I swallowed hard. “I know you did.”
“I guess when I saw Kathy’s card, it seemed like a chance to say goodbye, somehow.” He sighed. “Whether the message came from your mom or not, it’s the truth. I do have to move on.”
Forget about Mom. It seemed to me that was what people meant when they said move on. “Dad? About Eliza J…”
“There’s no point in holding on to your mom’s boat any longer.” He shook his head. “You have to move on too, Fiona. She’s not coming back.”
I ate mac n’ cheese alone at the kitchen table. Dad went out with Kathy to have dinner at some fancy new Moroccan place. I hated thinking about the two of them together, talking, laughing, eating. Doing their best to erase every last trace of my mother.
It would be so much easier to deal with someone dying if you believed they weren’t gone forever, that they were just elsewhere. On a higher plane, as Kathy said. In a better place. That was what Abby’s Mom liars and fools always said about Abby’s gran. We miss her, but she’s in a better place now. Sometimes I envied people who believed in things.
I kept looking at the phone and wishing Abby would call, but I couldn’t blame her if she didn’t. Finally I picked up the phone and dialed her number.
“Abby? It’s me.”
“Oh. Hi.” Her voice was stiff.
“Look, I was wondering about your gran. About how you think she’s in heaven?”
“You know what, Fiona? I don’t really feel like talking about it.”
“Oh. Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
“I have to go,” Abby said.
I tightened my grip on the phone. “Abby, wait a minute. What’s wrong?”
“Seriously, Fiona? You don’t know?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Kathy’s daughter, if that’s what you mean.”
“It’s not just that, Fi.”
“What is it then?” My chest was suddenly tight.
“Look, I know your mom died and I’m sorry, okay? But I’m tired of you being so mean all the time.”
“Abby. I’m sorry, okay?”
She was quiet for a moment. “You always say you’re sorry, Fiona.”
“But I am sorry! I really am!” I started to cry and quickly slid my hand over the phone so she wouldn’t hear me.
“My mom says I should be patient, but you know what? I’m kind of tired of being patient. It’s been a year, Fiona.”
I was crying too hard to speak, and besides, what more was there to say? I listened to the silence coming over the phone for a few seconds; then I hung up, ran into my room and threw myself on my bed. Everything good in my life seemed to be slipping away: Mom, Eliza J and now Abby too.
I rolled over and looked at the photographs on my bulletin board. Me and Abby sitting on the grass, me and Abby wearing Santa hats, me and Abby with our arms around each other. I wiped the tears from my eyes. Kathy had stolen Abby as well as Dad, and I didn’t think I could stand it.
Though in some ways, I felt like I’d lost Dad even before Kathy came along. He was so distant, and sometimes I wondered if he blamed me for what happened to my mother. If I’d begged her to take more safety precautions, she might have listened. But I didn’t even try. I just took her side like I always did. Dad never invited me to take sides, but Mom… I felt sort of disloyal for thinking it, but the truth was that if I didn’t take her side, my mother got all quiet and sulky and hurt. She needed me on her side more than Dad did.
But Dad had been right. She should have taken precautions. Or not gone at all.
Tonight had been the first time in ages that Dad had talked about my mom. The Ouija board stuff was before I was born, but I could imagine it, could picture her laughing about it the way she had about the palm reader we’d seen together. Not really believing it, but having fun all the same.
I rolled over on the bed. If Mom wanted to get in touch with me, and if such a thing was possible, then I didn’t need Kathy. Mom didn’t need Kathy. Why would Mom choose to talk to a woman who was dating her husband when she could talk to me directly?
It took me all of five minutes to find the Ouija board. It was in the crawl space in a box labeled Games, along with an old Monopoly set and a bunch of jigsaw puzzles. I pulled it out and took it up to my bedroom.
A beige plastic board, with the letters of the alphabet on it. Also the words yes, no and maybe. It looked oddly familiar, and I wondered if I might have played with it before, when I was little. I pulled a little triangular robin stevenson pointer out of the box and placed it on the board with a soft click. Then I turned off the overhead light in my room and lit a candle, even though it felt like kind of a dumb thing to do. If my mother was able to contact me from some spirit world, I didn’t really think that the lighting in the room was going to make much difference.
