by Sarah Jio
“And you’re running now?”
He tucks his hand in mine. “Yes. Hopefully with you.”
“But . . . what you’ve done—it’s fraud. I don’t even know your real name.”
“It’s Sam,” he says. “Sam Leary.”
The name sounds strange and foreign.
“I can’t call you that,” I say.
“Then don’t.”
“How can I even be sure I know you?”
He takes my hand and presses it against his chest. “You know my heart; that’s how.”
I wipe a tear from my cheek. “Then what happens next? What are we supposed to do?”
He nods urgently. “Come away with me.”
I look back to the dock, where I hear the sound of Dexter’s deep laughter, before turning back to Collin hesitantly. “But, I—”
Collin takes a step back. He’s injured by my hesitation; I know it. But he forces a smile, determined to lighten the moment. “You still have your ticket, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I say, grinning as I remember the ticket stub he gave me as passage onto the boat. I’ve kept it alongside a few other prized possessions in my old chest in the living room.
Collin rubs his head and looks at me cautiously, as if considering whether to make a revelation or to keep it to himself. “There’s something else you should know.”
I think of the client who’d commissioned Collin to build the boat. “Collin, he’s not still expecting the boat is he? You don’t owe him—”
“I don’t owe him anything,” he says. “I get my payment when I deliver the boat. That was our arrangement.”
“Oh,” I say, relieved. But the troubled expression lingers on Collin’s face.
“Penny, the client, the man who commissioned this boat, is someone whose name may be familiar.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “Who?”
“Robert Wentworth.”
“But that’s . . .”
“Your father-in-law.”
“Does Dexter know?”
Collin rubs his brow. “No.”
“Because Dex hasn’t spoken to his father in years.” The revelation is making my head spin. Dex has refused to accept financial assistance from his wealthy family during our marriage. And yet, I’ve always wondered. I think about the checks sent to our home from an anonymous patron—well, Dex’s biggest patron. The checks are from a corporation I don’t recognize, but the handwriting . . . all I know is that I’ve seen it before. There’s something unique about the way the sender loops his p’s and elongates his y’s. But I stop thinking of Dexter’s art then, and instead I think of Collin’s lie.
“Why did you keep this from me?” I ask.
“I, I . . . listen,” he continues. “I swore I wouldn’t say anything. For all I knew, he just wanted to buy a boat.”
I cast him a skeptical look. “From a boat maker who lives across the dock from his son?”
Collin nods. “Listen, it’s natural for a father to want to know about a son who has cut off all contact.”
I smirk, suddenly feeling protective of Dex. “And I suppose he paid you a pretty penny for all of your convenient updates.”
“Penny,” Collin pleads, “don’t be angry. Don’t let this change things between us.” He climbs into the sailboat and waits for me to follow. His expression is urgent, pleading. “Come away with me. This sailboat is ours, yours and mine. We’ll start a new life together, just as we talked about.”
I walk closer to the sailboat, then turn back to the dock, before returning my gaze to Collin. “I need more time,” I say. “I—”
Collin holds up his hand, as if to say, “Don’t tell me. I can’t bear it.”
The truth is, I don’t know what words are about to cross my lips. I love Collin; it’s true. But I can’t deny that the revelations of the investigators have clouded my decision making now. Dex. I close my eyes and rub my brow. I made a vow, and at this moment, I am not ready to break it. My past indiscretions are only temporary. I look at Collin, so strong, so sure standing aboard the sailboat. Yes, he has my heart, and I’m having his baby, but if I left tonight, it would mean forever. It would mean the end to everything I have with Dexter, and I’m not sure if I’m ready for that. It doesn’t feel fair to Dexter, to the vow I’ve made.
I run my hand along the smooth, varnished railing. In blue letters on the rear of the boat is the newly painted word Catalina. I smile through my tears, and he catches my eye.
“I named her for you,” he says. “You said you always wanted to go to Catalina.”
