to protect them.”
He smiled. “Yes, it does make me feel good,” he said. “We can all help. I hope you’ll go to the SOS Web site and check out the resources. There are lots of ways to get involved.”
“My question is, how do you feel about the fact that you abandoned your own child? Do you feel good about that?”
Dead silence.
The flicker of recognition in his gaze.
I didn’t flinch. Yes, Keanu, I am your daughter.
The eyes of every person in the auditorium were on me. I turned and walked away, my footsteps silent on the carpet. Someone coughed. I pushed open the door and walked out into the busy aquarium. A family went by, pushing a stroller. I walked around them and ran for the exit.
Outside, the sight of the giant cardboard seahorse, the families streaming up the broad steps, and the beautiful expanse of the lake beyond made me feel even sicker. I yanked the seahorse loose from its sandbag, turned it sideways, and ran down the steps with it.
I struggled against the wind, shifting the seahorse, running past the joggers and families, all the way to the edge of the lake. The wind was cutting across the water, the waves crashing at my feet. I hoisted the seahorse, trying to throw it into the lake, but a gust got under it and slammed it back in my face, pushing me backward onto my backpack. I heard a loud crack.
I tore off my backpack and pulled out my uke. The neck was snapped in two pieces, the body cracked, the strings slack.
A yell came from behind, and I turned and saw a museum guard jogging toward me. I left the uke on the cardboard seahorse and took off running.
When I got to the El station, I ran over to a trash can and threw up.
21
KEANU
THERE SHOULD BE a place you can go when you need it. A rip in the fabric of time that you can slip through. It should lead you to a nice room with a bed and a quilt and a little thermos of tea. Maybe a fresh cinnamon roll, a book you can read to take your mind off everything, a recording of your favorite song to play.
I managed to get myself onto a train to Evanston, but I couldn’t walk down the station stairs and go home. At that point, I had only two choices: (1) Tell my mom the truth or (2) fake that nothing had happened. Neither seemed possible, so I boarded another train, took it as far as it went, and then returned. Each time the train stopped at my station, I got off, but then I just kept getting onto another train.
After an hour or two, I opened my cell phone. There were messages and texts from my mom, as I knew there would be. Keanu would have called her. Hey, Pat, just wanted you to know that your darling daughter humiliated me in public. Great job raising her. Fin and Hayes texted, too, and there were three calls from a number I didn’t recognize. My dad? I didn’t read or listen to any of the messages.
The sky was darkening with late afternoon thunderclouds. Another hour passed and then another and another, until the streetlights came on. I was so hungry I thought I might faint, but if I left the station, I’d have to pay to get back in, and I was afraid of running out of money. Finally, I got off at LaSalle, found a convenience store, and inhaled a candy bar. I had enough money for one more trip. As I walked back to the station, the rain started, heavy and hard.
Drenched, I got back on the train, leaned my head against the glass, and watched the rain pour. The lights of the shops and cars had that sad, beautiful look they get in the rain, the lengthening reflections of all the colors in the water on the street like long wails of reds, and yellows, and blues, and greens.
The guy behind me asked if I knew the time and when I looked at my cell phone and told him, I realized that the open mic at Ray’s was about to start. Hayes must have figured out I wasn’t coming.
It was around 7:20 when I got off the train in Evanston and heard my name. Fin’s dad rushed up the platform steps. He was wearing a raincoat with the hood up and his big green gardening boots. The lenses of his glasses were streaked with rain. “Min darlin’! We’ve been looking all over for you.”
I did what I’d been doing for the past few hours: I walked over to a bench and sat down. My body had turned into a shell; even though I was soaked, I swear I couldn’t feel it. The track was silent, so I looked down and found a cigarette stub to stare at, wedged in the widest part of a crack in the cement.
“Are you okay?”
I felt myself nod.
He joined me, the wet green of his boots coming to rest with a rubbery thump as he sat next to me. “We split up to look for you. Everybody’s worried.” He took off his glasses and wiped them on the dry hem of his shirt. “Fin is walking around downtown Evanston. Jenny and the boys are over at your house, waiting in case you come home. Your mom is driving around. She called the police.”
My green dress was clinging to my thighs. My left knee was bruised. I wondered where that came from.
“You’re shivering,” he said. “You’re freezing.” He took off his raincoat and put it around my shoulders. The flannel on the inside was warm, and it smelled the way Fin’s house always smelled — like gingerbread.
His phone buzzed, and he answered. “Yeah … She’s here … she’s okay.… No, we’re just sitting here for a minute.… Call your mom, okay? I’m going to call Minerva’s mom.”
It was Fin. I thought about how he didn’t get the part in the play that he wanted, how I wasn’t there for him. I pressed the bruise on my leg to see if I could make it hurt, and glued my eyes back on that cigarette butt while Mr. O’Connor called my mom.
