The Seasons of the EmmaLee

by Michael Lindley

  “What I’m trying to say is I feel guilty you’ve had a chance to meet this man and he appears to be such an incredibly nice man, and if it weren’t for us…”

  “If it weren’t for us, what?” Sally asked.

  “It just bothers me that I can’t give you a more normal life and a family again. Does that make any sense at all?”

  Sally just shook her head and looked intently into the eyes of the woman she had spent so many of the past years with. They had been good for each other and found great joy in each other’s company. On occasion though, one of them would drift off course. Gwen would get thoughts of returning to the city, or moving to Europe. With Sally, there had never been any specific haven or new environment that seemed to be pulling at her, but she had to admit to herself there had been many times when she had felt suddenly out of place.

  “A more normal life,” Sally repeated. “What the hell is a normal life anymore? You need to stop feeling guilty about us. I’m the one who should be feeling guilty for leaving you so much this past week with the festival and the EmmaLee, and the Clarks.”

  Gwen smiled and reached across the table and touched her cheek. “We’re a helluva pair, you and me. Why don’t we take George’s boat out tonight? He always offers. We can run down the lake, maybe anchor out somewhere and just get away.”

  “We’ve got to be back in the morning to open up.”

  Gwen reached for her cell phone to call George Hansen.

  Sally had been taught to sail from the time she was a small child. Her parents had kept a sailboat for years and she had been on many long cruises with them. Their first boat was a forty-foot Pearson that was outfitted for big water and long trips. They had sailed the North Channel many times and up through Lake Superior. Her father had fixed up a small step for her to stand on when she was younger so she could take the wheel and skipper the boat. She could vividly remember the thrill and sense of power and control, standing on that step, taking the helm, holding that big wheel and seeing such a long powerful boat out ahead of her with full sails set.

  She was at the helm again now, steering George Hansen’s sailboat through the channel into Lake Charlevoix. Gwen was up front preparing the jib sail to be raised. The main had been hoisted and the boom swung loose as she steered the boat out under power. She could see the wind was coming out of the southeast and it blew up to meet them as they cleared the last buoy of the channel. She turned the wheel slowly and fell off to port. Gwen came back and took the big winch handle from its cradle. A minute later they were under sail, the motor turned off. The boat heeled over just slightly and it cut smoothly through the waves.

  Sally looked back and saw the bright red intensity of the sun just barely above the trees in town. She reached down to turn on the running lights as the day slowly faded to dusk. Gwen went below and came back up with two glasses of wine poured in clear plastic goblets. She sat down on the high side of the cockpit. Sally steered with one hand, holding the wine in the other.

  Gwen was looking up ahead. “Where do you think, Oyster Bay or Horton?”

  “Let’s see how we do in getting all the way down to Horton Bay,” Sally answered. “The wind looks like it’s going to hold for a while and we can almost beat on this tack all the way there.” She looked down at her friend and as usual, was caught by her simple beauty and the elegant lines of her face. Her short hair was blowing back from the wind. She wore white shorts and an old gray sweatshirt with “NYU” imprinted on the front.

  In her mind, she could hear Gwen’s words from dinner. It hurt her to think the time she had spent away with the Clarks this week had caused Gwen to doubt their relationship. Was Gwen serious in thinking she could be happier in a more traditional relationship and having a family again? Her wreck of a first marriage certainly didn’t give her great expectations. There had never been another man who interested her after the divorce. She had many male friends, but none she had ever developed more serious feelings about.

  Sally took a sip of wine and felt it warm her as it went down. She thought of Alex Clark. How did she really feel about the man? They had spent some nice time together and he was incredibly thoughtful and pleasant to be around. It had been such a short time for the two of them together she had only a vague sense of what the man was truly like. He seemed to be a devoted father and to have done a great job in raising Megan. Physically, she had to admit, he was an attractive man. When they had been together on the beach yesterday, she had found herself more than comfortable in his embrace as she shared the dark memories of her past.

  Gwen spoke up above the noise of the wind in the sails, breaking Sally’s thoughts. “Every time I feel this damned town is getting just too small and I want to bust out and head for more concrete and tall buildings back East, I’ll have a night like this, out on the lake, or some other incredible place up here and wonder how I could ever consider leaving.” She lifted her glass up to Sally and they touched glasses and each shared the toast to the night and the beautiful lake.

  An hour later they dropped the sails as the boat eased into Horton Bay. Darkness had come quickly. Sally could see the lights from four or five other boats anchored in the calm harbor of the bay. This had been a favorite spot for her since she was a little girl. It was such a quiet escape, even with the other boats here tonight.

  She turned the boat up into what little breeze was still blowing. They got the sails down and the anchors positioned to hold them for the night. Gwen brought the wine bottle up from below and they sat across from each other on the soft cushions of the sailboat. They could hear the sound of classical music coming from one of the boats off across the bay. Sally looked up at a sky filled with so many stars visible on a dark night, out away from the lights of any town. Over the trees she sensed a moving glow of lights that within minutes revealed itself in the full glory of the Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights.

