For Sam and what might have been.
 

“…The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of…”

From Hamlet, William Shakespeare, Act 3, Scene 1

Chapter 1

Turtle looks to the horizon in pain. The burn distracts him from the unnatural angle of his leg. Moisture rising from the ground fills his nostrils with the smell of impermanence. Somewhere alongside a river, Turtle’s family waits for him. They must. 

Turtle’s mother abandoned her eggs shortly after she buried them in the sandy soil, as mother turtles do. By the time he crawled out of the dirt, Turtle’s siblings had left him in search of water. Abandonment stings, but bad hatchling math can be forgiven.  

Turtle sees no danger in the desert and jungle ahead. He’s never known an adult to teach him to fear what he cannot see. 

At the age now when kids get bored and resist, questions of Who and Why stir him. Questions about the family he lost long ago. Questions whose answers require his three healthy legs to carry him home.

**

The back seat of Mom’s SUV no longer protects thirteen-year-old Imogen from the world behind a wall of leather. She’s lost faith in the round and gently sloping cycle of life peddled by adults afraid to tell the truth about the line connecting birth and death. Bullshit. A week ago, she learned some lives cheat the circle. 

Dad’s family never understood why anyone in the village of Hamlet, Vermont would buy a Range Rover, one of those vehicles driven by southern New England types from places with car washes and paved driveways. 

As the vehicle’s wheels crunch the gravel leading home, Imogen leans forward to look out the front window. Someone’s got to watch for the possible detours in the cycle of life.

Mom looks over her shoulder from the passenger seat. “Please don’t lay on your dress, Bissie.” 

Imogen entered the world two years after her brother Jeremy. As if he knew she would become his protector, he elevated her status with a tender mispronunciation of “baby sister,” and Bissie became her nickname for life.

“It’s going to get wrinkled.” 

Bissie has no intention of wearing the uncomfortable black uniform again. As of this afternoon, she has no more brothers to bury.

The driveway approaches, and Bissie squirms in wrinkled defiance, returning blood to her legs. She’s aching to jump from the car, change into pajamas, and sleep for a year. As the wheels grind, Bissie sees something hobble across the gravel. Geometric designs camouflage the object crossing the crumbly road at the speed of a— 

“Turtle! Stop!”

Dad retreated from the world this week, as if awaiting an explanation of God’s cruel providence. The distress in Bissie’s voice interrupts his vigil, and he slams the brakes in a desperate attempt to reclaim control. 

The turtle disappears under the car in a cloud of dust. Bissie snaps out of her seatbelt and fears that, for the second time this week, she’s too late to save a life. 

In the shadow of the front bumper, a painted turtle lumbers toward the stormwater ditch along the side of the road.

Bissie drops to her knees for a closer look. She smiles then resents the sense of relief. She’s supposed to be mourning. 

The turtle carries on, oblivious to the frenzy that nearly returned him to the earth moments earlier. 

Mom and Dad exit the car and watch Bissie kneel on the driveway. Her dress presses into the dusty gravel. 

“She’s a lucky—”

“It’s a boy, Dad.” 

He doesn’t ask how she knows. 

“Don’t touch…Your allergies.” 

“I’m allergic to fish, Mom. And I don’t plan on eating him.”

The turtle plods across the uneven terrain, showing no regard for the audience he’s attracted. 

“I want to bring him home.” 

“Oh, honey. We have no space for a turtle.” 

Just like Mom to expect a house equipped with designated turtle areas.

“The best thing you can do for that guy is leave him be,” Dad says. “Let him live his life in the wild.”

Unlike her brother, Bissie sees what the adults raising her do not. “He’s all alone.”

“I don’t think turtles live—” Dad cuts himself off. 

“And he’s injured.”

Her parents take a closer look.

“See. He’s limping. It looks like his back leg.” 

The difference between a turtle’s healthy lumber and a limp requires an eye for nuance. 

“Look at that!” Dad beams like a child over creatures discovered outdoors. 

Mom shivers, no doubt picturing the maintenance. “How are we going to get him home? We can’t just carry him in our hands.” She looks to Dad, who seems to be lost in nostalgia. “Can we?”

“Mom, our driveway’s right there.” Bissie points to the mailbox a hundred yards up the road. 

