I DON’T KNOW if leaving the island barely a month after installing all the spy clocks was torture, a relief or a mix of both things—I was still getting my bearings with all the fishbowls and all the activity—but it was Olivia’s spring break. And anyway, I could connect through my laptop or even my phone.
Olivia wasn’t crazy about taking time away from Panda, Sunset and Oliver either, so she spent the entire trip to Providence counting telephone poles on the side of the road. She would reach a hundred and then start over, after making a mark on the back of her hand with a pen. She had learned to multiply before she could write.
As soon as we got there, we went to Holy Name Church, my parents’ Catholic church, to a recital of the senior choir my mother took part in—in fact, she had started it. While they sang “Wir wollen alle fröhlich sein” by Michael Praetorius, I started to feel a tickling over my body, especially in my hands, and my ears began ringing slightly, as if my blood sugar was low and I was about to collapse. For a few seconds I chalked it up to not having set foot in that church since Chris’s burial mass. Then I thought it might have to do with the fact that, despite the praiseworthy effort, the sweet gesture and how proud I was of my mother, they weren’t singing too well. But no, I didn’t think it was any of that. In any case, those symptoms passed immediately when Olivia called my attention. She was extremely pale.
“Mommy . . .”
“What is it, honey?”
“I’m sick to my stomach . . .”
“Again, babe?”
Olivia nodded.
“The recital’s almost over.” I took her in my arms and set her on my lap. “You know, counting posts like that in the car, it’s normal you’d get sick.”
But it had been a few hours since we had arrived, and she hadn’t shown any prior symptoms. Her nausea didn’t have to do with the 8,464 posts she had counted, just as mine didn’t have to do with the out-of-key voices.
I put Olivia to bed early. Her symptoms were a carbon copy of those from the previous Christmas. Nausea, slight fever, a little asthma, itches and a rash on the elbows. Clearly psychosomatic. It was as if, just like me, she felt the response to our ills lay on the island.
She fell asleep while I stroked her hair. It relaxed me to make abstract figures in her fine blond strands, just like Chris’s. He too had loved for me to stroke his hair while we watched our favorite television series.
My father was standing in the doorway observing us. I didn’t know how long he had been there. He was very quiet. From the time of my arrival, we had spoken very little, among other things because my mother hogged the conversation.
“You remember your great-grandfather Ernst?”
“From the merchant marine?”
“That one.”
“Not much. Just the stories you and Grandpa Vince told me.”
“I used to love to go to the port and see him off and watch him set out on those huge ships to distant lands. He worked in the engine room shoveling coal into the firebox. But the thing is, every time he came back after spending months on the open sea, the same thing happened to him.”
“The same as what?”
“The same thing that’s happening to Olivia. It’s called disembarkment syndrome.”
“The island isn’t a ship, Daddy.”
“Maybe it is for her.” Pause. “And maybe for you too; you’re looking pale as well.” Pause. “A ship in the middle of the storm, adrift.”
“Daddy, we come and go on the island constantly. Couldn’t it simply be that Olivia has allergies with spring starting?”
“Yeah, could be,” he said, not wanting to force the conversation any further.
His message had reached me loud and clear. For a moment I felt like a spy being spied on. As if my father had painstakingly followed my every move since Chris’s death.
“Dad, didn’t Grandpa Ernst end up killing himself?”
“Yes,” he muttered on his way out of the room.
I couldn’t sleep. My legs were in agony, and whenever I stopped paying attention, I would clench my jaw. Unresolved nerves ran through my whole body. Mark, Julia, Summer, Jennifer, John, Karen, Frank and the rest. I felt they were calling for my attention. I had them trapped in my mind, like those residual images that remain a few seconds on the retina after you close your eyes. Withdrawal symptoms, Alice. And almost without realizing it, I found myself in my father’s office in front of my laptop, with my browser open to the page that asked for the password to access the streaming signal from my spy cameras. I typed in and erased the password several times: PuchiPuchi2015. Trips back and forth for penitence. Alice, we’re on vacation, but you haven’t taken a break. Three hundred and thirty-two days without stopping. So it’s fine if you rest for a few days. Five days, just five days. It’ll do you good.
I closed the laptop and went back to bed, rolled over once, then again in the opposite direction. It halfway worked.
