The Worst Thing I've Done (18 page)
Read The Worst Thing I've Done Online
Authors: Ursula Hegi
In the kitchen, boxes and boxes. On the table. Around the table. In front of the bookcase.
Smell of the pond house.
My belly gets stiff.
Clothes from the pond house.
Toys from the pond house.
Aunt Stormy's door is closed. But I hear Pete sleeping. He is a loud sleeper. A breather of scratchy breaths.
Someone has set the fruit bowl on top of two boxes. I take an apple. Head for the boardwalk. Air so heavy it shimmers. Like walking through dough rising around me. Sweating though my pajamas. But knowing I canâ
if-I-wantâ
jump in for a dunk in something wet, not half-wet like the air.
Dawn smudges Aunt Stormy's house. Makes it all wavy lines. No edges.
How can a house do that, hatch itself?
I bet Mason knows how.
Some days, the front opens like a barn and pulls me inside.
Inside is much larger than outside. Rooms run into rooms into rooms. Long after I think there can't be any more rooms.
Tall grasses tickle my ankles. On the wooden cradle by the inlet, the kayaks are upside down, their bottoms scratched.
“Designed by a woman. Light enough to be carried by a woman,” Aunt Stormy would say.
Pete would laugh. “So why do you need my help then?” But he'd swing a kayak onto his shoulder and carry it for me toâ
But Pete is slow now.
Anything can change in one moment.
From fast to slow.
From alive to dead.
From hairy to baldâBut Jake still has hair. Around his third eye.
Not light enough for me to carry, the yellow kayak. But light enough to drag from the cradle by the orange rope tied to its front. The rope is damp. So is the kayak. When I sit inside, the bottom is cold.
I push my hair from my eyes. Stretch my arms like a paddle. My fingers are the ends of my paddle. Like flying.
Mason can fly.
Fly through water that splashes up high against the car. Up from the wheels in silver circles. Where it hits the fenders, it sounds like a hose turned up high into the wheelbarrow. Mason let me hose off the wheelbarrow when I helped him build Annie's studio.
I do some butt-surfing. Jiggle the kayak forward without water.
Sun burns through dawn.
Burns a hole into dawn.
A hole that gets bigger.
Lets the world in.
A waterfall of light.
When are the lumis coming back, Mason?
Behind the seat is the life jacket. I know how to fasten it around me.
I climb from the kayak. Get myself a real paddle. Drag the kayakâ
light enough to be dragged by a girl
âto the water. I remind myself to tell Aunt Stormy.
Then I'm in.
No longer butt-surfing but slicing through the water.
Flying, Mason.
Looking for lumis.
Across the inlet, a white sheet flutters high up in a tree. Higher than anyone can toss a sheet. Like a candle ghost, melted into the tree. Like the day after Halloween.
Candle ghost.
Still and draped. Then suddenly something rises. A beak. A neck. Long and white.
Not a sheet.
I paddle to the left. Where the inlet flows into the bay.
Behind me, pecking. A woodpeckerâblack and white and some redâon a tree behind me.
How can one little beak make that much noise, Mason?
My hair tickles. I pull it up high, twist until it doubles over into a unicorn horn. My kayak is wobbling.
Whooshâ¦
Under BigC's boardwalk, ducks are splashing toward the shallow water, away from the swans. One of them is all puffed up and chasing after the ducks.
I tell the ducks, “It's just showing off.”
They turn their beaks toward my voice.
“It doesn't want to catch you.”
When I paddle beyond the next neighbor's boardwalk, the stick heads of turtles bob on the water.
Look look, Mason. Lookâ
But the stick heads pull back beneath the surface.
I see a cormorant.
And there's a muskrat. Musk-rat.
Water splashes around me.
Whooshâ¦
But I'm only a little wet.
Look, Masonâa musk-rat.
Lots of people are afraid of rats.
But not Mason.
Musk-rat.
I bet musk-rats are carnivores.
Carne
is meat in Spanish, Mrs. Mills says. Car-ni-vores. I bet if plants can be carnivores, rats and musk-rats can be carnivores too. When Aunt Stormy took Annie and me to the Walking Dunes, we saw car-ni-vore plants. I think they were called dew drops. They were
not
Venus flytraps because Mrs. Mills had those on her desk.
The car-ni-vore plants in the Walking Dunes had little hairs. Hairs like the hairs animals and people have on their bodies. Hairs that stuck to my fingers when I touched them.
Nutty.
They were long and thin, those plants. And they didn't eat my fingers. Because I didn't touch them for long. Not even for almost-long. Just a millisecond. Aunt Stormy said the car-ni-vore plants curl up. Like ferns when they attract a bug. Because that's evolution.
