Page 35 of 32 Days in May

Everyone under the age of twelve is inebriated with joy, riding the free-sundae-bar sugar high, drunk on fresh ocean air. The first ho! is loud enough to split an eardrum and Emmett is nearly beside himself.

Marco, the world’s greatest hype man, has Emmett by the armpits and with each ho! he tosses him into the air.

Heave . . . ho!

Emmett is hysterical, doubling over with laughter.

“Catch your breath, bud,” I say, once Marco sets him down. “Maybe you can sit this next ho! out?”

Too slow. It’s already happening again.

Heave . . . ho!

Emmett throws himself across Marco’s lap, shrieking, “Again! Again!”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I warn Marco, but I’m not loud enough—or fast enough.

“Here we go!” Marco sings, grabbing Emmett around the waist and hoisting him upward.

Heave . . .

But now, Emmett is turning green.

“Marco,” I warn him, urgency pushing my voice up an octave. “How about less swinging on the next one?”

“What?” Marco says through laughter. “He’s fine! He’s loving this.”

“He looks gray.”

“Heave!” Bill shouts, drunk with power.

But Emmett can’t get out the next ho! He’s standing statue-still, clutching a hand to his stomach, eyes tearing.

“I need . . . Mommy,” he manages.

“Buddy?” I reach for his arm, and he stumbles forward toward me, his face waxen.

With the swiftness of an Olympic hurler, Marco scoops Emmett up under the armpits once again, but this time he aims him at the ocean.

“HEAVE-HO!” Bill crescendos with the rest of the passengers on Miss Teak Skye, and in that exact moment an arc of milky vomit bucks free from Emmett’s mouth, cutting through the late-evening air. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s powerful. Majestic, even.

Everyone on the deck gasps.

I leap up, grabbing our jackets and my tote bag, and stand there, slack-jawed, at Marco’s side. There’s no way for me to help. There’s nothing I can do.

Thankfully, the wind’s on our side and Emmett’s spew cuts cleanly through the air as we all watch on in horror. Marco cringes and recoils, evading the rare, rogue vom droplet that’s flying backward.

While Emmett’s blasting vanilla ice cream and hot dog chunks into the ocean, Bill’s back to yukking it up over the intercom. Jesus, read the room, William. Isn’t that the number one rule of comedy?

Marco pulls Emmett back into his chest, turning him around into an embrace while I rush over and wrap the boy tightly in my cardigan and Marco’s flannel. My arms find their way around Marco’s shoulders as I rub Emmett’s back and promise him everything’s okay, that he’s okay, that we all just got a little too excited.

But the kid is traumatized. “I need my mommy,” he blubbers over and over, throwing his head back to the sky as snot streams down either side of his mouth. “I need her! Mommy! My nose burns.”

“Call his mom,” I order Marco, pulling my phone from my purse and shoving it into his chest while scooping Emmett out from his arms.

“Are you sure?” Marco has a faint sheen of sweat gathering on the fresh, clean edges of his new haircut. “What’s your passcode?”

“One, two, three—”