Finally the waitress came over and took our order. We split fries, as we usually did, and we each ordered a hamburger. Mom checked her cell phone. I sat and looked out the window. When she clicked the phone closed she turned to face me.
“I called Mr. Cotter,” she said. “He’s looking into whether the foundation can cover the hospital bills. If they can’t, we’re screwed.”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I said.
She let some air out of her lips and stared at me. Then she took the saltshaker and spilled a little salt onto the table, and tried to make the shaker stand on its edge in the grains. It was tricky, but after a while she did it. She kept her eyes on the saltshaker when she spoke next.
“I know you don’t think I’m much of a mother,” she said and held up her hand before I could interrupt. “Don’t deny it, it’s okay. You think I’m overly interested in men and that I need men around me no matter what. I know what you and Tommy say about me. I’m not dumb or deaf.”
I didn’t answer. She looked at me quickly, then looked back at the saltshaker.
“I know,” she said. “And you’re right. Mostly you’re right. I do need men around. I always have. I don’t like it about myself. I know it’s destructive a lot of the time. On the other hand, you probably don’t keep track of things like I do, but I’ve gone years with no one around. When you were little, it was just you, me, and Tommy. Your father left as soon as he found out Tommy had CF. You don’t really know about those years, Bee.”
“It’s okay, Mom,” I said. “We don’t have to go into it all.”
“No,” she said, “you should know about things. About me.”
“I’m not judging you, Mom.”
“Sure you are,” she said, looking up again from the saltshaker. “Everyone judges people. That’s what humans do. It’s supposed to be a survival technique. We have to judge people to know if we can trust them and if we can count on them to help us. It’s a tribal thing. At least, that’s what I read.”
I kept quiet. I didn’t want to interrupt her.
“Anyway, your dad leaves and I’m in a small New Hampshire town with two kids, one of them with CF and huge medical bills. That’s a lot to handle. If you work, then you have to find someone to take care of your kids. If you find decent child care, it eats up all your money, so, in the end, you’re working so a stranger stays at home with your children. Your grandparents—well, you know them. My father never cared for me. He just plain didn’t like me, really. He always thought I was trashy and maybe I was. He saw the breakup of my marriage as confirmation that he had been right about me. And my mother is a mouse and couldn’t squeak about boo. So, yes, I’ve probably been looking for some sort of daddy approval. I’ve read enough self-help books to know that.”
The waitress came and put our burgers down. Mom squirted ketchup on her corner of the fries. I ate a couple while she prepped her burger with mustard and ketchup. It was one of my strange quirks that I never put condiments on anything I ate, so Mom didn’t offer any to me. She finally plucked the saltshaker off the grains and shook some on her side of the fries.
“Is this weirding you out?” she asked. “This stuff about your dad and all?”
I shook my head. I had never heard her be so frank.
“Given what happened today,” she said, “it makes sense to talk. I feel like talking, anyway. I’m not trying to make excuses; I’m just trying to shed a little light on things. And we both saw how easily things can slip away. We almost lost Tommy.”
I nodded.
“That’s pretty much everything,” she said. “I figured it needed to be said. It probably needed to be said a long time ago.”
“Can I ask something, then? If we’re being honest?”
“Sure.”
“Why do you keep dating guys you know are going to be such losers in the end?”
She thought about it for a second, then shook her head as much for herself as for me.
“I don’t know that,” she said, lifting a fry and eating it with ketchup. “Or I talk myself into thinking they’re cute or charming. Everyone has some trait that’s worthwhile. I try to see that. And I get lonely, Bee. Sometimes it’s enough just to have someone else in the boat with you, if you know what I mean.”
“I guess so,” I said. “I understand that.”
She looked at me. She hadn’t taken a bite of her hamburger.
“It’s not that I don’t love you. You and Tommy,” she said. “It’s not either-or. It’s not guys or you two. It’s not a contest.”
“But you didn’t come home the other night,” I said. “We’re out here for Tommy. It’s Tommy’s trip.”
