Malcolm’s Phone Finally Rings
Dad says he’s sorry right away. It’s nearly eleven. Last flight from the island tonight. I can hear the echo of the arrivals exit at the airport and the taxis going by.
“I’m so sorry, kid. I didn’t mean to worry you.”
I’m outside Marla’s hospital room, and Gottfried is wandering again. He keeps having to pee and says it’s because he drank tea today, but I’ve never seen Gottfried drink tea, not before tonight or tonight. “Marla’s in the hospital, but she’s okay.”
“What happened?”
I walk down the hall so Marla can’t hear me. “She fell at the farmers’ market. Has a concussion. She’ll be fine.”
“Did you really steal her car?”
“Yep.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yep.”
“Where’s the car now?”
“In the hospital garage.”
“Do they know?”
“No.”
He laughs. I love his laugh. There are times in first class when I can see him talking to his new stranger-friends, and I watch him and wait for that laugh. Always comes. He never disappoints.
“I’ll come get you. We can get the car home before she notices.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I say.
“I’ll be there in about an hour, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I’m sorry again, kid. I hate that you worry.”
I’m about to say a bunch of smart shit about how I’d worry no matter what. Telling me I’m not allowed to worry doesn’t mean I don’t worry. It makes me worry more, really. But I see Gottfried walking around up the hall with this skinny girl in a red-sequined dress and I’m confused and I’m too busy watching to say anything.
“Eleanor wanted me to tell you she misses you,” he says. My gut drops.
“How’d you find out?”
“She told me. Honest, smart, and works her ass off. You could do worse.”
“That’s not actually a compliment, you know. The you-could-do-worse part. Okay?”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“We’ll talk when you get here,” I say. “I can’t live with Marla anymore. It’s not that she’s a bad person,” I whisper. “It’s just the antithesis of everything you ever taught me—living here. They’re not good for me.”
“Well, I—”
“Just think about it on your way. Talk to the driver about it. He’s a people person. He’s great at stuff like this.”
Dad’s still in his hat and sunglasses when he gets to Marla’s room. He kisses her on the head and says, “You need to stop doing that trapeze act, Ma.”
She shakes her head.
Gottfried gives Dad a hug and says, “You stink, kid.”
I can see Dad’s hackles go up and then smooth back down. Gottfried always wanted a different son, I guess. And Dad does stink. He doesn’t use Jamaican tap water unless he has to. That’s what the sea’s for!
I could really use a sea bath right about now.
Right when I think this, tears well up in my eyes. My chest heaves a bit, and I look down so no one can see. What’s wrong with you?
It’s not Eleanor or Dad or Marla or anyone. It’s not school or the entitled kids I have to navigate every day—the ones who complain about how their Internet is slow or their phone has a crack in the screen. It’s the beach. The sand. The people. The fish. The pelicans. The sunset. I found a place I belong.
Most people I know are lost—never found a place they belong. I’m fifteen and I already found mine. Except I don’t really belong there. I’m Lonerman. I don’t belong anywhere.
Dad’s made some excuse—I didn’t catch it. He motions for me to get up.
“We’re gonna take off. If you need anything, call me, okay?”
Marla says, “What about his backpack and clothes at our place?”
“We’ll drop by and get them,” Dad says. He looks at Gottfried, who somehow knows what’s going on. Man language. I’m learning it. I was born with it. I try not to use it, but sometimes it comes in handy. Especially when you’re doing something you shouldn’t be doing and getting away with it . . . like stealing a car or whatever.
I feel so white right now, I can’t stand myself.
Dad drives Marla’s BMW back to the house. We don’t say much to each other because he wants to test the car’s speakers. Harman Kardon. Marla always gets the best even if she doesn’t use it.
The airport driver follows us in his black Town Car, and once I get my stuff from inside the house, we get into the Town Car and go back down the driveway.
“You know I stole her car when I was in high school,” Dad says. “Crashed it, though. Into a parked car. Lied. Got away with it. I was totally stoned.”
The driver laughs. All of us white, all of us lucky we get away with things. I still can’t shake the feelings I was having in the hospital. Overwhelming sadness, really. At having to be here. At having to be in this family, where a father tells his dying son that he smells bad.
I start to cry and Dad does something he hasn’t done in a long time. He hugs me. Pulls me across the back seat and puts me in his arms and he squeezes me. No pats on the back, no chatter in my ear. He just hugs and lets me cry on his lap even though he has no idea why I’m crying.
When I can finally talk, I say, “I need to get out of here. Now. Tomorrow. I need the beach.”
“Okay,” Dad says. “I can get us on the first flight tomorrow morning.”
“You don’t have treatments this week?”
“Nope.”
I sit up. “Why?”
Dad sighs. “Nothing more they can do for me.”
I look at him in the highway light.
“And I want my fucking hair back.” The driver laughs at this. “If I’m gonna die, I want to do it with hair, you know?”
“You do have great hair,” I say.
I stay in his arms, and it feels like the world is both ending and beginning. “I can’t go back there. I can’t live with them anymore.”
“You can’t be wiping my ass a few months down the road, either,” he says.
“I’m not leaving you. You’re stuck with me. This is what happens when you have a kid, Dad. You can’t just push me out of your life now.”
He’s quiet and I look at him and he’s crying, too.
The driver keeps driving. Dad keeps crying. I hug him and he sobs into my chest. It’s as if we’d just switched places. Except it’s not. I think this is what families are supposed to do.