19
“COME ON.” XANDER WHIPS THE sheet off me the next morning, breathing warm maple syrup breath all over my face. “Come on, Doodoo. Mom says we can go to the beach today.”
“I told you a billion times, I won’t be seen with you in public if you call me that.”
When he was just learning to talk, Xan struggled with my name. He couldn’t get his Rs out right, so he called me Doo, and then Doodoo.
“Fine!” he huffs, standing at the foot of my bed, waiting for me to get up.
I should want to. It’s the beach, after all. Swimming until your arms ache (or you’ve swallowed too much salt water, whichever comes first). Lying in the warm sun. Watching Xan chase seagulls and fail to catch them. There’s no such thing as a bad day at the beach.
But after how things ended yesterday, all I want is to skip over the weekend and fast-forward to Monday. After coming out of the bathroom, Audrey didn’t talk to me for the rest of the day. I know I deserved it, but still.
“Okay, okay.” I jump out of bed and run over to tickle my brother.
“Stop, stop!” Xan pants in between giggling fits.
“You know I’ll do it again if you ever call me—”
“I won’t! I won’t! Promise! Cross my fart.”
I release him, and he zooms out of my bedroom, giggling, his tiny feet thumping the hardwood stairs. I flip open my front shade and stare across the street at Filipe’s house. Last summer I would have texted him at the first mention of the beach. But between how he acted when I tried to play basketball with him and Theo and how annoyed he got at me during Crash Landing the other day—never mind the library—I don’t know what to do anymore to make things go back to normal.
If I don’t exist to him, maybe … maybe he shouldn’t exist to me either.
I grab my phone off the bedside table and check to see if there are any messages. Nope. I toss it back on my bed and dig around in my dresser for my bathing suit.
It’s Saturday, after all.
“Oh, come on. Another fire hydrant! You’ve got to be kidding me.” Mom groans.
“Sorry,” I say. “That one came out of nowhere.”
As we inch down the road leading to the beach in Westerly, I crane my neck, searching for an empty parking spot or someone backing out of theirs. We’ve made two loops already and still nothing.
“I see one!” Xan yells. He points out his window, half-open to let in the salty air. There’s nothing like the smell of the ocean—nothing.
“No way,” I say. But sure enough, on the other side of the street is a woman maneuvering her black MINI Cooper out of the world’s tiniest parking spot.
“That’s going to be a tight squeeze,” Mom says.
“You can totally do it. Want me to hop out?”
Mom doesn’t look very certain. “If you really think so.”
I get out and direct our car into the spot. Sure, it might be a five-million-point turn. And we might be three centimeters from touching the bumper of the car behind us. But, technically, we’re in.
“Don’t know what I’d do without you.” Mom pops the trunk to get our beach towels and the cooler. “My navigator.” She ruffles my hair.
I squeeze a dollop of sunscreen for my face, and then I grab my brother’s hand while we half walk, half jog down the street. Xan likes to run ahead of Mom, which means I have to chase after him. Once he gets a view of the beach and the carousel, there’s not much that can slow him down.
The beach can get crowded on summer weekends, but if you get here early enough, like us, you can still snag a good spot. We lay our beach blanket a few yards from the lifeguard tower. Mom tries to get Xan to put on sunscreen before dashing into the sea, but like usual, he makes a big fuss about it.
I dart after him as he kicks up sand. “Hey, watch out for other people’s blankets,” I remind him. The sun makes me squint, even in my sunglasses.
The funny thing about my brother is, no matter how excited he is about the beach, every time he reaches the water, he slows down. There’s something about the ocean. How tremendous it is … and how you can’t control it. Xan respects that. I know I do.
Xan stays in the shallow water, jumping over the small waves as they crash into the shore and picking up particularly grody pieces of seaweed. Mom makes her way toward him, haloed by the sun.
Once she has her eye on him, I wade in deeper until I’m up to my chest, and then I let the water just hold me as I float on my back.
Down the way a bit are two teenage girls in bikinis, splashing each other. One is mad that the other messed up her hair.
Has Audrey been to the beach yet in Rhode Island?
I can’t imagine her here. For one, she’s exactly the type of person who’d get squeamish if one bit of seaweed clung to her arm. Or worse, if she got some sand in her bathing suit. And she definitely has the kind of skin that’ll burn lobster red if she isn’t careful with sunscreen.
Wait.
I’m not even at the library. Why in the heck am I thinking about Audrey?
I swim out a bit farther, watching as a yacht cruises by in the distance, until I’m so far out I can barely see my mom. She doesn’t need to worry. The whole reason we come to Watch Hill instead of Misquamicut in the first place is because the waves are so tame here. No undertow at all.
Last summer Filipe made fun of us for still coming here. Called it the kiddie beach. He said all the high schoolers went to Misquamicut, and now that we were in middle school, we needed to go there too.
Whatever.
Maybe it’s better here without him. I don’t need someone telling me what’s cool and what isn’t every five seconds.
I tread water for a while, watching as a seagull by the shore dive-bombs the blanket of someone who left their food unattended. A woman runs out from the water, yelling and waving to get the seagull out of her stuff. I hope someone’s recording this for YouTube.
