Still Life with Tornado(31)

We got back at three. The bus had stopped what seemed like one hundred times. So much for Tulum. So much for seeing pyramids and cliffs and the real Caribbean sea—crystal clear and turquoise.

Bruce said, as we walked into the lobby, “I’m so sorry, Sarah.”

“Wasn’t your fault.”

“I’m going to be in so much trouble.”

“You didn’t make the van break down,” I said. I said it snippy, though. I was tired and hungry. I wanted to talk all day to Bruce about Mom and Dad and divorce. “Can we go eat something?”

“I have to tell them we’re back. Mom’s probably worried.”

We found them on the beach. Under a thatched umbrella, drinking today’s drink of the day, a Sea Horse. Mom said, “Back already!”

Bruce and I decided, right then, with a look between us, to pretend that everything had gone just right.

“How was it?” Dad asked.

I said, “It was awesome! But I’m starving, so we’re going to go and grab something from the snack shack.”

Snack shack. Fried chicken nuggets and hot dogs. I knew this wasn’t real. I didn’t see one snack shack in my two hours on the autobús. After being in the real world from seven thirty a.m. to three p.m., I knew the resort was just a lie.

After we ate, we went back to the room and Bruce had a shower because he smelled pretty bad. I sat out on the balcony and watched Mom and Dad on the beach. They just sat under that umbrella and drank and drank and Mom read a book and Dad had a nap and they never went near the water. Day Four and I bet they hadn’t even noticed the seaweed. I looked out to sea and asked the sea god to help us. I wasn’t specific. There was no need. We needed help in every department, as far as I was concerned.

? ? ?

Later, after the dinner buffet, Bruce and I sat on the balcony covered in Mexican bug spray. I didn’t know what to say to him so I did a lot of math while Mom and Dad were fake-loving each other in the tent below, having the romantic dinner they earned for sitting through the vacation club presentation.

The math was coming to me. If Mom and Dad hadn’t slept in the same bed since Bruce was eight and I was born when Bruce was nine, then that means they stayed together for an extra year and then—

“I’m an accident!” I said to Bruce.

“Join the club,” he said.

“But I’m a real accident,” I said. “They didn’t even want to be married at all by the time I showed up.”

“It feels the same. Trust me.”

More math. They were married a year before they had Bruce. They stopped loving each other before Bruce was eight. That’s maybe seven years they might have been happy. They had me at least two years after they were unhappy and now they’re married twenty years. Seven happy years. Thirteen unhappy years.

“How do you know they’re getting divorced?” I asked him.

“They told me. I thought they told you, too,” he said. “They said they were going to this time.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’d rather know than not know.”

“They were supposed to tell you,” he said.

“It’s pretty obvious they hate each other,” I said.

“True.”

“Last week I heard Dad call Mom the c word.”

“They think they’re being quiet,” he said.

“I snoop.”

“You don’t snoop. You just live in the same house. They thought I didn’t hear it either until I was fifteen and finally said something.”

“What’d you say?”

“I was mad because they wouldn’t let me try out for a play at that teen theater thing they run over at Arden,” he said. “I think I said something like ‘Just because you two are so busy calling each other * every night doesn’t mean I have to stay here and listen!’”

“You’d think Mom would say anus,” I said.

Bruce spat out his mouthful of beer and we both cracked up for about a minute. I think our day surviving the trip-not-trip to Tulum was getting to us because this was an obvious point. Mom would call an * an anus.

We used a bottle of water to clean the beer off the balcony tiles. We looked down at the tent set up on the beach where Mom and Dad were eating their pretend-romantic dinner. The resort made a big deal out of these romantic dinners—warm, dim lighting, rose petals strewn around the tent, romantic Mexican music. I wondered if Mom and Dad were trying to figure out what the lyrics to the songs were. Mom speaks a little Spanish because of her job. Dad thinks bandadigo means “fantastic” because some guy once told him it did, but he never checked so he says it thinking he’s speaking Spanish, but he’s not. He’s speaking a language one of his frat brothers made up in college.

I said, “What do you think the lyrics are to the song that’s playing down there?”

Bruce said, “I can’t really hear it.”

“No. I mean made-up lyrics. Like, You’re an * and I should have never had kids with you. Stuff like that.”

“Oh,” Bruce said. “How about, You’re just a bitch because you’re on your period and you don’t realize it’s a medical condition.”

“Oh, I have one. One day you’re going to realize that I’m a really great guy and you’ll stop nagging me all the time.”