The Boat

by Christine Dougherty

  “Do you want me to go?” Carl asked.

  Steve shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah, why not? Doesn’t matter who goes; they don’t care, right? Why should they? Right?” Steve’s voice had risen as he talked. His features twisted in anger. But Carl saw something else there, too. Bewilderment. Hurt.

  Now he had to decide whether to ask Steve about it or let it go for now. Was it something that mattered to the well-being of everyone or just to Steve? He could just be in a bad mood; it happened to all of them now. It was easy to get down if you stopped what you were doing long enough to think about everything that had been lost.

  Steve’s frustration seemed fresh, though, and at a guess, Carl would say that it must have something to do with Maggie. He’d felt the chemistry between the two of them…it was hard to miss. But in courtship, even in the best of circumstances, chemistry was hardly the be all and end all to a relationship. And these times were far from the best.

  Carl decided to skip over it and let Steve bring it up if he wanted to. There was something else he and Steve needed to discuss.

  “I didn’t get a chance to talk to John Smith.”

  Steve looked up, his features softening from angry to curious. “No? What happened? Adam?”

  Carl laughed and shook his head. “Not this time, no. He took me find John, but John wasn’t there each time. But it was weird, you know? Flyboy is big, but it isn’t that big…we should have been able to catch up with the guy.”

  “Maybe Adam was being disingenuous. Leading you astray.”

  Carl looked surprised at Steve’s choice of words. “I keep forgetting you were a professor. You must have been a good one.”

  “I was,” Steve said. “You, too, you know? I keep forgetting you aren’t a pirate by trade. Yo ho ho.”

  Carl laughed. “The funny part is this is how I looked before, too. It helped, usually, with the people I treated the most.”

  “Who did you treat?”

  “Bikers and vets,” Carl said, the laughter dying out of his eyes. “The two worst groups to try and help. They just don’t want it…it’s a pride thing. Like cops.”

  “I could see that,” Steve said and both men fell silent for a minute, contemplating the past.

  “Well, but anyway,” Carl said. “Do you want me to head over to ThreeBees? I really do think they could use the help…I don’t think Brian is holding onto himself very well. Maybe I could do a little double duty–help watch Jade and talk to Brian, too.”

  Steve nodded, looking down. “Yeah, go,” he said, then looked up. “I appreciate it. Tell Maggie…tell her I’ll be over later. Okay?”

  “Sure, I’ll tell her.”

  The walkie-talkie next to Steve crackled to life.

  “Steve, you there? It’s Maggie. Over.”

  Steve’s face was a study in mixed emotions and Carl felt an answering empathy in himself. Steve looked angry, resentful, hurt…but underneath all the other emotions rode a dawning hope. He grabbed the walkie.

  “Yeah, Maggie, I’m here. Everything okay? Over.” His tone was neutral, but Carl heard it as a very on-the-fence neutrality.

  “Steve, if Carl is back from Flyboy…” the line went silent, but didn’t click off. Carl and Steve looked at each other, bewildered. “…we could use his help over here. It’s Babygirl…I mean, Samantha, her name is Samantha, and–” The line clicked to silence but not before both men heard Maggie’s voice break.

  “Maggie? Are you still there? Over.”

  There was a long space of nothing and Steve turned, alarmed, and headed for the jet skis. Carl was a step behind him. The walkie crackled again.

  “Could you come, too, Steve? I…I wish you would…”

  Steve turned back, bumping into Carl, grabbing the walkie-talkie.

  “We’re on our way, Maggie. Over and out.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Maggie came out on the deck with a plate and two bottles of water and sat down next to Steve. She put the food on the deck between them and handed him the water. Then she turned to face the shoreline. It was just getting dark and the sunset filled the sky over the pines. Sunrises here were gorgeous–fresh with hope and promise–because they came over the ocean. But there was something almost sad about the sunsets. It seemed the sun had gone farther away, leaving them behind.

  Maggie shivered.

  “Do you want a jacket?” Steve asked, even though it was at least eighty degrees out here, the breeze light.

