The Memory of Water

by Karen White

  His grin fell from his face as he caught sight of the Highfalutin up on jack stands. “I didn’t mean…”

  I waved a hand at him. “I know. Don’t worry about it.”

  I noticed that Marnie and Gil were standing back and Marnie had her arm around Gil’s shoulders. I approached and kneeled in front of my son.

  “She looks different out of the water, doesn’t she?”

  Gil nodded and I saw him taking in the missing mast and the stripped hull before moving closer to Marnie. Marnie’s eyes met mine and she gave me a nod of encouragement.

  “We’re not going to think of her as a sailboat at all, okay? This is just a woodworking project for us. We’re going to sand and paint, then sand and paint some more. Then we’re going to lay carpet and install cabinetry and all the stuff we’re going to need in the cabin. The last thing that’s going on the boat will be the mast, but that’s a long way off and we’re not going to have anything to do with that—Mr. Bonner’s going to do it.” I stood and put my hand on Gil’s blond head. “We’re carpenters, not sailors, and we’re going to make this the best-damn-looking boat there is.”

  I was reassured when Gil kicked me lightly in the leg.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m not supposed to swear. You win.”

  He smiled at me, the first big and genuine smile that I’d seen in months, and it was as if the wind had decided to shift behind me instead of head-on. I moved to take his arm but he clung to Marnie, and together they followed me up to the boat.

  Trey turned to Marnie and gave a low whistle. “Now that’s the Marnie I remember,” he said, winking.

  Marnie turned to me with a told-you-so look before responding to Trey. “Thanks for noticing, but don’t get used to it. These are Diana’s clothes.”

  Trey continued to look at her with a particular gleam in his eyes. “If I were you, I wouldn’t give them back.”

  Gil had been watching this volley with interest, and I steered him to the side of the room to distract him. All of the teak toe rail had been removed from the deck and was covering the floor in one corner of the building. The sides of the railing were beveled, and I knelt in front of one to run my hand along the edge. “I don’t know if there’s any sander small enough to get all these edges, Gil.”

  Trey had followed us and spoke from behind me. “That’s right. So we’re going to have to sand them by hand. Thought it would be a good place to start for you and Gil.”

  “What about me?” Marnie approached, nervously plucking at her T-shirt, as if to get it to loosen up.

  Trey grinned and I thought that it was intended mostly for me. “I thought you and I could start belowdecks. All the wood needs to be stripped, sanded, and revarnished. It’s a tight squeeze down there, but I figured since you’re pretty small, you and I could handle it.”

  At first I thought that Marnie would refuse. Instead, she said, “All right. But first I’d like to show Gil the condition it’s in now so that he has a good picture of the before and after.”

  I felt Gil’s shoulder stiffen under my hand. I knew what Marnie was trying to accomplish but even I didn’t believe she had the skill to get Gil actually on the boat on the first day he’d seen it since the accident.

  She held out her hand. “Just you and me, Gil. And I won’t let go of your hand if you don’t want me to.”

  Gil stared at her hand for a long moment, then shifted his gaze to the boat. His head moved as his eyes took in the hull and the faded name, then shifted to the stern, where the broken rudder had been removed and was lying on the ground near the back of the boat. I felt a tremor run through him.

  He looked again at Marnie before deliberately turning his back to her and moving into my embrace. Marnie smiled and I knew she was as pleased as I was that Gil had turned to me. Getting him on the boat seemed like such a small thing after that. He was my son and I wanted him back, and Marnie understood that.

  “That’s okay, Gil,” she said, smoothing her hand on his hair. “We don’t have to do it now. As we work on the boat, you’ll get more comfortable being near it. When you think you’re ready, just let one of us know, and we’ll be happy to take you on board.”

  Gil kept his head tucked into my waist, but he nodded his head.

  “Great,” said Trey, rubbing his hands together, “because I really need your help out here with these railings. They’re really small spots, and I think your hands are the perfect size to do a good job with the sandpaper.”

