The Light Pirate(23)

When Wanda was three, Lucas returned to Rudder. Chloe moved to Minneapolis with her new husband, and Lucas chose to stay with Kirby. Insisted on it. He still has no idea what the kid went through to convince her, but he got his way in the end. Two became three. At fifteen, he was a different boy than Kirby had known in the Before years. The mean streak Kirby used to worry about, that cocky bravado, was replaced with something else. Vigilance. A tremor in his hands. A wary furrow on his forehead. Wanda, just beginning to become aware, to remember, fastened her soft brown eyes on Lucas and claimed him, just as she had claimed Kirby the day she was born. The rule of this household is that Wanda occupies its center. She is their sun, and in return for their venerations she gifts them with a levity they would have otherwise forgotten is possible.

The mosquitoes whine around the open door. Nights like these, it’s either fling open the house and bear the mosquitoes, or swelter. The breeze ruffles their paper plates. “You’re behaving yourself while we’re gone?” Kirby presses.

In response, she looks at him and chews with her mouth wide open, smacking her lips.

“Don’t worry,” he says, “school’s starting up again soon. Won’t be long now.”

“I never want to go back to school,” she says, suddenly serious, mouth closed.

“Oh?” Kirby takes another scoop of potato salad.

“Or daycare neither. I’m too old for daycare.”

“We’ll see about that,” Kirby says.

“I’m ten,” she insists.

“Almost ten.” How did that happen? he wonders.



After Wanda is in bed and the leftovers have been tucked away in the cooler on a bed of melting ice, Kirby and Lucas sit on the porch in the dark and listen to the buzz of mosquitoes, the singing frogs, the fluttering bats.

“You hear about Miami-Dade?” Lucas asks.

“What about?”

“Governor’s pulling the plug on the whole county.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“Guy I know from high school lives down there now. Works at the power plant. He says they’re winding down city services. Offering relocation packages to folks.”

“That so.” Kirby doesn’t want to believe that this is true. And yet—watching the brisk disintegration of the developed world this past decade has instilled in him a mounting expectation that things will get worse. Always worse and never better. This is a collective experience, surely, a despair sewn into the fabric of his generation, but for Kirby it’s more than that. He knows doom’s true face. It’s more mundane than he thought it would be: the strange glimmer in a swirl of blood mixed with amniotic fluid on tile. An empty bed. An unused bicycle. Frida felt it all coming. But now he’s the one who has to live with it.

“They’re trying to keep it quiet. Election year and whatever. But it’s only a matter of time.”

“Time before what?”

“Before everyone knows.”

“Mm. Not sure what difference that’ll make.”

“People will…they’ll protest. They won’t go. There would be news coverage and, and…I don’t know, it’s not like people just won’t notice a city like Miami disappear. They’ll do something.”

In the dark, Kirby nods. “I’m sure you’re right,” he says. But he isn’t sure at all. All sorts of things have disappeared over the years. He knew Valerie hit Miami hard, but he didn’t realize it was this hard. He didn’t realize it was give-up-and-go hard. He remembers how it was in Puerto Rico. There were protests, sure, and there was news coverage—but none of it made a difference. The government didn’t even bother with relocation packages. It just abandoned over three million people to their ruined infrastructure, their crumbling homes, the ravenous ocean. Politics, economics, racism, and geography coalesced to mark the first domino. But where there is one domino, there are more. “I’m gonna turn in,” he announces, draining what’s left of his beer.

“Leave the door. I’ll sit awhile,” Lucas replies. Kirby would like to say something reassuring to his son. Even more, he’d like to say something true. But the convergence of these qualities is rare when it comes to the future of certain parts of the world. The pause stretches, then deepens as he tries to think of something he can offer. It’s no good. He hears Lucas’s thoughts because they are also his own: If Miami isn’t worth saving, then Rudder has no chance at all.





Chapter 31




In the morning, through the haze of a dream she can’t remember, Wanda hears them in the kitchen. There is the clink of a thermos, the clump of work boots. Low voices murmuring. It’s too early for the sun, too early for most people. But not for her people.

She cracks her eyelids, and between the soft fur of lashes she sees Lucas pass by the open door of their bedroom. He’s trying to be quiet, but his footsteps are heavy. It’s already hot. More accurately, it never stopped being hot. She kicks the sheet off of her feet and shout-whispers his name. He comes in, puts his face next to hers where she is sprawled on the top bunk. “Morning, Wan,” he says, and rests his chin on her mattress.

“You leaving already?”

“Yeah, in a minute.” Her pillow is in the process of sliding off the bed and he lifts her head to slip it back where it belongs. She lets him. “I made you a lunch,” he says. “It’s in the cooler. But remember, open and shut real quick, okay?”