Teeth(52)

I say, “He’s going to be okay.”

She looks away. “I wish there were . . . God, I can’t believe I’m saying this.” She clears her throat for a minute. “I wish there were an easier way. A way that wouldn’t be as horrible for him.”

“I know.” I remember learning about euthanasia in school. I thought they were talking about youth in Asia for so long. I don’t know why I’m thinking about this right now. Probably because this room is so quiet. I had no idea how hard it was to hear the ocean from in here. It’s much louder in my room. I wish this were my room.

I picture slamming my brother against the dock.

“Where’s your father?” she asks.

“On the deck. I brought him a peanut butter sandwich.” He wasn’t up for much more than crying. I don’t think he ate the sandwich.

He’s really upset because he went out to try to catch fish today, but all he got were minnows. He can’t figure out the bait for the Enkis. He tried waving a net around, and nothing. The fishermen knew something we don’t.

“And your brother?”

“TV. This cartoon about a time machine. His eyes were humongous. Kid’s a dork. He asked me if people can time travel in real life.”

She chuckles, just a little. “I wish.”

“Yeah, me too.”

I don’t even know where I’d go. Some time when I wasn’t alive.

Because if I went back to things that I’ve really done, I don’t know what I would do differently, which is probably such a stupid thought since everything is so f*cked up. But I can’t pinpoint where I went wrong. I probably didn’t have to save Teeth when I found him with the fisherman that first time, but what difference did that make? He would have escaped eventually like he always did, and he would have felt like the battered war hero he wants to be. Or thought he wanted to be.

I had to save him that time he was drowning. That wasn’t optional. I can’t imagine standing there, watching him drown. Maybe I shouldn’t have been there on the beach to see him. Maybe I should have left the house at a different time and let him just go under the water, but I can’t even think about that without feeling like I can’t breathe, either.

If I could go back to when Dylan was born and know how sick he was going to get, maybe I would have done something. But I don’t know what I could have done. He was still just a baby. I don’t know how to be a different brother. I don’t know how to love him more than I do now, and that’s not the heartwarming sentiment it pretends to be.

And I had to save Teeth last night. I need to accept that and let it stay, so heavy and hard I can feel it in my mouth. Because it’s true; I couldn’t have let him drown in those fishermen. I didn’t have a choice.

Or I did. I could have let my best friend die.

Though that would have been better. I would have lost him but saved the whole f*cking island. My family would be fine. No one but me and Fiona would have noticed if the fishboy were gone. They would notice more fish and less worry.

I saved his life. I can’t let that be the wrong choice.

So I make a new one; except, really, it’s the same choice I’ve made four times since we’ve moved. It’s that same one.

I have to save him.

I have to save both of them.

There has to be a way. I didn’t die in that cave, and Dylan didn’t die when he was two, and Teeth didn’t die in the shrimp boat, because there is always a way. And I’m going to find it.

I’m going to be a good brother and a good friend, and maybe that means I can’t be a fully good person, and I’m going to have to lie, but I’m going in. Because this time there really isn’t any other choice.

“I’m going to fix this,” I tell Mom.

“Just be with us, honey.”

I say, “I’m going to make this okay.”

She’s looking at me. She doesn’t want to ask.

But she whispers, “How?”

I’m about to cry, so I laugh instead, like she did. “I don’t know.”

She sits up and hugs me tight. My head is against her collarbone. When did she get so thin? I feel like I should be holding her and comforting her, but I just want her to hold me. I want to fold my arms into my chest so she can get her arms all the way around me, and not a bit of me will be in the open air. I don’t want to be exposed to anything right now. And she lets me. She shields me with all of her. Maybe I understand more right now than I ever did.

She kisses my cheek. “Rudy. When did you get so big, huh?”

“I think recently.”

“My sweet boy.”

I can’t focus on her. I have my plan.

The ghost is finished.

Someone can always get out, but I didn’t really notice until now. Because the person isn’t me.





twenty-three


HE’S UNDERNEATH THE DOCK, STILL. HE GOT A MINNOW HIMSELF, and he managed to break the neck, but this time he can’t get through the skin. He’s gnawing at it uselessly. I take the pocketknife I brought and slit open its belly. It doesn’t bother me now.

Teeth snatches it back. “I would have shared,” he says, with a bit of a grin. “You didn’t have to just steal it from me.”

“This is for you.” I hand him the knife.