Becalmed: When a Southern woman with a broken heart finds herself falling for a widower with a broken boat, it's anything but smooth sailing.

by Normandie Fischer

  A light came on in Bobby’s living room, and Tadie turned back in time to see a gull land on a nearby piling. The gulls made a mess of her dock with the shells they cracked for dinner, and they were a loud bunch, always squawking and cawing, but they seemed proud and fearless with their black and yellow beaks and pink legs. Bucky’d called them greedy so-and-sos as he shot picture after picture of them swooping after whatever he’d just tossed in the water. But they sure photographed well. At least she had his pictures left to remember that sweet, sweet boy. Their bright, shining star.

  Tadie swiped at the tears she couldn’t help. Oh, Bucky.

  Soon, darkness folded over the creek, and mosquitoes forced her inside. After letting Ebenezer out and in again, she took a long shower, washed down the bathroom, put away laundry she’d brought up earlier, and finally climbed in bed at nine thirty. She clicked on one of Prokofiev’s works in the CD player. Too rousing. Debussy’s Nocturnes came up next, perfect go-to-sleep music. If she could only get comfortable. The wrinkles irritated her, so she sat up and smoothed out the fitted sheet. The seam in her nightgown rubbed a line in her hip. She straightened it and turned on her back. Her skin itched. She scooted around, trying to scratch the illusive spot.

  Ebenezer hopped off the bed and padded downstairs. She couldn’t blame him.

  Throwing off the sheet, she hoped for a breeze. The fan’s whir only stirred the heavy, hot air. What in the world was wrong with her?

  Another CD clicked on. Baroque Music for Relaxing. The supposedly soothing instrumentals were not performing as described.

  Nothing was performing as described.

  She felt … empty. No, half full. As if she needed more.

  But more what?

  She reached down and pulled the sheet up to her neck, glaring at the dark. No one better say she needed a man. She’d known a few of those, including one momentary fiancé, and there was no way she needed another one. Men were messy and complicated—or boring—and before long, the ones she wanted to keep either ran off or died.

  Lord, have mercy, but this was not the way she wanted to feel every time she faced darkness and bed. “You up there, God? I could use some help here,” she said, thinking this new focus of hers was probably the first step to becoming what she most feared. Didn’t crazy folk worry a thing to death until it became their only reality?

  She was on a slippery, downhill slope, sure as anything.

  Chapter Six

  Will aimed both cabin fans toward the motor hole, with the sweat rag handy to wipe his face when the drips got near his eyes. Jilly sheltered from the sun in her bunk, trying to read, while her own fan puffed air, swirling the heat and not accomplishing much else.

  He’d found the leak and would go hunting for more parts later, but right now he needed to put things back together so they could hightail it out of threatening weather if they had to. Only a fool sat at anchor with no means of escape, and escape meant having a working engine.

  They’d been back to visit Isa just before Down East closed, to thank her and Tadie for the list of suppliers. As Jilly’d hoped, this really was a friendly place. Isa’s invitation for Jilly to stay at the store while he went on a supply run had his daughter bouncing on her toes and pleading for him to agree.

  So that was on this afternoon’s schedule. It would get Jilly out of the heat and give him a chance to take a rental car around town to visit more parts stores without having her pull on his pocket all the time, asking to get a drink or ice cream, go to the bathroom, or buy pizza.

  He tightened another nut, which for some reason reminded him of last night’s dream. Fool. Why should a simple job like this bring back that memory?

  He shook his head, swiped again at the drops of sweat slipping through his eyebrows. Man, he had to get over this stuff. But Nancy had seemed so real, lying next to him in the bunk and wanting to talk. So he had. He’d told her about Jilly’s leap forward in reading this year and how he trusted their baby with so many things.

  “Too many,” he’d whispered. “I know. Too many.”

  She’d listened and touched his forehead like she used to, running her fingers through his hair, brushing it back. He could swear he felt her—felt the slight scrape of fingernails across his skin, felt breath on his cheek, and then her kiss.

  Her kiss.

  Why’d he have to wake? And why so soon?

