by Cathy Holton
“Let’s play a game,” Mel said. “Let’s go around the table and say something about ourselves that no one else knows.”
“No!” Annie put her fingers in her ears and began to hum.
“Haven’t we already played this?” Lola asked.
“Okay,” Mel said. “I’ll go first.” She took another hit and held it, tilting her head back to the green sky. She exhaled slowly and passed the joint to Annie. “Seven years ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer.” She had meant to sound somber but her voice came out high and strained. Like Minnie Mouse. Like Minnie Mouse sucking on a helium balloon.
Annie sputtered all over the joint.
Lola sat there staring at Mel as if she hadn’t heard her clearly.
Mel said, “I’m not kidding.” Sara blinked, a look of studied concern settling over her features.
“Cancer!” Annie whooped and put her head back.
“Damn it, Annie, I’m serious.”
“Oh, sure!”
“I had cancer, damn you,” Mel said, fixing Annie with a severe look, but it was hopeless and she knew it, and then she, too, began to giggle.
Gallows humor. Under the influence of Xanax and BC bud, Annie had it in large measure. As, apparently, did Mel. When they had stopped snorting and punching each other on the arms, Sara got up and went to use the head. When she came back out on deck, her face was pale. She sat down at the table, not looking at Mel, not looking at anyone, her eyes fixed on the dark, slumbering shape of Lea Island. As the joint went by, she reached out and took it, inhaling deeply. “Okay, let’s make a pact right now,” Sara said tightly. “We never talk about this. Ever.”
“What happens on the boat stays on the boat,” Mel said, nodding gravely.
Looking at her, Annie sputtered and began to laugh again.
“I’ve got kids,” Sara said, ignoring them. “I can’t tell them to just say no to drugs and alcohol if Mommy isn’t saying no.”
“Sure you can,” Annie said. “We all do it.”
“But doesn’t that make us hypocrites?”
“No. It makes us parents.”
“That’s right,” Mel says. “Do as I say, not as I do. Don’t ask, don’t tell.”
Annie and Lola thought that was very funny. “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” Lola repeated like a Girl Scout. Sara waited for the THC to take effect. She waited for the joint to go around the circle several times before she was ready. Then she looked at Mel and asked, “Why?”
Mel stopped giggling. “Why what?” she said.
Annie, sobering suddenly, said, “Sorry about laughing about your cancer.”
Mel said, “That’s okay. It feels good to laugh.”
Sara rapped her knuckles on the table to get Mel’s attention. “Why didn’t you tell us? Why did you try to get through all that on your own?”
Annie leaned over and relit the candle on the table. Lola watched her dreamily, letting the joint go out.
Mel shrugged and put her drink down. “It was early stage. I had a lumpectomy, followed by six rounds of chemo, and I’ve been fine ever since.” She flicked the lighter and held it to the tip of the joint while Lola inhaled deeply.
“But how could you not tell us?” Sara said. “How could you go through that alone?”
Mel tossed the lighter on the table. She leaned forward on her elbows and put her head down, and when she looked up again her voice was calm and reasonable. “I didn’t want people making a big deal out of it. I didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. I knew it was something I could get through. You had your own lives to deal with.”
“We’d have been there for you,” Annie said.
“I know that. And I knew that if things got bad, I’d tell you.” She took the joint from Lola and passed it to Sara. “It’s just that when something like that happens, all of a sudden you feel doomed, like you’re the only one in the world going through this run of bad luck. You see other people, bad people, shallow people, and you think, why did this happen to me? Why can’t they get cancer? What did I do to deserve this? And all around you life goes on just like before. Everyone goes on with their own lives, and their lives seem so perfect.”
“My life isn’t perfect,” Sara said mechanically. She sucked the joint and passed it on, narrowing her eyes as she exhaled. “My son has a mild form of autism. He goes to a special school. It’s been the hardest thing in the world, worrying about a child and who will take care of him when I’m gone. When Tom is gone. It’s nearly destroyed my marriage.”