“They can't get what they need from the soil,” Aunt Stormy told Annie and me, “and so they attract nourishment from the air.”
I wish Mason could see the car-ni-vore plants at the Walking Dunes.
I bet Mason knows about car-ni-vores.
Because he knows how the house hatches itself. It's definitely a magical house.
Whooshâ¦Look look, Masonâanother turtle. I bet you're just hiding from Annie's hissies. Hiding or disguising yourself away.
Under the boardwalkâfour boardwalks from Aunt Stormy'sâa crab is hiding. It has stuck itself to one of the wooden posts underwater. A big crab. Big and blue.
Maybe we can eat the crab, Mason.
Mason? Lookâ
Whooshâ¦
I try to scoop up the crab with one end of my paddle.
But it won't budge.
The kayak wobbles.
Mason
âinto your robe.
“Is Opal sleeping?” I asked you.
“Yes.” You closed her door, softly.
“I didn't think you'd do it, Annie, that you'd really do it.”
“you did everything you could to make us do it.”
“I had to know. What it would be like for you bothâ”
“Why?”
“To understandâ¦and if both of us understand, then we'll be able toâto get beyond this. Together.”
“You're sick.”
“We don't ever have to talk about it again.”
“You mean youâ¦forgive me?”
“And Jake.” The moment I said, it, I knew you'd set me up.
And you clobbered me. “You are so arrogant.”
The beams of Jake's headlights bobbing on the ceiling as he baked out.
“Finally,” I said.
“I want you out.”
“You don't mean it.”
“Out as in for good.”
I told you, noâbegged you, Annie: “Don't destroy the family Opal has.”
“I no longer know how to be a family with you.”
“Maybe not with me, this minute. But for Opal we're the family she has.”
You did that impatient little breath, Annie.
“Don't listen to what Jake makes out of this,” I said.
“I was there too.”
“But he'll make it seem like something else. He is such a liar. Always was. Liar liar pants son fire. Breaking his toys and saying I did it. But no one believed me.”
“Oh, sure⦔
“Lying that his parents were buying a big big house. Every Monday bragging about a different house. âFar away from you, Mason,' he'd say, âA house with maids. Not with day-care kids like you. And when you come over, it will be to visit only. Not to stay al day. Not to mess up my room' Remember, Annie?”
You shrugged.
“I told him, âYour maids can pick up the toys!' Hah. My mother used to say, âThey're lookers, not buyers. That's what they do on their Sunday drives. Look and dream.' Listenâ” Suddenly, then, I had this idea.
I knew it was the worst possible moment. Yet, not to tell you would have gotten the words stuck inside me, would have made me wonderâdays or years from now, apart from you and inconsolableâif, of all the words in the world, these were the words that would have made you keep me.
So of course I had to say them aloud, the words: “We would be even more of a family if we had a child together.”
And it was true, Annie.
So true that I could feel the presence of that child who would make our family permanent.
“You timing is soâ¦off, Mason.”
“I know. But I love being a parents. When I think of myself, I see myself as Opal's parents first.”
“I can't believe you'dâ”
“Whenever I've talked about it before, you couldn't believe it either. And my timing was supposedly off This may be my last chance to tell you”
“Now that I want you out⦔
“You may think you want me out, right now, and I understandâ”
“You can't get in here, Mason.” You jabbed your forehead. “You can't tell me what to think.”
“Except when we both know we're thinking the sameâ”
“We're not.”
“How about that time we hiked Mt. Washington? And there was no one but us in the fogâ¦trusting each other so totally as we walked from cairn to cairn together.”
“That doesn't undo what happened.”
“It doesn't. But up there, on that moutainâ”
Annie
The Raft
}
“Y
ou
could have drowned!” Annie is screaming. Screaming and leaning over the railing of the neighbor's boardwalk and ready to leap in if Opal's kayak were to tip.
“Hi, Annie.”
“I woke up and I couldn't find you!”
“I'm wearing a life jacket. See?”
“You're not allowed in the water without an adult!”
“I'm not
in
the water!”
“I searched everywhere!” Screaming. Not letting Opal see how relieved she is to find her. Because then Opal will go off by herself again next time she feels gloomy.
“You're having a hissy, Annie!”
The air drips, holds so much moisture that Annie feels soaked through. “Where were you?”
“And a red nose from the hissy.”
“I ran along the inletâ”
“I was right here.”
“âand across the boardwalk to the bay and drove all through the neighborhood up to Towd Point and then I called the police andâ”
“That's stupid!”
“Don't you let her talk to you like that,” Dr. Virginia snaps.