Her parents whisper scenarios and implications while Bissie removes a shoe. The opening for her foot was practically designed to hold a seven-inch turtle. “Turtle can make his own choice.”

She places the shoe on the ground between her and Turtle. Turtle ceases forward motion and retracts his neck into his shell. The gold lettering on the footbed of the shoe glitters in the sun. Turtle extends his neck as if investigating a possible source of food. 

“Come on, little fella. I won’t hurt you.” 

The muscles on Turtle’s forehead contract, pulling his eyes wide open. It’s a familiar look of cautious desire Bissie has seen in other animals. A deer contemplating an open field. Her brother scanning a room of kids he wanted to call his friends. 

Something has sparked Turtle’s curiosity, and before second thoughts set in, Bissie slides her shoe forward, making Turtle’s decision for him. She covers him with her hand, stands, and turns to her parents. “See you back at the house.”

Dressed in their finest, standing in the center of a gravel road, the adults resemble a black and white photo of old-time outlaws—if you ignore the luxury SUV in the background—expressionless faces hiding dreams and despair from the viewer.

Bissie removes her other shoe, places it on the hood, and starts walking. She’s been through too much this week to let the sting of gravel under her feet deter her. She doesn’t know how she’ll survive burying her fifteen-year-old brother, but she figures the only way forward is to start moving. 


Chapter 2

Jeremy rocks side-to-side, eyes locked on his feet. 

“You should be wearing your helmet,” Bissie says. 

“Where’s your helmet?”

“I’m not the one pretending to be a skateboarder.” 

Jeremy pops the tail, launching the board into the air. His attempt doesn’t call for catching the wheels with the back of his ankle, and when he slams onto the gravel driveway, the stone and sand rip through his skin. 

Bissie tosses her swim bag into the grass with a huff. Her wet gear will start to smell like the barn if left soaking too long. 

Jeremy studies his hands, wondering why they don’t hurt as bad as they should. The boy inherited none of his father’s rugged qualities or his mother’s finesse. Fair and fragile, with skinny limbs, a narrow face, and unblemished skin except where scars have recorded his impatience and an affinity for accidents. He brushes bits of driveway off the spots of skin missing from his palms and knees. The cries begin when blood starts flowing from the wounds deep down, beneath his injuries. 

Jeremy really wants to be a skateboarder. The eighth graders he wants to call his friends spend their afternoons at the skatepark. They never think to invite Jeremy, and he isn’t going to show up until he can pull a kickturn without crashing. 

Bissie suppresses an urge to scold him. She doesn’t want to sound like Mom. She lifts Jeremy under his arms and steadies him on her shoulder. She was built to carry her brother, with a sturdy core, broad shoulders, and the tenacity of a honey badger. 

“Grab my helmet, will you?”

“Doesn’t matter. Mom’s going to kill you for not wearing your pads.” 

“Hose me off, then. I can’t bleed in the house.”

Skateboarding is the first sport Jeremy’s parents haven’t pushed on him, which is why he hasn’t given up on it yet. Dad gifted his son all the traditional American sports gear—balls and pucks, sticks and bats, gloves and skates—and expected Jeremy to share his enthusiasm for backyard drills after dinner. Mom showed no interest in practicing under the lights of the garage but never missed an opportunity to point out where her son’s performance lagged his teammates.

When Dad announces it’s time for dinner, Jeremy slides into his chair and keeps his hands on his lap. “What?” he asks.

“You tell me.” Dad shovels a spoonful of baked beans into his mouth. “You’re all dressed up, and we have no plans to go to church.”

Bissie warned Jeremy about the pants. He’s worn shorts every day for the past two years—through the Vermont winters and everything—because jeans itch his knees. 

“I’m growing out of my shorts phase.”

“You hurt yourself, didn’t you?” Mom’s righteousness stabs Jeremy in his open wounds. He looks to Bissie for help, but she’s trapped in Dad’s stare. “How many times have I told you to wear your helmet and pads when you ride that thing?” 

Bissie and Jeremy exchange a glance. He’s never been one to follow instructions, and right has never been enough for Mom. Sometimes Bissie thinks the woman wants nothing more than to know she’s been heard.   