“I know. I was wrong about that and I’ll apologize to him. And I’m apologizing to you. It felt like a vacation to me and I went with it. That was wrong. I don’t always make good choices, which you already know.”
“Tommy thinks it’s bizarre when you stay out.”
She nodded.
“I do, too,” I said. “For the record.”
She nodded again.
She picked up her hamburger and waited for me to pick up mine. Then she did something she hadn’t done in years. She held the burger just in front of her mouth and put out her pinkies. The rule was, you could be a complete pig if you held out your pinkies, because that way you were lady like while still biting off huge chunks of a sandwich or ice cream.
I held up my hamburger and put my pinkies out. We smiled and bit.
Tommy finally came to that night. I was the only one awake.
I’d been sleeping in a chair pulled against the edge of the bed so that I could put my legs up. Mom slept near Tommy’s head. Being closer, she should have been the one to wake up, but when I opened my eyes, they met Tommy’s. For a second, I thought he had died. He looked white and gaunt and his eyes didn’t blink. I didn’t move. I watched him for a long time, our eyes still locked, until finally he blinked and I knew he wasn’t dead. I stood and went around the other side of the bed, away from Mom, and I bent close to Tommy.
He couldn’t speak because of the respirator. I reached down and took his hand. I squeezed and he tried to squeeze back, but his hand felt weak.
“You okay, Tommy?”
He nodded as much as he could.
“Mom’s right here. Ty and Little Brew are coming tomorrow. You’re going to be all right. You just swallowed water. A lot of water.”
He nodded again.
“I saw a shark,” I said. “On the way in. It passed right under us. It was a great white.”
He nodded a third time.
I didn’t say anything else for a while. I stayed near him and watched. His eyes closed for a bit, but then he opened them again. I went through our checklist of signals to make sure he could breathe and that everything was okay. Near the end, Mom woke up and kissed Tommy’s forehead. She pushed his hair back off his head and checked for fever with her lips.
“He’s a little warm,” she said to me. “Are you warm, Tommy?”
He shook his head an inch.
“You feel a little warm. I’m going to ask the nurse to step in. Do you feel okay otherwise?”
“I went through the checklist with him,” I said.
“Do you feel okay?” she asked anyway.
He nodded.
“We don’t want fever on top of everything else,” Mom said, then got a look of mischief on her face. “We’re not even supposed to be here. We snuck in. But I’m going to get a nurse.”
She kissed him again, then stepped out. I held Tommy’s hand. The respirator pushed his chest full, then let it seep down again. His chest moved like a cat crawling under a quilt.
“You were a gnarly surfer,” I told him.
His lips curled into a faint smile. And he squeezed my hand.
Mr. Cotter showed up at dawn.
It was strange to see him. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him for a few seconds. Probably I was tired. He ducked into the doorway and stood for a moment, letting his
eyes adjust. I stood, but he gestured for me to stay seated.
“How is he?” he whispered.
“He’s going to be fine,” I said.
“Good, good, good,” he said and took a few steps toward the end of the bed.
He smiled at Tommy. I realized that in the dimness. Mr. Cotter couldn’t really see if Tommy was awake or not.
“Surfing, eh?” he asked, smiling at me.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Well, I guess no harm then,” he said. “It’s something he’ll remember.”
“He wanted to try it—it meant a lot to him.”
Mr. Cotter nodded.
“Is your mother around?” he asked. “I need to chat with her about some financial things.”
“She went to the ladies’,” I told him. “She should be right back.”
“I guess,” Mr. Cotter said, “the shark outing we went on was a bit disappointing to your brother.”
“You tried,” I said. “It must be hard when you don’t know the person. Tommy is way into sharks.”
“I know.” He sighed. “I felt bad about that. It was the best plan we had, though.”
“He appreciated it, believe me,” I said. “And we did see a shark.”
“That’s true,” Mr. Cotter agreed. “Not everyone can say that.”
