“You learned how to fish from her, then?”
“The very basics. I try to come out here on her birthday. I don’t really like to fish. It’s a whole lot of waiting around for hardly anything to show for it, but it seems like a good thing to do for her.”
“Is today her birthday?”
“No, but I didn’t go this year on her birthday, so maybe I’m just making up for that.”
He reels in his own line, fiddles with the hook and bait, and then casts it out again.
“Did she ever teach my mama to fish?”
“No. But your mama—she grew up separate from us boys.”
“Because she was a girl?”
Patrick pauses for a second and then says, “Maybe. But I think mostly because she was fifteen years younger than us. So she was separate and always did her own thing.”
I know that he is telling the truth. Even though I didn’t know Mama way back then, I could see how she was completely alien from her family.
Patrick continues, “Her and Carl were sometimes close. But even then, Beth was always going to do what she wanted, and it was me who was expected to pick up the slack when she screwed up or disappeared with friends or some guy.”
He opens his tackle box and the tingly roller-coaster feeling begins to heat up, starting at my toes. Patrick closes the box hard and says, “Just like Carl now—that fire should not have happened. He screws up and now there are pieces to pick up, problems to fix. Neither of them ever seemed to care that I’m the one who has to deal with it. ”
My whole body flushes mad and hot, the roller coaster replaced with a runaway freight train.
I set the rod down and turn away from him with my arms crossed. Birdie is still hunched over with his hood up, but from this angle I can see that he is awake, silently listening to the truth of what we are to Patrick.
**Observation #786: A Wild Animal
A wild animal got into Patrick’s backyard. It ruined the garden.
The rock borders destroyed.
The piles of good kindling & burn wood scattered.
The beds dug up.
Flower bulbs lay in wet dirt, looking like the small moldy onions Mama would throw away after forgetting about them in the bottom of our cupboard.
This morning, Birdie said: Did you see the garden? It’s destroyed. I think a wild animal got in & dug everything up.
I said maybe it was a coyote looking for an old buried rat.
What I didn’t tell him was that after he had gone to bed last night, I went down to get a glass of water & I saw Patrick from the window. He sat on a stump for a long time, frozen.
Then, he exploded in movement, throwing rocks, branches, tools. He slammed the shovel down on the dirt again & again & all of a sudden I remembered Mama doing the same to her own garden once and I got confused, so I took my glass of water back up to the bedroom & shut the door & crawled into bed.
CHAPTER 15 PICKING UP THE PIECES
Yesterday on the boat, Patrick never did say anything else about Birdie and me being problems to fix. He just told me to reel in my line and then he turned the boat’s engine on and steered us back to the dock. He spent the rest of the day in the silo shed until the middle of the night when I saw him destroying the garden.
As he drives us to school, I sneak three looks at him: one at his face in shadow from his hat pulled low, one at his knuckles gripped tight on the steering wheel, and one at his shoulders tensed under his ears. When we get to my school, he only says one thing to me: “No going to Carl’s. You come right back to the house after school.”
And it’s the perfect excuse to avoid hanging out with Krysten, who tries to catch my eye all through class. I know she knows about the fire because of how much she loved Rosie’s truck. But I can’t face her right now. She’ll ask too many questions. Give too much advice.
Still, she follows me out to the parking lot as I speed off, but before she can say anything, I call out over my shoulder, “Sorry. Can’t talk today. My uncle wants me back right away.”
“Okay, but are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I have to get my brother and go home.” I walk through the school gate hoping she won’t follow since she has to wait for her mom.
She stays at the gate, but calls out in a loud voice, “I’ll call you! Maybe there’s something we can do for Rosie and her truck! I want to help!”
I say archipelago, archipelago over and over in my head, but it doesn’t help. The anxiety of having to answer her questions about the fire, and Uncle Carl and Rosie and Patrick, is too much.
I know she’s supposed to be my friend, but how do I add a friend to this kind of life?
Archipelago. Archipelago. Archipelago.
I stop and turn around just before crossing the street. “All right!” I yell to her. “Call me later. But I have to go. Bye!”
She nods and I turn and head toward town.
When I get there, Birdie is already at our meeting place, which is no longer the Quesadilla Ship. Now it’s just a giant asphalt hole. Birdie sits on the curb looking tiny in the truckless spot and I notice he doesn’t have a backpack. He has a plastic grocery bag instead.
“What happened?” I ask.
“Stupid Norman backpack didn’t help anything!” he shouts when he sees me. He stands up and starts walking toward the highway. “Norman and his ugly clothes are becoming a problem.”
“Why?”
He shoves the grocery bag at me as we walk and inside is Patrick’s
