The Art of Floating (21 page)

Five m
onths after Jackson's disappearance, his mother asked for a memorial service.

Sia couldn't say no to Jack's mom. “You have my blessing,” she said, “but I can't come.”

“Sia, you have to come,” Elizabeth Dane said. “You were his wife.”

“I
am
his wife, Elizabeth, and no, I don't.”

Jackson's mother looked tired and thin, and Sia could tell she had let go of hope.

“Sia, everyone agrees that there's no way Jackson can still be alive. The chance is infinitesimal,” she said. “He would have come home by now.”

“What if he has amnesia?” Sia asked.

Amnesia wasn't something Jackson's mother could hope for. Not anymore.

“Will you please attend, Sia? Everyone needs you there. I need you there.”

“Everyone needs Jackson there.”

“But in his place, you.”

Sia was quiet. While she waited, Jackson's mother tapped the fingernail of her left pinky on her knee. It didn't make any noise.

“I'll come, but I'm going to sit outside,” Sia said.

“Outside?”

“Yes, near a window so I can hear.”

It was more than Jackson's mother had wished for. “We'll get you a bench. And an umbrella if it rains.”

At Rich
ard's request, Sia took Toad to Dr. Gupta for a checkup. “Just to make sure that cut is healing properly,” he said.

•  •  •

In addition to being trustworthy, Dr. Gupta was thorough. After asking Sia to step out of the room, she checked Toad from head to toe.

“Well?” Sia said when she returned.

Dr. Gupta looked bewildered. “The infection in the cut has cleared. It's healing nicely. As are the minor cuts on his face, hands, and feet. He'll have some scars but no lasting damage.”

“But . . .” Sia said. In all her years as Dr. Gupta's patient, Sia had never seen her look bewildered.

“First,” Dr. Gupta began, “there's a strange gathering of cartilage between a number of his toes and tiny bits of it in between most of his fingers.”

“I know.”

“Did the doctor note it when Toad was first examined?”

“Richard didn't say anything about it, so I imagine not. But I think the doctor was focused on the cuts.”

“And has it been there since you found him?”

“Yes, but there's more now. Like it's growing or something.”

“And this?” Dr. Gupta turned Toad's head to the right and pointed at the bright wound behind his left ear.

“Yes,” Sia said, “that's been there since I found him, too. Is it infected?”

Dr. Gupta shook her head. “No, the hot red color indicates infection and there's a small amount of pus, but it's clean.” She paused. “I trust you've seen this as well?” She shifted Toad's head in the other direction and pointed to a similar wound behind his right ear.

Sia leaned forward. “No, Dr. G, that one wasn't there before. I don't even think it was there yesterday.”

“Are you sure?”

Sia touched the skin behind Toad's right ear and lifted the lobe. The wound was smaller, but open the same way as the other. A star-shaped pucker with a slit in it. “I'm very sure,” she said. “What are these things?”

Dr. Gupta sighed. “As you well know, Sia, I'm a pretty conventional person, in my medical practice and my life, but the only thing I can think is . . .”

“Ssshhh,” Sia jumped in. “If you're about to say
gills
, don't. Just say there is some reasonable explanation for all this.”

Dr. Gupta sat down next to Toad and put her hand on his. “Okay. Okay,” she said. “I am sure there is a reasonable explanation for all this.”

She didn't look convinced.

The next
day's headline?

GILLS!

•  •  •

“It wasn't me, Sia,” Dr. Gupta said into the phone. “You know that. I don't talk to reporters and I am very serious about confidentiality.”

“Then who, Dr. G?”

“One of the secretaries, I imagine. She probably listened at the door. I apologize. I underestimated the effect Toad is having on folks . . . here and around the world.”

“This is terrible, Dr. G. Toad has enough attention on him.”

“I know. And if you need me in the future . . . if you want me to check Toad again . . . I'll come to you.”

•  •  •

That night when Toad fell asleep in the chair by the window, Sia looked again at the wound behind his right ear. She was hoping she and Dr. Gupta had imagined it. But there it was . . . bigger even than the day before.

•  •  •

blue

green

red . . . red

blue

green

red . . . red . . . red

True: “Th
e Universe is made of stories, not of atoms.”*

False: All stories have happy endings.

Three tim
es Sia drove to the white warehouse to wait for the Dogcatcher. Three times the Dogcatcher didn't show.

•  •  •

The fourth time, Sia parked at the mouth of the long, winding road, left her car behind, and kept close to the tree line as she made her way to the building. Then, staying low, she crouched behind the far back corner to wait. She didn't want to be seen, even though as far as she knew, there was no one to see her. When she got bored, she circled the building, trying to get a peek at what was inside. At least that. But there were no windows, no cracks, and the heavy, steel door was locked.

