The Memory of Water

by Karen White

  “Sailing?”

  “Yeah. Seems everybody’s got sailing on the brain these days. I happened to mention to her that Quinn wants to take Gil out on the boat again. She went kind of ballistic.”

  My hand paused on the key in the ignition. “Did she misinterpret something you said?”

  “No.” Her fingers plucked at the spot on her jeans where I could see the slight bump of her bandage. “She knew exactly what I said.”

  “But why would that make your friend upset?”

  Diana finally looked at me, in her eyes an odd mixture of anger and fear. And for a moment, I almost thought that her anger was directed at me.

  “It’s because of the Maitland curse. She takes it very seriously.”

  I started the engine, ready to dismiss the entire conversation now that it had taken a turn into ridiculousness. “But we don’t, so it doesn’t really matter, right?”

  She didn’t answer, so I turned to her, aware of how pale her skin had become.

  “Right?” I repeated.

  “Maybe it is real, Marnie. Did you ever think of that? You’ve seen the wall mural—how can all that happening to one family ever be called coincidence? And Grandpa’s been preaching for years that the sins of the father will haunt his children and his children’s children for generations.”

  “Diana, you’re starting to scare me.” I pulled the car over to a parking spot near the exit. “Firstly, our family is nobody else’s damn business, okay? Secondly, Grandpa has also always preached that God gave us free will. What you and I decide to do with our lives is completely up to us. We’re not governed by anything as arbitrary as a curse, assuming such a thing existed. All right?”

  Her fingers continued to pluck at her jeans. “I don’t want Gil to get on a sailboat. Not ever.”

  I looked in the rearview mirror, recalling that Gil was in the car with us and listening to every word.

  “He loves it, Diana. Quinn said that Gil loved sailing more than his art. And that’s saying a lot. Don’t take that from him because of what some old lady seems to think about a nonexistent curse. It has nothing to do with Gil—or with you or me. But it has everything to do with your son and helping him find his voice again.”

  She swiped the back of her hands across her eyes. “I’m his mother, and I don’t want him on a sailboat, and that’s it. It’s for his own good.”

  I looked in the rearview mirror and saw Gil staring out the side window, his profile mirroring the stubborn set of his mother’s, and I almost smiled. I started the engine again. “I’ll let you discuss it with Quinn. Let’s go home now.”

  “No. Let’s drive into downtown. I’ve got some Christmas shopping I might as well do while we’re here.”

  I stared at her for a moment, wondering how such a rational comment could follow so closely any talk about family curses. “Fine,” I said, putting the car into gear. I recalled the memory I’d had while out on the Pelorus with Quinn and the questions I had for Diana that I hadn’t been able to bring myself to ask. I glanced back at Gil again and knew that whatever I needed to know about the night my mother died would have to wait.

  Gil

  When I was very young, when my parents were still married and my great-grandfather wasn’t in a wheelchair all the time, everybody was careful about keeping me away from the water. But it seemed to me, even back then, that I was meant to be in the water. There was something about it that made me think of being rocked by my mother, the sound of the waves like a lullaby I remembered from when I was too small to remember anything else except the sound of my mother’s voice.

  Then my father began taking me sailing with him, and it was like that book about these kids who find a whole different world in a wardrobe. That was what sailing was to me. And all that time I spent on the water I never once remembered that I was supposed to be afraid.

  Mama never said it out loud, but I knew that she hated sailing. I knew she could sail since I’d seen all those pictures of her and my aunt Marnie in the photo album under my bed. But she never went sailing with me and my dad, and my dad never asked her, either, like he knew what the answer would be anyway.

  That was why when Mama asked me to go sailing with her that night, I didn’t think to say no. I’d figured she’d finally decided that I was good enough to go with her, and I decided that I was going to show her how good I really was.

  It didn’t take me very long to figure out why we were really on that boat at night during a storm, and I knew that it had something to do with that piece of paper she’d found in Grandpa’s study. Because it was right after that time in the study when she started looking at me in a different way, like how a mother bird with one worm would look at her nest filled with empty beaks.

