Sailing Lessons

by Hannah McKinnon

Shannon held up her hand. “Don’t worry about it. Really.” But her words sounded slow and sticky, even to her. What was happening? She’d only had three drinks. Well, four, if she counted the wine at the house getting ready. Actually, she’d had two wines.

  “Where’s Reid?” she said, spinning around to Wren. “I want to go home.”

  Wren had been helping the woman pick up the glassware, and she glared at Shannon. “I’m so, so sorry,” she told them again. Though they seemed more concerned about Shannon than their spilled dinners. She grabbed Shannon by the wrist.

  “Ow!” she said.

  Wren moved awfully fast for a woman in heels. The crowd whipped by, faces blurring, the lights twinkling overhead. The band sounded good. She should find out who they were. She was always looking for a good band for her and Reid’s Labor Day party. Oh, there was the president of the Fisherman’s Alliance. “Darrel!” she called out happily. She tried to wave but Wren was gripping her wrist and she still clutched the wad of red napkins in the other. Oh, okay, she’d see Darrel next year.

  They were heading for the front of the tent when Shannon changed her mind. “Wait. I don’t want to go. It’s earrrrly.” Oh, boy. She sounded so drunk. But she wasn’t, really, she wasn’t. But she’d put on the brakes and leaned back in her change of heart and Wren had been tugged back with her. Suddenly she felt like she might fall over.

  “Shannon?”

  She turned her head. “Ellis! Where have you been?”

  Suddenly Ellis had her arms around Shannon and she was talking to Wren. Shannon wanted her to talk to her. “Ellis, did I tell you how pretty you look? But those earrings . . . those earrings are not such a good choice. They’re so—ugly.”

  Ellis’s face was moving, and Shannon couldn’t be sure, but she looked upset. But then everything was so out of focus. “Water.” She needed water. Suddenly she was dying of thirst.

  More arms. Then voices. Men’s voices. It was Reid! “I want to go home!” she cried.

  They had left the tent, she was pretty sure, because suddenly it was dark, and the music was distant. Her shoes made clicking noises on the pavement. The parking lot—yes, they were at the car. Someone opened the door and hoisted her up. The leather seat was cold on her bare legs, but she was going home. Yes, home!

  “You got this?” It was Wren.

  Reid answered. “Yeah, thanks. I’ll have her call you in the morning. Sorry about this.”

  “It’s okay. Drive safely.”

  The last thing Shannon remembered seeing was when Reid swung the car out of the lot, their headlights landed on a woman in an orange dress. She was backed up against a car making out with a man. They squinted into the headlights and quickly turned away.

  “Jesus,” Reid said.

  Shannon dragged herself up for a better look. “Is that—Piper?”

  Thirty-Four

  Wren

  The sweet tobaccoey smell of coffee met her as she rolled over in half slumber, and for a second she forgot all of it. She was in the little apartment on Main Street in the bed tucked under the eaves. Outside on the street below came the voices of shoppers. James had risen early, as he always did before heading to the fish pier at sunrise. There’d be a hot mug of coffee waiting for her on the Formica countertop in the little blue kitchen just outside her bedroom door. And maybe a love note, scrawled in his messy writing on the back of a bill envelope. She stretched out in bed, smiling to herself.

  But no—the voices were downstairs, not down on the street. Wren sat up. She was in the Queen Anne house she shared with Lucy. Her father was there.

  Wren tossed the covers back and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her shin had a nice blue bruise blooming where Shannon had accidentally pegged her when she fell down, almost taking a table with her. On her nightstand were the articles she’d printed from the Internet about pancreatic cancer. The different stages, the treatment options. A list of some of the New England–based organizations to reach out to, like Project Purple. Since the night at the hospital, she’d read everything she could find, even after the ball last night, until the computer screen blurred and her head throbbed. But it all seemed to be information for patients at a point Caleb Bailey had long passed. His cancer was advanced stage four, and the only treatments now were pain and symptom management. And eventually, to her consternation, hospice. She’d stopped reading when she got to that.

  Lucy and Caleb were already at the table, a plate of toast between them, when she padded into the kitchen barefoot.