“Yes,” I say, wiping a tear from my cheek. “I didn’t think you remembered.”
“I thought it could be the first place we sail to,” he says.
I shake my head. “I just need more time.” My voice sounds agitated, frantic.
He unties the rope from the cleat and my heart begins to race.
“Collin,” I cry. “Collin, no, please don’t go. Not yet. Not like this.”
My heart is in my throat as he pushes off. I stand on the dock, straddling two lives—the life I live with Dexter on Boat Street and another with Collin on the sea. But Collin is slipping away now.
I reach my hands out to him, pleadingly. I haven’t meant to hurt him. “Come back for me,” I cry, this time louder. I don’t care if anyone hears me; I want him to hear me. “I love you, Collin. I will always love you.”
I watch him drift off into the darkness of the lake, and I collapse onto the dock, burying my face in my hands.
Collin will return. He has to return. I feel desperate as I pace the floors of the houseboat. I reach for a suitcase and throw it on the floor. I could pack and get into the canoe. I could go after him. I shake my head. I’d never match his speed.
I sit down on the sofa. My hands are trembling. All I can do is wait. Collin will come back for me. He just needs time. He’ll return—tonight, even. And when he does, I’ll be ready.
I walk out to the deck and fix my eyes on the lake. Every passing kayaker could be Collin. Every boat. Every duck in the distance. I don’t take my eyes off the lake. I don’t want to miss him.
Chapter 28
ADA
It’s after nine when Alex knocks on my door the next night. He wraps his arms around my waist and kisses me softly. “I thought you were going to be staying over in Portland tonight,” I say.
“I decided to drive back so I could see you.”
I can’t contain my smile. “Really?”
“Really.” He walks into the living room and plops down on the sofa. “What are you working on?”
I quickly close my laptop. I may have told him about my past, but I’m not quite ready for him to read my private memoirs, at least not yet. “Just a little writing project.”
He nods. “Going to Bach on the Dock tomorrow night?”
“Is it already tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Naomi always makes a point of inviting me, even though I’m not an official resident of Boat Street.”
“I’m glad you’ll be there,” I say. “Frankly, with all the stuff I’m finding out about Penny, and the investigation, I’m starting to get a little creeped out by this dock.”
“Oh, don’t let it get to you,” he says. “These folks are a harmless lot. Quirky, but harmless. You should see the way Gene plays the violin. They used to have a full quartet; now it’s just him.”
“Are we supposed to bring anything?”
“Bring an app and a bottle of wine and you’ll be golden.”
The wind has picked up since this morning, and I hear it whistling in the eaves of the houseboat, which is swaying gently now. “Storm’s coming,” Alex says.
I hear a rattling sound upstairs in the direction of my bedroom, and I freeze for a moment. “Did you hear that?”
He nods. “Probably just the wind.”
“No,” I say. “It sounded like someone was opening the porthole in the bedroom.”
Alex stands up. “Want me to go c
heck it out?”
I nod cautiously, then follow him upstairs. At the top of the ladder, I breathe a sigh of relief. “See?” Alex says. “No boogeyman.”
Then I notice the porthole is open. “Alex, something’s not right.” I walk over and pull the little window shut. “I always leave this window closed.”
I can tell he’s startled, just as I am, but he puts on a brave face. “It might have been the wind,” he says. “Look, it’s really rocking the boat out there.” I look out and see the Catalina bobbing on the lake, but we both know the wind wouldn’t be able to blow a solid metal porthole open.
“Want me to stay for a bit longer?” Alex asks once we’ve climbed down the stairs.
I nod.
“I could sing you a lullaby,” he says teasingly. “But you wouldn’t want me to, because I can’t sing.”
I grin. “James used to sing to Ella every night. She had colic as a baby, and singing was the only thing that calmed her down. Well, that and the vacuum cleaner.” Alex grins. “But there was this one song—it’s not even a lullaby—she loved most. He’d sing it over and over again to her, and it became their special lullaby, even as she grew up. He sang it to her the night before she died.”
