He has huge blue eyes and pale brown hair that grows in different directions, cowlicks everywhere. Very small for his age, he was born three months prematurely, carried by a surrogate but it was Natalie’s egg. She’s dying of pancreatic cancer. In hospice in Virginia, it’s a matter of weeks and she doesn’t want Desi to see her like this.
Janet and Lucy don’t push back about it and they should. He should see his mother. He should be with her when it happens and already I can imagine how things will go. Lucy and Janet will need my help until I give it. Then they’ll say I interfere. It will be true. I’ll interfere on a regular basis and they’ll have to get used to it.
“Quiz time,” I say from my lounger, and as usual Desi is perched on the edge of it.
He doesn’t take up much room, and the sun is giving him freckles all over the place.
“Where’s your Avenger special cream? Remember we talked about it?” I nudge up one of his sleeves to remind him as I reach for the lotion for babies, SPF 50 on the small square pickled-looking table. “What happens if you get sunburned?”
“Cancer like Mommy has.” His back feels narrow and bony pressed up against me.
“She has a different type of cancer. But too much sun exposure isn’t good, you’re right about that. I can’t remember who you are this minute. Is it Hawkeye or Iron Man?”
“That’s silly.” But he loves it.
“It’s not silly. We have to help people, don’t we?”
“We can’t save the world, you know.” He’s very wise all of a sudden.
“I know but we have to try, don’t we?”
“You tried and got shot.”
“I’m afraid it’s the thanks I got.”
“It must have hurt.” He says the same thing on and off all the time and my answer isn’t enough. “What did it feel like? Nobody ever really says what it feels like and it’s not the same as a movie.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Maybe it’s like getting stuck with an arrow.”
“That would seem right but it didn’t.”
We continue to have this conversation because it’s important to him. It’s not really about me.
“What then?” He presses against me like Sock.
I try to think of a different description and come up with one. “It felt like I was punched by an iron fist.” I rub his back and it’s very warm because of the sun, because he’s a little boy with so much life in him.
“Were you scared of dying, Aunt Kay?”
He already calls me that and of course he can, and he uses the scared word a lot and it’s not a new question. Both of us look at the ocean, at a squadron of pelicans flying past our terrace, so close I can see their eyes as they spy for fish.
“What do you think dying is?” I ask him what I have before and no discussion will take away the sadness.
“Going away,” he says.
“That’s a good way to think of it.”
“I don’t want my mommy to.”
“Going away like on a trip but that doesn’t mean she’s not around anymore. It just means she’s not where everybody else is right now,” I reply.
“But I don’t want her to.”
“None of us do.” I rub lotion on an arm he holds straight out like a stick.
“It would be lonely.”
“Maybe it isn’t for the person who left.” I start on the other arm. “Wouldn’t that be a good thought? It’s lonely for us but not for them.”
“I would have been scared if someone shot me under the water,” he says, and there’s little I remember but what I don’t doubt is that I knew exactly what was happening at the time.
I heard the spit and the spear as it hit my scuba tank, glancing off, and I couldn’t get away as she placed the butt of the gun against her hip, jamming another shaft into the barrel. Then I was slammed in my right thigh and she was rushing on top of me and the vibration was loud, the propulsion vehicle like a lightweight jetpack mounted on her tank, battery charged, controlled by a handheld switch. What I remember most vividly is Benton’s face, the water pressing his cheeks flat. He was unnaturally pale, as pale as death.
I don’t remember struggling. I have no recall of stirring up the bottom, deliberately creating a brownout. I don’t remember slashing at her with my knife, cutting open her face from her temple to her chin, through her left cheek. Then she was gone as if she’d never been there, and I don’t remember the blood clouding out in her wake.
I don’t remember anything. I wasn’t aware of Benton getting me to the surface, holding my regulator in my mouth. My mask-mounted camera ran the entire time. It captured at least some of what happened. I don’t know how much. The FBI has my mask, my tank, my knife, everything. I’ve not been shown the list of what they’ve seized. I’ve not been allowed to review the recording yet for reasons not even Benton will tell me. What I’m left with for now is a black hole as if Carrie Grethen is dead again but I’m told she’s not.
It’s like a weather report I get on the hour. The latest prediction of the heat and humidity, the latest storm moving in or out and what to expect next and should we go somewhere else. I look for her as I convalesce, taking an inventory of how I feel and what I’ve been through, details I won’t share with Desi until he’s much older, maybe as old as Lucy was when I began talking openly about life’s ugliness.
In truth it’s been awful. A punctured quadriceps above the knee and a debridement surgery not to mention decompression sickness as gases came out of solution, migrating to areas of my body where bubbles don’t belong. Severe joint pain as if I didn’t hurt enough, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy in a recompression chamber which I have no idea about. Except I have vague impressions, ephemeral like gauze, and that’s probably the origin of my comic book theme with Desi.
I think I believed I was in a space warp or on a Galactus ship. Since he got here he rarely leaves my side. He reminds me of Lucy at his age, a hovercraft constantly staring at me and asking the same questions repeatedly that are hard to answer honestly.