  That night I learned about making choices, both bad and good. And I learned how hard it is to lose the thing you love the most. But I also learned that sometimes you can find strength where you never thought you had any. That was why when I was listening to Aunt Marnie and Mama arguing in the car that I decided it didn’t really matter if they wanted me to go sailing or not. It wasn’t about them. It never was. It was about finding my way back to the water, where I had once thought I’d lost everything, but where maybe I needed to go to get it all back.

  CHAPTER 24

  …he may have to steer his way home through the dark by the North Star, and he will feel himself some degrees nearer to it for having lost his way on the earth.

  —HENRY DAVID THOREAU

  Marnie

  As Christmas approached, the weather grew colder, and there were no more chances to go sailing. But there was a waiting in the air—a suspension of action that seemed to freeze us as much as the cold winds that blew off the Atlantic. Gil, in his wordless and enigmatic way, waited with impatience and trepidation for his turn on the deck of the Pelorus. Quinn waited for the restoration of the Highfalutin to be completed while also waiting for Diana to allow Gil out on a boat again. His appeals to Diana were subtle but unsuccessful. I wondered why he waited for her approval, but knew in the end that it was because he was Quinn; he would never risk damaging his relationship with Diana or with his son. I suppose this was because of his relationship with his parents, honed from loss and profound grief over his brother’s death, and I couldn’t imagine Quinn any other way.

  I wasn’t sure what Diana was waiting for. She continued to work on the wall mural, but now she kept it covered with billowing sheets that blocked my view without touching the paint. She also refused all of my requests to see my portrait, telling me that she would show me when she’d finished. I wondered sometimes if this waiting time for her was spent in deciding when the right moment would be to unveil both of her masterpieces. As I sat by the window while she painted me, I couldn’t help but imagine that there must be some big secret she was waiting to reveal. I suppose my own waiting time was spent anticipating the same thing.

  Christmas morning dawned chilly and rainy; the scene outside our windows was one of solid gray. I didn’t cringe anymore from the sight of rain, but all the nerves in my skin tingled under the surface, sensing its presence like an apparition.

  I walked down the stairs, following the scent of roasting turkey and apple pie, feeling as giddy as a child. But there were no cookies for Santa or any other holiday traditions besides the opening of presents and the wonderful turkey dinner prepared by Quinn. He’d informed me that a year before Gil had approached him and calmly explained that there was no reason for his parents to stay up late on Christmas Eve to put together toys and lay out presents from Santa. Apparently Gil had ceased to believe in Santa following a forage into Quinn’s desk drawer to find a stapler when he had emerged instead with Gil’s letters to Santa, neatly tied with a ribbon. As sad as I’d been to hear that Gil’s childhood had grown a bit shorter, the story had also had the effect of fluttering my heart with the detail of Quinn keeping the letters and tying them with a ribbon.

  Gil sat between Diana and Quinn on the sofa in the front parlor while I t
ried to focus on how happy I was to see Gil not cringing from his mother. He seemed comfortable in her presence as long as other people were around, but he avoided being alone with her, as if by being with alone with her, they would both have to face the ghosts that haunted the space between them.

  As I had as a child and without having been asked to resume my role, I reached under the tree and handed out the wrapped presents, then waited as we each opened one present in turn, starting with my grandfather and then working around the circle. Gil’s eyes danced with anticipation as he waited his turn while Diana opened the new set of paintbrushes from me, and I opened a box filled with new clothes from Diana. I raised my eyebrow at the skimpy tops and even skimpier shorts and thanked her, wondering at my own anticipation of warm weather so I might try them out.