Warm and sleepy, she lay down and dozed off. The grass was cool.

Then what could have been five minutes or five hours later, Sia heard, “You found me.”

She rolled onto her side, shielded her eyes, and saw the Dogcatcher leaning over her.

“I did?” Sia said. She couldn't wake up enough to make sense of things. She felt drowsy and floppy. The kind of sleepy that makes it impossible to squeeze your hands into fists.

“Yes, finally. FINALLY.”

Sia sat up on her elbows and shook her head. “What do you mean? Finally?”

“I've been waiting for you to visit. Did you bring Gumper?” The Dogcatcher looked around.

Gumper? Sia was confused and hot. She needed water. Her tongue felt like a piece of burlap and the insides of her cheeks were woolly. “No, I didn't bring Gumper.” She managed to sit up and crawl out of the sun into the shade of the building. “What is this place?”

The Dogcatcher turned to the building and looked at it as if it had just appeared out of nowhere. “This place?” She pointed to the building. It was so white Sia wondered if someone washed it every day.

“Yes, this building. Do you go in there?”

The Dogcatcher dodged her question. “I know you watch me.”

“You know?”

“Of course. I can see you there.” The Dogcatcher pointed to the sky.

“What do you mean, you can see me there?”

“Up there, floating, following.”

“You can see me when I'm up there?” Sia couldn't believe it. She felt strange and as always, as if she were spinning in circles with the Dogcatcher.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I don't know how. The same way I see everything. The same way I see lost things.”

“But no one can see me. Not Jilly or Gumper or Toad. My mother can't even see me and she tries really hard.”

“I can. I've seen you ever since Gumper-Man left.”

Sia stopped short. “What do you know about my husband?”

The Dogcatcher walked away. She scratched at her head and the back of her thigh. She was heading toward the woods again.

“Hey, what's in this building?” Sia called.

The Dogcatcher kept moving.

“Wait!” Sia called. She pulled herself onto her knees. “Are you going in there again today?” She pointed to the copse of trees.

The Dogcatcher turned. “Yes.”

“What's in there?”

“More trees.” And then she was gone.

Sia rose, stumbled to the door of the building, and pushed. She punched it and yanked the handle. But the door didn't budge. Finally, she gave up and leaned against it. The steel burned against her cheek.

•  •  •

“Margarita?” Jil said.

“Please.”

“Strong?”

“Yep.”

“You okay?”

“I don't know.”

“Hungry?”

“Not really.”

“Tell me about it?”

“Later.”

The phone rang. Jilly picked it up. “Melissa Cho.” She held it out to Sia.

Sia shook her head.

“You've got to talk to her sometime. You offered her an exclusive.”

“Did I mean it?”

“Yes.”

“Next week,” Sia said.

“Come by in a few days,” Jilly said into the phone, then hung up.

•  •  •

Sia talked normally to Toad, as if he might respond:

“Toad, would you like tea or coffee?”

“Toad, the newspaper is here. Would you like to look at it?”

“Toad, this is a very funny movie. Have you seen it before?”

And when he slept, she studied him. The webbing between his fingers and toes that seemed to be thickening. And the puckered wound behind each ear.

Dr. Dillar
d was stout, squat, and bald with no neck, short legs, and swollen, truncated arms.

“Bumbling boob,” Sia said, watching him roll out of the car, but he surprised her. He was quite agile, and moved steadily, gracefully even, skimming along the driveway, the sidewalk, and through her front door as if his feet were roller balls and he could simply glide in any direction he liked without a lick of effort.

“Weird,” Jilly said when Sia relayed all this later in the day. “It's like he's battery operated.”

He also smelled as smooth as he moved. Sia expected mothballs or cigarettes but instead picked up a balmy, tropical, mildly pleasing scent as he rolled past her. Even so, there was no way she was going to ascribe greatness to him, which was exactly what he wanted . . . and expected.

“He's just too smooth, too round, too sure of himself,” she told Jilly. “I felt like if I took my eyes off him for a second, he would roll under the couch or into a crack in the floor and disappear like a marble . . . pulling Toad right along with him.”

•  •  •

The worst? He stopped to chat up the reporters on his way in. So much for privacy.

•  •  •

As Dr. Dillard eyeballed Toad, Sia fantasized about (1) shoving him out the door into a bank of sand and (2) jabbing him and his god-awful pomposity in the snout with a hot poker. Instead she forced herself to say, “Dr. Dillard, you remember Toad.”

And then forced herself not to follow through on one of her two fantasies as he said, “Ah, there you are, my friend,” and rolled to Toad's side to set a hand on his shoulder. “The world's greatest mystery.”