“How about you roll the Ferrari over here?” I say to him.
“It’s not really a Ferrari and pretty soon you won’t need it.” He trots to get it.
“When my leg is better you’re in big trouble.”
“Why?”
“Because I can catch you,” I reply.
He rolls it over to the lounger and the walker isn’t bad for such a thing, racing red with black swivel wheels and handbrakes.
“It’s like an old person,” he teases yet again and he’s enormously amused by himself.
“It’s not.”
“Like a cripple person.”
“What would be a nicer word, Desi?”
“An old cripple person!” He shrieks somewhere in the range of two octaves above high C.
“You owe me another quarter.”
“When we had a dog he got hit by a car and couldn’t walk anymore. He had to be put to sleep.” He follows me through the open slider.
I push the walker along, moving my wrapped-up right leg without bending it much.
“That bad lady should be put to sleep,” he says. “What if she comes here?”
The living room with its earth-tone furniture is empty and quiet. Benton, Marino, Lucy and Janet went to the Taco Beach Shack to pick up dinner and after that they picked up my mother, and I’m annoyed. Take-out food every night and it depresses me. I look for Sock. He’s probably snoozing on the bed again. When everyone gets back Benton needs to take him out.
“You may not know this about me yet but I’m a very good cook.” I roll the walker to the kitchen and open the refrigerator door, then I maneuver myself to the pantry. “What would you think of spaghetti with tomato and basil, a little red wine, olive oil and some garlic with a dash of crushed red pepper?”
“No thanks.”
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“I’ll write your name on the plate with a noodle.”
“I don’t want it.”
“So it’s tacos again. And that root beer you like so much. When I was your age they had birch beer. Have you ever heard of it?” I get a root beer out of the refrigerator and twist off the cap. “In a glass?”
“No thanks.”
“I didn’t think so but it’s nice to ask.” I hand it to him. “They had a place down here called Royal Castle. There might still be one on Dixie Highway near Shorty’s Barbecue. I’m going to have to find you a birch beer somewhere. We have birch trees in New England. Lucy has a lot of them on her property. They have peeling bark like white paint peeling off.”
“Am I going back to Virginia?”
“Do you want to?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “Mommy’s sleeping I think.”
“It would be fun if all of us lived closer, wouldn’t it?”
“Were you ever seven, Aunt Kay?” He lifts the bottle and takes a sip as I hear a key in the front door.
“My mother tells me I was. You know her. The notorious Grans.”
“What’s notorious?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
“Then what happened?”
“When I was your age?”
“Yes.”
“I grew up to be disappointed that you don’t want my spaghetti.”
“Oh don’t worry I’ll eat it!” That laugh again as he runs to the door.
I smell Mexican food as everybody walks in, and I take off my tactical gun pouch. I tuck it in a cabinet out of reach for a little boy.
BENTON AND I ARE alone, both of us in the lounger for two. The low sun smolders over the ocean in hot pinks and oranges, diffusing over deepening shades of blue that heave languidly. Soon it will be as dark as velvet.
“The latest isn’t much better and may be as good as it’s going to get.” Benton holds my hand and drinks red wine as he explains the update as of half an hour ago. “If she received medical treatment we can’t find any hospital or private practice that might have treated her. She’s vain enough to want a plastic surgeon, but we can’t find it out. We probably won’t. She could be anywhere now. At least we know the RIB we recovered is the boat you saw. That we’re sure of.”
“The drift divers were the two of them. Right there. Right under our noses as usual.” I reach for the bottle and he beats me to it. “Troy was in the RIB and we know where she was.”
“Well we know she was the one diving and that it was a ruse so she could take us out. Leaving Lucy by herself. That would have made Carrie very happy.” Benton fills my glass.
“I should have asked about the damn RIB when I saw it out there. Why didn’t I? What’s wrong with me?”
“Anybody seeing the dive float moving would assume it was normal,” Benton says. “Just people drift-diving the reef and that the person in the boat would eventually follow and pick up whoever it is.”
“She did that because she knew we’d be looking. And obviously she abandoned the float and line attached to it so we’d have no idea how close she was to us.” The wine is nice and I’m getting sleepy. “She knew we’d see the RIB and the float some distance away and think exactly what we did.”
“It was meticulously planned—as I would expect from her,” he agrees. “And the RIB’s registration was painted over, which is why it wasn’t noticed by police, the Coast Guard or us. After the incident it appears she ditched it in a marina in Pompano Beach. That’s where it was found this afternoon.”
“No sign of Troy.”
“No,” he says. “I’m sure he’s with her somewhere. Her new partner.”
“And more people will be hurt or killed. It’s my fault. I saw the damn RIB. I should have asked about it.”
“You shouldn’t be hard on yourself about any of this, Kay. You need to stop.”
“I wonder how long it had been there in the marina. One more thing under everybody’s nose.”
“I don’t know. It was docked right there in the open but again the number had been spray painted over and a new one applied with a stencil. An expensive boat, a Scorpion. If it wasn’t for that we’d still be looking. I suspect she ditched it there soon after the incident.”
