by Luanne Rice
“They’ll bring him home,” her father said. “They’ll have him safe aboard a Coast Guard boat by dark tonight.”
Cass sank to the ground, hugging her knees. Her father crouched beside her. “When?” she asked.
“Tonight,” her father said. “They’ll have him home in no time.”
“No, I mean when did it happen?” she asked, wondering what she had been doing at the exact moment Billy had started having trouble. She tried to think back, through the day. But her mind was stuck.
“I don’t know. Come on,” her father said, sliding his arm around her shoulder.
“He’s sinking, right?” Cass asked. “That’s what they mean, ‘taking on water.’”
“Don’t think like that,” her father said harshly. He gave her a little shake.
People walked through the parking lot, wondering what Cass and her father were doing, sitting on the ground. Cass wanted to leave, but she didn’t think she could move.
“Come on,” her father said again. “Let’s get to a phone.”
She nodded, pushing herself up. Her father held on tight, leading her to his truck. He opened her door, and she stopped halfway in. “Dad, they have to bring him home,” she said, tears choking her throat.
“They will, Cass,” he said. He stared into her eyes, strong and steady. Then he went to find Maura Santos, to tell her that Billy’s boat, with her husband aboard, was in danger.
Both bad news and rumors traveled fast in Mount Hope, and often it was difficult to tell them apart. By the time Cass and her father reached Keating’s Wharf, people were saying that Billy and his crew had been rescued by a Liberian tanker, that flares were still being sighted, that after that first call there’d been no word or sign.
Sitting in her father’s truck, Cass stared dumbly at the harbor. There, she thought, staring at Billy’s empty mooring. Right there. Right there. As if by picturing his boat—her gleaming white hull, the bold red trim—she could make it appear. The polished brass, the sooty exhaust pipe, the nets wound onto a spindle, Billy at the helm. Right there.
“What could have happened?” she heard herself ask.
“We don’t know,” her father said sternly. “So don’t panic. He called the Coast Guard, that’s all we know. But if he had time to use the radio, he’s going to be fine.”
“How could the boat be taking on water? It’s completely solid, tight as a drum. He saw to it himself.”
Her father didn’t reply.
Nora and Bonnie came toward the truck. “What’s Bonnie doing here?” Cass asked, frowning. “She went to Newport.”
“We couldn’t find you when the news first came through, and your mother thought you might have gone to the fair with Bonnie. We tracked her down.”
Cass couldn’t quite look at her sisters. They stood outside the truck, their hair tossing in the wind, watching Cass. She knew that once she stepped out, let them hug her, she would enter a stage of waiting that she didn’t know if she could endure. They would usher her into some warm place where behind her back people would whisper the terrible possibilities and to her face would assure her that Billy would be home soon. She remembered sitting with Joan Cardinale the night Ralph’s boat sank. The memory terrified her.
She took a breath and stepped out of the truck. Nora gave her a quick hug, and Bonnie, obviously trying to hold back tears, crushed her to her bosom. Cass gave her a long hard look.
“Don’t start,” Cass said.
Bonnie nodded.
“Any more news?” their father asked.
“Not yet,” Nora said.
“I’m going to call the Coast Guard,” their father said.
“Good,” Cass said, watching him head for the warehouse. The Coast Guard operator was her closest link to Billy, but she knew the operator would be reporting thirdhand what the radio person aboard some cutter had been told to say. She wanted to be there, at sea herself, searching for Billy.
“Boats are going out. To look for him,” she said.
“Everyone wants to help,” Nora said.
“Cass, sweetheart,” their mother called, running across the parking lot. Her little feet in their red high heels kicked out as she came, making Cass think crazily of a young girl running the fifty-yard dash.
“I’m fine, Mom. I’m fine,” Cass said as her mother rammed her full force. “Why didn’t you put on a coat? It’s freezing out.”
“My little Cass,” Mary said, tears streaming down her wrinkled cheeks.
Cass let her mother hang on, sobbing; Cass looked across her mother’s curls at her sisters. Bonnie and Nora exchanged glances.
“Come on, Mother,” Nora said. “Let’s get you inside.”