  As much as I hated to do it, I sent Trey a grateful look.

  “All right then. Let’s go pick out your sandpaper so you can get started.” Trey pointed Gil toward shelving on the far side of the building. “And, Marnie, why don’t you go with Gil and help him pick out a mask and get yourself one, too? That damn…er…danged sanding just sends grit up your nose and down your throat.”

  She nodded and walked away with Gil, sending me a questioning look at the same time I realized that Trey had deliberately left the two of us alone.

  “What’s up?” I asked, feigning enthusiasm.

  A grim expression settled over his rugged face. “Come here. I want you to take a look at something.”

  He led me over to where the broken rudder lay on its side. He squatted down next to it, and I followed. “Look here,” he said, running his finger gently down the rugged break of fiberglass, which looked like some kind of a stress rupture. “What does this look like to you?”

  “A broken rudder,” I answered, not sure why I was searching for levity. I already had a sick feeling in my gut that this conversation was going to lead me to a place I didn’t want to go.

  He didn’t smile. “What did the accident report say happened to the rudder?”

  I tried to think back to a document that at the time I had considered irrelevant in comparison to my ex-wife’s physical injuries and my son’s inability to speak. “I don’t remember exactly—something to do with it hitting something like a rock, or being hit by a strong wave that hit it just right. I believe it was inconclusive.”

  As I spoke I was looking at the spot where Trey had been running his finger down the jagged line of broken fiberglass that exposed the metal rod underneath. I felt a cold chill steal up my spine.

  “I remember what you told me about the accident, and it just seems to me that this kind of damage to the rudder wouldn’t happen in open water. See here how the damage is to the trailing edge of the rudder? That means somebody would had to have been backing up pretty fast into something solid to cause this kind of damage. Definitely not something a wave could do. It would have been a hard hit, too, so it’s nothing that could have happened accidentally without anybody on the boat knowing about it. I’m talking bone-rattling impact here. And if Diana had been at the helm when it happened, she was an experienced enough sailor to know that her steering ability could be compromised and to keep her docked.” He shrugged. “I’m thinking it looks deliberate. And then again I could be completely wrong. Could be there was some kind of really strong wave out there that hit it in the right spot with a big enough force to crack it open.” He shrugged again. “Like I said, I just wanted you to take a look at it. Don’t think it proves anything, but it certainly raised a question in my own mind.”

  I nodded, his thoughts echoing my own. “Have you mentioned this to anybody?”

  He shook his head. “Nope. Thought you’d want to handle it yourself—assuming there is something to handle.”

  I nodded, then stood and felt my hands shaking. “For now, though, let’s get busy. I suddenly find myself in need of some good, hard labor.”

  “I know what you mean,” he said half to himself, and I noticed that he was looking at Marnie again.

  I stepped into his line of vision as I made my way over to join Marnie and Gil, thinking about Diana and wondering how close love and hate could dance together before you could no longer tell them apart.

  Diana

  I was in my studio when I saw them return. When I saw Quinn’s jerky move
ments as he walked toward the house, I wondered if Marnie had suddenly changed her mind and decided to tell Quinn about my escape the day before. He wasn’t one to sit on a feeling and wait for it to rationalize. I started counting the minutes, challenging myself into guessing how long it would take Quinn to find me. Three minutes, twenty seconds later, he burst in the room without knocking, and I smiled to myself, acknowledging how predictable he was. It was one of the things that brought us two opposites together, as if it were some universal truth that a storm would move inland, inadvertently seeking out that which would dissipate its strength until all that was left was a cool breeze.

  He left the door open as he entered the room. Then he took an agitated walk around the room, as if unable to focus whatever it was he wanted to say. Finally, he turned to me, his blue eyes darker than I’d ever seen them, and I had a fleeting thought to paint them.

