"I don't even remember that," Liz told him. She pushed the fridge door closed, struck by how easily he had brought her sister, Rosa, into the conversation. That was a change. A change for the better.
"Want me to make you something?" he asked, leaning into the counter. "Remember, before I owned the Crashdown, I was the fastest short-order cook in the West." He ran his fingers over his bald spot. "Back when my hair managed to completely cover my scalp."
"No thanks. I'm not really hungry," Liz answered. She had a feeling she was supposed to laugh at her fathers joke, but she wasn't up to it.
"Just saying good night to the food?" he asked.
Just avoiding going to bed, Liz thought. Every time she lay down under the blankets, waves of grief smashed into her until she could hardly breathe. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why. When she was alone in bed, it brought up all kinds of memories of Adam. Their most special times together had been on the dream plane, and now whenever she began to drift off to sleep, entering that almost dreaming stage, Adam's face would appear before her, eyes bright and hopeful, so eager to try new things. Things he would never have the chance to experience now.
"Liz?"
She realized she hadn't answered her papa's question. "Um, yeah, saying good night. It's lonely in the fridge in the dark," she said quickly, forcing a fake laugh. She flashed on an image of Adam. Alone in the dark, deep under the desert floor.
"Is something wrong?" her papa asked. "I mean, besides the plight of the friendless vegetables?"
"No, I'm just sort of tired," Liz said, going into reassure-the-parent mode. She didn't want to upset her father. She didn't want to give him any reason to worry about her. She-
Stop, she ordered herself. He doesn't need your protection. Liz pulled in a deep breath and met her father's warm brown eyes. "Actually, something-something bad happened. Something awful," she admitted.
Her papa pulled a chair away from the kitchen table and gestured for her to sit. As soon as she did, he sat down beside her. "Whatever it is, you can tell me."
"I had this friend… Adam?" She looked at her dad to see if the name struck a memory, but it didn't seem to. "Well, you might have met him in the Crashdown once. He's… dead."
Her father shifted in his seat, and Liz told herself to slow down and choose her words carefully. She could tell her father what she was feeling, but she couldn't tell him everything.
"He-" She broke off. There were some things that still had to be kept secret, even from him. "He was… he was in a burger place in Hobbs, and he ordered a fish sandwich," Liz continued. "Then he left, and a drunk driver hit him. He's dead." Her voice wobbled as she realized for the hundredth time that he really was dead.
It wasn't even close to the truth. And it was a totally lame cover-up. But it still conveyed how random Adam's death had been.
Her father shook his head. "Mija, you're still a baby. You shouldn't have to know that the world can be so painful. I wish I could-"
"Protect me?" Liz interrupted.
"Yes!" her father burst out angrily. Liz noticed that his hands were curled into fists on top of his thighs.
"I know. I understand," Liz told him. "But you can't."
He let out a sigh that sounded like it came all the way up from his toes. "That's a hard thing you're asking me to accept," he admitted. "I'm your papa. Protecting you should be part of the job." He sighed again, his fists loosening. "But you're right. There are some things I can't control." He lifted one hand and placed it over hers on top of the table. "I can keep you company, though, right? And that helps a little, not having to go through something hard alone."
"It helps a lot," she answered, not trying to protect him or make him feel better. Just telling him the truth. Change for the better.
They sat for almost an hour, mostly in silence, sometimes chatting about customers at the Crashdown or something her papa had read in the newspaper. Liz felt something inside her unclench as they hung out together.
Finally he yawned. Then she yawned. Then he yawned again. Then she yawned again. "Copycat," her papa said.
Liz used the tabletop to push herself to her feet. She gave the lazy Susan a spin, watching the daisy in the center twirl. "I'm falling asleep sitting here. I'm going to bed," she announced.
"Any time you want to talk about Adam or anything else, I'm sure the vegetables will be happy to listen," her papa teased. "Or if they've been made into a salad, you can come find me."
"Thanks," Liz answered. She kissed his bald spot, then headed out of the kitchen. Behind her she heard her father begin to hum one of his favorite Grateful Dead songs, a sure indicator that he was feeling good.
And so was she. Well, better, anyway. A little lighter somehow. Liz walked quietly into her bedroom, undressed, and climbed into bed as quickly as she could, trying to hold on to that lightness. She began to drift off to sleep almost immediately. Adam's face flickered briefly in the darkness behind her eyelids, but the image didn't cause quite as much pain as it usually did. It just means he's inside me, she thought sleepily, the way I told him he would be.
With a dizzying rush she crossed the border between sleep and wakefulness. She was dreaming, but she also knew she was dreaming. I wonder why I'm dreaming this? she thought. She was sitting in the bleachers of some kind of aquatic show. A blond girl, dressed in white, stepped into view and started a spiel about the very talented dolphin they were about to see. She asked for a volunteer from the audience and picked Liz, even though everyone around Liz had been waving their hands wildly and she hadn't even raised hers.
Obediently Liz stepped up next to the girl in white. The girl handed her a fish and told her to walk out onto the end of the diving board. Liz stared up at the high dive in question. "The dolphin isn't going to be able to jump that high, is it?" she asked. The steps leading up to the board went up for what seemed like five stories.
"It's a very special dolphin," the girl answered. "It's not from around here." And suddenly, without climbing the steps, Liz was on the diving board. She carefully made her way out to the end and held the fish over the water, using just her thumb and forefinger.
She peered down at the turquoise pool below. "There's no way any dolphin can make it all the way up here," she muttered.
Almost as the words left her mouth, a dolphin nearly as blue as the water, an amazing, light, bright blue, flew straight up into the air as if powered by power. Liz stretched out her hand, and the dolphin's muzzle pressed against it.
At the touch of its warm skin, Liz's bones felt like they had turned to liquid. It was Max. She knew it. The dolphin was Max.
Before she could speak, the dolphin was hurling back toward the pool. "Jump again!" she shouted down. "Jump-"
The next word got jammed in her throat. There was something else in the pool now. Something much bigger than the dolphin. Black and white. A whale. A killer whale.
"Get it out of there," she screamed, scanning the ground for the woman in white. But she was gone. And the water was already turning red, red with blood. So much blood.
"Max!" Liz screamed.
She bolted straight up in bed, slick with sweat. "It was him," she whispered, shoving her hair off her forehead. "He came into my dream."
Was the whale some piece of the consciousness that had entered her dream, too, trying to keep Max from communicating with her?
Liz lay back down and closed her eyes tightly. "Try again, Max," she said. "I'll try, too."
Michael's awareness of the room around him sharpened. He felt one of the flattened beanbags on the living-room floor under his feet, and he heard the clock in the kitchen mooing out the time. And he was back. All the molecules in his body re-formed.