Another sudden gust of wind rattled the candle in its glass globe. The moon sailed slowly behind a covering of dark clouds. Lola leaned over and laid her hand on Sara’s arm. “Is there any treatment?” she asked quietly.
“There are all kinds of treatments, many of them controversial. We’ve tried a lot of different things. Adam is highly functional but even so he doesn’t do well in social situations. He doesn’t have any friends, he doesn’t get invited to spend the night. I go to the mall and I see teenage boys hanging out together and I think, Adam will never be one of those boys. It’s hard.”
Mel remembered the boy she’d seen in the airport all those years ago, his face fixed in a strange concentration as he navigated the crowd. She leaned over and put her hand on top of Lola’s, giving Sara’s arm a little tug. “I’m sorry,” she said sincerely.
“Thanks,” Sara said. She stared at Mel’s hand. “I always wondered if it would have been different with you and Tom. If you two would have had normal kids.”
“We wouldn’t have had any kids at all,” Mel said. “And that would have killed him. He always wanted a family.”
Above them the broad shape of the dinghy rose from the flybridge, covered in its bright blue tarpaulin. Clouds scuttled across the moon.
Mel was quiet a moment, pulling her hand away. “I never told you this,” she said, “but years ago I saw you in an airport. It was Christmas and I was coming back from a book tour. I saw Tom first—your daughter was sitting on his shoulders and your son was walking alongside—and the thing I noticed most about Tom was that he seemed so happy. I’m talking deep, life-affirming joy here. It was written all over his face. And I knew then that we could never have been happy together. All the fantasies I had carried over the years were just that, fantasies. They weren’t real. They weren’t what you and Tom have. What you and Tom and your children have.”
Sara’s face softened in gratitude. She looked like she was going to cry, and they could see her struggling to contain herself. “Thank you for telling me that,” she said.
Mel leaned over and hugged her fiercely, and Sara hugged her back. The moon peeked from behind the clouds and shone brightly in the applegreen sky. Mel let her go. “I know it’s a daily struggle. If you ever need to talk to anyone you can call me, or any of us.”
“I know that.” Sara ran her finger under her eyes. She smiled and looked around her circle of friends. “We’re lucky that there are so many good doctors in Atlanta. Lately, we’ve been sending Adam to a neurologist who specializes in Lego therapy.”
“Lego therapy?” Annie said. “You mean those little blocks that stick together?”
“Yes.”
“My boys always loved those.”
“This doctor has discovered that autistic children seem drawn to Legos. Adam’s room is filled with them, all meticulously put together. Anyway, the doctor has formed play groups where he’ll bring in several boys and engage them by using Lego sets. They’ll make movies together, use the sets in imaginary games, interact in ways no one thought possible. So it’s definitely a step in the right direction.”
“Oh, Sara, that’s wonderful,” Lola said.
“I know things will work out,” Annie said, trying to be hopeful. She’d known about Adam—Sara had been calling for years to confide in her—and she was glad things seemed to be going well. There had been so many hopeful beginnings, so many failed therapies. She felt another quick flush of gratitude for her sons, whole and healthy.<
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“What about you, Lola?” Mel asked, trying to change the subject, trying to take the pressure off Sara. “Do you have any secrets you’d like to share? Other than the fact that you like porn?”
Lola shook her head. “I don’t,” she said.
“Did you ever tell Henry about your wild and crazy youth?”
“Of course I did,” Lola said. “I don’t have any secrets from Henry.” She frowned and sipped her iced tea. “Well, maybe one,” she said, setting the glass down. She was quiet for a moment, staring at her hand as if it belonged to someone else. “I never told him about Lonnie.”
