The Memory of Water

by Karen White

  She looked out the window to where the moon could still be seen in the flaming morning sky. “I’m just curious as to why you would read such a book. Do you think Gil has any repressed memories of his accident?”

  I paused with my paintbrush held expectantly over the canvas. “I’m willing to look at anything, really. Anything that might give me a clue as to why he won’t speak.”

  She was silent for several minutes and I was hoping that she’d finished talking.

  “Maybe I can read it when you’re done with it. Since I’ve come back here, I’ve found that I’m recalling things that I never remembered before.” She faced me, her eyes alight. “Like when we saw Saint Elmo’s fire the night of our accident. I’d completely forgotten about it until…” She looked down at her hands, and I saw the telltale blush on her cheeks.

  “Until what?” I asked, remembering how I’d seen her and Quinn walk down to the beach together.

  She shook her head. “Until recently. And other little things, too.”

  My hand remained frozen, suspended over the canvas. “Like what?”

  “Like how all three of us were in the water, not just me. I remembered being hit in the back by the boom and landing in the water, but I couldn’t understand how you and Mama got there, too, when the boat hadn’t yet capsized.”

  I shrugged. “There was so much happening. I think I must have seen you go over and jumped in to help you. But I was never as good of a swimmer as you. Mama must have jumped in to save us both.”

  Marnie continued to stare out the window as the light drifted over the marsh and up to the house, painting the winter with a brush of spring. But none of the sun’s warmth was able to reach the chill that had somehow taken hold of me.

  She faced me. “But the one thing that I can’t make myself remember is what happened when Mama reached me. I think I remember, but I just…I just can’t accept it as the truth.”

  I gave up any pretense of painting and placed my brush in the cup. “What do you remember?”

  Her eyes had the same haunted look they’d had after the accident and until the day she’d moved away. I had hoped it was gone forever.

  “I remember”—her eyes met mine and I couldn’t look away—“I remember Mama pushing me away and then swimming toward you.”

  For a long moment I couldn’t speak, the long years of unspoken words somehow jumbled together in my throat. “I’m sure you’re mistaken. Maybe she went to grab for you and missed, and the waves just pushed her to me. Remember,” I said, looking down at my paints, “she was the one who drowned. Not us.”

  “So why have you been blaming me all these years for her death?”

  The ice crackled around my heart. “What? Why would you say that?”

  “Ever since we got out of the hospital and moved in here with Grandpa, you’ve hated me, as if I had been the one who killed Mama.”

  I wanted to throw my head back and shout with laughter, but I was too stunned to do either. “She drowned, Marnie. Neither one of us killed her.”

  “Then why did you change? Why couldn’t you stand to be in the same room with me after the accident? What had I done to make you so angry with me?”

  I slowly mixed my paints again on my pallet to keep my hands busy and stop them from shaking. “I think that almost dying can change a person. Maybe I was angry because it didn’t seem to change you at all.”

  “But it did,” she said softly. “I lost a lot that night. I can’t even say that losing our mother was the worst of it—we both know she wasn’t the best mother, although I think in her way that she loved us.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “But I’d also lost the two things that I had loved the most: my passion for sailing”—her eyelids flew open—“and you. I lost you that night, too. I found that to lose the thing that matters the most is like a kind of death. I think that’s why I moved to the desert, where everything appears dead or dying. It suited my soul for a long time.”

  “But not anymore?” I asked through frozen lips.

  She didn’t answer my question. Instead, her eyes flickered down to my leg, where the bandage was still visible beneath the hem of my shorts. “Why do you still wear that? If your wound hasn’t healed by now, you should be seeing a doctor about it.”

  “Please don’t concern yourself with things that have nothing to do with you, okay, Marnie? I never asked for your help before, and I don’t need it now, either. Just stay out of my life, okay?”

  I flinched at my own words, but Marnie just sat there, regarding me solemnly. I knew she wouldn’t ask me any more questions, at least for now. She’d always been the patient one, biding her time until she knew she could get what she was after.

