Imagine Me Gone (6 page)

“Well, did your father say that? Answer me.”

He turns around at my raised voice and shakes his head.

“So why do you say it?”

“Why are you angry?”

“I’m not angry. I just want you to tell me why you said that.”

“Because it’s true.”

He’s got John’s black hair, his hazel eyes, the same pale complexion. It’s clear as day they’re father and son. Which is only natural. But why, then, staring at this utterly familiar face, stilled now by something invisible, something new but very old—why is it that I am so terrified?

Celia

When Dad got us back to shore, Michael was waiting for us on the jetty. He told Dad that Mom wanted to see him. Dad went up the wooden steps to the house, and Alec and I followed Michael the other way, out onto the rocks. Michael started running, skipping from rock to rock. I kept up, watching his feet and following his jumps, avoiding the slippery edges. Alec called from behind for us to wait. Michael slowed down but kept going toward the point that we couldn’t see past from the house, the point where the shoreline turned onto the open ocean. When he got to a big flat rock just above the spray he stopped and stared out at the waves breaking onto the boulders. Alec caught up to us and immediately went down closer to where the spray was blackening the gray stone and then scurried up again each time just before it landed, looking back at us to see if were watching him.

Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Michael said, and I agreed. Alec said he didn’t like that game, but Michael and I started searching for the right little nook or cave in the rocks, and Alec came after us, saying we should look for crabs instead. We found a good spot with a flat bottom and a little overhang from a bigger slab of rock above it. It was shaded, almost like a real cave. Okay, get in there, Michael said to Alec, who complied, sitting cross-legged and fidgeting with the stones he’d picked up. Who am I? Alec asked. You’re a monk, Michael said. This is where you live. Who are you guys? That doesn’t matter. You don’t know us yet. What am I supposed to do? Alec said. You live here, you little fidget-buster, Michael said, squeezing Alec’s arm. You live here and think about the sea. Alec said, I don’t want to. Tough, I said. Why do I always have to stay in the cave? Alec said. Because you’re the monk, Michael said. We have to find you. Just stay there and don’t look what direction we’re going, okay? Shut your eyes. Alec closed his eyes and Michael and I ran across the smooth rock up along the tree line, going on like that for a while until we were well out of view of where we’d left Alec. The waves were bigger here and the water was loud, slapping against the rocks, then rushing off them as the waves drained back into the sea, showing all the seaweed and barnacles on the sides of the boulders, which disappeared again when the throat of the next wave rose up and covered them. It was getting later in the day but the sun was still in the sky.

Look, I said. Down on a broad rock just above the spray line to our right three seals were basking. They look dead, Michael said. They’re not dead, they’re sleeping. We climbed diagonally down toward them. Not too close, I said, they’ll wake up and go back in the water. Their skins were gray and brown and green and a little bluish too, all the colors mottled together, and they had huge dirty white whiskers and snouts that were wet like Kelsey’s. The biggest one was huffing and snoring. Do you see the blubber on that thing? Michael practically shouted. We could harpoon it and harvest its body fat for fuel, that blubber whale! His voice said he wanted to squeeze it like he squeezed Alec’s arm, squeezing the fat till it almost hurt.

I think they are protozoan, he said. What does that mean? Very old. Ancient. They were here before humans, living off their own blubber. Michael liked that word,
blubber
. He said it all the time, even if there was nothing blubberish around. We squatted down and watched them. Every few minutes one of the seals would raise its head, look over its shoulder at us, and then lay its head back on the rock. Eventually the middle one started rubbing its snout against its flank.

Do you think we’ll be late for supper? Michael asked. Maybe, I said. How long have we been here? he asked. A few minutes, I said. No, on the island. I don’t know, I said. Do you think we have a week left? he asked. I don’t know. Do you think we have ten days? Maybe.

He asked questions like this a lot but I usually didn’t answer because I didn’t really get them. It was just Michael saying stuff, asking things Mom ignored too, but that sometimes he convinced Dad to answer, which he’d do by asking more questions of Michael.