  He banged the wrench against the metal block and cursed. Why?

  His gut clenched, and he pressed a fist against it, trying to shut out the pain and the need. Please. Tell me why.

  Jilly’s voice roused him, calling from her cabin. “Daddy! You almost done?”

  He sniffed and straightened. “Almost. One more nut to tighten.”

  That finished, he lifted himself out of the hole and closed the floorboards. A little cleaner on his hands, a quick wash, and they could go. At least he had something to do this afternoon. He didn’t think he could bear sitting. Waiting. Thinking.

  He ducked his head into Jilly’s cabin. She had one leg crossed over the other knee, Tubby tucked nearby, and a book resting on her chest. He smiled and cleared his throat so he wouldn’t startle her with his words. “You want to spread some peanut butter while I clean up?”

  She dropped the book and bounced off her bunk. “And then the store?”

  “And then the store.”

  “Okay!”

  * * * * *

  The days moved as languidly as the air. Hot and windless weather had trapped Tadie in her studio, where she soldered fittings to pieces that needed repair. Last night had been so hot she’d made a bed on the couch in the studio and slept there with the window air conditioner on high—until Ebenezer had scratched on the door, wanting in. Still, with him settled on a cushion nearby, her mind had relaxed and sleep had returned.

  Now, she grabbed a muffin and headed to the hospital, freeing James to go fetch Rita. She held Elvie Mae’s hand until the nurses wheeled her down to surgery.

  The novel she’d brought to keep her company failed after three measly pages. Sticking it back in her bag, she flipped through the magazines on the table next to her seat—news, farming, fishing, or decorator journals. She picked up Newsweek.

  Every so often, a doctor came through the doorway, his mask lowered over a loose shirt, his matching pants baggy like pajamas, a cap still covering his hair. He called out a name and spoke in hushed tones to the anxious family.

  Tadie looked up each time someone pushed open either door—the one families used or the one reserved for medical staff. Finally, James stood holding the door for Rita to pass into the room.

  The fluorescent ceiling lights exaggerated James’s wrinkles and darkened the circles under his eyes to black. Had he looked this haggard yesterday?

  She tossed aside the magazine and stood to pull the young woman into a fierce hug. “Rita, love.” To both, she said, “They took her down early. She told me to make sure you two don’t worry.”

  “The good Lord’s watching.” James patted Rita’s hand and let loose a crooked smile.

  “She’ll be just fine, Daddy. She’s strong.”

  “That’s right, sugar. She sure is.”

  Tadie, noting Rita’s crisp khakis and the orange-and-red silk top, smoothed back unruly hair and tried not to compare the silk to her own pale blue cotton. “You sure don’t look like someone who just got off a plane, counselor. Love the colors.” They were perfect with Rita’s café au lait complexion.

  Rita glanced around at the beige-pink walls. “Sure better than the paint they slathered in here. Why on earth don’t hospitals hire a decorator?”

  “Looks like they be trying to make folk sick, don’t it?” James said, his effort at a grin still coming up lopsided.

  Surely this whole thing was a scare for nothing, and that lump would be just a big mess of extra tissue, the needle biopsy a mistake. Tadie couldn’t imagine any other truth right now. She reached across the table and touched Rita’s hand. Rita clasped hers in return
.

  “I can’t believe you had Daddy come get me in the Lincoln.”

  “Hurt your image, counselor?”

  “Sure does. Good thing we don’t have any clients from New Bern. They’d think I’m on the take.”

  “Drugs, at least.”

  “And what would that make me?” James peered over the reading glasses he’d donned so he could see what he was looking at in a farm magazine.

  “The drug lord, Daddy. Cruising around in your posh car—”

  “Picking up a gorgeous young thing at the airport,” Tadie said.

  James threw an arm around Rita’s shoulders. “You sure are some gorgeous thing all right, sugar, and ain’t I the lucky one? You look just like your mama when she was a girl.”

  Tadie watched James cuddle his grown-up daughter, and a familiar ache spread in her chest. All these years without—no, she wasn’t going to let her mind go there. “I’m going to get something to drink. Can I bring you anything?”

