Red Kayak

by Priscilla Cummings

  “No, silly!” Emily exclaimed. “That’s her Palm Pilot!”

  “A Palm Pilot? Boy, she’s lucky. I don’t even have one of those!”

  Emily lifted her chin and snatched the doll back. “That’s because she has a job. She runs a company, and she has to stay organized.”

  “Oh,” I said, deciding I’d had enough of Barbie. “Look, I think I’d better go help your mom with dinner.”

  But upstairs, my aunt didn’t need help. She told me to take a soda and go sit in the den. “Turn on the television if you want.”

  I chose a Sprite from the refrigerator and turned on the TV, but there wasn’t much on, so I clicked it off and started browsing through the family photograph albums on the bookshelf beside me. I discovered myself in the first one I opened—a picture of Kevin and me when we were little, sitting in our long johns on the couch. I had to grin, remembering how comfortable those pajamas were. I had a pair once with rocket ships, and another pair with lizards.

  The pictures brought back some neat memories. In one photograph, we all had our fishing poles—me and Dad, Uncle Larry, Kevin, and my older cousin Joey, who was away at college now. In another picture, we were gathered around Auntie Janet’s kitchen table, celebrating Joey’s twelfth birthday with a cake.

  Beneath Joey was a picture of Auntie Janet giving Emily a baby bottle. And on the same page, a picture of my mother hugging a smiling baby. Beside it was a photograph of the same baby sitting in one of those little baby seats beside Mom. I didn’t recognize the baby, so I glanced at what my aunt had written underneath the first picture: Dee holding Amanda, three months old. Dee is my mother. And—but, of course—what other baby would my mother be holding?

  Quickly, I searched my memory as I set the book back down on my lap. The baby in the seat was smiling. She wore pink-footed pajamas. And there were dark curls on her head. Warm tears filled my eyes as I took in these details. After I blinked, everything blurred. Still, I didn’t stop staring at that photograph because nothing else came to my mind. It was the first picture I’d ever seen of my sister.

  My aunt saw what was happening.

  “Brady,” she said softly as she crossed the room with a spatula in her hands.

  I wiped at my eyes with one hand. “Sorry,” I apologized. “But it’s the first picture I’ve ever seen of Amanda.”

  Auntie Janet sighed and sat down beside me.

  “I didn’t even remember what she looked like,” I told her.

  “Oh, she was a beautiful baby, Brady.” My aunt smiled.

  But I couldn’t smile back. “How come Mom doesn’t have pictures for us?” I asked.

  “I’m sure she has pictures. Somewhere,” my aunt said. “But you know, it was all so painful for your mother. For your father, too. I think that the only way your mother could deal with the grief was not to have any reminders around.”

  I looked up, wondering if Auntie Janet knew about the butterfly garden.

  “There’s a locked trunk in the attic that has Amanda’s stuff in it,” I said. “It’s like Mom and Dad packed her up and put her away. Like they wanted to pretend she never existed.”

  “Everybody has a different way of dealing with these things,” my aunt replied. “You need to try to understand.”

  I examined the photograph again and this time detected Dad’s eyes in her little face. It’s hard to explain, but his eyes are dark, like mine. It looked as though both Amanda and I had Dad’s curly brown hair, too.

  “It doesn’t mean you can’t have a picture of Amanda,” my aunt said. “Would you like this one?”

  I didn’t even have to think about it. I nodded right away.

  Carefully, she lifted the plastic page and removed the photograph of Amanda sitting in her little baby seat. “Here,” she said. “Put it in a special place, and when you need to see your sister, she’ll be there.”

  I pulled my wallet out from the back pocket of my jeans and opened it. There was a secret place under my ID, where Mom had me keep an emergency ten-dollar bill. I had to fold the photograph on one edge to make it fit, but I made sure the fold didn’t touch Amanda.

  It was a comfort, knowing I had a picture of my sister, hidden away in my wallet. Later that night, while Kevin was in the bathroom brushing his teeth, I took her out for one more look, then tucked the photo back under the ten-dollar bill and pushed my wallet deep down inside my duffel bag.

