Pretty Things Don't Break

by Lauren Jayne

  Dad was laughing at how crazy Denny was; he loved it. At that moment, Denny saw something down in the water and did a dive bomb. Noah felt like they were going to plunge straight into the water, but Denny landed that thing in one seamless motion. They sat right there and fished off the plane until sunset.

  Denny brought them back to the hotel. Dad stayed up most of the night, telling the small staff, who were huddled around him, about their plan. In true Dad form, he had them eating out of the palm of his hand.

  “Well, it sounds like you two are in for the experience of a lifetime,” said one of the men. “You sure are lucky, kid, to have a dad like yours.” Then he tugged on the bill of Noah’s blue and yellow Mariners cap and patted him on the back.

  “I know, good night. We’ll tell you all about it tomorrow,” Noah said in a sleepy voice.

  The next morning couldn’t have come fast enough. Noah and Dad threw on their warmest and most official looking fishing clothes. A few minutes later they pulled up and were happy to see the tug that was going to take them out to the fishing boat. An old salty-looking guy threw his cigarette in the water and greeted them at the end of the dock.

  “You must be Mr. Winkel?”

  “Call me Joel! How are you? Is she ready for us? Well, we’re ready to meet her, aren’t we, Noah?”

  “Yes sir, Joel, let’s get you out there,” the skipper answered with the gravelly voice of a salty dog.

  The waves were lapping up onto the dock, but Noah and Dad didn’t think twice about it. Dad reached out to grab Noah’s hand to help him into the small metal boat, but Noah held his hands up.

  “I’m okay, Dad–this is nothing.”

  “Good-on-ya-mate!” That’s what Dad said when he was really proud of Noah.

  They got in the back of the boat. Their skipper handed them each a life jacket and a yellow slicker to keep the waves from drenching them. Noah just laughed at the life vest, but the skipper said he couldn’t leave unless he put it on. They untied, pushed off, and headed out. Dad and Noah stood up front with the wind hitting their faces so hard tears were streaming down from their eyes. The skipper was pointing out landmarks and whales when the radio chimed on. Just then the skipper got quiet.

  “What’s going on?” Dad asked.

  “Well, it seems that this storm has changed course on us. I can still get you out there, but it’s going to get rough. You two need to hold on back there.”

  They kept going as the rain poured over them and the waves crashed into their small metal tug. The laughter and banter had stopped. The only sounds were coming from the growing storm and the frothing black sea.

  An hour later, they finally saw the Defiance floating proudly in the distance. Dad handed Noah the binoculars and they took turns looking at it. The ship was huge; it looked bigger than its hundred feet, floating at about three stories high and covered in cranes and contraptions, with “DEFIANCE” written in huge, black letters across the back. It was a working fish-processing ship; it was intimidating, and it was ours. Dad’s face was beaming with pride when the radio signaled again. Dad just stared at the skipper until he hung up.

  “What’s going on… when will we get out to the Defiance?”

  “Not today, Joel. I’m sorry.”

  “No, we have to, we can push through. Noah’s okay, aren’t you?” Dad asked.

  “This is nothing, Dad.”

  As they thrashed in the twenty-foot swells, the skipper turned the boat around.

  “No! What are you doing?” cried Dad.

  “I don’t have a choice; captain told me to bring you two back. He’ll call you with an update later.”

  As the boat bounced in the storm, the ride back to shore seemed painfully quiet. When they arrived at the hotel, everyone came out to greet them, but from the look on Dad’s face, they knew it hadn’t gone well.

  “You okay, Joel?” asked the lodge owner.

  Dad wasn’t in the mood; he just shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. When they got up to the damp room, there was a paper on the bed with a message to call the captain. Noah sat on the bed next to Dad’s and watched as he pushed the buttons on the dirty gray phone.

  “This is Joel. What’s going on? Ok, ok, but…what? How? When will it be fixed? What!” Dad slammed down the phone and without ever stepping foot on the Defiance, they headed home.

  Mom and I were waiting when we heard the garage door open; we hadn’t heard from them for three days. I waited in the kitchen, and Mom went down to meet them.

