by Fred Hunter
Rebecca sighed again. “I know, I’m being stupid.”
“No, I think you’re being tired,” Lynn said gently.
Rebecca was quiet for a very long time, allowing the calming arm to remain on her shoulder. Finally, she said, “My mother died when I was very young, and my father worked all day, so he was never home. Aunt Marci—my mother’s sister—she practically raised us. No, there’s no ‘practically’ about it, she did raise us.” She started to falter. “But … for a long time now, my brother and sister have been saying that we need to put her—that we need to find a place where she could be given proper care. But I know how much Auntie would hate that, and I’ve stood against them all the time.”
“Until now.”
There was a long pause, then Rebecca nodded reluctantly. “She insisted on coming to this trip … I had to come with her.…” She stopped again and though Lynn could barely see her face, she sensed the surprised knowledge. “I felt I had to come with her, so I suppose I’ve known … or suspected … how bad things were. I don’t see her all that much, you see. Not as much as I should. But it wasn’t until spending this past couple of days with her, getting ready for the cruise and … that I’ve realized how bad she’s gotten. I suppose I should say it wasn’t until now that I was willing to admit it. I suppose I’ve known for a long time.”
“It’s a hard thing to accept,” said Lynn.
“Yes, but I have to. It’s Alzheimer’s disease, you know. She can’t help it. She does things that are crazy. You wouldn’t believe it. I mean, like, when I was helping her unpack, I found this package in her suitcase—this box wrapped in dirty brown paper that’s been sitting around for God knows how long. I was the one who packed her suitcase, so she must’ve put that thing there sometime when I wasn’t looking. I’m sure she doesn’t even know why.”
“What was in it?’
Rebecca shrugged. “No idea. The minute I asked her about it she snatched it out of my hand like it was a guilty secret. But it’s just like her to have packed something worthless.”
Up until that moment, the stillness of the night had only been broken by the sounds of crickets singing, and the gentle waves. Rebecca and Lynn had kept their voices relatively low, as if the darkness were a cathedral in which loud voices would be sacrilege.
But the natural sounds were interrupted by the creak of one of the deck’s boards. Though not very loud, it was unexpected enough to startle the two young women. Rebecca gave a muffled cry.
“Is someone there?” Lynn asked in a clear voice.
There was no answer, but Lynn thought she heard another creak, this time farther away.
“Must’ve been someone who didn’t want to disturb us,” she said as the two of them turned back to the railing.
They were silent for a couple of minutes. Then Rebecca said quietly, “It’s so peaceful here, it’s hard to imagine anything being wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, Aunt Marci.”
“Oh.” Lynn was relieved. For a minute she thought Rebecca was about to tell her that, like Emily, she had been noticing things that didn’t seem quite right.
There was a long pause, then Rebecca said quietly, “I wish she were dead.”
“What? You don’t mean that!”
“Yes, I do.” Her sorrow was palpable. “I can’t bear the thought of putting her in a home, and … and she once told me that she’d rather die than go into one.”
“Everybody says that,” Lynn said. “They don’t really mean it. And even if they do, a lot of times there just isn’t any choice.”
Rebecca rested her head on Lynn’s shoulder and sighed deeply. They stayed like that for several moments, drawing a sense of peace from the surrounding quietude and the companionship.
Lynn was surprised—pleasantly—by the readiness with which Rebecca seemed to accept her warm shoulder, and found herself wondering what that readiness meant. After a while she smiled inwardly at herself; earlier she’d believed Emily might be reading too much into the little things she’d observed, and now Lynn herself was spinning theories around a simple gesture that was obviously nothing more than Rebecca’s need for comfort.
All of these thoughts were abruptly halted when a distant cry rang out in the silence. Rebecca raised her head and the two of them strained in the darkness to make out the source of the sound.
“What is that?” Rebecca asked breathily.
“It sounds like a bird being strangled,” said Lynn. “No … wait, it doesn’t sound like an animal at all.…”
Rebecca gasped. “It’s Aunt Marci! Oh, my God! It’s Aunt Marci!”
She took off at a run, but promptly collided with the corner of the wheelhouse in the darkness. When she regained herself, she rounded the corner and kept going.
“Rebecca! Be careful!” Lynn called as she followed her.
They scrambled down the rough metal steps from the white deck to the red, and the screaming continued as they descended to the blue deck. When they reached the bottom, they turned to enter the hallway to the passenger cabins, but found the entrance blocked by the impressive bulk of Mrs. O’Malley, the cook. She was clad in a gun-metal gray dressing gown that closely resembled her uniform, and a white night bonnet that made her look like a Victorian housekeeper. Hoke stood behind her clad only in a pair of briefs, and straining to see over her shoulder. David Douglas, who was wearing a pair of sleek, dark blue silk pajamas, was leaning against the doorjamb and contriving to look both uninterested and amused.
“Excuse me! Excuse me!” said Rebecca.
The crew parted as she shouldered her way past them. She very nearly came to a stop inside the hallway. All of the passengers were standing in their cabin doorways watching the show. Marcella was in the middle of her own doorway, her hands braced on each side of it as if she were fighting some unseen force trying to catapult her into the hallway. Her eyes were wide and she continued to let out short, intermittent animal-like screams.
