Family Night by Maria Flook Page B

him.
    “Poison.”
    “Are you kidding me?”
    “I can’t sit across from her. She gives me these poison looks. Besides, it’s always macaroni and cheese from the freezer.”
    “I like that stuff,” Margaret said.
    Cam told her, “Do you want to go over there and eat macaroni? Go over there right now.”
    She didn’t want to side with Darcy. “I just said, I like macaroni sometimes. I don’t want it now.”
    As his marriage deteriorated, Cam tried to get Darcy involved in some recreational activities. She never learned to balance on the scooter he bought for her, so he purchased a speedboat and rented a space at a marina in Ocean City. One time Cam invited Margaret to go out in the boat with Darcy. Margaret wanted to see exactly what was happening with the two of them and she agreed to come along. Darcy sat in the back, stretched out on the padded boat cushions at the stern. She kept looking up at the sun from under the little awning of her hand as she dotted herself with Sea and Ski, smoothing the cream over her tight belly, over the ledge of her hip, dodging the taut nylon triangle and continuing down her legs. Cam watched Darcy stroke her legs, a few brief swipes. When she noticed him watching, she slowly fingered the instep of her foot with a last drop of lotion. Darcy wasn’t talking. Margaret sat in a swivel chair next to Cam, who stood at the helm, his hand on the throttle.
    The boat was very fast; its bow rose slightly, thenleveled as they accelerated over the water. The hull knocked against the troughs until they sailed too fast to feel the dips and gullies of the waves. At top speed, the surf became a solid, aggressive surface. They crisscrossed and slammed through their own wakes. The sun fell upon her shoulders; it touched her scalp where her hair was parted. Because of the heat, they anchored for a swim in the deep water, and still the sun reached them. She stayed beneath the surface and looked up. The green notches of current created a wall of glass blocks, mortared with foam. She pulled her brother underwater. She gestured toward the surface—did he see this strange roof? It was beautiful, wasn’t it? He misunderstood her, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her up. He climbed back into the boat and turned to help her.
    “Can’t we stay longer?” she asked him. She swam a few feet away from the boat and started treading water.
    “Come on,” Cam said. “It’s time to go. Why do you give me this shit, Margaret? Why are you always being contrary? Always making a contrast?”
    Why was it
she
who was making a contrast? Wasn’t it Darcy? Cam looked back and forth between the two schemers. He wasn’t in the mood for it. Margaret climbed back into the boat; she stood there dripping. Darcy was wrapped in a terry robe; the broad brim of a straw hat fluttered under her hand. Her silence was razor-y.
    “We’re all getting too much sun,” Cam said.
    “We’re having too much
fun?
” Margaret said. Yet, Cam was right. Her skin had burned, and after swimmingshe felt exhausted, dizzy. She sat down near Darcy. The small wedge of cushion wasn’t enough.
    That night, in her bed, she could still feel the movement of the boat. She felt the waves slap the hull and send her back. It was a biological phenomenon having to do with the inner ear, common after sailing small craft in choppy water, but she couldn’t sleep upon those uneven swells. She thought of Darcy, who had not spoken all afternoon. Was she lying beside her brother, Cam, right now, in the same sickening echo of the sea?
    Margaret never advised Cam about Darcy; she never offered sympathy because sympathy infuriated Cam. She listened, letting her eyebrows rise up and down, and this alone, her face shifting through several stages of comprehension, seemed to comfort him. Then, when Margaret became serious about a man, five years her senior, who ran a marijuana trading post, Cam couldn’t keep out of it. He forced her to accompany him to the Penny Hill