The Silver Boat

by Luanne Rice

  She’d been intrigued, wanted to fall in love. Alex was tender, treated her as if she was brilliant. He encouraged her desire to go to graduate school, something Jonathan had never done.

  Between Alex’s fishing trips to Georges Bank, Rory got pregnant with Sylvia. When he returned, he began looking for houses on the island. They rented a tiny one owned by his fishing boat captain, on the hill facing Menemsha Harbor. She had Sylvia, and tried so hard to love her life with Alex, but it didn’t work: she still loved Jonathan.

  By then, Jonathan’s parents couldn’t stand her. But Rory’s sisters and mother were behind her, no matter what. They’d adored Alex, but her grandmother had never stopped pushing for Jonathan. She had liked the idea of two Vineyard power clans being united—the Daggetts and the Chases. She dismissed the McCarthy connection, negating Rory’s Irishness. Rory would marry Jonathan, and the children would be WASPs through and through.

  Abigail Daggett negotiated things out with Jonathan’s parents, and Rory and he had a Vineyard wedding under a white tent at Daggett’s Way, with the after-party on the same private beach where she’d lost her virginity. They lived summers on the island, winters in Old Lyme, where Jonathan, initially bankrolled by his parents, opened an art gallery specializing in the Old Lyme school of American Impressionists and Tonalists.

  Once they got married, he seemed to settle down and be faithful and content. He was good to Sylvia. Rory remained on guard the first few years, keeping the idea of study at Scripps in La Jolla as an escape hatch, until Obadiah and Jenny were born. She fell into bliss, raising her children in the village.

  She walked them to school, later taught them to ride their bikes to the tennis courts. She’d walk to Jonathan’s gallery nearly every day to bring him lunch. It was her idea for the gallery to branch out, showing contemporary landscape and portrait artists, having openings that would attract the entire town.

  She didn’t know when the cheating began again. He swore it hadn’t happened until Alys started as gallery intern, just over a year ago. The market had fallen apart, and Jonathan had said they were lucky to have someone willing to work for next to nothing. Rory had agreed; she’d liked Alys at first.

  Young, blond, newly graduated from a curatorial master’s program at Bard, Alys was smart and brought new ideas about hanging and marketing exhibitions. And then Jonathan took her to New York’s Winter Antiques Show at the Park Avenue Armory, a weeklong must-attend event for art and antique dealers. He’d always had a booth.

  Rory checked his pockets when he got home. She found a receipt from the St. Regis Hotel—deluxe room plus dinner for two, champagne in the room, and room service breakfast for two. The sight of it had made her eyes swim. She couldn’t believe it, had been so sure he’d never hurt her again.

  When she confronted Jonathan, he didn’t deny it. He told her he was moving out; he and Alys had found a place in Hadlyme. It was just a few miles up the Connecticut River; he could see the children every weekend.

  “You can’t! They aren’t ready for you and a girlfriend, Jonathan. Neither am I,” Rory had said. He told her that if she was unreasonable about the kids, he could get a court order for temporary shared custody. But he backed off.

  Rory was blindsided by all of it. She fell back into her old ways of spying on him; tracking him silently, through e-mails and texts, gave her a feeling of warped power. She’d known his passwords for years; he had kept them under his blotter on the antique rolltop desk her grandmother had given him when they’d gotten married.

  Now her laptop sat innocently on the unmade bed. It called her as if she were possessed. Glancing into the hall, she saw that Delia was in her room, Sylvie in hers. She heard Obadiah and Jenny talking to Vanessa in the master bedroom. Safe.

  Rory logged on, then typed in Jonathan’s Gmail password: keithfarm. Keith Farm, one of the most lovely, wide-open landscapes on the Vineyard; his parents lived just up Middle Road from the property, and Jonathan had played in the fields as a boy.

  Always careful to leave no trace behind, Rory read only the e-mails he had already opened. When she found incriminating messages, she would call him and somehow get him to confess without actually confronting him. It was as if his conscience was so guilty he had to tell her the truth.

