The Boat

by Christine Dougherty

  “Were you looking at Jade?”

  Maggie’s voice was edged with strain. Steve turned in the chair and was troubled by her pallor and thinness; she glowed like a ghost on the dark deck. She wasn’t doing enough to take care of herself. As much as she tried to act as though she could take or leave the people on ThreeBees, he knew that Maggie was damn close to saintly in how well she took care of them. She never put herself first. But you’d never get her to admit it.

  “No,” he said. “There was another dog.”

  Maggie’s eyes searched the shoreline as if she’d be able to see the dog from here. Her hands twisted together. “Did it get away?”

  “As far as I could tell,” he said, erring on the side of kindness. “I didn’t see any of those…those things get him, anyway.”

  She continued to stare into the dark distance, but her eyes had become unfocused. “I wish we had a dog,” she said and her voice was so wistfully sad, her wish so childlike, that Steve’s throat tightened.

  He stood and drew her to him.

  She remained rigid, her arms across her body between them. But Steve didn’t pull back and eventually she unclenched her hands and her arms dropped to her sides. Her body gave a violent shudder, then another…and she burst into tears.

  He held her as she sobbed and her arms came up to his waist and she clung to him and turned her face into his chest. She shook against him, her grief almost violent.

  He thought about Amelia as he stared at the dark shore. The woods beyond where he’d left her to rot. He felt his own tears, first hot and then cold, slide down his face. Guilt and shame ran through him like lava, heating him up and tearing down his defenses. His arms tightened on Maggie, startling her.

  His tears stopped her own and she led him to the deck bench, clumsily stumbling in their embrace. His arms never left her as they sat, but now his head went to her shoulder. A hard twist of grief and guilt seemed to pull his stomach up to the base of his throat and he choked on his words. “I…I left her…I left her to…in the woods, and…she was so, she just…didn’t deserve it, and…”

  “None of us deserved any of this…it’s okay, it’s going to be all right…”

  “It’s not…not all right…I left her and she was still…she was moving and…oh god, Maggie, oh god help me, I left her there…and her head was…it was turned…around and…”

  His words dissolved into shuddering tears.

  She lifted his face to hers, his tears running hotly over her thumbs.

  “You’re right, it’s not okay…none of this is okay. Amelia didn’t deserve what happened to her, you’re right. My husband, Joe…I don’t even know what happened to him. I think I know, but…” She shook her head. “But I do know. If he was on the train, then, I do know. He’s probably still on that train.” She sighed and dropped her hands into her lap. She looked past Steve, out over the water. It was moonlit and peaceful. She sighed again. “We don’t deserve this, but this is what we have. It’s better than the alternative…did you ever hear anyone say that? When they were talking about being in a bad situation? I think it’s truer now than ever before. Because the alternative is…” She trailed off.

  Steve wiped his face on his sleeve and watched her, the way the light lined the bridge of her nose, and dropped a kiss onto her forehead. Her eyes were dark and inner-directed.

  “Maggie,” he said and she looked up. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what you went through.”

  She shook her head, confused. “You don’t have to say that, we all–”

  He leaned over and kissed the words away. Her mouth under his was at first startled and unresponsive. He persisted, drawing his hand up her arm and cupping her head gently at the base of her skull. He pressed his mouth to hers, parting her lips with his. The inside of her mouth was hot and then her lips softened, returned the kiss.

  “Here?” he said and ran his hands through her hair, drawing her head back to kiss her throat. “Okay? Are you okay? Is this good?” He murmured and whispered his way down her throat, his hands undoing the buttons of her blouse as she drew his shirt up and over his head.

  “Yes,” she said, her breath a drawn-out sigh. “Please…please. I want…”

  They made love under the moon and the stars, the boat rocking gently. The sex was quiet, but desperately intense, and for a brief moment they forgot the circumstances that had brought them here.

  Neither of them saw when Jade sat up in the rowboat.

  ~ ~ ~

  “Maggie, this is Candy on Flyboy. You there? Over.”

  Maggie looked at the walkie-talkie on the table in front of her. She had told Steve she was going in to get water, but then she’d lit a lantern and sat down in the galley to think. She was already feeling guilty over what she and Steve had done together.