“Miss Hemsley, please,” Samantha Farraday was saying with rising exasperation. “If you could just tell us what’s wrong…”
The captain looked on from a discreet distance. It was clear that it had been decided between them that a woman’s touch was needed here.
It was then that Rebecca came to her. “Aunt Marci!” She spoke calmly but very firmly. “Stop that right now!”
Marcella was held frozen in stunned silence for several seconds. Then she loosed her grip on the doorjamb and flung her arms around her niece.
“Rebecca!” she sobbed, “Rebecca! He was here!”
“Who was?”
“A man! There was a man in my room!” Her chin was resting on the young woman’s shoulder, and when she raised her eyes she suddenly recoiled. She let go of Rebecca and took a couple of steps backward, then raised a pointing finger, and said in a tremulous voice, “It was you!”
All eyes turned toward David Douglas.
“What the hell are you talking about?” he demanded, all traces of nonchalance disappearing.
“You know what I mean! You were in my room! I saw you!”
“Like hell you did!”
“David!” the captain said.
“But she’s crazy!”
“David…” The captain turned to Marcella. “Miss Hemsley, I don’t think it was him you saw.…”
For the first time, Rebecca turned her eyes from her aunt to the captain. There was something subtle but unmistakable in his tone: it implied a belief that Marcella hadn’t seen anything.
“When you cried out, we all came to see what was wrong. David was behind my wife and me.”
“It was him, I tell you!” She said this petulantly, but there was doubt and confusion in her eyes.
The captain allowed a significant pause, then said, “Well, why don’t we get this sorted out in the morning? Maybe we’ll be able to think more clearly after a good night’s sleep.”
He left her standing openmouthed in her doorway, and Samantha trail
ed after him without a word. As they passed by Hoke, he suddenly became aware of his state of undress and cupped his hands over the front of his briefs, then scurried back to his cabin. He was followed by Mrs. O’Malley, and finally by David, who paused in the entryway long enough to exhale with sharp derision in Marcella’s direction.
Claudia Trenton stood in the doorway to cabin one clutching the folds of her blue robe around her. She shook her head sharply and then went into her cabin. The other passengers faded as discreetly as possible into their rooms one by one. Rebecca didn’t have to try to coax her aunt back into her own cabin. Once Marcella realized that she wasn’t being taken seriously, she stormed into her cabin and slammed the door.
Lynn had stopped beside Emily when she and Rebecca arrived, and once the captain had unceremoniously ended the scene, she followed Emily into her room.
“God, I feel so sorry for Rebecca!”
“Why?” Emily asked as she sat at the foot of the bed.
“Why? Didn’t you see what just happened?”
Emily sighed and smoothed out the lap of her light blue dressing gown. “Yes, I did.”
“I was upstairs talking to Rebecca when we heard the screams. She told me that her aunt has Alzheimer’s.”
“Yes?”
“You know?” Lynn said with surprise.
“Well, it seemed the most obvious explanation for her behavior.”
Lynn crossed the room and sat next to her. “Rebecca says that she’s been trying not to put her in a nursing home—that’s what the rest of the family wants to do, put her away. Rebecca’s been against it but she says she doesn’t think she can avoid it anymore.”
“It’s a very weighty decision for a young woman to have to make.”
“Yes, but after what just happened … well, you can see she’s right. It has to be done.”
“I suppose that’s true.…”
Lynn pulled back slightly. “You don’t agree?”
“Oh, no, my dear, I suppose it would be best for Marcella to be somewhere where she could have constant supervision if she’s a danger to herself. But not because of what just happened.”
“What do you mean?”
“Only that people with Alzheimer’s disease may do many things, but I don’t know that they see things. Perhaps they do, I don’t know that much about it. But I think it’s more that they might misconstrue something they see … I don’t know that they create phantoms.”
“You mean you really think someone was in her room?”
“I think it’s entirely possible.”
3
The mood aboard the Genessee the next morning was decidedly tense. Irritation born of interrupted sleep radiated off the passengers like waves of heat. Breakfast was eaten in a stony silence punctuated only by the clinking of utensils against plates, and David Douglas’s forced brightness as he poured out juice and coffee. Even Bertram Driscoll’s customary bluster failed him. Seated at a table by the portside door with Holmes and Brock, he attempted to start a conversation several times, only to find himself turning red in the face over the lack of response.
At the table in the center of the room sat Marcella and Emily with Lynn and Rebecca, the latter of whom was uncomfortably aware of the animosity being directed toward their table. It wasn’t just toward her aunt: in the sidelong glances Rebecca perceived the implied criticism that she shouldn’t have brought Marcella on the trip at all, or barring that, she should’ve made it her duty to keep a closer eye on her. Or a tighter muzzle.
While the passengers ate, the captain got the boat under way, heading out of the harbor and up the coast to the next stop on the tour. Rebecca and Marcella had seen him on their way to the dining room, and he’d greeted them with nothing more than a cheery good morning, which made Rebecca realize that the subject of last night’s disturbance had been dismissed. Then again, she thought that was probably a good thing, because her aunt had made no mention of the incident since getting up, and for all Rebecca knew she could’ve entirely forgotten the episode.