“We’re all going inside,” Mary said, sniffling. “We’re going to sit at the picture window and watch for that boat to come around the breakwater. We’ll say our prayers.”
“Has anyone told the kids?” Cass asked.
“I’m afraid I did,” Mary said. “I was frantic, looking for you, and I got Belinda on the phone.”
“I’d better go home,” Cass said. “I left my car at Ledoux’s, though.”
“I’ll drive you,” Bonnie said.
“We should all be together,” Mary said. “We need each other now. Don’t pull that strong business, Cass. I see it written all over your face. You are not made of granite, you know.”
“Well, maybe pink granite,” Bonnie said, and Cass gave her a smile.
“She’s being a rock,” Mary said, getting cross. “Pink or not. A pink rock isn’t any softer than a gray one. Don’t give me that. I just want you to know, Cass, that we love you.” She took Cass’s hands. “We’ve seen this happen to other families, and we’ve always thanked God it wasn’t us. Well, now it is. Now it is.”
Cass squeezed her mother’s tough hands. She didn’t trust herself to speak. Just holding her mother’s hands, thinking of Billy, made Cass tighten her muscles from head to toe.
Cass and Bonnie headed toward Bonnie’s car. As Bonnie was backing out, Cass spotted T.J. on his bike, wheeling into the parking lot in a wide, furious arc. While Bonnie’s car was still moving, Cass tried to open her door. She struggled to undo her seat belt. T.J. let his bike clatter to the pavement, and she saw him tear around the warehouse.
Cass ran after him. He stood on the wharf, dressed in his warmest winter jacket, a knapsack slung over his shoulder.
“Is Dad okay?” he asked, his eyes wide when he saw Cass.
“He called the Coast Guard,” she said, managing to steady her voice. “And they’ve sent boats and a plane to rescue him.”
“Who from here’s going out?” T.J. asked, gesturing at the trawlers lashed to the dock.
Cass’s eyes traveled the dock’s length. At that moment Manny Oliviera’s boat pulled away. There were the Aurora, Norboca, and Stephanie P., all teeming with activity. Fishermen ran down the dock, jumping onboard.
“I’m going out,” T.J. said. “Whoever’ll take me, I’m going.” He spoke defiantly, his chin thrust forward, his black eyes flashing. At fifteen, he had the barest hint of a mustache. He expected his mother to fight him, to hold him down if necessary.
She nodded. “I think you should,” she said.
“You do?” he asked, surprised.
“I do,” she said, surprising herself.
“I thought you’d be mad,” he said as they hurried down the dock.
“I’d go if I could.” Cass thought of it; she could jump on a boat right now. Her sisters would take care of Josie and Belinda. She ached to search for Billy. She felt him pulling her to him now, as if he held the other end of a long cord. But she knew she had to be home. Belinda could manage without her, but Josie couldn’t. Cass felt the pull from both directions: Billy at sea, Josie at home. She understood why T.J. needed to go.
“John!” she called, approaching the Aurora. At the sound of her voice, John bounded onto the dock. He gave her a quick hug.
“We’ll find him,” he said.
“I want you to take T.J.,” Cass said.
John frowned, looking from Cass to T.J. and back again. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Cass,” he said. “I mean, there’s a winter storm coming, and T.J.’s a good sailor, but things can get a little hairy …”
Cass knew he was trying to soft-pedal the danger, deflect their awareness from the fact that Billy was in trouble out there with a storm closing in, that T.J. was too young. It terrified her, the thought of her son going to sea right now. But she knew as clear as morning that T.J. needed to go.
T.J. stood between them, his fists clenched. His posture was tense as the arrow in its bow. “You have to let me,” he said to John.
John searched Cass’s face, giving her the chance to change her mind.
“Please,” she said.
“Okay. Get aboard. We leave now,” John said abruptly. He hopped onto the deck and gave orders for his crew to shove off.
T.J.’s eyes glittered with excitement. Cass knew how he must feel: the relief to be doing something instead of just waiting for news.
“T.J., listen to John,” she said. “You know it could be dangerous, don’t you? John’s a good captain, and I happen to know firsthand the Aurora’s a good boat. But anything can happen.”
