At least Donovan is smiling again, so that’s progress.
It does worry me, the coal black of his eyes. The years have hardened him.
And who could blame him? I remember how terrible the kids were to him growing up. But still, he didn’t leave. He stayed here and stuck it out.
I understand the impulse to turn your heart to stone before someone breaks it again.
But, for a minute, we’re kids, playing around the aquarium. I’m baring his teeth, he’s struggling to get away from me, when we hear, “—Dr. Donovan?”
I take my hands away from his face, and we both turn to see a woman behind us. She’s wearing a ripped band shirt and long dangling earrings.
“Hey,” Donovan says, and his smile is genuine. Donovan is a man who reserves his affection only for the deserving, so when he takes her in a light hug, I already know that she’s a good person. He peels back and turns to me, motioning to her. “Kenzi, this is Maria. She lives on the island.”
“I’m a frequent flyer at the hospital,” she says. “Dr. Donovan has saved my life more times than I can count.”
“You’re a good patient,” Donovan says.
“Two years in remission,” she says.
“And counting.”
She motions to a boy who has his nose flat against the glass. “That’s my little monster, Diego. He gets mad when he doesn’t get to come with me to the hospital.” She tightens her hands into little fists, playing the part of a small child. “Oooh, but I want to see Dr. Donovan!”
“He doesn’t say that,” Donovan counters. But he’s smiling.
It’s nice to see Donovan like this. Caring. Compassionate. Kind.
Maybe he doesn’t have a heart of stone, after all.
“Diego!” she calls, and his head snaps toward us. “Come say hi!”
Diego throws his head back and lets out an exaggerated whine before dragging his heels over to the adults.
“My, uh, monster is around here, too—” I don’t have to look far; Otto steps in beside me. I slip my hand to Otto’s back. “This is Otto.”
“Hi,” Otto says.
“Cool helmet,” Diego responds.
“Thanks.”
My little boy sways a little closer to me. He immediately gets shy around other kids—too often, they tease him for his helmet. Diego seems completely unfazed, though; I imagine growing up on an island of sick people must desensitize him to the weird.
“Have you seen the horseshoe crabs yet?” Diego asks, and Otto shakes his head. “They’re sick! C’mon!”
Like that, the boys take off. My heart gets tight in my chest. Has Otto…made a friend?
Maria rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling. “Can’t keep them down, right?”
“Wanna walk with us?” I ask—because my son isn’t the only one who can make friends.
Maria joins our small group as we follow a few feet behind the boys, letting them run amok while we dissolve into easy conversation. She tells me she’s a housekeeper at one of the large hotels on Main Street during the day and a bartender at the Anchor at night. Diego’s father cut and run when her cancer diagnosis became too scary, and we bond over the precarious daily routines of single motherhood.
We walk through the entire aquarium, and when we exit, it spits us out on the docks. They have a couple of impressive old ships tied up to the dock for display, and I notice Otto staring longingly at one of the ships.
I’m not the only one who notices. Donovan asks, “You like the ships, huh?”
“Yeah,” Otto says, his eyes not moving. “They’re pretty cool.”
“You know,” I tell him, “Dr. Donovan has a boat of his own. If you ask nicely, maybe he’ll take you out on it.”
Otto looks at Donovan, wide-eyed. “Can I? Please?”
Donovan grins. “Tell you what—when it gets warmer, I’ll do you one better. You can steer it.”
But Otto looks crestfallen. “I might not be here when it gets warmer.”
My heart misses a beat. “What does that mean?” I ask playfully. “You’ve got a trip planned that I don’t know about?”
He scowls at me. “You know.”
That sends shards of ice through my chest. “No,” I say firmly. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” He escapes the conversation and goes racing after Jason, who is testing the strength of one of the ropes with Diego.
Maria steps in line with me and sighs. “It’s not easy, is it?”
“What?”
“Having the hard conversations. Especially as teenagers? Ugh. They don’t want to talk about anything! When my diagnosis got worse…Diego and I had to have some very serious conversations. We used to talk about it as if I might go away one day, you know? Like it was a trip I was taking…and it would be okay.”
Something about this grates me—it feels like a nail file on toenails. Molar-clenching. “We don’t have those conversations,” I say stubbornly.
She shrugs. “Maybe you should. These things…they’re out of our control. It might make him feel better to talk about it—”
“I don’t think I need a lesson on how to parent my child—I’ve been doing pretty well for twelve years, thanks.” I’m in a bad mood. A burned-your-tongue-before-your-favorite-meal bad mood.
To Maria’s credit, she smiles. “Each to his own,” she says, and that’s the end of that.
She’s being nice. She’s only trying to help. But my heart feels like one of those lionfish we saw inside—full of spikes. I try to compromise with “Sorry. I’m just a little on edge—”
“Hey,” Maria says, and she puts her hand on my arm. “You don’t need to apologize to anyone. Okay? It’s okay.”
She squeezes my arm, and I feel like I can breathe again.
