The Descendants (11 page)

I hear Jerry coughing and then Troy saying something about life and lemons and bootstraps.

When I come out of hiding, Troy is walking away and Scottie is running out of the dining room. I get up to follow her. She runs toward the beach wall; I catch up to her before she jumps off it. Tears are brewing in her eyes. She looks up to keep them from falling, but they fall anyway. I want to join her. I want to kneel down and sob.

“I didn’t mean to say dead chicken,” she cries. “It’s just that Mom always twitches. It doesn’t mean anything!”

“Let’s go home,” I say.

“Why is everyone so into sports here? You and Mom and Troy think you’re so cool. Everyone here does. Why don’t you join a book club? Why can’t Mom just relax at home?”

I hold her and she lets me.

“I don’t want Mom to die,” Scottie says.

“Of course you don’t.” I push her away from me and bend down to look in her brown eyes. “Of course.”

“I don’t want her to die like this,” Scottie says. “Racing or competing. I’ve heard her say, ‘I’m going out with a bang.’ I hope she goes out choking on a kernel of corn or slipping on a piece of toilet paper when she’s really old.”

“Christ, Scottie. Where do you get this? Let’s go home. You don’t mean any of this. I don’t like you talking this way. And Mom’s not going to die.”

Her face is puffy. Her hair is greasy. She has this look of disgust on her face. It’s a very adult look.

“Look. Your mother thinks you’re great. She thinks you’re the prettiest, smartest, silliest girl in town.”

“She thinks I’m a coward.”

“No, she doesn’t. Why would she think that?”

“I didn’t want to go on the boat with her, and she said I was a scaredy-cat.”

“She was just joking. She thinks you’re the bravest girl in town. She told me it scared her how brave you were.”

“Really?”

“Damn straight.” Joanie often said that we’re raising two little scaredy-cats, but of all the lies I tell, this one is necessary. I don’t want Scottie to hate her mother, as Alexandra once did or maybe still does.

“I’m going swimming,” Scottie says.

“No,” I say. “We’ve had enough.”

“Dad, please.” She pulls me down by my neck and whispers, “I don’t want people to see that I’ve been crying. Just let me get in the water.”

“Fine. I’ll be here.” She puts her camera in her backpack and strips off her clothes and throws them at me, hands me two pictures, then jumps off the wall to the beach below and charges toward the water. She dives in and breaks the surface after what seems like a minute. I sit on the coral wall and watch her and the other kids and their mothers. The mothers have so much gear: snacks, toys, umbrellas, towels. I don’t have anything, not even a towel Scottie can run into when she’s done. To my left is a small reef. I can see black urchins settled in the fractures. I still can’t believe Scottie slammed her hand into one of them.

I look at the picture of Jerry and then the one of Troy. His smile is so genuine, his muscles so shiny, it’s like he greases them. The outside dining terrace is filling up with people and their pink and red and white icy drinks. An old man is walking out of the ocean with a one-man canoe on his shoulder, a tired smile quivering on his face as if he’s just returned from some kind of battle in the deep sea.

The torches are being lit on the terrace and on the rock pier. I can still see the booze cruises floating past the wind sock and heading back to shore. The soaring sun has turned into a wavy blob above the horizon. It’s almost green flash time. Not quite yet but soon. When the sun disappears behind the horizon, sometimes there’s a green flash of light that seems to sparkle out of the sea. It’s a communal activity around here, waiting for this green flash, hoping to catch it. I realize I still need to get Scottie home and then go back to the hospital.

Children are coming out of the water, running into the towels their mothers are holding out for them. I hear a mother’s voice drifting off the ocean. It’s far away yet clear. “Get in here, little girl. They’re everywhere.”

Scottie is the only child still swimming. I grab her things and jump off the wall. “Scottie!” I yell. “Scottie, get in here right now!”

“There are Portuguese man-of-wars out there,” the woman says to me. A toddler clings to her leg; she’s trying to shake him off. “The swell must have pushed them in. Is she yours?” The woman points to Scottie, who is swimming in from the catamarans.

“Yes,” I say. She’s mine, but I don’t know what to do with her, where to put her.

Scottie finally comes out of the water. She’s holding a tiny man-of-war—the clot of its body and the clear blue bubble on her hand, its dark blue string tail wrapped around her wrist.

I grab a stick and take it off of her. “What have you done? Why are you doing this?” I pop its bubble so that it won’t hurt anybody else’s child.

The other kids are looking at her arm, which is marked with a red line. They take a few steps back. The toddler walks toward the man-of-war. “Bubbles?” He reaches for it, and his mom grabs his hand. He throws himself to the sand and wails.

“Should I get the lifeguard?” the woman asks.

“I’ll handle it,” I say. “Scottie. Go rinse your arm off.” She heads for the terrace. “No. In the salt water.”

“It’s not just my arm,” she mumbles. “I was swimming with, like, a herd of them.”

“Are you okay?” the woman asks. The other kids head back to the water, and she yells, “Stay out!” so loudly she sounds like an umpire.

“She’s fine,” I say, wanting the woman to leave. Her child is still crying, and it’s annoying. Can’t she give him a bottle or some candy?

I turn my back to her and walk toward the ocean. “Why would you stay out there, Scottie? How could you tolerate that?”

I’ve been stung by them hundreds of times; it’s not so bad, but kids are supposed to cry when they get stung. It’s something you can always count on.

“I thought it would be funny to tell Mom I was attacked by a herd of minor wars.”

