She smiles, slanted and deviant.
People would find me, you know, he says. The Everglades—typical. Police would troll this place first. If the kid wasn’t here … you know your kid is in here, right? She’s no dummy even if you think so. She’s watching all of this. She’s old enough to talk. Can somebody fucking say something?
If the kid wasn’t here. I am used to these words.
We finally pull up to a wooden fence, a damp field. In the middle of the field there’s a basket the size of a small car. Beside the basket, a striped sheet of reds and purples rippling far across the grass like a bloody sea.
What’s all this now?
A balloon ride.
I don’t do heights.
Happy birthday, you fucking fat cow.
What we are is up in the air. My mother stands in the corner of the balloon basket, all on her own, loving it. She closes her eyes and stretches her arms to feel the first hot slab of sunrise. She looks so peaceful here, just like this, and I know she would jump if she could, if she could do it fast enough, before getting caught and dragged back in by her sneakers. She could tilt her weight headfirst and leave us here—simple. Years later, when she swallows a bottle of pills and survives the overdose, I’ll wonder if she considers this moment on the balloon—the sun, clear air, Kealani—what could have been a sure thing.
Can we quiet it down a sec? says my father. I need a sec. I need to relax.
Can’t, captain, says our balloon man. He wears overalls. Tiny, fish teeth. His name, we learn, is Dwayne. Dwayne turns a valve to get the fire going every couple of minutes. It’s a deafening blast, meant to keep the balloon warmer than the atmosphere, meant to keep us afloat.
I have never seen my father afraid of anything, but here he is, knuckles bulging like popcorn, his chest thumping wild. He stares down, and then up, and then back at me, shaking. The day stings against my arms.
I need something to drink or I’ll be sick, says my father.
Aye, aye, captain. Dwayne opens the mouth of a cooler, uncorks a bottle of champagne into the dirty rag in his fist. He pours the gold liquid into a plastic chute until it dribbles over. He hands it to my father, who chugs it down. The foam catches on the scratch of his chin.
What is this? Pepsi?
It’s what we’ve got, sir.
I need a drink.
Sir, it’s all we have.
I’ll drink the fuel, says my father, looking up into the flames. Dwayne laughs a vibrating cackle and pats my father on the back. Dwayne is the only one laughing. I look at the fuel tanks in the center of the basket. I count them.
Up here, the only sound from below is the dogs. After the valve is opened, after each burst of heat, the dogs bark in unison all over South Florida. I can’t tell if they feel terrified or empowered by our sound, but somehow I feel safe with them down there, in time with our flight, listening. I look at the Everglades, the strands of water swerving up to the highways, like something ophidian.
If I screamed, would the dogs hear that, too? I ask.
Prob’ly not, says Dwayne. It’s the pitch is all wrong.
I know this, of course. I am a very quiet girl. Even the dogs would miss me.
Nice birthday gift your honey got you here, Dwayne says to my father. Renting out the whole gig like this. Pretty penny.
I got money, says my father. His face is shining with sweat. He rests his forehead against his arms crossed on the edge of the basket, lifts it, sets it down, lifts it, sets it down. I grab his wrist and dig my thumb into the soft underside of it, something he has done for me before, on boats, when I am yakking into the deep blue. Let it out, he has said, chum the boat.
Got the life, don’t you? says Dwayne.
Guess so, says my father.
Some life we got, says my mother.
I have a pony, I say.
We’ve got money, says my father.
In twenty minutes, it’s time to land. The winds have picked up, and our balloon is headed south, toward Miami.
Can’t you just turn it around? asks my father.
You can’t steer a balloon, says Dwayne, you ride Mother Nature.
Dwayne focuses on dials, flips switches, and ties cords around a hook to open some vents in the balloon. He wants to level out the air temperature, he says, until we fall. Ropes slide in and out of his hands.
Chase car will come get us, he says, wherever we land. God’s judgment from here.
God is dead, says my father.
Can’t we ride it all the way into the ocean? says my mother.
I can’t swim, I say. Remember?
They don’t.
As we descend, the dogs get louder. I think I hear every single one of them. The wind carries us west in rapid jerks, and my father sinks down inside the balloon until he is sitting, clasping his knees.
We won’t make a field, Dwayne says. Hold on.
We float down to a cul-de-sac where every house is painted in a Candy Land palette. I pick a favorite house—mint colored, like my Auntie T’s—and squeeze the wicker as we inch closer and closer to it. Dwayne leans with his ropes. Incoming!
Our basket skids across the shingles of the minty house’s roof. The shingles flip like the scales of a gator. A few ping off. We bonk off the cullis as Dwayne tugs at more cords, lets more air in and out of our balloon. He does not panic as a man exits the house in his bathrobe.
The hell you doing, landing on my house!
We hit the man’s lawn with a thud. The basket begins to tip as the envelope of the balloon gets caught up with another wind. My mother laughs maniacally, clapping her hands. My father opens the basket door and collapses on the grass.
Who’s paying for this roof? the man screams. Look at this roof! The bald sheen of his head is amazing.
Happy birthday, my mother says to no one.
Good excuse for a home makeover! says Dwayne.
I want to go again, I say.
I hop out of the basket and find my legs. I watch my father crawl his way across the lawn, dry heaving, pulling clumps of grass between his fingers. As a boy, my father made a black cape with a chain around the neck and wore it everywhere: the dentist’s office, the dinner table, school, Temple. The neighbor kids teased him so badly his mother threw it away.
He stands up, wipes the dirt from his pockets.
JUST ONE LOOK IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS
The mole is brown and speckled and sprouted with a few wired hairs. It’s on my left hand, just above my wrist, the size of the diamond on my mother’s ring finger. It matches her mole—she reminds me of this—as she holds her delicate hand out next to mine, comparing.
But my mother’s mole looks elegant, a black beauty mark.
I hate my mole.
I hate every new part of my body that curves and bumps and swells and darkens as the years go on.
One night, alone in our kitchen, I pull the largest, sharpest knife from the block. I don’t know why I choose a knife so big. I suppose I like the severity of it. I rest my hand on the cutting board on the island in the center of our kitchen. Without thinking much about it, I catch the knife at the base of the mole, gnaw onto my lip, brace for it. When the knife cracks down onto the wood, the mole is not gone—it’s dangling. It’s grey now, dead looking, like a single Sno-Caps candy. I cut the rest of the way. I am very professional about this operation.
I press wads of paper towels to the wound. I press, press. When I take it off, the blood and hole where my mole used to be glimmers like a garnet under the kitchen lights.
One month later, the mole grows back. It’s a different color this time—cream.
Then the speckles come back. The hairs.
But we matched, says my mother. How could you hurt yourself like that, and take off the way we matched? She had cleaned up the blood. My mother did.
The next time, I use a smaller knife. In my bathroom.
I’m found out in the car, my hand dripping blood all over the taupe leather seats.
What the hell is wrong with you?
Blood stained the carpet of our Jaguar. It stained my dress. It was so red. Beautiful, like lace, the way it spread out.
The scar on my hand is subtle.