The Loose Ends List(68)

“I’ll take the blue one.” I can’t believe I’m doing this, but it feels like Grandpa Martin belongs inside these marbles.

“To match our eyes,” she says. “See? There’s one for your mom and Billy and Mary and the four of you. And I think I’ll take the orange one. It reminds me of the temple roofs. That one goes with me.”

I hold the marble against my cheek. I roll it between my fingers as we wait for the others to show up and claim their tiny round pieces of Grandpa Martin. For some strange reason, it’s all okay.



Enzo persuades me to go running with him, even though he always wants to race and never lets me win. We get our smoothies from the Grotto bar and go down to see Mark. Enzo sees Mark a lot these days. On the Wishwell, every moment is a tiny glass ball we hold between our fingertips.

Burt is in the cabin, waiting for Mark to get back from group. I wonder if there’s one nurse, a secret keeper, assigned to write thoughts on the Gathering Wall for the paralyzed people. Do they pick the nurse with the best handwriting?

Burt makes me uncomfortable, not because of the pockmarks and bulbous nose, but because he acts like the loser guys at the lake club who can’t get girls and try too hard to be cool.

“Come hang out. I’m just playing a video game.” Burt needs to put a shirt on. “Sweat much?” he says.

I want to say Maybe you should try exercising once in your life, but I hold my arm up and say, “Scratch and sniff.”

“Good one,” Burt says, laughing.

Burt and Enzo drink beers and tear open a bag of barbecue chips. I clear space on the cluttered balcony floor to stretch a little. They talk endlessly about sports. Burt chugs another beer and lets out a disgusting belch. He looks over at me.

“Can I tell you guys something f*cked up?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“My parents abandoned my brother. They f*cking flat-out ditched him. They were all ‘golden-boy Mark, superstar-surfer Mark, chick-magnet Mark,’ and then he got the diagnosis, and they pretty much disappeared.”

“That’s terrible,” Enzo says.

“Yeah, well. They hired nurses and then, when it got bad, they stuck him in a nursing home. He had me. As much as I bust on him, he’s my little bro.” Burt’s voice cracks.

“You’re a really good brother,” I say. “I don’t get how parents can just ditch their own son.”

“Mostly because they’re selfish pricks. Mark deserved better. That kid is golden. He’d do anything for anybody. Even now, he would if he could.”

Burt’s face is full of pain. The poor guy is forced to feed his little brother, and help the aides change his diapers, and watch hopelessly as Mark’s body turns to mush.

“Do your parents even know he’s here?” Enzo says. Burt tries to flip a quarter into a shot glass.

“Oh, yeah, they know. They think it’s barbaric. The worst part of all is they refused to say good-bye. My brother has to go with that on his head. Plus, Mark’s a surfer, man. His legs are his soul. He’s got nothing left. Not even his parents.”

“They’re the ones who will have to live with that,” I say. “Believe me, my aunt and cousin did the same thing. I wouldn’t want to be them a couple months from now.”

“Yeah, I hear you.”

The nurse wheels Mark into the cabin. I can only imagine what that smile did to the girls back in his surfer days. I leave Enzo to talk surfing and go down for a shower.



The storm hits out of nowhere during lunch. All the plates and glasses fly off the table. We instinctively jump for the cutlery instead of the patients, who are left to fend for themselves. Gram, Gloria, and Vito roll around until we secure everyone against the inside dining room walls.

I would be even more terrified right now if Enzo weren’t hugging me. The sky is night-dark, and we’re still sitting here waiting out the storm. Enzo’s hand roams beneath my giant beach towel, but I push it away. The rumbly noise of the sea crashing against the Wishwell isn’t exactly putting me in the mood.

The ship hits a huge wave and goes airborne for a second, then plops back down. We scream. The lights flicker. “Are we going to die?” I dig my fingers into Enzo’s arm.

“No. Relax. The ship has been through much worse than this. You should see the North Atlantic storms.”

Suddenly it’s gone. We get up and sort out all the ventilator equipment and canes.

“Oh, shit! Heinz,” Dad yells. “We need to check on him.”

Heinz rarely eats in the dining room. Other than the card games with the guys, he’s reclusive.

A bunch of us run through the dining room, stepping over upturned tables and chairs everywhere. It’s amazing how much damage a twenty-minute storm can cause. When we get to Heinz’s cabin, the door is ajar.

“Oh, shit,” Dad says again. “Don’t move. We’ll help you. Just don’t move.”

We need a bomb squad for this delicate job. Enzo calls the crew for canvas gloves and industrial trash bags. We pick up hundreds of pieces, one by one. Heinz has a look of utter despair. I’m not sure if it’s because he’s surrounded by broken glass or because his work is ruined.

He has spent all these weeks stuffing messages in bottles.

Paige, Mom, Roberta, and I collect the letters. They’re in German, but some of them have sketches in the margins: a balloon, a teddy bear, and a little boy holding a book.