  A steely calm seemed to settle over him as he gathered his thoughts. “When we were first married, you told me a story about you and Marnie when you were children, how you would do anything to protect her. Do you remember that?”

  Yes, I wanted to say. Yes, of course I remember. I remember everything that ever happened between us. We were lying naked in bed, and I was telling you about my childhood and how vulnerable Marnie was to our mother’s constant criticisms. And how I had slapped Mama once in the face after she’d said something about Marnie’s lack of talent and made my sister cry. As a punishment, Mama took all of my paints and brushes away for a month. I told you then that it had been worth it because I loved Marnie most in the world, and I would protect her at all cost. It wasn’t until much later, when you no longer pretended to love me, that I realized you had listened to my story not because it had been about me and my childhood but because of something else entirely.

  “No,” I said, my heart aching with the memory.

  “You told me that you loved Marnie most in the world. You grieved for her when she was gone, and nothing that I said or did could heal that part of you that was gone. And I grieved with you because I remembered what it had been like to lose my brother.”

  Yes, I remember, I wanted to say, but I remained silent, looking into his beloved face, which was as cold and removed from me now as it had ever been.

  “We had lost so much in our lives, and then Gil was born and I was so happy because we both finally had somebody we could love best in this world.”

  I turned my back to him, watching the greedy sun steal the light from the sky, reminding me of all that I had failed at and how Quinn’s words were reminding me of the failure I regretted the most.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers and clenched his eyes shut. “So how can it be that you would try to hurt our son, the child that we promised to love and protect as long as we lived?”

  I had been lost for a while, wondering while he was speaking what any of this had to do with me sneaking away with the car. I think I stopped breathing. All I knew for sure was that there was no more air in the room, as spots formed in front of my eyes. I felt my knees buckle under me, and for a moment I was under the waves, swallowing water, and I felt my mother’s arms around me.

  Quinn caught me and carried me to the sofa. He left my side for a moment before returning with the warm dregs of a contraband can of Coke. “Sorry. This was all I could find,” he said as he lifted the can to my lips.

  I turned my head away from him. It was already clearing, but I wanted to see my mother again. But she had gone, taking her warm arms with her. Quinn guided my head back to face him, then lifted me so I could take a sip from the can.

  Our eyes met, and he sat back on his heels as I leaned my head back on the cushion. I shivered, still feeling the cold waves of the ocean as Quinn reached behind me to the old moth-eaten blanket that had once been my mother’s and placed it over me. I closed my eyes and waited for the spots to go away and then left them closed a little longer, hoping that Quinn would give up and go away. He was still there when I opened my eyes again, as I’d known he would be, and I took some comfort in that.

  He looked up as if seeking guidance before he spoke. “What happened, Diana? What happened to you and Gil the night of your accident?”

  My bandage itched as if a thousand ants were crawling in and out of the wound, tearing at bits of flesh, but I resisted the urge to scratch. “I’ve told you and the insurance people everything I remember. We were hit by a giant wave that I thought broke the rudder because suddenly the tiller wouldn’t work. I tried to reach Gil in time, but another wave swamped the boat, taking down the mast and throwing me against the deck, where I must have blacked out. The next thing I remember, we were being rescued by the coast guard. I had Gil’s shirt wrapped around my leg so it wouldn’t bleed.” I closed my eyes, seeing the face of my sweet, brave son. “He’d learned that in Cub Scouts….” My voice broke and I couldn’t speak. Everything I’d told Quinn had been true, but the weight of the words that I couldn’t say weighed down my tongue, making it stick to the bottom of my mouth.

  His face seemed to turn in on itself like a crumpled piece of paper. “But why, Diana? Why would you take him out in the first place?”

  I reached for him like a drowning man would reach for shore, and he lifted me, as I’d known he would, and placed me on his lap, his arms wrapped around me and my mother’s blanket. He’d always been that way for me: the solid earth I always strived to find beneath my own quicksand. I buried my face in his neck and smelled the old familiar smell and missed him all over again.

