Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls(6)

My mother walks over to the bedroom closet. She claws into my father’s hanging clothes and tosses each item at his body—limp, cotton skins.

Both of you, get dressed, she says. We’re going for a drive.

My mother drives without saying a word. No music. No radio. I am curled up in the backseat, surprised to see that my father’s face is not asleep but alert. His eyes are wet and wide in that orange glow of night-road, that perfect combination of street lamp and moonlight that casts a terrific sadness, or wildness, on any face in its spell. I wonder if he and my mother will touch each other.

Where we going? he says. I have never heard my father’s voice—which is usually brass and gravel and all New York—go soft.

My mother doesn’t say a word. She stays focused on the road, fingers gripped around the steering wheel, leaning into it. She’s in another world, I think.

Honey? Hello? You hear me?

We are headed to the Florida Everglades, a one-hour drive from our house in Boca Raton. I know this because every school in South Florida takes a field trip here, and every kid hates it. On our class trip, we wore mosquito masks and earplugs and rode through the murky waters on an airboat. The whole thing smelled like a scum-skinned fish tank. A giant fan blasted as our boat moved through tall grasses, gators swiveling around. I didn’t learn anything.

Now, in the car, the grasses are thin, bleached bodies in our headlights. I touch the backseat window with my toes, as if I might be able to feel their scrape. There are no other cars, no signs or signals.

How you doing back there, kid? My father moves his arm back to give me three quick pats on the cheek. He does this when he’s in trouble—loves me like this. It’s his way of reminding my mother that he can function in the world in more ways than one. He can be a father, a family man, and also the Big Boss.

I don’t say a word either. I love my father more than anyone, for reasons I have yet to understand, but I feel more loyal to my mother. This is what I write about in my diary most days, though I haven’t stacked up the logic. All I know is that I want my father to enjoy our car ride together, but I will also bite his hand if it comes near me again.

You know, honey, if the kid wasn’t in the backseat—

My mother looks at him now, though she still says nothing.

I’m just sitting here thinking to myself: Self, if the kid wasn’t here and all—

She smiles, slanted and deviant.

People would find me, you know, he says. The Everglades—typical. Police would troll this place first. If the kid wasn’t here … you know your kid is in here, right? She’s no dummy even if you think so. She’s watching all of this. She’s old enough to talk. Can somebody fucking say something?

If the kid wasn’t here. I am used to these words.

We finally pull up to a wooden fence, a damp field. In the middle of the field there’s a basket the size of a small car. Beside the basket, a striped sheet of reds and purples rippling far across the grass like a bloody sea.

What’s all this now?

A balloon ride.

I don’t do heights.

Happy birthday, you fucking fat cow.

What we are is up in the air. My mother stands in the corner of the balloon basket, all on her own, loving it. She closes her eyes and stretches her arms to feel the first hot slab of sunrise. She looks so peaceful here, just like this, and I know she would jump if she could, if she could do it fast enough, before getting caught and dragged back in by her sneakers. She could tilt her weight headfirst and leave us here—simple. Years later, when she swallows a bottle of pills and survives the overdose, I’ll wonder if she considers this moment on the balloon—the sun, clear air, Kealani—what could have been a sure thing.

Can we quiet it down a sec? says my father. I need a sec. I need to relax.

Can’t, captain, says our balloon man. He wears overalls. Tiny, fish teeth. His name, we learn, is Dwayne. Dwayne turns a valve to get the fire going every couple of minutes. It’s a deafening blast, meant to keep the balloon warmer than the atmosphere, meant to keep us afloat.

I have never seen my father afraid of anything, but here he is, knuckles bulging like popcorn, his chest thumping wild. He stares down, and then up, and then back at me, shaking. The day stings against my arms.

I need something to drink or I’ll be sick, says my father.

Aye, aye, captain. Dwayne opens the mouth of a cooler, uncorks a bottle of champagne into the dirty rag in his fist. He pours the gold liquid into a plastic chute until it dribbles over. He hands it to my father, who chugs it down. The foam catches on the scratch of his chin.

What is this? Pepsi?

It’s what we’ve got, sir.

I need a drink.

Sir, it’s all we have.

I’ll drink the fuel, says my father, looking up into the flames. Dwayne laughs a vibrating cackle and pats my father on the back. Dwayne is the only one laughing. I look at the fuel tanks in the center of the basket. I count them.

Up here, the only sound from below is the dogs. After the valve is opened, after each burst of heat, the dogs bark in unison all over South Florida. I can’t tell if they feel terrified or empowered by our sound, but somehow I feel safe with them down there, in time with our flight, listening. I look at the Everglades, the strands of water swerving up to the highways, like something ophidian.

If I screamed, would the dogs hear that, too? I ask.