The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton

Author:Lily Brooks-Dalton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2022-12-06T00:00:00+00:00

Kirby drives to the Edge. He never crosses the causeway anymore unless it’s for work, but today he wants to look the ocean in the face. When he gets there, though, he can’t bring himself to get out of the truck. He feels set apart behind his windshield; not safe exactly, just—other. The saltiness of the air slips in through the vents, even though the windows are closed. The tide creeps forward. Soon it will lap at his tires. Just because there is glass between him and the Edge doesn’t mean it won’t swallow him whole. He realizes now that this idea of being separate isn’t real.

All these years, he’s known, but now he knows in a different way. He thought he was prepared, standing knee-deep in the surf, watching the wave approach, watching it get closer and closer, seeing the white of its crest, legs braced, leaning in, and then it knocked him off his feet anyway. Just like when Frida and Flip died: the sudden smack of it hitting him and then the long, deep, dark churn of being inside it. He finally gets out of his truck and lets the water touch his boots. This is the truth.

When he gets home, Lucas and Wanda are waiting for him. He’s exhausted. His body, so accustomed to physical labor, doesn’t know what to do with this churn of emotion. His heart aches as if it’s a muscle he’s worked too hard. His children sit at the kitchen table, smiling at him. Greeting him. He wonders how to tell them, or when. But he sees now that his children have something they want to tell him. Something that delights them. He cannot rob them of whatever this is. Not yet.

Lucas offers a few sheets of creased paper to Kirby with a sort of yearning he hasn’t seen on his son’s face in a long time. It reminds him of when he felt like he could protect his children from all this…a morning he hasn’t allowed himself to think about for many years. Putting up the hurricane plywood on the windows with his boys. On the ladder. In the rain. He remembers how excited they were to help. How eager. How grateful to be near their father, to have his attention in that dark, damp hour before dawn.

He takes the papers.

“Dad,” Lucas says.

Kirby looks down at what Lucas has given him, and it takes him a few minutes to realize they are acceptance letters. To colleges. We are delighted to inform you. Three of them: Georgia Tech, Michigan, UC Berkeley. Lucas waits for him to say something, but Kirby doesn’t have the words he needs for this moment. He looks at his son, his mouth empty of sound, still searching for the right shapes. Words never did come easy.

The letters fall from his hands and he pulls Lucas toward him, cupping the back of his head, holding him as he did all those years ago when he was small. His son

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