Benny was gone. Craig was gone. Ed, Frankie, and George were gone. Even Davey was gone. All the parts of the cave that made it home were gone, except for my mother, who was rusted and sat askew on the uneven floor. One of her feet had rusted through, and her generator had run dry, and she was silent and dry, with a humus-paste of leaves and guano and gunk sliming her basket.
I went down to the cave where my father spoke to us, and I found that I—I—
I found that I couldn’t see in the dark anymore. I’d never had a moment’s pause in the halls of my father, but now I walked falteringly, the sounds of my footsteps not like the steps of a son of the mountain at all. I heard them echo back and they sounded like an outsider, and I fell twice and hurt my head, here—
(he touched the goose egg he’d raised on his forehead)
and I got dizzy, and then I was in the pool, but it didn’t sound right and I couldn’t hear it right, and I got my clothes off and then I stood there with them in my arms—
(his hand came back bloody and he wiped it absently on the grass and Mimi took hold of it)
Because. If I put them down. It was dark. And I’d never find them again. So I bundled them all up and carried them over my head and I waded in and the water had never been so cold and had never felt so oily and there was a smell to it, a stagnant smell.
I waded out and I stood and I shivered and I whispered, “Father?” and I listened.
I heard the sound of the water I’d disturbed, lapping around my ears and up on the shore. I smelled the sewage and oil smell, but none of the habitual smells of my father: Clean water, coalface, sulfur, grass, and lime.
I picked my way out of the water again and I walked to the shore, and it was too dark to put on my clothes, so I carried them under one arm and felt my way back to the summer cave and leaned against my mother and waited to drip dry. I’d stepped in something soft that squished and smelled between my mother and my father, and I didn’t want to put on my socks until I’d wiped it off, but I couldn’t bring myself to wipe it on the cave floor.