Straight No Chaser

Write It Out, You'll Feel Better

last night i threw my phone at the floor and completely wrecked the color display. just a casualty of the dice game, said chris. i didn't say anything. i still haven't. i've spoken to maybe two people since, and one was here at work, by necessity. sometimes you just don't want the world in your face.

*****

The pen flashes in what's left of the pre-dusk sun. Knees together on the beach, Shannon uncaps it, lifts it to her throat, tries to estimate the amount of force it would take to jam it into her jugular.

Too much, probably. Her arm trembles; she lays the pen atop the notebook and leaves them both in the sand.

*

She stares up at the hilly precipice, thinking first of Aaron's nickname for it, Up Top, and then of her own--Death Drop. Besides the surrounding ocean, and though they don't talk about it much, the precipice is easily the most dangerous component of the island's geography, a major red light for Kailani, just high enough and steep enough to justify serious discomfort.

She starts the climb. They walk this slope all the time, and yet, till now, she's never let herself really embrace the idea of the peril it presents. There's water below on one side, rocks on the other; a drop of at least a few stories with the occasional protruding branch here and there. A jumper could put an eye out before meeting her death.

There's an unspoken rule that says they never walk past where the cliff is ten feet across, where a misstep could spell disaster. She crosses the line today, eases herself into a sitting position, dangles her legs over the edge. She's up too high, she can't feel the seaspray on her bare toes, but she wishes she could. It might help.

*

Then there are, of course, the berries. More of them than ever before, in fact, as Aaron's picking seems to have agitated their growth pattern. Even in the dark they stand out, an angry red rash across the oily green-black of the main bush.

She chooses two, plump ones with particularly shiny skins, and chokes them down quickly. Kailani's angel-voice echoes triumphantly in her ears: One, two!

She smiles, even as the citrus burns her tongue. Doesn't spit. Good girl!

*

Someone kicks as she stands at water's edge. Pushes, more accurately. A deliberate movement, aimed for dead center, that causes Shannon to take an actual step forward. The soles of her feet, perpetually soft on this giant pumice stone, register the water's coldness. She winces and takes another step forward.

The second push is stronger; the tide comes in and she loses her balance. Doesn't flail or pinwheel, just sits, submerges her hands and plants them beside either hip. The water tugs and pulses around her, seemingly echoing the movements within. Yes, she thinks. That's right. You can have them.

She scoots forward, steering herself with her hands. Maybe just a bit further, out to where the pressure is strong enough to tear this growth free of her body, so that she can return to shore in her former state, lithe and unfettered.

Abruptly, they are still, and in spite of herself, she is startled.

It reminds her of before, of sitting rigid against a tree with a motionless Kailani in her womb, and she remembers, suddenly, that Kai's braids are coming undone, that the front ones need redoing. Aaron's larger hands do fine with the bigger, boxier braids, but he still can't strike quite the intricacy of Shannon's patterns.

She stands.

*

The notebook is lying just where she left it; the pen lies a few inches away.

She carries both to the shelter, steps inside. It's ten degrees warmer in here, where her family is living and breathing and curled up on the ground, and where Kailani, in her sleep, has completely unraveled what's left of her hairdo.

Shannon sits gingerly between them and sets pen to paper. Dear Daddy, she writes across the top.

*

Aaron wakes to a faceful of toddler. "I need to potty, Daddy," announces Kai from inches away, knees pressed insistently to his chest.

He catches site of the notebook on the way out, a fresh page dotted with handwriting that certainly isn't his own, and his heart jumps.

*

He and Kai brush their teeth and wash their faces before returning to the shelter. He sets her up on the ground with a couple of dolls and her blocks, and turns his attention back to the notebook. It rests on the edge of the easel, obscuring the bottom center of his painting; he lifts it away and there they are, the paint-baby and its newer echo. His throat constricts.

Notebook in hand, he sits beside Kailani. He skips back a couple pages, skims his own letter first. Cringes, skips forward, and reads.

*

Dear Daddy,

If you think you're afraid, imagine what we must feel. We are tiny, and helpless, and newer than new, and already we've been subjected to dangers most people will never know. We heard the hurricane, the wind and the rain, the ocean that almost swallowed you, and we felt your fear, and it frightened us, too.

Mommy was wrong, about the lawlessness of our home. There is one law on this island, and it is Protect what's yours. We are yours, and you are ours, and we don't want you to die.

Be close to us. We're here. Girls or boys or both, one or two or seven, it shouldn't matter. It doesn't.

Love,

Yours

*

Two hours later, they still can't find Shannon.