Later that evening, I’m sitting in a chair as Noah and Dad move swiftly around the kitchen making dinner. They won’t let me help even though I’ve promised to retire the bible. Noah and I made a deal. He’ll stop jumping off cliffs if I stop bible-thumping and suspend all medical research, effective immediately. I’m going to make a giant-size, paper flying woman sculpture out of each and every bible passage. Grandma’s going to love it. It’s the first idea I put in that blank idea pad I’ve been carrying around since I started CSA. I’m going to call the piece: The History of Luck.
When Noah told Dad the truth about Mom and Guillermo hours ago in the forest, Dad simply said, “Okay, yes. That makes more sense.” He didn’t burst out of granite like Noah or have oceans break inside him like I did, but I can see that the storm in his face has quelled. He’s a man of science and the unsolvable problem is solved. Things finally make sense. And sense to Dad is everything.
Or so I thought.
“Kids, I’ve been thinking about something.” He looks up from the tomato he’s chopping. “How do you feel about moving? Not out of Lost Cove but to another house. Well, not to just any old house . . .” His smile is ridiculous. I have no idea what he’s going to say. “A houseboat.” I can’t decide what’s more amazing: the words coming out of Dad’s mouth or the expression on his face. He looks like the unicycle-riding super-kook. “I think we need an adventure. The three of us together.”
“You want us to live on a boat?” I ask.
“He wants us to live on an ark,” Noah answers, awe in his voice.
“I do!” Dad laughs. “That’s exactly right. I’ve always wanted to do this.” Really? News to me. Um, who is this man? “I just did some research and you will not believe what’s for sale down by the marina.” He goes to his briefcase and pulls out some pictures he must’ve printed from the Internet.
“Oh wow,” I say. This is no rowboat. It is an ark.
“An architect owned it previously,” Dad tells us. “Renovated the whole thing, did all the woodwork and stained glass herself. Incredible, isn’t it? Two stories, three bedrooms, two baths, great kitchen, skylights, wraparound decks on both floors. It’s a floating paradise.”
Noah and I must register the name of the floating paradise at the exact same moment, because we both blurt out, imitating Mom, “Embrace the mystery, Professor.”
The name of this houseboat is The Mystery.
“I know. Was hoping you wouldn’t catch that. And yes, if I weren’t me, if I were you, for instance, Jude, I’d be certain it was a sign.”
“It is a sign,” I say. “I’m in and I’m not even going to mention one of the thousand potential hazards of houseboat living that have flown into my head.”
“What kind of Noah would I be?” Noah says to Dad.
“It’s time,” Dad says, nodding at us.
Then, unbelievably, he puts on some jazz. The excitement in the room is palpable as Noah and Dad continue chopping and dicing. I can tell Noah’s painting in his head while Dad rhapsodizes about what it will be like to dive off the deck for a swim and what an inspiring place it would be to live if only anyone in the family had artistic inclinations.
Somehow it’s us again, with a few motley additions to our wobbly people poles, but us. The imposters have left the premises.
When we returned from the woods, I found Dad in his office and told him about Noah’s CSA application. Let’s just say, I’d rather spend the remainder of my life in a medieval torture chamber rotating from Head Crusher to Knee Splitter to The Rack than see that look on Dad’s face again. I didn’t think he was ever going to forgive me, but an hour or so later, after he talked to Noah, he asked me to go for a swim with him, our first in years. At one point when we were stroke for stroke in the setting sun’s glinting path, I felt his hand squeeze my shoulder, and as soon as I concluded he wasn’t trying to drown me, I realized he wanted me to stop.
Treading there in the middle of the ocean, he said, “I haven’t exactly been there for—”
“No, Dad,” I said, not wanting him to apologize for anything.
“Please let me say this, honey. I’m sorry I haven’t been better. I think I got a little lost. Like for a decade.” He laughed and took a mouthful of salt water in the process, then continued. “I think you can sort of slip out of your life and it can be hard to find a way back in. But you kids are my way back in.” His smile was full of sadness. “I know how crushed you’ve been. And what happened with Noah and CSA . . . well, sometimes a good person makes a bad decision.”
It felt like grace.
It felt like a way back in.
Because, as corny as it may be: I want to be a wobbly people pole that tries to bring joy into the world, not one that takes joy from it.
Bobbing there like buoys, Dad and I talked and talked about so many things, hard things, and after, we swam even farther toward the horizon.
“I’d like to help cook,” I tell the chefs. “I promise I’ll add nothing bible-y.”
Dad looks at Noah. “What do you think?”
Noah throws me a pepper.
But that’s the beginning and end of my culinary contribution, because Oscar has walked into the kitchen in his black leather jacket, hair more unruly than usual, face full of weather. “Sorry to interrupt,” he says. “I knocked, no one answered. The door was open . . .” I’m having déjà vu to the time Brian walked into the kitchen when Mom was baking. I look at Noah and know he’s having it too. Brian still hasn’t responded. Noah spent all afternoon with The Oracle, though. He knows Brian’s at Stanford. I can feel all the news roiling inside him, the possibilities.
“It’s okay. We never hear the door,” I say to Oscar, walking over to him and taking his arm. He stiffens at my touch. Or maybe I imagined it? “Dad, this is Oscar.”
Dad’s once-over is not subtle or generous.
“Hello, Dr. Sweetwine,” Oscar says, back to being the English butler. “Oscar Ralph.” He’s holding out his hand, which Dad shakes, tapping him on the back with the other.
“Hello, young man,” my father says like it’s the 1950s. “And I’m emphasizing the man part intentionally.” Noah laughs into his hand and then tries to pass it off as a cough. Oh boy. Dad’s back. Present and accounted for.
“About that.” Oscar looks at me. “Can we talk for a moment?”
I did not imagine it.
When I reach the doorway, I turn around because I’m hearing odd strangled noises. Dad and Noah are both doubled over behind the counter in hysterics. “What?” I ask.
“You found Ralph!” Noah croaks out and then doubles over again. Dad’s wheezing-laughing so hard he’s succumbed to the floor.
How I’d rather join my ark-mates than hear what I’m about to hear.