by Sarah Jio
“Really?” Jimmy beams. “I’m good at helping.”
I smile. “As long as you don’t mind.”
I watch the two of them attach the piece of wood to the boat. Jimmy presses his fingers against the edge as if he’s been given the most important job of his life and he’s determined to succeed.
“There,” Collin says. “Now, we’ll varnish it to match the rest of the wood here.” He hands Jimmy a small can and a brush and watches as the child paints the strip with great care.
“That’s the way,” Collin says encouragingly. “You’d make a fine shipbuilder.”
He’d make a good father; that much is clear. I wince when I think about the way Dex is with children, anxious and awkward. It’s not his fault, though. He never knew love as a child. He was never taught how to be around children. Or is it something that needs teaching? Is it something you’re born with? Still, I don’t blame Dex; I just admire Collin’s gentle ways with Jimmy and smile to myself.
“There,” Collin says. “It’s perfect. I couldn’t have finished this part without you.”
Jimmy casts a glance at me, still in the canoe, then back at Collin. “Can I help you again, some other time?”
“You mean, you’re willing to be my assistant? Because I’ve been looking for a good assistant. Someone with strong, steady hands like yours.”
“I’d like to be your assistant,” the boy says earnestly.
“Good, then. You can—”
We all turn when we hear the click-clack of heels on the dock. The tread of an irritated woman.
Naomi. She glances at me and grimaces before turning to her son.
I sense Jimmy’s nervousness.
“Jimmy Allan Clyde,” she says. “Get over here at once.”
Jimmy nods quickly and steps out of the sailboat. “Yes, Mother.”
She sighs. “You’re filthy. I won’t have you wearing your shoes in my living room again.” She snaps her fingers. “Penny, bring him home.”
Collin watches in silence as Jimmy climbs back into the canoe. He casts me an apologetic smile, and I nod without saying anything.
I paddle Jimmy to his back deck and steady the canoe so he can climb out. “Mama,” he says exuberantly. “I helped Collin build his boat!”
“That’s the last time you’ll be doing that,” she snaps. “Get inside.”
“But Mama,” he pleads.
She closes her eyes tightly and points to the back door. He obeys.
“How dare you,” she says to me. Tears tinged with black mascara stain her face.
“I only, I . . .” I don’t know what to say.
“Leave my son alone,” she says. “He doesn’t need your pity.”
“But I wasn’t—”
“You think I’m a bad mother, don’t you?”
“No, I—”
“Well, save your self-righteousness. He is my son, and you can get your hooks out of him right now.”
“Yes,” I say, her words stinging as I paddle away.
I look behind me once, and Naomi’s seated on the ground, on her knees with her head hanging down over her hands. She’s crying—sobbing, really. I feel a pang of emotion then. I’m surprised by it. I don’t expect to feel anything for Naomi, this woman who’s been cold to me since the day I arrived on Boat Street. And yet I see her now, aching like I ache. I see her with new eyes. For once I detect the hidden wrinkles in her carefully starched and pressed world.
Poor Jimmy. I wish I could fix his problems. I wish I could make life happier for him somehow. I grab the rope on the edge of the canoe and wrap it around the cleat in front of my houseboat. The wind has picked up, and I shiver. Upstairs, I select a yellow cashmere cardigan from the closet, remembering how Dex brought it home in March with matching yellow earrings. I slip my arm into the sweater. It feels like warm butter on my skin, luxurious. Dex always buys the best. I notice my dress from last night lying on the chair. I think of Collin and retrieve the ticket I tucked in the pocket. I hold it in my hands for a moment, staring at its wrinkles, studying the words. May 15, 1959. He went to see the movie just last month. With who? The thought makes me feel guilty. Wasn’t that part of my brain supposed to have been lobotomized when I took my marriage vows? I walk to the porthole above the bed, and glance toward Collin’s houseboat, but he isn’t there. I think about how wonderful he was with Jimmy. It makes something flicker inside me. I stare at the sailboat. I’d like to sail away on it, but I know I never will. I never could.
I crouch down beside the dresser and reach for the little brass key I keep in a slat below the bottom drawer. I’ve never liked the dresser, with those awful drawer pulls that look like roaring lions, but a friend of Dex’s who makes furniture gave it to him as a birthday present, and it didn’t seem right to ask him to replace it.