One time when I was little, after a long day at the beach, I asked my dad if I could have a seagull as a pet. I guess somehow I’d convinced myself that a seagull was a beautiful bird, like a penguin or a peacock or something. It happens when you’re little—you think you’re really onto something, except no one else agrees with you. Dad had laughed at me. Not an odd reaction; I’m sure he couldn’t help it in the moment, but I guess it’d been a long day and I was tired and hungry and I just—I lost it. I cried and cried about it the whole way home.
And then a few mornings later, when I woke up, there was a new stuffed animal nestled in my arms. I don’t know where my dad found a stuffed seagull, but he had.
I’d forgotten about that day until just now. Most of the things I remember from being a little kid, they’re not because I really remember them. They’re because we still talk about them. That’s what keeps them alive. The story of what happened replaces the memory. Or maybe the story strengthens it.
If you don’t talk about things, eventually you forget them. Completely.
I stay in the water a long time, only coming out because my fingertips are raisin-y and my stomach is growling. Back by our blanket, Xan and Mom are hard at work on a sandcastle. Xan slopped a bunch of seaweed onto the turrets, giving the castle kind of a creepy Hogwarts vibe.
I help myself to one of the wraps we grabbed at the deli and sit in a beach chair. Sand sticks to the back of my wet legs as I bite into the crunchy lettuce and tuna.
“What was Filipe up to today?” Mom asks. “Were they heading out of town for the weekend?”
I pretend my mouth is full.
“Everything okay with you two? He left kind of quickly the other day.” She raises her voice. “Xan, watch out, honey, you’re getting sand all over the blanket.”
“I don’t know,” I say with a shrug. There’s no way I can talk to Mom about how Filipe’s been lately. She’d never understand.
Mom sweeps off the sand my brother got all over the blanket. I scarf down the rest of my sandwich, and then get on my hands and knees, helping Xan and Mom with the sandcastle.
After more swimming and napping, the beach starts to clear out again. Families head home for supper while we’re putting the finishing touches on the grandest sandcastle of the day. Xan carefully sticks a seagull feather into the top of the tallest turret.
Somehow the bridge over the moat is still holding strong, though I know it’s only a matter of time before the water takes down the whole thing. The tide is coming in, and in another hour it’ll take out our sandcastle. Wipe it all away, like it never even existed.
After we pack up all our stuff, there’s just one thing left to do.
Mom heads into the changing rooms to switch out of her wet swimsuit and into dry clothes for the ride home while I wait with Xan by the carousel, watching the painted horses go around and around and around. It’s tradition. You can’t visit Watch Hill and not stop at the carousel. It’s more than a hundred years old, one of the oldest in the whole country.
The sunburned teenage girl working the ride keeps checking her watch, like she can’t wait for her shift to be over so she can do something more exciting. I hand her the money for one ride and then Xan runs straight for his favorite horse. Tan and spotted, with a long blond mane and a red saddle. I help him up, get him all buckled in, and head back outside the gate to watch.
As the music starts, the carousel slowly whirs to life. It never goes real fast—it’s a carousel, after all, not a roller coaster—but it’s fast enough that you have to practice your timing to get a ring. About halfway through the ride, they sling out this machine with rings for everyone to reach out and grab. There are a few special golden rings mixed in with all the silver ones, and if you’re lucky enough to get one of those, you earn a free ride.
Xan rounds the corner, grinning and holding up a ring to show me he’s gotten it. Last year his arms weren’t quite long enough to reach.
Next thing I know, Mom is standing next to me.
“He got a ring,” I tell her.
She wraps her arm around me. “I saw! God, we’ll never hear the end of it if he gets a gold one.”
“Probably not. Wait—what if he keeps getting the gold one? What if he’s stuck riding the carousel forever?”
Mom laughs. “That sounds like a horror movie.”
The carousel keeps turning around and around. On the bookshelf in our living room, there’s a framed photo of me that time I got the gold ring. Dad must’ve taken it; he took most of the photos with that big fancy camera of his.
Is it weird that it feels almost normal now? Just the three of us? I should feel like someone’s missing. Like there’s a big gaping hole in our family.
I should, but a lot of the time I don’t.
I stare at the carousel, the past flaking away like the paint on the hundred-year-old horses. What if it was never supposed to be Dad taking me to the beach all those times? What if it should’ve been Phil? But wait. If I’m really Phil’s son, why would he wait so long to be a part of my life, anyway? Would he really just let Dad raise me? Was that why Dad did it? Because he couldn’t stand living a lie? The questions—the possibilities—start branching out again. Maybe they’re not like a tree at all, but a web. A big, tangled web.
“Drew?”
“Yeah?” I stammer.
“Everything okay, bud?”
I nod. “Yeah. Fine.”
“You were staring off into space for a while there.” Mom squeezes my shoulder. “Look who got the gold ring!”
My brother whirs by, a beaming smile on his face. One more ride.
I know what I have to do on Monday. I have to fix things with Audrey. We need to get our hands on that yearbook. Until Phil gets back into town, it’s all we have, and I need to know.
If there’s a chance—a real chance—he’s actually my dad, I need to do something about it before he leaves again—this time, for good.