  “Well, look what the cat dragged in,” he said.

  “Good morning.” She planted a kiss on Lucy’s head. The coffee pot was full. She held up a cup to her father. “Want some?”

  “Not for me, thanks.” Caleb put a hand to his stomach. “Doesn’t agree with me these days, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry.” Wren was still learning what he could and could not eat.

  “Look what we made!” Lucy held up the plate of toast. “Smell it!”

  Wren sniffed and as she did, a flood of memory came to her. “Hey. Is that cinnamon-sugar toast?” she asked.

  Lucy nodded and took a huge bite. “Delicious!”

  “That was your mommy’s favorite,” Caleb told her. “I used to make it for her and your aunties.”

  It was true. On rainy days or sick days or any kind of day that she and her sisters weren’t feeling quite themselves, her father would announce, “I have just the thing!” and disappear into the kitchen. He wasn’t much of a cook, but there was just something about that buttery toast sprinkled with a crunch of sugar and whiff of cinnamon. It worked each time. To that day, Wren could not separate the smell of cinnamon from memory of the man.

  “So what’s the plan today?” he asked, as she joined them at the table.

  He looked better. The color had returned to his cheeks, and he seemed stronger. “That depends. How are you feeling?”

  Caleb shrugged. “Been better. Been worse. I feel like we need to get out and make the most of this beautiful morning before that changes.”

  Lucy gazed at her grandpa. “Are you still sick?”

  Wren and her father exchanged a glance. “Honey, Grampa is feeling better today. But yes, he is still sick.”

  “Is it a cold? I had a cold once and I used two boxes of tissues in one day!”

  Caleb widened his eyes in amazement. “Two boxes!”

  Lucy giggled. In true kid form, she’d already moved on.

  Wren tried to conceal her angst. She was going to have to figure out a way to explain this to her without scaring her. Just another worry, on top of what her father’s diagnosis meant for all of them. And how to proceed with this new knowledge. Caleb insisted this was not hers to worry herself over, but that was ridiculous. Bullheaded, even. As if she could put down the fact of his terminal illness and set it aside, as if she could just go on with her day and about her business. Not to mention that. The shop was barely born and already she was being pulled away from it. It was as if he’d handed her a stick of dynamite wrapped in a patchwork quilt. The outside seemed harmless and reeked of nostalgia from her past. But the contents were dire.

  Nothing about this was fair. She’d brought the man into Lucy’s life and here she was getting attached, when the truth was at some point in the not-so-distant future she’d have to say goodbye to him. Maybe Shannon was right. Maybe this was the biggest mistake of her life.

  “Can we go to the beach?” Lucy asked.

  Wren glanced at her dad. “I’m not sure. Is that too much too soon?”

  “I think I can manage a trip to the beach. On one condition.” He crossed his arms and looked Lucy straight in the eye. “Can you teach me how to catch a hermit crab?”

  Lucy shook her head. “You already know how! Mommy said you lived here.”

  He threw up his hands. “But maybe I’ve forgotten. What if I did?”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll show you.” She pushed her chair back excitedly. “Can I get my swimsuit on?”
she asked her mother.

  Wren nodded over her coffee cup. “Pack some snacks. And a towel.”

  As they listened to her footfalls on the stairs, Wren waited. “Dad, I’ve been thinking we could find a doctor for you here, at least for now. What we really need is to form a plan. And I think we should tell the others.”

  With Lucy’s departure, Caleb deflated a little in his chair. The joviality he’d demonstrated moments ago seemed to seep from his limbs, some of the spark from his eye. She did not like this. He was more tired than he was letting on. “Wrenny, there is no ‘we’ in any of this. This is my struggle that I have unfortunately burdened you with, and I do not wish to do so further. I have doctors, and I have support back at home. It’s taken care of. All of that is for when the time comes.” He picked at the crust of Lucy’s toast. “As for now, I don’t want to make plans. I want the time I have left to be unplanned.”