  “Well, how was it? How did it go? How was the boat, Noah?”

  “We never got on the damned boat, Sandy!” Dad said. “There was a storm and the captain hit an underground mountain, and that’s it, the boat is done, totaled, there is no boat!” Dad started screaming, all of the veins popping out on his neck and forehead.

  I ran up to my room and closed the door before things got really bad.

  “No! No! I can’t do this again!” Mom screamed as she ran up the stairs.

  Dad threw his bags on the floor and screamed at Fred and then I heard Fred yelp; I knew Dad tried to kick him again, but luckily Fred was faster than Dad and he was up at my door in a blink. Dad stormed up the stairs like a wild elephant and slammed his door. Mom followed him up, slamming the door behind her, and the screaming never seemed to stop. I fell asleep in my closet with my pillow over my head.

  A few weeks later, things were getting back to normal. Mom got a job at a dental office answering phones to try to help pay off the thirty grand we owed, and Dad went back to dialing for dollars selling meat packing machines as a traveling salesman for Grandpa’s company. Dad set up his weekly appointments early on Monday morning. I could hear him sitting in his rolling chair and tapping his pipe into an ashtray that morning. He was in the makeshift office that was right next door to my room when the phone rang, jolting me out of my hazy state.

  “Good morning, this is Joel. Who are you? Okay, okay, no, I don’t know who it was insured with.”

  Dad got off the phone, and Mom walked in to ask who it was.

  “It was the bank. They were never notified as to who the new insurance carrier was on the Defiance.” Dad said.

  “Well, who was it insured by?” Mom asked, in an accusatory and irritated voice.

  “Let me find out,” said Dad.

  “You don’t know? You don’t know who insured the Defiance? Why don’t you call your good friend Denny, maybe he’ll help you like he helped you buy this house and that stupid boat!” Mom was screaming with her teeth clenched.

  My heart was beating so loudly I could hear it in my ears. I had heard Dad break the news to Noah that Denny had died the very next time he’d gone seaplane fishing, but he hadn’t mentioned it to Mom. It seems that he misjudged his latest, and last, dive-bomb. She left his office and stomped into her room, slamming doors behind her.

  A few phone calls later, Dad discovered there was no insurance on the boat and that the guy who needed the thirty grand just took it and gave it to his debtors to save his life. Dad thought getting the boat for thirty grand was a steal, but it turned out that he was now the legal owner of an uninsured vessel.

  Our family was on the hook for over two million dollars.

  Chapter 5

  We’re Going To Sink

  Walking up the stairs to my room, I heard Mom and Dad in another heated discussion.

  “What am I going to do?” Mom said. “What can I do? Nothing! I’m a high school drop-out, with three kids and a resume filled with banks and telemarketing.”

  “Mom, you are amazing,” Dad said. “You are the brightest woman I know. Where is Tom Wilhite’s protégé – the ‘best closer he’s ever met?’ You had one of the largest names in multi-level marketing and the cosmetic industry eating out of the palm of your hand. Tom is an author; he started a new way of thinking with his company, PSI. He’s created an entire company to bring his vision to life, and you are his favorite person. He sees more in you than he ever has in anyone else
. He brought you into his boys’ club. Whatever ‘it’ is, you have it, and right now we need it, or we aren’t going to make it.”

  I had heard stories about Tom since I was a baby; Mom came to life when she talked about him. They were my favorite stories, and he was a living legend in our house. Shortly after Noah was born, Mom had gone back to work at Holiday Magic, a cosmetic company set up like Mary Kay, in the Bay Area. Now Dad was giving Mom as much encouragement as he could.

  “You are amazing; you’ve got the sharpest mind,” He said. “Who else could have moved us from Australia to America with less than a week’s notice? You packed what you could carry, sub-let our rental, closed out everything at the club, and flew across the country alone with three kids. No one else could have done that. Tom said you were better at filling his schedule than anyone else. He taught you all of his tricks to building a successful business, and Rushmi and John have been bugging you forever to look at Fortunate – they say it’s going to be bigger than Amway. Do it. Sandy, right now we need the magic that you have inside you or we are going to sink.”

