by Karen White
Diana drew in a deep shuddering breath. “Because I’m not angry anymore. Because of the portrait. When I finished it, I realized why I had felt compelled to paint it in the first place. It has something to do with working out the events of that night, I think, but mostly it showed me that you had nothing to do with what happened. That it wasn’t your fault our mother was ill. That you’re still my sister and that I should have never let you go.”
I thought of Victor Hugo’s words again, and despite myself, I felt the corner of my lips turn up. Softly, I said, “‘…two souls which touch without mingling, two fingers on one hand.’”
My smile fell as I considered one more thing. “What about Gil? What happened on the boat with Gil?”
Diana and my mother flashed each other a look, and I knew.
“When you found Mama again, she started talking about the Maitland curse, didn’t she?”
Diana shook her head. “It wasn’t like that. It was just that seeing her again—it was such a shock. And I’d forgotten to take my medication and I wasn’t feeling right, and then I came to see Mama for the first time. When she told me what she’d done, it all seemed to make sense to me in some very bizarre way. I showed Mama a picture of Gil, and she made some comment about how much he looks like me, and that was all it took. I became obsessed with the idea of this family curse.
“Even Mama was alarmed. That was why she gave me all of her papers—the ones Grandpa brought her from the attic. She thought if I had the facts I would understand that it wasn’t something as arbitrary as a curse, but an inherited trait that is now not only recognizable but treatable as well. I think in my heart I knew she was right, but my head was telling me different things entirely. That was when I got the idea to do the time line mural. To show everybody that I wasn’t crazy, that I had proof that the curse existed.” She shook her head. “It’s almost funny, really, that I knew from experience that my illness was treatable, but that didn’t stop me from obsessing over the curse. I almost felt justified because I could paint again, really paint without the fog from the medication to ruin it.
“And then I decided one night to try to finish what Mama started. Gil was so much like me, it seemed obvious that he was destined to be cursed with this sickness as I was and as our mother was. And that without us, it would just be you. You who didn’t look like a Maitland, at all.”
My head throbbed. I looked at my mother, who had turned to stare out the window, a view I could see was the side portion of another cement building. Her chest fluttered with her quick indrawn breaths as she listened to Diana’s words, but she seemed unable to look at either one of us, reminding me of what a cold ghost guilt can be.
“So what did you do to Gil, Diana? What did you do to that precious little boy?”
Her fingers plucked at the bandage under her skirt, the bandage I now realized she wore as a reminder. “I took him out on his father’s boat. I remember how excited he was to be doing anything with me, that the guilt almost made me take him back. But in my manic state, I was convinced I was doing the right thing.” A haunting half smile touched her lips. “But Gil is a lot brighter and a lot stronger than I gave him credit for. I had deliberately damaged the rudder the day before by backing it into rocks, knowing it wouldn’t take much to disable the tiller if it were stressed from a storm. I guess I’d underestimated his sailing skills, because he knew immediately what to do with the sails to get us under power again. The storm was slow in coming, and I couldn’t rely on it to swamp the boat, and we were making too much headway with the sails.” She swallowed, and I noticed that her hand shook as she tucked her hair behind her ears. “I stood there facing him, paralyzed, wondering how to get him in the water at the same time I was horrified that I could even think it. And I remember”—she shuddered as if she couldn’t continue—“I remember him looking at me with those eyes, and I knew then that he was aware of what I was thinking. I can’t remember what happened next. Either I moved toward him and caught my footing on a fairlead, or I let go at the wrong time and lost my balance, but I ended up slipping and falling down while Gil held on to me to keep me from falling overboard. But the turnbuckles on the shrouds—Quinn had just replaced them and hadn’t wrapped them in tape yet—I fell on them and cut open my thigh, making it bleed really badly. I must have lost a lot of blood and passed out, because the next thing I remember, I had Gil’s shirt tied around my thigh like a tourniquet and a coast guard boat was pulling us aboard.”