  “No, thanks, Miss Sara.”

  Rita shook her head. “Daddy stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts in Havelock so I could refuel. I’m set.”

  Tadie’s feet carried her to the vending machine and outside to the shade of a live oak tree. A train clackety-clacked through the center of town. She listened to its slow progress, imagining it offloading something at the port, onloading something else. There was always some huge, foreign-flagged ship waiting at the pier.

  The heat began to refocus her thoughts. Sweat trickled down her chest and stuck tendrils of hair to the back of her neck. She held the cold bottle to one cheek and then the other.

  Why had she come out here? To get away from thoughts of scalpels and the fact that people could die from a doctor’s mistake no matter how simple the procedure?

  Please, no.

  She stood there, watching the cars, timing the stoplight changes, until she couldn’t stand the heat any longer. The blast of cool air against her damp skin brought a momentary shiver, but now that she was back inside the hospital, she had to smother a panicky feeling that this visit would end as badly as so many others had.

  People died. Families disappeared.

  She paused in the empty hall outside the waiting room and gulped in stale, contaminated hospital air, pressing against her stomach until the spasm passed. When she pushed open the door, all she saw was James exiting the other way. A doctor must have fetched them.

  Such an early meeting didn’t look good. If everything were okay, the doctor would have said Elvie Mae was doing fine and left it at that. It must really be bad.

  Tadie returned to the hall and paced, peeking her head in at every pass until she finally saw them.

  Rita walked right into her embrace. “Oh, Tadie,” she said, bursting into tears.

  “It’s okay, love. Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it.” She grabbed a tissue for Rita, who blew loudly.

  James shuffled slowly back to his seat. “They took out the lump in her left breast. Of course, we knew they’d do that, but they went after a bunch more. Radical, they called it, didn’t they?” He turned to his daughter. At her nod, he continued. “They took stuff around the lump.”

  “Lymph nodes?”

  “That’s right. He said they’ll test those.”

  “He thinks it’s all out,” Rita said, glancing at the notes she held. “It looked intact. Isolated, he said, but they won’t know for sure until they test to see if it had clean margins. And see if the lymph nodes are cancer-free. It was hard to hear. Once he said he didn’t have real answers, I just wanted to get up and go be with her.”

  James rubbed fingers down his face, pausing to cover his mouth before dropping both hands to his lap. “I thought they’d know more.”

  The sadness in his voice hit Tadie, and she bit hard on her bottom lip to keep the tears at bay. Reaching out to both of them, she touched James’s arm and squeezed Rita’s free hand.

  James stared at the door, probably thinking of Elvie Mae back there, waking without him.

  “When will they be sure?” she asked Rita, whose fingers clutched hers right back, pinching where the stones in Tadie’s ring caught flesh.

  Rita let go. “We have an appointment for Tuesday.”

  “Can’t he make an educated guess?”

  James wiped his forehead, letting the handkerchief trace across his eyes. “Won’t say.”

  “But he thinks he got all of it, right?” Tadie’s voice cracked. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Right?”

  James nodded. “Somethin’ like.”

  Digging for another tissue, Rita sniffed. “Please, yes.”

  “Okay then. Let’s hold on to that.” Tadie needed to help them figure out how to get through the next bit. “Elvie’s strong. No cancer’s going to defeat her.”

  James’s eyes held a little more spark when he looked back at her. “You’re right, Miss Sara. Elvie’s a fighter. And she’s got faith, stronger than mine. But now we’ve got to help her win.”

  “We will. You know we will.”

  “Daddy, I’m going in to sit with Mama. I want to be there when she wakes up.”

  “That’s good, sugar. I’ll be in soon.”

  James watched Rita walk down the corridor. “It’s going to kill Rita to leave her mama right now.”

  “I’ll get her back to New Bern. You stay here with Elvie. It’s you she’ll be needing.”

  James patted Tadie’s hand. “Thank you, Miss Sara. You’re a mighty good friend.”

  “Family, James. Family.”

  “Yes ma’am. Family.”