Downstairs, I kneel beside the only piece of furniture I brought to the houseboat—Grandma Rose’s old chest. When I was a little girl, I used to think it was a treasure chest, and maybe it was. Grandma said she’d fallen in love with a seaman before she met Grandpa. She said he’d given it to her as a gift and that she’d kept it, even after she and Grandpa got married. I never knew anything more about her mysterious seaman, but I saw the way Grandma talked about him. I know she still loved him, but I will never know why they parted. And I’ll never know what treasure the chest, lined with its red silk fabric, once held.
For me, Grandma stocked it with the sort of treasure that appeals to little girls: porcelain dolls of varying sizes, a silver brush and comb set, four teacups painted with roses, and an old cigar box filled with costume jewelry. Over the years, I’ve tucked in other things—the bracelet Mama gave me on my sixteenth birthday, a book of poems about the sea, the acceptance letter from Miss Higgins Academy, my blue notebook filled with recipes.
At first it felt wrong to keep these things, this part of myself, from Dexter. But he kept things from me, too. Big things. I found a photo of his first wife in his desk drawer, and letters. He didn’t mention a word of his past before we were married. When I finally worked up the courage to ask him about his ex-wife, he did two things: acknowledge that, yes, he was married before, and tell me never to bring up the subject again.
Yes, Dexter has secrets, and so can I. I slip my key into the little lock and lift the lid, breathing in the familiar scent of my past—musty, floral, and damp like a rainy night. I survey the treasures inside. Like old friends, they’re all there, just as I left them. I tuck Collin’s ticket inside, beside a box of old photos, then close the lid and secure the lock again.
Chapter 10
ADA
I feel as if I could talk with Alex all night, and I think he feels that way too. But it’s late. “Well, I should probably be going,” he says, looking up at the clock on the wall. “Thank you for dinner.”
“Of course,” I reply. “Let’s do this again.”
Alex grins. “I’d love that.”
After he’s gone, I walk upstairs, thinking of our unexpected date. Was it even a date? I rub my forehead, aware of how sorely out of practice I am in matters of men. No, it wasn’t a date, I tell myself. I feel silly for even considering the idea. But if I’m honest with myself, I can’t deny that when I’m around Alex, I feel something flicker deep inside, something I haven’t felt since . . . James.
I climb the stairs to the loft and decide to finally unpack my suitcase and move in properly. I tuck my clothes into the drawers of the old dresser, until the suitcase is finally emptied. James had a knack for packing. Before a trip, I’d just pick the clothes I wanted to pack and toss them on the bed. Like magic, he’d fold them in tidy stacks—always rolling the pants to prevent wrinkles—and tuck them into our suitcase with expert precision. I close my eyes, and I remember the time we went to Paris together. He surprised me the week after Ella’s fourth birthday. I came home from work, and my parents were there playing a game of Uno on the floor with Ella.
“Mommy, Mommy!” Ella cries as I walk through the door. “Dad
dy has a surprise for you! You’re going on an airplane.”
I groan inwardly. I just returned from Portland yesterday for a shoot for the magazine, and the last thing I want is to set foot on another airplane. I glance at James and he smiles, pointing to the suitcase in the hall by the door. “Everything’s taken care of,” he says. “I’m taking you to Paris.”
“But,” I protest, glancing toward Ella. While I’ve traveled alone many times for work, I’ve taken James and Ella with me as often as possible. But now? It would be the first time we’d travel together without our little girl, and I’m not sure if I can do it.
Sensing my concern, my mom stands up and walks toward me. “Don’t worry about a thing, honey,” she says. “You go and have fun. Your father and I will take care of everything.”
I nod robotically and walk to the kitchen for a glass of water, which is when I realize that I forgot to stop at the grocery store on the way home. “James, we’re out of her favorite applesauce,” I say, shaking my head, as if an applesauce shortage is reason enough to stay home from Europe. Somehow, for me, it is.
“Picked up a new pack this morning,” he says with a grin. He wraps his arms around me in the kitchen, and whispers in my ear. “Look, it’s our anniversary tomorrow, and I know you’ve always wanted to go to Paris. Let me take you there. Let’s see it together.”
