Morning Glory

by Sarah Jio

  “Where’s Gracie?”

  “She’s watching a movie,” he says, glancing over his shoulder. Through the window, I can see her sitting on Alex’s couch. I grin. “You made her wear a life vest?”

  “House rules,” he says.

  “I love that you’re paranoid.”

  “Listen,” he says, “I was going through some old shots I took five years ago, when I first arrived on Boat Street, and I found these.”

  He hands the envelope to me, and I pull out a stack of eight-by-ten black-and-white images. I flip through the first three—shots of the dock and mostly my houseboat and the view beyond—and then look up at Alex. “I don’t get it. What am I supposed to be looking for here?”

  He points to the corner of the frame, and I see a woman kneeling down on the deck in front of my houseboat. I look closer. “Is that . . . Naomi?”

  Alex nods.

  “It looks like she’s crying,” I say.

  He flips to the next photo, and the next. In succession, they show a woman who is doubled over in grief.

  “She must’ve had no idea I was taking photos that day,” he says. “Obviously, I didn’t see her there either.”

  “What do you think this means?”

  “I think it means she has some emotional pain associated with your houseboat, or someone who once lived there.”

  I take the photo on the top of the stack in my hands and touch the corner where Naomi kneels, holding her head in her hands. I can almost feel her pain radiating between my fingertips.

  I step off the elevator, and in the hallway, the scent of Pine-Sol floods my nose. What was the number again? Room 1201, yes. I walk around a corner and then I come to the door: 1201. My heart thumps wildly in my chest as I reach out my hand.

  I knock once, then again.

  A moment later, the door creaks open, and Dexter stands before me. He’s tall and fit. He hardly looks like a man in his early nineties. His hair is gray and clean and combed neatly to the side. “Ms. Santorini,” he says, smiling. I can see why Penny must have found him so charming.

  “Please, call me Ada.”

  He leads me through the door. His apartment is neat and tidy, and well-appointed with a modern, angular sofa and a sleek-looking coffee table. It looks like the kind of interior that’s been aided by a decorator. I wonder if he’s dating her. I imagine she’s half his age and drives a BMW.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” he says.

  “Water’s fine.”

  He returns with a small bottle of Evian from the refrigerator and sets it in front of me on the coffee table. A droplet of condensation rolls down its side.

  “So,” he says cheerfully, sitting in a chair opposite me. “How can I help you?”

  I set the cookies down on the coffee table first. “Would you like one?”

  “No, thank you,” he says, indicating his heart. “I’m on a strict diet, my—”

  “They’re your wife’s recipe,” I say. “Penny’s cinnamon cookies.”

  He looks momentarily shaken. “Did you say it’s Penny’s recipe? How did you—”

  “I found her recipe book.”

  “Where?”

  “In the houseboat, inside the chest.”

  “The one in the living room?”

  “Yes. Her things are still there, frozen in time. Her wedding dress, some books and mementos.”

  I pull out the blue notebook and set it on the coffee table. He picks it up and thumbs through its pages. His chin quivers a little at the sight of the familiar handwriting.

  I feel funny watching him. It’s a private moment, so I look up, admiring a painting of a woman on the wall. She’s beautiful, with blond hair and a low-cut dress. She’s sitting on a dock looking out at the gray lake. Her eyes are sad, distant. She isn’t in the moment but is looking ahead, into the future. It has to be Penny.

  “That’s her,” Dexter says, looking up at me. “I painted it the year after she disappeared.”

  “She must have been so beautiful,” I say.

  Dexter nods. “She was the most beautiful creature I’ve ever laid eyes on. Even all these years later, I haven’t met anyone like her.”

  “Were you happy together?”

  Dexter rubs his brow. “We were once. But I was so consumed with my work. Too consumed. I strayed, and I’ll never forgive myself for it.”

  I think of Lana Turner, but I don’t dare ask him about her. “What do you think happened the night Penny disappeared?”

