“We all wish for things. Nothing wrong with that when there’s no harm meant. I’m telling you, Michael wouldn’t want you lying here feeling miserable because of him. He’d want you to go on and be happy, to live your best life.”
Billy heard how much he wanted to convince them both.
*
That night, at his workbench, Billy placed the tiny boat he’d made out of toothpicks onto the painted riverbank.
Tiny Billy and tiny Michael push out the boat and set sail on the gray-blue River Nore. They stretch out on their backs on the boat’s aft, their army jackets off and their shirts open to their navels. They float under the middle portal of the bridge, its cover robbing them of the sun’s golden warmth. “We’re pirates in search of treasure,” Michael says, his voice echoing inside the tunnel.
“Then so we are,” Billy says.
As soon as they emerge from beneath the bridge, Billy jumps to his feet and looks through the paper telescope. Michael moves next to his father and studies the tattered map they’d found earlier in a blue glass bottle on the riverbank, washed up amid the rushes and next to the swans’ nest. Billy looks back at the swans, one black and one white, both getting smaller in the distance. One mate for life, forever true.
Billy and Michael arrive at the castle ruins, make anchor, and disembark. Michael charges forward, following the map. Something about the boy’s excitement and his open, hungry need disturbs Billy. He wants to change the course of the story, wants to undo Michael ever having found the blue glass bottle and its treasure map. His son should know that in his father’s kingdom they already have everything they could ever want or need.
*
The next afternoon, Billy and Ivor again readied for the swimming pool. This time, Ivor didn’t need to be bribed.
Anna insisted she wasn’t interested. “I told you, chlorine doesn’t like me.”
Billy bit back a lecture. His daughter—his little girl—was wearing bright purple eye shadow and clumped mascara. He hadn’t ever seen her wear makeup before, except when she was performing in dance shows and competitions. “Well, then, how about we do something together later?” he asked.
“Like what?” she asked.
“Whatever you want.”
Tricia looked up from her phone. “You can’t just tell her whatever she wants.”
“She knows what I mean.”
Anna’s face crumpled. “Stop fighting. You two fight all the time now. That, or stone silence.”
“No we don’t,” Tricia said.
“Yes you do,” Ivor said.
“What do we fight about?” Billy asked, trying to make light.
“I don’t know,” Anna said. “I block it out.”
“Yeah,” Ivor said.
Billy and Tricia exchanged a guilty look. Tricia spoke to Anna. “Why don’t we go into town while they’re at the pool?”
Anna shrugged. “If we go shopping? I need new clothes.”
“Yeah, of course, if you need them,” Tricia said. Billy heard the hint of worry in her voice. Their money was stretching ever thinner in these recessionary times, especially after all the expense of the funeral. For the first time in twenty years, he was starting to think he would have to do better than the factory and his basic paycheck every two weeks. Otherwise, they were going to have to borrow money, and soon. He shivered. Wouldn’t his father love it if Billy ended up having to go back to him after all this time, his head down and his hand out.
*
Billy checked his flyers on the Sports Center’s bulletin board, hit again by that sinking feeling. He checked every visit, and every time the donations sheet remained blank. To make matters worse, someone had yet again pinned new material to the board, covering up his flyers. He unpinned the various cards and pages, noting the mad psychedelic colors on one chiropractor’s ad, and moved his flyers back on top—dead center. It was the same with his flyers on display throughout the village and in town. Even at the factory. After the first rush of donations, the fresh flyers he’d posted had remained mostly blank, with little to no new monies coming in. He looked into Michael’s gray-blue eyes on the bulletin board. He was not giving up.
A Sunday afternoon, the changing room was especially busy. Billy and Ivor each entered a toilet stall to undress and put on swim trunks. It hurt Billy that Ivor was following his lead and was also too embarrassed to undress in front of everyone. Monkey see, monkey do.