Mom came back then. They exchanged pleasantries, and then Mr. Cotter asked if she would mind stepping outside into the waiting room. Right after they left, a nurse and doctor came in and removed the respirator from Tommy’s mouth. He had tape marks around his lips and a few gummy pieces still stuck there. The nurse used a cloth dabbed with alcohol to remove them. Tommy made a face like a little kid getting his mouth wiped down after supper.
He went right back to sleep, which surprised me. I don’t know what I expected. I guess I wanted him to wake up and say everything was okay, but it dawned on me that it probably wasn’t that easy for him. He still looked tired and drawn, and when he inhaled, his lungs made scuba-diver sounds.
Mom came back and told me Mr. Cotter had said goodbye and promised to look us up if he came to New Hampshire.
“He was very generous,” she said, tapping her purse and sitting near Tommy’s head again. “We should be fine. The foundation spoke to the airline and we got a credit and we can leave tomorrow night. Tommy should be able to travel by then.”
“Good, Mom,” I said. “I’m glad. I’m sorry about all that stuff.”
“Tommy was still under the Blue Moon Foundation’s insurance policy. It stands to reason they have a good one.”
“Stands to reason,” I repeated.
After that Mom worked on a Sudoku puzzle book. I felt restless, so I went to the waiting area and flipped through an issue of US Weekly. It seemed crazy under the circumstances to care about what starlet had lost weight, or who had a baby bump, or what so-and-so had worn to a film opening. After a few pages I grew impatient and put it aside. Then my attention wandered to the television in the far corner of the room, where people in a show wore helmets and jumpsuits and safety glasses and kept falling and stumbling over ridiculous obstacles. They got out of breath immediately. It turned my stomach to see it—it was supposed to be funny but it made me angry. I thought of Tommy and what he went through every day, and playing at suffering and making a big deal of a game show seemed sickening. Then I don’t know what happened. I started crying hard, blubbering, and I put my hands over my face. I cried with my shoulders heaving backward and forward, and in the corner the television continued on. Part of me understood I was experiencing post-shock syndrome. But I was also crying because I’d witnessed how things could change so suddenly, and it gave my heart a twist to remember that.
I cried for a while. A few people came by but they probably figured I had lost someone, or gotten some hard news, and they didn’t stop and they didn’t really look at me. Once I felt cried out, I went into the bathroom and washed my face and combed my fingers through my hair. When I came out, Little Brew and Ty were walking through the waiting area with the shark-bitten surfboard between them.
“Guys,” I said and they turned and smiled. “What are you doing awake so early?”
“Came to see Snow Pony,” Little Brew said.
He came over and kissed me. It was a bright, happy kiss and I felt better instantly.
“And we brought this,” Ty said, wiggling the board. “We thought it might cheer him up.”
“And this,” Little Brew said, holding up a plastic grocery bag. “We have some mad footage in here.”
“You won’t believe it,” Ty said.
Seeing them lifted my spirits. It made everyone feel better, because as they carried the board through the halls, people stopped, puzzled, until Ty and Little Brew pointed out the shark bite. Then more people came forward and touched the board and it took us a few minutes to make it down the hallway, because everyone wanted to know more about it. By the time we rounded the corner into Tommy’s room, he was awake and sitting up. He still looked tired and shaky, but he lit up when Ty and Little Brew plopped the board against the foot of the bed. Even my mom stood and smiled. It was good to have healthy boys around, boys who glowed with sun and salt and all that fresh air.
Mom hugged them this time. It was a nice gesture and I could tell she meant it. Then Ty and Little Brew sat down on Tommy’s bed. They didn’t bother with a bunch of questions about Tommy’s condition.
“What are you guys doing here?” Tommy asked. “Don’t you have school, L.B.?”
“We’re checking on you first, Snow Pony,” Little Brew said. “Big bro is making you a present of that board.”
Tommy’s eyes widened as he looked at Ty. “Are you kidding?”
“I’ve got to be done with it,” Ty said. “I’ve held on to it too long. You keep it for a while. If I want it back, I know where to find you.”
