by Linda Kenyon
There was running water in the kitchen, and there must have been an indoor toilet of some sort, but there were no bathing facilities, so once a week Mom would set a big washtub out in the yard and fill it with water. We’d take turns bathing, smallest to largest, or dirtiest to cleanest, as the case may be.
One afternoon, I was splashing in the tub and Mom was sitting on a lawnchair beside me, eyeing the bush, when I spotted a little striped snake under her chair.
“Look, Mom,” I said. “There’s a snake under your chair.”
She was up and in the house in no time, door slammed shut behind her. I don’t know what kind of snake she thought it might be, but I do remember wondering why Mom left me outside alone with it, if it was so dangerous. I’d seen nature shows on TV, I knew that mother animals were supposed to protect their young. I sat there, watching the tiny snake watch me, its pink tongue darting in and out, until it quietly slithered away.
When I was thirteen, Dad decided that he wanted to return to the part of rural Ontario where he was born, so he bought a small general store, just like the one his father had owned. We packed up all our things and left our comfortable apartment in Montreal to move to the tiny village of Washington in southwestern Ontario.
The old insulbrick house that came with the store had two bedrooms (for our family of eight — there were six children by then), running water only in the kitchen, and no proper toilet. Mom and Dad slept in the dining room, one tiny bedroom was assigned to the girls, the other to the boys, which didn’t seem fair to me — there were four girls and only two boys. I complained bitterly about this and was allowed to sleep in the tiny pantry off the kitchen, which had just enough room for a rollaway cot. The room didn’t have a door, so I put a thick curtain across the doorway.
The lack of proper plumbing was the biggest problem. Mom would set up a square zinc tub in the kitchen on Saturday nights, fill it with water, and we’d take turns bathing. But I was fierce about my privacy, so I’d fold up my cot and drag the tub into my little room, yank the curtain shut.
But there was no way to avoid the embarrassment of the chemical toilet, which was actually just a five-gallon pail with a plywood seat over it in a lean-to off the kitchen. Every night, after dark, Dad would haul it to the septic tank in the backyard and empty it. By which time the pail was pretty full.
I’ll never forget the day I started my period. I was distressed at the blood in the toilet, but not as distressed as my brother was when he used the toilet after me.
Once Mom had calmed him down, she gave me a strange-looking belt and a box of pads and warned me that I was to stay away from boys now. I didn’t know what that meant. My brothers? The boys on the school bus? The kids at school? What if a boy came into the store — what was I supposed to do?
The store went bankrupt, of course. You can’t feed a family of eight by selling milk and bread, especially when the only factory in town shuts down. So things went from bad to worse. We had to move out of the house, ended up renting a farmhouse on a back road. Mom never complained, but I’m sure she wondered what she’d gotten herself into.
Black. It’s still completely black outside. I can’t see a thing.
On my good days — most days — I feel like I’m free, like I’ve run away. On my bad days, I worry that I’m just like my mom, that I’m just following the first man who came into my life, one I found (quite literally) sitting on my back step, that I’m trailing after him while he chases his dream.
June 13
Day 23
At noon the next day, I mark our position on the chart. Just 247 miles to go. At this rate, we’ll make landfall at Flores in two days. In the middle of the night, actually. It’s a tricky harbour, so we’ll have to stand off, wait until it gets light to enter. Then we’ll drop the anchor and sleep, together, for the first time since we left Antigua.
Chris has just gone down for his after-supper nap when a sailboat appears on the horizon. A woman hails us, in French. When I respond in my very best French, she switches to English. They are seventeen days out of Guadeloupe, heading for Brittany.
“A minute,” she says. “Sorry. I get my daughter some juice.”
They are sailing with two children, a girl who is five and a son who has just turned four. I ask her for weather information. There’s a mild front coming through, she says, but nothing to worry about. I am somewhat, but not entirely, reassured. She thinks sailing across an ocean with two kids is nothing to worry about.
“Oh, my son is waking. I must go and kiss and love him,” she says. “A bientôt.”
My conversation has wakened Chris. He, too, is concerned about the “mild front.”
“I’m going to put a call in to Chris Parker,” he says.
Thank goodness for the satphone.
Minutes later he comes above deck, looking grim.
“There’s a big front coming through overnight, but he says the worst of it should pass north of us. We should reduce sail just in case.”
We tie in a reef, two reefs. Just in case. We’re motoring anyway. Still no wind.
Hold on tight, I think. That’s all you’ve got to do.
CLOBBERED
June 14
Day 24
Of course it happens on my watch.
We know it’s coming because the seas have been building steadily. It’s a pitch-black night, no moon, and anyway, the sky is completely overcast. Around 2:30 the wind picks up sharply. Chris comes above deck and helps me tie a third reef in the main, we furl in the genoa just enough to keep the boat balanced, then he goes back down, even though I know he will not sleep. I stand at the helm, peering into the darkness. The autopilot has it for now, but I’m ready. Or so I think.