  A large part of the guilt came from the fact that she didn’t feel bad; she didn’t regret it. She should…but she just didn’t.

  She reached for the walkie.

  “Hi, Candy, this is Maggie. Over.” She remembered Candy…blonde, bimbette-type, but there had been something to her, Maggie had surmised. Something that most people would miss.

  “I’m sorry it’s so late. I wanted to see if you had an extra bed over there on ThreeBees. An extra room, actually. Over.”

  Maggie looked at the walkie in her hand, her face a study in confusion. No one had ever requested to change from the huge, gorgeous Flyboy to the dumpy by comparison Barbra’s Bay Breeze.

  “Did I lose you, Maggie? Over.”

  “No, sorry, I’m right here. Listen, Candy, I’m not sure if…if we have a room or not. It’s hard to explain. Over.” What she meant was that she didn’t want to explain, not on an open line. She hoped Candy understood the subtext. Then Candy confirmed Maggie’s suspicion of a brain hiding under that cotton candy exterior.

  “Loud and clear. Can we drop by tomorrow? After it’s light out? We could talk. Over.”

  “Yes, of course. We’ll see you tomorrow. Over and out.” Maggie set down the walkie-talkie wondering who Candy meant by ‘we’ and also why she wanted a whole room. I guess she hooked up with someone, Maggie thought. Good for her.

  “Seems so late for a call. I guess you could call it a call, right?” Bonnie crossed to the small pantry and took out a bottle of water with her initials on it. Everything was divvied, although they hadn’t paid too much attention to the rationing. Not yet, anyway…not as much as they were going to have to.

  “I guess you could,” Maggie said. “But it’s hardly late. What is it? Nine? Nine-thirty?”

  “That feels about right,” Bonnie said and sat across from Maggie in the banquette. “Nine used to be my bedtime, so it does still seem late to me.” She smiled. “What time did you used to go to bed? Before?”

  “All different times. It depended on the shifts I was working at the hospital.” Maggie smiled at her hands. “My husband always went to bed at ten o’clock on the nose. He said he wanted to make sure he missed the news.”

  Bonnie smiled and then laughed. “‘Miss the news’. That’s a good one. He was funny, your husband?”

  “Yeah, he was always joking. Everyone loved him for it.”

  “Especially you.”

  “Especially me, yes.”

  Bonnie patted Maggie’s hand. “I lucked out. Got to keep my Randy. If I hadn’t, well…I don’t know what I’d have done. None of the kids showed up, you see, and…” Bonnie smiled, but her eyes shone with unshed tears. “I think I may have lost them all. I told you that already, didn’t I?”

  Maggie nodded but then reached for Bonnie’s hand. “You can tell me again, I don’t mind.”

  “No. It only does me so much good to cry…then it just gives me a headache.” She sipped from her water. “Who was it on the walkie-talkie? No trouble at Flyboy or Big Daddy, I hope.”

  “No, nothing like that. Not as far as I could tell, anyway. Seems someone from Flyboy wants to come bunk with us on ThreeBees.”

  “You’re kidding me.
Why would someone want that?”

  Maggie laughed. “Gosh, Bonnie…you got something against us?”

  “No, honey, you know what I mean.” Bonnie smiled warmly. “I wouldn’t trade it for any of the others, you know that!”

  “I feel the same,” Maggie said. “I think someone from Flyboy has…uh…hooked up and needs a little private space and we have that spare room, now, especially if Brian stays where he is.”

  Maggie and Bonnie both glanced at Brian asleep on the far side of the salon.

  “Word traveled kind of fast about the room, didn’t it? And what if Jade is okay? Where are we going to put her?”

  Maggie nodded. “Yes, I know…I told them it was complicated. I didn’t want to say too much over the walkie-talkie, though. We still haven’t told Adam about Singer and Jade.”

  “Oh, he’s not the boss of us, anyway. That prick.” Bonnie clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes round with shocked surprise at her own words. “Goodness!” she said through her fingers.

  Maggie laughed. “You’re right, though! He is a–”

  “Maggie!” Steve’s voice filtered in through the salon, past the still sleeping Brian and into the galley. “Come quick!”