  Chapter Seven

  Tadie steered down Highway 70, quiet until Rita was ready to talk. The traffic worsened as they passed Newport and approached Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station.

  Finally, at the intersection with Highway 101, Rita let out a long breath. “This has to be hard on Daddy. They’ve been together such a long time.”

  Tadie flicked her signal to change into the left lane. “I remember when I first heard about your daddy coming to work for us.” Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Rita’s fingers unlocking.

  “Mama has her version, Daddy his. I’d like to hear yours.” Rita paused. “Please?”

  She remembered the day Elvie Mae—her black braids flapping and her white apron strings dangling loose and threatening to trip her—had come squealing in to tell her James was coming to be their chauffeur and gardener. “I guess I was eight, maybe nine. Your mama was a grown woman of almost twenty-three, your daddy a good ten years older. I can’t remember when your mama first started working for mine—helping your granny out in the kitchen or with the dusting. She took over after your granny broke her hip.”

  Rita’s breath hitched. “Nana had bone cancer, didn’t she?”

  “I’m sorry. I’d forgotten that.” They’d come to another light. Tadie reached over and gave a quick squeeze to Rita’s limp fingers. “But one doesn’t necessarily mean the other. You know that.”

  Rita nodded. “Go on.”

  “Well, your mama was a tiny little thing with that beautiful butterscotch coloring like yours. She kept her hair slicked in those braids with bright plastic barrettes. You’ve seen pictures. And her laugh. It’s still beautiful, but as a little girl, I thought she was like a fairy. Her laugh danced in the air and made everyone around her smile. So the day she bounced in with her good news, I remember clapping my hands right along with her. She had that effect. I giggled and told her I’d always wanted to say, ‘Home, James,’ like in the movies. We had so much fun.”

  “You ever wonder if Daddy would rather have been something other than a gardener and chauffeur? He’s not educated, but he’s smart.”

  “He is that. Did you ever ask him?”

  “Yeah, and he just smiled. Told me he had a good life, working for good people. Said he was glad to help Mr. Samuel and Miss Caroline.” After a moment, Rita asked, “Did Mr. Samuel really need a driver back then? How many people in Beaufort had a chauffeur?”

&nb
sp; “You’d be surprised, especially among the older folk. As for Daddy, I think his eyesight plagued him from an early age. So, yes, James made life a whole lot easier for him. Especially driving at night. Mama wouldn’t get behind a wheel and was deathly afraid every time Daddy tried to convince her to learn. As far as the gardening, Mama loved plants, but she never could grow anything.”

  “But he’d been places—in the Army.”

  “Yes, but once he met your mama, that was that. There weren’t many jobs in Carteret County in those days for someone who didn’t work the water or big machines.”

  “She could have gone off with him someplace where he could have gotten more education, done better for himself. Why didn’t she?”

  “I don’t know, but I think it had to do with my mama. Elvie knew she was needed right here. You remember how Mama was.”

  “We all loved Miss Caroline.”

  Tadie acknowledged that with a nod. “When your granny got sick, Mama was lost. But Elvie—she could make her smile like no one else. Well, no one except my daddy. Elvie and Mama had a real bond.”

  “I’ve wondered about this more times than I can tell you. I even asked my mama once. But between the two of them, my parents are the smilingest people I know. When they don’t want to answer something, they just smile at you. It’s frustrating.”

  “You’re right about that. Many’s the time I’ve seen it myself.”

  “What about you?” Rita’s voice had lost its hint of a whine, and she asked as if the question had just occurred to her. “Do you ever think about leaving Beaufort?”

  Tadie hesitated, because this wasn’t something she felt comfortable discussing. “I don’t normally let myself think about it. I came home because I had to.”

  “I guess. But now?”

  “Now, I have the shop and my work. I have a good life.”

  “But haven’t you wanted more? You used to talk about travel, about going back to Europe for a year or two.”

  Tadie noticed the speedometer needle had slipped past sixty. Backing off, she felt the tension in her right leg tighten, threatening a charley horse. She reached down to squeeze the muscle.