  Over the next few days, Kevin and I had a lot of fun riding bikes, playing video games, shooting baskets, skateboarding. Jamestown is on an island, and every day, with Emily, we climbed around on the rocks down by the water and found a lot of neat stuff washed up in the shallow tidal pools: minnows, mussels, periwinkles, even some teeny tiny crabs. We all ate lobsters at Duffy’s Tavern. And one day we walked around Newport over on the mainland, where I stopped in a gift shop and bought a paperweight with seashells in it for Dad and, for Mom, a refrigerator magnet that was a miniature version of a lighthouse with a little light that blinked.

  I wasn’t naive. I knew that this whole week had been a planned effort to get my mind off what had happened in the river. It had worked, too, I thought. I was having fun. The food was good. I slept better at night. I started wishing I could just stay in Rhode Island for the whole summer, sleeping on the cot in Kevin’s room. But I knew I’d just be hiding out. Postponing what I had to do. Which was to go home and deal with that drill and the whole problem once and for all.

  All the way back on the train I kept turning it over and over in my mind how J.T. never would have drilled the holes in that kayak if he thought someone was really going to get hurt, let alone killed! J.T. was a good kid. Hardworking. Honest. I kept thinking about all the years he was home-schooled by his mom and all that religion he had pumped into him. If I told and got us all in trouble, it would blow his family right out of the water! I could just see pages of the Bible floating in the air. And at a terrible time, too, with J.T.’s father in the hospital waiting for a new kidney—and them needing J.T. on the farm.

  I slumped into my train seat and turned to look out the window with my chin cradled in my hand, thinking back to when J.T. first came to public school. It was in the sixth grade, right after his father first got sick. His mother couldn’t handle teaching the kids at home and running the farm, too, so she sent them off on the bus to school. It was hard for J.T. because he’s shy and the only two people he knew were Digger and me and we weren’t in any of his classes. The only times we saw him at school were at lunch and during basketball practice.

  As if that weren’t bad enough, there was this bully, Curtis, who started picking on J.T. all the time. Called him “chicken man.” Said out loud how he could smell chickenshit when J.T. walked into a room. I don’t know why Curtis chose J.T. to pick on. Because he was new? Because he bowed his head in prayer at the cafeteria table, even if it was just an ice-cream sandwich? Because he looked a little dorky with his tall, lanky body? I honestly don’t know. But I could tell you this: The person who defended J.T. the most was Digger. He even got suspended once for fighting with Curtis in the boys’ room, where he had taken him on for stuffing feathers into J.T.’s locker.

  Curtis stopped picking on J.T. after that. Didn’t want to mess with Digger, I guess. Digger’s tough. Strong, too. I remember how once he scooped up Hank and put him on his shoulders for a ride and then twirled LeeAnn around by her arms in the front yard, the three of them spinning around and around until they all fell down together, laughing.

  Pulling my hand away from my chin, I sat up in the seat. I crossed my arms. Digger didn’t mean to kill Ben either. Digger was my friend. A friend who once pulled me from a frozen cow pond and saved my life.

  We were only thirteen years old. We once shared a dream together. Didn’t this matter to anyone?

  Uncrossing my arms, I felt for my wallet with its secret picture of Amanda, then squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to even envision the pain I would cause my mother if I—or anyone else—told and got us all in tr
ouble.

  When the train made a stop, I gazed out the window, watching people hustle away, clutching their briefcases, pulling their rolling suitcases, putting the cell phones up to their ears. None of their lives were as complicated as mine, I thought. I’d swap with any one of them. I even imagined myself getting off and just walking. Kids my age ran away all the time. But I wouldn’t have a clue where to go, and I only had about thirteen dollars in my pocket.

  It was just a thought. A crazy thought. Because it wasn’t in me to run away.

  As we pulled away from the station, bright, afternoon sun streamed through the windows, making me squint. I closed the little curtain and leaned my head back against the seat. I didn’t even want to listen to music.

  By the time we rolled into Baltimore, hours later, I knew what I had to do.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Tilly barked and ran circles around me she was so excited that I had returned. It was good to be home, throwing the ball for my dog, eating what I wanted, having a bathroom all to myself again.

