by Luanne Rice
“Because Mr. Landry wants us to make him look good. Martine, they’re taking away the thing that makes our beach special. Didn’t you grow up hearing about how our grandparents had to pull blackout shades down at night? To block the light so U-boats couldn’t see convoys of ships going by?”
“Yes. But—”
“Those shades were still up when my mother was a teenager; she asked about them, and her parents told her what they were for.” Mickey paused. “Didn’t your mom or dad used to walk you along the beach, point out the spot you couldn’t even see—somewhere out in the waves—where the battle was fought, and where the U-boat still is now?”
“Yes,” Martine said, looking doubtful.
“Didn’t you imagine how scared they all had to be? Both the Americans, shooting at the sub, and the Germans, trapped down there underwater?”
“I did,” Martine said, nodding. “My brother and I used to play ship, there on the beach. We’d keep lookout for periscopes…. Once we were swimming on a calm day, and we found some old shell casings.”
“You could donate them to Mr. Landry’s museum,” Mickey said.
“We gave them to the town library,” Martine said.
Mickey nodded. She had seen them—or casings like them—in the glass-front bookcases in their local library. There were also clippings about the battle, photographs of the USS James, pictures of the German crew, the commander’s hat that had floated out of the wreck, German plates and cups brought up by divers. Mickey remembered going to the library with her father, holding his hand and listening to him try to explain to her how when he was a little boy the war had come to his own backyard.
“Everything to do with U-823 will end up going to the new museum,” Mickey said.
“Not the shells Andy and I found on the beach,” Martine said.
“Everything,” Mickey said, still holding her phone, feeling her father’s voice in her fingertips. “All our history.”
“Huh,” Martine said, frowning. “That’s weird. Now I’m not so sure how I feel about it.”
She started walking away just as Shane came over to see Mickey. He put his arm around her, bent down, brushed his lips across hers—right in the middle of school. Her knees turned to jelly, but she fought the feeling, stood up straight, and looked him in the eyes.
“It’s working, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Made her think, anyway…”
“They think the only people who care about the wreck are surfers and old WWII vets,” he said. “The thing is, they care, too—but just don’t know it.”
“Everyone has a reason,” Mickey said, still holding her cell phone, knowing her father’s voice was captured there, that she could listen to it anytime she wanted. And even standing in the high school corridor, she could see the German crew, looking out from the wreck, white faces glowing in the murk, telling her their tales in a language she had never heard before but understood all the same.
“What are you doing after school?” Shane asked.
“Going home to study, I guess,” she said.
“Come down to the beach,” he said. “Watch me surf.”
“It’s so cold,” she said, reaching up to touch the stitches in his head. “Won’t it be dangerous?”
“Everything’s dangerous, I think,” he said, pressing his lips against her ear, so she felt the warmth of his breath on her skin, and her legs turned to mush again. “And I don’t know how long the wreck will be there, and once it’s gone, the break will be gone, too.”
“Everything goes,” she said, holding the cell phone and knowing that even though it contained the message, who knew where her father was now? People said things in messages that sometimes never came true.
“Don’t think that,” he said. “Some things last.”
“Everything goes,” she said stubbornly.
“I won’t go,” Shane said, holding her hand, looking so hard into her eyes that she felt shocked, and believed him.
16
Yesterday Mickey had gone to the beach to watch Shane surf, and today, with a break in the cold weather—sun actually shining, and snowdrops poking up out of the frozen ground, and only the lightest of breezes—she was going back.
She loved watching Shane in his black wetsuit, diving into the gray-green water, paddling out past the break, half on and half off his board. His legs looked so strong, pushing through the surf, and she loved the way he concentrated, just staring off toward the horizon at waves that hadn’t even happened yet.
Walking the tide line in her green rubber boots, she picked up blue mussel shells, silver oyster shells, and bits of green sea glass. Every piece she gathered was a memento of this day, of coming to Refuge Beach to watch Shane surf. She wore a white eyelet skirt—from last summer, and a hope of more summer days to come—and a long cream-colored fleece, open in front because the breeze felt so good.
