The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors (16 page)

Abigail grinned. She wore a sleeveless bluebird-print dress. Her skin was tauter, her face youthful. “You look handsome,” she said. “So what’s the surprise?”

“Well, as you know, back in my wilder days, I was a sailor. I have connections.” He beamed. “You, my sweet Abby, are having dinner on a thirty-six-foot fiberglass boat, top of the line, with yours truly at the wheel. There might even be champagne on board.”

She grinned. “Seriously?” She’d seen the ocean. She’d walked through the waves as far out as her waist, but she’d never been
on
the ocean in water so deep she couldn’t plant her feet on the sand.

Buckley, Tide, and Abigail followed Paddy John down the dock. Buckley, as instructed, carried the picnic basket, and Tide dragged the cooler. The sky was white: not gray, not blue. There were no thunderheads, no visible clouds, but at twelve seconds past 4:45, forty-eight seconds before 4:46, lightning struck Abigail Pitank. She had one leather sandal on the starboard side of the boat and one on the dock when she was hit directly, the lightning entering through her skull. She toppled and splashed into the water. Her one-hundred-thirty-pound body was pinned between the piling and the boat. Silver minnows, startled by the lightning and the dead weight, darted. Paddy John, blind from the lightning’s strike, dropped into the water after Abigail. Rain fell: a drip, a drop, a downpour with gusts exceeding twenty miles an hour. Paddy John was wet and numb, oblivious to the rain and wind. Buckley was frozen, watching, knowing that Paddy John would save his mother.

Paddy John grabbed Abigail’s arms and waist from the murky bottom, dislodged her chest from between the piling and fiberglass. He had trouble holding his breath, but he pulled until he had all of Abigail floating with him toward the surface. Lifting her head out of the water, needing a miracle, he saw her skull split open, charred black in spots. He held her body against his body. He was strong. He was muscular. He was a seaman, and he couldn’t save the woman he loved. He kissed her parted lips, still warm but muddied. “I fucking love you.” He punched the planks. She was gone. His raven-haired beauty had departed this world as quickly, shockingly, and mysteriously as she’d entered his life. He cried, but just a little. The time was not now. He said, “Buckley, I need help.”

From the dock, down on his stomach, Buckley reached for his mother’s arms. He was certain she’d be all right. He saw Tide standing there on the dock, the boy’s bare knobby legs smudged with some kind of dirt, the boy’s hands in fists. The boy doing nothing to help. Paddy John’s working hands lifted Abigail at the hips, but her waist bent and her head and chest flopped forward. Buckley stopped her from landing face-first onto the dock.

Buckley pulled and Paddy pushed until she was out of the water.

Tide began to cry.

“Mom?” Buckley said. “Mom? It’s me. I’m here.” She wasn’t allowed to leave him. She’d promised she’d never leave him. She’d said
never
. She’d promised! Padraig John, aware of the futile gesture, gave her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Buckley said, “She’s going to be okay. Tell me she’s going to be okay.” Paddy John said nothing. Buckley took her cold hand; the rain pelting his neck and arms. Paddy John wrapped her head with a towel—like a turban—to cover the blood. Buckley seethed when Paddy John stopped mouth-to-mouth. “You’re a piece of shit!” Buckley screamed. “I hate you.” He started to run away, but a crowd had gathered. Paramedics pushed through. “She’s my mom,” Buckley said, standing helplessly on the wood planks. The crowd whispered. Some strangers cried. Some people said they’d seen the lightning hit. Buckley didn’t remember much. He rode with his dead mother in the ambulance. At the small hospital, they called her DOA, dead on arrival. Buckley sat in a waiting room, waiting for nothing. She was dead. He covered his mouth, clasping his thumbs, his two hands like wings, fluttering. He sat for a long time, refusing to speak to anyone, until Joan Holt and Sissy came for him. Sissy was petite, but she picked him up, hoisting his thick legs around her waist. “It’s all right,” she said, knowing nothing was all right, but there are things a body needs to hear. “We love you,” she added. “We love your mama.”

Joan Holt said, “I am sadder today than when my Walrus died. He was old, and we had no children to miss.” She coughed. “This is wrong. It’s all wrong.”