  “I wish I knew,” he says. “The fact is, that night’s haunted me every day since. I turn it over in my mind again and again, hoping I’ll recall something I missed.”

  “Tell me what you remember.”

  Dexter sighs. “It was the night of Bach on the Dock, the annual neighborhood party. We had a fight.”

  “What was it about?”

  “She told me she was pregnant,” he says.

  “You must have been so happy.”

  He shakes his head. “I knew it wasn’t my child. I was so consumed with rage, I didn’t stop to consider her plight, what a difficult spot she was in. And after what I put her through? Well, she didn’t deserve that kind of coldness from me. If I could do it all over again, I would have accepted her news, accepted the child.”

  “But you turned her away?”

  “I wanted to make her pay for the pain she caused me. I stormed off. I went to Naomi’s.”

  I raise my eyebrows, recalling the images of Naomi that Alex took.

  “We were close,” he says. “Listen, I’m not proud of parts of my past, especially that one.”

  “And when did you learn that Penny had . . . gone?”

  “Naomi’s son, Jimmy, was crying,” he says. “His father, Gene, told us that he’d gone to check on Jimmy, and he found him alone on the deck crying. He later said that . . . well, there have been so many theories. He said his son saw her leave by boat.”

  “In a boat? With who?”

  “I thought it must have been Collin,” he says, “a neighbor who lived on the next dock. Naomi told me Penny had become close to him during the time I was away in California. I believe he was the father of the child.”

  I can feel his pain, even now, despite the passage of time.

  “Well,” he continues, “it didn’t hold up. When the detectives questioned him, I learned that he and Penny were planning to go away together that night, but something went wrong. They had a fight, and he left without her.”

  “Are you sure he didn’t come back for her?” I ask, clinging to the possibility that she might have sailed off into the sunset with her true love after all.

  He shakes his head. “No. Collin had already set off for the ocean by then. He wasn’t anywhere near Lake Union. So it had to be someone else, something else who lured her away.”

  “But who?”

  Dexter throws up his arms. “The police questioned a handful of transients in the area,” he says. “They developed a few theories over the years, but none ever solidified. I pray that she just left, that she simply jumped on a boat and sailed away, like she always wanted to do. But I don’t think that’s what happened. Her mother died in 1972 without hearing from her again, and Penny never went more than a few days without calling her mom.” He rubs his forehead. “My one big regret in life is how I left her there that night. After my own transgressions, you’d think I would have been able to forgive hers.”

  He appears to be sinking deeper into his grief, but I can’t let him leave me. Not yet.

  “And Collin,” I say. “What became of Collin?”

  “I wondered the same thing myself,” he says, looking up again. “He left Boat Street. Never did come back, except briefly when he left his sailboat in Jimmy’s care.”

  “Yes,” I say. “I know.”

  “I didn’t find out until years later,” he continues, “but Collin died.”

  “How?”

  “On a sailboat in Key West. He had a heart attack. The Coast Guard fo
und him after he’d already died.” He shakes his head solemnly.

  I think about these two men. They shared one thing, the love of a remarkable woman, and neither of them had a happy ending. “I’m sorry,” I finally say. “I . . . hoped things had turned out differently for Collin.”

  “Me, too,” Dexter says faintly. He stares at his hands. They’re folded in his lap in contrition.

  I wonder what Penny might think of her husband now if she were standing beside me. Never remarried, all but stopped painting—at least, according to the Web site I read—a man who carries such a heavy burden. Would she love him? Would she forgive him? My eyes wander around the room. I don’t know what I’m looking for. A clue? A sign? At once, I notice a little frame on a bookshelf. It’s an old-fashioned painted sign, an advertisement of some sort. The lettering is familiar, but I can’t place it. I stand and walk to the side of the room, compelled to have a look.

