Huntley Fitzpatrick - What I Thought Was True

I climb in.

He backs up, screeching, zooms forward. The electric Seashell gate is primed to lift when you get close enough. But dad always barges through that. Every time I think he’s just going to ram right through it, knock it down, but it lifts just in time.

I love that we’re sheltered in Mom’s and Grandpa’s caring hands. But sometimes—like now—Dad’s wildness is a relief too. Like jumping off a bridge. A rush.

I flick up the sound on his CD. In the Bronco, it’s always soothing music Emory likes. Elmo, low-key Disney, more Sesame Street, Raffi. Grandpa’s snappy, romantic songs from long ago.

With Dad, when it’s not talk radio, you can count on the angry rasp of the Rolling Stones, or the frustrated yell of Bruce Springsteen.

“Tramps like us, baby we were born to run . . .”

“Dad. There’s something I need to tell you about the Ellingtons,” I start. “It’s not good.”

He turns down the music only slightly. “Jeez, you and Nic, disaster-wise . . . a mile a minute. What now, Guinevere?”

I explain about Henry Ellington.

Dad gets increasingly angry. Thank God, not at me.

“He said he was counting what? His lobster forks?” Lobstah .

“But that’s what you told me to do, Dad. Keep an eye out for opportunity. That’s what you said. ‘My chance.’ But I didn’t take it. I would never. Couldn’t. Did you want me to? Really?”

He pulls over to the side of the road, halfway to the causeway. Rakes his hands through his hair. Looks anywhere but at me.

“Pal,” he says finally. “I was eighteen when your mom had you. We get to the hospital and she’s screaming and she’s crying and she’s in pain and there’s blood and there’s just . . . I only wanted to run. It all seemed a million miles away from how it started, fun on the beach, a bonfire, cute girl . . . whatever. But . . . they hand us this kid—you, with your serious eyes. This little worried crinkle thing you did with your eyebrows, like you already knew we aren’t the best, and it’s . . . like . . . like we’re supposed to know what do with all that. How to fix that. And hell if we do. Luce knew how to clean stuff up. I knew how to fry stuff up. Gulia was already a disaster—pills, booze, dumbass boys. We knew what was coming our way there, and it was Nic. Another kid. We were his only chance. There was no other way. So, you know, we took it. Nic. You. Emory, with all his . . . whatever. I just want it to be easier for you guys. Something just a little bit easier. Maybe I picked a stupid way to tell you that. I just didn’t want my way to be yours. ’Cause mine . . . well . . . I just want better for you. That’s all.”

Dad’s starts the truck up again, heading to his house on the water.

He takes a deep breath.

Pause.

Another deep breath.

I’m waiting for major Dad wisdom.

“Pal.”

“Dad . . . ?”

“So Nic’s here. And you’re here. Don’t try to make the guy spill his guts. A time for talking, sure, but Mario Kart goes a long way.”

Nic’s crashed out in front of the TV, clicker outstretched in hand. Dad throws a blanket on him, too short for his long legs, pulls out the couch bed for me. I text Mom, Viv, and Grandpa before I fall asleep at like two in the morning. Grandpa has nothing to do with cell phones and Mom always erases messages while trying to retrieve them. Viv will get it, though.

Someone is shaking my shoulder, none too gently.

I bolt upward in bed, smacking the top of my head against Nic’s chin. Both of us yelp.

Then, “C’mon, cuz,” he says, his voice hoarse with sleep.

I slope off the couch, dragging the quilt with me, following him out the door to the slatted wide boards that run from the house over the salt marsh to dry land. Nic sits down heavily, wearing a pair of Dad’s faded Red Sox boxers, dangling his feet over the edge of the small bridge, flicking his toe into the water, scattering ripples. He looks awful. Dark circles under his eyes, which are a little bloodshot, his hair rumpled. He’s wearing one of Dad’s plaid flannel shirts too, too tight on his wide shoulders, the front straining at the buttons. I wrinkle my nose. Beer and sweat. Ugh.

He clears his throat.

“Wanna hit the pier?”

“I want to hit you ! I looked everywhere, Nic. I thought . . . We all thought you’d drowned yourself in the creek!”

“Seriously? I would never do that, Gwen.”

“Nic—”

“Not here,” he orders. “Come on.”

He already has Dad’s truck out in front, engine purring. So unlike Nic to premeditate. Everything is different now.

I slide into the passenger seat with the torn upholstery inadequately patched by duct tape. Nic adjusts the rearview mirror, fastens his seat belt, moves his seat back, doing all these safety checks as though he’s about to take off in a Cessna rather than a battered Chevy.

Silence as we ride down to the bridge. Nic doesn’t slow on Ocean for the speed bump, and the truck bounces hard as we go over it. Driving like Dad. He pulls in sharply, spraying sand, then turns to me.

“Did you know?” he asks, at the exact same time I blurt out the same question.

“About Vivie?” I press, because Nic doesn’t. “Had no clue. I would have . . .”

I don’t know what I would have done.

We slide out of the truck, pick our way down to the beach, the sand so cold and wet, I’m shivering. Cass would have grabbed a sweatshirt for me, offered me his. In this short time, I’ve gotten accustomed to these little things, little watchful courtesies, enough for their absence to feel strangely like a presence.

At the creek’s edge, Nic sits down heavily. I fall into place next to him. He shifts sideways, reaches into his pocket, pulls out a flat rock, balancing it in the flat of his hand as though weighing it, staring at it as though he’s never seen such a thing.

I reach for it, planning to snatch it from him, throw it into the rush of water, not to skip, just to get rid of it, wipe out the memories Nic must be leafing through, wondering what signs he missed . . . how what he thought was true turned out to be nothing like the truth at all.

But Nic curls his fingers around the rock before I can take it.

“So, I’ve been a douche lately,” he begins.

“Well, yeah. You sure have,” I say. “But that’s not why Vivie—”

He opens his mouth to answer, then closes it, a little muscle jumping in his jaw. “I’m not talking about Vee.”

“Nico—” I start, but he shakes his head, stopping me.

“Last year—even this spring—you never for a moment would have thought I’d offed myself in the creek. That’s true, right?”

His brown eyes pierce mine. I nod.

“Did you know?” I ask. “About Spence?”

He shakes his head, kicks at the water. “Yes. No. Something wasn’t right. She was . . . I was . . . I just figured I’d fix it later. I mean, she’d be there. Of course. Get the captain thing squared away, then deal. But . . . I mean . . . what happened on the beach. Pretty clear that ship had sailed while I wasn’t even looking.”

I wait, quiet. Dad said not to push.

“I . . . couldn’t face you guys, after . . . Aunt Luce, Grandpa . . . you . . . You’d be all sorry for me.” He rolls his shoulders as though shrugging off our imagined sympathy. “Knew Uncle Mike wouldn’t be like that.”

“Did you get the What a Man Does lecture?”

“Hell yeah,” he says. “I knew you’d be freaking. Told him to call you. He said a man spoke for himself. If I wasn’t ready to talk to you, he sure as shit wasn’t going to do it for me.”

Again I open my mouth, but he shuts me down with the wave of a hand. Or in this case a fist, since he’s still holding the stone.