The Rules of Inheritance (25 page)

THE HOURS ON THE BUS pass slowly. The jungle rushes by in a blur of humid greenery, and we fly up and down hills, twisting around curves and across long stretches of unpaved road.

 

The two boys who hopped on the bus as we left the station turn out to be ticket takers, and they fling themselves up and down the aisle as we hurtle along the road, collecting fare and chatting with passengers. Every once in a while I catch them looking at me, and I do my best to offer them a smile before they look away shyly.

 

Most of the time I stare at the passing scenery, smoke cigarettes, and think about the last two months.

 

My father died on a Tuesday night, just after seven o'clock in the evening. I was holding his hand when he took his last breath. Afterward I walked outside to the patio. The night air was warm, and I could hear kids splashing in the pool of the condominium complex.

 

My father was dead.

 

The whole world felt still and empty. Just like it did when my mother died. Except now I was really alone.

 

I had finally broken up with Colin a week before my father died, moving all my possessions into my dad's garage. I was now, in fact, the owner of his condo. My father left me in charge of everything, and I spent the weeks following his death making calls to Social Security and the VA, alerting them of his demise.

 

I kept waiting for someone more grown up than me to appear and take over, but no one ever did, and I was left to meet with the estate lawyers and plan the memorial service by myself. Those were lonely days. I smoked a lot of cigarettes on the patio. I drove my dad's car—a big, dumb Oldsmobile—to the beach, where I sat for long, quiet hours looking out at the water.

 

I felt an emptiness spread in me from the inside out. It was as though I was an astronaut, disconnected from my ship, floating in cold blackness, my breath coming in plumes, and static the only sound.

 

If grief was once like a whale, or like a knife, it became a vast nothing expanding outward from the very core of who I am.

 

Since there were no adults to tell me how to do things, I did them my way.

 

I blasted the Violent Femmes in the car the day I drove to pick up my father's ashes from the funeral home.

 

 

I wore my Seven jeans and aviator sunglasses the day I met with the estate lawyers.

 

I stayed up late, slept until noon, drank too much. Smoked cigarettes in the house.

 

The memorial service was on a Saturday. I wore a pale blue linen dress and stood at the podium in the little room and read aloud my eulogy with a shaky voice. There were fewer than twenty people there, most of them my friends.

 

After that I rented an apartment in Venice Beach. I couldn't stay in my father's condo anymore.

 

Venice was perfect, and my apartment was in an eclectic little neighborhood filled with canals that had been built in the 1920s. They were meant to replicate Venice, Italy, and for the most part they did. Ducks quacked softly at night, and on my walks to the video store I crossed over little white bridges covered in honeysuckle and bougainvillea.

 

But in the past two months a heaviness has settled over me. I'd been spending my days on the couch, with the blinds pulled tight against the harsh noon sun, unable to find a reason to leave the house.

 

Unable to find a reason to exist, really.

 

This last week in the Philippines has startled me out of my cloud of depression though, pulling me reverently back into the world. Several days ago I stood outside an open-air market in Manila, my eyes cast up to the blue sky as REM's “Losing My Religion” blasted through outdoor speakers.

 

For the first time in a long time I found myself grateful to be alive.

OUTSIDE THE WINDOWS of the bus the landscape is starting to change. We are nearing the coast again. When I finally look up, I realize that I am the only passenger left on the bus.

 

I catch the eye of one of the ticket takers, and he takes a seat across from me.

 

Where are you going?

 

He asks this timidly. And then we commence a repeat of the conversation I had with the cab driver.

 

Malapascua.

 

Why are you going there?

 

Oh, just to go.

 

Who is going with you?

 

Nobody, just me.

 

It suddenly occurs to me that this could all be some elaborate kidnapping plot. But if it is, it's already too late. I'm done for. In which case there's no harm in answering truthfully.

 

You are going alone?

 

Yup.

 

No husband?

 

Nope.

 

No friends?

 

Nope, just me.

 

Do you know anyone on Malapascua?

 

I shake my head.

 

You're just going alone?

 

Yes, I really am. I smile now, hoping that he'll finally get the picture.

 

But he continues. Where are you from?

 

Again, I briefly consider lying, but I'm a terrible liar.

 

America, I finally say hesitantly.

 

Where in America?

 

California.

 

LA?

 

Yup, LA.

 

He nods then. I will help find a boat to take you to Malapascua.