She put her head in her hands. “Quinn had me hospitalized. And ever since he’s made sure I’ve stayed on my medication. And Gil”—her eyes gazed up toward the ceiling—“Gil has been told all of his life to speak the truth, that liars go to hell. He’d rather not speak than to be forced to tell a lie.” Her voice broke. “Because he could never tell the truth that I had tried to kill him. For some stupid reason, my son still loves me.”
My head throbbed as I tried to absorb everything I’d heard. “But why have you been bringing him here to see Mama?”
“Because I’m trying to convince us both that Gil isn’t that much like me at all. That this…affliction…has passed him by completely.” She shrugged her thin shoulders again. “I cannot stand to see this happening to him.”
I stood and stumbled backward toward the door. “I can’t be here with both of you right now. I need to go, to be alone.” My back hit the door as my hand fumbled for the knob. I twisted the handle and ran out into the corridor, not even bothering to see if I had closed the door.
I made it to the parking lot and out of sight of prying eyes before I kneeled in front of an overgrown hedge and threw up, expelling from me every piece of poison I had just ingested. My skin felt clammy and cool, but the only thing I could think of was getting home to Gil and letting him know that I knew the truth so that he didn’t have to hold it in any longer.
When I reached my car, my cell phone had just stopped ringing. I flipped it open and noticed that I had missed eight calls from Quinn. I was just about to hit the REDIAL button when I saw Diana rush through the doors, taking her cell phone away from her ear and snapping it shut.
“That was Quinn,” she said, slightly breathless and her skin even paler than before. “He can’t find Gil anywhere. The jon boat’s missing, and Quinn thinks Gil may have gone to the marina. Quinn wasn’t left with a car to use, so he’s called Trey to come get him and take him there. He’s been trying to reach you to see if you can get there any quicker.”
I began fumbling for my car keys in my purse. “Trey put the Highfalutin in the water yesterday, and Gil must have overheard Quinn talking with Trey about it. Surely he wouldn’t…” I stopped, too afraid to finish my thought. “Damn it!” I shouted, tossing things out of my purse in a desperate attempt to find my keys.
Diana held up Quinn’s key chain. “Here. Take these.”
I grabbed them from her. “Thanks,” I said, heading for her car. When she slid into the passenger seat, I looked at her in surprise. “I don’t remember asking you to come along.”
“He’s my son, Marnie. Even if I have to tie myself to the bumper, I’m going. Now. So you pick.”
I took a deep breath and then stabbed the key into the ignition. “Fine.” I backed out of the parking spot and sped out of the lot with squealing tires. I ignored the speedometer as I pressed the gas pedal down as far as I could manage without flying off the road. By the time we reached Highway 17, I let it down all the way. Diana and I hadn’t said a word for almost fifteen minutes, and when I glanced at her, I saw the muscles in her jaw working.
“Why wouldn’t you let him go sailing? That’s why he’s doing this, you know—because you forbade him to sail. If you knew that he loved it this much, why wouldn’t you let him?”
She turned away from me and didn’t answer.
All the anger and emotions dredged up in the last few hours consumed me as I skidded to a stop on the side of the road. “Get out. Answer me or get out of the car. What you did to Gil nullifies your right to
keep anything about him from me. Do you understand? I’m his advocate here, and you’d better tell me everything I want to know. Right now.”
Her eyes were the only remaining color in her face as she went absolutely still. A car passed on the highway, its motor droning as it sped by. Her voice was barely audible when she spoke. “Because I’ve cheated death twice. If there is a curse, then I think I’ve tested it enough—don’t you think? If something happened to Gil now, I couldn’t live with myself. It would all be my fault.” She dropped her face in her hands and began gasping out huge sobs, her thin shoulders shaking. “I love him, Marnie. I know you don’t believe me, but I do. He is my whole life. I’ve just tried to limit my exposure to him so I wouldn’t corrupt him, like our mother did to me.”