Well, I’m on vacation, but . . . maybe I’ll take a look at the photos? At least I can glance at the new batch of photos on the camera in the cemetery. That’s not on the island; it’s here. That’s allowed, right? That next morning I was left alone when my parents took the girls to Roger Williams Park Zoo and I decided not to go. For me, it was a trial by fire to be completely alone and not succumb to my addictions. I wanted to put myself to the test. Show myself I could. Fine. Allowed. There were 2,722 new photos. That’s all? It has been three months, and that’s all the photos? Is the camera broken? No. It had been wintertime, no one goes there then.
In just four hours, I managed to look at all the photos. Nothing. Now what? Occupational therapy, that’s what I needed. How long since you painted? I mean painted for you? How long?
I sat on the porch, in front of a white canvas, with my oil paints and brushes. I always kept a painting kit in places I considered home, in case inspiration struck or the need arose, as in the present case. But before I could make a brushstroke, six messages in a row came through on my phone. They were from Mark:
Hi, it’s me, Mark.
New number, just for you.
I’m at The Office. I’m going to stay here a few days.
Things aren’t good with Julia.
Come whenever you want.
Come . . .
My legs started shaking. Maybe that withdrawal I was suffering through, which I attributed to being a spy junkie—a term I had scorned when Antonio said it—had something to do with Mark? Hi, my name’s Alice, and I’ve been without Mark for forty-nine days. Hi, Alice.
Absence intensifies love or loneliness, or both. Observing Mark’s behavior with me made me ask myself if maybe Chris had pulled away from me to love me more. If the island was the place he came to miss me. During our reunions, there was always more ardor than on the normal days. The ones I missed now. I missed the ardent days too, don’t get me wrong. But less.
I stayed there looking at the white canvas. I put a little black on the palette, took a thin brush, spread the paint, lightly daubed the hairs of the brush and signed the lower right-hand corner: Alice, 2016. Was that my world now? A small square, box, compartment, blank, empty? Where were my dreams of being a great painter?
I got another message. It was my mother this time.
We’re coming back home. Mega drama with Olivia. Everything OK now.
Olivia was asleep when they arrived. I went out to meet them and took her in my arms. She didn’t wake up, but I noticed how she grabbed onto my neck and smelled it. She felt safe now. I was heartened by that tiny gesture. It frightened me to think that she had gotten sick in my absence, that she needed me and depended on me as much as I did on her. A powerful, selfish and not particularly healthy feeling.
As soon as they’d arrived at the zoo, Olivia ran off toward the area with the red pandas. She greeted the panda family and named them. Well, numbered them. Hello, Panda Number One; hello, Panda Number Two; hello, Panda Number Three; hello, Panda Number Four; hello, Panda Number Five. Then they could go on to enjoy the other animals. At lunchtime, they bought food from a kiosk and took it to the red panda area because Olivia insisted on eating near them. She ate too fast, almost without chewing, no matter how often I told her to pay attention to me. Olivia was in a rush because she wanted to play with the red pandas. Especially with Number Five, the smallest one, but when she went to look for him, he wasn’t there. He had disappeared. She threw such a tantrum that my father went to find the guy in charge to get him to explain to Olivia that Number Five was fine, that he hadn’t left, hadn’t gotten sick and definitely hadn’t died, which was what Olivia was afraid of. But before that happened, Olivia started to choke. She couldn’t breathe. My mother went hysterical. A man with his three kids took charge of the situation: he was a doctor. I thought he must have been divorced. Very handsome, my mother observed in the midst of her anguished tale. He examined Olivia, made sure she hadn’t aspirated, that her respiratory pathways were clear. But Olivia kept getting worse. He took her in his arms. He ran off with her to the zoo’s medical services. Just before they arrived, Olivia vomited, then she got better: her color came back, her breathing became normal, and the scare was over. The doctor stayed until he was sure everything was fine. I thanked him and asked for his name and address to send him a token of thanks for his help, but really I was thinking he could be a good match for you. He was really handsome, right, George? Before they left, Olivia insisted on making sure Number Five was OK. She wasn’t satisfied with what the zoo employee told her; she had to go see with her own eyes.
Look, see him there eating bamboo? You scared my granddaughter very badly, Number Five, my father upbraided the panda.
