trunks with little red fire hats on them.
“She ” – he jabs a sandy finger at his mom – “made us leave the beach.”
“Patsy’s naptime, Harry. You know this. You can swim in the big pool for a while. Maybe we can get a cone at Castle’s after the sailing awards.”
“Pools aren’t cool,” Harry moans. “We left before the ice-cream truck, Mommy. They have Spider-Man Bomb Pops.” He stalks up the steps, his angry scrawny back all hunched over his skinny, little-dude legs. The screen door slams behind him.
“Whoa,” I say. “Child abuse.”
Mrs Garrett laughs. “I’m the meanest mom in the world. I have it on good authority.” Then she glances at George and leans into me, smelling like coconut sunscreen. At first I think she’s sniff-checking my breath, because that’s why adults ever get this close. Instead she whispers, “Don’t mention asteroids.”
Not my go-to conversation starter, so all good there.
But George is clutching a copy of Newsweek, his shoulders heaving. Patsy’s still shrieking. Mrs Garrett looks back and forth between them, like, who to triage first.
“I’ll take Screaming Mimi here,” I offer. Mrs Garrett shoots me a grateful smile and flicks open Patsy’s car seat. Good thing, since I know dick about car seats.
As soon as she’s freed, Patsy looks up at me and her sobs dry up, like that. She still does that hic-hic-hic thing, but reaches out both hands for me.
“Hon,” she says. Hic-hic-hic.
I don’t get why, but this kid loves me crazy much. I pick her up and her sweaty little hands settle on my cheeks, patting them gently, never mind the stubble.
“Oh Hon,” she says, all loving and shit, giving me her cute/scary grin with her pointy incisors, like a baby vampire.
Mrs Garrett smiles, swinging George out of the car onto her hip. He snuggles his head into her neck, magazine still rumpled in his clammy fingers.
“You’ll make a good dad, Tim. Someday in the far distant future.”
To cover a sudden embarrassing rush of . . . whatever . . . from the consoling weight of her hand on my back, I answer, “You better believe it. No the hell way am I adding knocking up some girl to my list of crimes and misdemeanors.”
The minute it’s out of my mouth I get that I’m an ass. Mrs Garrett still looks pretty frickin’ young and her oldest kid is twenty-two. Could be she got knocked up and had to get married.
Also, probably? Knocking up? Not a phrase you should use with parents.
“Always good to have a plan,” she answers, unfazed.
She carries George into the house, leaving me with Patsy, who tips her teary, soft cheek against my own, nuzzling. Alice still has her eyes closed and is evidently removing herself from this scene every way but physically.
“Hon,” Patsy says again, slanting back to plant a sloppy kiss on my shoulder, checking me out from under her dew-droppy eyelashes. “Boob?”
“Sorry, kid, can’t help you there.”
I avoid looking at Alice, who has again untied the top strings of her bikini. She yawns, stretches. The top edges down a little lower. No tan lines. I close my eyes for a second.
Pats grabs my ear, as if that’s a cool substitute for a boob. Could be. What do I know about babies? Or toddlers, or whatever you are when you’re one and a half. Could be it’s all about holding on to something and doesn’t matter much what you grab. I, of all people, get that.
“Alice?”
“Dad?”
“Recognized your Gators,” he says.
“Crocs, Dad.”
“Those. Come on in.”
I brush aside the stiff hospital curtain. Even nearly a month after the car accident, I still have to struggle to pull on the “all is well” nurse face I never dreamed I’d need with my own father. He looks a lot better. Fewer tubes, color better, bruises faded away. But Dad in a hospital bed still makes my stomach crimp and my lungs too heavy to pull in air. Before all this, I’d almost never seen him lying down, not in motion. Now the only thing that moves is one hand, stroking Mom’s hair. She’s asleep, nestled tight against him in the tiny, cramped bed.
“Shh,” Dad says. “She’s beat.”
She’s totally out, for sure. One arm hooked behind his neck, one wrapped around his waist.
“You too, hmm?” His voice is still faintly slurry, but gentle, the same steadying sound that got me through kid-nightmares, mean teachers, and Sophie McCade in eighth grade spreading rumors I’d had boob implants during the summer.
“I could ask you the same, Dad.”
He makes a scoffing sound. “I lounge around all day.”
“You have a broken pelvis. Not to mention lung damage from a pulmonary embolism. You’re not exactly eating bonbons.”
He peers at me, shifting aside Mom’s hair so he can look me more clearly in the eye. “What are bonbons? I’ve heard it and I’ve never known.”
“I have no idea, actually. But if I figure it out and bring you some, will you eat them?”
“I will if you will. We could make a contest of it. ‘My boy says he can eat fifty eggs . . .’ ”
“No, God. No Cool Hand Luke. What it is with that movie? Every male I know has, like, a thing with it.”
“We all like to believe we have a winning hand, Alice,” he says, dragging up the pillow behind him one-handed and giving it a hard punch to fluff it up.
“Say no more.” I reach for the cards in their familiar, worn box, next to the pink hospital-issue carafe of water, the kidney-shaped trough to spit into after tooth brushing, the clutter of empty, one-ounce pill cups, and the roll of medical tape to re-bandage his IV shunt. Nothing like home, his nightstand piled with wobbly, homemade, clay penholders and mugs, heaps of sci-fi books, the picture of him and Mom in high school, big curly hair on her, leather jacket on him.
“I haven’t the heart to break your streak,” he says with that grin that crinkles the corners of his eyes before overtaking his entire face. “The painkillers gave you an unfair advantage.”
“I’m six for seven, Dad. Is it your painkillers or my raw talent?” I smile.
“Well, I’m off ’em now. So we’ll see.” He edges to one side a bit and his face goes sheet-white. He looks up at the ceiling, his lips moving, counting away the pain, taking deep breaths.
“Pant, pant, blow,” I murmur. Labor breathing. Everyone in
