The Sea of Light by Jenifer Levin Read Free Book Online

flicked his thumb against Roberto’s ear. A painful snap.
    *
    Faint pools of light glow against the base of the stairs. Plastic crackles, the refrigerator door booms shut.
    At the kitchen table Jack’s piling tuna fish on slabs of bread. Chocolate-chip cookies are heaped in the bowl before him. Standing there, he sways slightly like a bear on scent, sucks mayonnaise from a fork and blinks in surprise.
    I wave, “Hungry?”
    “Yeah. Want some?”
    “No thanks.”
    My son’s face is changing. A serious, handsome face, ridged by black curling hair and thick brows. He’s begun to shave sometimes. And at sixteen he’s as tall, now, as Babe. But while she’s taken after my side of the family and is naturally muscular, solidly built, Jack has taken after Barbara’s and is slender, all legs and elbows, big feet planted firmly on the ground.
    Hot breeze comes through the screens. He gives me his look of pity, the one that says: You’ve been pretty jumpy lately, old man.
    It’s true. Up at night a lot, dreamy-eyed and far away from them all at breakfast.
    “Any idea where your sister went?”
    I try to make this sound casual. Watching the wary expression that lights his eyes, I know I’ve failed.
    “Babe?”
    “On second thought, I’ll take one of those cookies. You didn’t hear her go out this morning, did you?”
    “Here.” Jack straddles a chair, shoves the bowl across the table. I sit too.
    “Did you?”
    “Nah.” I know he’s in on whatever the plot is, covering for her. But he smiles openly, shamelessly. “What’s the matter, Dad, couldn’t sleep? You want some of this sandwich?”
    “Not really.”
    “Well, you ought to try and turn in. I’ll bet she gets back soon.”
    From where? I ask silently. He acknowledges it silently, too, covers up by munching bread crumbs through his grin. A good boy, Jack, good soldier in the war between generations. We sit and I watch him eat for a while. Then I must admit defeat, cuff him gently on the shoulder and turn to go upstairs, saying You get some sleep too, señor.
    But the clock doesn’t leave me alone. I listen. Soft wooden ticking. Twelve forty-five. Water runs in the bathroom, the sink, toilet, fluorescent shafts stripe the hallway carpet then disappear. At the door to the master bedroom the nerves seize me again, invisible insects crawl around the inner walls of my stomach and no, no, I can’t go in there just yet.
    *
    They said You must expect some emotional problems, Mr. Delgado. Any survivor of a disaster like this is bound to suffer psychologically. A certain amount of anger is not unusual. Yes, and a great deal of suppressed pain. We call it a post-traumatic disorder. It precedes the period of mourning.
    I wanted to ask many question then. How long would it last, this disorder? And what can it possibly mean to mourn when there are no tangible symbols left to speak of your loss—no coffins, no urns of ash, nothing to mark the extent of grief, to ritualize it—no powerful healing words to chant to yourself?
    In the hospital room those first few days her eyes were swollen shut, big, like the scarred halves of ruined Ping-Pong balls. I wanted to cry. To pluck out my own eyes and give them to her. I sat in waiting rooms wishing more than anything else that I could trade places with my child. It would have been so much easier.
    * * *
    To sacrifice.
    What Tia Corazón said when, as a final act, I brought Babe there. Telling Barbara I was taking her to a highly regarded nutritionist in Florida. Because she would eat nothing at first, starved herself down to skin and bone, and the doctors were threatening to put her back on an IV. We had tried everything. Special food supplements, vitamins in megadoses, various foul liquid protein mashes made in blenders. More internists. A hospital social worker. Until, in desperation, I took her to Miami.
    Tia Corazón. Remembering, I can feel myself flush with a kind of shame.
    But who is to say that that, after all, was