So that’s it, indigestion, my mother concluded. You want me to give you the doctor’s number? His name’s Donald. I talked to him about you; I said you were very pretty. And he answered, “If she’s your daughter, I don’t doubt it one bit.” How charming, right? Oh, and he confirmed it: recently divorced. He had the kids for vacation. Yes, I asked him about it. Don’t look at me with the same face as your father, dear. I did it for you.
My diagnosis was a bit different from hers. Olivia had had an anxiety attack. What could be circulating so virulently and recurrently in her little body? Her tale about the incident at the zoo turned out to be much more concise, direct and devastating.
“What happened to you at the zoo, honey?”
“I got sick because I couldn’t find Number Five. I thought he had left. Like Daddy. But then he came back and that’s the end.”
I tried to convince myself that it had been a simple summer storm, the kind that soaks you unexpectedly but doesn’t have any real consequences—especially for her. But I couldn’t stop thinking of how the last time we’d gone to the zoo had been with Chris. A year ago, also during spring break. On that visit, Olivia decided that the red pandas were her super-favorite out of all the animals in the world. She didn’t name them because she wasn’t yet obsessed with order, but we did have to go back and eat next to them. Was she repeating the same ritual to see if her father would turn the corner to pick her up and carry her off on his shoulders?
Again I found myself in my father’s office, in front of the laptop, debating whether to take a peek at my fishbowls or not. In reality I had them set so that whatever movement happened in front of them would be recorded. So there was no risk of missing anything. It was better that way. Leaving them to record a few days and then going over the material, fast-forwarding through the video, to see if anything interesting happened. I’d save a lot of time. And that was the thing that bothered me the most: despite knowing all that, I could hardly restrain the discomfort that was eating me up inside. Just a little look. To make sure all the fishbowls are working right, then off to bed. No, hold on, it’s like your father’s whiskey. You have to be the one who feels you’re in control of it and not it of you. But before I could log in—and I was going to do it—I heard Olivia’s whiny voice.
“What are you doing up, sweetheart?”
“I had a nightmare with Puchi Puchi, Number Five, Panda, Daddy and Oliver. They were all in a cage at the zoo. I was counting them, but I never could finish, because I would mess up before I got to five and I would have to start over.”
“Well, it’s over now, honey. Here, drink a little water; you’re dehydrated; you’ve been sweating.”
I gave her the water, dried the sweat on her forehead and changed her pajama top, which was damp.
“Mommy, am I crazy?”
I got a knot in my throat and my eyes teared up when I heard the question.
“No, honey, of course not. Why do you say that?”
“At school they say I’m crazy because I do weird things and that only crazy kids go to the psychologist. Beth Yoxhimer said it, and so did Eric Aver, Gordon Howie, Sandy Karstetter and Steve Poppler.”
She had listed them in alphabetical order by first name. That didn’t help to relieve my sorrow.
“You’re not crazy, Oli. Don’t pay them any mind. You’re very sensitive, and you’re still a little sad about what happened with Daddy. That’s normal. Don’t worry about it. Next week, we’ll go see Ruth, and you’ll see, she’ll tell you the same.
“I don’t want to see Ruth.”
“But you love going to see Ruth . . .”
“I want to see Oliver.”
“When we go back to the island, we’ll see him.”
“No, I want to see him now.”
“Honey, we’re almost three hours from home. And it’s night. We can’t go now.”
“FaceTime hasn’t connected since we left. I haven’t seen him in three days.”
“Well, it’s OK; you will.”
“Is he dead?”
“Who? Oliver? Of course not.”
“When Daddy died, we went to the island.” I think that was the first time she had verbalized that her father had died, at least so bluntly. “Did we leave the island this time because Oliver died?”
“No, baby. He hasn’t died. And we didn’t leave the island either. Oliver’s at home. He’s on break.”
“I don’t like breaks.” She didn’t say it like a hysterical child but with deep grief. “Let’s go see him.”
“Listen, don’t talk nonsense or I’ll end up getting mad.” I decided to get hard with her and see if that pulled her out of the vortex. “I told you we can’t, and that’s that. Now go to bed.”
Silence. She stayed still, without saying anything, staring straight into my eyes. I thought it had worked. But she didn’t close her eyes; she didn’t even blink.
“I close my eyes and I see him dead, like when it happened to me with Daddy.”