“This isn’t what I wanted to happen. I wanted you.”
“It’s okay, Sam. Really.”
Sam pounded his fist on the table. It rocked back and forth on the cement porch. “I’m not like you,” he said, jumping to his feet. “I like things nice and simple. I love you. I want to be with you. I know we’re trying to do what’s best for Izzy and I know she’s a great girl and I know it’s natural I would be attracted to her, but damn it, Alison, it was supposed to be you and me. And you’ve managed to make it messy and complicated and impossible.”
I watched him pace past me. It isn’t me, I thought. Sam was the one who was making things impossible.
“Maybe that’s how love is,” I said. “Maybe it’s always messy. I don’t know.”
“What about Izzy?” Sam asked. “I mean, here we are, all tiptoeing around her like she’s an imbecile, pretending she’s just got a hangnail. In the meantime, she’s practically picking out wedding dresses. Don’t you think maybe she deserves the whole truth about you and me?”
I clenched my fists. “I don’t see the dishonesty. You honestly have feelings for Izzy. Fine. And no one’s told her she’s cured or that she’s going to live forever. No one’s lied about that. So what’s so wrong with letting her be happy for a little bit?”
“It’s wrong if you can’t be happy. Eventually she’ll sense it, eventually she’ll know you resent her and she won’t quite know why. Or—or I’ll be kissing her and thinking of you or something, and it’ll be like one of those bad movies where you blurt out the wrong name.”
“Or maybe you’ll just be kissing her and thinking of her,” I said calmly. “Maybe that’s what you’re afraid of.” It was my turn to stand. “I won’t resent Izzy eventually, Sam, because this was my choice. Besides, there is no eventually. Eventually implies time. And Izzy doesn’t have any.”
“And what about when she … if she …”
“Shut up. This is ghoulish, it’s horrible.”
“What if I fall in love with her, Alison?” Sam whispered.
“Then maybe you weren’t ever really in love with me.”
Sam spun on his heel and headed for the side yard, taking long, fast strides. I followed him to the driveway. Sara was still sitting on the bike.
“How’s Morgan?” she asked.
“He’s okay. He had a lot of fun with you that day.”
“Maybe we could come by sometime.”
“Maybe.” Sam put on his helmet, and Sara relinquished the bike to him.
“Is he really all right?” I asked.
Sam looked at me sharply. “We’ve had a lot of talks, he’s promised to behave. It’s cool.”
“Izzy told me there’d been some problem with him wandering off again.”
“I said everything’s fine.” Sam started the bike, and the air vibrated with sound.
“If you need any help—”
“I don’t think so.”
Sam nodded at Sara and took off in a blur of noise. She watched him go, head cocked, squinting as he vanished down the road.
“I don’t get it,” she said.
“What?”
“I don’t get you and him and Izzy.”
“I told you, Sara. He likes Izzy now.”
“But I thought he liked you.” She had the look of someone who knew she was being lied to, but couldn’t quite figure out how.
“It’s complicated, Sara.” I sat on the front steps. “You reach this point in your life and then, bam, everything’s really complicated. Sometimes I wish I could have stayed your age forever.”
“Ten isn’t so great. Ten pretty much sucks. You might as well be invisible.” She grabbed her basketball, which was wedged under a bush, and began to dribble. “You think maybe sometime we could go see Morgan and the animals again?” she asked casually.
“Someday, maybe. But not right away.”
Sara dribbled faster, making a tight circle on the driveway. “Al, I’ve got this game coming up soon, a big tournament.” Her voice was neutral. “Can you come? On a Saturday morning?”
“Sure.”
“Really?”
“Of course, Sara.”
“You want to play some ball?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve got an essay to finish.” I headed for the door.
“Al?” Sara called. She stopped dribbling.
“Yep?”
“How come we can’t go back to see Morgan?”
“It’s kind of—”
“Never mind, I know.” Sara shrugged. “It’s complicated.”
“No nests yet,” Izzy announced one Friday afternoon a couple of weeks later as we wandered Turtle Beach. She dropped onto the hot white sand and leaned back on her elbows.
“It’s too soon,” I said. “You tired?”
“No, just lazy.”
She’d been missing more school lately, a day here, a day there. The radiation was over for the time being, but she was still worn out after a full day of school. She looked so frail. I understood why Rosa spent her days pouring fatty concoctions down Izzy. The delicate bones of her face were too evident, and her eyes had a lost, childlike look.
I sat down next to Izzy and we watched an elaborate sand castle, obviously the work of many hours, melt into the water, dissolving like sugar as the waves licked at it.
“I did it, finally. I told Sam I loved him,” Izzy announced brightly. “To which he responded that he was afraid he was falling for me. I take that to be as good as the basic I love you. Although I would have preferred better phrasing.”
I stared at the sand. “I’m really happy for you, Iz,” I managed at last.
“You’ll find a guy just as great, you know.”
“I know.”
“Even my parents love him,” Izzy said. “Sometimes I think it’s too good to be true. I’m not hallucinating, am I? I mean, some of those drugs I’m taking are pretty potent.”
