“Where are you?” I said, turning away from Cindy Ann.
“Nantucket,” he said, then laughed.
“What?”
“Okay, a Beneteau fifty-seven called Nantucket. Hey, listen, you want the good news or the bad news?”
My heart seized. “Bad news.”
“Of course you do.” He laughed again. “Chelone needs a new compressor for the refrigerator.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Now for the good news. Nantucket has a used one we think is going to work. I’m talking on her world phone—it’s this cell phone you can use almost anywhere. Isn’t it amazing? We need to look into getting one of these!”
The door to Toby’s apartment opened. Mallory stepped out.
“Are the girls still up?” Cindy Ann called. She climbed the last few steps alone; Mallory embraced her.
“Toby’s parents took them out to see A Christmas Carol. They had these tickets—”
I’d forgotten about the tickets. Rex was still talking. “Just a minute,” I said, because now Toby was on the landing, too.
“I’ll be right in,” I said, raising my voice to be heard above the wind, and then I turned, walked back down the stairs into the cold. A little alcove stood just beneath the stairs; I ducked into it, pressed against the cinder-block walls.
“What’s going on?” Rex said. “Who’s there?”
“My family.”
“What are they doing up so late? Waiting for the animals to speak?”
“Something like that,” I said. For years, Evan had believed—as I had, as my parents had, as my German grandparents had, long ago—that on Christmas Eve, at midnight, all animals everywhere could speak with human tongues. It seemed wrong of Rex to joke about it now. Quickly, to change the subject, I said, “So how’s Chelone? Aside from the compressor, I mean.”
As Rex told me about the test sail he’d taken, the stress fractures he’d discovered in the whisker poles—whisker poles?—I could hear music, voices, laughter. I could also hear, in Rex’s watery tones, the faintest lisp, which meant he’d been drinking.
“You’ve really been working on the boat?” I said, interrupting him, and he said, “Of course I’ve been working on the boat, haven’t you been listening?”
But my chilblained ear was absorbing the lyrics to “No Woman No Cry,” courtesy of the world phone’s excellent reception.
“Sounds like quite a party.”
“For Pete’s sake, Meg. It’s Christmas Eve. I came aboard to look at the compressor, and Jack invited me to stay.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just—everything will be ready to make passage, won’t it? As soon as I get there?”
“As soon as we get the new whisker poles installed. I just ordered a set through a rigger in Miami. You’ll have to pick them up, okay?”
“A real blue water passage,” I said. “Away from everything.”
“Nantucket spent some time in Tobago a few years back—”
“Tobago,” I said. “That’s perfect.”
“—Jack and Nancy. I think you’d really like them. And they’re giving us a great deal on this compressor, if I can figure out how to get the damn thing through the forward hatch. Solves a problem for them as well.”
Wind beat around the corner of the mill, roared into the alcove, doubled back. The gust tore Rex’s words from my ear, scattering them like grain.
“What?”
“I said, Have you talked to Arnie yet?”
“No,” I said. “But I saw the photographs.”
“And?”
“They’re very upsetting,” I said. “In every possible way.”
For a minute, neither of us said anything.
“Hello?” Rex said.
“Do you love me?” I said.
His laugh was abrupt, broken by static. Even the world phone’s connection, it seemed, was doomed to the uncertainties of distance. “Meg.”
“I need to be certain. I need to know what I’m coming back to.”
“You’re coming back to me,” Rex said, and now the sounds of the party seemed to fade. “To us.”
I waited, not breathing, willing the connection between us to hold.
“I love you. More than ever.” There was no pause, no slur. “I don’t know how I’d live with myself if I thought you didn’t believe that.”
“So if I don’t sign the paperwork—” I began.
“—how brave you are, going to the wedding, looking Cindy Ann and her sisters in the face. I’ve been wanting to—”
He hadn’t heard. Now there was a humming, like the drone of a distant plane.
“Rex, I have to tell you this. I’ve made up my mind not to sign.”
“—things haven’t been right between us. I know I haven’t…all that I should—”
“I missed that, honey,” I said.
“What?”
“This is so very difficult,” I said.