After breakfast the passengers retired to the white deck where the chairs were all instantly adjusted to the reclining position.
Emily and Lynn had taken seats along the starboard railing where they could again enjoy the passing scenery. Marcella sat to Emily’s right, and Rebecca was beside Lynn. It was less than ten minutes before Marcella’s eyes drifted shut, and she began emitting an energetic wheeze that closely resembled steam escaping from an old-fashioned radiator.
“She’s asleep,” Rebecca said quietly.
“I gathered that,” Lynn replied with a smile.
There was a pause. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
Lynn turned her eyes toward her. “About what?”
“This trip. I really didn’t realize how bad she’d gotten. I don’t know if … after last night, I don’t know if we should get off at the next stop and I should take her home.”
Lynn experienced an unexpected pang. “I suppose you could do that, but don’t you think she’d … resist the idea? Kick up a fuss?”
“You’re probably right,” Rebecca said with a heavy sigh.
Lynn glanced at Emily, then turned back to Rebecca. “Look, if it makes you feel any better, Emily had an interesting insight about last night’s business.”
“What’s that?”
“She thought your aunt probably did see someone.”
“What?” Rebecca said this more loudly than she meant to. Marcella sputtered noisily, then quickly settled back into her regular wheezing.
“I don’t mean she saw something shifty going on. Emily just thinks she might have seen something that she misinterpreted—like, maybe somebody heard a noise in her room and just took a peek in to make sure everything was all right.”
“But … but why wouldn’t whoever it was have owned up to that?”
“As hysterical as your aunt was? Probably out of fear.”
Rebecca looked out toward the shoreline as she considered this. It wasn’t long before she began to relax. “You know, I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe you’re right.”
“Not me,” Lynn said with a smile. “Emily. And there’s no maybe about it. Emily’s almost always right.”
* * *
It took a little less than an hour and a half for the Genessee to reach their second port of call, Macaw. Much smaller than Sangamore, the meager number of year-round residents rated only one mail box, and that was located in front of Friendly’s General Store, which also housed the counter that served as the town’s post office.
Friendly’s was a long wooden structure with its back to the water, and had docks extending outward from it.
“Macaw is a great nature outpost,” Samantha explained to the company as the boat slowly flowed into a slip. “Just to the south you’ll find a visitor’s nature center with maps of the trails through the wooded areas and along the lake. Just in case you’re worried that the trails might be a little rough, the people of Macaw and the neighboring villages have marked them out with plenty of benches, so there’s a lot of places to sit and rest. There are also campgrounds in every direction so there’s usually a lot of people around, and even though it’s a little early in the year, the weather is bound to have brought out some. And there’s plenty of public facilities should you need them.”
“Public facilities,” Driscoll said in a loud whisper a few inches from Emily’s right ear. “That’d mean a hole in the ground with a box around it.” Today he wore a white shirt over tan and white checked pants.
“I see you’ve regained your humor,” Emily said lightly.
“Ha! That’s the one thing they can’t take away from me!”
“Although there are a few little shops here for those of you who are so inclined,” Samantha continued, “there aren’t a lot of places to eat, so we’ll be serving lunch on the boat at twelve-thirty, and dinner at six.”
“It’s just after ten,” Lynn said with a glance at her watch.
“That wil
l give us time for a nice little walk before lunch,” said Emily.
The gangplank was secured in place and the passengers disembarked, much in the same order as they had the previous day, with the single exception of Lily DuPree, who had decided to stay behind and read on the deck. This decision left Muriel bobbing amongst the remaining passengers like a pinball searching for a slot.
Samantha smiled and shook her head as she watched them go, then went down to the dining room to make sure it had been cleared of the breakfast things. She found the room properly cleaned, but was surprised when she heard the clink of glassware coming from the lounge. She went around the corner, stopped and folded her arms. David Douglas was behind the bar, unnecessarily wiping the insides of the glasses.
“David, there’s no need to do that now,” said Samantha.
“Huh?” He started, and his head snapped in her direction. “Oh, I just like having everything shipshape.”
She gave him an indulgent smile. “Yes, I know, but it’s time to get the cabins in shape, and Hoke’s not supposed to have to do that alone.”
“But I thought—”
She shook her head. “Everyone has gone ashore except Miss DuPree, and I doubt if she’ll be wanting a cocktail.”
David laughed as he came out from behind the bar. “You’re probably right.”
“Now, come on, David,” Samantha said without rancor. “You know you’re supposed to help with everything.”
“Aye, aye, Skipper! Didn’t mean to shirk my duty!”
She laughed. “It’s all right.”
“Why didn’t little Miss DuPree go ashore with the rest?”
“Afraid to, I think. The point of stopping here is for the passengers to go on some nature walks, but I think she’s a little too frail. She’s sitting up on deck reading a book.”
“Ah,” he said as they went through the starboard door.
“Which reminds me—Neil and I are going for a walk ourselves, so you might want to check on Miss DuPree in a little while and see if she needs anything.”
“Will do.” He gave her a cheery salute, then hopped down the stairs to the blue deck.