I learned about sea cucumbers when I was six, in the middle of the night, on the National Geographic channel. I used to keep the television on at night, three bars above Mute, just loud enough to drown out the arguing or the silence in my parents’ bedroom. I liked the shows about the creatures from the deepest, blackest part of the ocean. Like the sea cucumbers, who could do this thing called regeneration. Cut a sea cucumber in half, and the halves will grow into wholes. The damn things can heal themselves.
Ever since that morning at Nina’s, ever since Dad promised to be better, it feels like the same thing has happened to our family. We’re becoming whole again. Only it’s not science or magic. It’s my dad. He’s been working on becoming the man I’ve always known. He goes to church on Sundays now, which I don’t get, but I don’t have to. Sometimes Mom goes. My dad touches her now—on the back while she’s doing the dishes or he’ll squeeze her feet while we’re all watching TV. When he gets pissed off, he goes out to the workshop and he doesn’t come back in until he’s cooled down. One time, he stayed out there all night.
I’ve never seen him work harder at anything, and Mom is starting to feel different, too. She smiles out the window while he works in the shop. She’s started power walking around the neighborhood with Mrs. Wilkerson from her book club, and she says that she’s lost a couple of pounds. She even bought a new pair of jeans. (Skinny jeans, Ana tells me.) When Dad saw those jeans, he smacked her butt with a stack of catalogues and she laughed out loud. A real laugh that came from her belly.
If there’s any part of her that wonders still, she’ll understand tonight. It’s their anniversary. Dad and I have the whole night planned: Ana and I will have a snack (appetizers, Ana keeps correcting me) with them on a twenty-five-foot Catalina he’s just finished working on for a friend. After that, Ana and I will jump ship for the bonfire and leave my folks to sail to the Shoreline, the restaurant where they had their first date. We’ve never gone out for their anniversary before. But we’re different now—the kind of family that thinks being a family is something to celebrate.
“You know, your dad is adorable.” Ana leans into me. My arm is slung over her shoulder, and her hand rests on my thigh. We’ve been running around town for supplies since school let out. “I wish my dad did stuff like this for my mom. Last year, he had his assistant send her flowers.”
“He hasn’t always been like this,” I say for some reason.
“Huh?”
“Yeah. He’s a good guy.”
She nods. “Well, he made you, didn’t he?” She kisses my neck in a way that makes me wish we were alone.
We pull into the driveway just after six. Dad throws the truck into park and asks, “You kids ready?” over the idling engine.
“Flowers—check.” I hold up the bouquet of flowers like a torch. Tulips, which Dad knows are Mom’s favorite flowers.
“Appetizers—check!” Ana pats the bags of cheese and crackers.
Ana slides her hand up and down my thigh, sexy without trying. I respond exactly the way she wants me to, and she grins and all of a sudden the bonfire seems like an okay idea.
“Okay. Here we go.” Dad leans on the horn in rhythm until Mom throws open the front door with a what the—? look on her face.
“Get in, Mom!” I yell. “We’re going out.”
“Wilson? What in the world—” She comes over to the truck bed, and when she leans over the edge, I see her at seventeen, getting into this same truck. It’s enough to make me look away. She smiles at Ana.
I hand Mom the flowers. “Happy anniversary,” I say. “We’re going out. All of us.”
Her eyes get wet. “Oh my God.”
“You didn’t forget, did you?”
“I—” Mom buries her nose in the flowers, and when she comes back up for air, they’re beaded as if we’re standing in the rain. “I guess I’m just surprised, is all.”
I give her a squeeze and she holds on tighter and longer than usual, until Dad lays on the horn again and shouts, “Sun’s going down before you know it!” When we pull away, we’re both kind of foggy eyed. I think we’ve all been waiting for tonight, each of us in our own way.
Ana and I follow my parents to the marina in her car. We listen to a boy band covering a Queen song, and Ana talks about how some guy I don’t know is an amazing songwriter. I don’t say anything, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my dad lately, it’s that loving someone means sometimes not saying what you want to say (“It’s Queen!”) when you want to say it.
Last week, Ana told me she loved me. I don’t know if I love her or not. She’s a nice girl, sweet, and I like that she doesn’t know how pretty she is. I said, “I love you, too,” because I do like Ana, and I don’t want to be an asshole since we’ve been dating for coming up on a year now. The way she said it—as if she was stepping on hot coals—made me think she’d said it lots of times before, and gotten lots of asshole answers.
The Catalina is a beautiful boat, with graceful lines that would slice the water like a blade. When we get to the slip, my parents are settled on the boat’s stern. My dad’s laugh slides over the water, bigger than I’ve ever heard it before.
“Permission to board?” I call.
Dad waves us over, and we slip off our shoes and climb aboard. I love the way the boat moves beneath us.
“We’ve got snacks,” I say. “Appetizers.” I slide in next to Mom, whose eyes are still unfocused, and damp. I break open the cheese and crackers and a little plastic knife, and Ana arranges everything on the brown grocery bag. Behind my father, the sun is sinking low. This is my favorite time of day on the water. Everything in the world is on fire. Everything is gold.
“You boys,” my mother says. She glances back and forth between us. “You really didn’t have to do this.”
“Well, happy anniversary,” Dad says, and he makes a special point of leaning over to kiss her on the cheek.
“Hey. Tell us about your first date,” I say to Mom. She shakes her head and says, “Wilson?” softly.
“Let’s see. I picked her up at her parents’ place in that same truck,” Dad says proudly.
Ana giggles. “Seriously?”
Dad’s eyes gleam. “I picked her up in the truck, and she came out and she was wearing white jeans and this shirt that looked like she’d shrunk it in the dryer—”
“A crop top, Wilson.” Mom smiles a little. Her eyes are still wet. “It was in style.”
I try to picture my mother young.
“Half a shirt, which was just fine by me, and her hair was real long then.” Dad rubs his hands together like he’s making fire. “I knew her from school and such. I’d asked her out because one of my buddies was too chickenshit—”
“Wilson!” Mom rolls her eyes.
“Fine. Too much of a wuss to do it himself. When I saw her walk out of her folks’ house that night, I thought to myself, Damn. That is one beautiful girl.”
“That’s really sweet,” Ana chirps. My mother is crying now.
“Anyway, I’d been working on a boat for the principal of the high school—”
“Dr. Berman.” Mom wipes her eyes.
“And even after I dropped out and started the business, he let me keep working on it. When I finished up, I went to his office and we were just talking, and I just happened to mention that I wanted to take your mother out.”