I would wait to tell him, I decided, until I’d returned to Chelone. Perhaps until we were back on blue water, en route to a place like Tobago, the chart kits unfurled in our laps. Slow waves rising and falling all around us. Nothing but time to work things through. Again, I lost the sound of his voice, and it was as if he’d been swept away from me by an unforeseen gust of wind. I remembered that first squall, when he’d been knocked from the cabin top. I remembered the lightning strike, the smell of ozone like an ache behind my eyes. Now, clinging to the phone, I repeated, “Are you there? Are you there?” An incantation. A prayer. And then, suddenly, I could hear him again.
“—Rubicon,” he was saying. “At least, that’s what she told Audrey…could…back to North Carolina after all, but—”
He was talking about Bernadette. “Did you say they made Miami?”
“—haven’t heard, so I guess—”
Static like the sound of rising water.
“I’m losing you,” I said. “Can you try calling back?”
“—home?”
I took a guess. “After New Year’s. After I pick up the whisker poles. Do you have a street address?”
The phone chirped sweetly. The call had ended. I waited for another minute or two, in case it might ring again. Then another blast of wind sent me scurrying up the stairs and into the relative warmth of Toby’s apartment.
Mallory had made a late supper for us all—lentils and rice, homemade naan, a creamy yogurt sauce to go with it—and we crowded around the small kitchen table, breathing in the smell of jasmine, curry, the pungent sandalwood incense Mallory set to burn on the counter. “Purifying,” she explained. And, indeed, as we ate, it seemed as if something unpleasant were being siphoned from the air, making it easier to breathe, to speak.
Pass the bread, please.
Pass the salt.
The girls, it turned out, would be spending the night at the Pfister; my mother had already tucked them into my canopied bed, wrinkled and red from sitting too long in the deep Jacuzzi bath. I could sleep on the couch, Toby assured me, or in one of the girls’ twin beds. Or—if I preferred—I could have Mal’s place, where they now lived, across the hall.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. I was utterly exhausted. Numb. Grateful to know I wouldn’t have to drive all the way back to Milwaukee.
This is delicious.
Thanks. Want more?
I can’t believe how great this place looks.
One by one, the cats appeared, butting their heads against our ankles, blinking their strange, gold eyes. Abruptly, Mallory said to me, “Thanks for your help today,” and Cindy Ann said—I could see how hard she was trying—“I’d still be sitting in the lobby. Me, Nurse Ratched, and her little dog, Toto.”
“What was it like there?” Toby said.
We looked at each other, Cindy Ann and I.
“It was nuts,” I said. “It was like The Twilight Zone.”
Mallory flushed, started to object, but Cindy Ann stopped her.
“It’s true,” she said. “But ther
e were good parts, too. Being with the other people, women just like me. Who have experienced things—” Her face colored as she spoke, but then she continued. “I mean, like what Dan did to me.”
I glanced at Mal’s face; of course, she knew. Perhaps Toby had told her. Perhaps she’d always known.
Cindy Ann pushed a limp strand of hair from her face. “Most were alcoholics. Or drug addicts. Some were cutting themselves, starving themselves. It’s the first time I haven’t felt like a freak.”
“Nobody thinks you’re a freak,” Mallory said.
“My girls do,” Cindy Ann said. She was directing her words to the arrangement of dried milkweed pods at the center of the table. “They knew I was coming home tonight, right?”
“Of course,” Mallory said.
“That’s why they stayed at the hotel.”
“You shouldn’t take it that way,” Mallory said, and Toby said, “It’s just that they were exhausted. And we thought it would give you a chance to get settled in, you know, get some rest.”
Cindy Ann pushed the lentils around on her plate. “I want to see them,” she said. “I want a chance to explain. Things are going to be different now. I want everyone to know that.”
“You can tell them tomorrow,” Mallory said.
“Is Amy coming, too?”
“For Christmas dinner.”
“And Mum?”
“Actually,” Mallory said, getting up, “Mum’s not doing so great.”
