We Are the Ants(48)

“Aren’t you afraid she’s going to drown or be eaten by a shark?” I asked as we walked, the setting sun burning up the sky behind us. The daytime crowds had disappeared, leaving behind a few strays desperate to soak up what little light remained.

“I wish.” Audrey glared at Plath with derision. “Come on, stupid mutt!”

Plath ignored her and barked at the water as if she thought she could annoy it into submission.

“My mom only adopted her because the Becketts have one.” She rolled her eyes. “They got a Mercedes, Mom got a better Mercedes. They rented a house in Colorado for the winter, Mom bought a summer house in Martha’s Vineyard. It’s like she doesn’t know what to do with the money, so she buys whatever the neighbors buy.”

“But you got that sweet ride.”

“Only because Stella Beckett got one for her sweet sixteen.”

I laughed at the thought of Mrs. Dorn keeping a tally of everything her neighbors purchased, and tried not to be jealous that Audrey got a car because of a game of wealthy one-upmanship. “Is she working on anything?”

Audrey shook her head. “She’s decided she’s going to write a book. Only, instead of actually writing, she spends her time buying things she hopes will turn her into a writer. First it was the expensive laptop, then she needed to redecorate the study, and now she’s convinced that real writers do it longhand and with a fountain pen. And Dad’s so bored, he joined the homeowner’s association so he can harass people whose bushes need trimming or roofs need reshingling. I don’t know who they are anymore.”

Growing up, I’d admired the Dorns. While my parents were busy slamming doors, her parents ate Sunday dinners and baked cookies together. They were the picture of a perfect family. I suppose even perfect pictures fade.

“How’s Nana?”

I dug my toes into the sand. “It’s rough, you know? She looks like the same person, sounds like the same person, and sometimes she even acts like the same person, but she’s not, and every day it gets worse.” Plath rolled around in the sand in front of Audrey. “Her health is great—-cancer’s gone, heart’s good, no other real problems—but her mind is a balloon with a slow leak. Sometimes I think . . .”

Audrey looked at me when I didn’t finish. “What, Henry?”

“Nothing.” But it wasn’t nothing, and I think Audrey was the only person I could admit it to. “Sometimes, I think Nana would be better off dead. I mean, if I got to where I couldn’t take care of myself or didn’t recognize my own family . . . what’s the point?”

We walked farther down the beach, the light growing dimmer. The moon had already risen, but it was still too bright for stars. “Do you think that’s how Jesse felt?” I asked.

Audrey’s shoulders turned inward slightly, and she became smaller. “Jesse was sick, and I think he just wanted to end the pain.”

“I guess.”

“Do you feel that way, Henry?”

I couldn’t tell Audrey the truth, partly because I knew she’d feel obligated to tell my mom, but mostly because she didn’t deserve that kind of burden. “It doesn’t matter either way.”

“The end of the world?” Audrey glanced at me, and I nodded. I don’t think she ever believed I’d been abducted, though she had always humored me because of Jesse and had laughed when I told her about the button. It’s not that she doesn’t believe in the possibility of aliens or other life in the universe; she simply doesn’t think it’s plausible that beings from another planet would travel hundreds or thousands of light-years to abduct cows and teenage boys. I can’t blame her for her skepticism; sometimes I’m not sure I believe it myself. “How do you think it’s going to happen?”

“Superbug, nuclear war, man-made black hole, asteroid. I have a lot of theories.”

“You’ve clearly put some thought into this.”

“I’m surprised we haven’t wiped ourselves out already.” I sat down in the sand and pulled my legs up to my chest. Plath crawled into my lap and licked my chin. “If I save us, who’s to say another disaster won’t come along and obliterate us anyway? I sort of feel like I’m doing everyone a favor. Take Charlie and Zooey, for instance. I’m saving them the pain of raising a kid in this f*cked-up world.”

The dampness from the sand seeped through my shorts. I threw a stick down the beach for Plath to chase. Audrey plopped down beside me and leaned her head on my shoulder. “Did Diego convince you to go to his barbecue?”

“Mom and Zooey are planning a whole Thanksgiving meal, and either one would castrate me if I tried to bail.”

“Ouch.”

“Right?” I paused then said, “Do you think Diego could have broken Marcus’s car windows?”

“No. Why would you think that?”

I struggled with how to explain it without coming off paranoid. “You should have seen him after I got attacked in the shower. I know I don’t know him that well, but I’ve never seen him so angry.”

“Diego’s a good guy. He was worried about you, that’s all.”

“It was more than that. He told me this story about how he took a beating from his father to protect his sister, and I don’t know, Audrey. I feel like his whole the-world-is--beautiful--and-we-should-be-happy-to-be-alive shtick is just an act.”