“What was the song?” Alex asks tenderly. I can tell he wants to be a part of my memories, and yet like a person touring someone’s private garden, he’s careful not to trample the tulips.
“‘Puff, the Magic Dragon,’” I say quietly.
I nestle my head into his shoulder, and when my eyes begin to get heavy, I can hear James singing somewhere very far away.
“Morning,” Alex says the next day. I look at the clock. It’s after nine.
“Did I really fall asleep on the couch?”
“Sure did,” he says, filling a mug with coffee and setting it on the chest in front of the sofa. “And you talk in your sleep.”
The sunlight is bright, and I rub my eyes. “Oh no, what did I say?”
“Something about a deadline and a motorcycle.”
“I have no idea,” I say, smiling.
“Sounds like quite a dream,” he says, sinking into the sofa beside me. “I just hope I was in it.”
“Thanks for staying over last night.”
“You sure you didn’t leave the window open?”
“Maybe I did,” I say.
“There are so few incidents of theft on the docks, I don’t think we need to worry about intruders.”
I nod. “You’re probably right,” I say, stretching. I want to put the incident out of my mind as much as Alex does.
He squeezes my hand before standing up. “I’ve got to run some errands, but I’ll be back at five and we can go to Bach on the Dock together.”
He kneels down and presses his lips against mine, and I pull him closer to me.
“Do you have to go?”
“I do,” he says. “But I’m going to think of you every second today, now that I know how cute you are in your sleep.”
I smile as I watch him walk out the door.
That evening, Alex returns with a takeout antipasto plate he’s picked up from Serafina’s. Together with my baguette and bottle of wine, we leave for my very first Bach on the Dock. It’s a party, of course, but it feels a bit like a baptismal ceremony—my acceptance into the houseboat community.
We walk out to the dock together. Colorful Chinese paper lanterns are hung along the string lights. Someone’s hooked up a stereo and speakers, and jazz wafts in the air. I feel a little out of place, like a new girlfriend being introduced to a larger extended family who isn’t exactly keen on newcomers. Still, the neighbors smile warmly, and someone hands me a glass of red wine. I remind myself to smile back.
“Oh, good,” Naomi croons when she sees us. “How nice that the two of you could come together.”
“Gene,” she says to her husband, “you remember Alex, and our new neighbor, Ada.”
The old man nods vacantly as we set our provisions down on the table. He looks tired, and his mind is elsewhere.
“It’s just like the old days,” Naomi says, taking my arm. “We used to do it up big back then. A quartet, a full bar, the works. Those were the days.”
I wonder if her life has turned out the way she anticipated. She’s still married after all these years, and her son lives nearby. It all adds up to the picture of a happy life, and yet there is a sadness that lingers behind Naomi’s eyes, and I long to know why.
“So Boat Street was quite the place in its heyday?”
“Indeed it was,” she says. “It had an energy that practically pulsated.” She stops beside the potted plants in front of her deck as more guests arrive and mingle on the dock.
“I suppose it still does,” I say. “The spirit is still alive.”
Naomi shrugs, kneeling down beside a terra-cotta pot and pulling out a sprig of morning glory. “It’s not what it was.” She tosses the little vine into the lake, and I watch its white bud drift away helplessly. “The soul is gone.”
As different as we are, her words resonate with me then. I know how it feels when the soul has left a place. After the accident, it was as if the warmth had been sucked straight out of my apartment in New York.
She stands up and brushes a bit of dirt from her hand. “But some things never change, like this deplorable morning glory.”
I think about the soul of Boat Street, and I can’t help but wonder if it left the dock the night that Penny disappeared. If so, why?
“Naomi,” I say seizing the moment, “I’ve been meaning to ask you something, about a young woman who lived here—”
“Oh, look,” she says abruptly, walking ahead. “Lenora’s here. I’ll go and greet her.”