“I thought you were lost.”
“I wasn't lost.”
“Don't you dare talk toâ”
“Stupid!”
“Not as stupid as you for almost drowning!”
“I didn't drown!”
“Stop sniping at me!” Definitely the sister part of their relationship. As Opal's mother, Annie strives to be patient and constant, but as Opal's sister, she wants what's fair and snipes right back at her.
“You stop sniping, Annie!”
“Listen to her feelings beneath the angry words,” Dr. Francine advises.
The radio people have been tugging at Annie. It's like salivating. They're at her as soon as she unlocks the car, before she turns on the radio, even when she's not in the car and far from any radio, harassing her, or comforting her withâ
“Whoosh⦔ The kayak sways. Opal is making it sway by leaning from side to side.
“Sit still, you!”
“Now the police will be mad at you, Annie.”
“Aunt Stormy is waiting for them. I went driving, searching for youâ”
“You're always out driving, Annie.”
“âand I saw something floating in the inlet.”
Yellow.
“The kayak and you in the kayak.”
“I wasn't lost. I knew where I was.”
“Well, I didn't.”
“I was investigating.”
“Investigating what?”
“Just investigating.”
Investigating.
Annie wants to punch Mason.
Attack him. Kill him. Kill him good.
Because of him, Opal isn't as safe in the world as before, when she had two parents. It startles Annie, that lust for violence.
Delights her.
She wishes someone would hassle her right nowâmaybe the people on whose property she trespassed, tires squealingâbecause then she could strike out. Within this rage, she feels stronger than any possible attacker. Within this rage she feels safe, dangerous to anyone who might threaten her.
Opal is watching her. Stubborn and sullen and a bit uncertain. “You're not even the same anymore, Annie.”
“So what's that supposed toâ”
“You don't make collages anymore.”
“That has nothing to do with you getting lost.”
“I wasn't lost! Whenâ”
“I need to know where you are, Opal! Every moment!”
“When are the lumis coming back, Annie?”
“Promise to let me know where you are, every moment.”
“I'm here now.”
“That's not what I mean.”
“Okay.”
“Because I didn't know where you were.”
“Okay.” Opal reaches up to wrestle her curls into a knot.
“Hold on to your paddle.”
“Okay⦔
“Not okay! I thought you wereâDid anyoneâ¦talk to you?”
Is this too vague?
“Oh no,” Dr. Francine assures Annie. “I advocate gentle questioning.”
“No,” Opal says. “And I didn't go with a stranger who touched me in places I don't want to be touched. So there.”
“At least she remembers that much,” Dr. Virginia says.
“At least you remembered that much,” Annie says.
“Too confrontational,” Dr. Francine warns.
“Didn't you ever go investigating?” Opal is so small in her kayak, surrounded by water.
Out here, we're always surrounded by water. Inlet ocean lake bay riverâ
A premonition?
Annie shivers. “You could have fallen in andâ”
“But I didn't.”
“âhit your head and not come up againâ”
“But I didn't.”
“I don't know how I could go on without you.”
“You're going on without Mason.” Opal's eyes go hardâthe way they do whenever she's both angry and sad, and the angry wins.
Better angry than that unhappiness that hooks me in, makes me give her whatever she asks for. Shielding her from Mason's death.
“If I want to, I can paddle away from you, Annie. Fastâ”
“You watch itâ”
“I can so. Real fast.”
“Don't you ever go off by yourself again!”
“Except I can't just leave you hanging over the railingâ”
âme and half a dozen talk radio peopleâ
“âhaving your hissy.”
“Don't you let her talk to you like that.”
“Don't you ever go off by yourself again! Promise.”
That pointed little chin juts up, so determined, and the stubbornness that connects the two of themâ
our mother's daughters
âbecomes sticky, fuses, till they can no longer release each other. Everything is the same textureâair skin hair clothes land waterâso that they're part of their surroundings, only skin separating their insides from the sodden air.
Mason would never let it come to a standoff with Opal. With me yes. But not with Opal. He banters her out of her funk. Gives her a way out. Tells Opal about a time when he, too, got hell for investigating.
Annie takes her cue from him. Tells Opal, “I got hell once forâ¦investigatingâ¦when I was your age. Mom and Dad and I stayed at a lake in Italy andâ”
“They never took me to Italy.”
“They would have. Ifâ”
“I didn't have one day with them.”
“I know. I'm sorry.”
“Look lookâ” Opal points to a great white heron, gliding low above the ducks toward the boardwalk, then veering toward BigC's black cherry tree, where it settles itself, elegant and pearl-white.
“Annie?”
“Yes?”
