Underwater(56)

“Windows,” I yelp, and my mom presses a button to roll down all four of them at once.

The wind blows in my face. It’s enough to keep the nausea at bay, but I’m totally counting the blocks down as we go. Three more. Two more. One more. I haven’t seen this part of town in so long, but I know it as well as I know all of Ben’s lines in his play. I miss it. I miss being here. And I’m so relieved when we pull into a parking space and I plant my feet on the solid sidewalk again. Ben leads us to the shack at the end of the pier like he’s on autopilot. We get soft serve ice cream and not enough napkins—a huge mistake since the remnants of Ben’s chocolate cone get smeared across his face like war paint.

We sit at the end of the pier and watch the ocean and the boats and every significant movement in our world at that moment. Tons of people are out even though it’s the middle of the day. There’s a false notion that people who live by the beach have money, but the reality is that burnt-out surf bums and dozing homeless people are also scattered among the moms dressed in designer sweatpants and thirtysomething entrepreneurs who make their own hours.

Ben scrunches his face up as he watches a homeless guy shuffling from person to person on the pier, holding his stained pants up with one hand and asking for spare change with the other.

“Does my dad do that?” Ben asks.

“Probably, sometimes,” my mom says.

“Why?”

And there’s the question we can’t completely answer. Still, my mom tries.

“Because he needs help. Not just with money to buy food, but with a lot of other things, too. But he needs to figure out for himself that he needs help. Grandma and I can tell him, but he has to want to get it.”

“So when he gets help, he’ll come back?” Ben asks.

“It might not be that simple,” I say.

“But what if I want him to get help so I can still love him?”

“It’s okay to love him no matter what,” my mom says. “And it’s okay if you miss him and want him to get better, because Morgan and I want that, too.”

Ben bites into the cone of his soft serve and chews thoughtfully. “Okay. That’s what I’ll do then.”

*

After eating, we head back. My mom swings Ben’s hand in hers, the wind whipping her bun loose so the shiny brown strands of her hair brush her shoulders. It’s just the three of us—the way it used to be when we’d spend warm evenings or sunny weekend mornings here like this. We make our way up the pier where we pass fishermen and moms pushing babbling toddlers in baby strollers. We pass runners wearing formfitting Lycra tank tops and neon shoes. We pass a girl who looks a little older than me hustling to the ice-cream shack, tying her bright pink apron around her waist while balancing her phone between her ear and her shoulder.

And I have a memory then. Of days at the beach with my dad when I was just a little kid and it was only the two of us with a boogie board and a bottle of sunblock. He taught me how to swim in the ocean, navigate waves, and get out of rip currents. Ben wants my dad to get help so he can still love him while I’ve tried to pretend I don’t love my dad because of who he’s become. I don’t love this new version of him. I miss the old one. But that’s not the whole truth. Because my dad is going to be my dad forever. He’s going to be my dad whether he gets help or doesn’t. The truth is I will love him either way because he’s my dad. I will love what I remember. But loving isn’t the same as forgiving, and I still need to work on that.

About halfway up the pier, Ben stops at a binocular stand that costs twenty-five cents. My mom fishes out her wallet to come up with a quarter for him. We sit down on the bench next to the stand to stare out at the horizon while Ben looks through the binoculars at some stand-up paddleboarders way off in the distance. It’s weird to say, but I already miss this moment. I’m longing for something before it’s even gone. It makes me want to do everything I can to keep having moments like this.

*

My mom’s phone rings as we’re heading back to the car. She answers. “It’s the police,” she tells me, and ducks behind a concrete column to talk.

I pull Ben to the wide front window of a nearby bakery, where we watch a man in a hairnet roll out dough across the floured surface of a butcher-block table. He has a bunch of metal cookie cutters laid out next to him, and I ask Ben if he can tell what shapes they are. He squints and takes inventory.

I look over at my mom. She’s fidgety, nodding her head, and clipping and unclipping the clasp on her purse.

Ben looks up at me, ticking off all the shapes, and I nod with enthusiasm. “Good job,” I say. “I think you figured out all of them.”

My mom is only on the phone for a few minutes, and she looks shell-shocked when she walks back over to us.

“What is it? What happened?” I ask.

“I don’t believe it. Your dad willingly checked into rehab. He actually did it.” Her eyes tear up, but they’re tears of relief. Of happiness. Of hope.

I have them, too.

Just a few minutes ago we were on the pier, escaping reality. Now reality is back. But it’s a good reality. It’s a promising one.





chapter thirty-nine

Evan insists that going to Ben’s play is our first date. So on Friday night, we drive in his car to make it more official. His music is good. The windows are down. The air is salty. I want to love the moment more than I do.