Sam stops climbing up the doorframes. Her mom says thank you. Then, later on, she says, Honey, don’t be sad.
Sam says, “Honey?” because her mom never calls her that.
Courtney says, “You look so sad and tired.”
“I’m not.”
Courtney looks doubtful. She thinks Sam is pretending, but Sam is telling the truth. She is not tired. She is not honey either.
“We’ll come down this summer,” Mitchell tells Sam on the phone. Right now, he’s on the road in Maine, Vermont, and Montreal. He is juggling, and conjuring, cutting April in half, but when school’s out, they will take Sam to Crane Beach, and maybe camping, and maybe sailing to the islands—the little ones that you can see from shore. They’ll get a boat!
Surprise, surprise, that summer nobody comes down. Her dad is up in Maine alone. Courtney says he has no boat, no money, and no April.
The day school lets out, Courtney says, “We’ll go anyway.” It will be the three of them, and maybe Grandma B.
Sam doesn’t feel like swimming, but Noah says, Please, please? And so they go. Grandma B. drives, and she wants Jack to come, but he does not. He and Courtney are on and off again. That’s what Courtney tells Jen at the salon. There are many fish in the sea, Jen says.
Mostly Sam finds dead horseshoe crabs. Grandma B. is setting up her beach chair and Noah is digging in the sand, but Sam and Courtney are walking along the wet sand where crabs wash ashore.
Sam wears a striped one-piece bathing suit, but Courtney is wearing a bikini the color of a nectarine. People turn and look at her as she walks by. Guys are throwing a Frisbee, and it lands right at her feet.
Courtney throws the Frisbee back, slicing the air, but she doesn’t ask to play. She wades into the waves, instead. “Too cold!” says Courtney, but she keeps going, hip deep, then chest deep. She is standing in the water, and Sam is almost standing. On tiptoe she can touch the bottom.
“RIP second grade,” says Courtney. “The older grades are better, and high school is the best!”
“Is that when you met Dad?”
“Not really.”
“Didn’t he go to your school?”
“Well, he did, and he didn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t try it.”
The water is colder down by Sam’s legs. Cold prickles her body. “How come you always say that?”
“You know what?” says Courtney. Sam thinks, Don’t get smart, but Courtney doesn’t say that. She says, “Your dad is an artist. Lots of people pretend they are, but he really is. His art isn’t in museums. His songs aren’t on the radio. His magic isn’t in, like, the Magic Hall of Fame, but he’s the real deal. He just—he puts ideas together you would never think of—and when he has his—” She interrupts herself. “He’s unbelievable.”
Sam asks, “In a good way, or a bad way?”
“I love you.” Courtney laughs.
“What?” Sam hops to keep her head above the water.
“We met at the beach,” Courtney says.
“Here?”
“No, Singing Beach. And you know what he was doing? Building sandcastles. I was sixteen and he was eighteen.”
“Eighteen?” Sam says, because wasn’t he too old to play in the sand?
But her dad’s castles were fantastic. That’s what Courtney says. He built her a castle three stories tall, and it had towers with scalloped shells on top and windows of sea glass, and a moat that filled with water when the tide came in.
Sometimes it’s easier when he’s far away. It’s better when you aren’t reminded of him.
When school starts again, Sam’s dad is up in Canada, which is north of here. Her mom says, “Do you want to see it on the map?”
Sam says, “No thank you.”
When Sam turns nine, Mitchell sends her fifty dollars. After Sam’s party with the kids from school, Courtney cleans up the melted ice cream cake and says, Look at these beautiful markers. Why don’t you write to Dad? Or draw a picture?
Sam stares at her new pad of art paper, and she has no idea what to draw. She doesn’t have as many ideas as she did when she was younger. She tries to draw her mom, but then she rips the picture out.
“Hey, wait, I liked that!” Courtney says. She recognizes her green eyes and her long reddish hair. She is wearing her bikini top and she’s got a mermaid tail. “But where’s the rest? You didn’t finish.” It’s true, Courtney is all alone on the white paper. Sam doesn’t have all day, so she takes her dark blue and her light blue and her green-blue and quickly fills the whole page with squiggles for waves, so now Courtney is swimming in the ocean. “Sign it,” Courtney says, “and write the date.” Sam writes her name and then 11/21/99. “I love it,” Courtney says, but that’s because she is Sam’s mom. Sam isn’t good at drawing anymore.
She is still good at hiding.
When Jack comes around, she climbs the beech to watch and listen. When his black truck pulls up, she waits for him to leave, and if he stays, she won’t come in until it’s dark and cold. Then she hides out in her room.
One night she hears Jack say, “What’s wrong with her?”
Her mom says, “Leave her alone. She’s having a hard time.”
He says, “Just keep making excuses. Good parenting.”
“You would know.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Think about it,” Courtney says.
“Think about it,” Jack echoes.
Courtney says, “Your mom is still making excuses for you.”
That night Courtney and Jack start fighting for real.
Sam is sleeping in her bed, but she wakes up when her mom shouts, “No!”
There’s a crashing sound and Noah wakes up too.
“While I live here, it’s my house,” Courtney screams.
“It’s my house,” he shouts back. “Nothing here is yours. You don’t kick me out. I kick your ass out.”
Sam hears the front door swing open. She feels the winter night through the thin walls. He’s going to throw her mom out. That’s all she knows. Noah is crying and she scrambles out of bed and gives him his teddy. “Hold Bill,” she orders. “Don’t move.”
She rushes into the living room where her mom and Jack are struggling at the door. Her mom is strong, but Jack is turning back into the bear. He’ll kick her if he can. He’ll cover up her mouth and eat her head.
Sam launches herself at him. “Get off of her!”
“Sam. Stay back,” her mom screams, but Sam is hitting Jack as hard as she can.
He turns on her and slams her to the couch. Before she can catch her breath, her mom says, “Get Noah. Find your boots.”
Jack stands and watches as Courtney grabs Noah, who is holding Bill. Sam follows and they start the cold, cold car.
And that’s how Jack wins. He gets the house.