She excused herself, then disappeared into the kitchen, averting her shining eyes. Toby pressed his thumb to a stray grain of rice. I felt that I should do something, say something, but I didn’t know what. On the kitchen counter, the last smoky wisp of sandalwood rose like a pale offering, and as I watched, it seemed that my life began to split, like the blossoming of a flower, until it contained not only the present moment, but others, each growing out of the next, an arrangement of separate petals connected by a single, golden core. I was sitting on a trawler on Hunter’s Cay, nursing a deliberate shot of scotch. I was driving down a dark highway, Cindy Ann by my side. I was dressed in green scrubs, smiling, lying down for the night in a brightly lit room. Each of those moments, each of those lives, existed simultaneously. I didn’t know which to believe in. I didn’t know where I actually stood.
Abruptly, the kitchen clock chimed. A cat launched itself into Cindy Ann’s lap. Deep, rolling purrs flooded the room with such force that even Mallory smiled, reappearing with dishes of green tea ice cream.
“What a sound,” she said.
“Because of midnight,” I said, and Toby said, “You’re right. I almost forgot.”
“Forgot what?” Cindy Ann said.
“Listen,” I said, and another petal opened to the light. Rousing Evan from his bed that last Christmas—the same way that, once, my mother had roused me. Breathing in his sleep-smell. Feeling the weight of his still-limp body, the damp flush of his skin. Helping him into his snowsuit and boots as, downstairs, Rex waited with the flashlight, the thermos. The three of us hurrying down the road toward the Haldigers’ chicken coop, where Evie kept some guinea fowl, a nanny goat, and an ancient piebald pony.
“Is it time?” Evan kept saying. He was awake now, eager, pulling at our hands.
Only the pure of heart could hear the animals speak on Christmas Eve. This was why little children could hear them, while grown-up people could not. What are they saying? my mother would ask as I breathed the warm air of the Schultzes’ cow barn: manure and silage, sweet grain and dust. Otto Schultz always came out to meet us, give the cows a little extra feed—something to talk about, he’d say. As he moved among the stanchions, I waited for the sounds of all those moving jaws to congeal. Straining to make language out of what I heard. Worrying I wasn’t good enough, pure. Because the truth was that I never heard anything. Year after year, as my parents and Toby listened, too serious, I would make something up.
Cup, I’d said. Christmas. Hop along. Velvet.
“They’re saying that they want more bread,” Evan told us. “The guinea hens. And they want to keep their babies this time.”
“Babies?” Rex said.
“The goat,” Evan continued somberly, “would like a radio.”
“And what about Poppy?” I asked. Poppy was the pony, gluey-eyed, stiff.
“Poppy’s going to heaven soon,” Evan said. “He says he has everything he wants.”
Had Evan really said this? Was it possible Rex and I had laughed? Now, sitting at Mallory’s table, the taste of the ice cream soured on my tongue. I got up, circled past the Christmas tree, went into the girls’ room—but, no. This was worse. Maybe I should drive back to Milwaukee after all, find another room at another hotel. Or maybe I should try and get to the airport, book a morning flight to Miami, spend the night stretched across a row of plastic chairs. One thing was suddenly clear to me: I couldn’t stay. Not here. I stepped back and bumped into Toby. Somehow, I thought it might be Rex. I wanted it to be Rex.
“What—?” Toby began, and I blurted out, “I never heard them, you know. The animals. I just pretended to.”
“Everyone pretends,” Toby said.
“I think that Evan really heard them. I’m pretty sure he did.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“But I’ll never get to ask him, later. When he’s older.”
“You’re tired,” Toby said.
“I mean, think of all the things I’ll never know. Big things. Important things. Why should this one even matter?”
“Why don’t you try to sleep?” Toby said. “I’ll sit with you, if you like.”
“Because I’m not tired,” I said, but then my face split into an enormous yawn. For some reason, this made me laugh, and I was laughing still as Toby eased me onto the bed, pulled off my boots, pinched each big toe lightly the way he’d done when I was small. To my relief, the pillow beneath my head didn’t smell like anything in particular. Fabric softener. Perhaps the slightest trace of shampoo. Evan’s pillow, his sheets, his room in the morning, had always smelled like tapioca. It wasn’t just me who thought so; Rex often commented on it, too. You could wash all his bedding, dump him in the tub, and the next morning: sweet tapioca.
“Don’t tell me this is Laurel’s bed,” I said.