  “I’m sorry about earlier,” Maggie said, without looking at him. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t have any responsibilities. No one needs me, here.”

  Steve knew that Dr. Rafiq had suggested Jade live on Flyboy when they were able to bring her back on board and Babygirl…Samantha…had not left Candy’s side.

  He imagined that Maggie must feel very set adrift. But he didn’t think she was doing herself any favors by sinking into self pity. And he didn’t want their relationship to be based on them clinging to each other only because they’d lost everybody else.

  It was unfair to both of them.

  “Who needed you before?” His tone was light but direct. This could go either way.

  A small smile crossed her lips. “My husband did, I guess. From time to time, anyway. We needed each other. He was my responsibility.”

  “But not like this.”

  “Not like this, no.” She lowered her head. “When we all started to get here…to the shore, the boat, everyone was telling their story, you know? Their survival story.” Steve nodded. It was a compulsion, almost, for people to tell each other what had happened to them. It had become the new way of introducing yourself–instead of asking what you did for a living, it was ‘how did you survive it?’

  “Everyone, almost everyone, had a story that involved a loved one, a friend, someone they knew at least. But not mine. I got here on my own. All on my own. I didn’t even find Babygirl…Samantha…until I was almost here. I was starting to feel…jealous, in a way, of everyone else. As though fighting to get through as some kind of team, especially if it was a spouse or sibling, that was somehow better. It made me wish I’d been able to do that last part, that last battle, with my husband, with Joe. Even if he didn’t make it, as he didn’t, we would have at least had that one last thing together.” Maggie shook her head lightly, seeming unaware of the tears on her cheeks. “I just felt…gypped, you know? Like I’d been denied something…something really great. Even if it was just closure. Knowing. Knowing exactly what had happened.” She sighed and took Steve’s hand. She still didn’t look at him. “But then Samantha was telling us what she remembered…about her last two days. The things she had to…to see…to go through–” Maggie stopped a sob with the back of her hand and sat that way, her chest hitching, until she could get a hold of herself. “And your story. Amelia and the things you have to remember; to carry with you.” She shook her head. “I’m lucky. I’m the lucky one. I just didn’t realize it. And I felt so bad, especially for pushing you away…”

  Steve squeezed her hand. “It’s okay.”

  Maggie shook her head. “I realized that I’d been too selfish, ever since the sickness. Not selfish, that’s the wrong word. Too insulated, maybe. Too stingy with myself. I was just so jealous. So angry all the time.” She looked at him. “When Dr. Rafiq suggested that Jade might not want to live on this boat after everything we’ve had to do, I was shaken up. I felt like I’d only been considering my own feelings, my own viewpoint. And then, when Samantha took to Candy so quickly…I was devastated. Even though I’ve been holding her at arm’s length this whole time. What did I expect?” She gave him a brief, unhappy smile. “And then with you, this morning…you were right, they were excuses. And it made me mad that you saw it so quickly. I felt so…like everything I had done, keeping myself safe, was ridiculous. And worthless. And such a waste of time.” Tears overran her lower lids. It was nighttime, now, and the ThreeBees rocked gently in the dark. “That’s the worst part. The wasted time.”


  Steve wanted to take Maggie into his arms, to comfort her fully, but he sensed that he should let her decide…let her come to him when she was ready. To try and force her hand now might plunge her further into the emotional abyss she seemed to be trying to climb out of.

  He squeezed her hand and said nothing; the silence drew out, becoming companionable rather than awkward. He could see the tension leaving Maggie’s body as her posture softened, the careworn lines in her face smoothing out.

  After a while they began to talk again, but of inconsequential things: weather, fishing, grocery shopping, clean laundry…anything that had nothing to do with past or present horrors.

  The night was full dark, pitch black. Clouds had moved in, covering even the cold light of the stars. All sounds in the ThreeBees had ceased as people went to bed. Candy and Samantha bunked down in what used to be Mrs. Allen’s bed while Sami spread blankets on the small bit of floorspace left over.