  A small smile tweaked her lips, surprising us both. “Too late, Diana. I’m your sister.”

  The dark pall in the room seemed to have dissipated with the morning fog, and I found myself answering with a smile of my own as I turned back to the canvas. “That you are,” I said as I lifted my paintbrush and began to paint.

  I painted in silence for almost half an hour before Marnie spoke again.

  “You’re almost done with your mural.”

  I glanced up at the painted time line at the top of the walls, to where I had reached our grandparents’ generation. I had just started the painting of our grandmother, the one whose automobile accident was still considered a suicide by some, and had begun my outlines of our mother, Marnie, and me. On the fourth wall, all by himself, I’d left Gil’s space with only his face sketched in and his birth date.

  “Why are we up there?” she asked, annoying me by getting off her stool.

  I dropped my brush in the cup, the dirty water splattering my shirt. “We’re Maitlands, aren’t we?”

  “Yes, but we’re not cursed. We’re survivors, remember? And so is Gil.”

  She seemed genuinely upset, so I searched for something to say to calm her down. “Why should it matter to you? You don’t believe in the curse anyway.”

  “No, I don’t. But this is just too morbid, seeing my name up on the wall with the dead.”

  “I’ll paint you smiling then, okay?”

  “I’m serious, Diana.”

  “Me, too. Look, this is my studio and my art project. Please keep your comments about my paintings to yourself.”

  She sat down again, her shoulders rounded in defeat. She was usually such an easy person to read, my Marnie, that I almost felt as if I were cheating whenever we argued. Almost.

  I began drying my brush on an old towel, squeezing out the water and feeling it soak through to my shaking fingers. “I need you to take me in to Charleston again. Gil needs new clothes. And I was hoping afterward we could stop at the nursing home.”

  “So soon? But we were just there.”

  “I know, and I wouldn’t bother you if I didn’t have to. It’s just that my friend has become obsessed with this curse thing, and I’m eager for her to get to know Gil so that she can see that he’s more Bristow than Maitland, that he’s nothing like me at all.”

  “But why should it matter, Diana?”

  I couldn’t meet her eyes. Staring down at the murky water in the cup, I said, “I don’t know, but it just does. And it’s not harming him, you know. Spending time with me is a good thing, and he enjoyed himself when we went before. He enjoyed being with me. And I think he got a kick out of listening to somebody he’s not related to praising his artwork.”

  I knew she wouldn’t argue with that; I’d seen it in her face and secretly congratulated myself on hitting the bull’s-eye.

  “Fine,” she said, pulling on her blouse and beginning to button it. She yawned. “And maybe you can tell me why on earth you had me come here so danged early.”

  “Because you’re going sailing today.”

  She looked at me with alarm.

  “And in case you didn’t return, I wanted to make sure I had the chance to paint you one last time.”

  She skipped the last of her buttons and strode quickly to the door. “G
o to hell,” she said before she slammed the door behind her.

  “I’m already there,” I said quietly to the closed door.

  I waited for a long moment before walking over to my purse. I pulled the book out and looked inside, seeing what I was searching for. I slid out the folded sketchbook pages and flattened them out. I knew she’d seen them; I could tell by the way her eyes kept darting back to the purse when we were talking about the book. But she hadn’t said anything.

  I went to the armoire and unlocked the door, then slid out my “precious things” box. I lifted the lid and placed Gil’s drawings on top, then closed and locked the door again, hiding the key this time and hoping nobody else would ever see them.

  Marnie

  Quinn was already waiting for me on the back porch by the time I came downstairs. I wore sweat pants and a sweatshirt, a Windbreaker, and boat shoes—all new. I was grateful that Quinn didn’t even suggest that I dig around in the closets of the old house, as aware as I was of the old ghosts that I might find.

  My Windbreaker rustled as I slowly made my way down the stairs, a sound I had once loved, as I’d contemplated how lucky I was to live in South Carolina, where such a thing as all-year sailing existed. As unpredictable as our winter weather was, it was currently a balmy sixty degrees outside, although I was chilled to the bone, as if it were cold enough to turn the ocean to ice.