  Maggie scooted past Bonnie and ran out the glass doors.

  Steve was standing at the very back, the shotgun raised to his shoulder.

  “Steve?” Maggie said.

  He glanced back at her.

  “It’s Jade. She’s up. I’m not sure if…”

  Maggie looked out across the water and Jade was standing in the small rowboat, her hands on her hips. She was just a dark silhouette.

  “I saw what you were doing!” Her voice rang across the water, thin but accusatory, verging on hysteria. “You’re disgusting!”

  Steve lowered the shotgun and Maggie’s face suffused with blood. She stepped away from Steve.

  “You can’t leave me out here!” Jade’s voice was growing thinner, weaker.

  “Jade, eat something!” Maggie’s voice was a harsh and carrying whisper. “We put food out there with you! You have to eat or–”

  “Fuck your food! Fuck you for putting me out here while you–” Jade had raised her arm, no doubt giving them the finger, and the boat wobbled alarmingly. She dropped quickly to her knees, hissing out a breathy scream.

  When they heard her again, her voice was choked with tears. It was too dark to see her face. “I’m going to jump in and swim over there. I’m going to…you can’t…can’t make me…stay out here by myself…I’m scared…please…” Her voice trailed away and they could hear her faint sobs. Then she disappeared entirely. She must have curled back up in the bottom of the rowboat. “Please…please…I want…” Her voice carried weakly over the water, barely audible.

  Maggie’s face fell. Those were the very words she’d used with Steve when they’d made love. To hear them again, filled with so much pain…she was suddenly furious with herself. For not being careful, for not caring who…Christ, what if Babygirl had come out, and…she was an idiot! So thoughtless! She’d never forgive herself for what she had done.

  “Jade?” Maggie called across the water. “Please eat. And drink your water, all right? We’re right here. We’re not going anywhere and nothing has changed.” In her peripheral vision, Steve’s face turned to hers, but she didn’t look at him. Didn’t acknowledge him. “As soon as we’re sure, we’ll bring you back. Jade? Do you hear me?”

  Jade’s thin arm, almost invisible, ascended from the rowboat and waved tiredly. “Okay,” she said, and the two syllables rode plaintively across the waves.

  Maggie dropped her head into her hands and stood motionless. Steve reached to put an arm around her and she stepped away. “No,” she said and seeing the startled vulnerability in his face, she said, “I’m sorry. But it’s not…it isn’t right. There’s too much at stake.”

  “Maggie, there’s nothing at stake. You’re just using this as an excuse! We don’t have anything to lose by–”

  She held up her hand, palm out. “No…I can’t. I can’t do this. I have to…”

  “You have to what? What? You don’t have to do anything! You don’t–”

  “I have responsibilities! I can’t just take up with you!”

  “Nothing you need to be responsible for means that we can’t be together, too.” He grabbed her arms. “We’ll be responsible together. We’ll work together. Me and you.”

  Maggie shook her head, eyes closed. She wouldn’t say anything more.

  Eventually, Steve dropped his hands from her arms, turning her loose.

  ~ ~ ~

  Early on the morning of August 10, Sami stood on the back deck of ThreeBees, looking out to the rowboat.

  “How long?”

  “We put here out there yesterday morning. We didn’t know what else to do.” Maggie’s voice was flat and worn.

  Sami turned to glance at her. “It is difficult, but I am thinking you did the right thing. Did she have any symptoms?”

  “No, Doctor, but Singer, her brother…he was symptomatic. He’d been bitten on the leg…a five-inch laceration, at least. Teeth marks, signs of bruising trauma.” It was easy for Maggie to fall back into a doctor/nurse relationship. It helped straighten out her disjointed feelings.

  “And they were on the rowboat together?”

  “Not at first. She swam out to him later that day.”

  Sami shrugged. “We can’t judge it, can we?” His voice was sad but resigned.

  “No, we can’t,” she said. She liked Dr. Rafiq. He was calm and courteous, if slightly too mild-mannered, too meek in his demeanor. The other doctors must have ridden all over him.

  “I wanted to ask Steve something…is he here?”

  Maggie dropped her eyes. “No. He left early this morning, before dawn. He needed to get back to Big Daddy.”

