by Meg Haston
“Talking about it could help,” I say. “You can tell me anything. Everything.”
“I can’t, Bridge.” His eyes are closed, still. I need to see them. “I want to. I just—I can’t.”
I settle back against the bed. The comforter smells like lavender. Leigh was right. I’ll never really know what Wil went through that night. No matter how close we are, no matter how much I love him, he will always have rooms I couldn’t possibly enter. Dark, hidden corners I won’t be able to find.
WIL
Spring, Senior Year
STORM clouds sink toward Dad’s truck as we pull out of the grocery store parking lot. Ana and I are wedged into the corner of the truck bed. I take off my jacket and wrap it around Ana’s shoulders in case we can’t outrun the storm.
“First senior bonfire, babe,” Ana whispers, her mouth close to my ear. Our run-in with Bridge in the grocery store flower aisle doesn’t bother Ana at all, apparently. “Can you believe we’re graduating in a couple of months?” She scoots closer, and I check Dad’s rearview to make sure he’s not spying.
“It’ll be fun.” I focus on the road. Even with my girlfriend so close, I can’t get Bridge’s colors out of my mind. Somehow I forgot that her hair is all the different shades of fire. Wind streams through the truck bed as Dad zigzags us toward home. “We should stay at the anniversary party for a while, though. Hang out with my parents.”
“Oh. Sure. It’s just that I’ve been wanting to go since I was a freshman,” Ana says. “Don’t you think it’s a rite of passage?”
I smile and nod and think, Really? You’ve been thinking about sitting around a fire for three years?
I need Ana to understand: Tonight is more than some stupid excuse to chug beer around an open fire like cave people. Tonight is the night that my mother will understand: My father is exactly the man we need him to be. It’s been months since Dad squeezed the air out of me at Nina’s, and he’s kept his promises. The most unbelievable thing has started to happen to our family. I’d never believe it, if it weren’t for the sea cucumbers.
I learned about sea cucumbers when I was six, in the middle of the night, on the National Geographic channel. I used to keep the television on at night, three bars above Mute, just loud enough to drown out the arguing or the silence in my parents’ bedroom. I liked the shows about the creatures from the deepest, blackest part of the ocean. Like the sea cucumbers, who could do this thing called regeneration. Cut a sea cucumber in half, and the halves will grow into wholes. The damn things can heal themselves.
Ever since that morning at Nina’s, ever since Dad promised to be better, it feels like the same thing has happened to our family. We’re becoming whole again. Only it’s not science or magic. It’s my dad. He’s been working on becoming the man I’ve always known. He goes to church on Sundays now, which I don’t get, but I don’t have to. Sometimes Mom goes. My dad touches her now—on the back while she’s doing the dishes or he’ll squeeze her feet while we’re all watching TV. When he gets pissed off, he goes out to the workshop and he doesn’t come back in until he’s cooled down. One time, he stayed out there all night.
I’ve never seen him work harder at anything, and Mom is starting to feel different, too. She smiles out the window while he works in the shop. She’s started power walking around the neighborhood with Mrs. Wilkerson from her book club, and she says that she’s lost a couple of pounds. She even bought a new pair of jeans. (Skinny jeans, Ana tells me.) When Dad saw those jeans, he smacked her butt with a stack of catalogues and she laughed out loud. A real laugh that came from her belly.
If there’s any part of her that wonders still, she’ll understand tonight. It’s their anniversary. Dad and I have the whole night planned: Ana and I will have a snack (appetizers, Ana keeps correcting me) with them on a twenty-five-foot Catalina he’s just finished working on for a friend. After that, Ana and I will jump ship for the bonfire and leave my folks to sail to the Shoreline, the restaurant where they had their first date. We’ve never gone out for their anniversary before. But we’re different now—the kind of family that thinks being a family is something to celebrate.
“You know, your dad is adorable.” Ana leans into me. My arm is slung over her shoulder, and her hand rests on my thigh. We’ve been running around town for supplies since school let out. “I wish my dad did stuff like this for my mom. Last year, he had his assistant send her flowers.”
