????
Conner stood by the door and watched his sister go. It was a familiar sight, her leaving. It didn’t seem possible that he would see her later that night. He was used to it being months. A year. He was used to the fear that she would perish on her next dive and he would hear about it from someone at school. That loss would be even greater now that they had soaked the sand with their sweat together, had dived side by side to rescue who they could. His sister, always a bright and distant star in his life, had grown bright as Venus. It left him no space to stay behind while she went off to Low-Pub.
But he couldn’t run out as quickly as she could, didn’t have the years of practice. He turned back to the stairs, where his family was still watching from the balcony. Conner made his way to them through the crowded bar. A woman he passed grabbed his wrist and thanked him with tears in her eyes, and Conner remembered pulling her out of her home. Her little boy squirmed in her lap. Conner fought back tears of his own as he squeezed her shoulder. He wanted to say that she was welcome, but he feared his voice cracking, feared the facade this woman saw on him sloughing off. His brother Rob met him at the bottom of the stairs.
“Where’s Vic going?” Rob asked.
“People out there still need our help,” Conner told his little brother. He stooped down to speak to him. “I’m going to go with her, okay? You’ll stay here with Mom and Palm.”
“I want to go with you.”
“You can’t,” Conner said. He was on the verge of tears, but he had to be firm. “You’re needed here. Take care of Violet. Imagine how scared she must be. How alone she must feel.”
Rob nodded. He scanned the room, perhaps looking for something to do, someone to help. Conner climbed the stairs toward his mom. He dreaded telling her he was leaving, but nothing had ever felt as right as pulling people out of the sand. The moment he carried his mother and Rob and Violet up into the attic and saved them was like that moment a snake sheds its skin or a baby crow pierces its shell. It had been a sort of birth, a discovery of purpose. He no longer felt like a boy. As he reached the top of the stairs, he thought even his mother was looking at him differently. Even Palmer.
“I’m going to help Vic for a few days,” he told them. “You’ll look after Rob and Violet?”
His mother nodded, and Conner saw her throat constrict as she swallowed back some word or sob. She reached out and squeezed his shoulder, and he was about to turn away when she reached into her pocket and brought out a folded piece of paper. “Give this to Vic,” his mother said. “Make sure she reads it. She needs to believe.”
Conner accepted the paper and stuck it into his pocket. “I’ll make sure she gets it,” he promised. “I’m going to let Violet know I’ll be gone for a while. You’ll look after her?”
His mother nodded. Conner thanked her and turned to her room, which no longer had the same repulsive effect it used to. It had been cleansed by the sand that had passed through it; it had been scoured clean. He heard Palmer hurry up behind him and felt his brother grab his arm.
“Hey, Con, we need to talk.”
Conner stopped. Over Palmer’s shoulder, he saw their mother heading back down the stairs to tend to the stricken. “What is it?” Conner asked.
Palmer glanced at their mother’s door like there was still something to fear there, like one of her drunk clients might lumber out at any moment and crash into them and send them over the edge of the balcony with its missing rail. “This way,” Palmer said. He guided Conner past the room where Violet lay, his voice a conspiratorial whisper.
“You okay?” Conner asked. His brother looked better than he had in the sarfer earlier that day, had salve on his blistered lips and food in his belly. But something seemed off.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. It’s just that … this girl who claims to be our sister—”
“Violet,” Conner reminded him.
“Yeah, Violet. It’s just that … Mom took me in there and told me her story, let me talk to her. She and Rob told me about the other night—the night you went camping—and about where she came from.”
“No Man’s Land.”
“Well, maybe.” Palmer glanced at the door again and pulled Conner even farther down the balcony. “It’s just a little unbelievable, don’t you think? I mean, you really buy her story? Because—”
“I was there,” Conner told his brother. “I’m telling you she speaks the truth. She knew who I was.”