The Captain's Daughter

by Meg Mitchell Moore

  Her father had gone down to check something on his boat.

  “How’re you going to get yourself out there?” Eliza had asked suspiciously, indicating his hurt arm.

  “I’ll have one of the kids row me out. I want to ask around anyway, see who can help me out. Don’t want to stay too long off the water.”

  Eliza had studied her father over the past few days as carefully as she could manage without his shrugging her off. He looked tired, and he was sleeping more than usual, but he’d been through a shock, that was to be expected. Eliza had examined the wound on Charlie’s head, which was healing nicely. The sling was the bigger problem: of course he couldn’t haul with the use of only one arm. Although with enough help, the right kind of help, he could at least ride on the Joanie B—he could maybe even drive it, one-handed, and direct somebody else to check his traps. With a sternman and one other guy, he could probably manage. Not that Charlie Sargent was big into asking for help. But he was worried about his traps, left untended for this many days, so he’d take hauling with help over not hauling with no help.

  “You promise me you’re just checking the boat, you’re not going to go sneaking off into open water, are you?” she’d said.

  “Never had any reason to lie to you before, Eliza, not going to start now.”

  She tried not to harp on the fact that he didn’t meet her eyes when he said that.

  If she left by one o’clock she’d be home before dinner. If Charlie found the right kind of help he’d go out to haul in the morning. By the time she woke at home he would already have risen in the predawn darkness and had his usual cup of coffee and fried egg sandwich at Val’s and started the motor of the Joanie B and headed out under a gorgeous summer sunrise. He’d turn to his sternman and say something about how Bobby Cutler had better start hauling like a man if he wanted to pay off that new boat before his son got old enough to take over, and life would start to return to normal.

  And Eliza would be slumbering in her own bed next to her own husband with her children just down the hall in their respective rooms. School had been out nearly a week! Let the summer commence. Trips to the beach. A day sail on A Family Affair. Evie’s theater camp performance. And, of course, Deirdre’s charity gala, East Africa Needs You. Eenie meenie miney moe, Sheila had said, and Deirdre hadn’t laughed. Of course not. She was taking this all very seriously, as well she should, but Eliza couldn’t help but think that if they took all the money and effort that went into the gala and just sent it right to Africa…well, wouldn’t it have a bigger impact?

  But Deirdre’s heart was in the right place, and Eliza’s fund-raising experience was nonexistent.

  She unzipped her bag and started to pack the pile of clothes she’d carried down from upstairs. It was amazing how many of her things were scattered around her father’s small house. Not only amazing, it was totally rude and inappropriate. She would have chastised the girls if they’d left such a mess in someone else’s house. She supposed she had reverted to her own untidy teen years, being back in her childhood home.

  Maybe Charlie would be glad to see her go, be happy to get back to his orderly and unadorned life: the single coffee cup, the simple dinners, the quiet. Later in the summer, when the camps were over, when Charlie’s arm was one hundred percent healed, she’d bring the girls up for a visit. They loved going out on the Joanie B, loved helping Charlie pull the traps; they howled with laughter when he told stories about their mother doing the same, day after day, summer after summer, with the atrociously smelly herring (Zoe) and the super-funny orange overalls, did you really wear those, Mom? (Evie, and yes, she did). For the girls, hauling traps was a tourist activity, a quaint, temporary glimpse into a bygone world, like riding the Viking boat in Epcot’s Norway.

  She collected her cell phone chargers (two? Why had she brought two?), her multivitamins and probiotics, her toothpaste, the novel she’d made zero progress in reading, the Us Weekly with Taylor Swift on the cover that she’d had no trouble getting all the way through. But she couldn’t find the notepad on which she wrote her ever-expanding to-do list (Eliza was modern in many ways but a staunch traditionalist in the list-making department), and that was sending her into a little bit of a panic. She lived and died by her list.

  She was on her hands and knees, looking under the sofa, when she heard a knock at the door, and then Val came in. “Hey,” she said. “I heard you were heading back home, Eliza.”

  “Where’d you hear that?” Nothing under the sofa; Eliza stood and sighed. If Val was here the restaurant must be closed. Time was slipping away; she’d be later than she planned getting on the road.