  Wren could feel herself tearing up, but she wasn’t sure if it was because she disagreed with everything he said and thought he should be seeking treatments instead of sitting at her kitchen table, or because she knew he was right and the end was imminent. He had always been stubborn as a bull. But that was when she was the child, he the adult. Sitting across the breakfast table from him now, that was no longer the case. “I understand, but I’m not sure it’s that simple. You’re here now, far away from your doctors. Beyond our hospital visit and what you’ve shared since, I still don’t know anything about your treatment, your medications. And most of all, you need to think about . . . next steps. I want to know how you want to handle that.” She didn’t want to say it, but it was something they would have to talk about. What were Caleb’s wishes?

  He put a gentle hand up. “I already told you, I am not spending my last days—whenever they may come—here on the Cape. This trip is for as long as I can manage it and as long as you’ll have me. No more. When the time comes, I’ve made the arrangements. And that’s that.”

  “But who do you have down there? It can’t all be—what’s her name—Alice?”

  “Alice is my neighbor. We sort of look after one another. She’s like a sister, that’s all.”

  Wren hadn’t meant it like that. “Dad, please. I didn’t think otherwise, and frankly I don’t want to know. I just don’t like the idea of you down there.” She didn’t add, “all alone.”

  Wren had lost the match, however. Lucy trotted downstairs in her purple rash guard and swim skirt. Her goggles were already affixed to her face. She held a plastic bucket aloft.

  Caleb smacked the table lightly. “All right. Beach time!”

  • • •

  They were loaded in the car headed down Route 28 when Lucy asked if they could go to Lighthouse, and Wren was seized with the realization. She’d not been there with her father since the day of the accident.

  She kept her eyes trained on the road. “What about Hardings or Ridgevale, honey?”

  “But Lighthouse has the waves!”

  Wren could feel her father shift uncomfortably in the passenger seat. She glanced at him.

  “It’s all right.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He shrugged. “No. But I have to go back at some point. Might as well do it together.”

  As a child, Wren had had no choice but to face Lighthouse Beach. After all, it was around the corner from her grandmother’s where they lived. In the days after the accident, they’d stayed close to the house out of necessity. Piper had a neat row of sutures across her four-year-old forehead that caused Lindy’s face to crumple each time she looked at them.

  But the day Piper had her stitches taken out, Lindy had picked up the big girls at school. Wren remembered Piper had a Minnie Mouse Band-Aid on her head and a lollipop in her hand. “Where are we going?” Wren had asked.

  “Some place we have to visit.”

  Shannon was annoyed. She was missing a test of some kind, and Wren recalled her arguing in the front seat. Lindy had driven past their turn at School Street. When she pulled into the Lighthouse parking lot that they all knew something was up.

  “What’re we doing here?” Shannon had barked.

  Lindy had turned to look at Piper and Wren in the backseat, her face full of concern. “It’s okay. We’re going to the beach.”

  Wren had felt a stomachache coming on. She hadn’t exactly thought about the beach in terms of her father leaving or Piper’s head, but being there made her feel instantly sick. “Come on,” Lindy had said, opening the car door. She came around to the back and held it open.

  Piper hopped out first, and Wren hesitated. “No. No way,” Shannon said from the front seat.

  “Shannon, my love. You’re going to have to trust me.”

  “This is stupid. I said no.”

  It was a blustery day, and the wind whipped at their hair. Wren knew the sand would be biting on the beach. She did not want to go. And Shannon’s insistence was causing her to worry.

  Lindy scooped Piper up and put an arm around Wren. “Just a quick walk,” she said. “We’re going down the steps to the sand. That’s all. Then we’ll go home.”

  Shannon refused to budge. Lindy started walking, Wren’s hand tight in her own; even though she was too old to hold her mother’s hand in a parking lot. She followed.

  Wren glanced back at Shannon. She stared straight ahead at the Sound, ignoring them.

  At the top of the steps, Lindy set Piper down. “Stay here. Watch your sister.”

  Piper started to whimper.

  Lindy trudged back to the car, head down in the wind. Wren watched her yank open the door. She bent down. Wren wondered what she was saying. But it must’ve been good, because suddenly Shannon was out of the car. She walked a good distance behind her mother, arms crossed, but she was following. “Come along!” Lindy urged her. It was so cold.