“Why are you letting me go?” T.J. asked.
She thought long and hard, looking into his eyes. Black eyes, just like Billy’s. Right now she knew he was impatient to get going. But behind the impatience was a fear as deep as Cass’s own.
“Because I want your father to come home,” she said.
“Aboard!” John shouted, revving the big Cat diesel.
Cass managed only the quickest kiss as T.J. leapt off the wharf onto the Aurora.
The sea and sky were white as pearls, waiting for snow. Cass could barely make out the line that separated them. She listened to the trawler engines, watched the Aurora pull away from the dock. The harbor was flat calm, but Cass could feel the storm coming. It tugged something inside of her, and she imagined it pulling the slats beneath her feet: the pilings, the entire wharf on which Keating & Daughters sat.
T.J. stood on deck, waiting to be told what to do. John threw him a line to coil. Cass shivered, standing in the spot where she’d kissed him goodbye. She watched the green boat glide across the smooth white surface, its engine thrumming steadily. Just before it rounded Minturn Ledge, T.J. turned. He seemed to scan the town. Cass waved hard, and he waved back. Right then, sending her only son to search for her husband at sea, Cass felt something let go, and she started to sob.
24
As darkness fell that November night, Billy Medieros, far from his home port, steered his damaged boat through the North Atlantic. The hole was small. The whale had pulled out two fastenings that Billy should have been able to fix. But when he’d probed the area with his pocketknife, he’d found dry rot that neither he nor the marine surveyor nor the boatyard had suspected. Water was pouring in. The electricity flashed on and off. Even with Tony and Paul pumping nonstop, they were losing their battle against the sea.
Back on deck, Billy figured it was about time to abandon ship. The ice-coated riggings were silver ladders to a vault of stars, but before it had turned dark, he’d seen storm clouds on the horizon. The swells were growing. Billy’s hands, mitted in black leather, clung to the wheel as if frozen there. His lungs ached. Holding the wheel, he felt his boat riding lower in the water and it felt heavy. The boat didn’t respond to the wheel. It was sinking.
Overhead, the aurora borealis shimmered. Billy, like most New England fishermen, had seen it before—the pipes of green, gold, and rose in the northern sky. It was a sight he’d always wanted to show Cass. Now he fantasized driving his boat with one arm around his girl, the northern lights illuminating their path across the sea. Screws turning, the boat throbbed beneath his feet, and he closed his eyes to see Cass.
When Cass fell in love with him, Billy couldn’t believe it. She had skin like an angel’s, those deep and mysterious blue eyes that promised secrets, and long, beautiful legs. He wished he could hold her now.
From the beginning, Billy had thought Cass was too good for him. Not that he’d ever let her know. He used to have nightmares that she’d realize how much better she could do than him. He’d act cocky, trying to impress her. Once, dropping her off at home, he’d peeled out in his Camaro, laying rubber all the way down Billow Road. But then some neighbor kid came whipping around the corner on her bike, Billy slammed on his brakes to avoid her, and he gashed his eye on the rear-view mirror. Big shot. Still had the scar.
To impress Cass, Billy used to do the sort of stuff he’d ground T.J. for now. He thought of his kids, wondered how much Cass had told them about this. The Coast Guard had promised to call her, and it gave him weird comfort to imagine Cass thinking of him, maybe picturing him at his wheel the way he was picturing her … where? He had to get it fixed in his mind. He closed his eyes, saw her at the kitchen table, with T.J. and Belinda doing their homework, Josie sitting on Cass’s lap.
Connecting with Cass made him feel better. She was thinking about him so hard, he could feel it. She wouldn’t stop until he came home. He knew it, as sure as if he’d just heard her whisper a promise in his ear.
Suddenly Billy saw a drop of water fall on the windshield, then another. He jumped with fright. Glancing up, he saw rain coming down. But no—it was the ice melting; things were warming up. He unzipped his parka and found he’d been sweating under all the layers of cotton and wool. His fingers, which had been frozen numb, suddenly prickled with feeling.
Tony and Paul came on deck. They were sweating.
“We’re going down,” Tony said.