  “It’s a pretty small town,” said Val. “I hear most things. What are you looking for?” Eliza was almost always happy to see Val, but the loss of the notepad was really vexing her—she hated losing things.

  “I just can’t find my notepad—I wrote down all of these things Zoe needs for science camp when I was talking to her last night. It’s driving me batty.” She felt a childish need to blame Val about the notepad even though, obviously, it was Eliza who had misplaced it. “It was weird things, like worms and snails and yogurt containers and something about a blood-testing kit…”

  She moved to the kitchen; Val followed her, making clucking noises that were soothing in their own way but that didn’t make the list any more found. “Your mother was the same way, you know, about losing things. Couldn’t stand it.” Eliza’s survey of the kitchen was interrupted by a familiar sensation in her belly; this happened when somebody brought up her mother out of the blue like that, especially someone who, like Val, had known Joanie intimately. It was a feeling so strong it came with its own sound: thwomp, or fromp, a sound that reminded her even this many years later of the magnitude of her loss. She was torn between saying, Don’t talk about her, it still hurts too much and Let’s sit down right now and you tell me every single thing I might not know about her.

  “I’ll run and check upstairs, maybe it’s under your bed,” offered Val.

  Eliza tore open a kitchen drawer that nearly loosened itself from its runner with the force of her frustration. “It’s a notepad, not an earring back! Shouldn’t be hard to find.”

  The all-American junk drawer, which in her father’s simple life was not very junky at all: Eliza could see a measuring tape, a screwdriver, a pair of ancient kitchen shears, a coil of rubber bands. And beneath those items, a sheaf of folded papers that she pulled out anyway, partly because she was a confirmed snooper and partly because she was hoping that somehow the notepad had crawled underneath the sheaf of papers, forgotten the time, and fallen asleep.

  How extremely odd; her father had somebody else’s medical report in the junk drawer in his kitchen…

  And then there was Val, frozen in the kitchen door, holding Eliza’s notepad. On Val’s face was an expression that reminded Eliza of her daughters when they were trying and failing to keep a secret. Both of her children were terrible liars, and for that Eliza was grateful.

  “Here it is!” said Val with false brightness. “It had slid between the bed and the bedside table. And I also found a bobby pin and two sticks of gum.”

  Eliza looked more carefully at the paper. It was dated April 12. Patient’s name: Charlie Sargent. But that couldn’t be right—her father would rather sleep on porcupine quills than go to the doctor; it was only at the behest of the Coast Guard that he’d agreed to get his arm and head treated the other day. They’d brought him to the ER themselves because his head had been bleeding and he’d had to get the stitches put in and the sling put on. But back in April?

  “Eliza,” said Val, dropping the false brightness.

  DOB: 3-30-52.

  “Eliza,” more sharply.

  Insurance: None.

  “Eliza.” Val was panicking now. Eliza held one finger up, like she was signaling to the waiter that she needed another minute.

  She turned to the next page, which was the results of a CT scan, and which contained these words,
which Eliza had to read three times to make sure she’d gotten them right: Suggestive of occipital glioblastoma multiforme, left lobe.

  Payment: Out of pocket, MasterCard, Valerie Beals.

  Now the words were swimming in front of Eliza, the letters mixing themselves up in different order, turning on their sides and then righting themselves.

  “Wait,” said Eliza. She met Val’s eyes. She’d looked into those eyes so many times over the years—it had been that voice that had told Eliza her mother was finally gone, that face, as familiar as her own, to which she’d told her terrible thing to all those years ago. But now there was something unfamiliar about Val, like invisible ropes were pulling at her, changing the contours of her face into something unrecognizable. “I don’t understand. A glioblastoma multiforme is a brain tumor.”

  She looked down at the paper again. Immediate follow-up recommended.

  “Listen,” said Val. “You listen to me, Eliza.”

  “A glioblastoma, Val, is an incurable brain tumor.”

  Already, in her mind, Eliza was maniacally googling brain cancer treatment options; she was flipping through the neurology section in one of her old medical school books. She was even singing the ridiculous song about the organs that Evie had learned in the third grade. My body is working day and night, working and working all the time…

  “Eliza, honey. Your father is sick.”