“Maybe we can come up with something besides the incident. I feel as if my life has been reduced to a police report. What are we supposed to do now exactly?” I went easy on the tacos and can really feel the wine. “She managed for thirteen years and no one was the wiser. If she wants to disappear she certainly knows how. She’s smarter than we are.”
“She’s not.”
“It feels like it.”
“She’ll need money again. Whatever she’s got won’t tide her over forever. Not the way she lives and moves around.” Benton leans back in his side of the lounger and when the warm moist air moves I smell his cologne. “The fact is we’ll always have to be vigilant.”
“If it’s not her it’s someone.”
“Always the optimist.” He turns his head and kisses me and I taste wine on his tongue.
“Marino needs to take my mother home. We should say good night.” I lower my bandaged leg to the tile but I don’t put any weight on it.
Benton wraps an arm around me and I limp a little as he helps me inside. The damn walker is parked just inside the open slider where Sock is snoozing on the cool marble floor. I place my hands on the grips and roll it in the direction of Desi shrieking again, his small feet galloping, and he screams around a corner just as Lucy snatches him up and lifts him over her head, his arms and legs pumping.
“She hates children,” I say to Marino.
He’s in baggy shorts, a Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops. He hasn’t shaved in days.
“Being a designated driver sucks.” He’s holding the car key, nothing subtle about it.
Then another noise, a toilet flushing down the hall, a long pause and the door slowly opens. My mother’s white hair is a halo in the light spilling out but there’s nothing angelic about her as she rolls her walker toward me.
“This is what you get for being disrespectful,” she starts in again as she rolls closer. “When you were Desi’s age and you laughed at the older people who came into your father’s market with their canes? And this is what you get.”
“I never did such a thing,” I reply and it does no good. “Desi, don’t listen to her.”
He isn’t, and now Lucy is a helicopter flying him around the room while Janet looks on from the sofa, in a cotton shirt and loose pants, pretty and at ease as usual. She meets my eyes and smiles because we both know what we’re dealing with, and then my mother has to pointedly look me up and down and make another comment, her eyes faded and magnified behind her glasses. She’s spilled salsa on her dress, another floral pattern with a hem that looks uneven because of the way she stoops and seems to cock herself like a gun about to shoot.
“Katie?” When she calls me that I know it’s coming. “Dorothy is happy to keep Desi and I think it’s a better idea than him being around all these women. It’s nice to have a man. A boy needs the influence of a man.”
Dorothy, Lucy’s mother, my only sister, isn’t here of course. I’m not sure she even understands exactly what has happened. She knows I was hurt. She did ask if I’d be able to wear shorts again.
“Great idea, Grans,” Lucy says as she lowers Desi to the floor, and his cheeks are an excited rosy red. “She did such an amazing job with me and there were so many men I can’t remember them.”
“That’s not nice, Lucy.” My mother rolls closer to her, and if it’s one thing I’ve learned from witnessing all this night after night is I’ll never use a walker as a weapon. “You should be ashamed of yourself wearing no more clothes than that. Those skintight shorts are indecent. Are you wearing a bra?”
Lucy pretends she’s going t
o lift her shirt to check and Marino guffaws.
“Are you ready to go home, Mother? Marino is happy to take you.”
“Well all right then. That’s only the third time everyone has asked. I know when I’m not wanted. I don’t know why you even bother having me over.” She slides her feet, rolling her walker to the door where Marino can’t wait to open it for her.
“Come on, Grans. I’m your chauffeur. I hope you don’t expect me to wear one of those fucking prissy caps.”
“I’ll wash your mouth out . . . !”
“I’ve heard you do your share of cussing.” He holds the door for her, and then they’re in the entranceway and he pushes the elevator button.
Sock has gotten up and is cowering. My walker scares him.
“I don’t even know such filthy words as that,” my mother says.
“Then how’d you know what it was? See? That’s why I’m such a good detective.”
I wait until they’re gone before I shut the door, and Lucy and Janet tell Desi it’s time for him to brush his teeth. He bolts over and hugs me. He stares up at Benton rather dubiously.
“Good night, Mister Bentley,” he says. “I’m going to be an FBI agent someday.”
They head down the hall.
“I think we should take the rest of the wine to bed, Mister Bentley.” I push the walker and envision my mother pushing hers.
I start laughing. I laugh so hard I can’t go anywhere quite yet. Then Benton helps me down the hall to the master suite, where the slider is open all the way, the warm breeze blowing in. A huge moon is low and reflected in the swells of the waves. Boats are out. Some of them like small cities on the water. Lights wink red and white on distant planes flying in and out of Miami. I listen to the rhythm of the surf. It sighs loudly and sounds like breathing. Sock cowers again when I park the walker out of the way. He flattens himself on the floor.
“Oh I’m not going to hurt you for crummy sake. Don’t be so dramatic,” I say to him. “I’m sorry I didn’t handle it better,” I say to Benton as I lower myself to the bed and Sock jumps up.