  Carl slept on Denny’s former bed in the salon across from Brian. They’d had a long talk, a good one, mostly about Brian’s family who lived in the Carolinas. He thought they might still be okay–they lived near the water. Carl neither encouraged nor dissuaded that train of thought. Because no one really knew, did they? Eventually they would go south themselves, when the weather began to change. Who knew? Someone from his family might be doing this very thing, at this very moment.

  Bonnie and Randy slept in the same bed they’d shared since coming aboard. They talked briefly about their children, as they did every night. For their first few weeks on ThreeBees, they’d watched and waited, hoping against hope that their children and grandchildren would show up on shore. They’d discussed it obsessively at night, in bed, exhausting themselves with the various scenarios and what if this or that situations they could conjure. After a time, they’d switched–as if by tacit consent–to talking about all they could remember about the kids from the time they were born. The funny things, the sad and scary things, even the boring things. Sometimes Bonnie enjoyed that the most–remembering what each child liked for breakfast or whether Randy Jr. had actually tried to steal that Matchbox car or not.

  They both slept better, now. The dreams were just that: dreams. Instead of nightmares.

  Maggie drew her chair closer to Steve’s and rested her head on his shoulder. They hadn’t said much of anything in the last hour. It was too dark to see Jade; they couldn’t even see the rowboat.

  All light on board the ThreeBees had been extinguished but on Flyboy, a few rooms were lit with weak lamplight and occasionally they could see someone crossing the deck with a lantern or sometimes a flashlight. If there was noise on Flyboy, Steve and Maggie couldn’t hear it from where they sat.

  The only sound was the water lapping against the sides of ThreeBees and the occasional splash as fish jumped, either in search of prey or avoiding being prey themselves.

  Maggie turned her head enough to kiss Steve lightly on his jaw, right at the curve under his ear. She felt him shiver. He turned to her and she caught a quick glimpse of his dark, dark eyes, searching hers, questioning. She leaned further forward, found his lips, and they kissed.

  At the rowboat, where Jade lay in the throes of the last fever she’d ever have, a hand came out of the black water and cut the rope tethering her to ThreeBees.

  For a brief moment, Jade floated free, then the hand emerged again and grabbed the trailing line. The line pulled taut again, small beads of water springing away from it as the rowboat turned, creaking gently.

  John Smith transferred the rope to his teeth and began to swim for Flyboy.

  Towing Jade behind.

  Chapter Twelve

  In his bed, Adam flopped angrily from his back to his side. He leaned up and punched his pillow into shape and slammed himself back down. Then he turned again, sighing harshly.

  He was too aggravated to get comfortable.

  Too pissed at Sami.

  That fucking ingrate.

  It was a douche move, him going to ThreeBees, but Adam was pretty sure that cunt Candy had put him up to it. If those two thought that Adam didn’t know they’d been fucking this whole time then they were dumb as fucking dirt. And they deserved each other.

  He sat abruptly, the idea of going down the narrow hall to John’s room crossing his mind. John would commiserate. He’d have to; he was in a nice room at Adam’s good graces, after all. Adam was the one who put him there.

  He lay back down, instead. He liked John, but he didn’t know him that well. Guy might think Adam was queer for him if he showed up in his room in the middle of the night. Adam laughed in the dark. Then he remembered Sami and the laugh died an abrupt death.

  He sat up and lit the gas lantern by his bed. Sami was lucky that Adam had kept his secret for this long. Maybe he wouldn’t keep it any longer. But even as the thought occurred to him, he dismissed it. Sami thought he’d let the world down, but Adam was reasonably sure that no one else would think so. They might even be interested to learn what Sami–Dr. Rafiq–thought had happened–that the much-celebrated AIDS drug Lazarus had most likely caused the mass sickness and then the mass resurrections…but certainly by now it was a moot point.