“Pat, she’s here at Central Station.… Yeah … she’s fine.… I can bring her.… Okay … sure … yeah … yeah … Okay, see you in a few minutes.” He slipped his phone back into his pocket. “She’s not far from here. She said to wait.”
Mr. O’Connor sat with me on the platform as two trains came and went and as the rain pounded on the station roof; and then my mom came flying up the stairs in her navy blue raincoat, her face colorless, her eyes red. She hugged me and thanked Fin’s dad, and we walked down the stairs to the cars.
I tried to give Mr. O’Connor his raincoat back, but he wouldn’t take it.
“Bring it next time you come over, darlin’,” he said, and I could feel the kindness of his eyes on my face, but I couldn’t look at him.
After we got on the road, my mom didn’t say a word. I don’t know if she was trying to decide what to ask, or what to say, or if she was trying to pretend that nothing had happened. I looked out the window and pressed the bruise on my leg until we arrived home.
Fin’s mom and brothers were gone by the time we got there. Mrs. O’Connor had left a note along with a pot of soup and a salad. I thought I would have killed for food, but I couldn’t eat. All my mom said was, “You should get out of those wet clothes, Minerva.”
I was about to head up to my room, when the knock came.
My mom looked out the security peephole in the door and started saying words I didn’t even know she knew.
The knock came again. My dad’s voice: “I know you’re there, Pat. Open the door.”
The room felt charged, like a hurricane was about to hit.
“I will call the police,” my mom said.
“Go ahead. We need to have this out,” he said.
My mom threw her raincoat back on and rushed out, quickly closing the door behind her. The silence lasted only a second.
“You are not coming inside this house, Keanu.”
I walked over to listen.
“Fine. You want to have it out here? Fine — ”
“Lower your voice — ”
“She inherited all your rage, didn’t she? This is my first time seeing her since I left, and this is what I get? I did not deserve this,” he yelled.
She screamed: “You left.”
“I was right to leave and you know it. We had nothing in common. It was a fling. A mistake. I was young and you threw yourself at me, and I’ve been paying for it — ”
“Oh. It was all my fault? You are so — You’re just out for yourself, Keanu. You always were. You can’t expect Minerva to forgive you.”
“Has she at least heard my side of the story? I wanted her in my life. You’re the one who refused.”
“What was I supposed to do, Keanu? Put her on a plane to California every other weekend?”
“We could have worked something out if you had tried.”
“If I had tried? I did what I had to do to protect her. The last thing she needed in her life was an absentee father.”
“I didn’t want to be one. You forced that issue.”
“I forced the issue? You moved two thousand miles away!”
“I was offered a job, a career. You weren’t even working! What was I supposed to do?”
“If you really wanted to be a father to Minerva, you wouldn’t have taken that job in California. You would have stayed.”
“I might have done that if you were a reasonable person to deal with. You didn’t want me in her life even when I was here.”
“That is not true. You put your career above everything. I wanted her to have one solid home, not to be torn between two. You were too busy to even think about her.”
“I sent her a gift every birthday and I never — ”
“What was that supposed to prove? That you love her?”
“What did you tell her about me? Did you tell her that I abandoned you? Is that your story?”
“You did abandon us. You moved away. Leave, Keanu. If you don’t, I am calling the police.”
“Oh, I’m so sick of this, Pat! You’re always the victim! I never missed a payment. I asked you to share custody — ”
“Go away! This is my house, Keanu. You have no right to — ”
“I paid for this house, Pat. She is my daughter, and I have the right — ”
“Stop it,” my mom hissed. “I made a life for Minerva here. I gave her love and stability. I took her to the doctor when she got sick. I drove her to school every day and packed her lunch and protected her from — ”
“From what? From me? What did you tell her about me?”
“What was I supposed to tell her? How do you explain that to a child?”
“People do it all the time. You were jealous, Pat. You didn’t want Minerva to be part of my life because that would have eaten you alive.”
“I did it for her. She was better off not knowing. She was better off without you. She didn’t need to grow up having to visit a father who puts his own needs ahead of hers. If you had really wanted her in your life, you would have tried a lot harder than a gift or two every year.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m not going to take parenting advice from you. I obviously could have done a better job raising her than you did.”
I stood perfectly still at the door, listening to their voices rage and to the pounding of the rain on the roof, and a cold calm came over me. I walked into the kitchen and around the corner to a little dead-end part of the town house: the utility closet.
A hot water heater was on the left; on the right were an electrical box and floor-to-ceiling storage shelves filled with big, neatly labeled tubs. Three on each shelf. Twelve in all. HALLOWEEN DECORATIONS. CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS. VALENTINE’S DECORATIONS. EASTER DECORATIONS. GLASSWARE. HARDWARE. LIGHTBULBS … I started at one end and opened each lid.
When I opened the seventh tub, the one labeled ELECTRICAL CORDS, the strength rushed out of my knees. It was filled with gifts, each one wrapped in birthday paper. Gift after gift after gift after gift — different sizes, shapes, and colors, some with ribbons and bows, some plain — each one with an unopened card tucked under a ribbon or taped to the gift wrap, with To Minerva on the front.
