Wave

CHAPTER ONE
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"I just can't believe that you're not coming with us," my mother said to my sister.
 
We were in the car on our way to the airport, but this time only three of the four of us were bringing luggage.
 
"I'll be with you in spirit," my sister answered.
 
"Spirit isn't the same thing, Beth. It's just going to-"
 
"Seem so strange," I said, cutting her off. If I'd let her finish, it would have made about the eleven millionth time she'd said that.
 
"Yes. It will be strange," my mother agreed.
 
"Christmas without both of my kids with me will be . . . well, worse than strange. It'll be just . . . awful!"
 
"You're going to make her feel even more guilty than she already does, Ingrid," my father said. "Sooner or later this was going to happen. Children do grow up."
 
"Well, of course they do, but I wasn't expecting it to happen so soon." My mother's voice sounded teary.
 
"Beth, can you slow down a bit?" my father said.
 
"Not really, Dad. I mean, it's like you said, I am growing up, and-"
 
"I meant your driving," my father explained. "Can you slow down? The roads are a little slick." Beth was driving, and being in the passenger seat was not a comfortable place for my father.
 
"Yes, Father," my sister answered, in that formal tone she always used when she was sure he was wrong but she was prepared to humor him.
 
She slowed the car down. I was grateful. I knew she was a very responsible driver- a responsible everything-but I was never as easy going with her behind the wheel as when my father was driving. And the roads really were a bit icy- what else would you expect for December in New York?
 
"Besides," my mother said, "Beth's not the one who should be feeling guilty. I'm the one who's going to be lying in the sun and leaving my baby stuck up here in the snow and cold."
 
"I like the winter, Mom."
 
"But you love Phuket," my mother said. "You're always saying that Thailand is your favorite place in the world."
 
"Not anymore," I said.
 
They all looked at me quizzically- including my sister in the rearview mirror.
 
"Now her favorite is any place where her Tadpole is."
 
My father snorted a little and then choked back the laugh. "Tadpole" was the nickname I'd hung on Beth's boyfriend, Tad. She didn't like it, which of course made my father and me like it even more. They'd been together almost six months now, and it was beginning to look like a serious sort of thing.
 
"You all know that Tad has nothing to do with my decision to stay home. He's not even going to be around the whole the time."
 
"He's not?" my mother asked.
 
"No. His family is heading up to Vermont to ski. They go skiing every Christmas the same way we go to Thailand."
 
"I didn't know that," my mother moaned.
 
"I didn't tell you because I was sure, if you thought I was going to be alone for even a day, you'd want to cancel your trip and you'd end up ruining everybody's Christmas."
 
"So this way it's just your Christmas that's ruined?" my mother said.
 
"It won't be ruined," Beth said. "Tad's parents even invited me to come along with them."
 
"And you turned them down?" my father asked.
 
"I would have liked to go, but I couldn't."
 
"Why not?" my mother asked.
 
"For the same reason I can't go with you. They're not getting back until the twenty- eighth, and by then I have to be in Minnesota."
 
We all knew what that meant. Beth's swim team was heading out on the road for a swim meet on December 27. My sister was in first-year university on a swimming scholarship.
 
"That is so stupid," I said to her. "Couldn't your coach find a swim meet in Alaska? How did he manage to find a meet in one of the few places in the entire United States that's even colder than New York?"
 
"I would have preferred Hawaii," she admitted. "Or Thailand."
 
"I just wish that my baby didn't-"
 
"I just wish that everybody would forget it!" Beth said, cutting her off sharply. "I'm not a baby, I'm a woman. I would rather have gone on vacation with my family, or even Tad's family, over Christmas, but it can't be. Tad's almost as bad as you- he offered to not go with his family so he could be here to babysit me. Honestly, everybody, I will be fine!"
 
We drove in silence for a while, the only sound the beating of the windshield wipers as they cleared away the snow.
 
Finally, Beth said, almost as an apology, "I really do wish I could go with you."
 
"It's the end of a family tradition," my mother said with a sigh.
 