  Now, clicking on the morning’s e-mails, she saw that he and Alys had written back and forth five times since she’d called him, yelling that he was terrible, terrible to abandon his family just as their son was at the age to need a father most. And Jenny! Who would she have as a male role model? Some loser who leaves his family for a younger woman?

  What a bitch, Alys had written in response to Jonathan’s heartfelt—Rory had to admit—account of their phone call. She felt herself shaking all over, burning with rage so great she could barely control her fingertips; they tapped the air above the keys, imagining a message of hate to Alys.

  “Are you busy?” Dar asked, glancing in.

  “Uh, no,” Rory said, slamming her laptop shut.

  “What did the e-mail say?” Dar asked.

  Rory just shook her head. “Don’t get me started talking about her.”

  “Alys?” Dar asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why do you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Read their e-mail.”

  “Because he’s too stupid to change his passwords. It’s almost like asking me to read them. I pity the fool.”

  “But he’s not asking you to,” Dar said. “You’re worrying me.”

  “Please don’t. This is just terrible to get through, and I’m doing my best.”

  Dar held out her hand, small and shaped just like Rory’s, Delia’s, and their mother’s. Rory hesitated, then took it. They clasped fingers. Their hands fit perfectly, and the feeling was exactly as it had been when they were girls.

  “Hello!” came the voice from downstairs. “Helloooooo! May we come in?”

  Dar turned red, dropping Rory’s hand. “Shit, I told her to keep them away from us.”

  She jumped off the bed, running down the stairs, Rory and Delia following close behind.

  In the kitchen, surrounded by the children, stood two well-dressed women and two well-dressed men. Delia summed them up immediately ; they were all from Greenwich, or Bedminster, or Chevy Chase, or some other fancy suburb. As she watched in true disbelief, Dar grabbed the elbow of the pageboy blonde in the beige suite and strong-armed her out of the kitchen, leaving Delia and Rory to make polite small talk with the other three strangers.

  “I hope it’s not inconvenient,” the other woman—even blonder, wearing obnoxious country clothes—beige wool pants and jacket, brown jodhpur boots, and a large russet leather shoulder bag with PRADA in big gold letters. “I believe Morgan tried to contact you, but wasn’t able to get a reply. And this was the only week all three of us could come!”

  “Morgan?” Rory asked, sounding suspicious.

  “Please, blame it on me,” the tall, thin, bald man said in a clipped English accent. He wore a tailored black suit, had pale eyes and strangely dominant upper teeth. “It would have been impossible for me to come from London at any other time and still remain on schedule.”

  “I feel as if I’m Alice in Wonderland,” Delia said, smiling and offering her hand. “I have no idea what anyone is talking about. I’m Delia Monaghan, and this is my sister Rory Chase.”

  “Delia—” Rory began.

  “We’re the Littles,” the not-so-bald man said, “and this is our architect, Jeremy Stent.”

  “Architect?” Delia said, still smiling, not understanding. She felt enveloped by the fog outside, as if it had entered the kitchen and swallowed her up. At the same time, her hands were shaking, as if they perceived something her brain was yet unable to face.

  “Morgan said it would be all right,” Mrs. Little said. “We really had no other choice. The children are on school vacation.” She pointed out the wind
ow at two towheaded boys jumping up and down and running in excited circles. “And Jeremy has to be in Milan on Tuesday.”

  “But why are you here?” Delia asked as Dar and the now stone-faced pageboy blonde returned to the kitchen.

  “I should have told you,” Dar said, turning toward Delia and Rory. “I ignored the calls and e-mails, but Morgan brought her clients and their architect anyway. I’d hoped we could finish with our part before moving on to theirs . . .”

  “You mean . . .” Delia started. She stared at her sister so she wouldn’t immediately blow up at the strangers.

  “You remember Morgan Ludlow,” Dar said. “Of Island Properties. She sold our house, and these are the people who bought it.”

  Delia felt her blood pressure spike. To her shock, she managed to contain the fury inside. She just went to Morgan Ludlow, gently took her by the shoulders, and turned her toward the kitchen door.

  “I’m sorry,” Delia said, eyes on the Littles and Jeremy Stent. “But this really isn’t a convenient time. It just isn’t.”