  Summer had taken over while I was gone. It was hot as blazes outside—humid, too, and inside our house, all the air conditioners hummed in the windows.

  Dad, his shirt soaked with sweat, brought home some of the crabs he’d caught that day for dinner, and Mom steamed them in a big silver kettle on the stove. Ordinarily we’d pick crabs on a picnic table inside the little screened-in porch we have on the back of the house. But it was too hot, so I spread newspapers out over the kitchen table and got the bucket of wooden mallets from the cabinet above the refrigerator. I fixed each of us little bowls of vinegar, melted butter, and Old Bay spice for dipping the crabmeat. Then Mom set out some cucumber-and-onion salad and a steaming plate full of corn on the cob. One of my all-time favorite meals, I have to say. I must have cracked and picked a dozen crabs before I even started getting full.

  After eating, I helped Mom do the dishes while Dad got rid of the messy mountain of empty crab shells we’d left on the table. Peach ice cream for dessert. We took bowls of it into the living room to eat, and I gave my parents their souvenirs. Dad seemed pleased when he set his paperweight on the coffee table. “Look ahere. Now I can keep all those bills in one place,” he joked. And Mom got right up to go stick the blinking lighthouse magnet on the refrigerator door.

  Dad stretched out his long legs, put his arms up behind his head, and yawned.

  “How’s the crabbing been?” I asked.

  “Terrible,” he said, letting out such a long sigh that I was a little sorry I’d asked. “Must have thrown back twenty, thirty sponge crabs today. And I’ll tell ya, it kills me, it just kills me ever’ time to think nobody’s doin’ nothin’ to stop that in Virginia.”

  Sponge crabs—those are the females, with their eggs. Illegal to keep them in Maryland—you know, an effort to help boost the crab population. But not in Virginia, and they own the water near the mouth of the bay. It’s always been a source of irritation to my dad.

  “Been a lousy season, Brady,” Dad said. “Kenny and I are even talkin’ ’bout doin’ some perch fishin’ to offset it some.”

  “Perch?” I could not envision Dad and Kenny out there fishing perch instead of hauling crabs.

  “Yeah,” Dad confirmed, but he didn’t sound too enthusiastic about it.

  “That reminds me,” he said, sitting up and letting his hands fall onto his knees. “I need to run down the marina and pick up some bait for tomorrow. You want to come along, Brady?”

  I blew the air out of my cheeks and shook my head. “I’m pretty beat, the train and all.”

  Mom stood up to gather our empty ice-cream bowls. “I’ll go with you, Tom,” she offered brightly, “if you’ll stop at Ida’s and let me run in with that dress she’s going to take in for me.”

  As soon as my parents were gone, I sprang into action.

  A piece of apple. Part of a carrot. I put the food in the palm of my hand and went downstairs to the basement, where I opened the top of Tiny Tim’s cage. After settling the food inside, I let the hamster sniff my fingers. I felt an ache for Ben then. Ben, who should be here on this earth taking care of Tiny Tim. But it was not enough to stop me from what I was about to do.

  Underneath the workbench, I pulled out the box of rags and shoved my hand beneath the curtains looking for the drill. When I felt the bag, I grabbed it and pulled it out. With my foot, I pushed the box back underneath and closed the cupboard door.

  By then it was close to 8 P.M., and it had cooled off some outside. I headed down to the water, the bag-wrapped drill in my hand, Tilly running on ahead. At the end of the dock, I climbed down the ladder and got into the little dinghy we kept tied there.

  A loud crack cut the air. Tilly had found a huge, horse-shoe-crab shell on the creek bank and was chomping away. Quickly, I drew back on the oars so I could escape without her. I didn’t want anyone to see what I was about to do, not even my dog.

  In the middle of the creek, I brought the oars inside the boat and let the boat drift. A couple bullfrogs were starting to croak in the marsh grass, and every once in a while there was a little bloop! when a fish jumped. But I was jittery being out on the water and wished for a split second I’d thought of some other way to do this.

  I looked around, but who was there to see me? So I didn’t waste a lot of time worrying. I just took the drill out of the bag and tossed it about three feet away.

