The Watery Part of the World

by Michael Parker

  Maggie was in the kitchen that day she brought over the Tape Recorders to see the portrait. Apparently she overheard Whaley carrying on about Theo. Later that night Maggie came into her room and sat on the bed. Whaley was working her word puzzle but not really—more dragging her eyes across the page waiting to fall asleep.

  Maggie said: “I heard you talking about Theo.”

  Whaley put down her puzzle book and waited. She felt foolish for going on about such in earshot of her sister, who did not need encouragement in the fantasy department.

  She said, “Well, you know, Mag, Dr. Levinson and them love a good story. You tend to talk a little out of your head around them, just giving them what they want and all.”

  “I’ve never heard you talk out of your head around them before,” said Maggie. “Or around anyone. Anyway, you don’t need to defend yourself, I’m not criticizing. I just wanted to tell you, see, I feel the same way.”

  “Feel which way?” Whaley did not want to talk about this with her sister. She made no attempt to hide the irritation in her voice.

  “Like a part of her—Theo—is inside of me too. I don’t know near as much about her as you, you read all those books about her father, I mean, I only know the basic story. But the part of her I feel wasn’t in any of those books.”

  “What part would that be?” Usually Whaley was able to shut her sister up with her tone. But Maggie wasn’t listening, obviously, to her questions or the way they were pitched.

  “Well, I’m not real sure, exactly. Not the Theodosia who grew up in New York and entertained presidents and spoke French and married a governor and all. I guess that’s the part of her you feel …”

  “And what’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing. I told you I’m not criticizing. I’m just saying, for me, it’s the part of her that all of a sudden turned up on the Banks having had this whole other life, all these things happen to her. And the way she nearly died but got spared, that especially.”

  Whaley nearly hyperventilated exhaling her dramatic sigh, not that her sister noticed.

  “You know I’m not real big on religion. But her being, you know, spared because they thought she was touched by God, well, that too.”

  “What do you think God spared you from?”

  “I know, it’s not like some murderer was about to toss me overboard. But I’d have gone a whole lot crazier than I did whenever Boyd left me …”

  “I cannot believe you even remember his name. It’s been years since you even laid eyes on him.”

  Whaley thought this would shut her up for certain. In the past it was easy to shame her into silence by suggesting that she was willfully prolonging her hurt. But none of the old failsafe ways were working. Maggie seemed to be off in one of her foggy dream-states, and Whaley, it seemed, was the one who put her there.

  “Whatever reason, and God knows what that reason was, I was spared. God or whatever’s out there touched me too. People could see it, so they let me be. But that’s not the most powerful part of her I carry around. The deepest part is, well, I don’t even know how to begin to talk about it.”

  Maggie nodded toward the parlor, where the portrait hung in the deepening shadows of nightfall.

  “Sometimes, I’ll happen to look up at that picture of her, not often because we’ve had it all these years and you know how it is, you don’t hardly see it after so long. But I’ll be walking past her and I’ll feel her eyes on me and I’ll stop and look up and it’s like her loneliness is whispering to mine, like she’s saying, I know you don’t belong here either but you too are touched, this island is all you have, don’t you dare give up on it because let me tell you child, anywhere else you go you’re going to feel a whole lot worse.”

  Maggie had half-turned to Whaley and spoke in her direction, but it appeared like she was well across the island, her eyes unfocused and watery.

  “I guess that’s how come I stayed. After Boyd left, I felt like there was nothing left of me. And then, whenever I went over to Morehead that time with Woodrow, I thought I’d surely have to leave the island after that. But I stayed because of her. She let me know somehow it wouldn’t be any better anywhere else. Hell, it’d be a whole lot worse. I could look at her long enough and gain the strength I needed to stay here, even after the storm took Sarah, when there wasn’t but you and me and Woodrow left.”

  Maggie looked at her—seemed to see her—for the first time. But Whaley turned away. It seemed her sister sought her sympathy, that she felt she’d opened herself up, but Whaley saw it as further proof of Maggie’s self-absorption and could not keep from saying so.

  “Well, I appreciate you telling me all this, Mag. Reason why is, it makes me accountable for what I told Dr. Levinson today. Which was all lies. I got caught up in the story I reckon. Wanted to spice it up a little. Truth is I don’t have one iota of that woman in me. She’s—you reminded me of this and I thank you for it—she was a vain, selfish, foolish thing from all I’ve ever heard of her. Lived off in her head most all of the time, expected everybody else to take care of her. Wasn’t for your great-great-great-grandfather she would have starved to death over at Nag’s Head, or got herself killed stealing from that man who spared her life. She was touched all right—not right in the head.”

  Maggie just sat there going tighter around the eyes and mouth as Whaley laid it out, until she was looking somewhere to the left of Whaley with this what-did-I-expect-opening-up-to-her, she’s-always-like-this kind of smirk on her face. She got up and left the room, didn’t say word one.

  But as far as Whaley could remember she’d never strayed with Dr. Levinson and them into an area she ought to have avoided. Until today. Maggie said she was going to stick her head in, say hello to Liz. Whaley was going to see to it that she did just that, stick her head in, keep the rest of herself out in the hallway, for she didn’t want her sister to hear what all she had to tell Liz.

