“They’re trying to keep it quiet. Election year and whatever. But it’s only a matter of time.”
“Time before what?”
“Before everyone knows.”
“Mm. Not sure what difference that’ll make.”
“People will…they’ll protest. They won’t go. There would be news coverage and, and…I don’t know, it’s not like people just won’t notice a city like Miami disappear. They’ll do something.”
In the dark, Kirby nods. “I’m sure you’re right,” he says. But he isn’t sure at all. All sorts of things have disappeared over the years. He knew Valerie hit Miami hard, but he didn’t realize it was this hard. He didn’t realize it was give-up-and-go hard. He remembers how it was in Puerto Rico. There were protests, sure, and there was news coverage—but none of it made a difference. The government didn’t even bother with relocation packages. It just abandoned over three million people to their ruined infrastructure, their crumbling homes, the ravenous ocean. Politics, economics, racism, and geography coalesced to mark the first domino. But where there is one domino, there are more. “I’m gonna turn in,” he announces, draining what’s left of his beer.
“Leave the door. I’ll sit awhile,” Lucas replies. Kirby would like to say something reassuring to his son. Even more, he’d like to say something true. But the convergence of these qualities is rare when it comes to the future of certain parts of the world. The pause stretches, then deepens as he tries to think of something he can offer. It’s no good. He hears Lucas’s thoughts because they are also his own: If Miami isn’t worth saving, then Rudder has no chance at all.
Chapter 31
In the morning, through the haze of a dream she can’t remember, Wanda hears them in the kitchen. There is the clink of a thermos, the clump of work boots. Low voices murmuring. It’s too early for the sun, too early for most people. But not for her people.
She cracks her eyelids, and between the soft fur of lashes she sees Lucas pass by the open door of their bedroom. He’s trying to be quiet, but his footsteps are heavy. It’s already hot. More accurately, it never stopped being hot. She kicks the sheet off of her feet and shout-whispers his name. He comes in, puts his face next to hers where she is sprawled on the top bunk. “Morning, Wan,” he says, and rests his chin on her mattress.
“You leaving already?”
“Yeah, in a minute.” Her pillow is in the process of sliding off the bed and he lifts her head to slip it back where it belongs. She lets him. “I made you a lunch,” he says. “It’s in the cooler. But remember, open and shut real quick, okay?”
“I know,” she says. He turns to go just as Kirby appears in the doorway.
“Ready?” their father asks, and Lucas nods. Kirby squints at Wanda to see if she’s awake. “Don’t get into any trouble. And when you open that cooler—”
“I know,” Wanda says. She’s heard all this before.
“Ah. Well. Have a fun day. Be good.” Kirby and Lucas leave. She can hear the front door slam, then the truck doors, one, two, then the engine, then quiet. Be good. She is mostly good. But being good and having a fun day are not the same thing. There’s a particular rule she’d like to break, one she’s been toying with ever since her time became her own—but it’s a big one. She’s not sure she’ll get away with it. To be good or not to be: This has been the week’s soliloquy. Each night, she resolves that tomorrow is the day she’ll ride her bike to the Edge. And each morning, she talks herself out of it. Except—today might be her last chance. The return to school looms. She dozes, thrashing around until the sheets feel sticky.
When the sun is up she stalls some more, lying on the grass to read her novel, in which a boy detective hunts a killer in a blustery ski resort. The book makes her unbearably curious about snow, a phenomenon she has never seen in person. In this heat, even imagining the cold seems impossible. And again, her mind drifts to the Edge. It would be cooler there, at least. Around eleven, she retrieves the peanut butter and jelly sandwich that Lucas made her, defiantly leaving the cooler open while she takes her time digging beneath last night’s leftovers for the right kind of soda to go with it （grape）， and then wanders through the stifling house as she eats. All the secrets that are here for her to find have already been found, but she likes to visit them when she’s alone. She checks on the milk crate in the back of Kirby’s closet, full of relics from her mother. She isn’t supposed to know that it exists, but she discovered it a few years ago. Wiping her jellied fingers on her shirt, she sorts through its contents—a few books about architecture, a neatly folded bedspread someone sewed by hand, a wedding ring that doesn’t fit any of her fingers. At the bottom, a nylon flag, so sun-worn the black is turning brown, a jaunty skull and crossbones smiling back at her. A photograph of Kirby and Frida in front of the house, and another of Frida with her own mother, the two of them young and happy on the deck of a sailboat. There is a spiral-bound notebook here, too. Handwritten, barely legible. Wanda has already scanned its pages for passages she might be able to decipher, but there isn’t much she can make out besides a few sketches of something that looks like a tree house. This is how her mother’s presence feels—near, but unknowable.
Frida’s dresses still hang, pressed back against the wall, smelling of a woman Wanda never knew but likes to imagine. In her mind, Frida is so beautiful it’s impossible to look at her head-on. She’s just a warm feeling that surrounds Wanda with a pair of strong, pillowy arms. This is all Frida will ever be to her, but the absence is too ubiquitous to be acute. Wanda sits on the floor of the closet and finishes her sandwich, then presses her face against the soft hems of Frida’s clothes, imagining what she might have been like. Kirby and Lucas both look sad when Wanda asks about her mother outright, so she’s learned to acquire information sideways, in fragments: the name of the boat Frida grew up on, the university she went to, her skills in the kitchen, a bridge she designed but never built. In this fashion, she learns bits and pieces about Flip, too, but she doesn’t ache for the idea of a brother in the same way. She has Lucas.
She tires of these fantasies about her mother and goes back outside to ponder whether today is the day she breaks her father’s biggest rule. She started by breaking smaller rules this week, just to see what would happen. A few days ago, she climbed a tree she is not allowed to climb and sat up there reading until she heard Kirby’s engine on the road. Yesterday, she sat in the forbidden mustiness of the shed and carved her initials into the floorboards under the workbench, then pawed through every drawer, every bucket, opened every toolbox. Afterward, she anxiously awaited her punishment for these trespasses. All during dinner last night, she anticipated discovery—but nothing happened. Kirby and Lucas sat at the table and exchanged condiments and shoveled food onto their plates and into their mouths, but nothing was said about Wanda’s vandalism in the tool shed, or her adventure skyward. She isn’t sure what she’d expected. Maybe an unseen camera, or a supernatural sixth sense. But apparently Kirby has neither. Unchastened, she contemplates a new pinnacle of disobedience.