Morning Glory

by Sarah Jio

  “Oh, good,” Alex says, smiling with his keys in his hand. He must be coming from the parking lot. “We were hoping to find you.”

  I look down at this beautiful child. Wisps of her blond hair fall out of her ponytail. Her smile is big and joyous, just like Ella’s used to be.

  “Hi, honey,” I say, kneeling down.

  “Ada,” Gracie says, “did you know my daddy has a crush on you?”

  Alex tugs at her hood. “Hey now, are you trying to embarrass your poor old dad?”

  Gracie grins, then runs ahead.

  “I talked to Kellie,” I say.

  His eyes narrow. “You did?”

  “She gave me her blessing,” I continue. “It’s funny, but I needed that. I needed to know that I wasn’t crossing any boundaries. When kids are involved, that’s important.”

  He nods and wraps his arm around my waist. “I’m relieved,” he says. “I thought she was going to warn you about my allergy to housework, which I assure you is only a part truth.” I grin as we watch Gracie silently for a moment, and he tucks his hand in mine. “I know your lease is up soon,” he says cautiously. “What can I do to get you to stay?”

  I look away from him for a moment. It’s tempting. I want to stay. I’ve promised Jim I’d be here for his parents. But . . . I also feel a tug at my heart. It’s a restless, unsettled feeling, and I consider the fact that I might carry it with me forever. In some ways, I wish my burden were as easy to part with as Gene’s. I wish I could simply confess it away.

  Alex kisses my hand. “What’s holding you back, Ada? Is it him?”

  Oh, James, can I share my heart, my life, with anyone other than you? Naomi and Gene’s houseboat is to our right; I look at her potted flowers. A green morning glory vine has wrapped its tendrils around one of the terra-cotta pots. It bursts with the white flowers I’ve come to love on the dock. I think of Penny then, and wonder what she would have said at the sight of the blossoms, what she would have felt.

  Before I can respond, Gracie waves from the end of the dock. “Daddy!” she calls. “Look what I found.”

  Alex and I walk down the dock hand in hand.

  “Look!” Gracie says again. She holds up a piece of driftwood with a hollowed-out center, like a boat. “It just needs a sail and it could be a sailboat! A real sailboat!”

  “Honey, if you’re interested in sailboats we should have Jim take us all out in a real sailboat tomorrow,” Alex says.

  Gracie grins. “A real sailboat?”

  “Yep,” he says, pointing to the Catalina. “That one over there.”

  Gracie sits down, cross-legged, on the dock and plants her cheek in her palm. “I wish I had my own sailboat.”

  I think of Ella’s precious Aggie and her newfound twin, Mary Joe, in my bag. “Wait,” I say, fiddling with the zipper.

  A moment later, I hold up the little sailboat Dexter gave me. “Would you like to play with this one?”

  Gracie’s eyes are big. “Really?”

  “Go ahead,” I say, handing her the tiny craft. Its white canvas sail has yellowed, just like the one on Ella’s prized Aggie.

  I watch her as she sets the boat in the lake and leans over the edge. She pulls the little sailboat back and forth.

  “She loves it,” Alex whispers to me.

  I nod, wrapping my arm around his waist. “It belonged to Dexter Wentworth.”

  Alex looks confused.

  “I’ll explain later.”

  “Daddy,” Gracie says, “what does this writing mean on the sailboat?”

  Alex turns to me. “Why don’t you ask Ada?”

  I hold the little boat in my hands and read the words painted on the side, for maybe the one thousandth time. “Leighton Shipping Company,” I say. “My daughter had a sailboat just like this one, and we could never quite figure out where it came from, but we used to like to say the name.” I smile. “Leighton. It’s kind of a neat word to say, isn’t it?”

  “Leighton,” Gracie says, then giggles. She’s quiet for a moment, then looks up at me thoughtfully. “You have a daughter? What’s her name? Why doesn’t she live with you?”

  Alex puts his hand on my shoulder. I know he’s worried about me, but I feel stronger now. “Yes,” I say. “Her name was Ella. She doesn’t live with me now because she’s in heaven, with her daddy.”

  Gracie looks up to the sky as if she’s trying to envision Ella’s face, then she turns back to me. “Are you very sad?”

  “Yes,” I say honestly. “And I might always be a little sad.” I glance at Alex. “But I’ve learned that I still have so much in life to be happy about. Besides, I’ll see her again.” I point up to the sky where Gracie’s looking.

  Alex kisses my forehead lightly. “I promised Gracie ice cream,” he says. “Want to join us?”

  A wave of emotion rushes over me. It’s thick and consuming. It makes me want to crawl back into the quiet, solitary place I existed in for so long before coming to Seattle, the cocoon I built for myself. Suddenly, I think of the day of the accident, how I promised Ella ice cream. I hear her voice. “Chocolate, with sprinkles.”