I sat still, understanding the truth of her words. I looked away from her for a moment, trying to think clearly, but all I could think about was how she had been the one to hold my hand when I’d broken my leg falling off a pier when I was seven.
I opened my arms to her and held her while she cried. “It’s going to be all right, Diana. Nothing’s going to happen to Gil. I won’t let it.”
She looked up at me as if she believed every word, and I wished that I could be as sure as I sounded.
“Let’s go,” I said, flooring the gas pedal again, listening to the grind of the wheels on the loose asphalt as I shot onto the highway.
Diana’s hand fisted into a ball on the seat between us, and I lifted mine to put on top of hers. I turned toward the windshield again, wondering if the same words were going through her head, too: two souls which touch without mingling, two fingers on one hand.
CHAPTER 27
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
—F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
Gil
I looked at my watch again for what must have been the hundredth time, waiting for Mr. Crumbley to leave the marina office. Most days he was on the water, teaching people how to sail, but today he was in his office, probably doing all that stuff my dad calls “paperwork.” Unluckily for me, he had a corner office with a view of most of the marina—including me. Everybody called him Captain Dave, but Daddy said I was to call him Mr. Crumbley since I was just a kid. I once heard Mama call him Captain McHottie, but she made me promise never to repeat it, and I haven’t. Which was okay with me, since I didn’t know what it meant, anyway.
I watched as he walked down the dock toward me, his sunglasses making him look really cool. He’d already come out to the dock twice to ask me what I was doing and to see if I needed anything. The last time he’d given me a bag of sunflower seeds, and I ate a few and fed the rest to the gulls and other birds that flew over the marina as I passed the time. I looked up at Mr. Crumbley and smiled, ready for his questions.
“Still waiting?”
I nodded.
“Your dad?”
I nodded again.
“He’s going to take you for a sail as soon as he’s done at his office, huh?”
I nodded.
Mr. Crumbley looked at his watch and then out toward the water. “The wind’s really picking up, so if you’re going to sail, you should go soon. And I just checked the NOAA on my computer for the updated weather forecast. Barometric pressure’s dropping, so things could get dicey later on. I’m sure your daddy knows that, but make sure you let him know just in case, all right?”
I nodded, trying to look as responsible as I could.
“All right, then.” He cleared his throat, wrinkling his forehead while he looked out over the water. “Something’s definitely coming in.” He zipped up his Windbreaker and smiled at me. “I’m heading out for lunch and locking up the office because there’s nobody else here today. Are you sure you don’t need anything before I go?”
I shook my head.
He looked at me for a long moment. “All right, then. But stay away from the water until your daddy gets here, okay?”
I nodded one more time, giving him a salute and making him smile.
After he left, I waited a few more minutes to make sure that he wasn’t coming back. Feeling the breeze now, I zipped up my new yellow jacket, and then moved down the dock until I was next to the Highfalutin. With a deep breath, I stepped onto the boat at the widest part of the deck, holding on to the shrouds like my daddy taught me as I stepped over the lifelines, making sure I didn’t step on the teak toe rail that I remembered sanding. My muscles hurt at the memory, and I promised myself that I would do whatever was possible to make sure that the toe rail remained in as perfect shape as possible for a long, long time.
I stood where I was for a minute, remembering the last time I’d been on the boat when it was about to set sail. I’d been with Mama then, when she’d been sick, and I’d been too selfish to notice because all I wanted to do was to sail and to be with her. I sometimes wondered if that was why I wouldn’t talk about it, because I thought it was all my fault. And I wondered, too, if a mother could still love you even after she did something really terrible. I thought that the answer could be yes. I still loved her, after all, although I couldn’t tell her. I guess it’s the same part of the heart that makes you love someone no matter what they’ve done as the part that makes you forgive them for it.
As fast as I could, I went down the list in my head of what to do to prepare to sail, almost hearing my daddy’s voice telling them to me, one by one. I unzipped the mainsail cover and attached the main halyard, adding two wraps around the hoisting winch. I released the boom vang so when I hoisted the mainsail, the boom would be free to rise. Daddy forgot to do that once, and I learned a lot of cuss words as he tried to get the sail up all the way and couldn’t.