“If you are hallucinating, would you mind conjuring up a cute guy for me?”
Izzy laughed. We fell silent, watching the timid waves. The water was quiet that day, and so was the beach. Thick gray clouds banked on the horizon, and the air was flat and humid. I realized that this was the first time we’d been back to this spot since the day Izzy had told me she was sick.
“When I die, I want my ashes scattered here,” Izzy said suddenly.
I froze. Not if I die. When.
“Not by the water; everyone does that,” she continued. “In the grass over here, where we found the nest.”
I kept my gaze on the sand castle, now a smooth, brown, shapeless mass, like a modern sculpture. “I don’t know if I want to be cremated,” I said, just a casual response to a casual conversation. “I don’t like the box-in-the-ground thing. I’m too claustrophobic. But I keep thinking the burning would hurt. Which is crazy, of course.” I was babbling, but I couldn’t stop. “I kind of like the water burial idea—canoe out to sea, play a nice sea chantey or something. I read once that in the Solomon Islands, they just lay you on a reef to be eaten by sharks.”
“Nice,” Izzy said. “Ashes to ashes, dust to shark. All part of the great cosmic continuum. The scientist in me likes that.” She rolled on her side, watching me. “What do you think happens when you die, Al?”
“I don’t know,” I said softly. “I’d like to think you go to a place without zits and static cling. But I can’t find a religion that buys into that notion.”
“Rosa’s does. She’s into a full-service heaven. She goes to church, like, three times a week to pray for me, did I tell you? It’s sort of unnerving. I told her thanks, but still, I’d rather have her embroider me another sweater. It seems more practical under the circumstances.”
She was telling me she knew. She’d known all along, but I wouldn’t admit it to myself and neither would Lauren and Miguel and, probably, Sam. We were cowards, all of us. Izzy had let us off the hook, making it easy for us to pretend everything was fine.
Only now, at last, she was get
ting tired of the pretending.
I could feel my insides twisting, my eyes getting ready to churn out tears. This was my chance to help her through this, and I couldn’t.
It wasn’t my place, I told myself; she should be talking to her mom and dad. But I was her best friend. Best friends were created so you could say all the things you could never say to parents. Things like I know I’m dying, and I’m afraid.
But there was nothing I could say that would make her feel better, no easy lie, nothing. That’s what I was good at, little white lies that made people happy. I would have told her what she wanted to hear, but this time I didn’t know what it was.
“Remember that day we came here?” I said, watching the waves creep up, then retreat. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner about being sick, Iz?”
“What difference would it have made, in the grand scheme of things?”
“You weren’t honest with me, though.”
“Are you mad?”
“I was,” I said. The waves gulped down the last of the castle. “But then I realized you’d done it because you wanted to protect me.”
Izzy cleared her throat. “Al, my mom’s starting to talk about going to Miami, getting an apartment there.”
“But why?”
For the first time I thought Izzy might lose it. She was shuddering and hugging her knees, and her mouth was quivering with the effort to keep from crying. She looked like one of those old china figurines with all the little cracks beneath the surface, the kind my grandmother collected. I knew if she started to cry, she’d crumble into the sand in a million pieces and I’d never put her back together.
“Tell me, Iz,” I soothed. “It’ll be okay.”
“She says she thinks I’ll get better care there if anything comes up. But I don’t want to go back there, Al. It’s like a waiting room for the dying.” She started to sob, a sweet, childish sob, as if she didn’t have the energy for any more than that.
I put my arms around her. I didn’t know what to say. There was this big, horrible hole where the words were supposed to go.
“Wherever you go, I’ll come be with you,” I promised.
“You can’t do that,” she sobbed. “It won’t be that way. There’ll be school and stuff.”
She closed her eyes, and I could see her make a conscious effort to compose herself. “Who knows?” she asked quietly. “Maybe I’ll just die in my sleep, in my own bed. That would be the way to go.”
She wiped her eyes and pulled away, embarrassed, and struggled to her feet. “I’m really sorry,” she said. “Just a little exercise in self-pity. The pain medicine makes me weepy.”
“Don’t be sorry. Don’t be.” I stood too. I fumbled with my backpack, digging out my keys, stalling for time.
I was failing her. I was pretending because pretending was easier.
I made myself meet her frightened eyes. Maybe it was better to be honest and do it badly than to lie and do it well.
“You know what I think, Iz?”
She sniffled. “What?”
“I think,” I said slowly, finding my way to the words, “that when people die, it’s sort of like … well, like the turtles.”
I was afraid she might laugh at me, but she didn’t.
“What I mean is, we have a responsibility to keep them around so other generations can see them. To make sure they survive. I think it’s the same way with people. It’s our job to keep a part of the people we care about around. Even, you know, after they’re gone.”
I stared at the spot where the castle had been. It was just wet brown sand, flat and featureless. “I don’t know what happens when you die, Iz. But I do know that if I ever lose you, you’ll always be with me. Forever.” I fell silent for a moment. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. Or maybe I just don’t know how to say it.”
Izzy followed my gaze to the sand and the endless water beyond it. “Yes,” she said, very softly. “Yes, you do.”
