Where'd You Go, Bernadette(80)

I couldn’t stop crying. I was trapped in the fun house of pemmican rations, photographs of Doris Day, crates of whiskey, a rusty can of Quaker Oats where the Quaker Oats guy is a young man, Morse code machines, long johns with butt flaps hanging from a clothesline, and baby bibs that read ANTARCTICA BEACH CLUB. Charlie, chin lowered, spoke into the radio clipped to his parka. Lots of concerned ladies asked, What’s wrong?, something I now know how to say in Japanese, which is Anata wa daijbudesu?

I burrowed through the gathering nylon mass and made it out the front door. I stumbled down the ramp and, when I got to the bottom, clambered over some big rocks as far as I could go and stopped at a little inlet. I looked back, and there were no people. I sat down and caught my breath. There was one elephant seal, swaddled in her own blubber, lolling on her side. I couldn’t imagine how she was ever going to move. Her eyes were big black buttons, oozing black tears. Her nose, too, was oozing black. My breath was dense clouds. The cold seized me. I didn’t know if I’d ever move again. Antarctica was truly a horrible place.

“Bee, darling?” It was Dad. “Thank you,” he said quietly to a Japanese lady who must have led him to me. He sat down and handed me a handkerchief.

“I thought she was here, Dad.”

“I can see why you might have thought that,” he said.

I cried a little, but then stopped. Still, the crying continued. It was Dad.

“I miss her, too, Bee.” His chest jerked violently. He was bad at crying. “I know you think you have a monopoly on missing her. But Mom was my best friend.”

“She was my best friend,” I said.

“I knew her longer.” He wasn’t even being funny.

Now that Dad was crying, I was, like, both of us can’t be sitting on rocks in Antarctica crying. “It’s going to be OK, Dad.”

“You’re absolutely right,” he said, blowing his nose. “It all started with that letter I sent Dr. Kurtz. I was only trying to get Mom help. You have to believe me.”

“I do.”

“You’re great, Bee. You’ve always been great. You’re our biggest accomplishment.”

“Not really.”

“It’s true.” He put his arm around me and pulled me close. My shoulder fit perfectly under his shoulder. I could already feel the warmth from his armpit. I nestled in closer. “Here, try these.” He reached into his parka and pulled out two of those pocket-warming heat biscuits. I yowled, they felt so good.

“I know this trip has been hard on you,” Dad said. “It’s not what you wanted it to be.” He let out a big gooey sigh. “I’m sorry you had to read all those documents, Bee. They weren’t meant for you. They weren’t something a fifteen-year-old should have had to read.”

“I’m glad I read them.” I didn’t know Mom had those other babies. It made me feel like there were all these children Mom would rather have had, and loved as much as she loved me, but I was the one who lived and I was broken, because of my heart.

“Paul Jellinek was right,” Dad said. “He’s a great guy, a true friend. I’d like us to go down to L.A. and spend some time with him one day. He knew Bernadette best. He realized that she needed to create.”

“Or she’d become a menace to society,” I said.

“That’s where I really failed your mom,” he said. “She was an artist who had stopped creating. I should have done everything I could to get her back.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I didn’t know how. Trying to get an artist to create… it’s gigantic. I write code. I didn’t understand it. I still don’t. You know, I’d forgotten, until I read that Artforum article, that we used Mom’s MacArthur money to buy Straight Gate. It was like Bernadette’s hopes and dreams were literally crumbling around us.”

“I don’t know why everyone’s so down on our house,” I said.

“Have you ever heard that the brain is a discounting mechanism?”

“No.”

“Let’s say you get a present and open it and it’s a fabulous diamond necklace. Initially, you’re delirious with happiness, jumping up and down, you’re so excited. The next day, the necklace still makes you happy, but less so. After a year, you see the necklace, and you think, Oh, that old thing. It’s the same for negative emotions. Let’s say you get a crack in your windshield and you’re really upset. Oh no, my windshield, it’s ruined, I can hardly see out of it, this is a tragedy! But you don’t have enough money to fix it, so you drive with it. In a month, someone asks you what happened to your windshield, and you say, What do you mean? Because your brain has discounted it.”

“The first time I walked into Kennedy’s house,” I said, “it had that horrible Kennedy-house smell because her mother is always frying fish. I asked Kennedy, What’s that gross smell? And she was, like, What smell?”

“Exactly,” Dad said. “You know why your brain does that?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“It’s for survival. You need to be prepared for novel experiences because often they signal danger. If you live in a jungle full of fragrant flowers, you have to stop being so overwhelmed by the lovely smell because otherwise you couldn’t smell a predator. That’s why your brain is considered a discounting mechanism. It’s literally a matter of survival.”