Wouldn't you know it. You're on a charter fishing boat with your two uncles and their kids. The boat cuts through waves, bouncing you in your seat. You grip the bench, terrified of falling overboard. You didn't want to come here, but Grandpa made you. It was Uncle Brian's idea to bring you fishing as an early thirteenth birthday present; he and grandpa said it would be good for you to hang out with your cousins. You hate the ocean, hate boats, and your cousins are seventeen, eighteen, and twenty. Think they want to hang out with a twelve-year-old?

Grandpa, who you live with, isn't even here because of his knees. You live with Grandpa because your parents are gone. He's Mom's dad, and these are her brothers—Mom is dead. No one from Dad's side of the family talks to you. No one has heard from Dad in almost two years.

As you touch the cross necklace that Dad gave you for your First Communion, the boat slows, and the captain yells something. The mate preps and casts two fishing rods.

"Who's up first?" he asks.

Everyone turns to you. "How about it, birthday boy?" Uncle Mitch says. "Catch us supper."

You smile for him, stand, stumble as a wave makes the boat list sideways. You fall to your knees rather than risk falling overboard. Carefully, you make your way into the chair next to the rod, slipping into it with relief.

"Are there sharks out here?" you ask the mate.

"Don't worry about that," Uncle Brian says. "Sharks won't eat people once you're a teenager..." He widens his eyes in mock horror. "Oh God, when's your birthday again?"

Everyone laughs, and you know he didn't joke to be mean, but still. You want to get off this goddamn stupid boat.

You wish Dad was here. Even though he's the reason you're scared of the ocean—who shows a six-year-old Jaws?—you know he'd make you feel better. Try to, at least. Like when Jaws ate that kid on the raft and you buried your head in Dad's stomach. He chuckled and apologized and stroked your hair.

"Don't worry, bud," he told you, "I'm here." And you stupidly thought he meant forever. Not just until he relapsed. The grownups talk around his addiction, but you know what they're not saying.

If Dad was here—well, you wouldn't be here at all, because he'd give a shit about what you wanted to do and not make you go fishing all day. But he's not here, and all you know for sure about him is that he hasn't thought about his son for long enough over the past two years to even send a fucking text.

You're wheezing. Trying not to cry.

You look around. Everyone huddles around your cousin as he waggles the rod to entice a fish. Dads and sons. No one notices you. How is it that all the rage and shame and sadness you feel doesn't make any mark on the world?

You yank the necklace Dad gave you—the only thing he gave you—from your neck. You drop it on the deck near a drainage slit in the side, and the sloshing water grabs it and pulls it into the ocean. To hell with any gift he could possibly give you.

For a minute, you stare blankly ahead, let droplets of salty spray evaporate off your skin in the hot sun. You don't feel at peace. You don't really feel anything, but that's the best you can get these days.

The boat rocks, and this time you're not the only one to grab for balance. The captain shouts from above, and while you can't make out his words, you hear fear in his voice.

A massive wave crests behind the boat as something approaches. A fin probably three times your height cuts the water. A shark. A giant killer shark. You knew it.

Everyone backs away, all of you shoving each other to get to the cabin, even though the emerging monster could swallow the boat whole. The dark-gray head appears, water streaming off it, barnacles covering it in swirls and spots like abstract art. It opens its mouth, revealing teeth the size of telephone poles. They part, and you brace yourself to be devoured.

The shark halts. Hanging from the distant tip of a razor-sharp tooth, your necklace.

"Go ahead," you say. "Choke on it."

The shark opens it jaws, a cave appearing. Inside sits a man. Dad.

He stares. Smiles, eyes shiny with tears. He holds out his hands, and you want to go to him so badly, but then you realize that means getting swallowed by a shark, too. So that's where he went. Caught deep, no way out, but isn't it his fault that he got too close in the first place? He could have stayed with you. Why weren't you enough?

You want to tell the shark to choke on Dad, too. You want to leap into its jaws and never let Dad go. You hate him and you love him, and as you let yourself feel both things they start to mix into something that doesn't hurt so bad. Dad's a person, and his imperfection doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. Just because your life broke around you, it doesn't mean you're broken.

You reach out. Your fingers brush the necklace chain, slide it up the tooth. Your family watches in awe as you ease it out of the shark's mouth, as you hold it to Dad, who reaches out his hand to take it back as the jaws ease shut and the shark sinks below the surface.

Excited, panicked conversation erupts around you. Not a word of it is about Dad. Did anyone else even see him? Are you the only one who knows where he's gone? Knows you can finally, truly start to move on?

Maybe Dad managed to give you something after all.

© 2024 Timothy Mudie