Aquarium

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We hurried across Alaskan Way in the snow. End of the day, diffused light, thick traffic crunching along slowly, a few tires with chains, others with studs. Endless migration.

My grandfather able on his feet, maybe younger than he looked. He unlocked the passenger door for me, went around to the driver’s seat. He held the key to the right and nothing happened. Glow plugs, he said. They heat the engine for twenty seconds. Then he turned the key the rest the way and the engine came to life, sounding like a tractor idling. He went out to scrape the windshield and I waited.

I wish we could stay in the aquarium, I said when he returned. He was breathing hard.

Me too.

I’d like to live there. I could have a bed in the hallway and look up at the fish before going to sleep.

I’d want to stay in that upper room with the mola mola, he said, gasping. I’d become a monk and worship with him, looking upward.

He’s called the great ocean sunfish, but I like mola mola better.

Me too, my grandfather said. Mola mola sounds like the name of a god. An easy god.

We drove then, slowly up Yesler, and I didn’t want to say good-bye. I wish you could come to our house, I said.

That would be wonderful. But we have to give your mother time. It was horrible that I left her, and I don’t deserve to be forgiven, but I hope I will be anyway, only because I want to know you and also know her. I want to be there, part of a family. We have only this one life, so we have to hope for forgiveness.

When we arrived at Gatzert in the snow, there was a car at the curb with its lights on, my mother’s car.

Oh no, I said.

It’s okay. This had to happen at some point.

He parked and she stepped out in her blue coveralls, stained with oil. Another mechanic, I suddenly realized, just like him. Her head bare, hair loose and tangled.

I don’t care what she says, I told my grandfather.

Caitlin, go to your mother. It’s okay.

So I opened my door and stepped out with my backpack.

Get in the car, Caitlin, my mother said. She was lit up bright in the headlights and falling snow, hair wild, like some goddess of winter. And as soon as I moved, she stalked over to his car and kicked his door.

Stop, I yelled, but she kicked his door again, hard. He just sat there and watched her.

I ran around the front of his car and tried to stop her, tried to grab her arm, but she pushed me down into the road, my hands and knees wet in slush, and she kept kicking with her steel-toed boot, denting in the side of his car. Dark blue form hunched and maddened.

Stop, Mom. Please stop.

But she was beyond hearing, a thing of rage. She hopped up on his hood and jumped, the metal buckling beneath her. Enormous dents. Then she climbed onto his roof and leapt into the air with her knees high, slamming down with her boots to cave it in. A fury fallen from the sky, no less elemental than that. She was not my mother. She was something else I had never seen. The rage in her more than I ever would have imagined.

My grandfather’s hands on the steering wheel still, looking at me where I crawled in the slush. He wasn’t going to move. She would destroy for as long as she liked. He looked terribly sad, caves for eyes. Wearing his rain jacket and a dark blazer beneath that, and a collared shirt. Always dressed up whenever I saw him. As if he were going to church. Waiting patiently for the service to begin.

She was yelling now as she jumped and pounded. You don’t get to come back, you fucker.

She jumped down to his trunk and slipped. The metal must have been icy. She fell hard onto his back windshield and slid and rolled overboard onto the pavement and slush.

Mom! I yelled.

My grandfather rolled down his window quickly. Sheri? he asked. Are you okay?

But she rose again, unhurt, one side soaked now and darker. She swung her boot high to kick in a taillight. Splintering sound of plastic and glass. Soft explosion of the bulb.

Nice of you to ask, she said. Maybe about nineteen years late. But thank you for thinking of me.

She kicked in the other taillight.

Stop! I screamed.

I hope you love this car, she said. I hope it means something to you, Daddy.

Sheri, I’m sorry.

Save it.

She walked past his open window to the front of the car and kicked at one of his headlights, but it didn’t break.

Fuck, she said. Steel-toed boots. They should be enough.

She kicked again and still it didn’t break.

Fuck this. She went to her open door, and I thought we were leaving, that it was over, but she popped the trunk, walked back to open it, lit up by his headlights, and pulled out the tire iron.

Please, Sheri, he said.

Good, she said. You do care.

I only watched her, same as my grandfather did. Some agreement that this was her right, or at least unstoppable. She swung the iron at his headlight and it exploded and she screamed, no words, just a primal yell, and she shattered the other headlight, also, then swung with that iron against the body of his car, going down the passenger side, and smashed the passenger window. He put up a hand to shield himself from flying glass, but otherwise he didn’t move. He only waited as she caved in the next window, a great crash in that twilight and no neighbors interested, no security from the school, only the three of us left alone in the snow as she moved on to his rear window and smashed into it from both sides.

She was breathing hard, rested for a moment against his car, her arms and the tire iron on the roof.

I’m so sorry, Sheri, he said. If I could go back in time, I would. But I can help you now. I have a little bit of money, I have a house. I can be there for Caitlin and you, both of you. You can move in if you want, stop paying rent. I can watch Caitlin in the evenings so you have your freedom.

My mother stepped back and stood there with the tire iron hanging. I thought she was going to swing at him, but she smiled. That’s what you think? That we’ll form a happy family now? You trade the dying wife for the granddaughter and all is made well, just in time for Christmas?

She swung fast, and he lunged to his side just in time. The iron smashed the part of his window not rolled down. And you think you can use my daughter against me?

I’m sorry, he said. He was crying now, the most awful lonely sobs.

Mom, I begged.

No. You don’t get to do this. She swung at his windshield, yelling with the effort, pocking holes in it, the surface jeweled in the streetlights, caving in. She yelled until the glass was destroyed and she was hitting the dashboard and steering wheel. My grandfather lying across the bench seat, invisible to me, sound only of his voice, utterly lost.

Let me tell you what’s going to happen, my mother said, breathing hard. You’re going to leave us alone or I will hurt you. You don’t see Caitlin ever again. I will hurt you. And you live in your house with your money and you die alone. No one will be there and no one will care. You will rot in that house until the smell brings your neighbors, and then they stick you in a hole and no one is there and no one ever visits. And that’s it. That’s all you get.

She bashed his side mirror until it broke off and hit the pavement. Have a nice drive home.

My mother tossed her tire iron in the trunk then and slammed it shut. Caitlin, she said. Get in now.

I walked past but he didn’t see me, still lying across the seat. Dash lights making an aquarium of the interior of his car, pieces of safety glass hanging in bright pebbled waves, light blue, an ocean made brittle somehow and broken, shockwave of sound or something more, sudden and devastating. And what could he do but lie on the bottom and hide?