  There was a little splash and it was gone.

  Now, unless I opened my mouth, no one would ever know, I thought. Leastways if they did, they couldn’t prove it. My friends wouldn’t get in trouble, and neither would I. The way I looked at it, I was protecting J.T. and Digger—and my parents as well.

  In the dim evening light I watched the ripples from the disturbed water chase one another, some toward me, and some toward the opposite shore, where they disappeared before long into the dark expanse of water.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I thought I’d wake up feeling relieved the next morning. Like a weight had been taken off my shoulders because of the action I’d finally taken. But it didn’t start out that way, and I wondered while I poked at the scrambled eggs Mom had made whether it was something I just had to get used to first, like a new haircut.

  It was still really hot, too. Just stepping outside the door was like walking into an oven. I put some ice chips in Tilly’s water bowl and fooled around on the computer some, but I didn’t exactly race to the phone to tell Mrs. DiAngelo I was home and ready to go back to work.

  Mom seemed glad to have me around. “Why don’t you rest up for a couple days,” she suggested, pausing on her way out the door to work one morning. “And fold that laundry for me, would you?”

  I did. I folded the laundry. And I took a whole week off. But I didn’t do anything with the time. Sat around the house mainly, watching television and playing solitaire on the computer. I could tell my father was getting pretty frustrated because every evening he’d come in after being on the water all day and ask me what I did. To which I had to say “not much.” Which for some reason prompted my mother to start asking about J.T. and Digger.

  It was getting to be a vicious cycle, so finally I did call Mrs. DiAngelo and I went back to work. Mom stopped asking about J.T. and Digger. And Dad didn’t have to quiz me on what I did all day. Still, things weren’t getting a whole lot better. I don’t know. I kept waiting, but I wasn’t getting used to the decision I’d made. It didn’t feel right.

  Fourth of July came, and with it, Mr. DiAngelo. I was surprised when I saw his Porsche in the driveway. While I was getting the mower ready, he came out to the garage and shook my hand, but I didn’t think he had his heart in it. And although I can’t be sure of this, I had the eerie feeling he was watching me all day.

  I could barely wait to leave at noon when Mrs. DiAngelo came out to pay me. Her eyes glistened, like she’d been crying, and all the way home on my bike I wondered if Mr. DiAngelo suspected me of something. Paranoid. I think that’s the word f
or how I was feeling.

  Both of my parents worked the Fourth of July, so I was the first one home. Alone in the house with Tilly, I practically jumped when the telephone rang. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, so I let the answering machine pick up the call, and from two rooms away, I could hear the distinct, gravelly voice of Tink Bosley, head of the local watermen’s group: “Tom, just so’s you know. There’s a meetin’ next Tuesday, Howard’s Dock. We’re organizin’ a protest of them new crab regulations. I tole Dee earlier, but we changed the time. Six ’stead a five. See y’all there. Thanks.”

  I wondered what the watermen had planned, and what Dad thought of this. But there was way too much else on my mind, and I couldn’t focus on it.

  At the picnic that evening, my father won the anchor-throwing contest, his fourth year in a row. Mom soaked up compliments about her blueberry pies, and I stuffed myself on all the good food laid out. But none of my friends showed up. It was strange being at the Rock Hall marina, given all that had happened there almost three months ago. I avoided the dock area, where I’d brought Ben in. As soon as the fireworks were over, we headed home.

  In the kitchen, Dad picked up a note from the table, frowned, and rubbed the back of his neck while he read it.

  “I forgot to tell you about that earlier,” Mom said as she padded back into the kitchen, already changed into a nightgown and slippers. She opened the cupboard and reached for an empty glass. “Tink said the meeting was important. Everybody’s got to be there.”

  Dad groaned and Mom glanced at him as she filled her glass with water.

  “I don’t think you have a choice, Tom,” my mother said.

  “It’s America,” Dad told her. “You always have a choice.”

  Mom widened her eyes. “Thomas Parks!” she exclaimed. And my mom hardly ever raises her voice at either one of us. “They’ll make your life miserable if you don’t go along with that protest.”