Mickey held on to her cell phone, not wanting to miss another call from her father. Wherever he was, he had to call back. Didn’t he know he was in a race against time? He was in such trouble with the court—it almost killed Mickey to think that he could be arrested for not paying child support, when she didn’t even care.
Or maybe she did care. Not because she wanted the money, but because she wanted him. It had been so hard, knowing he had fallen in love with Alyssa and was starting a new family with her. But he was still her dad—he’d always said that nothing could change that.
She watched as Shane waited for the right wave, saw him jump up on the board, ride the heavy swell until it turned as clear as cellophane, rippled, and broke beneath him, trailing off into tendrils of white lace. It seemed so precarious, the idea of a boy riding water. She hauled herself up on the jetty, the narrow, barnacle-encrusted wooden structure jutting out into the water, and tried to balance while Shane rode the waves.
It happened over and over: the wave looking so solid, then smashing into a million foamy pieces. And Mickey standing on the jetty with her heavy green boots, weaving in the sea breeze. Her cast felt heavy, but it gave her stability as she walked slowly, one foot in front of the other, along the narrow jetty.
Tonight Mickey’s mother had a date. Yes, a date. The fact that it was with Mr. O’Casey meant something, but even so, Mickey’s heart was heavy. It seemed as if today was the end of a dream—that her parents would one day get back together.
When Mickey had said goodbye to her mother this morning—before getting on the school bus—her mother had held her face between her hands. She’d looked Mickey straight in the eyes and said, “I love you more than anything.”
“You don’t have to say that,” Mickey had said.
“But it’s true.”
“That’s why you don’t have to say it.”
That had been the closest Mickey could come to giving her mother her blessing. Her mother had broken the news last night, before Mickey went to bed. She and Mr. O’Casey would be going out to dinner. They wouldn’t stay out late. Mickey could wait home alone, or with a friend—no, not Shane. Jenna, maybe? Chris Brody had invited Mickey for dinner, if she’d prefer that.
No, Mickey had said. She’d be fine home alone. Her mother had let that stand for about five minutes, then said she’d really prefer it if Mickey had dinner with Chris—Chris could pick her up at the beach, if Mickey wanted to go watch Shane surf again.
Now, staring out at Shane on his board, Mickey pictured her mother at home, getting ready. Mickey had seen her mother get dressed to go out for dinner with her father a hundred times. She’d stand in front of the mirror, put on makeup, dab on a little perfume. Annick Goutal’s Eau d’Hadrien, a gift brought back from Paris by her mother’s boss. Mickey liked the way it smelled.
Her mother would probably wear a skirt. That’s what she had always picked out for the most special occasions with Mickey’s father—for birthdays, or their anniversary. They had made it to their thirteenth; unlucky thirteen. A black skirt, a white silk blouse, maybe a silver necklace. Pearl earrings. H
igh heels…
Mickey shook herself. Stop thinking about what her mother was wearing. The reason Mickey didn’t want to be home right now was that she knew she couldn’t bear to see her mother walk out the door, all beautiful and ready for a special evening, with a man who wasn’t Mickey’s father. Even Mr. O’Casey.
She gazed into the distance—at Shane on his surfboard, but also at the waves themselves. The way they reared up, turned into tubes, trembled beneath Shane’s board, shattered. The white edge never stopped, just poured from one wave into the next.
Staring at the salt spray dissolving under the edge of Shane’s surfboard, turning into mist, into vapor, she thought about how things disappeared. Here today, gone tomorrow. Kids waiting for parents to come home, parents who would never walk through the door again. Her parents had been fighting for so long; couldn’t they make peace with each other?