Chapter 12
THE NEXT MORNING the sound of the phone cut through my murky dreams. Rain clattered against the window like impatient, tapping fingers.
I waited for Sara to get the phone; it was Saturday, after all. Then I remembered. My parents had dropped her off at the site of the basketball tournament for an early practice, then headed on to the clinic, which was open till two on Saturday.
I grabbed the receiver. “Yeah?” I said, half buried under my quilt.
“Alison, it’s Sam.”
I jerked up, instantly awake. “What? Is Izzy okay?”
“No, no, it’s not Iz. It’s Morgan.” I heard the whir of an electric drill. “I’m at the garage, see, and I would have called Izzy, but she was really beat last night.…”
“Is there a problem with Morgan?”
A sigh. “Not unless you consider being arrested a problem. They found him on Clementine again. Jane went over to check on him and when she saw that he and the horse were gone, she called me. I was trying to get off work when the cops called to say they had this old guy over at the station who claimed he knew me.” He gave a short laugh. “Some poor cop had to drag that horse down Route 41 in the rain. They weren’t amused.”
“I’ll go bail him out,” I said. “Don’t worry.”
“Jane would have gone, but she lent her daughter the car. I hate to ask, but the thing is, my boss says that if I split one more time, I’m out of a job.”
“It’s okay, Sam. Really. I don’t mind. I like Morgan.”
“He promised me,” Sam said. “I really thought I’d gotten through to him, you know?”
“It’ll be okay,” I said, even though I didn’t think it would.
“Could you just pick him up? There’s no fine or anything, I don’t think, but if there is, you know I’ll pay you back.”
I’d never heard such uncertainty in his voice before, and it made me sad.
“I’ll take him back to the trailer and stay with him till you get off work. Take your time. We’ll play some poker.”
I heard metallic pounding, a muffled curse, more whirring. “Crap. Oh, crap.”
“What, Sam?”
“The damn horse.”
“I’ll figure something out. You’d better get back to work.”
“I owe you. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”
“Don’t worry, Sam. It’ll all work out.”
I hung up the phone and sneered at my reflection in the dresser mirror. “Liar,” I said.
I threw on my rain slicker and riding boots, grabbed a granola bar for me, and sliced an apple for Clementine. I found the car keys after a ten-minute search through the living room, then ran out to the barn to hay and water Snickers. To my surprise, it was already done, the stall even mucked out. Sara? I grabbed a rope and ran to the car. It gurgled and coughed before settling into an uneasy idle. Rain sheeted the windows. This was not, I decided, a promising start to the day.
Clementine was tethered to a tree by the side of the police station. I parked the car and went over to reassure her with a couple of apple slices. She looked bewildered but content, very much like Morgan looked when I located him in the station, sitting placidly on a bench.
“Morgan,” I said, kneeling in front of him. “Do you remember me? Alison?”
His eyes were cloudy. “I’m going to Wisconsin,” he said.
“How about we go home instead? What about Cha-cha and the dogs? You can’t go to Wisconsin without them.”
“You ever play keno?”
“No, but maybe later we could play a hand of poker.”
“I have to take a piss.”
I pushed back my slicker hood. I very much wished I’d had a cup of coffee before leaving.
“There’s the can over there,” a jowly policeman told me. “Then we can take care of the paperwork. You the relative?”
“I’m the friend of the relative.”
“Nice old guy, but he oughta be … you know.”
I took Morgan’s hand. It was as light and fragile as a lit
tle kite.
He followed me obediently to the door of the men’s room. “This is the bathroom,” I said.
He looked at me, profoundly surprised.
“You said … you know. You wanted to … be here.”
He reached for the handle, poised to act, then stopped, suspended, as if his batteries had run out.
“I have to piss,” he said.
“Stay here.”
I went back to the policeman. He was typing, two-fingered, on a computer keyboard. “How old is that nag, anyway?” he asked me. “About a hundred?”
“Pretty old. You didn’t find any stray dogs or parrots when you picked Morgan up, did you?”
“Nope. You want to file a missing parrot report?” He did not smile.
“No, that won’t be necessary. But I have a problem. Morgan needs to use the rest room.”
“How exactly is that your problem?”
“I think he’s … uh, having second thoughts.”
The cop looked over his shoulder. He rubbed his thick jaw.
“These old farts, I know it’s hard, but you gotta put them somewhere for their own good, kid.”
“Maybe you’re right. Could you, uh … give him some moral support?”
“I’m not good with old people.” He went back to his typing. “Too bad,” he added under his breath. “I’m stuck here in the land of the living dead.”
I went back to the rest room. Morgan still stood there, paralyzed by indecision.
I opened the door a crack. “Anyone in there?”
My voice echoed off the yellow-tiled walls. No one answered.
I took Morgan’s hand and led him into the bathroom. I’d never seen a urinal before. I was not impressed.
I stood him before the first one. “I’ll wait for you outside,” I promised. “Don’t worry.”
“I have to piss,” he said.
“Then you’ve come to the right place.”
I slipped outside and waited, feeling frustrated and weary. I wondered how Sam could stand the relentless strain of caring for his grandfather.