It is, isn’t it?
Buckley thought. When he woke up tomorrow, it might be different. If something is so wrong, can it be righted?

In the days that followed, Buckley was emotionally mute. He could not explain to Padraig John, Joan Holt, Sissy, or Jeanette that
he didn’t want to leave Galveston, that he didn’t want to leave Charlie and Eddie and Flamehead or the ocean that his mother loved. He could not speak up. After the funeral service at Whitaker Memorial, he sat in Joan Holt’s living room, his two hands in her hands, their four hands in her lap, his head at the bend in her waist, while his mother’s friends whispered and ate food and tiptoed down the hall. Joan Holt said, “You can stay here, Buckley. With me. You’re my grandson.” He heard Padraig John in the kitchen. “Goddamn it.” He heard Padraig John crying. He heard Sissy say, “Life isn’t fair.” He heard Tide laughing somewhere in the house. He wondered about Charlie and Eddie and why he hadn’t heard from them. Did they know about his mom? They must know. It was in the newspaper. He heard Padraig John say, “I loved her.”

Joan Holt stayed at Buckley’s side, cradling his head. There were no words for mending.

Why hadn’t Buckley’s friends called? Why was his mother dead? For the last two nights, he’d hid beneath the covers, expecting that when the sun rose she would be standing over him. Hoping it was all a bad dream, but it wasn’t. There was a funeral. There were carnations and angel food cake.

The night of her funeral, Buckley went to bed knowing she wouldn’t be there ever again. She was dead. He got down on his knees, closed his eyes, clasped his hands, and prayed, “Dear God, you are Job’s god and the reverend’s god, and you did this to me. I guess it was wrong of me to try and be happy. I guess it was wrong of me to enjoy myself. I give up.”

Three weeks later, he rode in the passenger’s seat of the reverend’s station wagon back to Mont Blanc, Arkansas. He thought about the last things he’d said to his mother. “I don’t want to go.” He hadn’t. He’d been rude. She hadn’t deserved it. He’d wanted to see Flamehead. He still hadn’t gotten to second base (now that he knew what that was). He couldn’t help but wonder:
If I hadn’t complained so much, if I hadn’t made her late to the dock, would she still be alive?

It was Buckley’s decision to confess to Joan Holt and Padraig John about his mother’s husband, John Whitehouse. As much as he loved Galveston, he’d never be happy again, and he didn’t deserve happiness. He deserved to suffer and pay for his sins. It was time to go home.

On the drive back to Mont Blanc, Buckley felt the breast pocket of his shirt. The folded Barbi Benton pinup was there. He reached into his duffel. The last candle his mother lit was there. That was all he needed.

The reverend said, “No good comes to those who run from the Lord.”

“Sure,” Buckley said. “That sounds about right.”

Mary wanted a cigarette, but she planned to be good. Goodness was her theme. She made sandwiches for their trip, using Miracle Whip instead of mayonnaise because Rowan preferred it. This was an opportunity to work on her marriage. Her family. Her sanity.
Goodness
was her mantra. In the car, ankles crossed, she murmured, “Goodness.”

Rowan drove toward the coast, thinking about his beautiful yacht, a real yawl, moored at Barnacle Bob’s in Manteo. He hoped the captain he’d commissioned would be a decent sort. He thought about the open ocean, and Patricia—his Patty-Cake. His mother had been right. You don’t go off and marry some girl from Podunk. He was too young when he’d married Mary. She was too hillbilly. Any woman in her right mind would’ve demanded a divorce by now, but Mary wasn’t in her right mind.

“Should we go tomorrow?” asked Mary.
Goodness
playing in her head.

“Go where?”

“Sailing.”

“We’ll see.”

Mary retrieved her leather cigarette case from the glove box and lit up.

“Do you have to do that? It makes the whole car smell.” Rowan shut off the air-conditioning and rolled his window down.

“What does ‘we’ll see’ mean?” The smoke from her cigarette
trailed into the backseat. Becca rolled down her window. Whiskers rested his chin on her knee.

“It means that we’ll see. It doesn’t mean anything. I have to call the marina and see if Paddy John’s around.”

“Who’s he again?”

“The captain I hired.”