  I stopped short when I spied my grandfather in his wheelchair by the door. I heard Joanna bustling around in the kitchen, explaining how he’d come down the stairs. I kissed him on the cheek, his bristled jaw and warm breath doing nothing to thaw me. “Good morning. What are you doing up so early?”

  As I’d expected, he thrust his Bible up to me, his gnarled finger pointing at a highlighted passage. I read it aloud. “‘Therefore snares are round about thee, and sudden fear troubleth thee; Or darkness, that thou canst not see; and abundance of waters cover thee.’”

  I read it again to myself, trying to understand what he was attempting to tell me. I had a sudden recollection of him sliding the newspaper classifieds toward me one morning at breakfast a few months before I turned sixteen. I’d been horrified to see that they were of boats for sale. He’d explained that it was within his means to either get me a used car or a used boat for my birthday and that he’d leave the choice up to me. I’d picked the car without hesitation, and it was that same car that had driven me out of McClellanville for the last time two years later. But I’d never forgotten the look of disappointment in his eyes when he’d handed me the car keys.

  “What are you trying to tell me, Grandpa?”

  He looked at me with his pale blue eyes reflecting the light from the front window. He grunted and motioned me with his hands to come closer. I did as he asked and felt him grip my hands tightly as he grunted again. I closed my eyes, feeling the sting of the tears behind the lids. “I am afraid. I am so afraid.”

  He nodded, then let go of my hands while he quickly turned the tissuelike pages of the old Bible, finally coming to rest on a passage and thrusting it up into my hands again. I smiled softly as I read the old words that I had learned by heart as a young girl. “‘But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.’”

  I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. Quietly I said, “It’s not evil I fear, Grandpa. It’s the water. It’s the things I’m afraid it’ll make me remember.”

  He did the oddest thing then; he pulled me down by the hands again until his mouth was by my ear, and he grunted a word that sounded very much like “good.” Then he let go of my hands and turned away, like he used to do when Diana and I fought and he refused to take sides. Except this time I wasn’t sure who I was supposed to be fighting.

  I said goodbye and left, relieved to find Quinn on the other side of the door. “Are you ready?” he asked, his blue eyes sparkling in the morning sun.

  “I’m here,” I replied. “I’m not sure if I’m ready, but I’m here.”

  He surprised me by taking hold of my chin and kissing me. He tasted of minty toothpaste and crisp morning air, and I didn’t want him to stop.

  “What was that for?” I asked, more pleased than stunned.

  “For you. For being so brave. For facing your fears.”

  “I’m not doing this for me. I’m doing this for Gil.” I blinked into the sun before turning back to him. “And for you.”

  “For me?”

  “You once told me that you were afraid of heights, but I overheard Trey asking you about the parasailing you’ve been doing with his brother. I think flying over the water with a thin scrap of nylon is a whole lot scarier than sitting on something with sails that floats.”

  He grinned that grin that had a way of warming me up from the inside out. “‘Something with sails that floats.’ That’s one way to describe sailing, I guess.”

  “But why would you go parasailing?”

  “Because I had to. I still don’t like heights, but at least I know I can do it again if I ever had to.”

  He led me off the steps and we walked slowly down to the dock. “Gil’s waiting for us. He wanted to watch us sail and brought his sketch pad. I told him that if he got bored, Trey would bring him back home.”

  “Great,” I said, catching sight of the small figure at the end of the dock. He turned and looked at me with his mother’s eyes, and I stumbled.

  Quinn caught my arm. “You all right?”

  “Fine,” I said, remembering the sketches Gil had given to Diana. I stopped abruptly. “Quinn, was there anybody else on the boat the night that Gil and Diana had their accident?”

  He shook his head. “No. And I can say that without any doubt, because there were eyewitnesses of them getting into the boat, and it was definitely just the two of them.”