  Grandpa received a hand-knitted scarf, new gloves, and a large package of colored highlighters. Quinn got a thick sweater, an Atlanta Braves hat, and a new gardening journal. I opened Quinn’s gift to me with a little trepidation. I had given him a set of new clay pots for his greenhouse, an idea that had seemed like a good one at the time. But I guess my practicality as a teacher had taken over as evidenced by Diana’s brushes, my grandfather’s scarf, and Quinn’s pots. I cringed inside as I opened the small square box on my lap.

  I held my breath as I pulled out the delicate silver chain with the silver crab charm dangling from it. I smiled, knowing exactly why he had given it to me.

  “It’s to remind you of the day you taught a Yankee how to catch blue crabs. And also to remind you that you’ll always be a Lowcountry girl at heart, no matter where you are.”

  I looked down to blink away the sting in my eyes.

  Diana stood. “Here, let me put it on you.”

  Brushing aside my hair, she clasped the chain behind my neck before letting my hair fall back into place. I felt the cool silver of the charm like a finger on my pulse.

  To change the subject, I looked back at the tree. “Is that all, then?”

  It was Quinn’s turn to stand. “No. There’s one more, but I didn’t put it under the tree.” He reached underneath the sofa and brought out a large shirt box wrapped brightly in red snowman paper. “This is for Gil.”

  He crossed the room and placed it in Gil’s lap. “Before you open this, I want you to know that it’s for later. But I wanted you to have it now so you’ll have something to look forward to.”

  Gil tore into the paper as children do, then flung the lid aside and stopped. I almost expected to hear him shriek. He held up a bright yellow Windbreaker and matching sailor’s cap, both embroidered in navy blue with the word Highfalutin on them. I’d seen Quinn in a matching jacket and cap, and I smiled at the mental image of them on the deck of their boat, sailing into the wind with their bright yellow sleeves flapping.

  Gil beamed his thanks to his dad, then quickly stood and began putting the jacket over his pajamas. He set the hat on his head and looked at his dad, who nodded with approval before slowly looking over at Diana.

  “Well, don’t you look handsome?” she said. “And just in time with all this cold, wet weather we’ve been having.”

  Quinn cleared his throat. “Or when it’s warmer. It’s always chillier out on the water.”

  Diana faced Quinn. “I think you misunderstood. He’s not sailing again, ever. Period. As long as I’m his mother, he does not have permission to go out on a sailboat. It’s too dangerous, and I can’t have you risking the life of our son because of some stupid desire to chase the wind in a boat pulled by sheets.”

  Quinn’s face darkened. “Diana, you said you would think about it in the spring. He’s ready to go now, but agreed to wait. And don’t think for one minute that I would let anything happen to him while he was with me out on the water.”

  His words hit their mark and I saw Diana swallow. She looked down at her hands and tried to flake off yellow paint that was stuck on her thumbnail. Quietly she said, “I’m his mother. And I said no.” She looked back up at him with a defiant glare.

  I watched as Quinn bit back his words. “This isn’t the time to discuss it, but we will discuss it later.” He walked over to Gil and tugged the brim of the cap down. “In the meantime, you can wear the jacket and hat whenever you want. They’re not just for sailing.”

  Gil nodded, all the excitement in his eyes dimmed like an extinguished candle.

  Diana stood and smoothed down her shirt. “I have something for you, Quinn. It was too big to wrap, so I didn’t put it under the tree. Hang on and I’ll go get it.”

  As she left the room, I caught sight of her face. Not for the first time since my return, I was unable to read her expression. All I knew was that she deliberately avoided looking at me as she walked past me toward the dining room.

  She came back carrying a large framed portrait, about the size of the empty rectangle on the wall behind the sofa, the back of it facing us in the room. She put it down with a heavy thud. My grandfather grunted and I saw him shake his head at Diana.

  “It’s all right, Grandpa. I’m fine with it. And it’s time.”

  She looked down at the unseen portrait for a moment before focusing her attention on me. “I don’t know how much Quinn has told you about how we met.”

  Quinn was on his feet again. “No, Diana. Please don’t….”

  “It’s mine to give, Quinn. I never let you have it, remember?”