  My hand trembles a little as I take the frame and read the words “Leighton Shipping Company” in weathered gold letters. I gasp. Ella’s sailboat had the very same inscription on the side. “Where did you get this?” I ask, turning around. Penny’s story, my story—it’s come full circle. My heart pounds inside my chest and I wonder if Dexter can hear it. To me, it sounds like a bass drum.

  “My father owned the company,” he says. “The truth is, even in my heyday as an artist, I never could make a living at it, well, not the type of living my family was accustomed to. It was my father’s fortune that kept me alive. He was my biggest patron, even though we hardly spoke. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time. I found out years later.”

  “But this name,” I say, pointing to the lettering. “My daughter used to have a little carved wooden sailboat with the very same name on it.”

  “Yes,” he says, standing. He walks to a buffet near the dining room table, and pulls out a near replica of Aggie. “Like this?”

  “My God,” I say, gasping. “That’s exactly it.”

  “My father had a few hundred made. They sold them in the gift shop for a while. I used to take them down to the lake and let them glide out on their own. I always liked to think about where the tide would take them—through the locks, maybe, and out on the ocean. To think that one of my sailboats made it into your daughter’s hands.” He holds up the little boat, and smiles. “Would your daughter like this one? It’s the last one I have, and I’d be happy to give it to her.”

  “No,” I say quickly. I don’t have the strength to tell him that Ella isn’t here anymore, and I hope he can’t see the tears in my eyes. “Thank you, but you keep it. It must mean a lot to you.”

  “Really,” he says. “I insist.” He places the sailboat in my hands, and I read the words on the side.

  “The Mary Jo,” I say, smiling. “My daughter had the Agnes Anne. We called her Aggie.”

  “They were all hand-painted,” he says, “each with a different name. “The joke is that each was named after one of my father’s former girlfriends.”

  I smile. “Well,” I say, looking at the sailboat again, imagining what Ella would say if she were here. “This was an unexpected surprise.”

  “As was meeting you,” Dexter says, smiling.

  “I’m leaving Penny’s notebook with you. If you like, I’ll bring her chest over later, when my friend Alex can drive me. It’s a bit heavy.”

  “I’d be ever so grateful,” he says.

  “Well,” I say, heading to the door. I tuck the little boat in my purse, not wanting to offend him by giving it back. “Thank you, again, Dexter. Wherever Penny went, I hope she knows just how much you cared for her, how much you have thought of her since.”

  “Me, too,” he says.

  Later that evening, I meet Alex and Gracie at a crepe stand on Fairview for dinner. He orders two ham-and-provolones and I choose a goat-cheese-spinach-and-tomato. We watch as the woman behind the stand pours the batter on the round wheel and rakes it into a perfect circle with a wooden tool. Within seconds, the batter thickens and bubbles, turning a shade of golden brown. She reaches for a tub of cheese labeled “Pro 3-5,” then shakes her head and tucks it under the shelf before looking up at us. “Almost forgot to toss this one. Found it in the back of the fridge. Expired months ago.” She opens a new tub of shredded cheese and sprinkles it on Alex’s crepe. I’m not thinking about expired cheese, however. It’s “Pro 3-5” that haunts me. I know it’s silly. It’s an expiration date for provolone cheese, but I key Proverbs 3:5 into my phone, and read what comes back: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.”

  He will make your paths straight.

  “What is it?” Alex asks, as the woman hands him his crepe and then passes me mine.

  “Nothing.” I smile, but as we walk back to Boat Street, I think of James and Ella and the lonely ache deep inside, and I say a little prayer. Dear God, if you’re out there, I beg of you, please help me find my way. I don’t want to feel lost anymore.

  Chapter 32

  The next day, I pick up the phone and make the call I’ve been dreading for so long, too long.

  “Hi Mama,” I say quietly when I hear her voice.

  “Ada? Is it you?”