  “But,” Mrs. Little said, glowering at Morgan Ludlow, “why would you have told us it would be fine if it wasn’t?”

  “Please, Dar,” Morgan said as Delia pushed her forward. “This man flew all the way from London!”

  “And he’s going to tear down our house,” Dar said.

  “It’s up to the Littles what they wish to do with the property . . .” Morgan said.

  “We get the point,” Dar said. “But for now it still belongs to us, and my sister’s right. The timing isn’t convenient.”

  Delia felt so proud of Dar—of them—the three McCarthy sisters, for sticking up for what was theirs. At least until the closing at the end of the month.

  “What if the deal falls through now?” Rory asked once the strangers had left.

  “I don’t give a shit,” Dar said. “I hope it does.”

  “So do I,” Delia said. “I’d almost rather have the IRS get it.”

  The kids had hidden away, but sensing the suddenly improved mood, they returned to the kitchen asking questions. Maybe someone answered them; Delia just picked up Vanessa and held her tight. Dar cranked James on the stereo. Out the window, they saw Jeremy pacing the yard, taking notes, as if figuring out how much of the ground he could cover with construction. Morgan’s large black SUV sat idling on the sandy driveway.

  Dar made tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Everyone ate, agreeing it was the perfect lunch for a foggy day. Delia replayed the moment she’d put her hands on that woman’s shoulders and wished she could do it all over again.

  She wanted to call Jim and tell him every detail. She wanted to call Pete, tell him what he’d missed. Rory poured everyone a Diet Coke, and they all raised their glasses to toast one another. When Delia glanced out the window, the black SUV was gone.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Every night they would cook all their favorite island food from local markets. Each day one of the sisters took shopping duty: Menemsha Fish Market, Tisbury Farm Market, Fiddlehead Farm, Cronig’s, Larson’s Fish, Shiretown Meats, Soigné in Edgartown.

  They’d make broiled sole, creamed spinach, tiny new potatoes. Raclette with Gruyère cheese and more new potatoes, salad with baby greens, pumpkin seeds, and pomegranate seeds. Lamb chops with rosemary potatoes and homemade mint sauce. Grilled swordfish, broccoli rabe sautéed with garlic, black quinoa mixed with chopped tomatoes. Dar would drink Pellegrino, and Rory and Delia would split a bottle of wine.

  These meals were both comforting and delicious, especially for the time they spent cooking and eating and cleaning up together. As the week went on, the quality of food remained as high as ever. But the sisters, and even the kids, started to droop from all the packing. They knew what was coming. And even delicious food couldn’t drive it away.

  One night Dar skipped dinner with her sisters. She just felt too dusty, and cold, and old. She had spent another whole day boxing up childhood and family memories. Her back and shoulders ached, her hands felt rough and sore, and her entire body was coated with a thin, sticky film of dust. She stood twenty minutes under the hottest shower possible, washing her hair and just letting the water pour over her.

  Closing her eyes, she thought of the mystery of water, of how it surrounded the island and created deep glacial pools, and how the fog was a cloud that hadn’t rained yet, how water had been the inspiration for Dulse.

  She turned off the taps, dried herself, and put on a black V-neck T-shirt and loose black cotton pants. Sitting down, she stared in an unfocused way at the miniature metal dory that had come from her great-grandfather’s boathouse in Cork.

  She reached for her storyboard notebook. Her mind swirled with ideas, inspired by the pain and delights of the day: finding their grandmother’s Kewpie dolls wrapped in baby blankets, in an intricately carved hope chest. The visiting architect was a reminder that things would change, and soon. Dar had decided to create a character after him, a dark lord named Argideen after an Irish river near Timoleague in West Cork.

  Staring at the blank page, she could almost see her characters coming alive. The sheets of opaque white vellum paper were eight and a half by eleven inches, glued on the left side. The ink forming six cells per page, a grid and notation area within each cell, was non-photo blue so that the grid lines could be eliminated when scanned into graphics software.