“They’re not minor wars. You know that, don’t you?” When she was little, I would drink a few beers on the beach in front of the reef and watch the sun set while Joanie worked out. She’d point out sea creatures to me, and I’d give them the wrong names. I called them minor wars because they were like tiny soldiers with impressive weapons—the gaseous bubble, the whiplike tail, the toxic tentacles—advancing in swarms. I called a blowfish a Blow Pop; an urchin, an ocean porcupine; and sea turtles, saltwater hard hats. I thought it was funny, but now I’m worried that Scottie doesn’t know the truth about things. I’m worried my lessons are getting us all in trouble.

“Of course I know, duh,” Scottie says. “They’re manowars, but it’s our joke. Mom will like it.”

“It’s not manowar, either,” I say.

She dunks her body in the water.

“It’s man-of-war,” I say. “Portuguese man-of-war. That’s the proper name.”

“Oh.” She walks out of the water and begins to scratch herself. More lines are forming on her chest and legs.

“I’m not happy,” I say. “You need to just tell Mom that you miss her. She doesn’t need a story.”

“Fine. Then let’s go back. I’ll tell her what just happened.”

“We need to get home and put some ointments and ice on the stings. Vinegar will make it worse, so if you thought Giraffe Boy could pee on you, you’re shit out of luck.”

She agrees as if prepared for this—the punishment, the medication, the swelling, the pain that hurts her now and the pain that will hurt her later. She seems okay with my disapproval. She’s gotten her story, after all, and she’s beginning to see how much easier physical pain is to tolerate than emotional pain. I’m unhappy that she’s learning this at such a young age.

“The hospital will have ointments and ice,” she says.

We walk up the sandy slope toward the dining terrace. I see Troy sitting at a table with some people I know. I look at Scottie to see if she sees him, and she is giving him the middle finger. The dining terrace gasps, but I realize it’s because of the sunset and the green flash. We missed it. The flash flashed. The sun is gone, and the sky is pink. I reach to grab the offending hand, but instead, I correct her gesture.

“Here, Scottie. Don’t let that finger stand by itself like that. Bring up the other fingers just a little bit. There you go. That’s the cool way to do it.”

Troy stares at us and smiles a bit. He’s completely confused.

“All right, that’s enough.” I suddenly feel sorry for Troy. He must feel awful.

I place my hand on Scottie’s back to guide her. She flinches, and I remove my hand, remembering that she’s hurt all over.

“Can we go to the hospital?” she asks. We make our way past the locker rooms to the parking garage.

“I’m going to take you home,” I say.

“I have a story, and I want to tell Mom.”

Her voice is loud in the garage. She stops walking.

I stop and look back. “Come on.”

She shakes her head. I walk to her and grab her hand, but she pulls away from me. “I want to see Mom! I’ll forget what I need to say to her.”

I grab her wrist, more forcefully this time, and she screams. I look around and walk away and she keeps screaming and then I scream and we’re both screaming in the garage, our angry shouts bouncing off the walls.

SCOTTIE IS SULKING
in the car. I decide to call Dr. Johnston. I don’t want to go back to the hospital. There is too much to do. I ask a nurse to page him, and he calls moments later. Scottie presses the horn. I ignore her.

“Matthew,” he says.

“Can you tell me now?” I ask. “Just tell me everything.” I stand in the garage and watch Scottie in the car.

“There’s been an increase in pressure to her brain,” he says. “We’ve drained fluid, and we could do surgical intervention, but with her GCS, I’m afraid it wouldn’t help. You may have noticed that lately, she’s had no eye movement or any movement whatsoever. The damage to her brain is very severe. I’m sorry,” he says. “We’ve spoken of this, the possibility of this…”

I want to help him. I don’t want him to have to say every word he has to say to a boy he has known his entire life.

“Plan B?” I say. This was the term I used.

“Yes, I’m afraid. Plan B.”

“Okay,” I say. “Okay. I’ll see you then. I’ll see you tomorrow. Is it all starting now? Are you going to take everything away right now?”

“I’ll wait until I see you tomorrow, Matthew.”

“Okay, Sam.” I close the phone, afraid to go to the car. There’s a girl in there waiting for me to make things better, a girl who thinks her mother is going to be okay so her father can retreat once more, appearing at night to entertain and dine, and in the morning to eat breakfast around the kitchen island, stepping over schoolbooks, bags, gadgets, and clothes, then heading out the door. I stand still in the parking garage and think about Plan B. This plan means that my wife is in a persistent vegetative state. She has severe neurological disabilities. I will be approached for organ donation. Plan B means we’ll stop feeding her, caring for her, helping her breathe. IV fluids will be removed, medications will stop. It means we will let her die.

I hear a car’s tires turning the corners. I see the car driving down to our basement level. The tears come, and I wipe them away. The driver stops when she sees me. She’s an old woman who can barely see over the steering wheel of her Cadillac. I can see her fingers gripped around the wheel, and I think,
Why do you get to live so long?
I see her window going down and I stand there, curious to see how she’ll get me to move.

“May I get by?” she asks.

“I’m sorry,” I say and move out of the way.

11

WE DRIVE ON
H1 and sit in traffic behind a lifted truck, its back window airbrushed with an image of a woman with breasts as round as dinner plates. I can’t see around the vehicle to understand the reason for the holdup, but there probably isn’t one. Traffic is as mysterious as the brain or makeup or ten-year-old girls. Scottie’s stings are now raised red lesions, and I take her hand when she tries to scratch herself. There are dusty white patches on her skin, since I wouldn’t let her rinse off. The salt water should stay on her wounds.