  “Yes,” I say through tears. “Mama, I’m sorry it’s been so long.” I can see her standing there in the kitchen, in front of the big window that faces the street, where the old sycamore stands guard. Ella climbed that tree. I pushed her on the swing that I myself had swung on as a child. “I’m so sorry—”

  “Oh, honey,” she says. I can hear the hurt in her voice, but I can also hear the acceptance, the unconditional love, just as I would have shown Ella if she ever walked through her own dark patch. “Please, don’t apologize. I knew you’d call when you were ready.”

  The truth is, I don’t know if I’m ready, just that it’s time.

  “It was wrong of me to close myself off the way I did,” I say. “And I want you to know that it had nothing to do with you. It was my own fragility. I was afraid that if I heard the sadness in your voice it would only make it worse.”

  “I understand,” she says. “Your father and I just wanted you to know how much we love you. It’s why we kept calling.”

  “I got your messages,” I say. “And the letters. All of them. Mom, I was just afraid, afraid that I wasn’t strong enough to talk about the accident with you.” I take a deep breath. “I’m in Seattle now.”

  “Seattle?”

  “Yes, just for the summer,” I say. “I left New York, quit my job. I wanted to get away, and it’s been everything I hoped it would be. Mama, I met someone. His name is Alex.”

  I hear her crying now.

  “Mama, are you all right?”

  “Yes,” she says. “Yes, I’m just so happy to hear your voice, honey, that’s all.”

  “Say hi to Dad, OK?”

  “I will. When can we see you?”

  “Soon,” I say. “I was thinking we could have Thanksgiving together this year. Is Aunt Louise still making that awful bean casserole?”

  “Her specialty, you know,” she says with a laugh.

  “Save a spot at the table for me, OK?”

  “Should I make it two?”

  “I don’t know just yet,” I say, glancing out the window toward Alex’s houseboat.

  The morning plods along, and I can’t get Dexter out of my head. The sunlight streams in the window and reflects off the silver frame of the Catalina painting. I study the sailboat, then recall something I told Ella years ago. She’d lost Aggie, and we’d gone back to school to find the little boat, to the market, to the park. It ended up being a veritable grand tour of New York City. But after the exhaustive search, Aggie turned up at home, under her bed. The lesson? Things are usually right under your nose. And then it hits me. I recall something I came across in Penny’s chest a few days ago, and I pull it out and tuck it into my pocket, then run out to the dock, where Jim is
hosing down the Catalina.

  “I have to speak to your parents,” I say, catching my breath.

  “But they can’t, they’re—”

  “Jim, I have to, and I need your blessing.”

  Jim’s mother pours tea from a white ceramic kettle, and hands me a cup.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “Gene isn’t well enough to join us,” she says preemptively.

  “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Jim exchanges glances with his mother.

  She crosses her legs. “Now, what can I tell you?”

  “Yes,” I say, pulling a photo of Penny out of my bag, one I’d found in the chest. “Do you remember this woman?”

  She reaches for her glasses on the coffee table, then has a closer look at the photo in her hand. Her face is pinched and tense. I imagine that after years of asking all the questions in her practice, it must feel uncomfortable for her to be the one on the spot.

  She sets the photo on the table, visibly shaken. “Yes,” she says. “I do. Well, I did, a very long time ago. Her name was Penny Wentworth. She was the bride of Dexter.” She pauses, as if the name has knocked the wind out of her.

  “I know,” I say. “I went to see him yesterday.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes.” I remember the photographs Alex took, the ones where Naomi had been doubled over in her sadness.

  Her eyes are misty, and I can see the anguish brewing in her gaze, like a storm that’s gaining strength over the ocean. Whatever tough exterior she has been fronting is gone now. Jim hands her a handkerchief. “It’s OK, Mom,” he says, “you don’t have to—”

  “Was he well?” she asks, ignoring her son.

  “Yes,” I say. “Well, for his condition.”

  “His condition?”

  “He has a heart condition.”

  “Oh,” she says, dabbing the corner of her handkerchief to her eye. “If you want to know the truth, I was in love with him. Madly in love.”