  My brain controls everything, everything my body does. My lungs are breathing in the air, putting oxygen in my blood…

  Val sat at the table, motioned Eliza to sit across from her, and folded her hands as if in prayer. “Charlie wasn’t feeling right for a while, for a good long time, but of course you know him, he wouldn’t admit to it. Even so, he was getting so tired out in the boat, coming in earlier and earlier, catching less and less. This was right after he came back from visiting you in March—right before his birthday. Still wouldn’t take a sternman with him. Then in early April there was one time he got a little bit confused, came in off the boat, one of the guys told me he was slurring a little, it seemed for about twenty seconds he didn’t know where he was…” She paused. “So I didn’t give him any choice, I made him an appointment at Maine Coast Memorial, took him in. He had the CT scan, and they didn’t like the way that looked, so they ordered an MRI. And that confirmed the diagnosis.”

  “Why didn’t you call me, Val?” Eliza’s voice broke like a twig. “I should have done that.” It made her feel like the worst kind of daughter to think that she was downing cocktails at the club or, for God’s sake, maybe taking a barre class when her father was sick.

  “He wouldn’t let me, Eliza. Of course I suggested that. But you never heard a man so determined. He didn’t want you to know…”

  “But he’s got to come to Boston, Val. For treatment. He can’t stay here! That was April, and it’s almost July—Val, he’s got to see a neurosurgeon. Right away. He needs to see one yesterday.” Eliza looked around wildly, as though her father were hiding, diseased and untreated, under the table, and she could drag him out and drive him to a Boston hospital. “He’s got to go now, he needs to come back with me today. Val, do you have any idea how serious this is. Glioblastoma? It’s the worst kind of brain tumor you can have, the very worst. The most aggressive kind of brain cancer there is.”

  “Yuh,” Val said fiercely. “Course I do. I heard everything that doctor said to him, Eliza, every word. He didn’t want you to know, Eliza. He still doesn’t. You know your dad, if he wanted your help he would have called you right up and asked for it. If he wanted you to know, he would have told you himself.”

  Eliza slumped forward in her chair. “Oh, Val. Val. What are we going to do?”

  9

  NAPLES, MAINE

  Rob

  Mark Ruggman, the general contractor on Cabot Lodge, was slugging from a gigantic Dunkin’ Donuts cup, so Rob didn’t dare bring out his Starbucks grande cappuccino—he left it growing cold in the Pilot’s cupholder. Sissy drink. Worse if you took a good sniff and smelled the extra shot of vanilla. But, hey, in the words of Selena Gomez by way of Breaking Bad’s Uncle Jack, the heart wants what the heart wants.

  “Hey,” said Ruggman, when Rob dismounted from the minivan, whose tires had bitten into the soft dirt surrounding the foundation of Cabot Lodge.

  “Hey yourself,” said Rob. He winced a little at how eager he sounded. (Shouldn’t it be the other way around? After all, he had hired Ruggman.)

  Cabot Lodge, all seven thousand square feet of it, had been framed and Sheetrocked; it had windows, doors, a roof, siding, and you would think, if you didn’t know better, that this meant that the bulk of the work was done. (Rob knew better; Rob would bet a bundle of money that Ruggman knew better too.)

  Through the stand of pines along the edge of the water, Long Lake looked bright blue and inviting—it looked freshly scrubbed, like the cleaning people had just been there. Far to the left he could see the Songo River Queen II loading passengers for its noon voyage. Rob didn’t know where the Songo River Queen I was; perhaps, like Robert Barnes I, it had decided to move to Thailand years ago with its mistress.

  Closer to Cabot Lodge, a lone stand-up paddleboarder glided by, then a trio of kayaks. A single cotton ball of a cloud hung low in the sky, and from a house a few docks down a motorboat whirred to life. It was all very On Golden Pond. Very paradisiacal.

  “It’s coming along here,” said Rob approvingly. The day before, Ruggman had let him know that the cabinets were in, and Rob wanted to check them out.

