ride it out, just let it howl and rage and do its worst. At some point his buffeted, terrified psyche simply gave way to a profound sense of calm, there in the storm’s gentle eye. It wasn’t unlike what people coming down from acid trips often described—the self simply dissipating. To Teddy, a breathtaking moment of splendid, weightless drifting away. In another second or two the world and its cares would cease to matter. In their place, blessed oblivion. But then the winds returned, the shard pierced flesh, and he would know the truth—that escape was yet another false narrative. Later, bloodied and chastened and exhausted, he would do what he always did—claw up into the light, blinking, and survey the damage. Make an inventory of what was irretrievably lost, what was merely damaged and in need of mending, and then, most vitally, somehow locate and reestablish that charmless but necessary even keel that allowed for smooth, if unadventurous, sailing. What he called his life.
Making matters even worse was the fact that the world he returned to was, of course, unaffected by the storm. Given the blows he himself had sustained, he half expected to see trees uprooted, roofs blown off of houses and corrugated metal in the streets, whereas, naturally, the physical world was unscathed. In this one respect, however, tonight seemed different. Returning to the deck, Teddy couldn’t help feeling that his personal tempest had somehow broken containment, wreaking its havoc on not just himself but also his friends.
Lincoln had gone over to the railing, where he leaned staring out into the distance, perhaps at the dark outline of Troyer’s house, but more likely beyond that, to where moonlight was glittering on the waves. A blanket draped over his shoulders, he reminded Teddy of the forlorn Syrian refugees who for months now had been washing up on Greek islands. Earlier, looking out across this same expanse of lawn, he’d confided his fear that Jacy lay buried beneath it, as well as his own sense of culpability should that prove true: whatever befell her wouldn’t have if he hadn’t invited her to the island. Whereas now they knew the opposite to be true. Their invitation had actually saved her life, at least in the sense that it postponed her death. Instead of swallowing that handful of sleeping pills in Greenwich, Jacy had lived a few years longer, much of that as the girl in the photo Mickey’d showed them: wheelchair-bound, emaciated, unable to control her gnarled, flailing limbs. Thanks to her friends, she was able to fulfill her destiny of genetic misfortune. Was that what Lincoln was thinking now as he peered out into the darkness: be careful what you wish for?
Mickey, too, appeared gutted. Leaning back in his chair, he stared straight up at the night sky. To Teddy he looked emptied out, a hollow shell of the man who’d performed at Rockers just a few short hours earlier, as if for him the music had perhaps stopped playing permanently. He was determined to finish, though, and when Teddy was seated again, his blanket once more draped around his shoulders, Mickey said, “Home stretch. You think you can make it?”
Teddy assured him he would.
“Lincoln?”
“Coming,” Lincoln said, straightening up, or trying to.
When all three were settled, Teddy asked the question that was foremost in his mind. “How long was it before her own symptoms began to manifest?”
Mickey ran his hands through his hair. “Not long. A month or two? We’d be walking along and she’d suddenly wobble, like she’d felt a tremor in the earth, and when she got tired she developed this hitch in her gait. Other times she’d reach for something on the table—the saltshaker, a juice glass—and send it flying. Problem was, in addition to smoking weed, we were also drinking a fair amount, so she wasn’t the only one stumbling around, knocking things over. Still, I was pretty sure something wasn’t right. One day I snuck off to the library and did a little research. Even back then they were pretty sure ataxia was genetic. Sometimes it skipped a generation, though, and I remember holding on to that hope.”
“Do you think she knew anything was wrong when we were here on the island?” Teddy wondered, recalling what she’d said—How come everything has to be so fucked up?—when they were out at Gay Head. Captive to his own desolation, he hadn’t questioned what that everything might mean.
“That occurred to me, too,” Mickey admitted. “Probably