“Do you know there're nests under the boardwalk?”
“Made from mud?”
“Mostly from nest stuffâ¦like twigs and grass. Plus there's a blue crab down here. What's the name of that lake?”
“Lago di Garda. We swam every day. One morning after breakfast the sun was behind the mist, turning water and lake and sky all the same colorâ¦the color of mist⦔
“What's the color of mist like?”
“Sort of white and gray and goldenâ¦like Mom's ring, except half-transparent so you can see through the colorsâ¦see shapes.”
“Spooky?”
“A bit spookyâ¦mostly beautiful. While I was swimming in the mist, I could no longer tell where sky began and where water began, and it wasâ”
“I want to see Mom's ring.”
Annie flips her hand so that Opal can see the stone.
“Better not spit on me, Annie.”
“I would never spit on you!”
“You said you have to spit on opals to keep them in good condition.”
“That's true for the stone, yet, butâ”
“Why didn't they call you Opal? You were first.”
“They gave me the name of our grandmother, dad's momâ¦Annabelle.”
“I don't know her.”
“Sheâ¦died when I was two.”
“Everyone is always dead.”
Tears shoot to Annie's eyes. “That's how I sometimes feel.”
“Once my hands are big, you and I can take turns wearing her ring.”
“We will.”
“Every day we'll take turns, every day, Annie?”
“How about every month?”
“Okay. Two months for me. One month for you.” Opal, shimmering like the stone she was named after.
Annie smiles. “Sounds fair.”
“Because you wore it for so long already.”
“We'll visit each other whenever we exchange Mom's ring.”
“Light's coming through your hair, Annie. All red like your nose.”
“Hah. You leave my nose alone.”
“What happened when you went investigating?”
“Whenever I got tired, I floated on my back, figuring that if I kept moving, I'd reach the other side of the lake. But it stayed the same distanceâ”
“Because of the mist.”
“Because of the mist, yes, and just when I thought I must be getting closer, I was back where I'd started, and there were my parentsâ”
“Our parents!”
“âour parents, arms waving, yellingâ”
“Having a hissy. Just like you.”
“âand four police boats searching for me. Operation Rescue. Can you believe that, Opal? I mean, talk about our parents overreacting. I was soâ¦angry. I mean, I knew all along where I was.”
“But
they
didn't know.”
Annie smiles.
I'll have to tell Mason.
“You tricked me.” Opal spoons water with the blades of her paddle. Flings it toward Annie. “At least
I
wasn't swimming.”
“You could have been. If that kayak had tippedâ”
“Can I race you to the cottage, Annie? You in the car? Me in the kayak?”
“If you promise to be careful.”
But Opal is already paddling, blades flying, shouting, “Bet you I'll get there first.”
N
IGHT, THAT
same night, and when Annie awakens, suddenly and sweating, she's flung across the side where Mason used to sleep.
I am alone.
Without him, the bed feels barren, his absence irretrievable.
“Damn you.”
Having to discover over and over that he isn't here anymore. She feels a blind rip-roaring anger.
“Damn you for not letting me get back to what's familiar. Just not there anymore, the familiar.”
“We could have gotten through this,” Mason says.
“No.”
“We could have lived apart for a month andâ”
“No.”
“Six months.”
“No.”
“I bet you we would have been together again. Ultimatelyâ”
“No.”
“I bet youâ”
“I couldn't have stayed with you.”
“Not even to keep me alive?”
“It's too much work keeping you alive!”
Damn him. Making her forever the woman whose husband killed himself. Annie sees it in the faces of people who know. The speculation. She doesn't speak with them, but her eyes warn them away.
“Be careful,” she imagines telling strangers who encounter her. “You have no idea what I'm capable of. The person you seeâhair skin eyesâcontains someone entirely different. Medusa. Madonna. Flesh-eating harridan⦔
F
INALLY, THEN
, sleeping. Sleeping and dreamingâ
âdreaming and walking with Opal on a path of deep sand. Crowns of pitch pines and oaks and black cherry stick from the sand, their trunks long buried. From this forest of treetops we come into a wide rim of high dunes. And now I know where we are. In the Walking Dunes. Opal runs up the yellow slope of sand, her purple windbreaker flapping. Slides down on her butt, laughing. Then up to the rim againâ¦purple on yellowâ¦but not down, not down on her butt, no longer here but goneâ¦beyond the other side of the rim. I scream her nameâOpal Opalârun past beach heather and bearberryâOpal Opal Opalâand suddenly remember Napeague Harbor beyond the tallest dune. I run up the yellow slope of sand, along the rim, searching, searching in all directions, and stop running because it's a dreamâ
