The Book of Speculation: A Novel

“But you believe it now.”


“The breath-holding? I’ve seen you swim.” He grimaces, showing a slight snaggletooth. “The rest? A couple years later I’m working for Rose’s. The first time I showed up with Enola, Thom took one look at her and I swear he nearly crapped his pants. He asked if I knew who I had with me. I told him she was the best damned tarot reader I ever saw. Thom kept asking if she swam or not. I said all I know is that she does cards. Pretty soon he tells me almost the same story Dave did.”

“You know they drown.” I won’t say we. A question floats between us. Doyle nods.

“Enola doesn’t swim. She reads cards,” he says.

She hasn’t shown him. She’s said nothing of the breath-holding lessons, the hours I spent teaching her how to float on her stomach, how to push all the air out of her then fill up her belly, how to dive and listen to the water, or how we used to pretend that our mother was there in the deep. She’s out there past the rocks, plucking mussels from the boulders, eating scallops from the bay. She feels you holding your breath. Enola’s black bathing suit made her into a slick seal pup, a little selkie girl who trusted me when I held her face into the water. The trust is gone; she’s been keeping secrets from Doyle, from me. “I’m worried about her.”

“So why’d we burn that stuff? It wasn’t about Frank, was it?”

“No.”

Enola’s footsteps pound down the stairs. Perhaps it won’t be a long sulk this time. “It’s freezing in here. I need a blanket or something.” Her arms are hugged tight across her chest, her hoodie drenched. The whaling collection is kept cold; it’s better for the books.

“There’s always a coat or two in the lost and found. It’s in the back of the kids’ section, downstairs.”

“I’ll go,” Doyle offers. He walks toward the steps, touching every outlet and computer plug as he goes.

“Does he pick up charge from that?”

“Don’t know,” Enola says. She curls up in the chair next to me. “He says it feels good.”

“Strange guy.”

“He’s okay.”

“You didn’t tell him you can hold your breath.”

“Why would I?” She stares down at her feet. Her red tennis shoes are wet all the way through. She peels them off, shivers, and tucks her feet beside her.

“Did anyone ever tell you about our family? If Doyle knows, someone must have told you. Thom Rose spotted me right away and I barely asked him anything. Did he tell you something?”

“No.” A small tic in the upper lip.

“What did he tell you?”

“He asked me if I swim, the same as he asked you. I told him Mom was in a carnival. That’s all.” She takes the cards from her pocket and begins laying them out on the chair arm. A quick horizontal line of six, then clear. Repeat. Her fingers crab walk.

“Thom would have told you.”

Quick six, clear, repeat. “I told Thom that I read cards, I don’t swim. The same as I told Doyle. I said that if he bugs me, I leave and Doyle goes with me.” A tap of the cards. Slide, shuffle, repeat. “Doyle would go, too. Nobody wants to lose him. He’s special,” she says. “I didn’t know he knew about us.” The cards slip against each other fiber against fiber, a little molecular exchange. Paper that old means the cards have bled into each other, becoming a single object, a single mind. “He should have told me.”

“Why?”

The cards stop moving. “Because nobody tells me things. He doesn’t. You don’t. You think I don’t know things, but I do.” She resumes shuffling.

“You keep secrets. From me, from Doyle.”

She shoots me a look. “Because it’d be good for him to know that I’m capable of carrying on in the footsteps of my suicidal mother. Who drowned.”

Doyle nearly killed me trying to pull me up. Yes, it might be safer if he doesn’t know. “Maybe.”

“I wonder how long she was planning to do it. What if she woke up every morning for a year knowing it was one day closer? Maybe that made things seem more precious.” She fans out the cards and then snaps them together into a neat pile.

“I don’t think it works like that,” I say.

“How would you know? Is there something you’re keeping from me?”

“No.” Silence stretches between us, filled only by quiet shuffling. She looks tired, washed out. “Are you sad?”