Suddenly we are hit by a blast of wind — where is it coming from? I lean forward to check the windvane at the top of the mast. Without thinking I clutch the top of the autopilot display to steady myself and inadvertently push the “dodge” button, which puts control of the helm in my hands. But I don’t know this, and I’m not holding the wheel, so the boat is at the mercy of the wind. We jibe with such force that the preventers, which secure the boom to the deck, are ripped out of the boom as it slams from one side of the boat to the other. The genoa and stormsail backwind, stopping our forward motion, but we’re heeled over way too far, the starboard rail disappears in the foaming water as each wave hits us.
In a flash, Chris is in the cockpit.
“What happened?”
“The boat hove to,” I say, not willing to admit my part in the calamity.
“Let’s not argue with it. But we need to get ourselves straightened up.”
Why don’t you tell him what happened? Your fear got the best of you. You panicked.
The voice in my head is almost drowned out by the shrieking of the wind.
Inch by painful inch, he cranks in the genoa until just a slip remains. Slowly the starboard rail emerges from the water. Next we try to centre the mainsail, but in these winds it’s almost impossible. We do the best we can, but without the preventers, there’s no real way to secure the boom, so Chris tightens the main sheet, lashes down the boom as best he can from the cockpit. Then he adjusts the rudder, half a turn this way, back a little, back a little more, until the bow is taking the brunt of the waves.
“There,” he says. “That’s the best we can do.”
It’s not very good. It is just starting to get light and we can see that the mainsail is full of little bellies. But it’s not safe to go forward with the boat pitching and rolling so wildly. So we sit in the cockpit, watch the mainsail flog and shudder, watch the preventers dangling in the wind, listen to the wind howling through the rigging. The seas are a mess — there’s a huge swell coming from one direction and big, choppy wind-driven waves from another. Every so often a big wave breaks over the boat, blanketing the cockpit enclosure and the deck with water.
“This is a proper North Atlantic gale,” Chris says.
It’s by far the worst weather we’ve seen since we left Antigua. Was it really only three weeks ago? There’s nothing but open water behind us, 2,500 miles of it. That’s a lot of room for the sea to build. Chris must be thinking the same thing.
“This gale could push us right past the Azores,” he says grimly.
Chris checks our position on the GPS, then puts out a security call on the marine radio.
“Sailboat hove-to at 39, 27 north, 34, 55 west.” He hangs up the mike.
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s go below.”
I look at him, astonished.
“The boat can handle it,” he says, “probably better than we can. Come on. We’d better get some rest.”
I just can’t. I follow him as far as the companionway, where I stand clutching the frame, looking out over the water. I can’t see much — the wind is tearing the tops off the waves, filling the air with foam, and it’s raining, hard.
I wonder what Dad would make of his daughter being out in a gale in the middle of the ocean. Or would make, if he knew where we were. I imagine him standing in front of the map in Mom’s room, pushpin in hand, with no idea where to put it. I haven’t been able to send him our position since we lost our SSB. The long piece of red yarn will just be dangling from a pushpin somewhere between Bermuda and the Azores.
This is out of my hands. There’s nothing I can do. Bless this woman, I think. Bless this man. Keep them safe on the water.
I go below, strip off my wet foul-weather gear, hang it on the hook beside the open companionway. It drips on the floor, but there’s nothing I can do about that, either. And it doesn’t matter. The whole boat is soaked with salt water. When a wave breaks over the cockpit, a fine spray comes in through the companionway — there’s a puddle at the foot of the ladder. Water drips from the ceiling in the salon, in the galley. Where is it coming from? We don’t know. We thought the boat was waterproof. It isn’t.
It’s dim down below. Waves fill the portholes with water, then they empty, fill, empty, blocking out what light there is. And it’s much quieter. The thick steel hull muffles the sound of the wind.
I check to make sure the abandon-ship kit is where it should be, within reach of the foot of the ladder. The life raft on deck is packed with the essentials — water and dried food, a blanket, a first aid kit, a fish hook and some line, a plastic cup for bailing, a mirror for signalling planes. But I’ve gathered together a few other things we might want if we find ourselves bobbing in a rubber raft in the middle of the ocean — a compass, a flashlight and extra batteries, a roll of toilet paper (clearly life rafts are designed by men), a bag of ginger candies for seasickness. A second cup for bailing.
Chris is stretched out on the starboard settee, a blanket pulled up to his chin. Neither of us has had a good wash in days, so his dark hair, much greyer now than when we set out, goes every which way, and his chin is covered with stubble. Do I see bits of grey in it, too?
Quietly as I can, I lie down on the bench across from him.
“What are you doing over there?”
“I didn’t want to wake you.”
“You think I’m sleeping? Come on over here.” He shifts over, making room for me, lifts the blanket.
I snuggle in beside him. He tucks the blanket tightly around me so I won’t fall out when the boat rolls. We’re both exhausted, but neither of us can sleep.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks me.