“It’s Monica’s. It’s okay.”
“Laurel said she had a gun in here.”
“Do you think Mal would let any one of us keep a gun?” Toby covered me with the blankets, a quilt, and then he spread a sleeping bag from the closet over the top. “Sorry it’s so cold,” he said.
“I’m sorry for the girls,” I said.
“They usually sleep together,” Toby said. “They’re actually good friends when there’s no one around to see.” He sat down on the edge of the bed. “They’ve been through a lot. The rest of us, too. You wouldn’t believe what Cindy Ann can be like. When she’s drinking, I mean.”
“She says things are going to be different.”
Toby made a face. “Do you know how many times we’ve heard her say the same thing?”
“Maybe this time it will be true.”
“Maybe,” he said, and then he sighed. “I keep remembering what she was like, that summer you two were friends. Whenever she’s really angry, abusive, that’s the person I try to keep inside my head. The way she was with her brother. The way she looked after her sisters. Working so hard all the time, like she did.”
“I know.”
“I think I was in love with her, a little.”
“Me, too.”
He pulled the covers up to my chin.
I said, “Why did all this have to happen?”
“I don’t know.”
“What is the point of it?”
“Try to sleep.”
Something struck the bed, then, as if a piece of the ceiling had fallen. I started. “What was that?”
“Just a cat,” Toby said, and there it was, kneading the mattress beside me. I touched its fur, lightly, and it put
its beautiful face close to mine. Blinked, clear-eyed as any god. And, like any god, it did not speak.
Twelve
the day of the wedding dawned bright and clear, but just before noon, great clouds rolled in, and by the time we stepped aboard the Michigan Jack—my parents, Cindy Ann with all three of her girls, Becca with her boy—it was hard to keep our teeth from chattering. My parents stared balefully up at the sky, hands jammed into their pockets, scarves doubled twice around their necks. “This goddamn weather,” my father muttered, and my mother said, “How people live this way.” Still, the Jack looked beautiful, her sleek lines sparkling with white lights and garlands. And then there was the harbor itself: winter-proofed boats and weathered pilings, curious gulls like whitecapped spectators. Toby’s bare hands shook as he worked the surprisingly delicate ring onto Mallory’s finger, from nervousness or cold, I could not say.
Afterward, I kissed him, congratulated Mallory, exchanged a few, quiet words with Cindy Ann. “I thought it was going to be awful out here,” she said, her breath escaping in round, white puffs. “But, really, it was pretty.”
“If you don’t mind the frostbite,” Laurel said.
My parents, who were listening, started to laugh. Laurel looked startled, but pleased. Amy, wrapped in her mother’s old beauty, turned away from us all. “I’m hungry,” she said, and Mallory said, “I bet everybody’s hungry, right?” She had her arm around Becca’s Harvey; Monica clung to her hips.
Mallory Hauskindler. To everyone’s astonishment, she’d taken Toby’s name. Her dark head was covered by a blue stocking cap, and when Toby tugged, lightly, on the pom-pom at the end, she smiled up at him, radiant, expecting his proud kiss. How I wanted to feel again, for Rex, what I knew she must be feeling. How willing I was, at that moment, to do whatever it would take. As much as we’d lost, Rex and I, what we had still amounted to more. I would learn to love our life aboard Chelone, to call that life my home. Rex would learn to accept my decision to give my brother this blessing.
I’d already excused myself from the wedding lunch, and while the others turned left off the dock, cutting through the marina parking lot, I followed the wooden boardwalk that ran along the edge of the harbor. At the end stood the Shanty restaurant; inside, I spotted Lindsey before she noticed me. She was at the same table where the two of us had sat the last time we’d met. I watched her eating popcorn from the complimentary bowl, gazing out the window at the scruffy-looking mallards picking their way across the yellowed ice. In that gray, puffy jacket and piano keyboard scarf, she looked exactly as she might have looked two years earlier, five years, ten. How grateful I was, how comforted, that Lindsey, at least, hadn’t changed! Twenty years from now, she’d be sitting here still, laughing over Bart’s latest golfing escapade, tunneling through the pockets of her purse, looking for her wallet, a pencil, her keys.
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