  No, he wasn’t going to reveal Sami’s secret. Let Sami do it. Guy was too dumb to realize that people might actually be interested to know his theory. Let that dumb trailer trash he was banging find out…she was probably dumb enough to think knowledge meant culpability. Not that she’d think of it in those terms; trailer trash didn’t think that way.

  He doused the lantern and turned onto his side.

  Easier in his mind, he slept.

  ~ ~ ~

  John Smith gripped the rope in his teeth and swam toward the random bits of light on Flyboy. He was a strong swimmer; he’d been around water his whole life. He knew how to keep his breathing even, his muscles calm and tendons relaxed.

  The water was cool but the air was warm. Fine for swimming. The rowboat seemed to have no weight at all. His forehead stung where the salt water soaked into the stitched line across his forehead. But even that felt good, in its own way. It was cleaning the cut. Keeping it free from infection. That’s what his old man had always said, anyway.

  Swimming like this reminded him of his dad. They’d fished and swum and sunned themselves on the flat rocks of the jetty, just like seals. That’s what Dad always said to him. “We’re just like seals, Mikey, you know that? Just look at us!” He’d turn and dive, his feet breaking the water and splashing Mikey in the face then he’d come back up, throwing his head back to clear the shiny black hair from his eyes. He’d grin, his white teeth shining and Mikey would stare, blank faced, water running into his eyes. He’d paddle and paddle to stay in place, trying to understand the flash of white teeth. Sometimes he would bare his own teeth in imitation. Sometimes Dad laughed when Mikey did this; sometimes he did not.

  ~ ~ ~

  He had to go past ThreeBees to reach Flyboy. He changed to an even breaststroke so that no part of him breaks the waterline except his head. The breaststroke is the quietest stroke he knows. It is also the slowest. As he swims, his mind drifts again to a time he had been little and his name had been Mikey and they lived on (almost literally) the ocean. Back to when it was always hot and the bad times hadn’t started.

  ~ ~ ~

  Fishing. Mikey had felt good when he and Dad fished. Dad praised him because Mikey didn’t mind putting the small fish, the bait fish, onto the hook. Mikey had been little little–two? or maybe three, but he could recall the memories with perfect clarity, any time he wanted to. He looked down, and there was a long, shiny minnow struggling in his little hand. The fish was both cold and deceptively muscular, and Mikey could feel the minute ripples of its scales as they come apart and come together as the fish bends and twists.

  He put the hook through the minnow’s mouth, right where Dad had showed him. He liked the hook going in, the breaking of the tough skin, the extra contractions of the little fish. It shined and glittered in the sun. Some of
the scales came off in his hand. Mikey bared his teeth at the minnow.

  Dad told him the way to catch the bigger fish was with the little fish. That was bait. Three year old Mikey had understood the concept with a clarity that his dad would have found astonishing. But Mikey hadn’t started talking yet. So his dad didn’t know anything he was thinking.

  When they caught the bigger fish, Mikey would feel a pleasant sizzle of anticipation in his stomach. The knife would come out and Dad would put the knife right under the bigger fish’s head and slice straight down. Mikey could simultaneously feel the knife in his own hand, the resistance and then lack of resistance as it broke into the cold skin, and a tingling feeling in his chest and stomach of the knife going in.

  Is that what a knife going in felt like? First a tingle and then a hot tickle lower down, right above his pee-pee. He’d squirm a little, especially if was a really big fish, especially if it curled tightly under the knife.

  “It’s okay, Mikey, they don’t feel it. Fish don’t work like that.”

  It had been disappointing to hear but ultimately he decided that Dad was wrong. Such muscular contractions meant one thing: pain. Good pain. Tingling and exciting.

  They would take the fish back to their little house on the beach and Dad would say, “Mom is gonna be happy with this lot!” and sometimes she was but sometimes she wasn’t. Sometimes his mom stared at him and she didn’t bare her teeth and she didn’t blink, she just stared. At those times, Mikey would stare back until it seemed his mom’s eyes had become like the fish’s eyes…blind and flat. Dead. Bait mom, he’d say to himself, in the secret confines of his mind. Then he would bare his teeth at her.