“I didn’t see it coming,” I say drowsily.
“You’re not talking about the gale, are you.”
“No. I guess I’m not.” I lie there in silence. He waits.
“I never told you the whole story. I’ve never told anyone. I didn’t think it was mine to tell.”
“So tell me now.”
“It doesn’t have a happy ending.”
“I already know the ending. You and Emily in a condo in an old schoolhouse in Waterloo. I want to hear the whole story. Don’t leave anything out.”
I watch the brass lamp above the table swinging wildly. I hope the hook in the ceiling doesn’t work free. What a mess that would make, oil all over the floor and worse, on our new leather cushions. Not that the boat isn’t already a mess. We thought we were stowed for sea. We weren’t. The door to the wet locker has flung open and the life jackets have spilled out. Books have tumbled off the shelves. A flashlight rolls back and forth, back and forth, across the cabin floor.
“We laughed when the medical social worker told us that fifty percent of marriages end within a year when one of the partners has an organ transplant. Not us, we said. Not us.”
I hesitate. Chris pulls me a little closer, waits for me to go on.
“Brad had just had his six-month check-up. It was all good. But it wasn’t. He was sullen, withdrawn. I could understand that. He’d been through so much. We were sitting in the backyard, looking at the garden I’d just planted — he was still too weak to do much yard work. The dogs were asleep in the grass at our feet, Chester now full grown.
“‘I’ve given this a lot of thought,’ he said suddenly. ‘A new kidney doesn’t last forever. They say I have maybe ten good years before it starts to deteriorate. I don’t want to spend those years with you.’
“I was stunned. I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach.
“‘It’s the drugs,’ I said. ‘The social worker said you shouldn’t make any big decisions for at least a year. Let’s wait and see how you feel then.’
“I wanted to take him back to London, ask them to treat him with anti-rejection drugs again, see if that would help.”
A wave breaks over the boat with a mighty crash, and for a moment, the boat is still. We can hear the sound of water pouring out of the scuppers. Surely the seas are building.
“Just a minute,” Chris says, disentangling himself from the blanket. He goes to the companionway, climbs up into the cockpit. A minute later he’s back, damp but satisfied that everything is okay.
“Nothing broken,” he says. “Nothing lost, that I can see. The preventers we rigged seem to be holding.”
He climbs back in beside me.
“Now, where were we?”
“That last awful year. I should have left right away. It was like I wasn’t there. He would get up in the morning and go to work without saying goodbye, work late, then eat his supper in front of his new big-screen TV, come to bed late. I didn’t say anything, tried to give him time and space. He’d been through so much.”
I look up at Chris. Does he really want to hear this? Do I really want to tell him?
“It’s okay,” he says.
“Slowly the sullenness turned into anger. Of course he’s angry, I thought. None of this is fair. How would I feel if I had been so sick for so long, had come so close to dying? But the anger was a lot harder to live with than the cold withdrawal.
“I tried to stay out of his way. If he was having a bad day, I’d sit quietly in the living room, reading my book, or at least pretending to, while he watched TV. We no longer walked the dogs together. He would take Chester to the trail by the river on his way home from work and I would just walk Emily around the neighbourhood.
“One evening, he came home later than usual. Chester was limping a little.
“‘What happened?’” I asked him.
“‘He wouldn’t come when I called him.’
“I didn’t ask what happened next. I didn’t want to know. I was afraid of him by then, to be honest.
“He began leaving Chester at home more often. When you were sick, I wanted to say to him, he was your constant companion, slept on the rug beside the bed when you rested, too sick to do anything else. He got you out for walks, which helped you stay strong. He mopes when you’re not around, won’t eat, hardly gets out of his bed. He needs more than a p
at on the head from you each night. He can’t survive on crumbs. He needs you to talk to him, go on long walks with him, be his best friend again.”
“You’re not talking about Chester, are you?” Chris says.
“Maybe not.”
“I decided to start walking Chester myself, just around the neighbourhood, but the first time I did, two blocks away a Doberman threw itself against the wooden fence around the yard it was in, started jumping straight up in the air. I didn’t know whether he was trying to escape and come after us or just jumping up to get a better look at us, but he was barking and snarling viciously, and I was terrified. I hurried back home, shaken and sick at heart about the state of my life.
“But still I waited, kept hoping he would come around.”
Chris reaches over and stokes my hair.
“What finally made you decide to leave?”
“I didn’t decide. He did. On the anniversary of his surgery, almost to the day.
“I had been away for the day, really just trying to stay out of his way. I came back to find him watching golf on TV. Chester was sprawled on the floor at his feet, but I couldn’t find Emily.
“‘Where is she?’ I asked.
“‘I don’t know,’ he said irritably.
“I heard a whimper from the front hall, found her curled up in a corner. She yelped with pain when I picked her up.
“‘What happened?’ I asked him.
“‘I don’t know.’ He got up from the sofa. ‘She and Chester were playing before.’