I sat cross-legged on my bed and rested my fingers lightly on the smooth plastic of the pointer. Mom, I thought. Mom…if you are out there…if you can talk to me…
Nothing happened. I thought maybe I should ask a question, but I didn’t know where to begin. I had so many. Why did you leave us? What happened? Was it really a navigational error? Are you still out there somewhere? On a tropical island? In a spirit world with Kathy’s dead husband and daughter and Abby’s gran? How am I supposed to get by without you? Do you think it’s okay that I still want to sail?
In the end I just stayed quiet. It slowly grew darker outside, and after a very long time my legs started to cramp. Nothing had happened. No movement beneath my fingers, no whispered words, no chill breeze disturbing the air. Not the slightest sign. I pushed the pointer, sliding it over to the letter I. Then M. I. S. S. Y. O. U. I miss you.
I stood up stiffly, walked over to the window, slid it open and pushed my nose against the screen. Dad’s car wasn’t back yet. “I love you, Mom,” I whispered. My voice disappeared into the night air. I stood there for a long moment, and an awful aching certainty settled deep inside me. If Mom could have answered me, she would have done so. I knew that was true.
Kathy was wrong. Mom wasn’t waiting on the other side of some invisible curtain. She wasn’t hanging out on some social networking site for dead people, or watching over me like a guardian angel. She was dead. She was gone.
She’s not coming back, Dad had said. And I knew that was true too.
nineteen
I woke before the sun came up. The square of sky outside my window was still dark, and beside my bed my alarm clock flashed 5:29. I pulled on jeans, a sweatshirt and a fleece jacket, and tiptoed downstairs.
Dad always slept in on Sunday mornings, usually until eight thirty or nine, so I had at least three hours to myself.
I needed to see Eliza J.
I grabbed an apple from the fridge, headed outside and stopped dead. Kathy’s car was in the driveway, parked right behind ours. She’d stayed the night.
I didn’t want to think about that or what it meant.
My bike was in the backyard, locked to the fence. I unlocked it silently and wheeled it past the cars and out to the street. I wondered if Caitlin had a babysitter, liars and fools or if she was at home alone. I wondered what she thought of Kathy spending the night with my father. I bet she hated it about as much as I did.
Just above the horizon, wide streaks as creamy white as sails were starting to light up the darkness. I swung my leg over the seat of my bike and pedaled off down the street toward the marina.
The sun was a tangerine semicircle emerging from a low bank of cloud, and the wind blew steadily through the deserted marina. I locked my bike to the rack and walked down the ramp to the water. Low tide. I listened to the clang and clatter of the wind blowing loose halyards against aluminum masts, the call of a gull swooping low overhead, the groan of dock lines pulling taut against their steel cleats.
As I turned onto E-dock, I could see the faded blue of Eliza J ’s sail cover. I hurried toward her and stepped on board. A halyard shackle clanked against the mast with a gentle chime, as if
Eliza J was welcoming me back.
“Are you happy to see me?” I said softly. “Beautiful boat. I’ve missed you.” Mom was gone, Dad was with Kathy, Abby didn’t want to be my friend anymore, but Eliza J had always been there for me. And I hadn’t visited her for so long. Poor Eliza J. I ran my hand along the robin stevenson edge of the dodger, feeling the roughness of the tightly stretched canvas—and stopped abruptly as something caught my eye. The For Sale sign at her bow had been flipped over, a line drawn through the price. I leaned over the railing to get a look at the side of the sign visible from the dock.
SOLD.
I sank down to the cockpit bench and pushed my hands against my ears, trying to muffle the roaring noise, even though I knew it was coming from inside my head. Sold. Dad must have known it last night and been too much of a coward to tell me. Or too busy maybe, too distracted, off for dinner with his stupid, lying hypocrite of a girlfriend. Who was, presumably, lying in his bed right now.