“Why wouldn’t he be around? You told him we’d be there.” She should’ve taken a Valium. She puffed on her cigarette. Already she was blowing the goodness mantra. Better to be quiet.
Goodness
.

Rowan drove the longest route possible to Nags Head. It was one of his faults. He stopped in Bunyan, taking a picture of three old black men leaning against a cinder-block market. Inside the market, he snapped a photo of a heavyset woman manning a deep fryer. He pulled off the side of the road in Yeatesville, where a sandy-haired woman with clay-stained feet sold watermelon from a rusted pickup. Her two kids waved cardboard signs:
WATERMELON FOR SALE!
Cars sped past.

Rowan parked the Volvo in the gravel. “Over here, Becca. Right here.” Taking her by the shoulders, his camera around his neck, he positioned his sunny daughter in front of the truck. The watermelon woman leaned with her back against the driver’s side door, fingering her flip-flop for a rock.

Becca pushed her red sunglasses further up her nose.

“Say ‘cheese,’ Becca,” he said. “Say ‘I love watermelon.’”

“I love watermelon.”

Rowan laughed. To the woman, he said, “Thanks! Thanks a lot,” and handed her a dollar.

The woman said, “I don’t need a dollar for you to take your kid’s picture.” She handed the bill back.

“Suit yourself.”

The Burkes’ first night at the beach, Mary unpacked. She put the sheets on the bed and drank from her silver-plated flask in the downstairs bathroom. She was thirty-four, but felt twenty-one
sipping scotch, smiling at herself in the mirror. She gargled Listerine and listened to the wind whistling through the slatted gate. It was oceanfront country. She felt at home.

Becca walked Whiskers over the dune to a blanket of stars that reminded her of Grandma Edna’s farm. Digging her bare heels into the sand, she watched Whiskers chase the surf. She felt beautiful. There was no other way to describe it. She hadn’t lost the strange feeling that she was insignificant—but she felt beautiful in spite of it. The rock in her gut was gone, replaced by something warm and settling—like Thanksgiving dinner. She had substance.

Down the beach a good ways, she spotted a bonfire, the red flames leaping into the blackness. She wondered if this was what it was like to feel grown up—beautiful despite your smallness. She was a nobody when she looked up at the stars, but in their glory, nothingness was all she could hope for.

Whiskers settled beside her. He dug a trench with one paw, putting his nose there.

Give me a shooting star
, Becca prayed.
Come on, Grandma, I need a shooting star
. Whiskers kicked sand in her hair. She waited. “Oh, come on! Tell her, Whiskers. Give us a shooting star.” That instant, a star trailed across the sky, reviving Becca’s belief in miracles. It didn’t take much.

Later, at the Seamark grocery, Mary told Becca, “You’re a very pretty girl. And talented.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Mary hadn’t complimented Becca in a long time. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” her mother said. “I just don’t tell you enough how proud I am of you. It’s not just how you look. It’s your art. I should’ve let you go to that hippie art camp.”

“There weren’t any hippies there. There aren’t hippies anywhere anymore.”

“Well, Becca, I don’t know. You young people … you just don’t know.”

“What don’t we know?” Becca pursued.

“I don’t know. I guess you know everything.”

Becca rolled her eyes.

“But I love you. That’s all I’m trying to say.”

“Are you all right to drive, Mom?”

“Shut up. I’m fine. I’m just trying to be nice.”
Goodness
.

“Got it.”

Pushing the shopping cart, Mary said, “I love your dad.”

“Me too. It’s a given.”

“We should buy junk,” Mary said. “I mean, we should buy all the regular stuff too, but let’s load up on ice cream and hot fudge and potato chips. I’m sick of watching my weight.”

Becca said, “Awesome! I never watch mine anyway.”

“You don’t have to.”

When they arrived back at the cottage, Mary sprayed Binaca into her mouth and practiced a smile in the rearview. “Your dad loves ice cream. I can’t tell you how many banana splits we split.” She was bright-eyed, nostalgic. “He used to say, ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re fat—you’ll never get rid of me.’” She laughed. “What a load of shit.”

“Mom, are you okay?”

“Oh, honey, I’m fine. I’m better than fine.”

“Thanks for saying that you think I’m a good artist.”