Going to Thailand for Christmas was something my mother's family had been doing since long before Mom even met Dad. When Dad came along he joined in, and then when Beth and I were born we became part of the tradition too.
 
"It's just so sad," my mother said. "One after the other."
 
I knew what she was thinking about. I just hoped she wasn't going to cry. This was going to be the second Christmas since her mother died. Her father had passed on two years before that, so last Christmas had been the first with just the four of us . . . and this year there'd only be three.
 
"We'll call you," my mother said.
 
"If we can get a line," my father warned.
 
He was right to mention that. Phuket was beautiful-maybe the most beautiful place in the whole world- but the phone service could be a little sketchy. Especially at the small resort where we always stayed. It was on an island, a wonderful place, but there were no televisions or computers. They'd put phones in the little bungalows where we stayed only two years earlier. It was sort of like the Land That Time Forgot. My mother called it Paradise, and apparently Paradise came without broadband wireless, Internet, or reliable cellphone reception.
 
Usually my father liked that. It was his chance to get away from the world- more specifically, to get away from his law firm. Christmas in Thailand was the one time he could leave his BlackBerry behind and not have the office calling and pestering him about his clients. But being out of touch this year wasn't going to be such a bonus. It wouldn't have been nearly as hard on my parents to leave Beth behind if they could have been tethered by a telephone line. They were worried about her.
 
That almost made me laugh- like they really thought they had to worry about my sister. She was, without a doubt, the most responsible nineteen- year- old in the world. She didn't smoke or drink- not even a beer or a glass of wine. She was an honors student who had never skipped a class or failed a course- she'd never even had a grade below the high 80s. She was always where she was supposed to be, and on the rare occasions she couldn't be, she called. She helped around the house. She made meals and cleaned up without being asked. All of my parents' friends just loved her. She was on a full athletic scholarship, so even though my parents could easily have afforded to send her to school, she was there for free. Even her choice of boyfriend was perfect: Tad was in law school, he came from a good family, and he had a wonderful future in front of him. My sister was, in other words, probably the worst older sister a twelve- year- old guy could have.
 
I knew they tried not to compare the two of us, but it was just an inevitable, unspoken thing. I felt sort of like Supergirl's younger brother- no X- ray vision, couldn't fly, and was much slower than a speeding bullet. Not that I was a problem for my parents- I did well in school and sports and I had lots of friends- but I was no superhero fighting crime or evil super- villains, either.
 
Beth slowed the car down as we entered JFK International Airport. "Which terminal?"
 
"Three. Thai Airways," my father said. "Are you going to drop us off or come inside?"
 
"I'm going to park. I want to come inside and see you off- you know, wave goodbye."
 
My mother reached over from the back seat and gave Beth's shoulder a little squeeze.
 
"Just go to short- term parking," my father said. "I want you back on the road before the weather gets any worse."
 
"I'll be fine," Beth said.
 
"I know you'll be fine. Just indulge me on this, okay?"
 
My sister swung into a parking space. My father got out and fed the meter and I climbed out to start getting the luggage out of the trunk. It was cold and the wind was whipping the snow around. It probably wasn't falling as much as it was blowing. My father came around to help with the luggage while my sister offered my mother her arm and helped her toward the shelter of the terminal. I watched her move, slowly but steadily. I was looking for some telltale sign that it was starting to pass again, or that her symptoms were getting worse.
 
"She's going to be okay," my father said.
 
"I know. Beth can take care of herself."
 
"I meant your mother."
 
Why did it still surprise me that he could read my mind?
 
"She's already going into remission. I can tell," he said.
 
I wanted to believe him. I really did.
 
He pulled the last of the bags out of the trunk and we started to wheel them into the terminal. I tried to move quickly. It was cold and I wasn't dressed for it. None of us was, except Beth. We always left our winter coats and boots behind rather than take them with us on these trips. Better a mad dash in the cold than looking like a bunch of Eskimos lost in the tropics when we arrived.
 
My mother had navigated the slippery path without falling. She hadn't fallen in days. Maybe my father was right, but I just couldn't tell. Multiple Sclerosis was tricky like that. The...