My nails dug into my palms, and my stomach clenched as tight as my fists. I wished I could go down below into the cabin and curl up on my old berth. I looked at the companionway boards and the padlock that held them firmly in place. It seemed so wrong that I was locked out. I turned away, blinking back tears, and looked out at the water. I wished I could sail away. I imagined standing at the helm, feeling the power of the wind lifting the sails, listening to the sound of the hull moving through the water, seeing the sea stretching out before me forever.
Standing up, I slid the blue canvas tube off the tiller, wanting to feel the smooth wood under my hand one more time. The canvas cover slipped from my hand and dropped onto the locker lid, making an oddly heavy clunking sound. I picked it up and ran my fingers along the inch-wide seam at the bottom edge.
There it was: the spare key Mom had kept hidden inside the seam of the tiller cover ever since the time I accidentally locked us out of the boat. I had forgotten all about it. I picked at the stitches with my nails until the seam loosened and I could ease the key out.
I looked around, suddenly worried that someone might see me, but the marina was empty. Just me, the crying gulls and the restless wind. I pushed the key into the lock, tugged it open, slid out the companionway boards, and let myself in.
Someone had stuck a rose-scented air freshener on the bulkhead, but the air in Eliza J ’s cabin was heavy with the dank musty smell of mildew and neglect. I opened the portholes and lifted the V-berth hatch, letting the breeze blow through. I switched on the house battery and turned on the cabin lights, brightening the gloom. Through the open companionway, I could see the sky getting lighter.
If Mom was here, we’d be getting the sail covers off, opening the water intake, starting the engine, pulling out the chart book. Unless we were just sailing to Sidney Spit or something. Mom knew that route like the back of her hand. Even I could do that trip without charts.
My breath caught in my throat. I could do it. Right now. And if I was ever going to sail Eliza J again, this was my last chance. Quickly, before the marina office opened and people started arriving and the docks starting buzzing with the chatter and hum of a blue-sky spring Sunday.
My heart was racing. I hadn’t ever sailed alone. I knew how to start the engine and raise the sails and all that, but Mom was always in charge. This was a crazy idea. Plus, if the boat was already sold, I was technically stealing it.
On the other hand, if I didn’t do it, I’d never sail Eliza J again. I wiped my cold sweaty hands on my jeans. It was now or never.
I glanced at my watch: just past six. If I got back on my bike and went home now, Dad wouldn’t even know I’d been gone. Obviously, that was what I should do.
And I might have done it, if I hadn’t remembered Kathy’s car in the driveway.
I lifted the valve to let fresh water cool the engine, switched over the battery and scrambled back up the companionway steps. I pushed the throttle forward slightly and touched my finger to the stiff ridged rubber of the engine start button. I hesitated, holding my breath. Was I actually going to do this? Once I started the engine, I told myself, there was no turning back.
Sometimes starting the engine could be difficult, especially on cold mornings. It would strain and strain—chugga, chugga, chugga—but not turn over. I wasn’t sure whether I would be relieved or disappointed if that happened now. I closed my eyes and pushed the button; the engine started, smooth as a kitten’s purr.
I didn’t want to sit here, waiting for nosy neighbors to arrive, but I was nervous about getting off the dock safely. Usually it was a two-person job: I would leap off the boat, untie the dock lines, help guide the boat as Mom reversed, and jump back aboard at the last possible minute. I had only docked and undocked by myself a couple of times, for practice. Mom had said docking was an important skill that I should learn.
I hoped I could remember everything she’d told me.
The dock swayed slightly under my feet as I stepped off the boat. I quickly untied the mid-ship lines and coiled them neatly on the dock. Then I untied the bow line and stern line and held them in my hands, feeling the lines tighten instantly as the wind tried to push Eliza J away from the dock. The breeze was a bit stronger than I’d realized. I held on tightly to the ropes and tried to guide the boat backward, but she was drifting too fast, and I was scared that if the gap between the boat and the dock got any wider, I wouldn’t be able to jump it. I tried to pull tighter on the bow line and felt the rough rope tug against my palm…
Next time, let go of the rope.
I tossed the rope onto the deck and jumped aboard.