A harpoon would wake those puppies up, he said when I didn’t answer. Alec would have laughed and squealed at that, egging Michael on, but I didn’t. Michael stood up and walked in an arc around to the other side of the seals, keeping his distance. A minute later I followed him and we squatted down again, this time in the shade. A big wave doused the heads of the seals and they jostled themselves back from the wetness like big lazy dogs with no legs.

Mom and Dad are going to argue tonight, he said. How do you know? I just do, he said. Mom’s going to get angry at him. She always gets angry at him, I said. No she doesn’t, that’s not true, he said. Yes it is. She gets angry at him after we go to bed. Not every night, he said, she doesn’t do it every night. Besides, all couples have arguments. Mom told you that, I said.
All couples have arguments
. Mom told you that. So what? he said, that doesn’t make it not true.

Down the shoreline from where we’d come there were black cormorants on a wet rock. Some stood perfectly still with their necks folded back. Two had their big wings wide open drying in the sun, which made them look a little scary, like giant bats. None of them seemed to notice any of the others, like each bird was the only one on the rock. Out a ways seagulls flew in big circles above a lobster boat headed back toward the harbor. I still didn’t understand how they could stay up in the air that long without resting.

Michael tossed a pebble onto the tail of one of the seals but it didn’t notice. Don’t, I said. He lobbed another that landed on the biggest one’s back but it didn’t react either.

Don’t!

They’d heat Cleveland for a week in January! he exclaimed. He said that kind of thing all the time to his one friend, Ralph, our babysitter’s younger brother, and Ralph made strange noises and piled on more, like, They’d heat Nova Scotia for a year! and they’d keep going like that. Alec tried to join in but he didn’t understand how it worked so he was never funny. I understood, but they didn’t like playing with a girl. Stop it, I said, and he threw the rest of his pebbles away down toward the water.

What did you do in the boat? he said. Dad made us pretend he wasn’t there, I said. Michael had started taking small shells out of a tidal pool in the rock, drying them on his shirt, and arranging them in a straight line at his feet. I picked some up and added onto the line until it stretched in front of me too. Do you think it’s three weeks before we go back to school or a month? I don’t know, I said, why? I just want to know, he said. Once the line stretched a few feet on either side of us, he started removing shells until it looked like a white chain with missing links. A fine spray in the wind was making my face damp. I’m hungry, I said, let’s go have supper. The seals had backed themselves onto all dry rock again and weren’t moving at all, not even their heads.

Michael didn’t want to return to school, that’s why he was asking about it. Ralph was his only friend. Usually he didn’t get upset until a few days before we started, not this early, when we were still on the island.

He stood up and looking down at the seals said, Protozoan mammals beached like giant, animate pork loin. Then he started back along the rocks up by the trees and I followed him.

I hate you guys, Alec said when we reached the cave again. But we found you, Michael said. That’s how the game ends. You’re Saint Francis of Assisi praying here until your palms bleed. I don’t get it, he whined. Who are you? I’m Saint Francis as a younger man, Michael said, and Celia is his friend Clare, who cares for lepers. I hate you, Alec said, standing up and running out over the rocks ahead of us.

I knew Michael had to be right about the argument that would come later because Mom didn’t say anything about us being gone or even ask where we’d been. In the kitchen, Dad had the extra cheerfulness he got with us when Mom was angry at him. He let us each drop a lobster in the boiling water. He had to hold Alec so he’d be high enough not to get his hand splashed. Their black antennae whipped back and forth against the sides of the pot before disappearing.

Mom told us to clear the saucepans with crabs in them off the dining room table, and we put them on the floor by the door to the porch, a whole collection, fifteen or twenty, different sizes and colors. They were all alive and seemed happy enough. Kelsey sniffed at them but didn’t like the way they moved.

The invigilator is hungry, Michael said, petting her flank.

