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Mom cries me a river and hugs me tighter than she ever has, kissing me a thousand times. She fusses over my bruises, my scars, and my broken ribs, which I insist are feeling much better. She looks years older, and I know it’s all my fault. I hold her for a while and let her cry, kissing the top of her head and reminding her that I’m okay, it’s okay, and I’m so damn sorry for putting her through hell. Dad cries too. He hugs me, slaps my shoulder, and welcomes me home.
Jack, on the other hand, can’t stop grinning, laughing, rambling about the island and Orca and how good it is to have me back, and I look like hell, did I know that? I shove him, he shoves me, and Mom tells us to stop, don’t get so close to the edge of the dock, like we’re still children.
While they head home in Dad’s truck, Jack shows me the remains of my poor Beaver, which the coast guard transported to my hangar last week.
I run my hand over the white-and-blue fuselage as I examine the damage. “She’s gonna need a lot of work before I can get her flying again.”
“Well,” Jack says, “if anyone can do it, you can.”
I smack his shoulder and nod to the door. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
As soon as we get back to the house, Mom tells me I have a doctor’s appointment in thirty minutes. Jack whines about how I “just got home,” but Mom is already putting her shoes back on. I shrug and remind my brother, “She’s the boss,” following her out the door again.
The doctor tells me what I already know: two broken ribs that are on the mend, one sprained ankle, which is also on the mend, and countless bruises and scratches that won’t even leave scars. The cut on my face is what bothers Mom the most—she winces every time she looks at it, despite how many times I tell her It doesn’t hurt.
By the time we get back home, it’s late. Mom starts dinner while I bring my stuff to my and Jack’s room. I find him lying on his bed, listening to his vinyl of Dark Side of the Moon, which is spinning on the record player.
Nothing has changed.
Yet everything has changed.
I stretch out on my bed, shutting my eyes and breathing in the smell of home. “God, I feel like I’ve been gone for a year.”
“Felt that way to me, too,” Jack says, glancing over at me. “Orca seemed sad to see you leave.”
His words take me back to the beach this morning—the feeling of her in my arms for the last time. Her tears shimmering in the sunlight.
“Yeah.” I sigh.
“Were you sad to leave?”
“No. Not sad, exactly. I was… I don’t know. It was complicated.”
“What do you mean?”
I reel in a deep breath, rubbing my forehead. “Her father talked to me before we left. He basically told me never to contact Orca again. That she doesn’t have dealings with the outside world… or people in that world.”
“Christ,” Jack scoffs, sitting upright, irritation flashing in his eyes. “I hope you told him no frickin’ way.”
“No. I told him that I understood, and I—”
“What the—”
“And I respect his wishes.”
“His wishes?” Jack scrunches his face in disgust. “He ‘wishes’ Orca to never have a life, for crying out loud. He ‘wishes’ to keep her prisoner on that dumb island. You respect that?”
I have a thousand arguments for this, but I’m too tired to fight with Jack about it. He doesn’t see the whole picture as I see it, and I’m not convinced that a rhetorical monologue would change his perspective. So instead, I shrug and state the most obvious fact: “She’s his daughter.”
“Yeah, I know,” Jack grumbles, flopping back on the bed. “But did you see the way he came up and was like, ‘Oh, gotta say goodbye, Jack’s plane’s floating away’ or whatever—”
“He didn’t say it was floating away; he said the tide was going out.”
“Whatever. He didn’t want me talking to her. He was, like, all weird and paranoid about it.”
“I think he just didn’t want my plane to get stuck on the beach.”
Jack sighs. “Whatever. I only got to talk to her for, like, five minutes. And now she doesn’t even have a phone, which means I can’t call her anymore, and… I miss her, okay?”