  “You don’t have enough people here to stand watch?” It was both a question and a statement and Maggie didn’t know how to respond, so she shrugged. “Would it help if Candy and I came to ThreeBees?” Dr. Rafiq said. “We need a place where we can…be together. We’d like very much to join you here.”

  “I’m not sure what to do with Jade if she is okay; if she doesn’t have the sickness. There’s a good chance that she doesn’t. This is really only a precaution.”

  “Might it not be better for her, and for you, if she moved to Flyboy after all this is over?”

  “No! That wouldn’t be for the better!” She tried to swallow the defensiveness she felt, but it came out in her tone, anyway.

  Sami looked at her. “There might be some…resentment? When you bring her back in?” he suggested delicately. He could see that Maggie took it personally; most likely she had put this girl’s welfare on herself; good nurses did that. “And she might want a change of scenery. A wider selection of people might be a good thing for a young woman.”

  Maggie had opened her mouth to protest but she closed it with a snap. There was more to Dr. Rafiq than met the eye, it seemed.

  “Maggie!” Babygirl’s voice peeped from behind them and Maggie turned, expecting to see Babygirl running to her, arms wide to be swung into the air. But she rode astride Candy’s hip and seeing them together, Maggie’s heart stuttered in her chest. They could be mother and daughter. “Maggie, I love Candy!” Babygirl said and laughed delightedly at her own joke, hugging Candy around the neck. Their blonde heads looked like a matched set.

  “Well, I love you, too, Babygirl,” Candy said and hugged her tighter.

  Babygirl leaned back and ran her hand over Candy’s hair. “Like mommy…just like mommy,” she said, her voice tiny but filled nevertheless with awe. Her hand shook.

  “Your mommy had blonde hair, sweetheart?” Candy asked, her voice gentle.

  “Before she did. But then it wasn’t anymore.” Babygirl’s eyes had gone round, almost dazed. She started to slide from Candy’s arms, but Candy held her tighter.

  “Sami! Help me!” Candy called, alarmed by the girl’s relaxing weig
ht.

  “I can’t help you, mommy,” Babygirl said, her eyelids fluttering alarmingly.

  “Babygirl! Sweetheart, what is it?” Candy shook her gently, but Babygirl’s eyes began to roll back into her head. Candy lowered her to the deck. “Babygirl? Babygirl?”

  “That’s not…not my name…” Babygirl said, her eyes closing.

  “What is your name? Stay awake, honey, and tell me your name!” All three adults huddled over the little girl. Sami lifted her eyelid to check her pupils and Maggie felt for her pulse.

  Babygirl felt them and didn’t feel them, both at the same time. It seemed as though she’d floated up and away from her own body. On the deck, the lying down Babygirl’s lips pursed and she sighed. “Samantha…”

  Standing to the side, Samantha looked at herself under the grownups and then she leaned in, looking at Sami but whispering in Candy’s ear…my mommy calls me Sammy…

  ~ ~ ~

  “Sammy! It’s time to go, sweetheart!”

  Samantha appeared at her bedroom doorway and jittered in an excited circle, her party dress ruffling out. “Time to go! Time to go!” she said, singing the words, peeping like a little sparrow.

  Her mom laughed. “Come on, Sammy, you don’t want to be late, do you?”

  “No! No! No!” Samantha sang and hopped foot to foot down the hall.

  Her last hop brought her to her mother and she stopped and looked up, grinning.

  “What day is today, Sammy?” her mommy asked, smiling.

  “June SEVEN! June SEVEN!” Samantha hopped up each time, raising her arms excitedly.

  “Aaaaaand…what happens on June seven, Sammygirl?”

  “BIRTHday! BIRTHday! TODAY is my BIRTHday! Yay! Yay! Yay!” Samantha collapsed in a fit of giggles as Mommy reached down to tickle her.

  “That’s right my ladybug, my ladyfair…and we are going to party like it’s–”

  All at once, her mom wasn’t tickling her anymore. She looked up. Mommy was leaning against the hallway wall, her hand to her head.

  “Mommy!” Sammy cried with alarm, scrambling to her feet. “Are you okay?”