“Let’s get the life raft,” Billy said. He swallowed hard.
“What’s happening?” Paul asked, looking around.
“We’ve crossed into the Gulf Stream,” Billy said. The northern lights still flickered overhead, but frost smoke wisped out of the sea. Cold air was hitting warm water that flashed with the golden fire of bioluminescence. A big fish, trailing phosphorescence, swam alongside them. A minke whale, Billy thought, or even another humpback. They were heading south for the winter-mating migration; maybe Billy should have foreseen it, chosen other grounds to fish.
“Get on your survival suits,” Billy said. The men went below one last time, to gather what they could. Billy lifted the mike to call the Coast Guard once more. The breeze felt as balmy as Mount Hope in June. He took a deep breath and smelled flowers. Something green flashed by his cheek, then again. He ducked, holding his arms around his head, surrounded by wings beating and a murderous clacking. He looked up.
Parrots. Hundreds of parrots, emerald-green with orange throats, filled the rigging. They clung to shrouds and halyards with scarlet claws, chattering in a language Billy didn’t understand. He made out the words “Havana” and “isola.” They’d ridden the tropical air currents northward from Cuba and come to rest on Billy’s boat. More and more settled on the mast, the radar scanner.
Billy opened his mouth, to yell for Tony and Paul. There were hundreds of parrots roosting in his rigging, and he wanted them to see. But before he could make any sound, all at once, in a clamorous green cloud, the parrots flew away.
For a moment Billy blinked, wondered if it could all be a dream. But there was the mike in his hand, the speaker crackling back at him, “We read you, Cassandra.”
“We’re abandoning ship,” Billy said into the mike, reporting their loran position. “We have survival suits and a life raft, flares …”
“Our plane is closing in on your area,” the voice said. “They’ll spot your flares. Hang tight, Billy. We’re on the way.”
Billy didn’t want the transmission to stop. He didn’t want to lose touch with dry land. He gripped the mike, afraid to hang up.
“How much longer?” he asked.
“The plane will get there within the hour. Keep your eyes peeled.”
“I think we’re in the Gulf Stream,” Billy said,
to keep her on the phone. Tony and Paul were on deck now, looking stocky and foreshortened in their orange survival suits. They reminded Billy of his kids in their snowsuits when they were little, like Michelin men.
“I’ll report that to the plane,” the voice said through static. The cockpit lights flickered. Billy knew they were losing power.
“You’re fading,” the voice said. Billy could tell she was speaking loudly. “Is there anything else?”
“Yes,” he said. “Call my wife. Cass. Call Cass and tell her I love her. Over and out,” Billy said as the mike went dead. Then he took the framed picture of Cass and the kids, stuck it under his arm, and went out to put on his survival suit. To abandon his ship.
“It’s not fair T.J. got to go,” Belinda said. “I wanted to, but I was stuck here. Someone had to stay with her.” She flung her hand in Josie’s direction.
“Thank you for staying,” Cass said. “I know it’s frustrating.” She sat at the kitchen table, Josie on her lap. Belinda had schoolbooks open in front of her, but she wasn’t reading.
“How am I supposed to take a stupid test tomorrow?” she asked, whining in a voice Cass hadn’t heard since Belinda was a baby.
“You don’t have to,” Cass said. “The teacher will understand.”
“Daddy’s really missing?”
The word “missing” made Cass’s heart skitter. She nodded. “He called in his position to the Coast Guard, so they’ll head straight out. He knows where he is, or was, but we don’t, exactly. But he’s going to come home safe.”
“Do you actually believe T.J. is helping? I mean, what chance does a Mount Hope fishing boat have of finding Daddy?”
“The more boats looking, the better,” Cass said. She was thinking of the plane; the Coast Guard had said it was in Billy’s area. Any second the telephone would ring, and it would be Billy, being patched through from the rescue ship.
“I can’t stand waiting,” Belinda said, exploding out of her seat.
“What doin’?” Josie asked, frowning.
“Shut up!” Belinda screeched.
Josie’s lower lip stuck out, but she didn’t cry. Her eyes met Cass’s, and Cass shrugged. “Leave her alone,” she said to Josie.