on one side of the street before switching to the other. Each one keeps track of the time, but Mother’s mother, Mama, which she insists we call her because Grandmother dates her, makes the most trouble.
I go where they tell me but I am not the one they fight over. Jake’s presence is worth more than my sister’s or mine. I prefer to go across the street with Mother, my brother and sister, but a cousin of my Father, whom I have never met, is in Miami. The cousin’s girlfriend has a son who is also thirteen. Father tells me I will be spending the day with them at Sea World.
It is always tense, the leaving of one grandparent’s apartment for the other, and my parents begin to argue. I hope Mother is taking my side because today I’m supposed to be with her parents, not at Sea World.
I open the bedroom door and call out: Please don’t make me go. Then I stand with my back against the closed door. Even with my fingers in my ears I have no luck blocking them out. Father tells Mother when I return from Sea World he will bring me across the street, or if it is too late, first thing in the morning.
The front door slams. Mother leaves.
I stare out the living room window onto Collins Avenue and count the cars going in the direction of the city. Mother stands on the median with my sister and brother and her American Tourister suitcase, color red. Had I run after them, she would have sent me back.
Father calls to me from the kitchen. I don’t make him wait. On the table is a stack of recent photographs from his parents’ anniversary. Because Father wanted pictures of both his parents, he took these. One is cut in half. Father sees me looking at it.
Your Mother, he says, should make sure she never looks this way again.
In the half he is discarding, Mother’s eyes look like doll’s eyes and the front of her dress is stained with red wine.
I want to know how long I have to be at Sea World but hesitate to ask, not wanting to remind him.
They will be picking you up in less than an hour, he says, go get pretty. He crumples the half of the picture that is Mother and throws it in the garbage.
My cousin keeps kissing his girlfriend’s lips and biting her ear while his hand holds her ass that is wrapped in a tight red skirt. We sit on wooden bleachers and watch a show of dolphins. The sun is in my eyes. When the camera pans the crowd I cover my face. I do not want anyone to see me here, for there to be a record.
The ride home takes a very long time and the motion of the car, especially the starting and stopping, makes me feel sick. When they drop me at Father’s parents’, I am not feeling well and in the course of the night I develop a fever. By morning, Grandmother, who never speaks until after Grandfather has spoken, determines I have the flu.
Mother, my sister and brother must know I am sick, otherwise Father would have brought me across Collins Avenue according to plan. But Mother hasn’t called to ask if I need medicine or to see a doctor.
Father’s mother gives me a box of pink, scented tissues. Your father will get you lunch, she says. And here is mentholated chest rub in case your cough gets worse. Grandfather and I will be back in a few hours. You need to keep the window closed.
But it’s so hot. I protest.
And I am going to keep the curtains drawn. Maybe you can sleep.
The television in the bedroom glows from its faux wood console. It is the winter of one of the Apollo missions and the news is on every channel. I keep seeing the same craters while I hear the deep voice of the newscaster, who isn’t saying anything of interest. Father is also watching, but in the other room. Later, when he and Jake are together, they will talk about what they have seen, especially the spacecraft, the men in the blow-up suits and how everything, including the men, floats and drifts without reason.
I get out of bed and go into the bathroom where I spend a long time kneeling on the tile floor in front of the toilet, not sure if I am going to be sick. When I feel better, I get up to use the toilet. I am sitting on the plastic puffy seat leafing through Mother’s Cosmopolitan magazine. My pajama bottoms are gathered at my ankles. The door opens. At first I think it is a mistake, that Father doesn’t see me.
I close the magazine. It drops to the floor and makes a noise as it hits the tile. The cover is the typical Cosmopolitan photograph of a beautiful woman looking directly into the camera. I stare at her so I do not have to look at Father. She is wearing a gold lamé dress and her hair is in ringlets.
I remember Father saying, what’s wrong with you? You don’t know to close the door?
But the door was closed.
Many years later Mother told me she went to a divorce lawyer when she was pregnant with Helen. The lawyer persuaded her to stay with Father, that if she were to leave she would end up destitute, unable to provide for Helen, whereas Father had economic promise.
Helen wasn’t very old, and it was already clear to Mother that Father loved Helen more than anyone else in his world.
Helen calls from the water. Stop being scared. Think of all you’re missing. I’ll even hold your hand.
No. I call back. I am afraid of the tide. The waves are too high. Why even do you like it here?
The sound of the ocean, the taste of salt. She licks her inner wrist. The way I can get lost here.
Mama lies all day on her towel. Maybe she thinks the sun will turn her young. But the sand chafes my skin, scrapes my eyes, and gets caught in my belly button. They don’t like it when I complain, so I walk away. If I keep moving the sand won’t have time to stick.
The beach is the loneliest place, all one color and one sound. The echo of the waves is continuous, and even when I bring a shell to my ear, the kind that is pink and shiny inside, I cannot escape. All of it makes me sleepy, but I am afraid to sleep in the open where people can see me. Instead, I sit down and dig and don’t stop until black tar sticks to my fingers. I’m going to claw my way to China. Mother once told me it is possible.
The song about popcorn and Crackerjacks is playing at the concession stand. I know the words. Mama tells me to smile but I don’t know how to just do this, so I pretend she has a camera and is taking my picture. I want to be home counting the four walls and the cracks in the paint with the door to my room locked and the window shades pulled down.
As we are leaving, Helen begs Mama to buy her a beach ball. Mama keeps walking. Helen stomps her foot. You never buy us anything. Father’s parents buy us whatever we want.
Mother’s father asks the vendor. How much?
Mama turns and scowls at him.
Think how lovely she would look. He says, a photograph of Helen and the ball.