I put the engine in reverse, straightened the tiller and quickly ran to the bow. The wind was making Eliza J swing to starboard before she was clear of the dock, and her anchor, sticking out over the bow, was dangerously close to the boat in the next slip. I grabbed a boat hook from the deck, leaned over the railing and gave our neighbor’s boat a good hard shove.
And we were clear. I had done it.
I put the engine in forward and motored slowly away from the docks, out past the rocky gray breakwater and away from the marina. I took one last look back, half expecting to see someone standing at the end of the dock waving and yelling at me to come back. Dad, maybe. But there was no one there.
I slowed the engine and unzipped the sail covers from the main and jib, stowing the canvas in a cockpit locker. Then I shackled the halyards to the sails and raised first the main and then the jib. This was always my job, wrapping the halyard around the winch, heaving hand over hand as the white canvas fluttered its way upward noisily, while my mother watched from the helm, holding the boat into the wind until I gave her the thumbs-up.
I pushed the tiller gently to starboard, and Eliza J’s bow swung to port, away from the wind. The sails tightened as the wind filled them. Eliza J heeled over, leaning to one side as she headed away from shore.
Engine off. I caught my breath. This was our favorite moment, Mom’s and mine: that moment when the diesel hum of the engine suddenly stopped and all that was left was the song of the wind and the sound of the hull gliding through the water and the deep gray-green of the ocean stretching out before us as far as we could see. Ahhh…Mom would give this long contented sigh and we’d both just sit there. Neither of us needed to say anything because we both knew how it was and that there was nowhere else we’d rather be.
I put my hand to my cheek and found my face suddenly wet with tears. There was no one watching, so I didn’t bother wiping them away. I pictured Mom sitting across from me in the cockpit, and I let myself cry as Eliza J sailed on.
twenty
Eventually I ran out of tears, but not out of memories.
Out here, Mom seemed closer than she had since the day we’d heard the news about her disappearance. All those days we’d spent, the two of us, on Eliza J. I remembered playing Scrabble in the cockpit while we floated in a dead calm and waited for the wind to return. I remembered tinned pineapple and baked beans for dinner. I remembered seals and dolphins
and, a couple of times, whales. I remembered getting caught in a storm one time when I was about ten, the banging and crashing and incredible noise of the boat, the way Eliza J heeled over so far that her rail was buried in the water, and the way the waves crashed over the bow and spray flew over the dodger and drenched us. I’d cowered in a corner of the cockpit, terrified.
But Mom had loved it. She’d reefed the sails, moving around on the wet tilting deck as agile and sure-footed as a cat, her wet hair whipping straight back in the wind. Finally, with the boat more level and the noise reduced to a slightly less deafening roar, she’d sat down beside me. Fi, my darling, you have to learn to love the sea in all its moods.
She was the one who’d given me Tania Aebi’s book, Maiden Voyage. She’d believed I could do it. I looked out to the horizon and saw the dramatic snowy outline of Mount Baker, the sun slowly climbing higher in the blue sky, the waves of the ocean stretching out forever.
And for the first time in ages, I started to believe it again too.
The wind had started to pick up. I huddled in the cockpit, my hand practically frozen to the tiller and the canvas sail cover wrapped around me for extra warmth. Despite the sunshine, it was cold out here. The wind could suck every last bit of heat from your body. I glanced at my watch: ten thirty.
Dad must have been awake for a while—Kathy too, unless she got up early to sneak out. Dad might not know I was gone yet though. He’d probably think I was sleeping in. He often made waffles on the robin stevenson weekends, and any minute now he’d probably go up to my room to wake me up. I wondered what he would do when he discovered that I wasn’t there.
Maybe he’d just assume I’d gone for a bike ride. That was the best-case scenario. Otherwise, he’d be freaking out. I felt a pang of guilt and pushed it away.
Surely I should be able to see Sidney Spit by now? I hadn’t been plotting a course, just following the coastline, but now, with a clutch of fear in my chest, I realized that nothing looked familiar. Could I have missed it somehow? My teeth were starting to chatter from the cold, my nose was frozen, and my toes and fingers ached.
Liars and Fools Page 12