  I look beyond Alex, and at the top of the dock near the stairs that lead to the street, I see her suddenly, standing beside James. They’re barely there, just a hologram, glimmers of their former selves. But I see them, and they’re smiling. They’re happy. James nods at me. He’s saying, “Go ahead, my love.” Then Ella waves. My eyes fill with tears, and then they’re gone.

  Alex looks at me cautiously. “If you’re not up for ice cream, we can—”

  “No,” I say quickly, wiping away a tear. “I want to. I never want to be the kind of person who says no to ice cream. Not anymore.”

  Alex squeezes my hand.

  “Look,” Gracie cries. “Ducks!”

  We watch as Henrietta swims by, with Haines beside her.

  The three of us walk ahead. It’s Monday, and there’s a chance of rain in the forecast, but it’s OK. And with each step along Boat Street, the old wooden dock lets out quiet creaks of approval.

  I have finally found my way.

  Epilogue

  PENNY

  There he is, my son, all grown up. I sit in my sailboat and watch him on the dock as it drifts on Lake Union. She’s not as yare as the Catalina, of course, not as grand. This boat feels the wind deeper, and in a storm, air seeps into the galley. But despite her shortcomings, she’s been my home, my companion, all these years. Together, we’ve sailed the world, and when I say that, it’s not an exaggeration. I’ve seen the sun rise in New Zealand and watched it set on the shores of Capri. I’ve had a life. Mind you, not the life I imagined I’d have when I was a young bride. But I’ve lived a life that is mine, and mine alone.

  I kill the motor and drift quietly as I look out to Boat Street. It’s not the first time I’ve been back. I make a yearly pilgrimage, just to see it. To remember.

  No, I didn’t drown that night. Gene did hold me under, and I nearly gave up the fight, but then in the midst of the struggle, it was as if time stopped. And maybe it did. Beneath the dock, a little morning glory vine grew. All my time on Boat Street, I’d never seen a morning glory bloom at night. They’d always open their blossoms with the morning sun, then close them tightly by the time the moon appeared. It’s true, they aren’t night creatures—but that night they were. They called to me.

  Gene must have thought I drowned. And I nearly did. Thankfully, it was too dark for him to see me as I floated below the dock, coming up for air in the space beneath the wooden planks. The morning glories kept me company there as the residents of Boat Street mourned me and their own transgressions.

  I’m not sure how long I stayed there, clutching the logs under the dock. I shivered for a long time, until I gained the courage to swim away to the next dock, and somehow, dripping wet, I made it to Pete’s Market undetected, where I dried off in the restroom.

  A stranger gifted me the train fare to Portland, where I waited tables long enough to pay my p
assage to California, to Catalina Island. I’d miscarried by then, of course. The early pain was an indication that something was wrong. I mourned the loss of that baby, Collin’s and mine. But there would be another; I just didn’t know it yet.

  Eleven years later, when I saw Collin again, in a marina in Key West, I thought I was seeing a ghost. His hair was longer then, his skin so dark from the sun. Despite the passage of time, I hadn’t given up hope of running into him. I looked for Collin in every port, whipped out my binoculars to examine every passing boat on the sea. And then, in a moment of amazement, there he stood.

  We shared a night together, the most beautiful night of my life. It gave me my son, Alex. But tragically, Collin never knew his son. He didn’t even know I carried him. We planned to sail away together, from Key West onward. Where to? We didn’t know. It only mattered that we were together.

  That morning, Collin took his boat out to a neighboring dock for refueling (not the Catalina; a few years earlier, he’d bestowed it on Jimmy, thinking I had passed on). I waited for him to return, but he never did. Frightened, I contacted the Coast Guard, who found Collin collapsed over the tiller. He’d died of a heart attack on his way back to me.

  That year was the most difficult of my life. Pregnant, alone on the sea. Though it broke my heart to admit it, a boat was no place to raise a baby. I’d met a nice couple in Oregon when I’d lived there briefly years prior, and I decided I’d take him to them. They were childless, and I knew they desperately wanted a baby. I’d ask them to raise mine for me.

  You may think of my actions as selfish, but I knew no other way. My life was on the sea. By then, I felt more amphibious than human, understanding the tides and the seabirds better than humankind. I was a water baby, as my mother had always known. Giving my son a normal life, a stable one, seemed like the most loving thing to do. So I did it.

  Alex was three months old when I dropped him off. He would be raised as their child. He’d never know of me. I agreed to this. And yet I regretted the arrangement every day of my life. I remember handing Alex, rosy cheeked and plump, with that sandy hair just like his father’s, to Sandy Milstead. He reached up his little hand to her cheek, cooing as if he’d already forgotten me.

  I left, but I came back. A lot. Alex never knew me, but I knew him. I stood in the shadows watching as he graduated from kindergarten. I sailed to Hawaii when his family took a trip there after his adopted father’s death. I agonized when he was in Sudan, catching the news in every port of call. And then, when he moved to Boat Street, my heart bulged with pride. He was meant to be there, in his father’s house. (Of course, I had a hand in that. I dropped a hint to his real estate agent, anonymously, about a certain houseboat coming up for sale. Fate did the rest of the work.)

