Phoebe came up, balancing her cereal bowl carefully. “Guess what, Dad? Molly likes oatmeal. I told her to try Cocoa Krispies, but she only said, ‘Yuck.’ She offered to fix me an egg. I didn’t want one, though.”
“I’ll cook eggs for you anytime you want,” Eric told her. Something about Phoebe was different, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. Still thinking about it, he made his way to the foredeck and studied the horizon. The Sound was calm today, and the wind was steady. Perhaps they could reach Trent’s Cove by evening.
Phoebe had almost finished her cereal when he went back into the cockpit. “Molly gave me a headband to wear. She said she doesn’t need it. She said I can keep it.”
“Did you say thank-you?”
“Sure, I always say thank-you. Do you like it?”
Phoebe’s bangs, which he usually trimmed with nail scissors, were neatly smoothed under some sort of elastic. “Maybe you should get a couple of those—what did you call it?”
“A headband. Can I get a red one?”
“Of course.”
“Good. I like Molly, Dad. She read me a story last night, me and my vacuum cleaner.”
Phoebe had a couple of tattered children’s books that she’d carted everywhere they went. He’d always meant to get her some new ones, but there usually wasn’t much room in their borrowed quarters.
“Great,” he said without much enthusiasm. He wondered what story it had been. He wondered where you bought headbands.
“Molly sewed a button on my shirt, too. I think she should stay with us all the time, don’t you?”
“I don’t believe that’s possible,” he said, frowning.
“If she wanted to stay, you’d let her, right?”
This had gone far enough. “Phoebe, there are some things you need to understand,” he said firmly.
At that moment, Molly came up the companionway and stepped into the cockpit. She was wearing a pair of khakis and a snug long-sleeved navy-blue T-shirt, and behind her, the newly risen sun set her red-gold hair on fire. After his first glance, he forced himself to look away from her breasts, thinking that she had big sails for such a small ship. As for the rest of her, well, he preferred a woman to have big breasts and narrow hips. Said woman had to have a perky derriere, and Molly Kate McBryde didn’t disappoint.
“Dad, what were you saying?” asked Phoebe.
“Never mind. Time to be on our way. We have to get fuel first,” he said, making himself focus on the task at hand, which wasn’t easy, considering that this woman was gorgeous.
Molly looked down her sweetly upturned nose at him. “Fine. I’ll handle the bowline if you like.”
“That’s good. Phoebe, you stay where you are, okay?”
“Can I go below? It’s cold up here.”
“Sure.”
Phoebe departed, and Eric jumped across to the dock and pulled the line off its cleat, then tossed it to Molly before unwinding the line at the stern. By the time he was back on Fiona, Molly was efficiently coiling the bowline, a tumble of curls hiding her face. It was an exceptional face, he thought, with high cheekbones and none of the freckles he associated with redheads.
The engine started up right away. Molly stood beside him at the wheel, watching as the space between boat and dock widened. She had the greenest eyes he’d ever seen, greener than the shallows near the shore, greener than the sky when rain was on the way. He wanted to ask her if she wore tinted contact lenses, then realized that the color was natural. Emmett’s eyes, though clouded now with age, were almost the same shade.
“We’re going Outside, I take it?” she asked. Going Outside meant that they’d be heading out into the ocean instead of staying Inside in the protected waters of the Intracoastal Waterway.
He nodded. “I want to avoid using the engine as much as possible. We’ll motor out of the marina, then raise the sails.”
“You didn’t get the engine repaired?”
“Oh, I did. Why gobble up expensive diesel fuel if you don’t have to, that’s all.” He didn’t add that he was worried about the temperamental fuel injector pump, which he hadn’t been able to replace locally.
Molly didn’t question his judgment. She only smiled, and in that smile was a whole world of enthusiasm. “It’s looks like a great day for sailing. I’ll be glad when we can cut the engine and let the wind take her away,” she said.
