September—they return to nest on the same beaches where they were born. They’ve been around since the dinosaurs.” He falls quiet and then speaks again, his voice coming and going like the waves of the ocean. In and out. In and out. “A female can lay as many as two hundred eggs. Two months later, if the nest survives, the hatchlings will claw their way out and head for the ocean. Most of them won’t make it.”
And now I’m picturing these baby turtles, no mother there to help them.
“Isn’t there anything we can do?”
“We help how we can—we mark and date the nests, cover them with netting to protect from coyotes and raccoons—but at some point you have to let nature do its thing.”
I think about the effort—the mother fighting to get back to the beach where she was born, to make a nest for her babies, and then leaving them there to fend for themselves.
“Why doesn’t she stay?”
“She does what she can for them and then she has to go. I don’t know why, exactly.”
Then he rests his hand on my arm, and suddenly it’s the only thing I can think about. His hand on my flesh. My whole arm has gone warm and now the warmth is spreading to my other arm and out into the rest of me.
Then he takes the hand that was on my arm and runs it through his hair. I look at him and he looks at me and for the first time in weeks I feel almost okay. I remember something I learned in science class—about the weight of water. How one gallon weighs 8.34 pounds. I probably cried at least three gallons in Miah’s truck, which has left me feeling lighter, as if I could float away over the earth and up into the sky.
He says, “So what happened with your parents?”
And maybe it’s this strange, magical night or the way his voice has gone soft or the flash of his smile in the dark or his bare feet, but for whatever reason, I do something I haven’t done in weeks. I open my mouth and talk.
I tell him without editing.
And he listens.
And listens. And as he listens, he glances at me from time to time, and then back at the ocean. Back at me, back at the ocean. After I’m finished, I immediately want to gather all the words I’ve just spoken and stuff them back inside me. It’s the alcohol, I tell myself. Don’t drink so much next time.
Finally he says, “So just like that? I mean, that’s all he said—I love you, but I gotta go?”
“Just like that.”
“Huh.”
“I knew I was going to have to say goodbye this summer, but not like this. Not this kind of goodbye. I just…I don’t know. I was supposed to have more time.”
“We’re always supposed to have more time. Look, if it makes you feel any better, it could be worse. You could have one parent who can barely function and sometimes can’t get out of bed. And then you have to make your own birthday cake, and let’s face it, you suck in the kitchen. So then you’re like, Maybe if I steal a birthday cake from the store…But stores don’t like that.”
“Did that really happen?”
“There’s a pretty good chance.”
“I just keep thinking I should have seen it coming. And I could have been a better daughter.”
“I don’t know your dad, but I do know something about dads who leave, and I’m pretty sure this doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“I’m kind of torn between hating him—really hating him—and missing him. I want him to fix this and make it better and make it so it never happened. I’m angry at my mom for not doing something to stop it, and I’m angry at myself. Basically I’m angry.” It’s the first time I’ve said any of this out loud.
I feel his arm brush mine, and the feel of it reminds me that I’m not actually the only person left on earth. I take a breath. Let it out. I tell myself, You’ve talked enough for one night.
“I get that,” he says. “Remember when I said you remind me of someone? I was talking about me. I was angry for a long time. I used to get into fights. I hated anyone who was different from me. I thought I was better than everyone else. I was a real asshole. I got caught smoking weed on school property, and