No one wanted to talk about Lonnie. Mel got up and went into the galley to get another pitcher of tea. Captain Mike and April had disappeared, obviously heading down to the crew quarters for the night. She put “The Day I Forgot” on the CD player and came back out on the deck. The sea was calm and placid. A fish jumped, its scales glimmering in the moonlight. The storm seemed farther away now, the thunder more distant. Mel poured another round of sweet tea and sat down. She looked around the table at her friends, who sat staring pensively out at the water. “Shit, Annie,” she said suddenly, “what’d you do with the joint?”
Startled, Annie looked around. “I must have dropped it.”
They all got up and began to look.
“Don’t think this gets you off the hook,” Sara said to Annie. “You still have to tell us something about yourself that we don’t know.”
Annie looked surprised. Then she put her head back and laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Mel asked.
“Everything.”
“Tell us.”
“I wish I could always feel like this.”
“Don’t we all,” Sara said.
Annie told them about Professor Ballard. They sat around the table, smoking and listening, their faces pale and disbelieving in the candlelight. They were still listening ten minutes later when Captain Mike stuck his head out to check on them. “The sea has calmed,” he said to Lola. “Do you still want me to take us offshore?”
Lola, who had been sitting with her chin in her hand, stirred and looked around the table. “I thought we’d take a moonlight cruise on our last night together. There’s something I want to show you. It’s not far,” she added, looking at Annie as if she feared the trauma of an open sea cruise might be too much for her.
But Annie, in the middle of the tale of her doomed love affair with Paul Ballard, wasn’t concerned. It was amazing how good it felt, finally telling someone. She felt purged, peaceful. Her back prickled, as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She didn’t even wait for Captain Mike to leave before she began again.
They sat listening to her, expressions of grief and outrage on their faces. Annie was so elated and caught up in her story that she hardly noticed when Captain Mike fired up the engines and headed for open sea.
She hurried on, telling them everything.
They cruised for a while and then anchored a mile offshore. It was quiet here; there was no sound but the gentle lapping of the waves against the hull. Lola made Captain Mike turn off all the lights and they sat in the darkness, listening. The water, in the moonlight, was smooth and calm. Strange phosphorescent lights lit the depths, and sitting there it was easy to imagine how the Earth must have looked before time began. All along the mainland and the distant islands, lights twinkled, scattered outposts of civilization in the vast, quiet darkness.
“Does Mitchell know?” Mel asked suddenly, and everyone turned to peer at her in the dim light. The candle flickered in the center of the table, reflecting their somber, composed faces.
“No,” Annie said quickly.
“You sly dog,” Mel said.
“It’s not really something I’m proud of, Mel. It’s something that just happened.”
“I know that, Annie. But it makes you more human, somehow.”
“We all make mistakes,” Sara agreed, not looking at anyone in particular.
Lola tapped her fingers against the candle’s smoky globe. “I’m hungry,” she said.
“I’m starving,” Sara said.
“Do you have any junk food on this boat, Lola?”
“I’ll see.” She got up and went inside and a few minutes later all the lights came on in the galley. Lola stuck her head out the door. “How about a big plate of nachos?”
“You got any chocolate?” Mel asked.
“No chocolate, just nachos.”
A short while later, she came out carrying a huge platter in her hands. She was wearing pajamas and her Coke-bottom eyeglasses. “I thought Mel and I would sleep in the master stateroom and Annie and Sara in the VIP stateroom,” she said, setting the plate down on the table. She scooted over and sat down next to Mel.
“I am getting kind of sleepy,” Annie said.
“No one goes to bed before twelve,” Mel warned. “This is our last night together. We have to make it last as long as possible. Although I’d like to go on record as saying that I think we should do this more often.”
“I second that,” Sara said, lifting her empty glass.
“Me, too,” Annie said.
Lola pointed to the platter. “Shall I make more nachos?” she said.
They all went below to put on their pajamas and then came back up on deck to finish the nachos. After that, Lola made another plate and then heated up a frozen pizza she found in the freezer.
“Now I remember why I don’t like smoking dope,” Sara said. “I’ll put on five pounds before I get home tomorrow.”