Alex walks over to me. “Is it my imagination, or do people seem a little tense tonight?”
I nod. “I know what you mean. Have you seen Jim?”
“No. Gene said he wasn’t feeling well.”
“That’s strange.”
“I know,” Alex replies. “He never misses these houseboat events.”
We all look up when we hear the sound of violin music. Gene stands alone at the top of the dock, and he plays a sad, slow version of “The Way You Look Tonight.” I’ve heard it sung by Frank Sinatra and others, but never played this way on the violin. Its notes sound sad and pensive, and when a gust of wind blows through the dock, I shiver and wish I’d brought a sweater.
Later, Alex and I sit on his deck as the stars twinkle overhead. He’s left the radio on, and I can hear it in the distance. “Is the music bothering you?” he asks.
“No,” I say. “It’s nice. In this age of iTunes and OnDemand, it’s sometimes nice to be surprised.”
He nods, weaving his fingers through mine.
“What did you think of the party tonight?”
“I don’t know,” I say, thinking of my prickly interaction with Naomi and her unwillingness to speak of the past. And yet, who am I—a newcomer—to dig around so openly? I can almost understand Naomi’s reticence. I shrug. “The people here have one thing in common, and that’s their collective love for the dock.”
Alex nods. “Strange that Jim wasn’t there, wasn’t it?” He’s lowered his voice. We have to be careful on the water. Sound carries.
I nod. Alex and I stopped by his house to check on him, but he was terse with us, speaking through a crack in the door. “I wonder what’s bothering him?”
“Maybe it’s his dad,” he says. “Gene’s not doing well.”
I hear the interlude to a song on the radio, and I instantly recognize it. “Here’s to Life,” by Shirley Horn. “I love this song.”
“Me, too,” he says, standing. “Dance with me?”
I stand up, and he wraps his arms around me. We fit perfectly, and he holds me with ease, as if we’ve danced like this a hundred, a thousand times.
I listen to the song’s lyrics: “No complaints, and no regrets, I still believe in chasing dreams . . . ” I sigh. “I hope I can look back on my life and feel that
way when it’s all said and done,” I say.
“Me, too.”
I close my eyes tightly, then open them again and search Alex’s face—so warm, so anchored to this moment, to me. The tears fill my eyes again. “I want to live again, really live.”
He holds me tighter. “Don’t you see?” he says. “You’re doing that now.”
Our eyes meet for a moment before he cups my face in his hands and pulls me toward him passionately. I close my eyes. I feel like I’m floating. I can see James, suddenly, in the distance. It’s dark, and I can’t make out his face. I open my eyes and step back.
“What’s wrong?” he asks. He sounds a little injured, and it makes me feel terrible. For a moment I wonder if I’m worthy of his affection. If he gave me his heart, could I be trusted with it?
“I, I . . . I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
He looks down at his feet. “Oh.”
I take a step closer to him and take his hands in mine. “I want to, so much,” I say, shaking my head. I’m a mess. I’m afraid. “I need a sign. I need a sign before I can take the next step. I need him to give his blessing.”
James. I feel him. Is he seeing me now? I’ve often thought that Alex and James would hit it off. They share a sense of humor, a deep humanity. Beneath each of their surfaces, there are so many layers to experience. So many beautiful layers. But would James approve of his wife walking into the arms of a man who possesses the advantage of being alive when James is not?
We face each other for a moment, in silence, as the waves lap against the houseboat. And then a new song comes on the radio. At first I don’t recognize the melody. It’s folksy, and there’s the strumming of a guitar. And then Peter, of Peter, Paul and Mary, is singing. I shake my head, astonished. “Puff, the Magic Dragon, lived by the sea . . .”
Tears sting my eyes. We don’t need to say anything. We know. I nestle my head into Alex’s chest and he holds me as we listen.
I look up at the sky. “Thank you,” I whisper into the night air.