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Marina Petrova

Vacation

The customs officers greet us at the gate. They hand us the legal forms that

release the island of liability for any of the relationships we choose to enter into

during our stay. I sign and date the form, then I write my initials in the lit- tle box acknowledging the penalty for violating the island’s provisional privacy

laws. The full list of questions visitors are not allowed to ask each other is avail- able online, and violators pay a fine that starts at fifteen hundred dollars. I can’t

afford this fine. I can’t even afford this vacation. After this trip, with my salary, it

will take me forty-two years to pay off my credit cards making minimal monthly

payments.

We come to the family exchange station. An officer with a flawless olive com- plexion stands tall as a church on a Sunday. He checks our passports and asks

if I am satisfied with the composition of my family. I’ve come to the island with

my three sons. Jacob is eleven, David is almost nine, and Noah is six. Ever since

we stepped off the plane, they’ve been pushing and shoving each other. Jacob

called David a “string dick,” David spat into Jacob’s backpack, and Noah looks

as if he is about to cry. It’s been four years since we’ve traveled anywhere, aside

from my sister’s cabin upstate. There used to be a small lake there, but it dried

up years ago.

“I’m open to readjustments,” I tell the officer and hand him Noah’s passport

with surprising ease.

“Okeydoke,” he says, then he speaks into his walkie-talkie. Another officer

joins us, whispers something into Noah’s ear, and leads him to a couple on a

bench guarded by a battalion of creamy leather suitcases. Both the woman and

the man must be in their late forties or early fifties, though they’re too nicely

groomed for me to be certain. The woman is wearing a pleated yellow skirt with

a fitted white blouse, and her hair is sculpted in the intentional manner of some- one who doesn’t have children. The man is slender with a shiny bald head. He

smiles at no one with a polite superiority. The woman steps forward and opens

her arms to Noah. He looks at her with suspicion, so she immediately buys him

an ice cream. I sign the consent form, agreeing to have my youngest spend his

vacation with this nice childless couple, who’d like to not be childless for a week.

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the gettysburg review

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But we are not doing alright at home because we are four people and one

paycheck. I work for a company that studies human genome sequences to pre- dict what a person is most likely to die from. Cancer or heart attack? Stroke or

Alzheimer’s? An enterprise software system analyzes the data and generates bar

graphs, pie charts, and waterfall diagrams with probabilities. Who knows what

our clients do with them? Quit smoking? Eat less cholesterol? Turn to religion?

Maybe after they die, their family or friends print out a copy for the funeral

and display it next to the coffin. Then all the guests can walk by and shake their

heads: we always knew. People always like to know things in hindsight, as if

knowing they are going to die is not enough.

At our company, the scientists have the big salaries. I work in accounting,

which is basically the counting of what we have, what we don’t have, and what

we must give to the government. It’s a perfect job for someone like me, used to

not having things like retirement savings, a car with working air conditioning, a

couch without pee stains, dental work, and maybe jiu-jitsu lessons for the boys.

Had I gone to a four-year college, had fewer children or a partner with a second

income, it could’ve been different. In hindsight.

The resort is a collection of small disheveled log cabins stacked on a hill about

three miles from the beach, but there is a bowl of seashells on the reception desk,

and the walls in the lobby are covered with large glossy prints of the ocean. There

is a free bus to the beach, however. There is also a pizza shop and a souvenir

stand where guests can buy refrigerator magnets, shot glasses, gum, soda, maga- zines, and roach spray. A tall woman with hair in a thick braid wrapped around

her head greets us at the reception desk. With heavy, deliberate movements, she

checks our passports and our forms, then invites us one by one to follow her into

a private room. I go last. She asks me what I’ve come here to forget. When I tell

her, she laughs.

We take our luggage to the cabin and change for the beach. There is an ocean

mist air freshener and a jar filled with sand on the coffee table. A laminated card

under the jar provides the Wi-Fi password and suggests using the spray and

sprinkling some sand on the floor for a beach-like feel. Bret and the boys are

waiting for me by the door, wearing identical blue swim trunks with tiny, toothy

yellow sharks.

Back at the reception desk, the woman unfolds the map of the beach. I find a

family-sized plot next to a palm tree and pencil my initials on it. The plot’s a little

far from the water, but it’s the busy season. We miss the bus by a minute and have