Ocean (Damage Control 5)

“She has no health coverage. My old man should be on top of this, but isn’t, and she’s not enrolled. It could take ages before she’s approved. And there’s no money. And I fucking can’t—”

“It’s okay,” I say automatically, because what can you say in the face of that? Even without knowing the cost I can tell it has to be huge. “Somehow it’ll be okay.”

He’s squeezing the hell out of my hand, and I’m seriously considering pulling to the shoulder to continue with this discussion, when he releases me.

“Here,” he says, “take this exit.”

So I do and we roll off the highway, down a narrow road between darkening fields and isolated houses.

“Will you wait for me?” he asks as I pull into an overgrown, muddy field that apparently serves as a parking lot. “I won’t be long.”

“You don’t want to stay and visit?”

“I don’t want you getting lost around here in the dark,” he says and I wonder why.

“Just tell me one more thing.” I lick my lips, not sure why I feel so nervous asking him this. “Why did you say you were going to leave? Where were you planning on going, and why did you change your mind?”

Night is seeping through the windows of the car. Lights flicker outside, in the trailer park, low and uncertain, like fireflies.

“I was going to leave,” he says on a sigh, “to save my mom. I put aside some money. I was gonna take my mom away from my bastard father and take her someplace where a doctor could see her and help her. But now she’s sicker than ever and the doctor is here, so I’m staying.”

He looks into my eyes, and there it is again, that flicker of hope. It’s like a question, and I don’t know what to answer.

He turns away before I figure it out. It isn’t until he’s climbed out of my car and is heading toward the cluster of trailers in the distance that I realize he hasn’t mentioned the other topic I wanted him to explain.

That he caused a child to die. Whatever that means.

But he’s already give me more than I hoped for. He said he was sorry, and opened up about his mom’s sickness, and the financial issues. No wonder he’s so distracted and moody.

I stare at the lit-up trailers and a small grove of scraggly trees, and blink slowly. This is where he grew up. His parents live here. This is Ocean’s world.

Without a second thought, I get out of the car and follow him.

***

People openly stare at me as I walk past their trailers. A woman is watering a small herbal garden in tin pots, her hair in a pile atop her head, her apron bright red. A little terrier yips at me and dances in my feet until I move past the trailer he guards, a dull gray one with shuttered windows.

Ocean’s tall figure vanishes between trailers, and I hurry up, not to lose him from sight. It’s already done, though, and the stares of the people turn oppressive and a little bit scary.

I shove my hand in the pocket of my jacket and palm my cell phone. I’m okay. If I get lost or a rabid dog attacks me, I can call him. The trailer park isn’t very big. Surely he’ll find me quickly if it’s a matter of life-or-death-by-mutt.

I skulk along more trailers, starting at every sound and bark. More dogs. I didn’t even know I was afraid of dogs. Maybe I’m only afraid of dogs in dark, unfamiliar trailer parks in the middle of nowhere.

Turning the way I saw Ocean turn, I find myself hurrying between two blue trailers. A curtain twitches at a lit window as I make my way past. Someone’s sitting on a porch further down, on a creaking rocking chair.

“See, that’s how it is, Blue,” the man on the rocking chair says in the raspy voice of a chain-smoker, talking to a tall figure standing in front of him. “We all head for the grave, sooner or later.

“She’s not gonna die. I’ll look after her.”

Ocean. The tall figure is Ocean.

“The doctor didn’t seem happy with the results,” the raspy-voiced man says, his form a dark silhouette against the light of the porch. “Only so much you can do, Blue.”

He keeps calling him Blue. And Ocean doesn’t correct him, not about that. He just gives a jerky nod and lurches away.

Huh.

My mind churning, I follow him. The guy in the rocking chair hisses at me like a snake as I walk past, startling me so badly I almost fall on my face.