Teeth(23)

“Oh, honey, don’t say that.”

“Just because we don’t want to think it . . . ”

It’s so stupid. I would feed my brother dolphins if it would save him. I’d feed him babies if it would save him. Just . . . Dylan, okay?

It hits me for the first time that that might not be an okay thing to feel.

“We have no reason to believe that’s true,” she says.

“They’re different from minnows and anchovies and stuff.”

Mom says, “And minnows and anchovies don’t save your brother’s life.”

I pick out apples. “I know.” I’ve had this conversation before. Clearly I suck at arguing either side.

She squeezes a nectarine and lets it go. “He still has a long way to go, Rudy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m so excited about all the progress he’s made. But this isn’t something to mess around with.”

“So what’s the endgame? It’s not like there are schools here.” There is no real life here.

“We’ll go home someday,” she says, but even she doesn’t sound like she believes it anymore. How can she talk about going home in the same breath she admits the fish are tying us indefinitely here?

“Nobody ever goes home,” I mumble.

She stops and hugs me. “Oh, sweetheart. Your brother loves you so much.”

I have a headache.

She says, “Maybe someday there will be a good set of lungs for him at home, and we will look back on this as the thing that got him through the wait.”

“I hope so.” That does sound pretty perfect.

“Oh, look,” Mom says. She lets me go. “Fresh fish.”


The fishermen are hauling huge wicker baskets up to the stand, and now everyone in the marketplace is rushing over, haggling for a better price. But they’ll pay anything. They’re all in the same position as Dylan: saved from dying and petrified of being sick again. Without the fish, who knows if they’d go back to how they were: arthritic, diabetic, catatonic.

Of course no one ever leaves this island. No one’s willing to risk it. Why would we ever be? We’d be too afraid that the lung transplant would fall through the way it did last year, and we wouldn’t be able to get back here in time, and . . .

Ugh. I don’t want to think about that shit. That f*cking scrapbook, that f*cking library, the f*cking fishboy.

The f*cking fact that staying here is starting to sound not so horrible.

God, I really was desperate for a friend.

But no, I think about leaving. I think about college. This is what I’m supposed to do. I taste that promise for as long as I can, rolling it around my tongue and letting it settle into my cheek. Until I leave them. Until I get on a plane or a boat and get so far away that no one can even see me. I am free. I am free.

I can get through a few years.

I won’t get glued to this place.

I don’t have to be.

I’ll keep searching for exits all the time. Even when I don’t want to.

I’m a horrible brother.

I’m still chewing on everything when Fiona comes over. “The ghost likes you,” she whispers. She’s leaning on my shoulder. She smells like she’s from the ocean.

“You’re crazy, Fiona.”

“The ghost is with you,” she rasps. “He isn’t leaving anytime soon.”

“He’s not a ghost.”

She smiles with her lips closed. “Who’s he?”

“The . . . ” I shake my head. “See you next week, Fiona.”

One of the fishermen, the one missing an eye, looks over at me when my mom and I approach the booth. His hat is pulled low on his forehead. He grins at me with his gold teeth.

Why the hell shouldn’t they be bastards, seriously? They rule us.

My mom hands over a fistful of bills and points to the fish she wants, and the fisherman starts wrapping them in paper. I’m focused, this time, on the money instead of the fish’s dead eyes.

Fuck. We’re paying them.

The guy I pulled off Teeth is slipping the money into his pocket right now. He’s going to take it to Mr. Gardener’s stand and buy cigarettes and some crackers and whatever the hell he wants.

I don’t know why this hadn’t occurred to me before.

We’re eating Teeth’s brothers and we’re helping the guys who hurt him.

Mom makes me carry the fish home. I’m praying the whole walk by the water that Teeth doesn’t see me with this bag. I don’t see him, but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t mean anything. He’s maybe a better hider than we give him credit for.

God, if he sees me, I’m so f*cked. He’ll make me swim laps next lesson.

I say, “Can’t we at least start catching the fish ourselves? Instead of buying them from the fishermen?” I know this wouldn’t appease Teeth one bit, but it would make me feel better about the whole thing.

“They guard the bait with their lives, you know that.”

“Power-hungry *s.”

“Sweetie, I wish it were simple too.”



Mom thinks we should try to make amends with Ms. Delaney, so she asks me to bring over a bottle of wine from Dad’s puny collection. I obviously decide to go over on a Tuesday evening. I’ll let Diana give her the wine. Or maybe we can drink it.