  Christine Cabot was hosting Thanksgiving for her extended family. Before the first snowflake fell she wanted the house shipshape for ski season at any one of the many accessible mountains. She wanted to put to use the ski racks she’d requested for the outside of the house, the bunk beds she’d ordered for her dear grandchildren, the crockery in which she planned to serve chili.

  When Rob had first met with Christine Cabot he had croaked out something that wasn’t exactly a lie but wasn’t fully the truth either. Rob had said, “You’ll be in by Thanksgiving, no problem.” Christine Cabot had beamed at him, showing a perfect mouthful of they-couldn’t-all-be-real teeth, and he’d been once again the fatherless student at Buckingham Browne & Nichols, riding a wave of charm and optimism. He’d been the Ivy League undergrad, the willing husband and father, the jolly party guest. Give them what they want, and they will smile at you. His Achilles’ heel, if ever he had one: the need to please.

  “Should we wait for Christine before we go in?” he asked Ruggman.

  “She was here.” A modicum of satisfaction seemed to pass over Ruggman’s face slowly.

  “Here? Already?”

  “ ’Bout ninety minutes ago.”

  “Without me?” Now Rob felt like a boy stranded at a cotillion.

  “Apparently.” Ruggman leaned over and spit into the dirt. You had to be a certain kind of man to pull off that kind of unapologetic dirt-spitting. Rob was not that kind of man; he never had been.

  “And she—she saw the cabinets?”

  “Oh, she saw ’em.” Another swig of coffee. Ruggman rocked back on his heels and squinted at the lake. The stand-up paddleboarder’s progress was impressive.

  “Ruggman. Why do I get the feeling that there’s something you’re not telling me?”

  Ruggman cleared his throat. “Thought she would have called you herself. Truth is”—he spit again—“she hates ’em.”

  “What do you mean she hates them?” Rob made a great show of reattaching the th to the word.

  Rob knew that this stage of the project could be the hardest part. After the framing came the finishes: the lighting fixtures, floors, trim work, built-ins. And the kitchen fucking cabinets. These, he knew, were the times that tried men’s souls.

  “Dunno,” said Ruggman. “She hates ’em, she wants to start again.”

  “But that means—”

  “I know.” Ruggman looked almost sage.

  “Possibly delaying move-in,”
said Rob.

  “Your words,” said Ruggman. “But, yeah.” He polished off the coffee and crumpled the cup in his meaty paw. “Gotta go check on the guys, holler before you leave and let me know where you want to go from here.” He eyed Rob’s pocket. “Phone’s ringing.”

  “Oh. Didn’t hear it. Thanks.” Rob answered without looking—he assumed it was Eliza. He moved away from Ruggman, toward the back of the property.

  “Robbie?”

  Only one person on the planet besides Mrs. Cabot called him Robbie: she of the boundless energy and coiffed hair, charity chairwoman extraordinaire, doting grandmother to his two little princesses, alternately the bane of his existence and the reason for it. His mother. Judith.

  “Hey, Mom.” A little voice said, Talk to her about the money. Now, do it now, straighten it out. Tell her you made a mistake.

  “I just got off the phone with Christine.”

  A miniature elf began knocking against Rob’s skull with the back of a hammer, from the inside.

  “Is that right?”

  “She’s frantic.”

  “She’s frantic?”

  “She’s got her whole family coming for the holidays.”

  “She mentioned that, Mom. I believe she mentioned it more than once.”

  “And she says the cabinets are hideous. She says she has to start over, finding new cabinets.”

  “Well.”

  Judith went on: “I haven’t heard her this upset since Jonathan Junior dropped out of law school.”

  Rob sucked in his breath. “Jonathan Junior was a complete cokehead, Mom, that’s why he dropped out of law school.”

  “Robbie!” said Judith.

  Last Rob knew Jonathan Junior was at a wilderness treatment facility in Montana; they’d thrown him to the actual wolves.

  “Mom. She chose those cabinets, she picked them out. She liked them when she chose them!”

  “Well, she doesn’t like them now. So you’ll help her, right? You’ll fix it? The customer is always right. Isn’t that what you all say?”