  Which in her head went like this:

  One day in late September, Whaley met Woodrow at the back door when he brought the mail. Usually Woodrow came and went, leaving whatever he’d brought—mail, vegetables from the garden he tended, fish or crab he’d caught, something she’d asked him to fetch for her over in Meherrituck—on the back stoop, rattling the back screen door on its hook once or twice to signal he’d come and was going. One of the things she liked most about Woodrow was that, unlike Maggie, he wasn’t one to waste hours going on.

  She figured she knew Woodrow as well as anyone except Sarah. They knew each other so well they scarcely needed words, could read each other in the shorthanded and invincible way each had learned to read the sky, the wind, the tide.

  That day she asked Woodrow into the kitchen where she had money counted out and folded in an envelope. She told him she had something special-ordered coming in on the three o’clock ferry the next day and could he meet the mailman at the store in Meherrituck around four?

  Woodrow looked at his shoes like he always did when he didn’t want to do something she was wanting him to do. In so many ways Woodrow, like Maggie, was like a child.

  “I got to take the boat out first thing in the morning,” he said. She knew this already. She’d predicted he’d use this as his excuse. She knew when he fished, knew the tides, knew his hours. She knew where he was fishing now, up the ditch behind Blue Harbor, and she knew he would not want to go up there early, bring back his catch, head out again.

  “Surely you can find something to do to amuse yourself for a few hours over there.” She allowed herself a smile. He didn’t seem to notice.

  “Fish’ll go bad.”

  She said, “They got ice. You got coolers.”

  He said, “I ain’t lost nothing over to Meherrituck I got to waste three hours trying to find.”

  She said, “Take Sarah over, y’all go visit.” Whaley knew of several colored families over there at that point, assumed that Woodrow and Sarah were friendly with them, that they’d rather be around their own kind any chance they go
t.

  “Sarah ain’t lost nothing over there either,” he said. “She ain’t about to break up her day across over there, you know that. Besides, it’s fixing to blow.”

  “Woodrow Thornton!” said Whaley. “There isn’t a cloud in that sky!” She summoned up a shocked tone, tried to shame him, but she’d read the almanac and it called for squalls or worse, though it was true what she said—wasn’t cloud one in the sky that afternoon. Not that it could not change in a matter of hours, especially on the sound.

  Truth was, she’d ordered a new dress. It had been well over a year since she’d bought anything for herself, some five or six since she’d ordered something instead of buying off the very limited rack over at Meherrituck. Like everyone else on the island used to, she made her own clothes. But Dr. Levinson and them were due and she wanted to look good for the camera and what was wrong with that? If she did inherit some part of her great-great-great-grandmother Theodosia, it was a love of fine, frilly things, unlike Maggie who went around for ten years in a T-shirt given her by that Boyd. She kept that shirt on her back until it was see-through as Saran wrap. It was stretched out and paint-stained and about as much protection from the elements as a couple of Band-Aids but she wore it right on until one day she was pulling it over her head and it ripped into threads. Just disintegrated. Thing had been ready for the rag bag for a good decade and still Maggie went moping around for weeks like she’d lost her best friend. Whaley wouldn’t be at all surprised if one day some archaeologist unearthed it in a grave marked with clamshell and braided sea oat.

  She wasn’t about to go around looking like that herself, even when there wasn’t anyone around to see them. But they were going to have visitors, which beside the tourists the O’Malleys ferried over, who were all the time asking them to pose for pictures and leaving their picnic trash on the island and tearing up the dunes and being general nuisances, was occasion to warrant a tiny indulgence.

  Oh, there were a dozen ways to justify what she did.

  Woodrow wasn’t having any of her naive “not a cloud in the sky.” He would not dignify such a remark with a serious response. He’d looked straight at her then, a rare meeting of her eyes, and it had made her feel, well, guilty, even though the next moment she was back to manipulating him any way she could to get that dress.

  “If it is going to blow, you’ll be back across by the time it gets bad.”

  “I don’t want to get stuck over there, leave y’all by yourselves in a storm.”

  He said “y’all,” but she knew he was talking about Sarah.

  “We’ll look after Sarah,” she said.

  Woodrow said, “Y’all check on her if it starts to blow?”

  “Good Lord, Woodrow. Of course we will. What do you think?”

  It was clear what he thought by the way his gaze shifted once again, finally, to his feet, the floor—anywhere else but to her eyes.

  Next morning just past dawn she sneaked down to the inlet and watched him off. Sarah was down at the dock with him, which wasn’t usual—Woodrow went about his business, Sarah went about hers, it was the way it was done on the island, black or white. Whaley stood a good ways up the lane and watched the two of them talking down on the dock, then hugging on each other, which made her feel guilty to witness. She felt a little bad to be out checking up on him anyway, though Woodrow didn’t always do what he said he was going to do and she wanted that dress and if he had not arrived at his boat toting coolers she’d more than likely have marched down there and reminded him. Right in front of Sarah. Just in case he forgot and all. Or Sarah talked him out of it, said to him (Whaley could just about hear her), Why you wasting your time on old sour Whaley, she want whatever it is so bad she can ride over there with you, you can pick her up tomorrow, why not? Whaley always assumed that Sarah undermined her loudly and with vehemence every chance she got. With the respect given to an opponent whose strength and patience is formidable, Whaley cared what Sarah thought. But there were only four of them left on this island now and somebody had to take charge and even though Woodrow and Sarah were each more capable than her little sister, it would not do to let them run things.