After supper Alec did his hyperactive-playing-then-crying sequence, and Dad took him up to bed, and he screamed that it was unfair. Mom had left the dishes for Dad to do and was reading a book by the dim yellow light of one of the oil lamps. We each had our own (except Alec) to carry from room to room and another by our beds. You turned up the oil-soaked canvas wick with a key on the side and, once you’d lit it, placed the curvy glass cover back in its metal holder. It was hard to make out the different shades of color in the Brueghel puzzle with it, but I didn’t feel like reading so that’s what I did until we played Boggle, and Alec came down again whining, and Mom said it was time for all of us to go to sleep.

After a few minutes I could hear the two of them through the floorboards. Mom started in her loud whisper. Totally different from her normal voice, faster and much more intense. I could make out some of her words but not all. Dad responded quietly like he usually did, in a much lower voice. I couldn’t make out any of his words, just the flat tone that didn’t change, which wasn’t how he normally talked either. Mom said something about furniture, and
God bless it,
which is what she said instead of swearing. Dad didn’t make any response to that. And then Mom’s voice got louder. You’re just going to sit there? You’re not going to say anything!

I was lying on my side and I wrapped my pillow around my head so it would cover my other ear but I could still hear her: It’s Michael who tells me! I ask a thousand times and I have to learn about it from the children! Dad said something I couldn’t hear, low and quiet again. Whatever it was just made her angrier, which didn’t seem fair, that every time he spoke she got angrier. And then what? she shouted. Another year, another two years, and all our lives, mine and the children’s, hanging on whether you talk these people into doing what you want them to do? Goddamn it, John! she shouted. It sounded like she hated his guts.

My door opened and I heard Alec sniffling. Why don’t they stop? he said. My blood was pumping in my ears as loud as when I held big seashells up against them. Just go back to bed, I whispered. But he was crying now, not the whiny give-me-attention crying but scared crying. He never went into Michael’s room when he got upset like this, only into mine. He was standing at the edge of my bed now.

And you sitting here not saying a damn word! she yelled. You think it’s my fault! You think I’m being unreasonable! This isn’t how people live. It’s a fantasy!

Why won’t they stop? Alec sobbed. Shut up! I whispered. Just be quiet. Dad said something short in the same flat, low voice.

Before Mom could start yelling again, I ripped off my covers and ran down the stairs into the living room, and shouted, Stop it! Stop it! I’m trying to sleep!

Mom was standing over the couch above Dad. She wheeled on me, her eyes wide with fury. Dad only moved his head to look at me. His face was pale and had no expression. Alec stood on the stairs behind me, still crying. Christ! Mom said to Dad. Look what you’ve done now!

Stop it! I shouted. He didn’t do it! You did! It’s not fair!

Oh, good Lord, she said with a sigh. This is nothing for you to worry about. Really, Celia. You don’t need to worry. Take them upstairs, would you? she said, and Dad stood up and walked toward me, holding his arms out to pick me up, but I was too big for that now, which he didn’t even seem to remember, so instead when he got closer his arms went down onto my shoulders, and he turned me around toward the staircase.

All right now, he said, as calmly as if he were napping and wanted us to be quiet.

Why do you yell at him, Mom? I said.

That’s enough now, Celia, really. Please. Just go upstairs with your father.

I shook his hands off my shoulders and stomped back up the steps, pushing Alec ahead of me. Down the hall, Michael was peeking out from a crack in his door, which he closed as soon as we reached the landing.

Get back into bed, Alec, Dad said, I’ll be there in a minute. He followed me into my room holding one of the oil lamps, and waited for me to climb into my bed and pull the covers up and then he sat on the edge of my mattress, facing the shaded window, so that I could only see the side of his face in the light of the lamp, which he’d put on the bedside table. My heart was beating fast and I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep for a long time. He reached his big hand down onto the side of my head and ran his fingers through my hair and over my ear until he had the back of my head in the palm of his hand. His thumb rubbed against my temple.