The eighth tub, labeled HEATING FILTERS, was filled from bottom to top with more presents.
I sat on the concrete floor, the colors swimming before my eyes. I lifted out a package and opened the card.
Dear Minerva,
Happy eighth birthday. This charm bracelet is from Hawaii. I bought it at a shop that’s not far from where I grew up. The woman at the store said it’s a kid’s size, but if it’s too big, you can take out a link or two. Save the links. If you still want to wear it when you’re bigger, you can add them back on.
Love, your dad
Stretched out in the narrow white box was a pretty silver bracelet with eight charms, each one enameled with a little splash of color: a blue sailboat, an orange fish, a green hula girl, a red Hawaiian shirt, a pink seashell, and a small brown ukulele. A tiny uke.
I took the bracelet out of the box and laid it across my wrist. It was too small, which meant that it would have probably fit perfectly then. I imagined my eight-year-old self putting it on, marveling at each charm. Balancing it on my wrist, I turned the little uke right side up so the color showed. The four tiny strings, painted white against the brown, were perfectly straight and parallel.
A part of me wanted to cry, a part of me wanted to scream, a part of me wanted to tear open every gift, and a part of me wanted to run away. I reached way down into the tub and pulled one out from the bottom.
Dear Minnyboo!
You’re three! That’s so big. I love you and I miss you. Remember our favorite song? This little guy plays it. Take good care of him. I hope to see you soon. Happy birthday!
Love, Daddyboo
Inside the box, cradled in blue tissue paper, was a stuffed animal — a baby beluga whale — brand-new, snow-white, pillow soft, with a tiny adoption certificate and official-looking gold seal attached to the bright red tag. I wound the gold knob in the middle of the whale’s belly and let it go. The tinkling high notes of “Baby Beluga” filled the room, familiar, even though I hadn’t heard the song for years.
The gifts, just the sight of them, were starting to make me feel dizzy, as if each one had the power to pull me down a drain hole in time and space.
“Minerva!” My mom’s voice flared in the distance. She called for me again, and it lit a fuse of anger inside me. I pictured her all those years, getting those packages in the mail and depositing them into these tubs, deliberately hiding them from me, writing out the false labels, ELECTRICAL CORDS and HEATING FILTERS, so I wouldn’t find them. The anger grew hotter at the sound of her footsteps going up the stairs, her voice in my bedroom, her steps coming down again.
“Minerva.” She appeared in the doorway, wet from the rain, her hair plastered down on the sides of her face. She looked at the two open tubs, at the gift wrap and the whale, with disbelief and horror.
I rose to my feet, my skin prickling with cold but my blood on fire. “Why didn’t you just throw them out?”
She stood there, mascara streaked, speechless.
I erupted. I picked up the full tub and threw it against the wall. The gifts scattered, and she jumped back. I flew at her, my fac
e in her face, my voice burning: “I hate you. I hate him. I hate you both.”
I walked past her, stopped in the kitchen, opened the pantry drawer, and got a box of garbage bags.
“Minerva, let me explain …”
I slammed the drawer shut, took the bags to my room, and closed and locked the door.
First things first. Text to Aunt Joan: Your sister is a pathological liar.
Next, I pulled out a garbage bag and shook it open. If you could have seen me at that moment, you would have been worried because I wasn’t screaming or crying or collapsing onto the floor, which is what you might expect. My anger was there, still red-hot, like embers smoldering under a burned log, but I was focused on a task that suddenly needed to be done. I stuffed the bedspread and matching sheets — pink flowers — into the bag.
I got another bag and walked over to my dresser. I opened a jewelry box that my mother had given me and took out the earrings I had bought at the Goodwill and the ones Fin gave me, and set them aside. I dumped the rest of the jewelry in the garbage bag and then threw the jewelry box in, too. I saved the uke book Fin gave me for my birthday, and the stone Hayes gave me on the beach. Everything else on the top of my dresser went into the trash. I opened each drawer, set aside only the clothes I had bought for myself, and dumped the rest. Two bags full. I opened a chest at the foot of my bed, full of old snow pants and bulky wool sweaters. Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool? Yes, sir, yes, sir, three bags full. I got another bag and walked over to my closet. I saved my Goodwill dresses and threw in everything else, hangers and all. Five bags full, including the snowflake sweater that I had brought home from school back in late January. Happy birthday to me.
I was sweating and shivering at the same time, but I didn’t stop. I found a hoodie I had borrowed from Fin and put it on. More bags. In went the vase with the pastel silk flowers and those weird Easter eggs on sticks that my mom had put out after St. Patrick’s Day was over, the decorative pillows that were scratchy, the faux antique reading lamp that was hard to turn off and on, the framed tree drawing I did in the second grade and never liked, the stained-glass rabbit with the cutesy smile, hanging on my window.