  So Mom traded in her sloppy sweats for button-down blouses and slacks and went from quietly moping through the house to bouncing off the walls. She wrote down every name on her growing contact list that always seemed to be within arm’s reach.

  Walking into Mom’s bathroom, I stopped – a square yellow paper was taped on both of her bathroom mirrors. On the papers was a list:

  I am a Diamond Executive

  I have 1K+ people in my downline

  Joel and I have financial freedom

  Joel and I travel and play; we are free to do what we like when we like.

  I am free!

  The same list was taped up on her huge dresser mirror, and above it was a yellow satin banner with blue writing that Tom had sent her, reading, “To Think Is To Create.” She took to this way of thinking like water to a dry sponge. Mom was fully immersed, with a clear destination in mind. It felt as if our role was to be her supporting cast.

  “Be quiet and let your mother sleep; she’s busy all day and night,” Dad would tell us. “Get the house cleaned – your mother shouldn’t have to do this – don’t be a bunch of pigs,” he’d order.

  When he got home at the end of another long week on the road, his nerves were shot.

  He opened the cupboards and screamed one inch from my face, “There’s no food in this goddamned house, and if you ever let the fire go out again – so help me god, are you that stupid you can’t remember to fill the fire before bed and close the flue? The heat has to stay off, so unless you want us all to freeze, keep the wood stove going at all times. The lights have to stay off, or you will sink our family, you idiot!” slamming the doors, sending the contents flying.

  Mom was working around the clock, and Dad was getting more aggressive by the day. Walking home from third grade and seeing his car in the driveway, my plan was to make it to my room without being seen or heard. I laid on my bed staring out my window, watching as the clouds turned to stars. After the booming TV finally clicked off, I fell asleep. A few hours later, something woke me up, and I could feel pressure on my body. Thinking it was Fred, I moved my leg, but it didn’t budge. I felt trapped between my wall and something on my right. I couldn’t breathe. Snapping up, I looked over and saw that Dad was in bed with me; my nightgown pushed up above my belly button. Grabbing my nightgown and covering myself, I frantically wrapped up in my blanket while my heart pounded so loudly it felt like my body would explode. Boom, boom, boom, I could feel my heart pounding out of my body – in my mouth, my ears, my chest. Even my tongue felt like it had a heartbeat of its own.

  “What are you doing?” I said, my voice shaking.

  Dad just walked out of my room.

  There had been other mornings before that night when I’d felt that things were different from when I had gone to sleep. Things weren’t in the right order and I felt out of sorts. Sometimes my undies would be down on one side. I just thought I was crazy. But now I knew I wasn’t.

  The next night before bed I thought about how I could stay up and keep guard. I would have rather gone the rest of my life without sleeping than lay there terrified that I’d wake up with him on me again. Then it came to me in a flash. Running to my closet, I grabbed the huge Shel Silverstein book that my Grandma had recently sent to me for my ninth birthday. I treasured that book and kept it tucked away neatly on my closet shelf. Trying to be as invisible as I could be, I crept into our kitchen and grabbed one of our blue rimmed, Chinese-looking plates and a plastic cup. Before bed, I fanned the book up on its side about an inch from my door, gently placing the cup on top of it and the plate beside it. My plan was that when Dad opened the door, the book would get knocked off balance, sending the cup sailing into the plate to wake me up.

  The first morning, I woke up with my trap still in place; I knew no one had come into my room. The next night, I was awakened by the sound of the cup cracking down on the plate. I couldn’t shake that sound out of my ears. When Dad pushed the door open, I was sitting completely upright; the light that I left on by my bed made it clear that I was up. He looked at me with disgust and walked out. For the next few nights, I just laid and waited, waited to hear that startling sound. I couldn’t fall asleep.

  That Saturday, I headed down the street and through the Lacy’s backyard. They gave the neighbor kids permission to cut through their yard because it took you directly to the metro bus stop. When the bus pulled up right on time, I was happy. Throwing my money down the clanking chute, I found a seat, making sure to sit in the aisle, leaving the window seat empty; this way no one would sit next to me. When I saw my stop, I reached up and grabbed the cord. With only one busy road to cross before I was in the shopping area, I was relieved everything was going so smoothly.

