Over the last few weeks, it had felt like there was one of those metal merry-go-round things you find on old playgrounds living inside of me. There’d been one on the beach playground down the street before the town tore it down. Mom hated it, called it a dangerous contraption. Kat and I would beg to go on until she’d give in. She’d stand next to it, yelling at us to be careful while Kat and I got that thing spinning like crazy. I’d feel dizzy for hours after. But the ride was worth it.
Now, sitting in the chair with my eyes closed, my father alive and breathing somewhere in the hospital, all I felt was tired, as if whatever had been going round and round and round inside of me had simply run out of the oomph it needed to keep going.
We sat there for what seemed like years. Boon was on the phone, pacing in the hallway. I’d just stood up to stretch my legs when Alex walked through the door. He walked over to us, his hand already on the brim of his hat, fiddling with it nervously.
I introduced him to my mother and grandmother. After a round of hellos, we stood awkwardly in silence. My grandmother looked from me to Alex. Then excused herself to get a cup of coffee. My mother gazed blankly at us until my grandmother said, “Hope. Keep me company.”
“Oh,” my mother said, reaching down to get her pocketbook. When she saw that it wasn’t at her feet, she turned to the row of chairs.
“It’s on your arm.” Alex pointed to the patchwork bag looped over her shoulder.
My grandmother snickered, and my mother slapped herself on the forehead, both of them shuffling down the hallway. When I looked at Alex, he was smiling.
“They’re funny,” he said.
“A hoot,” I replied.
I thought we might have a moment alone, but Boon hung up the phone and walked over. He shook Alex’s hand again, and before I knew it, we were seated in the chairs while Boon and Alex talked about Hope Ann, how he’d put her back on the slip and she seemed intact except for a broken pot hauler.
Then there was a noise in the hallway, and my mother was rushing toward us, my grandmother trailing behind. I got up and met her in the hallway. Boon followed behind.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Oh, nothing. I mean, it’s not your father. In all the confusion, I forgot your sister has a half day at camp. She needs to be picked up. I want to be here when your father wakes up. I tried Peggy, but she’s not answering.” She looked at her cell phone and grimaced at it.
“Apparently I’m an unsafe driver,” my grandmother huffed from over my mother’s shoulder.
“That’s not what I said. What I said was that the last time you drove my car, you said you couldn’t reach the brake pedal.”
“I said it was difficult to reach. Obviously I reached it or I wouldn’t be here.” She waved away my mother, who sighed.
“Let me do it,” Boon suggested. “I haven’t seen the squirt in days.”
“You can’t,” my mother said. “There’s a pickup list, and you’re not on it.”
“I’m on the list,” Alex said from behind us. He got up from the chair and joined us in the hallway.
“I get my brother sometimes. I can drive, and Jess can get Kat. You know some of the counselors, right?” He looked at me.
“Are you sure you don’t mind?” my mother asked. “Your whole morning has already been taken up by us—which frankly is another thing I’m confused about.”
“I can probably take a stab at that,” Boon said, and she looked at him, surprised. He gave her a look that said this wasn’t the time to talk about it.
“I don’t mind,” Alex said, and turned to me. “Ready?”
I nodded, even though I felt the opposite of ready. My feet felt rooted to the ground.
“Wait,” I said to my mother. “What should I tell Kat?”
“Don’t tell her anything. She’ll worry herself silly—” my grandmother said before my mother put a hand on her arm, cutting her off.
My mother led me a few feet away until we were alone. When she faced me, a crease in her chin appeared. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and looked down. I knew it was how she looked before she cried. Tears suddenly filled my eyes. A lump in my throat made it hard to breathe.
“Oh, now,” my mother said. She pulled me into her, pressed my head against her shoulder. She patted my back lightly while I snaked a hand up between us and wiped my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I said to her when we separated.
She tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear. “It’s okay to cry. He’ll be okay. But it’s scary.”
“No. I mean I’m sorry about everything. Sorry for lying about Alex. And for what I said to you about Kat. I didn’t mean it.”
“I want you to hear it from me that I don’t know if what I did was right. Everything just happened so fast.” Her lip quivered. A tear slipped down her face.
I started to say that I understood. That she didn’t need to explain, but she held up her hand.
“I don’t have all the answers. Your father either. It’s just, you have children and you want to protect them.”
She paused and dug in her pocketbook for a tissue. When she had wiped under her eyes, she took a deep breath, took both of my hands in hers, and stood in front of me so close, our foreheads almost touched.
“You tell Kat whatever you feel is best. The doctor said as long as Dad responds well to the antibiotics, he can be home as soon as tomorrow.”
“Grandma said Kat will worry, and she’s right. I could just say he’s working on the boat.”
My mother pressed her lips to the side of my head. “Go,” she said. “Do what feels right.”
Alex walked behind me through the parking lot, one step behind. Neither of us spoke. When we reached the truck, I got in the passenger seat and buckled my seat belt. We were on the highway, ten minutes into the ride before Alex looked at me.
“When your dad first showed up, I thought it was because of us, I mean, you—you know what I mean. But then it was obvious he had no clue who I was.”
He looked over at me when he said this. When I didn’t say anything, he looked at the road, then back at me.
“I thought you were going to tell him about us?” he asked after a minute.
In all the frenzy, I hadn’t said anything about Alex’s disappearance.
I hadn’t mentioned that he’d fallen off the face of the earth after we’d kissed. And now he was acting surprised that my father didn’t know about us? What us?
“Tell him what?” I asked. “That you’re a guy who fixed my boat. That we had lunch a couple of times?”
He looked over at me, a wounded expression on his face. For some reason, it made me even angrier.
I saw how he’d looked at me that night. I felt the way he kissed me. And then he’d said he couldn’t kiss me anymore. And then he disappeared.
He didn’t have the right to look wounded.
“Besides, you didn’t tell your mom about me. You told me that night at the Salt House that she didn’t know about me.”
“That’s different.”
“How is it different?”
“I’m eighteen, Jess. It’s different.”
“Not this again,” I scowled. “That’s a stupid thing to say,” I said, feeling my face flame with anger.
He looked over at me, raised his eyebrows. “Why are you so mad?”
“Because you’re sitting over there acting like you didn’t keep me a secret. I have my own reasons for not telling my parents about you. But at least I didn’t lie.”
“Lie? What did I lie about?”