Still Life with Tornado(48)

“Could you pass the tortilla chips, please?” ten-year-old Sarah asks.

I push the bowl closer to her so she can refill her side plate.

“My dad once told me that I’d become a tortilla chip because I eat so many,” she says.

This is where I choke on my taco. I mean, I literally choke. A piece of taco shell lodges in my throat and I cough and clear my throat and my eyes are watering and I can’t get it out or inhale and Mom tells me to sit forward and I’m panicking and she tells me again, “Sit forward!” and I lean forward and Mom pushes the table toward Dad and ten-year-old Sarah/Katie and they back up and I sit forward and Mom slams me hard on the back and I know I’ll get a bruise and I don’t care because she hits me again and I can feel the chunk of taco shell unstick itself from my throat and she pounds one last time and it’s out, on the floor, and I’m gagging and coughing and Mom is handing me water and there’s snot coming out of my nose and my adrenaline is high and I’m embarrassed.

But everyone around the table looks calm when I look up. Calm as if I weren’t just choking on my taco shell. Calm as if this were just another night at the dinner table. Dad is staring at ten-year-old Sarah. Mom is rubbing my back as I drink water and get my breath back.

“Sorry,” I say.

No one tells me I shouldn’t be sorry for choking.

“You okay?” Mom asks.

I nod.

“Wow. That was close!” ten-year-old Sarah says. “I never saw someone choke before.”

“Glad Sarah could give you your drama for the night,” Dad says, but no one laughs at his joke.

He tries again. “If I had a dollar for every dramatic episode in this house, I’d be a rich man.”

No one laughs at that, either.





MEXICO—Day Six I: SPF 0



Mom and Dad didn’t wear their wedding rings to the beach. I noticed this because every day before we left for the beach, they opened the little safe in their closet and asked us to sacrifice our electronics. On top of those, they would put their wedding rings.

This was our last day in Mexico and we wanted to enjoy it. We got to the beach early to claim our thatched umbrellas. We left towels and one beach bag under each one before we went to grab a quick breakfast. Dad went to the resort’s lounge for a cup of coffee and a few Mexican pastries while Mom, Bruce, and I went to the buffet restaurant.

None of us talked about Dad. Looking back, we should have. We should have talked about Dad.

Bruce came swimming with me after breakfast. We didn’t play catch. We waded out past the larger lumps of seaweed and I showed him my imaginary fish and they said “Hello, Bruce” in my head but I didn’t tell Bruce that because I could tell he was getting annoyed by my stories about the pretend fish. Bruce suggested snorkeling and we got some gear from the resort and we swam near the jetty where there was less seaweed and some fish, hiding in the shady water.

I could feel my skin getting hot but I didn’t think anything of it. The Mexican sun was different from the Philadelphia sun. I finally got to see real fish in their real environment, even if it did look like we were swimming in a sewage treatment plant.

We stayed in the water for almost two hours, peeking under the jetty, looking at coral and fish, and we even had a swimming race in deeper water and Bruce won because he was twice my size so of course he won. I didn’t mind. It was nice having him in the water again after a few days of him not coming to the beach.

We were out deep—Bruce couldn’t even stand—and we looked back to shore and saw Mom and Dad under their umbrella. They were talking to each other, but not in a good way. Dad was flailing his arms the way he does when he tries to make a point. Mom was making gestures with her arms that said “Calm down.”

“God. I wish they’d just split up already,” Bruce said.

“Yeah,” I said, but I didn’t mean it. I wasn’t ready for that. They were normal parents. That’s what I kept believing.

“What kind of guy brings his whole family to Mexico and then just sits around and complains the whole time?”

“I don’t know.” I was treading water fast and it was getting tiring.

“He’s not right in his head, you know.”

“He’s not crazy,” I said.

“You just don’t know all the facts yet.”

“So tell me the facts.”

We swam to where we could stand and I waved at Mom once I was chest high in the water again so she wouldn’t worry. She waved to me and then went back to talking to Dad.

Islands of brown seaweed bobbed around us. The seeds stuck to our skin like tiny ticks.

“The facts are, they should get a divorce. Now. They keep putting it off. It’s not doing either of us any favors to live with that guy. I don’t want you to be around him. He’s dangerous.”

“Dad isn’t dangerous.”

“You don’t know him.”

“I’ve known him for ten years.”

“You don’t know him like we know him.”

“You’re like talking to a puzzle,” I said. “I know they fight, but Mom says that’s normal.”

“She used to say that to me, too. But it’s not normal the way he fights. There is good fighting and bad fighting.”