Page 52 of Don't Go
The gift shop was at the end of the hall. Bonnie went in like she had a list. She walked the aisles and came back with a stuffed octopus the size of a basketball, plush, eight arms, and two embroidered eyes, and she held it up to me without a word.
“Walter?” she asked. “Is it Walter the octopus?”
“Yes, Walter,” I replied. “It’s perfect. You know Walter is going to have to ride in the back seat with you.”
“He will? Really?”
I bought Walter, the cephalopod sticker book Bonnie had also acquired in passing, the dolphin keychain she had selected for her teacher, and a sea otter refrigerator magnet for Mrs. Park. Sabrina watched me put my card down without arguing. The argument was for lunch.
At lunch, she insisted.
The fish-and-chips counter was on the harbor with picnic benches and seagulls, and Sabrina ordered three baskets of food, put her card down, and said, “I’m buying lunch, Cross. Don’t make me say it twice.”
“Okay, ma'am.”
“Glad you didn’t even argue. You would’ve lost.”
“I’m picking my battles,” I said, holding my arms up.
“You’re a smart man.” She tipped her chin up at me, satisfied, and went to get napkins.
Bonnie sat across from me, Walter beside her, her sticker book open. She was talking — through bites of fish, through pauses for fries, through the seagull that came too close and got a side-eye for it — and what she was talking about was the jellyfish room.
“Did you know jellyfish don’t have brains?” she asked.
“I didn’t know that,” I replied.
“They have a nervous system. A net. It goes through their whole body.”
“That seems efficient.”
“They have been around for six hundred and fifty million years.”
“Older than the dinosaurs.”
“Older than every dinosaur combined.”
Sabrina was watching her with a softness — eyes still, the storm inside her seemed to quiet for one full minute. The mom-quiet was a version of her I hadn’t seen yet, and I wanted to be allowed to see it again.
She turned her head to me.
“Do you actually eat real food at home, Cross? Or is this a parking-lot transaction we’re witnessing?”
I shrugged. “I order in.”
“Often?”
“Most nights. I’ve got a six-burner stove I’ve used twice.”
“Only twice?”
“Both times for grilled cheese. The other four burners and I have an understanding.”
She tried not to laugh and lost.
“You’re a billionaire.”
I winced. “Don’t.”