Mel said, “It doesn’t matter. Your husband will be glad to see you anyway.”
Sara grinned. “You’re probably right,” she said.
A ship passed slowly along the horizon, its lights twinkling. Pete Yorn sang “Come Back Home” in the salon.
Mel had passed Captain Mike in the passageway and he’d smiled and said, Cute pajamas. She’d wondered for a moment if he was flirting with her, but then he said, Good night, and strode along the passageway to the crew quarters. She stood there watching him disappear, wondering what he would do if she followed him. She imagined herself standing outside his door, rapping lightly with her knuckles and then throwing herself into his arms when he appeared, sleepily, in the passageway.
What was it she always told herself just before beginning some particularly desperate enterprise? This experience will make me a better writer.
Maybe, after all, that was the best she could hope for.
Annie sat watching the moonlight shimmer on the water. The distant island was like a bowl overturned in the sea. She should have felt anxious, sitting here on a moonlit ocean far, far, from shore but instead she felt sleepy and content. And maybe even a little homesick. She wished that Mitchell was here.
Far off across the water the lights of Wilmington twinkled faintly. A radio tower blinked, its red beacon glowing dimly.
“Should I tell him?” Annie hesitated, staring at the distant lights. “Should I tell Mitchell?”
“About what?”
“About Professor Ballard.”
Mel was quiet for a moment considering this. “Do you think it’ll make him happy to know?” she asked carefully.
Annie shook her head. “No. It’ll make him miserable. It’ll ruin his life.”
“Then you can’t tell him,” Sara said.
“There’s your answer,” Mel said.
Annie sat quietly, feeling the gentle rocking of the boat beneath her. Forgiveness comes when you least expect it, she thought, dropping from the heavens like a cool rain. She smiled faintly and said, “But it’s okay now, isn’t it? I’ve told you.”
“Yes, you’ve told us,” Lola said, touching Annie’s hand. “You don’t have to think about it anymore.”
“You’ve been happy together for thirty years,” Mel said. “Don’t let anything spoil that.”
It was then that Annie put her head down and began to cry.
They all cried for a while and then it was over.
They wiped their faces, blew their noses, and looked at each other sheepishly. Mel got up and poured everyone another glass of tea, then she sat down again. She took a deep breath, pulling one knee up against her chest and resting her foot on the edge of her chair. “There’s something I have to say,” she said, and the others, sensing her gravity, steeled themselves for another revelation. She breathed again, more quietly this time, and turned to Lola. “I don’t know how to begin,” she said.
They waited patiently. Lola stirred the ice in her glass with a straw.
“Just say it,” Annie said.
“Get it off your chest,” Sara said.
Mel sighed heavily. She paused, avoiding Lola’s eyes, and then said quickly, “Back in college. The night Briggs put Lonnie in the hospital.” She hesitated again, but this time she met Lola’s steady gaze. “It was me who told him about you and Lonnie.”
No one said anything. Lightning flashed along the distant horizon.
Sara shook her head mutely. “I don’t believe it,” she said finally.
“How could you?” Annie said.
“I had no right,” Mel said, and Lola dropped her chin to stare at the candle, a reticent expression on her face. “I was afraid you’d run off with Lonnie and be unhappy, and I didn’t want that to happen, but I had no right. It was none of my business who you ran off with. It was your life, not mine.”
Lola stared at the candle. “Did you tell my mother?”
“No. Briggs must have done that. Lola, I’m so sorry.”
Sara stood up abruptly and walked over to the side of the boat. She put her hands on the railing and leaned out over the water as if she might jump. Annie chewed a mint leaf and stared solemnly at the moon.
“I didn’t want to see you get hurt,” Mel repeated slowly.
Lola took a deep breath. Her face, lit by the moon and the flickering candlelight, was calm but thoughtful. “It’s all right,” she said finally. “I know you did it for the right reasons.”