But at the moment, he wasn’t thinking about sailing. He was thinking about something else altogether, which was the lack of enthusiasm in his own life. He knew plenty about picking up and going on after a tragedy, but what he hadn’t been able to do was regain his joy in simple things. Sometimes merely getting up in the morning and putting one foot in front of the other seemed like too much trouble. Yet he did it, mostly for Phoebe’s sake. His love for his daughter sustained him, but no matter how hard he’d tried, he hadn’t felt even one moment of true happiness since Heather died. He’d felt pleasure. He’d felt satisfaction in jobs well done. But that was about it.
In that moment, Eric wanted with all his heart to be able to look forward to something again. Almost as quickly, he discarded that possibility. It wouldn’t happen. It couldn’t happen. At least, it hadn’t so far.
UNDER SAIL, they were able to achieve a speed of six knots, with calm seas and cooperative winds. Fiona made Trent’s Cove by dusk, and they anchored around the point within sight of a desolate shore. By that time Eric was willing to admit, however grudgingly, that Queen Molly Kate McBryde was a pretty good sailor.
She knew port from starboard, and she didn’t mind working. She knew when to pull in the mainsail and when to let it out; she understood when to tack and when to jibe. The main problem was that she didn’t like to follow orders.
“It’s not what you’re asking me to do—it’s your tone of voice,” she’d informed him haughtily when he told her to go below and check their headings.
He didn’t have much to say about that. He could have retorted that he didn’t always have time to ask politely, and that when captaining a boat, he needed instant action from the crew in order to avoid mishaps. He could have reminded her that Emmett was paying him to be the captain of Fiona and that she had been foisted upon him as his first mate. He didn’t say any of this, mostly because Molly’s cheeks had been blazing with indignation, and he liked the way she looked with green fire sparking in her eyes.
Now he made sure that the anchor was firmly seated so that the boat wouldn’t drift, and after that he followed Molly below and suggested that she cook their dinner. This seemed like a perfectly reasonable request. “Emmett left plenty of food stored behind the lounges in the salon,” he told her.
He was unprepared for Molly to perch her hands on her hips and regard him with the disdain that she’d likely reserve for an invading army of cockroaches. “Let me get this straight, Eric. You expect me to cook dinner? And that would be every night, now?” she asked, her chin tilting up a notch as she spoke.
She had bound her hair, that riotous hair, back with a dark ribbon, and his fingers itched to untie it. He was sorely tempted to yank the ends of the ribbon and watch her hair tumble around her shoulders. Clenching his hands into fists at his sides, he stared back at her in the dim glow from the light fixture swinging above the dining table.
“I thought you’d want to cook,” he said. “Since I’m not very good at it, as Phoebe has mentioned.”
Molly tipped her head back so that she was gazing into his eyes. “What makes you think I’m any better at cooking than you are?”
This set him back a tad. He gazed out the porthole for a moment, noted that it was almost dark. “I—well, I assumed,” he stammered, feeling like a fool for feeling like a fool.
“Grilled-cheese sandwiches are the extent of my cooking skills,” she informed him. “Except for eggs and maybe a decent stew.”
He stared at her. “We’re in trouble, then. Don’t you cook for yourself at home?”
“Rarely. If it comes to that, I usually open a
can of soup.”
He supposed he should have realized that Queen Molly wasn’t in the habit of looking after herself. “All right, let’s break out our supplies. We’ll collaborate on meals, okay?” Just trying to build a little team spirit here, okay? he thought. Just trying to get along.
Going along to get along must have been in her mind, too, because she managed a tentative grin. “All right,” she said.
Phoebe, listening to this conversation, said, “Why can’t we have grilled-cheese sandwiches again?”
“Variety is the spice of life, my girl,” Eric said, tweaking her nose as he pulled the cushions out of the lounge to expose the doors of the cabinets behind. He yanked one open and tossed a can to Molly, who caught it neatly.
“Baked beans,” she said.
“Here’s another.”
She caught it, too. “Vienna sausages.”