“He hasn’t always been like this,” I say for some reason.
“Huh?”
“Yeah. He’s a good guy.”
She nods. “Well, he made you, didn’t he?” She kisses my neck in a way that makes me wish we were alone.
We pull into the driveway just after six. Dad throws the truck into park and asks, “You kids ready?” over the idling engine.
“Flowers—check.” I hold up the bouquet of flowers like a torch. Tulips, which Dad knows are Mom’s favorite flowers.
“Appetizers—check!” Ana pats the bags of cheese and crackers.
Ana slides her hand up and down my thigh, sexy without trying. I respond exactly the way she wants me to, and she grins and all of a sudden the bonfire seems like an okay idea.
“Okay. Here we go.” Dad leans on the horn in rhythm until Mom throws open the front door with a what the—? look on her face.
“Get in, Mom!” I yell. “We’re going out.”
“Wilson? What in the world—” She comes over to the truck bed, and when she leans over the edge, I see her at seventeen, getting into this same truck. It’s enough to make me look away. She smiles at Ana.
I hand Mom the flowers. “Happy anniversary,” I say. “We’re going out. All of us.”
Her eyes get wet. “Oh my God.”
“You didn’t forget, did you?”
“I—” Mom buries her nose in the flowers, and when she comes back up for air, they’re beaded as if we’re standing in the rain. “I guess I’m just surprised, is all.”
I give her a squeeze and she holds on tighter and longer than usual, until Dad lays on the horn again and shouts, “Sun’s going down before you know it!” When we pull away, we’re both kind of foggy eyed. I think we’ve all been waiting for tonight, each of us in our own way.
Ana and I follow my parents to the marina in her car. We listen to a boy band covering a Queen song, and Ana talks about how some guy I don’t know is an amazing songwriter. I don’t say anything, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my dad lately, it’s that loving someone means sometimes not saying what you want to say (“It’s Queen!”) when you want to say it.
Last week, Ana told me she loved me. I don’t know if I love her or not. She’s a nice girl, sweet, and I like that she doesn’t know how pretty she is. I said, “I love you, too,” because I do like Ana, and I don’t want to be an asshole since we’ve been dating for coming up on a year now. The way she said it—as if she was stepping on hot coals—made me think she’d said it lots of times before, and gotten lots of asshole answers.
The Catalina is a beautiful boat, with graceful lines that would slice the water like a blade. When we get to the slip, my parents are settled on the boat’s stern. My dad’s laugh slides over the water, bigger than I’ve ever heard it before.
“Permission to board?” I call.
Dad waves us over, and we slip off our shoes and climb aboard. I love the way the boat moves beneath us.
“We’ve got snacks,” I say. “Appetizers.” I slide in next to Mom, whose eyes are still unfocused, and damp. I break open the cheese and crackers and a little plastic knife, and Ana arranges everything on the brown grocery bag. Behind my father, the sun is sinking low. This is my favorite time of day on the water. Everything in the world is on fire. Everything is gold.
“You boys,” my mother says. She glances back and forth between us. “You really didn’t have to do this.”
“Well, happy anniversary,” Dad says, and he makes a special point of leaning over to kiss her on the cheek.
>
“Hey. Tell us about your first date,” I say to Mom. She shakes her head and says, “Wilson?” softly.
“Let’s see. I picked her up at her parents’ place in that same truck,” Dad says proudly.
Ana giggles. “Seriously?”
Dad’s eyes gleam. “I picked her up in the truck, and she came out and she was wearing white jeans and this shirt that looked like she’d shrunk it in the dryer—”
“A crop top, Wilson.” Mom smiles a little. Her eyes are still wet. “It was in style.”
I try to picture my mother young.
“Half a shirt, which was just fine by me, and her hair was real long then.” Dad rubs his hands together like he’s making fire. “I knew her from school and such. I’d asked her out because one of my buddies was too chickenshit—”
“Wilson!” Mom rolls her eyes.
“Fine. Too much of a wuss to do it himself. When I saw her walk out of her folks’ house that night, I thought to myself, Damn. That is one beautiful girl.”
