Miriam Toews - The Flying Troutmans

I had a new career. I had a mission. I’d become a cartographer of the uncharted world of Min and I’d raise her from the dead, like a baby, sort of. We’d do it from scratch. We’d start all over. When she was well enough to take control, she could throw me out, plot her own course, and I wouldn’t stand in her way. And I wouldn’t help her to die.

I had faith in my plan. I had faith in Min. And I loved her. She was the baby in my dreams and maybe in Logan’s too. If Logan had faith that he’d make his shot every time, even when the misses were piling up, I could have faith that my next attempt at saving Min would be the one that worked.

And then, according to the tao of Logan, if it didn’t, so what, I’d try again and believe one hundred per cent that the next one would.

I DROVE THROUGH THE PARK as fast as I could, which was excruciatingly slowly because the road was narrow and curvy and park rangers were all over the place. It was all desert and sky and scrubby bushes and some oddly shaped trees.

The Joshua tree is named after a biblical story in which Joshua reaches his hands up to the sky to stop the sun by God’s command, said Thebes. Why would God want the sun stopped?

Have you noticed how freaking hot it is out here? said Logan.

We talked about the strangeness of a day in which you find a sister you never knew you had and meet your father, who was once an artist and is now some sort of vigilante.

Before parting, Thebes and Antonia had promised to write and e-mail and do amazing things together someday. Antonia told Thebes they could go to Burning Man when they were older, or Disneyland or the Leaning Tower of Pisa or whatever, and she gave Logan a guitar that she’d found in the garbage but that still worked. He asked her to sign his cast. Thebes made Antonia a kite with stuff she had in the back of the van. She’d drawn a picture of herself on it, waving and smiling. Lilah took a few Polaroids of all of us and gave them to us to keep.

When we were in the van, Thebes put her arms around Logan’s neck from behind and said, Don’t you love having two little sisters?

I braced myself for the inevitable yeah, like I love being hung upside down by my nuts and Chinese water torture, or whatever, but instead Logan turned around and smiled at her and mussed her hair and said yeah, he did, but she, Thebes, would always be his favourite.

She kept her arms around Logan’s neck for a long time and he didn’t tell her to stop.

Hey, Thebes, I said.

Yo.

Can you make me a kite like the one you made for Antonia? I too wanted to see Thebes waving at me from the sky, top star in the firmament, goofy on the earth and up above it.

Can do, daddio, she said, and flung herself backwards into her pool of art supplies.

Logan, I whispered.

What? he said. He was whispering too.

I love you, I said.

Fuck off, he said, smiling.

I put my hand on his knee because I didn’t know what else to do and he touched it briefly with his own, unbroken one.

We were out of the park, flying down the 86 South towards the U.S. — Mexico border, past the Salton Sea, which was really a lake, man-made, I think, and crawling with pelicans. I remembered Min trying to befriend a pelican on this beach that was next to the campground we stayed in one summer. She pretended she was a pelican, she had the walk and the sound they made down pat. She tried for a long, long time to get that pelican to hang out with her but he was shy and reluctant and then finally she asked me to lie on the beach like a dead fish that she could pretend to be eating and maybe that would tempt the pelican to come on over. I tried to act like a dead fish but I was laughing too hard to be convincing. Min was pretending to peck at me and it tickled like crazy and even though she was whispering at me out of the side of her beak to be quiet and act dead I couldn’t stop laughing. Finally she said okay, forget it, this isn’t working, let’s tan.

We lay together in the sun and I fell asleep and when I woke up I was feeling cold and she’d taken her towel and put it around my shoulders and then rubbed my back and arms to warm me up. She smiled at me and told me that she was really happy that I was her sister. You were a great pelican, I told her. Yeah, no, she said, but thanks. I was a terrible fish, I said. No, she said, you were an excellent fish, A-plus, just not a good dead one. She told me she was proud of me.

I didn’t know if she meant because I had agreed to pretend to be a dead fish so that she could befriend a pelican, but I didn’t care.

We were just a few miles out of Calexico, in a place called El Centro. I’m gonna make one more super-quick stop for gas, I said. You guys just wait in the van.

May I speak to Min Troutman, please? I said.

Min isn’t here any more, said the desk nurse.

What do you mean? I said.

She discharged herself this afternoon, she said.

What do you mean? I said.

She’ll continue getting treatment as an outpatient, said the woman.

Yeah, but, what do you mean ? I said.

She went home today, said the woman.

Yeah, but there’s nobody there. She told me you’d only let her out if there was somebody there to help her, I said.

She told us there was somebody there, said the woman. I think she said it was her sister.

I phoned the house. There was no answer. Just the machine with Thebes going, Bonjourno! The Troutmans are outie. Leave a message but it better be good.

Min, it’s me, Hattie. Are you there? Can you pick up the phone if you’re there? I told her that the kids and I were fine, just out on a short road trip, we’d be back soon, and I asked her again if she was there, but there was no response. If she was there she wasn’t picking up the phone, which wasn’t unusual, she never answered the phone. Are you really not there? I asked again. Just wait for me, I said. Just hold on.

Ready? I said to the kids.

For what? said Logan.

Just…I don’t know, for this, I said.

Well, yeah, said Logan. The whole point is—

I know, I said. Thebie? Ready?

Rock ’n’ roll, she said.

I looked at her in the rear-view mirror. Her hair was up Smurf-style again and she’d stuck glitter to her cheeks and eyelids.

Why is your lip bleeding? said Logan.

I don’t know, I said. I think I bit it by accident. Hey, put in a CD.

Which one?

I don’t care, whatever, I said.

He flipped through his CDs and put one in.

Is this your favourite band? I said.

No, he said. But I like them.

What is it, like emo or something? I said.

Kind of, he said.

Turn it up, I said. I didn’t want Thebes to hear what I was saying.

Logan, I said.

Hattie, he said.

We’re just gonna say hi to Cherkis, hang out awhile and then blast. We have to go home.

Yeah, said Logan. Hmmmm. He was scratching inside his cast again.

Min’s out of the hospital, I said. They said she went home and I tried calling her but I only got the machine.

She hardly ever answers the phone, said Logan.

Yeah, I know, I said.

She’s probably okay, said Logan. Now he was carving into the dashboard.

Yeah, I know, I said. But the thing I’m trying to say is that I’m not going to leave you guys with Cherkis, even if he does say it’s all right with him.

Okay, said Logan. That’s cool.

What are you writing? I asked him.

The date, he said.

Well, you might as well sign it too, I said.

Fine, he said. Beneath the date, he wrote the f — ing Troutmans. Thebes popped up from the back seat and watched him carve. When he was done, he snapped his knife shut and changed the CD. Thebes yanked the cap off her glitter pen, leaned forward and changed the signature so it read the flying Troutmans.