After a long stretch, Shane paddled in to shore, pulled his board through the surf, ran with it under his arm to where Mickey stood on the jetty. The closer he got, the more her heart warmed up, so that by the time he got close, she jumped into his arms, wrapped him in a wet, salty kiss, and was hot all over. Her pocket was full of shells and glass, and her lips tasted of Shane and the sea.
“How was it?” she asked.
“It was great, because you were here,” he said, holding her tight, his lips cold against her cheek.
“Really?”
“Yes,” he said. “Massive swells, the occasional solo giant, the way the waves begin at the tip of the U-boat, roar up and start to boil, double up when they pass over the conning tower, and hollow out into long, empty tubes.”
She nodded, holding him.
“I saw you standing over here on the jetty.” He squeezed her tighter, kissed her, tilted his head back, looking straight into her eyes. “And I thought, I never want this to end.”
“Neither do I,” Mickey said. She thought about the letters she’d written. Thirty-seven so far, using every free moment she had. She glanced up at Shane; he was a year older, almost old enough to go to war. She scrambled out of his arms and back onto the jetty, pulling him up so he was standing behind her. They stood on the jetty, facing out to sea, listening to all the sounds around them: each other’s breath, flocks of shorebirds flying overhead, the waves crashing over the wreck, the fresh breeze that felt like winter dying and spring coming on, and the unspoken voices of all the fathers and sons—under the sea, and above.
Tim pulled up right on schedule at six—not seven as they’d first said. He told Neve they needed extra daylight so he could show her something, and she’d agreed. Chris was all set to pick Mickey up at the beach, and as odd as it felt for Neve to not see her daughter first, she was almost relieved. It felt strange, going out on a date, and she was just as glad to not have to watch Mickey’s reaction.
“You look great,” Tim said, holding the door to the truck open as she climbed in—wearing a slim black skirt, black cashmere sweater, and tall black boots.
“So do you,” she said, and he did: khakis, blue oxford shirt, leather jacket filled out by very broad shoulders. He looked like a smart, rugged college professor with a penchant for working out.
“I thought we’d head to Newport,” he said as they drove along. Through the trees, onto Route 1—but instead of toward the beach, heading north.
“Newport’s great,” she said, thinking of favorite restaurants on the wharf.
“With a short stop first,” he said.
She nodded. The radio played quietly, and Neve felt a small jolt inside. Music on a car ride; it felt so fun and easy, such a reminder of being young and romantic. She hadn’t had a thought like this in so long, she had to stare out the window so Tim wouldn’t see her smile and wonder why such a small thing was making her feel so happy.
Over the Jamestown Bridge, across Conanicut Island, then to the Newport Bridge; Tim threw a token into the basket, and they drove up onto the bridge. It felt like liftoff to Neve—the sweeping climb over Narragansett Bay, the spectacular view south of town, wharves and houses and the white steeple of Trinity Church, Fort Adams, boats in the harbor, whitecaps, and there in the distance, out in the Atlantic, like a turtle on the horizon, Block Island.
“There’s Block,” she said.
“It’s a clear evening,” he said, “to get such a good view.”
“Have you gone there much?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Quite a bit. When I was young, my father used to take me out there in our fishing boat. We’d moor in Old Harbor, go to Ballard’s for shore dinners, spend the night. And then we’d always go out to East Ground….”
“East Ground?” she asked.
“The shoal and trench,” he said. “I know that’s where he always believed U-823 was making for when he sank her.”
“Is it deep there?” she asked.
“Very,” he said. “The Ice Age scraped this whole region clean—when the glacier receded, the leading edge pushed up a whole line of rubble, glacial moraine from here out past Nantucket. The upper part forms the islands—Block Island, Martha’s Vineyard…and the lower part forms the reefs and ledges, like East Ground, the nineteen-fathom bank.”
“Did your father teach you all that?”
“No,” Tim said, shaking his head as they drove off the bridge, past Newport, heading east. “For a Navy guy, everything he taught me had to do with the air. Birds and flight. For the sea, I had to go to college.”
