His Illegal Self

21

There was no kitty. The ground dropped away below them, and there, in the broken shadows amid the speckled light that gave the forest floor a spotted skin, was a fat, stumpy-tailed bird with emerald along its back, turquoise on the shoulders, a red rump, a lovely blue beneath its wings. All its sudden beauty made him sad. He wished that it was dead.

Did I talk to my dad in Seattle, he asked.

She shrugged, exhausted.

I didn’t, he said. I never saw my dad. What do you mean that he won’t come here?

Throughout all this, the bird was part of some dumb dream. It picked up a snail shell and hit it against a rock. For a moment a beam of sunlight got it. A minute later it was gone, swallowed by the wild lantana.

Where was my dad?

On the lawn, with the hose.

That was my dad? No.

As they came out of the rain forest, the boy did not know what he felt. He saw Adam arrive on foot. He was a loser. He had a wad of money, too bright to be worth anything.

That was my dad? With the hose?

The mother would not answer. He saw how she looked around the land as if she had just woken up. She rubbed her sweaty nose with the back of her hand, squinting up the hill behind the dark huts where the sun caught the wild trees. Smooth trunks burst out of the shadow, waxy white, at the same time shining green, and it was absolutely clear, even to a boy, that the mother could not take care of him. She had no idea of where she was or what she’d taken on.