Duma Key

"Still here," I said. And with dark red half-moons in the palms of my hands, from clenching my fists.

There was a long pause. The phone lines no longer hiss and crackle as they did when I was a kid, but I could hear all the miles sighing gently between us. It sounded like the Gulf when the tide is out. Then she said, "I'm sorry things turned out this way."

"I am, too," I said, and when she hung up, I picked up one of my bigger shells and came very close to heaving it through the screen of the TV. Instead, I limped across the room, opened the door, and chucked it across the deserted road. I didn't hate Pam - not really - but I seemed to still hate something. Maybe that other life.

Maybe only myself.

vii

ifsogirl88 to EFree19

9:05 AM

December 23

Dear Daddy, The docs aren't saying a lot but I'm not getting a real good vibe about Grampy's surgery. Of course that might only be Mom, she goes in to visit Grampa every day, takes Nana and tries to stay "upbeat" but you know how she is, not the silver lining type. I want to come down there and see you. I checked the flights and can get one to Sarasota on the 26th. It gets in at 6:15 PM your time. I could stay 2 or 3 days. Please say yes! Also I could bring my prezzies instead of mailing them. Love...

Ilse

P.S. I have some special news.

Did I think about it, or only consult the ticking of instinct? I can't remember. Maybe it was neither. Maybe the only thing that mattered was that I wanted to see her. In any case, I replied almost at once.

EFree19 to ifsogirl88

9:17 AM

December 23

Ilse: Come ahead! Finalize your arrangements and I'll meet you with Jack Cantori, who happens to be my own Christmas Elf. I hope you will like my house, which I call Big Pink. One thing:

do not do this w/o your mother's knowledge approval. We have been through some bad times, as you well know. I am hoping those bad times are now in the past. I think you understand.

Dad

Her own reply was just as quick. She must have been waiting.

ifsogirl88 to EFree19

9:23 AM

December 23

Already cleared it w/ Mom, she says okay.

Tried to talk Lin into it, but she'd rather stay here before flying back to France. Don't hold it against her.

Ilse

PS: Yippee! I'm excited!! PRIVATE "TYPE=PICT;ALT=emoticon"

Don't hold it against her. It seemed that my If-So-Girl had been saying that about her older sister ever since she could talk. Lin doesn't want to go on the weenie roast because she doesn't like hot dogs... but don't hold it against her. Lin can't wear that kind of sneakers because none of the kids in her class wear hightops anymore... so don't hold it against her. Lin wants Ryan's Dad to take them to the prom... but don't hold it against her. And you know the bad part? I never did. I could have told Linnie that preferring Ilse was like growing up lefthanded - something over which I had no control - and that would only have made it worse, even though it was the truth. Maybe especially because it was the truth.

viii

Ilse coming to Duma Key, to Big Pink. Yippee, she was excited, and yippee, I was, too. Jack had found me a stout lady named Juanita to clean twice a week, and I had her make up the guest bedroom. I also asked her if she'd bring some fresh flowers the day after Christmas. Smiling, she suggested something that sounded like creamus cackus. My brain, by then quite comfortable with the fine art of cross-connection, was stopped by this for no more than five seconds; I told Juanita I was sure Ilse would love a Christmas cactus.

On Christmas Eve I found myself re-reading Ilse's original e-mail. The sun was westering, beating a long and brilliant track across the water, but it was still at least two hours to sundown, and I was sitting in the Florida room. The tide was high. Beneath me, the deep drifts of shell shifted and grated, making that sound that was so like breath or hoarse confidential speaking. I ran my thumb over the postscript - I have some special news - and my right arm, the one that was no longer there, began to tingle. The location of that tingle was clearly, almost exquisitely, defined. It began in the fold of the elbow and spiraled to an end on the outside of the wrist. It deepened to an itch I longed to reach over and scratch.

I closed my eyes and snapped the thumb of my right hand against the second finger. There was no sound, but I could feel the snap. I rubbed my arm against my side and could feel the rub. I lowered my right hand, long since burned in the incinerator of a St. Paul hospital, to the arm of my chair and drummed the fingers. No sound, but the sensation was there: skin on wicker. I would have sworn to it in the name of God.

All at once I wanted to draw.