  We resumed walking as I kept my eye on Gil, who looked up at us and smiled when we approached. He was so different from the skittish boy I’d first met, but I was frustrated at how I’d come no closer to prying loose his secrets and his words.

  Quinn got in first, then helped us both into the small boat. We were quiet in the morning chill as Quinn started the engine and pushed us away from the dock. I was silent as we skirted the deeper water, and it wasn’t until I felt a tug on my sleeve that I realized what it was I’d been searching for.

  Gil pointed off the starboard side at the two telltale fins that sluiced through the murky water. I felt relief, somehow. “Don’t dolphins migrate?”

  Quinn shrugged. “Not like whales, no. But they usually leave in the fall to follow their food source. Maybe these two stayed just for you.” He flashed me a grin.

  The dolphins danced around each other in the water, as if their ties to this lush place were too strong, the pull of home somehow keeping them grounded here like a compass that had found true north.

  They skittered away with a splash of water and then were gone, seeking deeper waters. I felt strangely comforted by their presence, and I found myself softly thawing.

  Trey met us at the marina, smiling broadly and not looking the least bit worried that he was about to send his boat out with a woman who hadn’t sailed in almost sixteen years and a man whose boat he was currently repairing. You once told me that sailing was like tricking the wind to move your boat. Remembering his words made me smile, and he looked at me curiously.

  “You must be excited,” he said as we drew up to the dock.

  With Gil present, I had to watch my words and hold back what I really wanted to say. “Those wouldn’t be my exact words, no.”

  He helped Gil out of the boat and onto the dock, then got in the boat with us. “I’ll take you over to the Pelorus and pick you up when you’re done.”

  I followed his gaze to a twenty-two-foot Catalina moored about fifty yards away. “You named your boat the Pelorus?”

  “Sure did. Remember that story you used to tell about that dolphin? I thought he was a smart and strong enough dolphin to name my boat after.”

  I nodded, feeling stra
ngely assured. Then I focused my attention on Gil. “You can come with us if you want, you know. There’s room in the cabin if you’d rather not be up on deck with your dad and me.” I wasn’t sure why I had made the offer, knowing there would be Diana to deal with if Gil said yes. But I thought facing her anger would be a small price to pay if it meant Gil would speak again.

  Gil regarded me with large, knowing eyes, and it was almost as if I’d heard him say, You first.

  “All right,” I said, rubbing his head. “Today it’s my turn, but the next time is yours.” The jon boat pulled away from the dock, and I felt my heart sink low in my chest. “Bye,” I shouted with a lot more enthusiasm than I felt.

  Gil seemed so small all by himself on the dock, but before I could ask Quinn to turn back, I saw Gil flip his thumb upward, and I smiled, relaxing into the wind.

  Trey drew alongside the Pelorus. “You ready?”

  “Are you ready?” I asked, trying to sound flippant but not quite hiding the panic in my voice. “We’re taking your boat, remember?”

  “No worries in the world,” he said as he offered me his hand as I stood up and reached for the shrouds at the beam. Without thinking, I pulled myself aboard and stepped down into the cockpit, then looked for Quinn.

  Trey pulled away. “All the gear’s already been stowed on board—your life vests, the emergency kit, and some drinks in the cooler—so you’re all set. No outboard motor on this boat, so you’ll have to use your sailing skills right off the bat to get her from her mooring and out onto the ICW. I’ll keep an eye on Gil. Y’all have fun, and I’ll be ready to come out and get you when you return.”

  Quinn gave Trey a mock salute, then climbed aboard to stand next to me. “How are you doing?” he asked, and I knew in that moment that if I asked to go back he would take me. But I thought of Gil’s hopeful face and Quinn deciding to go parasailing, and I couldn’t ask him. My ghosts were close now. The only way I could face them would be out on the open water, where they waited for me. I thought of Diana, too, how she didn’t want me to do this although she hadn’t told me. We were sisters, after all, and she didn’t need to tell me in words. But her reluctance made me all the more determined to end my struggle with pain and grief and memories.