“That’s really sweet,” Ana chirps. My mother is crying now.
“Anyway, I’d been working on a boat for the principal of the high school—”
“Dr. Berman.” Mom wipes her eyes.
“And even after I dropped out and started the business, he let me keep working on it. When I finished up, I went to his office and we were just talking, and I just happened to mention that I wanted to take your mother out.”
“Just happened to slip that in there.” Mom sniffs.
“What’d he say?” I am hungry for this. I realize that I know nothing about them, about their history or who said hello first or why.
Dad grunts. “He told me I could take her out on his boat,” he says, disbelieving. “He made me swear on the keys that I’d bring her back safe, and I said I would and I told him, I think I really like this girl, sir, and he said—” Dad tilts his face toward Mom, and his beard grazes her cheek. She pulls back a little. It’s a reflex: quick, but I see it. “You remember?”
They say it together: “I was talking about the boat, son.”
I laugh louder than anyone.
“Well,” Ana announces. “You guys don’t need us cramping your style. But first, I brought some wine, for a little toast.”
“Ana,” I say as she unearths the bottle from a bag at her feet. I’ve told her.
“Oh. We don’t drink, dear.” Mom’s voice is stiff. Her eyes dart from my dad to me and back again.
“I told her,” I say quietly.
“Henney.” Dad reaches for the bottle. “The girl brought wine. Let’s thank her.”
I am instantly wearing damp skin. “Dad?”
“Wilson,” Mom says without moving her lips.
“One glass of wine. On our wedding anniversary. On the evening I planned for you.” Dad’s voice has an edge.
“Dad,” I say again. I beg him silently not to do this. It’s been such a nice time. It’s the only thing I want from him in the whole world. I’ll never ask for anything again.
Finally, he puts the bottle down. “Coke it is.” He disappears into the galley, and Mom and I exchange looks.
“Um—” Ana says, and I have to take a slow, deep breath, and I can’t look at her.
He resurfaces a few minutes later, and he’s his old self again, cradling a two-liter bottle of Coke and four plastic cups. He pours a few sips into each cup and passes them around in the silence.
“To my wife,” he says. He opens his mouth like he has more to say. I know he does, words buried under his skin, tucked between all the years they have together. But after a few seconds, he tosses back the drink like it’s a shot, and we all do the same.
We drive to the bonfire in silence. Ana tries a few times—Aren’t they so cute? and Seriously, I wish my parents . . . —but after a while, she gives up and turns on the radio.
The bonfire is exactly what I expect: a bunch of kids I don’t care about chugging watery beer in somebody’s backyard because that’s how they want to remember high school. When we get there, Ana finds her friends, and I stand at the edge of the yard, watching.
I get a beer to have something to hold on to, and I retreat back to my spot at the edge of the world. I don’t see Bridge. I’m not looking for her or anything, but I don’t see her. I do see her brother, buzzing around Emilie Simpson. If Bridge and I were speaking, I’d drag Micah home right now, myself.
“Wil Hines!” Ana comes winding back to me. “Wil Hines, don’t you know not to leave a girl alone at a party?” She leans into me, her mouth so close to my skin, her body touching mine.
“This is kind of lame, don’t you think?” I ask, but I don’t think she hears me. I wish I knew what my parents were doing now—I’m hoping for laughter and calm seas beneath them.
Ana sighs into me. “Do you ever think about when we’re old like our parents, how we’ll look back on this time in our lives and wish we could do it again? If you think about it, it’s kind of amazing: We are living the best part of our lives right this very second. It will never be this good again.”
I look into my red cup of beer. I have never felt more alone.
“I kind of think I’ll like being older,” I tell the beer. I’m not one of those people who thinks, Everything will be different when . . . I am who I am—a simple kind of man—and my life probably won’t change much. But I can’t stand the idea that this is it.
“Oh. Me too,” Ana says quickly, and her eyes get sharp all of a sudden. “College will be fun.”
That’s not what I meant.