Yech. Sia hated him. His boldness. The assumed intimacy. The fat hand on Toad's shoulder. The I-may-be-on-TV-at-any-moment-so-I'd-better-sound-profound-condescending-overly-dramatic tone of voice.

“Thank you, Mrs. Dane,” Dr. Dillard said. “But before I speak to the Silent Man, I'd like to talk to you. I have questions.”

As he yammered on, words began to rain down hard and fast around Sia. As
wither
,
spittle
,
swipe
, and
an
tumbled down, she said, “I think I'll need an umbrella for this.”

“Excuse me?” Dr. Dillard said. “It's not raining.”

Sia didn't answer right away—
bump
,
zipper
,
if
—as she considered how easy it would or wouldn't be to put a bucket near her feet to catch all the stray words.

Dr. Dillard looked at Richard, who held up a finger.

“Odyssia?” Richard said.

“Sorry,” Sia said, ignoring
clip
and
extremely
as they drifted past, “but I'm off-limits, Dr. Dillard. Anything I know or think about Toad or where he came from, Richard can tell you.”

For the first time, Dr. Dillard sputtered, and Sia caught a glimpse of the dull hue beneath his glossy polish. “But . . .”

“I realize you were hoping you'd get two stories for the price of one—my husband and Toad—but that's not going to happen.”

Richard stood and moved to Sia's side.

“I'm not talking to you,” Sia continued, “about Jackson or Toad. I've let you into my home because Richard asked me to, and I've given you access to my houseguest for the same reason.”

“Houseguest?” Dr. Dillard said. “The Silent Man is not a houseguest.”

“Yes,” Sia mimicked his nasally tone, “the Silent Man is.”

Although Sia had pretty much abandoned hope that a psychologist could actually help a person in need, she had a certain amount of respect for the fact that they tried. Crawling to the edge of someone's bubbling broth and leaping in . . . that was brave. Hopeless in many cases, but brave.

But Dr. Dillard? He was a different species of psychologist. A walking ego. An in-it-for-myself guy who wanted the glory of God. His mantra: You are healed! And though Sia dreaded leaving Toad in the rump-roast hands of this man who touted himself—on his own website—as a genius at unfolding the layers of the human psyche, she had no choice.

“I'm here,” Richard said as she packed up her laptop. “I won't let anything happen to Toad while you're gone. Nothing will change.”

Sia nodded and left Gumper behind. “Watch him,” she said, giving Gump a rub on the head. “Don't let him out of your sight.”

•  •  •

“Read this,” Jilly said, and she typed a web address into Sia's laptop.

The coffee shop was buzzing with people wanting more information about Toad, hovering and lingering like bees on the brightest flower. But Sia sat with her back to them. Arms crossed.

“What is it?”

“Just read.”

Sia glanced at the clock. 11:05
A.M.
She looked at the screen.

It was a short article, no more than a few sentences, about a man who had gone missing in Italy three months before. There was no photo, just a family's plea and a brief physical description: tall, lean, sandy hair, unusually handsome. He'd been drinking with friends at a party. There'd been a fight over a car. No one had ever seen him again. His name was Marco Duchella.

“Marco Duchella,” Sia said.

“The name fits him,” Jilly said. “And the description.”

“Yes,” Sia conceded, “but not the way he disappeared. Can you imagine Toad drunk or in a street brawl?”

“No, not the way we know him, but he probably wasn't always this way . . . this silent.”

Sia nodded. This was the first real possibility, and the fish seemed to grow as she considered it. She could feel its tail scratching at the base of her esophagus. She closed the laptop.

“What do you think?” Jilly asked.

“It's possible, I guess.”

“So? What next?”

“I'm going to write to Marco Duchella's mother. I'll call the newspaper in Italy for her address.”

“Just send an e-mail.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It's too personal for e-mail. I'll send the letter express. It will get there fast enough.”

Jilly chugged the rest of her coffee and looked at the herd of people near the door hungering for some tidbit of new information they could work over during lunch. She stuck out her tongue at them and they scattered like startled ants.

“Sia?” she said, and her voice took on that
warning! warning!
tone that drove Sia nuts.

“Yes, Jilly?”

“You do remember that you haven't written a word since Jackson disappeared. You haven't even written a grocery list.”

“Not true,” Sia said. “I wrote a list about Toad a few days ago and signed my name in three books.”

“Yes, both are excellent steps in the right direction, but neither is much precedent for an entire letter.”

“Well, this is something I have to do, so I'll do it.”

“You're going to write?”

“A letter, yes.”

“Okay. I assume you're going to tell Richard that you're doing it?”

