Forever Changes
Authors: Brendan Halpin
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Brendan Halpin
For Nan Olson, Jen King, and Deb Bancroft
this castle of marshmallow fluff
really beautiful and horribly ugly
As the warm sunlight faded, there was a faint chill in the breeze coming off the harbor. Brianna popped a pill, washed it down with water, and ate a tortilla chip. Dad took a long pull on his Corona. They were the only people sitting on the terrace of Captain Cancun’s Mexican Ristorante on the Tuesday after Labor Day.
“So,” Dad said, and with that one word, she could tell he was about to hit some topic she didn’t want to talk about. That “so”, delivered with that expectant tone, was always the way he launched them into some kind of awkward discussion she didn’t want to have. “So,” he’d say, “any cute boys in class this year?” or “So. How’s the hangover?” or, tonight, “So. When are we going to go college visiting?”
Brianna dipped another chip and looked out at the harbor. Just at the line of the horizon, she could see a boat. As she watched, it disappeared over the horizon, off to sea, off, maybe to Spain, where it would end up if it kept going straight from here all the way across the Atlantic Ocean. Except it wouldn’t be straight, because the idea of straight on a curved surface was kind of sketchy. It would actually be a direct line following the curvature of the earth.
“I dunno. I mean, I don’t think … Melissa wants us to take the commuter rail in so she can have a tour and an interview at BU. So maybe I’ll just do that.”
“I looked on the Web site. MIT is having an info session next week. I really think you should go, Bri.”
Suddenly, the tortilla chips were very interesting. She picked one up, thought briefly that calculating the area of this chip would be difficult, because, again, it wasn’t a collection of points in a two-dimensional plane, it was a three-dimensional surface with a pronounced curvature. All the better to scoop up the last of the salsa. As she scraped the last of the salsa from the bottom of the little white bowl, Brianna decided she didn’t want to fight tonight. She was finally feeling better, and even with that little chill in the air reminding her that school was starting in two days, it still felt like summer. She wanted to hold on to this night, this last glimpse of summer, and not screw it up with tears and name-calling and telling Dad what he didn’t want to hear. She looked out at the harbor, felt the breeze on her face, and thought she’d probably never see the end of summer again, so it was just easier to say, “Okay, Dad.”
Dad’s shoulders relaxed and slumped down. He’d been gearing up for a fight, and she could see the relief on his face. “Thanks,” he said.
Brianna smiled. “Least I can do.”
Dad said, “Well, we’ve gotta be up early tomorrow. I guess we should hit the road.” Brianna knew he also didn’t want her on the back of his bike after dark, but she decided not to bust his chops.
Dad raised his arm to signal the waitress, and the sleeve of his t-shirt slid up slightly, revealing the tattoo of Brianna’s name and birth date inside a heart. The waitress came over, and Brianna saw her eyes flit down to Dad’s massive bicep. “Anything else for you tonight? Another Corona?” she asked hopefully.
“Not tonight,” Dad said. “Driving.”
The waitress smiled. “Okay then,” she said, gathering up their plates. “Let me just get this out of your way, and I’ll be right back with your check.”
“Thanks,” Dad said.
Brianna looked over to the beach. It was getting dark, and she could see the last few dedicated beachgoers gathering up their coolers, blankets, towels, and umbrellas, and heading away from the sea. She fought back a pang of sadness. Every other September she could remember, she’d been excited about the start of school, the new classes, the new clothes—it had always felt exciting, like everything was starting fresh.
But now, looking at those few sad people gathering up their stuff from the beach for probably the last time this summer, she didn’t feel like anything new or exciting was starting; she just felt like something was ending.
The sound of weights clanking together woke her up. It was still dark. She shuffled to the bathroom, still hearing the annoying rhythmic clanking coming from the garage. She peed, then went to the kitchen and got her handful of pills from the Wednesday section of the pill box. She grabbed a bag of pretzels from the cabinet and a Gatorade.
She plopped on the couch and turned the TV on. She watched CNN without really taking it in, washing down the pills and pretzels with Gatorade.
Finally the clanking stopped and footsteps approached. “I’m just gonna get showered, hon, okay?”
“Please do. You reek.”
Dad smiled. “Nice breakfast there.”
“Don’t worry—I’ll chug an Ensure later.”
“I mean, what the hell are you drinking? What in nature is that color blue? Nothing! It looks like wiper fluid.”
“It is. I thought I’d go for a quick exit instead of this long slow decline thing.”
“Jesus, Bri, shut up.”
“Will you wash so we can get this over with? I gotta go hang with my best friends today.”
“Are you going back to group?”
“Jesus Christ Dad, stop asking about the group. I am not going back there.” It was bad enough that she had to go to the hospital today. There was no way she was going to group.
Dad looked sad and turned away without saying anything. Brianna insantly felt bad; she didn’t want to fight last night because that was the end of summer, but this was the beginning of real life again, and she was grumpy. “I’m sorry!” she yelled down the hall as he went into the bathroom.
She heard “Forgiven!” in a muffled tone from behind the door, and then the noise of the shower. More yakity-yak on CNN that she couldn’t bring herself to pay attention to.
Dad came into the living room dressed in khakis and a white button-down shirt. She was glad he wasn’t wearing the purple vest. He used to just put it on when he got dressed, but Brianna told him it was way too dorky and he had to wait until he got to Bargain Zone to put it on. She didn’t tell him it was just depressing to see him in that hideous vest.