“Hey.” I brush her hair away from her face. “Do you maybe want to get out of here?”
“Wil Hines!” She slaps my chest with her free hand. “It’s early. Thea’s not even here yet.”
“Okay, well.” I set my beer down. “I think I’m going to head back to my place. I’m kind of tired. Big day.” It’s such a lame excuse that I close my eyes for a second, so I don’t have to see her expression. But I feel a pull toward home. “You gonna be okay?”
“Um, yeah.” She looks past me. “Sure.”
“Thea’s coming soon, right?”
“Probably.” She shrugs. She scans the crowd.
“Okay. I’ll, ah—I’ll text you.” I lean in to kiss her, and she turns her head at the last second. “Okay.”
I walk for a while before I know which way is home, before the neon lights of Atlantic appear against the dusty purple. By the time I turn onto my street, it’s dark. The walk has unscrewed me, and everything I’ve been holding on to floats outside of me and drifts into the trees. I let go of Ana’s blank face and the line of her jaw when she turned away. I release my dad’s weirdness on the boat and the thoughts about Bridge and the gone look on her brother’s face. By the time I shove the key in the lock, I feel good.
“You guys home?” The house is dark. Once my eyes adjust, I can see shadows that don’t belong here. I see the edges of a pink suitcase I haven’t seen in years. Some hanging clothes: dresses and coats I’ve never seen Mom wear before. I sidestep Dad’s golf clubs, leaning against the table in the entrance hall. (Dad has golf clubs?) I feel my way to the wall, and I flip the light switch. Dad wouldn’t like this, I think. It’s messy. She should put her things away. I fight the heaviness that is filling me up, because I don’t know what this is yet. I don’t know.
“Wil?” My mother’s voice is thick, coming from the kitchen.
Dad wouldn’t like this, I think again. It’s the only thought I can manage.
My mother is leaning over the island in the kitchen. She’s my mother but somebody has rearranged her features. Her lips are puffy and I can barely see her eyes, and her face is inflated and red, like a horrible doll. She’s been crying, hard.
“What?” I snap, even though I know. I already know. “What?”
“I asked him to leave,” the strange doll tells me. “I want a divorce.”
BRIDGE
Summer, Senior Year
THERE are two Wils now. I think
that’s what happens to a person after the worst day of his life: There’s the before and the after. I want more of Before Wil, whose eyes were clear and whose laugh came easily. But loving Wil means loving After Wil, too. His sudden twitches and unexplained shadows. That’s what I tell Minna early Sunday morning. She answered the door in her bathrobe and slippers, with a long white braid snaking down her back, looking like an old woman in a pioneer movie. Now we’re tucked in her bedroom, Minna under the sheets in an antique sleigh bed and me on a cream-colored club chair with a small stain that looks like red wine.
“I get it,” I say. “He’s not the same guy he was before. I can’t expect him to be the same.”
Minna gives me a look that is the old lady equivalent of no shit.
“What’s the but?” She yawns. The coffee I brought her sits untouched on her bedside table.
“There’s no but.”
“There’s always a but. You have three seconds, or I’m going back to sleep.”
“Okay, okay. But I don’t know how to help him. When he gets . . . far away.” I think about his face in the hotel room the other day. He was gone, too far away from me. Buried so deep beneath his shell that I was afraid he might never come back. “I don’t know what to do to make it okay.”
She doesn’t answer because she doesn’t need to.
“And before you tell me that there’s nothing I can do to change this or make it okay, I know. I can’t.”
“You can’t.”
“But it makes you crazy, watching somebody hurt so badly and not being able to do shit about it.” I sip my coffee.
“Of course it does. Grief itself is a kind of temporary insanity. We are crazy when we are suffering and when we are watching loved ones suffer. We’re animals. We snap, and wound, and snarl.”
I think about Wil in his kitchen, nipping at the detectives.
“If I knew what happened that night,” I say. “Maybe then.”
“You think knowing the details will change how helpless you feel.” Minna tilts her face toward mine. The early morning light makes her look younger. “Trust me. It will only make you feel worse.”