Sia paused. “No, I'm not,” she said. “There's almost no chance that Toad is Marco”—she opened her laptop and glanced at the computer screen—“Duchella from Italy. If it gets out that there's a possible lead, the press will go even crazier. I'll have five hundred reporters at my doorstep instead of fifty.”

“You think Richard is going to leak a story to the press?”

“No, but things happen. Look at the gill fiasco with Dr. Gupta.”

“Mm-hm.”

Sia's story sounded good—lots of bravado—but what she was really saying—and what Jilly knew she was really saying—was that sitting down to write anything, especially a letter about a missing man, was going to be excruciating and that if anyone knew she was going to try—after all this time—she was almost sure she wouldn't be able to do it.

“Bottom line?” Sia said. “I've got more than enough on my hands now. So you, my lovely fat-mouthed friend, please keep your trap shut.”

“I can keep a secret,” Jilly said.

Sia smirked and raised her eyebrows.

“I can. You watch.”

•  •  •

One word at a time, Sia told herself, taking a pen and paper from her bag.

As she scratched
Dear
onto the page, it was like a gazillion bees were stinging the tips of her fingers.

Family
, she added.

Sting.

She looked at the name on the website again.

Duchella
, she wrote.

Sting. Sting.

But she kept going, trying to ignore the fluttering of words in her head.

“It's like a party in there,” Jackson would have said.

•  •  •

“You know,” Jilly said, “you don't have to tell them everything.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Why?

“Because.”

•  •  •

Four very painful hours later . . .

Dear Family Duchella,

My name is Odyssia Dane, and I'm writing to you from a small town in Massachusetts on the East Coast of the United States, many miles from where you live. Recently I found a man on the beach near my house, and though I've been known to make surprising discoveries on this beach, finding a man is a first, even for me. Thankfully, he seems pretty healthy, and although he had some cuts and bruises when I found him, he is beginning to heal nicely.

This man eats well, very well, but he doesn't speak. At all. I don't know if he spoke in his previous life, but since I found him, he hasn't uttered a single word. He didn't have any identification on him, and I don't know if he knows who he is or where he came from. I only know that he is sad and silent, and I assume it was something terrible that caused him to land in this state on the beach. I'm trying to help him get home. I call him Toad.

Since I learned of your missing son, I've been hoping that the man I found on my beach is the man missing from your life. I know how hard it is to lose someone you love.

Over a year ago, my own husband disappeared. His name is Jackson. He went out for coffee one morning and there's been no sign of him since. None. He never made it to the coffee shop, and Mrs. Windwill, the busybody in town who sees everything, didn't see a thing.

Sometimes at night, I lie in bed and try to move into Jackson's present. Though I can't help but imagine him dead, I pray he's not. The police have insinuated that he ran away, that he left me, that I didn't know the truth about my husband, but that is impossible. I was my husband's truth.

So I try to imagine he is someplace beautiful with many trees. He was a park ranger and if he doesn't have trees, he doesn't function very well. I'm quite sure that wherever he is, there are trees. There are also many animals, because he feels the same way about animals that he does trees. He especially loves bears, black bears and grizzlies, although the latter scare me to death. That is, he used to tell me, exactly why I love them. Every time he went off to hike in Alaska or Montana, I worried until I heard from him. He said I was silly. I didn't care. I worried anyway.

It would have made much more sense for Jackson to disappear while hiking. Then I'm quite sure we would have found his body, mauled and devoured by one of the animals he loved so much, and after a time, that would have been okay with me. That would have made sense.

As it is, he simply vanished. Since that day, there hasn't been one sign of my husband. No movement in his checking account. Nothing missing from his personal items. And though some of the authorities would like me to think he planned this, I don't; if he had, he would have taken the photo of his parents and brothers from the dresser. He wouldn't have gone anywhere without that.

But all of this is side matter, isn't it?

I don't know if Toad is your son, but I have enclosed a few photographs to help you figure that out.

Sincerely,
Odyssia Dane

•  •  •

“Stilted,” Sia said, “but done.”

•  •  •

“You okay?” Slow-Pour Sally asked.

The Dogcatcher jumped. Then bumped her head against the brick windowsill.

“If you're thirsty,” Sally said, “I can get you something to drink.”

The Dogcatcher crept from behind the line of garbage cans that had protected her. Through the window of Starbucks, she saw Sia stand and fold her newly written letter in thirds.

“A macchiato maybe?”

Scritch. Scratch.

“How about a mocha frappuccino? The ladies love them.”

Itch. Itch.

The Dogcatcher skittered away from the window and headed toward the riverfront.

“It's not a problem,” Sally called after her. “I make a great latte. On the house.”

“The Merrimack. The Merrimack. The mighty, mighty Merrimack,” the Dogcatcher chanted.