Mom and Dad and Me

Mom and Dad have gone out to 'shop' as they like to call it but I know what it's really called, scavenging. They leave me at the shelter to braid more rope. We can never have enough rope, Dad says. I'm good at it, I'm quick and smooth. I'm good with knots, too, so I can make the ropes as long as I want. Sometimes I braid ropes faster than they bring me the palm leaves. I also know what those are called, fronds. When I finish the pile I have beside me, I chew on a too-short piece and watch the ocean, making sure the hot coals beside me don't go out.

Sitting in the shade of the leafy roof with my feet in the sand, I place another small stick on the fire and wait for it to catch. Dad says not too much during the day, just enough to keep it going. Waste not want not, he says. I like the nights better when we put big sticks on the fire and all sit together under the blankets. It reminds me of being back home in our living room pillow fort before the fighting got bad. I hear a splash and look up. I can see Dad standing in the waist deep water, his shirt tied around his head, handmade spear in his hand. He stares down into the water, not moving. I like watching him when he fishes, I pretend he is a caveman, the first caveman who ever invented tools. He is good at making things from whatever he finds and there is plenty to find here. There is an axe he made by tying a sharp rock and a stubby stick together, lying beside the shelter. He made the shelter, too. He used big sticks against a big rock, that's called a boulder, and palm fronds and giant leaves as big as I am to keep the rain off us, it does an okay job but he is always working on it to make it better. Good isn't good enough, he says.

Dad jabs his spear into the water and yells out excitedly. He looks up and I wave to him, in response, he pulls the end of the spear up and there is a flopping fish on the end! It's a big one this time. He walks up to the beach and grabs a big rock and cracks the fish on the head so it dies. I used to not like that part but now I know they have to die for us to eat them and live. I didn't used to like fish sticks or sushi but I don't mind eating it now. It is better than being back at home and separated, anything is better than that. He pulls the spear out of the fish and wades back into the water to catch another one.

Mom comes out of the forest with her bag overloaded and so many big leaves in her arms! I get up and run over to her, accidentally kicking sand onto the fire. She hands me all the leaves and I carry them over and drop them beside the shelter, in our leaf pile. She starts to unload her big bag, and I count them as she sets them down: seven coconuts! I pick one up and shake it next to my ear, like she showed me, and I can hear the sloshing inside of the yummy water. Then she pulls out three weird yellow green fruit and says they are star fruit. I've never eaten a star fruit before but I like how they look and I am excited to eat them. I never ate weird things before, but I'll try anything now that we are all here together.

Mom sits down and starts opening the coconuts with a big knife called a machete and I try to get the coals burning again. Dad comes up from the water, his tan skin still dripping, and he drops four fish beside me and kneels down to hand me the big one with a big smile on his face. It is the biggest fish I've ever touched, longer than my arm! I take it from him and put it down gently beside the fire, too. He looks at the fire and shakes his head before taking a deep breath and kisses Mom on the forehead, saying he is going to check on the HELP sign. She hands him one of the opened coconuts and he walks off, his shirt is still draped over his shoulders now.

I like watching them when they are together. At first, they argued all the time and yelled and called each other names, just like at home. Dad called me names, too, but he always apologized. After long enough, they stopped all that and I think they fell in love again. I look at the calendar Mom made against the rock that makes our back wall when we first ended up here, I count the marks, there are 101. I wanted to have a party yesterday when we hit 100 days, just like we used to do at school, but both Mom and Dad said this wasn't something to celebrate. I think it is. I made them get back together on this island, isn't that a good thing?

They sat me down in the living room after making my favorite dinner: dinosaur nuggets and macaroni and cheese with chocolate milk. They said they needed to talk to me about something very important and they looked serious but then Mom started to cry. Dad didn't put his arm around her or touch her or anything, he looked mad. He always looked mad back then. He told me they were thinking about getting a divorce, that's when a mom and a dad don't love each other and they don't want to share their things anymore. Mom just kept crying and when Dad left the room, she told me it wasn't my fault. I knew that. I could hear them always yelling at each other after they sent me to bed. Dad could yell so loud that he knocked pictures off the wall. Mom didn't like all the yelling so she would run away and lock herself in the bathroom. I always pretended I was asleep but I never could sleep because of the noise. It made me feel scared and I cried a lot, too, but ai tries to never show it.

Dad already promised to take me on a week long sailing trip on his boat and I think their therapy teacher told him to bring Mom along, too. Mom said it was a last ditch effort to save the marriage so I knew I needed to be on my very best behavior to help. I didn't mean to sink the whole boat, I just wanted it to stop working for awhile so we would all be together like that Swiss family, the Robinsons. That family seemed real happy and they lived in a cool treehouse and everything. But when the boat began filling up with water, I had to wake up Mom and Dad and we spent all night getting to this island in a tiny blowup raft. Dad was really angry at first and Mom kept crying, but everything is better now. We are like a family of explorers and every day is exciting, there is no more yelling, but Dad spends a lot of daytime working on the HELP sign. That's okay though, Mom and I do everything else together, just like we used to. And best of all, we share everything and we will never ever be apart again. I'll make sure of that.