Page 8 of State of Ruin

“I know,” I tell her, tucking a strand of her dark hair behind her ear. “We’re gonna go shortly, I promise. But let’s just sit here for a while first so your mom and I can enjoy looking at the water, okay? Then she can watch you while I walk Jambon.”

She nods, her little rosebud mouth in the same sulky pout that her mom perfected when we were young. She knows the score, knows the dog’s not allowed in the playground. But she won’t go down without a fight.

“You wanna throw his ball for him?” I ask, fishing around in my bag with my free hand.

“It’s gross.”

“It’s not. I washed it. Here you go.”

I hand her the red rubber ball, pocked with teeth marks, and she sighs as she takes it. I unleash Jambon and give his fur a galvanizing rub. “Come on, boy. Go play ball with Fleur.”

“Go on,” Sylvie tells him, giving him one last scratch behind the ears. He raises his snout from her lap with a baleful look before backing out as if from a parking space and heading toward Fleur.

“Catch this, Jambon!” my niece calls as she lobs the ball down the sidewalk that separates this grassy area from the water. It flies past the dog, and I’m pretty sure he mentally curses her before he turns and lumbers after it. He’s getting so old, and it kills me every time I notice it, even if he’s moving more easily since we started him on arthritis meds.

We’re not entirely sure how old Jambon is, given as he’s a rescue dog, but we’ve had him for nine years. The vet estimated his age at around three when he wandered into Dad’s repair shop, looking for—and instantly finding—someone to love him. He’s as much of a mutt as they come, with gangly legs, oversized paws, and fur that’s a few shades duller than golden and stays scruffy-looking no matter how much we brush him.

And his name? Jambon is French for ham, which is a specialty of the original Bayonne in France’s Basque district. Our mom emigrated from there when she was twenty to try her luck in the Big Apple. She couldn’t believe it when she found her hometown’s namesake right across the bay, even if the similarities between the two places begin and end with their proximity to the ocean and the lines of brightly colored houses that grace their waterfronts.

“Total energy mismatch,” my sister observes as Jambon reluctantly closes the distance to the ball.

I snicker, taking a seat on the bench I’ve parked her next to. “We should be throwing the ball for her, not him.”

“They’d both be a lot happier in that scenario.”

“Poor old man.”

“Yeah,” she says quietly. We stare out at the expanse of water. Between the enormous container ships stacked high with multicolored boxes, and the tankers, and the assist tugs, the Kill van Kull is a hard sheet of sunlit glare, the sun itself nudging closer to the Bayonne Bridge to our right. Relaxing it is not: the long honks and the low roar of the ships’ engines jostle with the noises of locals enjoying the park. From somewhere behind us, a radio plays tinny jazz, but it’s better than the boomboxes that will show up later.

But this park holds serious memories for all of us, bittersweet memories that far outdate the shiny new playground that was installed a few years back. The brackish smell of diesel and salt water is in our bones, and I truly believe it’s good for Sylvie to come here. It’s good to be around other people, to sit and observe folks going about their daily lives, and it’s also good to make new memories. Tragedies happen, but they don’t rob us of our future.

We sit in silence for a few moments as Fleur and Jambon play catch with vastly different levels of enthusiasm. My niece is young for her school year—she won’t turn six until June—and I can’t believe she’s already in kindergarten. She’s petite like me and Sylvie, like Maman was, and the dance genes are strong, even if Fleur is more into street than ballet. Sylvie was the only one who ever showed an ounce of interest in Maman’s field, but ballet for her was never anything more than a hobby.

I guess that’s a good thing.

The air is smelly today in the way it always is when hot weather meets low tide. Still, I needed this—needed to be somewhere that isn’t the house or the hospital or Walmart. And I definitely needed to be someplace whose only view is across to Staten Island. In a couple of hours, I’ll make the journey over to Manhattan, but I don’t even want to think about it right now. I don’t want to think about a concrete jungle where a certain billionaire playboy wants to do unimaginable things to me in a certain upscale sex club. I want to sit here and watch my niece put our dog through boot camp and pretend none of the other stuff exists.

“You okay?” Sylvie asks me out of nowhere.

I jerk and turn to her. She’s only a year older than me, but her face is gaunt. I seriously need to get her outdoors more often. We both inherited Maman’s dark hair and pale skin, but there’s paleness and then there’s pallor, and my sister definitely has the latter. Not that I blame her. Having relentless Eldest Daughter syndrome is hard enough without having to let your family help you in all manner of frustrating, humiliating ways.

“I’m fine,” I say a little too quickly. “Why?”

Her eyes, dark brown like mine, narrow. “You’re very quiet.”

I’m about to tell a partial lie and say I’m just tired, but I stop myself. She knows I’m tired. She knows we’re all pushing ourselves too hard at the moment. I’m not about to pile any more guilt on her.

“I was just soaking up our surroundings,” I say instead with a smile.

“It smells like shit and moldy garbage.”

I inhale dramatically. “Mmm. So wholesome.”

“How’s work going?” she asks. “Any interesting gigs?”

My smile drops and I sit up straight. “What?”

She stares at me. “What has you so jumpy today? I meant modeling gigs.”