  Besides, Woodrow was more comfortable being told what to do. The times she’d asked his opinion about something of importance to the four of them—to the island—he’d seemed reluctant to take charge. Too much responsibility made him nervous. Some people had no interest in leading; they were made to work behind the scenes. She had no illusions about what her life might be like without Woodrow, but they were a team, clearly. They worked together in their own inimitable, mysterious way. She’d never be able to explain it to Dr. Levinson and them because she was sure they’d judge her if she were honest—they’d figure her for a card-carrying member of the Klan—and if she were dishonest, if she pretended everything was equal, well, what would be the point of that? For years she’d avoided talking about her relationship with Woodrow and Sarah. When they’d asked she’d just smiled and changed the subject, and they knew better than to push.

  After watching Woodrow load coolers in the boat, Whaley made herself scarce before Sarah caught her spying. She picked across the old Pollock place to check on the stock, down by that point to a dozen sheep, three cows, two ornery ponies. On the way across the island she happened to notice the sky, which had darkened to the south, though the highest clouds were a milky yellow. She thought of climbing a dune to study the sea, but she convinced herself that if it was to blow, it wouldn’t be anything they hadn’t seen before and more of it.

  But when she came up on the stock she heard the ponies neighing, saw in the scuttling of sheep and the odd manic movements of all the animals some proof undeniable that it would be more than just the routine battering of wind and water.

  Her daddy and other old-timers used to claim that if you saw a pig with a straw in its mouth, a bad storm was on its way. Whaley avoided going anywhere near Woodrow and Sarah’s where the only pigs on the island might be sucking on straws.

  Back on the sound side of the island the day was calm, near windless. She put it out of her mind, tried to get some work done. But along about noon Maggie came in from God knows where and said, “It’s curious out there.”

  Whaley, unable to resist, said, “How so?”

  “No mosquitoes,” said Maggie.

  “Wind changed,” said Whaley, her tone a shrug, a don’t-you-know-anything edge to her words.

  “It’s fixing to blow,” said Maggie. “Where’s Woodrow?”

  Whaley did not think it time to tell Maggie about the dress. She didn’t think that time would come, in fact. She said Woodrow was where he was always this time of the morning, out on the water. But she went a little further, though she did try to stop herself from lying. She said, “He mentioned something about needing to go to the store this afternoon.”

  “He’ll change his mind,” said Maggie. “If anyone can sniff out some weather, it’s Woodrow.”

  This got away with Whaley, Maggie’s innocent yet wholly accurate statement. More the bit about Woodrow changing his mind, maybe. Whaley didn’t want Woodrow to change his mind. She wanted the wind to shift, the storm to turn and head up the coast or stall out before it ever reached land, she wanted Woodrow to meet the ferry, she wanted her dress to wear when the Tape Recorders showed up with their cameras this time. One thing she did not want was her sister knowing the reason she’d sent Woodrow over there.

  But now, years later, knowing what she knew, Whaley often wondered why Woodrow went. He could have said no. He wasn’t her slave (though once Dr. Levinson had taken her aside and told her that Woodrow’s great-great-great-grandfather Hezekiah Thornton had in fact been sold to her great-great-great-grandfather, a fact she saw no sense in ever repeating to Woodrow or Maggie either, as she surely would have told it). No was definitely a word in Woodrow’s vocabulary, though she’d hardly ever heard him utter it outright. When he did not want to do something it did not get done. If it was something Whaley deemed doing, she’d ask
him again. (Ask, not tell; she always asked, said Would you?, said Please.) If he did not do it, she’d ask-not-tell a third time. If he did not get round to it the third time, she’d leave off and either do it herself or find something else to stew about.

  Woodrow must have known well before she did how bad it was going to blow. Yet he went. Maybe he wanted some time off island himself. He’d spent years away, all because of Sarah. But knowing Woodrow like she did, she had to wonder why he allowed Sarah to take him off island for all those years. She knew he loved this island, hated being away from it, even for a night. Must have been love, though if that was what love did—make you court misery in order to make someone else happy—she did not want any part of it.

  Whaley went about her business that morning, which was indoors. She scarcely looked out the window. What could she do about the weather? If it was going to blow, it was going to blow, only thing she could do was clean the yard and porch of anything the wind might pick up and, if it got bad enough and hit at high tide and there was a surge, head for the church, which not only crowned the highest point of the island but had a balcony built more with high water in mind than overflowing crowds come to worship a merciful God.

  Midafternoon it started to rain. Lightly at first, an intermittent drizzle, but within an hour it was heavy and wind-sheeted. Maggie came in from wherever she’d been, wearing an ancient, peeling slicker the Life Saving station had issued their father, her hair soaked, her face wide with questions she did not let herself ask.