“Hey, guys,” Nick says, swallowing a whole tomato slice like a circus flamethrower. He loves his vitamins. “I’ve got the solution. They can’t serve any more court papers if you’re not around to be served. And they can’t haul Daniel in for chemo, either. Why don’t we take off? It is a houseboat.” He practically screams the second syllable.
It’s the first real connection he’s made to my situation. The first moment when I’m sure he understands that things are getting serious. But I know too that he’s a joker, so I play along.
“I like it,” I say. “Sign Nick and me both up as homeschooled. You’re in for one, might as well go for broke. We’ll take this tub around the world. How educational is that?”
Dad rests his hand on Mom’s arm to keep her seated, a safe distance from these crazy boys. And he’s the one with the red hair. “Don’t you guys have homework?”
In the cabin Nick flings himself on the bottom bunk. I go to fit my right foot on the ladder, but miss. My left side swings around and crashes into the bedpost.
“Fuck.” I try again and miss. “Double fuck.”
About that time Nick realizes I’m not goofing around. He scrambles up and stands there with his hands out to help me. I bat his hands away.
Disgusted, I mimic a whine. “More, sir. Please, sir, can I have some more?”
“Maybe it’s time to switch bunks,” he says, no small amount of pain in a voice that cracks on the vowels.
“You are such a punk.” My fist hits his stomach, high enough to stun him but not cause collapse. You have to remember I’ve had Joe practicing on me for years. “Time to switch bunks? Like you’ve been planning this for weeks? Waiting for just the right moment of weakness? The truth finally out?”
“Yikes, I was only trying to help.” He flings himself back on his bunk. “If it’s just you’ve had too much to drink, fine. Keep the stupid bunk. Just cut out the scotch tomorrow night.”
Neither of us laughs at his pitiful attempt at humor. I take off my shoes and socks. Strip to boxers and put on my sweats. Holding on to the ladder for balance, I jam the bio textbook onto my bunk with a notebook and pencil for the problems at the end of the chapter. Even hang up my jeans on the hook on the wall. With one hand on each side of the ladder, I wait for the swell of the river to pass. Wind from the south shifts the boat off the marsh in a steady rise. Then I start with the bottom rung and climb, more slowly, more deliberately, each foot on each rung, like a toddler goes up the stairs.
CHAPTER NINE
By the time I finish chapter five, about the neurology of pain, in the bio book, Nick’s snoring. This stuff is really interesting. Seriously. When you’re trying to translate puking and shivers and instant headaches into cold scientific fact, it helps to see how it all connects. If my parents ever ask my opinion, I’ll sound halfway intelligent for a change.
Outside, the last of autumn’s cicadas complain in long Morse code phrases, a certifiable madhouse of white noise. Across the phragmite stalks the deep voice of one lone bull toad blats out a warning to the cars on Route 17 above his head. Watch out, watch out, state police cruiser lurking. Every local knows the police sit in the empty Dairy Queen lot, ticket pads at the ready, mean, evil. Almost like magic, I hear the siren and red lights flicker across the cabin ceiling. What is it with policemen? They can’t let people enjoy a little fresh air without calling it speeding, showing off their badges and their power to punish. It’s all about rules for rules’ sake. Holden had it right.
No sounds from the upper deck or drifting forward from the back cabin. The parents are in retreat, gone to bed at nine instead of their usual midnight. Lately it seems as if they mimic my own escape to bed, hiding their exhaustion until I admit mine. I close my eyes. I’m too tired to climb down and turn out the light clipped to Nick’s headboard. Poor guy, he’s caught in the middle, helpless, unable to stop the opposition or even punt to protect his team.
He’s not much older than Holden’s sister Phoebe. But boys are different, really out of it as to what other people are feeling. This whole protect-my-poor-sick-brother thing, where did that come from anyway? Who would have guessed he paid enough attention to know Mom and Dad were in trouble? For Nick homeschooling would be pure torture. His friends are his life. He’s the soccer star, the team’s savior. His volunteering to leave those friends to save the Landons from a court order says a lot about what kind of guy he is. But it also means The Disease has caught him, too. If he was holding out hope for a cure, he would be lobbying for something altogether different than a cruise around the Chesapeake Bay on the Nirvana.
Now I get why Holden worries about Phoebe. As cool as she is, she’s still a little kid and any halfway decent big brother would care. I feel like rereading that scene with Phoebe’s suitcase, but the book is buried in my backpack, down that irritating ladder. So I just think about it instead. She sees his struggle and she thinks if she’s with him, it’ll help. Just like Nick putting himself in the same boat with me to make it easier for me. He just leapt right in, probably didn’t even think about what he’d be giving up. Phoebe too. She’s so sure she can fix it. And then Holden has to be the responsible one, to save her from throwing herself under the train. So he tricks her into going home.
I’m trying to figure out what hidden motivation Nick could have, whether there’s another angle, but his offer seems real enough. He said straight-out that we should switch bunks. No secret agenda there, because there’s way less headroom up here. No one would opt for the top bunk if they had a choice.
But Phoebe gives up on going with Holden. She lets him drag her suitcase home. That’s not so simple. I guess it’s possible she’s just pretending to be fooled, a kind of sneaky way to box him in, force him to keep his promise to come home. Girls are so much better at that kind of deception.
Take Meredith. When she calls me at night—her mother has eased up on the three calls a week to any one boy—she’s forever talking about something we’ll do next summer or when I come back to school. For a smart girl, she’s acting pretty dumb. The odds are not good on another summer for me. I don’t have the nerve to call her on it, though, because I like thinking about it too. And the last thing I want is to argue. Her calls—funny monologue-type run-ons—are a lifeline from the wreck of my life. She goes on and on about stuff in history and the school cliques and the football games, and I just listen. It’s the only time all day I stop thinking about my worthless body and the destruction it’s spreading in my family.
Phoebe’s like that for Holden, his lifeline. Everything else may stink, but Phoebe’s there, the same cheerful, glad-to-see-her-big-brother, predictable kid. Of course he likes how she takes his screw-ups in stride without judging him. Her faith in him. And her conviction that it will all work out. He admires her faith because he doesn’t have it. I get that. Nick’s partly the same way, not that I’d ever tell him straight-out. He doesn’t need more kudos on top of the endless soccer awards to swell his head.
Still, he’s going to turn out all right when I’m gone. When he needs to talk things over, he’ll have Joe. His other big brother. Joe’s like a safety net. He’ll help Nick learn the important stuff. How to step away from Dad’s steel-trap control of his emotions and Mom’s falling apart at the least little thing. Round and round my brain floats between Phoebe lugging that suitcase and Nick proposing a world cruise, until it all melts into a dream of the Bermuda Triangle and an endless expanse of green ocean. I sleep.
My parents argue all weekend about that fathead Walker and the Essex County Social Services witch. And about Mexico and the brand-new cure Mom’s heard about from her buddy Miss T. Undertaker. Nick’s suggestion to flee is like the tip of the iceberg. Dad starts in about wanting to take the boat downstream. Just a little overnight adventure, he calls it. Not like they don’t know the river well from Mom having grown up in Urbanna and all. But he’s enamored with the idea of a family road trip, an adventure on waves instead of wheels. It’s probably because he’s excited that for a change Nick has no soccer games on Saturday and a check for a big edit job has just arrived.