  The wine and the quiet of the night were soothing. Sally, at least at that moment, felt a comforting peace of mind. She reached down for the bag at her feet and pulled out a sketch pad and a folder that held several photos she had taken of the EmmaLee. She spread the photos on the seat next to her and watched as her hand began guiding the pencil across the blank page.

  Chapter Fourteen

  In spite of some tough lawyering on behalf of the Harris family and the slowly recovering Connor Harris, Luke McKendry managed to get off with only 90 days in the county jail that fall. Luke’s old man had managed to come up with the bail money and Luke had been out of jail for a month before the trial. I remember he kept pretty much to himself during that time and he didn’t say much during the trial either. It was October by the time he started his sentence. The Harris’s, Comptons and all the other summer people were back home down south by then. Mr. Harris had come back for the trial, but Connor evidently wasn’t up to the trip. We heard he would make almost a full recovery. Apparently, he had a slight slur in his speech, but they thought it would continue to improve.

  Jonathan and I went back to finish up our last year of high school. We didn’t talk much about the fight and life had returned somewhat to normal, particularly after all the summer folk had moved on. My sister, Catherine, changed more than anyone after that summer. She had her life so set on making her way with Jonathan McKendry, the shock of it possibly not happening hit her awful hard. She and Jonathan kept seeing each other, but I could tell it was different. I’m not sure if Jonathan saw Emily Compton again that summer, but I could tell she wasn’t far from his thoughts.

  Jonathan and I were coming home from an afternoon hunt that Sunday in December when the Japanese attacked Hawaii. We heard the news playing on the radio when we walked into Jonathan’s house that night. His parents were sitting in the living room listening and I’ll never forget the look on their faces. With two sons, both who would soon be of military age, they were dealing with that great fear parents and wives and brothers and sisters felt across the whole country that day.

  By the time Jonathan and
I finished school the next spring, we had already decided we were joining the Navy together to fight the Japanese. As it turned out, we got separated after basic training. Jonathan got sent west to join the Pacific Fleet. I was sent to New York and served on a troop transport that ran across the Atlantic. Luke tried to enlist again, but Uncle Sam just couldn’t use him with that leg of his.

  I lost touch with Jonathan after a while and only got news from Catherine who would get an occasional letter from him, or news from his parents. From the tone of Catherine’s letters to me it was becoming more and more clear their relationship was fading.

  He had been assigned to an aircraft carrier and worked on the flight deck as part of the launch crew. I received word in 1944, he had been wounded severely and was recuperating in a hospital in Pearl Harbor. I had been sent home earlier that year after surviving a German sub attack on our ship that killed many of our crew.

  I had some bad burns and a broken leg, but I managed to hold on until we were eventually fished out of the water.

  I tried to get word to Jonathan in Hawaii, but I didn’t get answers to any of my letters. His parents told me he had broken his back during the attack on their ship. The details were sketchy, but he apparently had some paralysis in his legs.

  There were a lot of things to get used to when I returned home from the war. One of the most difficult was discovering my sister had been seeing Luke McKendry for over a year. Luke had gone to work for a boat manufacturing company in Charlevoix that was making landing craft for the Navy. He had moved out of the McKendry house and was renting a small place out south of town. Catherine had gone to work there as well, along with many of the women in the area whose men were away at war.

  I never was clear on how Luke and Catherine got together. My sister seemed happy enough with the situation when I got home. Luke wasn’t drinking as bad as he had in the past. There didn’t seem to be any talk of marriage, but she was spending a lot of time over at Luke’s. I tried to talk to her about Jonathan, but she would just say that times had changed.

  Then, in the winter of ’45, the McKendry’s got word Jonathan was well enough to get shipped back home. He was being sent to a V.A. hospital near Detroit to finish out his rehabilitation. I finally got a letter from him written just before he left Hawaii. He told me he was feeling much better and his back was healed, but he was still having trouble getting his legs to cooperate. He said he was looking forward to getting home soon, hopefully for the trout opener in the spring. He didn’t mention anything about Catherine.

  Jonathan had been at the V.A. hospital in Ann Arbor for over a month since returning from service in the Pacific. He was in a ward with a dozen other veterans who were in various stages of repair. His days consisted of dealing with the monotony of confinement, bad food, too many war stories from those around him and an ongoing series of painful therapy for his legs.

  He had little memory of the day he was wounded. Japanese planes had attacked their battle group. He had been on deck helping to get a squadron of fighters into the air. Later, he was told the ship had taken several direct hits from enemy torpedoes. He had been knocked over in one of the explosions and fallen nearly thirty feet to a deck below. He regained consciousness two days later on a hospital ship. His back had been broken in the fall and he had bad wounds on his face and arms. He was put on heavy painkillers and the first weeks of his recovery were a blur.

  Eventually he was transferred to Pearl Harbor. Even the time spent there was a series of scattered memories, dulled by the morphine and other drugs. It was during his time at the hospital at Pearl he had learned he couldn’t walk. It was a blow more devastating than anything he could have imagined. Doctors tried to reassure him there was always a chance when his back was fully healed, he would regain some function in his legs.