I checked to make sure the winch handle was secure in its holder so it wouldn’t be lost overboard. I’d learned that one the hard way as I’d had to listen to at least a million lectures from my dad about what happened when the winch handle wasn’t secured and how much they cost to replace.
I checked the wind indicator at the top of the mast and turned my face into the wind to determine which spring line to undo last. If I screwed that part up and put a scratch or dent on my dad’s newly painted boat from letting it get banged against the dock, he’d probably be pissed off enough to not allow me on the boat for the rest of the year. I slipped the spring lines off the boat and tossed them onto the dock, feeling pretty good about how I’d remembered everything so far.
Moving to the helm, I turned on the engine, running through the NIL drill in my head, which my daddy had drummed into me: engine in neutral, throttle in idle, no lines in the water near the prop. I waited for the engine to pee—not that I would say that out loud in front of any other adults, but that’s what Daddy called it when the engine started spitting out water like it’s supposed to. After casting the bow and stern lines, I began to back the thirty-foot boat out of the slip.
I glanced down the dock to make sure Mr. Crumbley hadn’t come back or that my mama or daddy and aunt Marnie hadn’t figured out where I was, yet. It was okay for them to be there when I got back, as proof that I was such a good sailor that I could handle the Highfalutin all by myself. But if they showed up now, while I had to motor slowly out of the marina, they’d be able to stop me. I took in the fenders and threw them in the cockpit, knowing that leaving them on would be like a flashing sign that said inexperienced sailor on board. I had done that the first time I’d gone sailing with my daddy, and I’d never done it again.
As I motored out into Jeremy Creek and headed toward the ICW, I looked toward the coast line as Daddy had taught me to do, to check for bending trees or windsocks and flags to determine the direction of the wind near the shore. Grandpa had once told me that like oil paint and watercolors are Mama’s mediums as an artist, the wind plays that part for the sailor. Most important, he’d said, a good sailor would never forget it. I also noticed that all the gulls and other birds that I had been feeding earlier were suddenly gone. The sky was quiet, and I tried to remember what my
dad had told me that meant, but I couldn’t. I was too excited about sailing again to try to remember something unimportant like missing birds.
Despite the warmer weather, there weren’t a lot of boats out on account of it still being December. That was fine with me. Not that I thought I might hit another boat, but in McClellanville where everybody knows everybody else, word would get back too quickly. As I got onto the ICW, I caught a stiff breeze, and I realized how much cooler it had become. I looked up at the sky, surprised to see there was little blue left and a thick gray cover of clouds had arrived to block out the sun.
I wasn’t worried. Whatever Mama might think, I was a good sailor. I’d never piloted a boat by myself in bad weather, but I knew that I could. There was something about being at the helm of a boat that changed you inside; like when Popeye eats spinach, I could feel my brain and muscles getting smarter and stronger. When the wind filled my sails, I became like Superman: afraid of nothing and able to do anything.
As I approached open water, I checked my compass. I was going to stick to the course my dad and I had sailed before, and the one he’d used when he’d taken Aunt Marnie out on Mr. Bonner’s Catalina. Not too far out, but far enough into deep water to make the sailing exciting. I told my dad once that there wasn’t anything better or more exciting in life than being under sail in fast winds. He’d said that there was one thing, but that I was too young to know what that was. That was a few years ago, and I still haven’t figured out anything better, so I guess Daddy must have been wrong.
I set my course about forty-five degrees off the wind and then pushed the autopilot button like my dad had showed me. Of all the neat stuff he’d had Mr. Bonner add to the boat while it was in the shop, this was the coolest. Daddy had decided not to replace the old sails this season so he could buy the autopilot instead. I definitely thought it was worth it since it let me pay attention to the sails without worrying about steering. The autopilot could even correct itself if the boat’s direction changed, which was a lot easier than me having to mess with it, too.