“Let’s open a couple more of those. How about some corn?” He dug a can of Mexicorn out of a corner.
“I like Vienna sausages,” Phoebe said, her eyes bright. “And can I have the baked-bean jar?”
“What for?” he asked.
“For my messages in a bottle,” Phoebe said.
“What?” said Molly.
“She puts messages in bottles and throws them overboard. It’s harmless enough.”
“I’ll wash out the jar for you,” Molly told Phoebe after a moment’s hesitation.
Molly opened the beans and sausages, and he took charge of the corn. Phoebe arranged the sausages in a microwavable dish, and he and Molly shared the cramped space in front of the stove while everything heated up.
The deepening darkness outside lay about Fiona like soft velvet, and the fact that they were all alone in the cove made them seem encapsulated in the warmth and light of the boat. It was easy, when you were in this situation, to forget that there was a world out there, that somewhere people were driving home from work, picking up the kids at day care, planning an evening’s entertainment. Phoebe, after consigning the Vienna sausages to the microwave oven, took the clean glass jar into the small chart room adjacent to the galley, where she sat intent on drawing yet another picture of a vacuum cleaner.
Molly seemed focused on her cooking chores, and every once in a while the motion of the boat rocking on the waves lurched him closer to her. She ignored him pointedly, but as they continued to work together to prepare the meal, he sensed a shift in her awareness. As the rocking of the boat grew stronger, he realized it was inevitable that they would eventually bump into each other. Sure enough, that happened twice in rapid succession. He said, “Excuse me” at each occurrence. The first time she replied, “That’s okay,” and the second time she colored slightly. Maybe that was because their hips touched. Or more accurately, her backside brushed the side of his thigh. It was something he didn’t mind one bit.
After they heated up their simple meal, Phoebe pushed her drawing aside and insisted on sitting between them at the small oval table, keeping up a stream of chatter, so that he and Molly didn’t have to talk. He treated himself to several covert glances when Molly was paying attention to something else. From what he could tell, under that shirt she had rock-solid abs. Long legs, long feet. He’d bet they were high arched and pale, adept at both walking and dancing. He’d like to get her on a dance floor sometime.
Ha! Fat chance. Queen Molly was barely tolerating him, though she’d warmed up a bit since last night when she’d confronted him about his shortcomings as a parent. How long would it take them to get Fiona to Fort Lauderdale? If he could stick it out, he’d be a few thousand dollars ahead, and he needed the money if he was ever to buy Phoebe the house she wanted in a community suitable for bringing up children.
None of which he cared to tell Molly, who sat across from him and carried on an animated conversation with Phoebe. His daughter’s hair, tamed by the headband, looked better than it had in a long time. He had to admit that Molly had quickly wrought miracles in Phoebe’s appearance.
They made short work of the dinner. “Not bad,” he said, pushing back from the table after he finished eating.
“We can do better,” Molly said, though he noticed she’d eaten all hers.
Well, the sea air made some people really hungry, and a hungry person wasn’t usually particular.
“I’ll clean up,” Molly said after they all carried their dishes to the sink and Phoebe had trotted off to take a bath.
He figured Molly was volunteering for cleanup duty so that they wouldn’t have to tango around each other again in the galley.
On a note of regret, he said, “Suit yourself.” It came out sounding gruff and ungrateful, though that wasn’t how he felt at all.
She merely shrugged. “Hand me the salt and pepper” was all she said. She stowed them in their proper place behind a rail in the galley, where they wouldn’t slide across the cabinet tomorrow when they were under way.
“Guess I’ll check the engine,” he said, stretching elaborately.
She kept her eyes averted, rinsing the dishes. “Right,” she said.
He went into the engine room and decided that the engine was holding up well. If only the blame thing would get them to Fort Lauderdale, he’d celebrate.
Phoebe came out of the forward bathroom. She was all clean and sweet-smelling from her bath and was wearing a warm cotton robe over her pajamas. “Dad, let’s take cushions from the cockpit and lie down on the aft deck to look at the stars,” she said. “After I throw my message in the bottle overboard, I mean.”