  He sent me a quick glance before looking back at Diana. “This isn’t just about you and me, Diana. We need to talk about this first.”

  She threw her head back and laughed. “No, it’s not. It never was, was it? It’s always been the three of us.”

  Quinn took a step forward. “Diana, please. Can’t we just talk about it first?”

  “No. I want Marnie to know. And I think you want her to know, too.”

  I stood. “Would somebody please tell me what’s going on here?”

  Diana nodded. “If the two of you would please sit down, I’ll explain.”

  Reluctantly Quinn sat and I did the same. Gil and my grandfather remained where they were, watching us intently.

  “After you left, Marnie, I became a bit obsessive with my painting.” She indicated the paintings around her. “It’s really what made my career take off, so I think I probably owe you a huge thanks.

  “But the first portrait of you that I painted, I couldn’t stand to have around me. It reminded me too much of what I had lost, of how much I once loved you.”

  How much I once loved you. Her use of the past tense was no surprise to me; the only surprise was how much it still hurt me.

  “I didn’t want to sell it, either, but I didn’t want to look at it every day. So I lent it to Pam Taekens to hang in her antiques store on South Pinckney. She hung it behind the counter where she kept her cash register, and after a while began to keep a tally of how many offers she received to buy it.”

  She sent me a brittle smile. “I just couldn’t part with it. Giving you up had almost killed me. I couldn’t give this last part of you away.” Turning to Quinn, she said, “Do you want to finish this story or should I?”

  He was looking at me and didn’t turn away when he answered her. “You’ve done such a great job so far, why don’t you just go ahead and finish?”

  Diana leaned against the rolled arm of the sofa, its fabric frayed from years of use and of existing in a house with no woman to take care of the details. “Quinn was one of those people. Pam said he came in nearly every day, upping his offer each time. Eventually, he convinced her to give his name and number to me so I could contact him.” She pursed her lips and slid a sidelong glance in Quinn’s direction. “Pam had described him in such detail that I decided that I would pay him a house call. So I picked up the painting, stuck it into the backseat of my car, and showed up on his doorstep.”

  I looked at the back of the painting, at the metal hooks and wire hanger that dipped across the back, and felt my palms sweat. I glanced around the room, wondering if anybody else cou
ld hear the pounding of my heart. My gaze slid up to Quinn, and I found him watching me steadily.

  Diana continued. “So he opened his door and saw me standing there on his doorstep with the painting, and that was it.” She stole a look at Gil. “We were married three months later.”

  I licked my dry, cracked lips, suddenly thirsty, my eyes back on the painting.

  Diana leaned back on the sofa’s arm, swinging her legs casually, but her pale fingertips gave her away by the way they gripped the fading fabric. “Why don’t you go ahead and hang it where it belongs, Quinn, so Marnie can see it?”

  He dragged his deep blue gaze from me to Diana. Without saying anything, he hoisted the painting up, flipped it over, then hung it on the picture hooks protruding from the wall above the sofa before stepping back to allow me to see it.

  My first thought was Who is that girl? She was young and beautiful, and her face was the unlined and open face of a girl who had not yet discovered how the edge of loss spreads out into your life like spilled paint. It wasn’t until I recognized the shirt and the earrings that I realized That’s me.

  It was on the deck of my mother’s boat, the first Highfalutin. There were blurred images of other crew members, but the eyes of the viewer were drawn to the figure manning the tiller at the stern of the boat. Placing the figure there was redundant; it was clear by the way she leaned forward and pressed her face into the wind that she was in charge of where the boat was heading. She wore a white blouse that had been knotted at her midsection and that billowed in the wind, the paint strokes making the fabric vibrantly alive. I could almost smell the varnish of the wood and feel the crispness of the flapping sails that framed the top of the portrait. But the girl in the painting—I couldn’t call her me, after all; this girl was young and strong and hopeful. Three things that I had ceased to be almost sixteen years before.