“Aren’t you coming?”
“There’s something I need to do. Go on ahead.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah, I’ll be out in a minute.”
The cleaning scene followed. It was like having a nightmare turn into an exact replica of the way you had imagined it ahead of time.
My eyes had to readjust to the dark of the beach after staring at the white toilet bowl under bright light. The volunteers, most of them squatting, had spread out on either side of the path Pickett and I had helped to make. By the time I reached the group, my night-vision had kicked in and I could see a swarm of dark little creatures scrambling over one another and racing toward the ocean as fast as their flippers could carry them.
A hand gripped my shoulder. “Ah, Marcus, you missed the boil,” Ed Bolton said sadly.
“I know. But I had to.” A tear slid down my cheek but it was too dark for Ed to see.
“Well, don’t worry. There’ll be another one next year.”
“How many came out of the nest?”
“We’ve counted ninety out of a hundred and ten. That’s a good crop. Some don’t make it. They get out of the egg before they’ve absorbed all the albumen and then they’re too weak to survive. Why don’t you go join Pickett—he’s over there helping to guide the strayers. Just the gentlest touch with the back of your fingers to get them back on track. Like this.” Ed Bolton demonstrated, lightly pressing his fingers against my cheek.
The last person in the world I felt like joining was Pickett, who was absorbed in preventing would-be delinquents from scuttling up the sandbanks on either side of the path. The titanium dials on his wristwatch glowed in the dark as he knelt in the sand, conscientiously rerouting the scuttling little newborns back onto the path.
“Aren’t they awesome?” he exclaimed as I sank to my knees beside him. “Look at them haul ass! A minute ago they were crawling out of their hole. I actually saw the first one come out—the scout. Its little flipper broke through the sand first, then its little head, then the other flipper, and I swear it looked like it was scoping things out—and then it scooted off for the ocean. Then all of them just started pouring out, this living mass of prehistoric creatures. It was totally awesome!”
XXXIV.
“Marcus, are you okay?” It was morning and Aunt Charlotte was outside my bedroom door.
“Uh-huh.”
“May I come in?”
“Yes.”
She hopped in and leaned against the door frame. “Were you sick last night?”
“You mean the smell in the bathroom?”
“No big deal. It happens to all of us.” The whites of her eyes were netted with little red veins and she looked haggard.
“It wasn’t me. It was this boy. We were down on the beach with the Turtle Patrol waiting for the boil and he said he couldn’t hold it any longer.”
“I saw your note. Did the boil happen?”
“Yeah, but I missed it.”
“You missed the whole thing?”
“No, but I missed the boil, when they’re bursting through the sand. Pickett said it was awesome. When I got back, I helped escort some of them down to the water.”
“Pickett, I take it, is the boy.”
“Ed Bolton brought him. He’s staying with his grandparents.”
“Wait a minute. How is it that Pickett saw the boil and you didn’t?”
“Because—” I turned away from her to hide my distress. “I needed to stay behind and clean the bathroom. It was pretty awful.”
“Oh, Marcus, I am so sorry. Look, would it be all right if I sat on your bed?”
“It’s your bed, but sure.”
She hopped the necessary steps and I felt the mattress sink with her slight weight. “Damn it, Marcus, I am just so sorry.”
Tears trickled unseen into my pillow.
“You were looking forward to it, I was so excited on your behalf that you were going to witness this amazing thing in nature. You waited for it, you tended their nest so faithfully, I would look out my window and there you would be, sitting down there on the sand, hugging your knees, like you were encouraging them to grow—and then because you cleaned up after a stranger you missed the boil. No good deed goes unpunished, does it?”
I couldn’t answer because I wasn’t in control of my voice.
“Oh, Marcus.” Her uninjured left hand fastened on my turned-away shoulder. “What are we going to do with you? You are too thoughtful for your own good. How am I going to protect you?”
I held my breath and bit down on my lower lip to keep from losing it completely.
Then she withdrew her hand and expelled the dry Aunt Charlotte-y rasp that served as her laugh. “They must have been beyond malodorous,” she said.
“What?”
“Pickett’s awful leavings.”
“They were pretty bad.” I giggled and she went into another rasp. “What time is it?”
“After ten. Which is late for you. I was starting to worry. I’ve got a nasty headache. I overdid it last night.”
“On your project?”
“No, on the Cabernet Sauvignon. When you go to the store will you pick up another bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol? I seem to have run through the last one.”
***
She had mentioned the wine herself. Would Lachicotte count that as a “change for the better”?
I felt really bad as I rode my bike to the market. It was over, the thing I had looked forward to all summer—and I had missed it. “You waited for it, you tended their nest so faithfully … and then because you cleaned up after a stranger you missed the boil.” “You’ll never believe what I saw,” Pickett would tell the “second form” kids back at his school. “These awesome little turtles … they’ve been doing this race to the sea for forty million years, while we’ve only been here for the last two hundred thousand.” Aunt Charlotte had looked out her window and watched me sitting in the sand. Somehow I had never imagined her stopping her work to look out the window at me, but she had: “And there you would be, sitting down there on the sand…”
“How am I going to protect you?” She had sounded like someone aching on my behalf. In all the time I had lived with her, she had laid a hand on my shoulder exactly twice. But now I considered the possibility that we would maybe end up protecting each other.