Dad gets up to wash dishes at the sink across from the dinner table. “I keep trying because I care,” he used to say after all of Jeremy’s tantrums on the playing field, refusals to ride bikes to the Creemee stand, or protests over yardwork. Dad says less these days, and as far as Bissie knows, he’s quit only one thing in his life. He’s never admitted he no longer cares, but everyone knows he’s given up trying with Jeremy. 

“Don’t blame me. My ADHD.”

“You don’t have ADHD,” Mom says.

“The doctor says I do.”

Dad looks up from the sink. “Label it what you want, but you need to start thinking about the risks you take with your body.”

Bissie shrugs when Jeremy looks her way. He envies her ability to believe in herself. He never asked to be the older sibling, never intended to stick Bissie with a two-year vacuum of unmet expectations to fill. 

“You mean like drinking?” Jeremy says.

Mom blanches. “A glass of wine with dinner is not…drinking.”

“What do you call two, then?”  

Mom looks to Dad, busy once again scraping plates in the sink. 

“He wasn’t being reckless,” Bissie, defender of justice and older brothers, says. “He tripped while practicing a trick on the driveway.”

“Then why did the two of you try to hide his injuries? How are we supposed to trust you if you sneak off when you get into trouble? You need to come to us with your problems.”

“What, and get punished asking for help?” Bissie says.

Mom crosses her arms. “Honestly, Bissie. I don’t deserve two defiant children.” 

Dad clears his throat, loud enough to be heard over the running water. Mom exhales and leans forward in her chair. 

“Listen. Your father and I love you both very much. We’ll always be here to help.”  

Jeremy looks down at his plate and clenches his mangled hands. Bissie can tell he’s checked out. He’s practiced all the anger management techniques forced upon him by the adults in his life, but blocking out Mom’s bullshit with physical pain is the only trick that works. He’ll spend the evening in his bedroom, doodling in a sketchbook. Mom and Dad don’t get it. They make sense of the world by taking action—not by retreating to their thoughts after a meltdown. 

Dad returns to the table. “Have you guys ever heard of immunity?” When no one responds, he continues. “We’ll always help you, even if you screw up.”

Mom rolls her eyes. “Oh, cut the immunity crap, Ted.”

Bissie’s parents speak two different dialects of Yankee English. Dad’s rural Vermont drawl flows out the side of his mouth slow and smooth like maple sap. Mom speaks with the clipped self-importance of her Connecticut upbringing, abrasive and urgent like the traffic Hamlet residents dread south of the state line. 

“You mean like the time Jeremy cut his finger whittling sticks for marshmallows? You told us that was the last time we’d ever have s’mores.”

“Are you talking to me or your dad?”

“His name’s Dad. Not your dad.” 

Mom takes a draw from her glass. “You two need to understand a few things…”

Jeremy gets up from the table. 

“Don’t you walk away. We’re still arguing.”

Bissie nods to the familiar rhythm of Mom’s dinner-wine voice. Jeremy keeps standing only to be instructed to return to his chair.

“Okay?” Mom asks after elaborating upon points she’s already made. 

“Okay.” It’s enough to get Jeremy excused.

Bissie stands up to follow him. Now’s not the time to point out nobody thanked her for helping her brother after his crash. 

Mom reaches for Bissie’s arm as she passes the head of the table. “Imogen. A word.”

Fuck off comes to mind, but that counts as two. She returns to the table, hands in the front pocket of her hoodie. 

“You encourage his behavior.”

Bissie pushes a breath out her nose. A book report awaits. 

“Every time you rescue him. He needs to face the consequences of his actions. How else is he going to learn?”

“I feel sorry for him. He’s my older brother.”

“He’s not cut out for the role.” 

Bissie freezes in a wide-eyed stare.

“Listen, if he doesn’t start learning from his mistakes, he’ll end up jumping off a bridge.”

“Maybe he wants attention.”

“He gets too much of our attention!” Dad calls from the sink.

“I’m not talking about scolding him.” Bissie turns to Dad. “Or forcing him to split logs. You guys could hang out with him once in a while.”

Mom presses her palms into the table. “I hang out with him.”

“You take him on errands.” Bissie turns back to Dad. “He likes Legos.”

Mom grunts. “Don’t you think he’s a little old for Legos?”

Bissie shrugs. “They’re safer than skateboards.”

Mom declares dinner over with a wave of her hand then pours herself a third glass of wine. 

*************