  “You can’t understand unless you’ve been there. Without my medication…it’s like it’s all darkness. Nothing looks or tastes or feels the way you know it’s supposed to. And you find yourself doing things that you know don’t make sense but you’re doing them anyway. I heard…I heard my mother’s voice, Quinn.” I raised my face, unsure of what else I should say. But the answering calmness in his eyes gave me the courage I needed. Almost in a whisper, I said, “She reminded me about the Maitland curse, and…” I swallowed, wishing now for the oblivion of my illness, instead of the stark reality I was forced to face.

  “And what, Diana? What else did she say?”

  I took a deep, shuddering breath, forcing out the words before I could think to hold them back. “She said that Gil was the last Maitland, and the curse could all end with him.”

  His arms stiffened around me and his face paled. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “Because after the accident I got better, so it didn’t matter anymore. And I didn’t want to scare you and make you worry more than you already were.” I swallowed thickly, desperation grabbing hold of my thoughts and my voice, making me spin words as a spider might spin a web. “But I know that’s not real, Quinn. I know it was my sickness talking to me. I won’t ever let that happen again. See, look.” I pressed my hands to my chest as if he could see past the flesh to my heart. “I’m taking care of myself now. I’m taking my medicine and trying to eat more. And I love Gil. More than anything else in this world. I could never hurt him. You know that, Quinn. I could never hurt our son.”

  He pulled away, holding my face in his hands and looking at me with those beloved eyes, and I felt a fresh wave of grief over the desire that was no longer there in those blue depths. I had never seen shades of that elusive emotion love, despite his efforts, but I’d been satisfied with his physical need for me, and for a long time, that had been enough. Eventually, though, like a house built on shifting sand, the foundation of our marriage had crumbled, tossing us into the open sea. Quinn had found solid ground again, but all I could do was founder. I often wondered if my discovery in my grandfather’s study that day would have been so devastating to me if I’d still had Quinn to fall back on. It made it easier in a way to place some of the blame on Quinn, and I wasn’t yet ready to release him from his guilt.

  “So it was an accident, then.”

  It wasn’t really a question, but I nodded anyway, wanting nothing more than to lay my head on hi
s shoulder again and block out the sound of my mother’s voice.

  “I believe you,” he said, gathering me in his arms again.

  But I heard the uncertainty in his voice, and I had a fleeting thought that he was merely trying to patch up a broken spot in his life, with the same result as putting duct tape on a gaping hole in a ship’s hull. I pressed myself against him, hoping to make him forget his doubts, but I had once again overestimated his feelings for me.

  He pulled away. “No, Diana. You know it’s not that way between us anymore.”

  I tugged my T-shirt off over my head. “Come on, Quinn. For old time’s sake. Just this once.”

  I tried to ignore the pity in his eyes as he leaned forward and gave me a soft kiss on my lips. “No, Diana, that’s not what you need, and you and I both know it.”

  We both turned at a sound from the doorway. Marnie stood there at the open door with a tray of iced tea in two glasses and a plate of sandwiches.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes everywhere but on us. “I thought we were going to be working on my portrait now, but I’ll come back later.”

  She turned away abruptly, the tea sloshing out over the edge of the glasses, but not before I’d seen the look in her eyes.

  Quinn stood, then threw the blanket back over me. “I’d better go talk to her.”

  “Yes, you do that,” I said, remembering the look in Marnie’s eyes and feeling not all that sorry. I watched him leave me to go to her, and the grief and sadness returned to me, engulfing me like a frigid wave from the deepest part of the ocean.

  Gil

  When I was in fourth grade, our science class studied sharks. Since we all live near the ocean, I kinda wondered why the teachers would make us really think about fish with sharp teeth that swam in the same water that most of us liked to boogie board in, but I didn’t say anything. Even back then, I wasn’t much of a talker.