  The trip back to Michigan had been a long and painful ordeal. The train from California, in particular, had seemed like an endless series of washboard bumps that sent pain shooting through his back. One evening, lying in the portable hospital bed they had loaded him onto the train with, he threw the covers back from his legs. He looked down at his bare legs and feet and with all of his concentration and energy he willed his toes to move. At first, he thought he was imagining a slight movement, then he was sure the large toe on his right foot had, indeed, moved ever so much. He had whooped in joy and a nurse had come in to check on him. He woke several of the other soldiers in the car with him. He tried again and three of his toes moved. The nurse screamed, too and leaned over to give him a hug.

  Each day since he had arrived in Ann Arbor he had worked hard at getting his legs to respond. With the help of a physical therapist named Gerome from Albuquerque, he worked relentlessly. Gerome was a combat veteran who had been wounded in Europe in 1942. After his recovery, he had stayed on to work for the Army at the hospital. He was a tough, no nonsense sergeant, who gave Jonathan a severe regimen to follow. Within days, he had him standing between two rails where he was able to drag his legs along, supporting himself with his arms. Soon, his legs began to respond as well. Each day he found he was getting stronger and needed to support himself with his arms even less.

  Gerome had come to get him on this morning for their daily session. He helped Jonathan down from the bed and into a wheelchair. He was excited to work as hard as he could today. His parents were driving down from Charlevoix to see him this afternoon. Gerome wheeled him down the hall to the therapy room and left him at the doorway for a moment while he went back to get Jonathan’s folder. He sat there looking down at his legs, feeling more hope he would be able to return to a somewhat normal life. He thought often of getting back north in time to go fishing with George on the trout opener, of wading up the shallow waters of Horton Creek and casting to that first rising trout. At times, he thought of Catherine. They hadn’t written in over a year and her last letter was a vague warning she wouldn’t be waiting for him.

  He felt a touch on his shoulder and thought Gerome had come back. He turned and saw a nurse’s aid uniform. When he looked up he saw the deep green eyes of Emily Compton looking down at him.

  “Jonathan? Is that you, Jonathan?” she said in utter surprise.

  He reached down for the wheels and slowly turned the chair to face her. “Oh my God” was all he could manage to say.

  She crouched down in front of him. “It is you. Jonathan, what’s happened?” She placed her hands on his knee.

  He had thought of Emily on occasion during his time at sea. She had become a distant and fading memory of a time he thought would never return. He looked at her without responding. Her face had matured in his years away. She had grown into a young woman. Her hair was cut shorter and she had little or no makeup on, but her face still glowed. He reached down and touched her hands.

  “Emily, what are you doing here?” he finally managed.

  “I’m going to medical school at the university and I volunteer several days a week over here at the V.A. I can’t believe it’s you!”

  Gerome came back down the hall and walked around to take the back of Jonathan’s wheelchair. “So, McKendry, you’re chasing nurses again. You sailors never stop. Would you like to introduce me?”

  Jonathan was still trying to compose himself. “Gerome, this is Emily Compton,” he said.

  Emily stood up, still holding on to his hand. “I met Jonathan years ago up in Charlevoix. We bought a boat from his father.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Gerome said. “Jonathan, you need to tell your friend here we have work to do.”

  “I’ll come by to see you later, Jonathan,” she said as she backed away slowly. “I’ll stop by,” she said and then turned and walked down the hall.

  “Well, McKendry, I will say you have good taste in broads. So, you used to chase that skirt up there in Charlevoix, or wherever it is you’re from?” Gerome asked.

  “No, it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like that at all,” he said, still looking down the hall as she disappeared around a corner.

&nbs
p; “You ready to go get some work done?” the old sergeant asked.

  Jonathan nodded and they turned and went through the door into the therapy room.

  His parents came that afternoon. There was a lot of crying and hugging. He was struck by how much they had aged. He was sure his appearance had been a shock to them, as well. He had lost considerable weight and his face had a sunken look with deep black circles under his eyes and a red scar that was still healing across the side of his forehead.

  They spoke all afternoon about his time away and his injury and recovery. They told him about home and a few of the new things happening in town. He was pleased to hear Luke was doing okay and had a good job. They stayed through dinner and promised to come back in the morning. His mother’s sister lived in Detroit and they were spending the night with her family.

  It was after dinner that evening when he saw Emily walk through the door into his ward. The other men in the room gave her approving looks and a few comments as well. She just smiled back at them. She came to the side of Jonathan’s bed. “Do you feel up to a walk, or a ride, I guess I should say?” she said, a little embarrassed.

  “Sure.”

  She went to bring over a wheelchair. She helped him into the chair, then pushed him down the long row of beds out into the hall. All afternoon she had been thinking back to that summer in Charlevoix. She had heard Jonathan had been away at the War. She thought about him from time to time. She remembered his young innocence. She remembered the feelings she began having for him and how it all came crashing to a halt after Connor had been hurt.

  There was a large lounge down at the end of the hall and they stopped there. Emily sat beside him in a chair at one of the empty card tables. “Can you tell me what happened?” she asked.

  He couldn’t help himself from saying, “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in so many years, I can’t even remember.”