  She always started with pencil sketches, favoring yellow Bic mechanical pencils with .5 or .7 lead. Long ago her mother had bought her a beautiful pair of Mont Blanc pencils, and although Dar felt sentimental about the gift, she loved the way the cheaper pencil fit her hand, and the way Bic erasers never smudged.

  After sketching, she’d start her line art by going in with Pigma Sensei Manga drawing pens—archival quality, and shipped from Japan—using thicker strokes for foreground and thinner lines for background. After inking, she would erase the pencil.

  Dar was considered ballsy among graphic artists for working in real, not digitalized, color; few did it, because one mistake could ruin the entire page. She’d color each panel with Prismacolor markers, light to dark, mainly shades of blue. In recent years she’d started using watercolor more often. The medium seemed more appropriate to characters and story involving so much water.

  Then she’d go back in with small-gauge, .2 or .3 Sakura Micron pens and crosshatch the shadows—markings so small, readers wouldn’t see the lines, only sense the change of depth in the color.

  Each of the six panels represented a specific aspect of the day, translated into Dulse’s world. This was the first reunion of Dulse and her sisters in over a century. Because Dulse was a water spirit, motivated by grief and desire, she was very powerful. She had the ability to float overhead like a cloud, or seep through floor cracks like spilled water.

  Her sisters had been under a hundred-year spell cast by their grandmother. Where was this coming from? Dar wondered as she drew. Only Dulse had been aware of their father’s loss, searching for him all this time. He’d had something to prove, only he’d disappeared before telling anyone what that was. Her sisters had been turned into Rosa rugosa, beautiful beach roses—soft pink with green leaves and sharp thorns, lining the dunes.

  Once Dulse found out, from a letter hidden in her grandmother’s ebony desk, she focused all her power into rain, pouring down on the roses, washing dunes into the sea, allowing raging ocean waves to devour the beach and grab at the roses’ deep, gnarled roots. The roots turned into two girls’ feet, and Dulse’s sisters, Heath and Finn, came back to life. Dulse coalesced into a water column, and then a girl, and she and her sisters hugged.

  The next frame showed them back at their grandmother’s Vineyard house. Because their grandmother was dead, the sisters would be safe there. Why was she—or her subconscious—suddenly so suspicious of her grandmother? Heath buried her bare feet in garden soil, and Finn asked for elixir made from fermented honeysuckle nectar.

  Dar sat back, staring at the room she’d drawn—familiar
yet alien. It looked as if it belonged in their real house—decorated in period furniture with faded cotton curtains and their grandmother’s braided rugs, books in the bookcase, a stone fireplace with chimney cupboards, a wide hearth, and copper washbasin to hold kindling—yet Dar had never seen it before.

  She chalked it up to dreams and imagination, and began to draw a black SUV in the yard, Argideen making his first appearance in her series. She drew him exactly as he had looked: tall, slim but muscled, bald, dressed in a Hong Kong–tailored black suit. She gave him insipid brown, almost yellow, eyes.

  Dusk was falling, the last light glowing red through the mist. She heard Andy’s truck on the gravel and went out to meet him. He’d been building bookcases and painting the interior of a house on Edgartown’s South Summer Street, and when he kissed her he smelled of sawdust, paint, and turpentine. His painter pants and boots were stained pale, spring green.

  “They’re going authentic?” Dar asked.

  “Yep,” he said. “They went to the Historical Society to make sure their dining room walls would be in keeping with pre-colonial Edgartown.”

  “Rich people,” she said, smiling.

  “They pay my bills,” he said, holding her hand, leading her to the porch. “I wish I could help you with everything.”

  “Oh, Andy.”

  “You know I’d do anything.”

  “I know.”

  They sat in the tall rocking chairs, and Dar stared out over the pond. Past the dunes, she saw waves cresting, their foam tops lavender in the twilight. Andy took her hand. They hardly ever mentioned love, but their long friendship was layered with it. She felt his closeness, and that was enough.

  “Tough day?” Andy asked.

  Dar nodded.

  “Did you finish the first floor?”

  “Pretty much. That was our goal. Some of the upstairs bedrooms, too.”

  “Want me to come over and help tomorrow?”

  She smiled. “You have a job.”