“Can we turn off the TV?” Dad asked.
“Geez, Dad, you always seem very interested in CNN when Soledad O’Brien is on.”
Dad smiled. “Yeah, well, she’s a very talented anchor.”
“And she’s not on till seven. Fine, how about–” Brianna pushed buttons on the remote– “Dora the Explorer?”
“Fine. As long as it’s not friggin rap videos.”
Brianna thought about saying something, but she decided she’d grumped at Dad enough for one morning. Dad began the process of percussing her body to loosen the gunk inside. They had vests that could do this stuff for you, but Dad’s crappy insurance wouldn’t pay for it for a dependent child, which meant she could only get one if she was independent, in which case Dad’s crappy insurance wouldn’t cover her anyway. So Dad beat her every morning, then turned her over and beat her some more. She got a fair amount of mileage out of this joke—when people asked how her day was, she would often say something like, “It started with some huge tattooed guy beating me, so it can pretty much only get better.”
Brianna coughed and spat a lump of gunk into a paper towel. “Juicy!” she said.
“Ah, you can do better than that. You call that mucous?” Dad said. “I’ve seen thicker gunk on ketchup bottles.”
Brianna started to laugh, which of course led to coughing, which in turn led to an even bigger gob of mucous being dislodged and spat out.
“Now
that’s
what I’m talkin’ about,” Dad said, smiling. “You driving to your appointments today?”
Brianna rolled her eyes and said, “Of course!”
“Are you sure you’re feeling up to it? I mean, we can call for a ride, you know. Cindy’s always home, and she said she’d give you a ride anytime you needed it, or I can drive you to the commuter rail. You seem tired. You’ve been on the couch since you got up.”
“Dad, if you made pretty much any teenager get up at five-thirty, you’d see the same thing.”
Dad’s face did that thing again. “Bri, you know I have to be at the store at seven or I’ll–”
“I know, Dad,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean … I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad. Anyway, I’m driving.”
Dad looked like he was about to say something, but then seemed to change his mind. “Listen, it’s supposed to rain today, and you know the bridge gets really slippery in the rain, and people always drive like idiots …”
“Dad, I’ll be fine,” Brianna said, exasperated. “Are you riding your bike in the rain today?”
“Yeah, but I’m not driving all the way into Boston.” He paused, looking like Brianna had felt last night—like it was just easier not to fight. “Okay, okay. Ask Dr. Patel to call me, will you?”
“Yeah.” Dad enfolded her in a hug, and Brianna wondered again how she could share DNA with this guy who seemed about four times her size.
“I love you, sweetie.”
“You too, Daddy.”
Dad walked out into the garage, pulled on his helmet and jacket, and started his bike.
Brianna watched him roar off down the street, then headed to her car—a Pontiac Sunfire that was like ten years old and had a hundred and three thousand miles. Sometimes Brianna joked that her main hope in life was that her car would die before she did. Nobody laughed at that in group, nobody even gave a little smile like they had thought that too, like they got that they were wearing clothes that somebody would buy at Goodwill when their grieving parents donated them. They were all about Not Letting Cystic Fibrosis Hold Me Back, and rock climbing and worrying about how to get their scrawny bodies to look good in a prom dress.
She started the Sunfire and drove too fast to the highway. The car had no pickup and was topping out at about sixty-six mph these days, but it could take a corner fast, so accelerating into the turns from her house to the highway was pretty much the only fun it offered her.
There was nothing that could successfully distract Brianna from the feelings that driving down Route 1 into Boston brought up.
She clenched her teeth really hard and tried not to think about sitting in the passenger seat with Dad behind the wheel in a suit, on their way to Molly’s funeral at Holy Name Church in West Roxbury six months ago. She passed the gigantic cactus outside the steakhouse and remembered seeing it all blurred through tears, coughing and crying and Dad not saying anything, because what could he say?
When she reached the orange dinosaur at the mini-golf place, the view in her mind suddenly switched. She remembered another trip down Route 1 two months ago, herself in the passenger seat in tears again, this time saying, “I’m next, Daddy, I’m next, I’m not ready,” and this time Dad saying, “You’re not next, Bri, you’re not. You’ve beaten infections before, sweetie. This is routine for you.”
When she got to the Tobin Bridge, she glanced at the water far below the brigde. She noted the sign for the jumpers: “Feeling Desperate? Call the Samaritans.”
If I ever decide to take a dive off this bridge, she thought, I’m taking this car with me, and there’ll be no time to call the Samaritans. She’d done it in her mind a million times—she always saw herself shooting off the edge, flying through the air in slow motion, frozen at the top of the arc for a long second, perfect, like in a movie.
She wondered if she’d make a big splash or if the car would shatter when it hit the water. If she had a pencil, she might be able to calculate the amount of force she would hit with, figuring the Sunfire weighed about a ton, but she didn’t know how much impact the Sunfire’s frame could withstand, so doing the math couldn’t answer her question unless she could fill in that variable. She doubted that was the kind of information Pontiac had on their Web site: here’s how much force you can apply to our vehicles before they smash into a million pieces.
She thought of not just the car, but herself shattering into a million pieces, none of which would ever have to go back to the hospital, none of which would ever have to work so damn hard to breathe.
She reached the toll booth, paid her three bucks and kept driving. Maybe someday, she thought. Just not today.