I turn around to face him. I can tell this trip means a lot to him. Day after day he cares for Ella while I work. It occurs to me that he needs this trip a lot more than I do. “Yes,” I say, looking into his eyes.
“Good,” he says with a smile. “The car will be here in an hour to pick us up.”
How I wish I could return to that moment, to feel his arms around me just once more, to hear Ella’s giggles in the living room.
I bend over to shut the bottom drawer and hear the ping of my earring hitting the wood floor. Darn. I kneel down to look for it, patting around under the bed, then toward the dresser. I lie on the floor to see if I can get a better look from that angle, which is when I notice the glint of metal beneath the dresser. I reach my hand under the drawer and discover a little brass key wedged beneath the frame. I hold it up to the light. It’s one of those old-fashioned keys—long with a hole at the top. I wonder what it’s doing here, what it could possibly unlock, and then it hits me. The chest in the living room.
Downstairs, I hesitate for a moment before giving in to my curiosity. I slip the key into the old lock and jiggle it a little. It releases immediately, and I feel butterflies in my stomach.
I lift the lid of the chest. Inside, the air is musty and stale, held hostage for years in its three-foot-by-four-foot tomb. I lean in to survey the contents cautiously, then pull out a stack of old photos tied with twine. On top is a photo of a couple on their wedding day. She’s a young bride, wearing one of those 1950s netted veils. He looks older, distinguished—sort of like Cary Grant or Gregory Peck in the old black-and-white movies I used to watch with my grandmother. I set the stack down and turn back to the chest, where I find a notebook, filled with handwritten recipes. The page for Cinnamon Rolls is labeled “Dex’s Favorite.” Dex. I wonder if he’s the man in the photo.
There are two ticket stubs from 1959, one to a Frank Sinatra concert, another to the movie An Affair to Remember. A single shriveled rosebud rests on a white handkerchief. A corsage? When I lift it into my hand, it disintegrates; the petals crinkle into tiny pieces that fall onto the living room carpet. At the bottom of the chest is what looks like a wedding dress. It’s yellowed and moth-eaten, but I imagine it was once stark white and beautiful. As I lift it, I can hear the lace swishing as if to say, “Ahh.” Whoever wore it was very petite. The waist circumference is tiny. A pair of long white gloves falls to the floor. They must have been tucked inside the dress. I refold the finery and set the ensemble back inside.
Whose things are these? And why have they been left here? I thumb through the recipe book. All cookies, cakes, desserts. She must have loved to bake. I tuck the book back inside the chest, along with the photographs after I’ve retied the twine, which is when I notice a book tucked into the corner. It’s an old paperback copy of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. I’ve read a little of Hemingway over the years—A Moveable Feast and some of his later work—but not this one. I flip through the book and notice that one page is dog-eared. I open to it and see a line that has been underscored. “You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.”
I look out to the lake, letting the words sink in. Is that what I’m trying to do? Get away from myself? I stare at the line in the book again and wonder if it resonated with the woman who underlined it so many years ago. Did she have her own secret pain? Was she trying to escape it just like me?
I close the lid of the chest, then notice something I’ve missed on the floor. A bracelet—well, a hospital bracelet. It’s made of plastic, and the print on the front is worn and barely legible. I turn on the lamp and hold it closer. “Wentworth, Penny,” it reads.
I tuck it in the pocket of my jeans and vow to learn more about this woman. Could she be the one the grocery store clerk alluded to? The woman who disappeared? “Penny,” I say aloud. Who were you?
Alex is my first thought when I open my eyes the next morning. Yes, we did have a good time together last night, but I’m in no place to take it any further. I came here to heal, not to get mixed up in a relationship I’m not ready for.
I hold fast to my resolution as I walk down the ladder to the living room, which is when I notice his navy fleece vest on the chair. I pick it up and press my nose to it instinctively. The fabric smells woodsy and clean, like a mix of soap and pine trees. I feel a little flutter in my stomach as I set it down.
I decide I’ll go kayaking this morning, then swing by Alex’s houseboat and drop it off. Besides, he invited me to come by. It wouldn’t be weird. Or would it? I close my eyes and shake my head. Stop. Enough overanalyzing. I’m just returning a stupid vest.
Still, I find myself lingering over the mirror a moment longer than usual. I brush my hair and part it three different ways before throwing on some lip gloss.