  When the four of them were finally assembled at the head of the steps, Lindy knelt down. “This is our beach,” she said. “This is the beach you learned to fish off of, Shannon. And this is the beach you both learned to swim,” she told the girls. “Piper, this is the beach where you will learn to do those things, too. There is nothing here to be afraid of, and so we are going to walk down these stairs together and say hello to the beach.” She looked at them, hard. “This is our beach.”

  Despite the wind, Piper seized hold of the idea they were going to the beach and started down. Lindy scuttled after her.

  Wren remembered standing by Shannon, who did not follow. She wasn’t going to, Wren knew. She could feel it in her fierce posture, in her short puffs of breath. And she was torn between staying beside her sister and doing what their mother said. She did not want to go down to the beach either. The sound of the surf made her stomach twist, and she closed her eyes, thinking of her father and the boat and Piper bobbing up before disappearing under the water. Why was their mother making them go? It was a terrible idea.

  Halfway down, Lindy stopped and looked back. A gust of wind blasted the girls, and Wren had to shield her eyes. When she opened them, Lindy was making her way back to them, Piper on her hip. “Girls, please.” She set Piper down, heaving with effort from the climb. Wren felt terrible.

  “Okay,” she said. She reached for her older sister’s hand, but Shannon swatted hers away.

  And then Shannon turned for the car. She spun on her heel, her mouth set. But before she could take a step, Lindy had grabbed her.

  “What are you doing?” Shannon screamed.

  Lindy wrapped both arms around her, and Wren hopped back out of the way as they began to tug and pull in both directions. There was a terrible scraping of feet on the sandy pavement. Shannon was not quite as tall as their mother, but her anger made her strong. She twisted in Lindy’s grip.

  Their mother had never put a hand on them, not once. And now she was dragging Shannon, her lips pulled back over her teeth in effort. “Mommy!” Wren cried.

  “Let go of me,” Shannon yelled. “You’re crazy!”

  Suddenly her sneakers slipped
beneath her, and Shannon fell away. Lindy let her go, falling back on her haunches. She watched as her eldest daughter scrambled away from her like a crab. But then she stopped. A strangled sound came from Lindy’s throat. Their mother was crying, hot tears streaming from her eyes.

  “You have to trust me,” she sobbed. “Please, baby. Trust me.”

  Shannon’s face crumpled and she sat down in the middle of the parking lot. Wren watched in horror as her mother crawled on all fours to her sister, cupping her face in her hands. They sat for what seemed like an eternity, and finally Lindy rose. When she extended her hand, Shannon took it.

  They walked all the way down to the sand and kept going. Shannon’s corduroy pants were torn at the knee. Lindy’s eyes were smeared with tears and mascara. No one spoke, but they put one foot in front of the other, four across as they made their way to the water. As they got close, Piper started to trot ahead. “Stop before the water,” Lindy called after her. “We’re just looking today.”

  They stood watching the surf roll in and out, small waves rising up like a cupped hand before opening and crashing onto the sand, the foamy white fingers reaching up toward their feet. After a while Shannon turned back toward the dunes. “I hate this place. And I hate all of you.”

  Lindy sat down in the sand, her head in her hands. “We had to do it,” she said.

  • • •

  They would return, after winter came and went, and the passage of the season somehow made it more palatable. Lindy took them regularly in the summer, and they biked there and hung out with friends as they grew older. Piper learned to swim and boogie board, and Lindy resumed her summer ritual of walking to the beach and taking early morning swims before any of them awoke. Lighthouse normalized for them all, except for Shannon. To this day, Shannon had never swum in the Cape waters, as far as Wren knew. Not on the National Seashore side, though Wren knew she and Reid took the kids up there. Not even in the bay area, along their coveted waterfront neighborhood in Stage Harbor. She’d kept her hate close for twenty-three years.

  • • •

  As they pulled into the crowded lot, now, Wren swallowed hard. She parked the Jeep in one of the last remaining spots in the rear, and her eyes traveled to the front row of parking spaces. She could almost see the red wood-paneled station wagon parked there, and the three little blonde girls lined up uncertainly outside the car.