“So you have a background in oceanography?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I guess I studied it as a way of getting close to my father, understanding what drove him. I wanted to know what those trips to East Ground were all about, and I knew they had to do with a deep ocean trench.”
“Deep enough for U-823 to hide.”
“Yes,” Tim said. “But the U-boat never made it that far….”
“You said your father never talked about it,” Neve said, thinking back to their time on the driftwood log, when Tim had cut her off. “Did he talk to your mother?”
Tim shook his head. “Communication wasn’t very big in our house. Luckily, my mother came from a big family. She had four sisters, and they all lived nearby. Looking back, I feel bad for her. She had me and my father to deal with, and neither of us did too much talking. She never seemed unhappy, though—she had a great sense of humor, and she was always laughing. No thanks to us.”
Neve thought of how a person’s silence and unhappiness could use up all a family’s oxygen, threaten to take over the house. Before Richard left, when he was the most miserable, days could go by without any real conversation. He’d sit at the dinner table, barely saying a word, both Neve and Mickey walking on eggshells, trying not to upset him.
“What are you thinking?” Tim asked her now.
“About my marriage; you’re reminding me of what it was like to live that way,” she said, and she felt almost disloyal, even though Richard had been long gone: she had been raised to keep things to herself, not talk about what went on under her family’s roof.
“That way?” he said.
“With someone who never talked, kept all his feelings to himself. I never knew what my husband was thinking. In his case, there was drinking involved….”
“My father, too,” Tim said.
“Really?” Neve asked, glancing over.
“Yeah,” Tim said. “Till he went to AA and got sober.”
“It’s bad enough, being married to someone with a problem,” Neve said. “But it’s so much worse for the kids. Mickey could never understand what was going on. I’d watch her trying to be so good—almost as if she thought that if she behaved a certain way, was smart enough, or funny enough, she could keep him from going out to the bar. It had nothing to do with her.”
“I’m sorry you and Mickey went through that,” Tim said. “Is that why your marriage broke up?”
Neve nodded. “At least partly,” she said. “It’s hard to separate out the causes at this point. A
ll I know is, we were just so unhappy. I didn’t want Mickey to grow up thinking that’s how life should be—I wanted her to see joy and possibility.”
“That’s good,” Tim said. “You both deserve that….”
As they drove east the sky began to glow. The sun was setting behind them, and the peach-colored light was spreading all over the trees and landscape. Neve noticed the tips of the branches turning pink, and she felt spring in the air. Glancing over at Tim, she was almost afraid to ask what he was thinking. But something told her that this would be the time, so she went for it.
“What about you?” she asked. “What happened to your marriage?”
“Like father, like son,” he said. “I learned how to be tough, fight my own battles, take care of business. Beth—my wife—never stopped trying to get inside. I thought I’d be burdening her to talk about things.”
“Things that were worrying you?” Neve asked.
“Yes,” he said.
She thought of what she knew about Frank. Had he still been married when Frank had joined up, gone overseas? Having seen the way Tim was with Mickey, the way he’d taken care of her and worried about her when she was in the hospital, she could only imagine how he must have felt about Frank, and how his silence and holding his feelings in must have frustrated Beth. Thinking about all that, she found herself reaching across the seat.
She found his hand. Took it, held it in hers, laced fingers with his.
He glanced over, surprised—but not half as shocked as she felt herself. Her heart was beating so fast, right against her throat. The late winter sky surrounded them, so full of pink light and the promise of spring. She thought of their two failed marriages, their two beloved children, the damage that too much silence had done everyone. Yet riding along, she couldn’t imagine a word that could make her feel closer to him than she did right now.
A few minutes later they came out behind St. George’s School. Passed the road leading to Purgatory Chasm, down the hill past Second Beach, round the bend by Third Beach. The graceful curve of Hanging Rock dominated the scene, hovering over the marsh, just behind the beach and ocean. Neve stared over as Tim parked, facing the vista.