  Heading into Ernst Hardware, I looked up at the titles over the aisles and found the one that read “Locks.” The choices seemed to be never ending. I looked over all of the options and ended up with two – a chain lock and a flip lock, both shiny and gold-looking. Walking up to the checkout, I was a little nervous that they’d ask me where my parents were, but I threw my things on the counter and pulled my five dollar bill from my pocket and headed out with my locks in hand. After my purchase, I saw that I had enough time to go to my favorite candy store right behind the shopping center. Seeing the familiar striped awning, I marched right in. With just enough change for a small bag of Swedish Fish, I headed to my bus, pulling and tugging on my candy.

  Back home, I ran down to Dad’s cluttered workbench, grabbed the screwdriver shown in the directions, and got to work. An hour later, I had two not-so-level, but perfectly secure locks on my door. Mom never asked why my bedroom looked more like a Bronx apartment than that of a nine-year-old.

  A few long months later, when Mom was at another meeting and Noah was at his best friend Danny’s, I walked down the stairs to add some wood to the fire and noticed a new photo on the wall: it was an eight by ten glossy of my mom’s face under a glass frame, with ‘Sandy Winkel, Diamond Director’ under it, which meant she had over 500 people enrolled under her. Soon they’d line our wood-paneled wall.

  Being alone in the house with Dad set me on edge because he’d snap like a brittle twig for no reason. I learned to float instead of walk, always keeping Fred within my reach; if he got tangled under Dad’s feet, he’d just kick him out of the way. Somehow in my effort to be as quiet as a mouse, I tripped over my untied shoelace. Dad stormed out of his office and right up to my face.

  “Are you too stupid to walk, dummy?”

  I just kept walking. As he headed back into his office to make a plan for the week, he saw a blue glob of toothpaste on the bottom of the bathroom sink. Almost to my bedroom, I felt my sweater squeezing around my neck, as he grabbed the back of it and swung me around, sending me to the floor.

  With clenched teeth, he yelled, “Get up and get over here! Clean this up now! You’re such a little princess; you think someone else is going to c
lean it up for you?”

  Suddenly, he took my face and pushed it towards the sink, my tooth bumping into the metal faucet, sending a shooting pain up my nose and into my eye as he bashed my face into the sink.

  Then he walked away.

  Chapter 6

  Go To School

  Hope spent most of my childhood with our grandparents, Booboo and Milton. When she did come home, she always brought gifts from their notorious gift room. Maybe it was because Milton had helped start and run Vegas, or because everyone knew he’d not only worked for Meyer Lansky since he was a kid but was also a friend; either way, no one came to Milton without bringing a very expensive gift. Today, as the hand struck eight, the buzzer went off on my little gold and red velvet alarm clock from her most recent trip. I gave myself to the count of ten and forced myself from my warm bed into the cold air of my room. I didn’t want to walk into my sixth-grade class late again, completely humiliated.

  It was a hair-washing day; I had set myself up on a schedule for everything. Every third day wash your hair. Do laundry every three days. I had a thing for threes and sevens. Grabbing the third towel from the top from the linen closet that was right outside my bedroom door, I headed to the shower I shared with Noah. With a towel wrapped around my wet hair, I poured myself a bowl of Team cereal and sat at our kitchen table with the stained-glass Tiffany lamp hanging from a dusty metal chain overhead and ate. The house was silent and cold when Fred started to bark. I quickly grabbed him and held his nose. He hated this, but he kept quiet. I assumed he’d seen a squirrel when I heard a pounding knock at the door. My heart leapt into my chest, so startled that I almost fell off my cracking-vinyl chair. Running to the door, my biggest concern was keeping whoever it was from knocking again and waking Mom and Dad at this hour.

  When I opened the door, there were two large men standing there dressed in black suits and sunglasses.

  They held up their badges and asked, “Does Joel Winkel live here?”