“Morning,” Jim says from the dock as I zip up my life vest. “Going out for a row?”
“Yeah. It looks like a nice morning to be on the water.”
“Is it ever,” he says. “I’m taking the boat out later.” He nods toward the sailboat moored on my back deck.
“Have a good time,” I say.
“You could join me,” he offers a moment later, smiling.
I shake my head. “Thank you, but maybe some other time. I’ve been dying to see the lake from a duck’s point of view.”
His smile widens. “No better way.”
I climb into the kayak, tucking Alex’s vest behind my back for comfort, then inch my way out to the lake. The wake from a boat rolls in, and at first I feel like I’ll tip at any moment. I grasp the edges of the kayak and hold my breath, bracing myself for going under. But I don’t tip, so I venture out farther. I dip my paddle into the water and propel myself toward the center of the lake. I remember going canoeing in high school with a boy named Corey. I was sure we’d tip over, and when he leaned in to kiss me, we nearly did. I smile to myself. The farther I row, the farther I want to go, so I don’t stop. And I let my mind wander as I do. I let it travel freely, so of course, it goes to visit James and Ella. I see them sitting together, dangling their feet over the dock at the boat launch in Key Largo. Sunrise sent me to the Florida Keys to research a travel piece, and I brought James and Ella. I loved it when they traveled with me on my assignments. It made me feel less guilty. We could be together instead of the two of them in New York and me in a lonely hotel room worrying about everything from whether Ella ate her vegetables to the window in the living room. Did James remember to lock it? She was only three then, her cheeks still round, and her tiny hands still with their little fat pads on top. I loved the baby fat years.
“Mommy,” she says, “Daddy and I
are looking at our sand castles.” She points to two creations in the distance. One is tall and smooth. Symmetrical. The other looks like it may have been hit by a tornado.
“They’re both beautiful,” I say, but I point to hers. “That one is especially nice.”
“That one’s mine,” she says proudly.
“We thought we’d drive into town and grab some lunch,” James says. “Want to join us, or do you have work to do?”
“I wish I could,” I say, “but I have that interview at noon.”
Ella tugs at my skirt. “Mommy, please!”
“Oh, honey, you know I’d go if I could.”
“Ella, remember Mommy’s working on this trip,” James says. “We just came along to keep her company.” I sigh then, remember how much I love him, how much I appreciate the way he respects my work, respects me.
“OK,” Ella says.
“Have fun!” I watch them walk to the car a few feet away, he in his T-shirt and shorts, and she in her white linen sundress and pink Salt Water sandals.
I have an interview in the hotel lobby with the mayor of Key Largo, so, not wanting to be late, I walk straight there. When I reach the foyer, I hear the sound of sirens in the distance. An ambulance? A fire truck? The sirens are coming from the main highway, which is not far away. James and Ella would’ve taken that route to get lunch in town. Suddenly, I panic. What if there was an accident? I try to quell my worries, but I can’t stop the fear rising up in my chest. It’s mixed with guilt and the agonizing thought of losing the two most important people in my life. What if the ambulance is coming for them? I run to the desk. “If the mayor shows up, tell him there’s been an emergency,” I say. “Tell him I’ll be back as soon as I make sure my family’s all right.”
I don’t know what I’m doing, just that I have to run to the road. If James and Ella have been hurt, well, I can’t think about what I’d do. I just want to be there. I run to the sidewalk and look out to the roadway. I don’t see anything. I call James’s number. No answer. I call again. He doesn’t pick up. Another ambulance speeds by, rounding a corner ahead, where a palm tree’s branches hang low over the road. The siren stops just beyond the corner. What if they’re hurt? I swallow hard. What would I do? How would I go on? I walk fast and then pick up my pace to a sprint. What seemed like a few blocks turns out to be a mile, maybe more. I’m not a runner, so I feel winded and develop a side ache that slows me down to a walk. I double over in pain, then stand again, keeping on. I can make out the flashing lights now. I see police cars and two ambulances. It must be a bad wreck. I look overhead and see a medical helicopter circling. I haven’t always been a praying sort of person, but I believe in God. I believe he listens, and I need him to listen now. Dear Lord, I pray aloud, let them be safe. Let them be all right.