“We don’t know yet,” Mãe said.
Now we were driving on a two-lane road with marshlands and water on either side. I rolled down the window to smell the salt in the breeze. The main town of Tybee Island was touristy, lined with lurid signs and shabby souvenir shops. My mother said it had been different when she summered there as a child. She and my father first met on the beach when they were children. “All of that seems to have happened a million years ago,” she said now.
She turned the car into a small street that dead-ended at the beach and parked the truck. After we got out, she rested her hands on my shoulders. “Remember what I told you,” she said. “He doesn’t look the way you remember him.”
That’s when I began to truly be afraid.
Mãe led me down a gravel path to a house on stilts that faced the beach. I heard the low hiss of the ocean not far away. We climbed a somewhat rickety set of steps that led to a dark green door.
Dashay opened the door, talking into a cell phone—a surprise, since she and my mother had never used one, in my experience. “Okay,” she said. “I get it. Thank you, Dr. Cho. See you soon.” She clicked off the phone and hugged each of us as we came into the house.
I didn’t notice anything in the room, except the absence of my father. “Where is he?”
“He’s in bed.” Dashay gestured to the left. “Wait,” she said, but I was already moving.
The windows of the room were open, and the noise of the ocean was louder now. A figure lay beneath a quilt on the double bed, dark hair against a pillow, face turned toward the wall. Next to the bed, an IV pole held two bags, one of clear fluid, one of red. The red one had a tube attached to it that ran under the quilt.
“Father?” I said.
Behind me, Dashay said, “Did you tell her?” and Mãe said, “Yes.”
“Father?” I walked closer. He didn’t move. I bent over him to see his face, and when I saw it, a wave of vertigo hit me. Someone grabbed me, pulled me backward.
His eyes were half-open, but he didn’t seem to see me. His face looked shrunken, shriveled, the skin tight across the bones. He reminded me of Old Joe, lying stiff and still, getting ready to die.
When Dr. Cho arrived that afternoon, I’d recovered enough to frame a dozen questions. What caused my father’s condition? What were his chances of survival? I practiced the questions on my mother and Dashay, who didn’t have any answers.
Dr. Cho was a tiny woman with long black hair held back by a clip and a serene, oval face. She didn’t mince words. “Severe hemolytic anemia,” she said. “His red blood cells are breaking down faster than his body can replace them. There’s a growing risk of heart failure.”
I said, “Is he going to die?”
“He needs a massive transfusion.” Her voice was crisp. “The sooner we begin, the better his chances.”
Dr. Cho had brought plastic bags of blood with her; as she lifted them out of a portable cooler, they glowed in the afternoon sunlight, their color between maroon and burgundy. She put them in the refrigerator, except for one that she carried into the bedroom.
Mãe, Dashay, and I offered to help, but she said that would come later. We sat at the kitchen table while she worked. There wasn’t a sound in the place except for the ocean.
Suddenly I said, “Is he in pain?”
Mãe and Dashay looked at each other. Dashay said, “We don’t know. He stopped talking days ago, and his thoughts aren’t making much sense.”
We sat silently at the table. Dr. Cho came in after an hour or so and switched on the overhead light. “What, is this a funeral?” she said. “Go take a walk on the beach.”
“How is he?” Mãe’s voice sounded scratchy.
“He’s very sick. You know that. His heart rate isn’t regular, and I’m going to put him on a respirator tomorrow if his breathing doesn’t improve. Now get outside, look at the moon. Then we need to eat some dinner, please.” For a small person, her voice carried enormous authority.
We shuffled out of the room, down the steps, and along the path to a ramp that led to the beach. The darkness and the sounds of the ocean swelled around us. The moon was full that night, but we couldn’t see it because of cloud cover, and I was glad. I let my face lose its stoic expression, and I felt it contort. Grief felt close to rage, that night, and I didn’t want the others to see what I felt.
He can’t die, I thought. He’s a vampire. Vampires don’t die.
That night, I wanted all the myths to be true. And for the first time in my life, I wanted to pray.
The song of my cell phone sounded so inappropriate. I sensed Mãe and Dashay flinch at the sound of Swan Lake.
The last voice I expected to hear was Walker’s. He said he was at home in North Carolina. Then he asked where I was, and I told him. I told him my father was sick, and he said he was sorry. He asked if he could come to help, and when I told him no, he sounded disappointed.
“After break, I’m going to take you on a picnic,” he said.
I couldn’t imagine it. “That sounds nice,” I said.
“We’ll eat strawberries, and I’ll show you the new tricks I’ve learned,” he said. “When are you coming back?”
“I’m not sure yet.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I might not be coming back at all.
He said, “Ari, I can change a stone into a flower.”
Chapter Thirteen
At some point in the middle of that long night, I awoke, not sure where I was. What oriented me were the smell of the ocean and the odor of blood.