The Sea of Lost Girls by Carol Goodman

Author:Carol Goodman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-12-16T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

I had sometimes imagined how I would tell Rudy the truth about his father. It would happen at some mythical time when I sensed he was ready. Flush from a victory in ice hockey, perhaps, or after a day at the beach. Driving home we’d pick up donuts and hot chocolate and park at the scenic overlook above the bay. We’d both be looking straight ahead at the water so it would be easier to begin. I’d start by telling him the story of the Ice Virgin.

I’ve heard that one, Mom, he’d say.

But did you know, I’d counter, that it was your father’s favorite story? I would tell him that his father was an English teacher, that he was smart and handsome and that I fell in love with him at a vulnerable time in my life. I wouldn’t make excuses for the decisions I made. We’re all responsible for our actions, I’d say. Or as you kids put it, you got to own your own shit. I’d imagined that would earn me a smile.

Then I’d tell him that the reason “The Ice Virgin” was Luther’s favorite story was that the hero’s heart was frozen by his childhood encounter with the Ice Virgin. I don’t know what happened to your father—he never spoke of his childhood—but I think something damaged him. Something left him with a frozen heart and he loved that story because it offered a cure. Rudy would be still and quiet, the way he was when we stood in front of those glass cases in the Museum of Natural History, and I would tell my story to our reflections in the car windshield.

I think that Luther believed that love could thaw the frozen part of him, and it did for a while. When he saw a vulnerable girl he could shelter, when he held his newborn son in his arms, I think his heart thawed. I think he loved us both very much but he needed us to reflect back the picture of himself he had created. I had to be the grateful girl he had saved. You had to be the perfect son who was one with nature, untarnished by civilization because he was raising you in the forest. He thought you should be able to swim the moment he threw you in water and climb trees when he told you to.

I’d push up his sleeve—for once he would let me—and show him the scar from when he fell from the tree. I’d push up my own sleeve and show him the burn mark from the hot fire poker. “He never meant to hurt us,” I’d say, “but his anger made him strike out.”

In no version of my story did I ever imagine that I would tell him that he had struck Luther to save me.

But that’s the world I’m living in now. Of all the horrors of the last hour, that comes to me now as the worst. I kneel on the floor, sweeping up dirt and broken roots and petals as if I could fix what’s broken by picking up the pieces.

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