 

Thanks, I say.

 

I'm not sure whether I feel relieved or terrified.

 

Suddenly the bus rumbles off the main road and we're flanked on both sides by dense tropical forest. Oh God, I think. Here we go. I'm definitely being kidnapped. But before I can really panic, the trees clear and the huge, gleaming ocean opens up in front of us.

 

The bus chokes to a stop beneath a tree, and the driver hops off and immediately lights a cigarette. I follow the young boy across the road to a ramshackle dock surrounded by a cluster of wooden pilings. A few rickety catamarans sit in the water, and a surly looking group of men sit around a card table in the shade.

 

Hey, shouts the boy, this girl wants to go to Malapascua.

 

The men look up, not one of them making a move.

 

Hey, he shouts again, can one of you guys take her to Malapascua?

 

Finally one of the men folds his cards and pushes back his chair. He walks slowly toward us. His skin is topaz colored, and even though he's young deep sun wrinkles are etched in his face. He looks me up and down.

 

You want to go to Malapascua?

 

I nod at him, tighten my grip on my backpack.

 

Right now?

 

That would be great, I say, trying hard to sound friendly.

 

Give me ten minutes, he says.

 

I nod again.

 

Okay, says the ticket boy with a serious nod. Then he grins widely and trots off in the direction of the psychedelic school bus.

 

I lean against a little boathouse as I wait for the next portion of my journey to begin. On the map Malapascua didn't look too far from Cebu, but from where I stand all I can see is wide-open ocean.

 

True to his word, after ten minutes the boat driver emerges from out of nowhere with another guy. I watch as they climb aboard a little catamaran that looks as though it is made of matchsticks and Kleenex.

 

The boat captain flings some ropes around and pulls the sails tight. Then he motions for me to climb aboard. I pause for a moment. This is it, I think. I can either go forward or step back.

 

I take his rough, weathered hand and step precariously onto the boat. The only place for me to sit is cross-legged on a small square of canvas that is stretched taut between the two hulls. With a snap of his wrist the boat driver unmoors us from the dock and in no time at all we're skimming across the water.

 

What am I doing?

 

I have never been this far out in the world. My father's condominium, his death, those sad and lonely days on the couch, all of it seems impossibly far away.

 

Mom, can you see me?

 

There is no answer, only the warm wind whipping down over the hull.

 

After a while the captain squats down next to me.

 

Hello, he says.

 

Hi, I say and then we both stare out at the ocean for a beat.

 

What's your name?

 

Claire. What's yours?

 

Rafael.

 

Then: Do you know someone on Malapascua?

 

I groan inwardly. Not this again. I answer robotically, Nope.

 

Why are you going there?

 

Oh, just to go. It sounds like a really beautiful place.

 

Where is your husband?

 

I don't have one.

 

You have a boyfriend?

 

Nope.

 

But you have friends with you?

 

Uh-uh.

 

You're just going alone?

 

I'm just going alone.

 

The captain is quiet for a while, seeming to mull over my situation.

 

My aunt has some huts on the beach that she rents. I will take you there.

 

I realize that I haven't even given a thought to where I might stay when I get to Malapascua. Thanks, I say genuinely.

 

After what feels like hours, but is probably only forty minutes, a small mass of land finally comes into view: Malapascua. It looks bigger than I imagined, but I know from my book that you can walk from one end to the other in under an hour.

 

We glide right up to the sand, the shallow water a shade of pale turquoise that most people only ever see on vacation billboards. The captain offers me his hand again and helps me step down off the boat. I hold my sandals and wade through the warm waves. He points up the beach a ways to a series of thatched huts.

 

My aunt's, he says gesturing to them.

 

I follow him, my backpack hooked over one shoulder and my flip-flops in my hand. The sand is warm between my toes and the only sound comes from the waves breaking on the shore.

 

I've done it, I think. I've unmoored myself.

I GET SITUATED in my new abode, a small, pleasantly decorated hut just steps from the water. And then I head over to the island's only diving shop, Bubble 07. It's late afternoon, but the sun still seems high in the sky.

 

The divemaster is an affable British guy named Duncan, and I explain to him that although I haven't been diving in years I'd like to arrange to see the thresher sharks. He raises an eyebrow and leans back in his seat.

 

I give him the same look I gave the estate lawyer when he glanced up from his documents to ask why I had been chosen as executor over my three much-older half siblings.