Lying on the deck was what he and Phoebe did on many nights. He glanced at Molly to see if she was game.
“Oh, that sounds like fun,” she said.
While he and Phoebe consigned her latest message bottle to the waves, Molly tossed pillows from the cockpit to the deck. “What’s this message about, Peanut?” he asked, but she only grinned mysteriously. Once the bottle had floated away on the tide, Phoebe flopped down spread-eagled on her cushions and stared upward, and Molly, pulling a sweatshirt over her head, came on deck to join them. The sky overhead was spangled with stars trying to outshine the moon, and there wasn’t a cloud in sight. Fiona rode easily on gentle waves; the air smelled of mists and marshes and places far away.
“I see the Milky Way,” Phoebe said gleefully. “I see the Big Dipper.”
“Point out the Little Dipper,” Eric said, as Molly settled down beside him, arranging her cushions to her liking.
“It’s right there.”
“How about Pegasus?”
“There he is,” Phoebe said, and added as an aside to Molly, “He’s a flying horse.”
“Phoebe, you’re impressive,” Molly said. “I bet most kids wouldn’t be familiar with so many constellations.”
“My dad taught me,” she said, and Eric curved an arm around her.
He was proud of his daughter, of her considerable capabilities. She was as smart as they come, he was sure of that. He’d been home schooling her for the past year and a half.
“Can you find the Pleaides?” he prompted.
“Over there. They’re stars, but they’re called the Seven Sisters. I wish I had a sister.” Phoebe yawned. Her voice kept getting sleepier and sleepier. “If you stay up until morning, you can see Jupiter. It’s the biggest planet. You can see, oh, I don’t know. Lots and lots. My mommy’s up there, too. She’s one of the brightest stars in heaven…” Her words trailed off, and when Eric glanced down at her a few moments later, Phoebe’s eyes were closed. She had fallen asleep.
He wasn’t sure what Molly had made of Phoebe’s last statement. Once Phoebe had asked him what the stars were made of, and he’d told her that they were the souls of people who had died. She had wanted to know which one was her mother, and he had pointed out Vega, one of the brightest stars in the sky. Now he saw that Molly had turned her head and was looking at him inquiringly, and he thought that some explanation was called for.
He cleared his throat. “I, uh, told Phoebe that thing about her mom,” h
e said.
“It’s beautiful,” Molly said quietly.
“I think so,” he said. “It was easier than—well, just easier.” Ever since she’d accepted that her mother was a star in the sky that she could see almost every night, Phoebe had been much less likely to ask him when Heather was coming back. Well, you did what you could in difficult situations, that was all.
They listened to a distant boat motor, to the wind singing in the rigging. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Molly seemed pensive, and he wondered what she thought about. Probably what all career-minded women thought about; themselves. Or at least that had been his experience in the old days before he’d opted out of the corporate world.
“What time do you want to leave in the morning?” Molly asked after a while.
“About the same as today,” he told her.
She didn’t speak again, and when he turned toward her, he saw that her eyes, too, were closed. Her features were cast in silver by the starlight, gentle in repose. He wondered what would happen if he reached out and tipped a finger across her lips, continued up toward her brow, threaded his fingers through that abundant mass of hair spilled across the cushion like rumpled silk. Would her eyes open in surprise, would she cry out, would she sit up and run below?
He was tempted to try it, but only for a moment. What was he thinking? He needed to clear his head, put a halt to wanting something that would never happen. She’d let him know that she didn’t think much of him.
Moodily he turned his eyes back toward the heavens. He saw Vega now, glimmering and shimmering a brilliant blue-white, and for a moment, he wished that it were true, that it really was Heather up there looking down on them, shedding light on everything.
Molly stirred beside him, making a little purring noise like a kitten. She opened her eyes, stared blankly at him for several seconds, then sat up abruptly.
The Mommy Wish Page 3