  A kayak glides by on the lake, and I nod at the couple paddling beside my boat. I no longer worry about whether people will see me, recognize me. My beauty has faded. I am an old woman now. The Penny they remember is now encased in wrinkles with a mop of gray hair atop her head.

  But Boat Street is as charming as it ever was, and on this day, it positively shines. There’s love there again, you see.

  I smile to myself as my granddaughter, Gracie, plays with her little sailboat. I see myself in her. That spirit, those eyes.

  I’ve come to know Ada, too, from afar, of course. I’ve watched her on the dock in the mornings. I’ve seen her weep. It tells me she’s soulful, deep. And she loves the morning glories, as I did. She touches them delicately, almost speaking their language. I watch now as she nestles her head against Alex’s chest. Yes, this woman loves my son. Love is all I ever hoped for him, and he has found it.

  I’ve forgiven Naomi, even Gene. Life is too short to live with bitterness. And I think about Dexter, more often than you’d guess. Our relationship was a complicated one, but there was love there, real love. I’m thinking about paying him a visit soon, before it’s too late. I look out to the skyline of Seattle. He lives in one of those tall buildings. Maybe I’ll go today.

  A seagull perches on the bow, just above the letters I painted below the railing. I used blue paint and outlined each character in gold trim. The paint has weathered from years on the sea, but it’s still legible, still the perfect name for my sailboat: Morning Glory. I wipe away a spot of dried-on seaweed with my sleeve and smile to myself. No, it hasn’t been the life I imagined, but it’s been a beautiful life. My life. And in every port, every waterway, I’ve taken a bit of Boat Street with me.

  Acknowledgments

  Before this novel was a real story, it was simply an idea. And there are two important people who championed it at the very earliest stages. First, Elisabeth Weed, my dear literary agent: I thank you, always, for believing in me, for being so incredibly good at what you do and just plain lovely to work with. You are the best in the business, truly. Next, Denise Roy, my editor, now on our fifth book together, you steered me back to this novel when I found myself lost in a sea of ideas. Without your gentle nudges, this story wouldn’t be here. And without your immaculate editing, it wouldn’t be the novel it is. Especially touching was your ability to feel the emotions of my characters and draw from your own life in our editorial conversations. Hats off to you and all you do for me and my books.

  Heartfelt thanks to the wonderful behind-the-scenes people who do such excellent work on behalf of my novels. I’m talking about you, Jenny Meyer, foreign agent extraordinaire; Shane King; Dana Murphy; and the always amazing Dana Borowitz. Also, all the fabulous folks at Plume: Phil Budnick, Liz Keenan, Milena Brown, Ashley Pattison, Kym Surridge, Kate Napolitano, Jaya Miceli—thank you all so much. (And a special thanks to Liz, who trekked all the way from New York to Seattle to spend a rainy day with me touring the places that inspired my novels and hanging on the houseboat.)

  A special thanks to all of the critics, book bloggers, and booksellers whom I’ve come to know over the years. I’m endlessly grateful for your enthusiasm and kindness to me.

  To my family and friends, as always, thanks for your unceasing support, love, and friendship. I have read that writers are a teeny bit cuckoo (truly; I’m afraid studies prove this), and I commend you for always being there for me, even when I’m in the throes of a first draft, or revising the next, or talking nonstop about the new idea that’s haunting me—especially longtime friend Sally Farhat Kassab; fiction writer and partner in crime Camille Noe Pagán; Natalie Quick, who always reminds me of the importance of forgiveness; the lovely Wendi Parriera and Lisa Bach; and so many others. Also, my family, much love to you: Terry and Karen Mitchell, and you, too, Josh, Jessica, and Josiah.

  And I must thank the various people who were lovely to me (knowingly or unknowingly) as I wrote this novel, including the kind Beth Farrell (it all began aboard your charming houseboat!), Gayla Field, Jason Werle, Jeri Callahan, and so many more.

  Music was incredibly important to my writing process for this book, especially the voice of Karen Carpenter singing “Rainy Days and Mondays,” as well as the diverse musical talents of Brad Mehldau and Pat Metheny (the song “Make Peace” was put on repeat during the writing of this novel), Frank Sinatra, Shirley Horn, James Taylor, David Gray, Sarah McLachlan, and so many others.

  In addition, I must share my gratitude with the incredible, kind, good, and warm houseboat community of Seattle’s Lake Union, especially those on the dock who put up with my rambunctious boys with grace and understanding, the neighbors who smiled at us on quiet foggy mornings, and those who waved from their decks while we paddled by.

  Finally, to my boys, Carson, Russell, and Colby: We had fun on the houseboat, didn’t we? Your curiosity and playfulness inspired me, and I will always remember our time on the lake together. The ducks were so well fed during our stay there. And dear Jason, my husband, best friend, generous optimist, and superdad: The truest love in the pages of this novel is a reflection of my love for you. xo

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