“You serious?” Tommy asked.
Ty nodded. Tommy tried to do some ridiculous handshake routine with them. They had showed it to him once, and he had flubbed it even then, but they went along with it. Then he made them carry the board over to the side of the bed so that he could touch it. He explained the story to my mom, who maybe finally got a glimpse of what sharks could do. She ran her fingers over the board and let Tommy go sharky on her. He told her the entire Ty-Barry-got-hit-off-the-board story. Ty simply listened.
“We have something else,” Little Brew said when Tommy finished. “Check this out.”
“I’m going to close the blinds so we can see better,” Ty said.
He fussed with the blinds and the room went dim. We all grouped around the head of the bed with Tommy in the center. Little Brew had to lie across Tommy’s legs so that we could all see the screen, a tiny flip-out deal that came off the side of the recorder.
Little Brew hit Play and we squinted at the screen: it was the surf footage that Ollie had shot. It jumped around a good deal, but eventually I made out the group of surfers sitting beyond the breakers and watching the waves. Then I saw Willy take off, his ride perfect, which then blended into Ty’s solo ride. Ollie had done a good job bleeding different lines together, but it also made it a tiny bit confusing. The film only made complete sense when I saw myself jump off the back of the Jet Ski. Ollie focused in on me as I climbed onto Ty’s board, and then he cut to us flying down the face of the wave. It looked amazing. He ran it in slow motion so that we could see every detail, and I had to admit my ride looked pretty daring. The wave curled above us like a flyswatter, and then it came down and swamped us. I saw myself smiling, a deep, happy smile, and I didn’t say it aloud, but I liked how I looked.
“Look at Bee’s Knees,” Tommy said. “She’s a rad surfing babe.”
I smiled at Tommy and he smiled back. I had never seen him so happy.
The footage showed Ty and Tommy’s run, too. I winced a little when the wave dumped them, but Little Brew backed it up and slowed it down and we watched it four or five times. Each time I saw Tommy’s face jammed with a full-on smile, h
is body tiny against Ty’s, his arms brittle sticks. On the last run, though, Little Brew looked up at Ty and laughed.
“I knew they wouldn’t see it,” Little Brew said.
“See what?” Mom asked.
“The shark fin.”
“Maybe a shark fin,” Ty corrected. “It’s hard to tell.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
They showed us. It took a lot of back-and-forthing to get the scene they wanted, but finally they froze the camera on the shot of Tommy and Ty getting crushed by the wave. I examined the picture but I didn’t see anything. Mom leaned closer and nodded. Tommy didn’t see anything, either.
“I didn’t notice it at first,” Little Brew said. “Ollie spotted it when he edited the shoot. Right there, in the corner.”
Tommy did his best to lean forward.
“I see it now,” he said. “Wow! That thing is huge.”
He pointed. I leaned closer and then I saw it, too. To say it was a fin would be an overstatement. It was a tiny black point, maybe a piece of driftwood, maybe a strange break in the waves. It looked dark, though, and angled, as if the shark had been pointed more or less toward Tommy and Ty. If it had been a shark, then it probably went under them somehow, maybe losing their outline in the churning break. I wasn’t ready to go that far, but it didn’t matter. Tommy, I could tell, had already bought the whole thing. He kept turning to look at me, his eyes wide, his mouth open. He had been in the water with a great white. That was all that mattered.
“That’s a great white,” he said. “Must be the same one you saw, Bee.”
“Probably,” Little Brew said, though I couldn’t tell if he believed it. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“So you’re saying,” my mom said, her voice happy and tight, her hand ruffling Tommy’s hair, “that you put my son into the water with a great white shark?”
“And your daughter,” I added.
“I can’t believe it,” Tommy said, as excited as I had ever seen him. “I cannot freaking believe it.”
“Not only that,” Little Brew said, “that shark was hunting you.”
“Wanted some Tommy sushi,” Ty said. “A little Snow Pony roll.”
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