The Pirate Queen

by Patricia Hickman

  “I bought them off Flanigan. He didn’t need them, and I told him you’d like to go when we got back home.”

  “You bought them for me?”

  “Unless you’d rather not go.”

  “No, I’ll go. It’s just a surprise, that’s all.”

  Bender kept smiling. It could be a ploy, she thought. He had never done anything without an ulterior motive. “Thank you,” she said.

  It was quiet between them on the drive back. But not unpleasantly quiet.

  10

  Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are.… Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.

  MARY JEAN IRION

  Bender took his meds and went to bed.

  Saphora pulled the old comforter off her bed and replaced it with the wedding ring quilt. The majority of the fabric was some shade of blue, except for the oyster white rings. She replaced the pillowcases with blue cotton covers and tossed the old throw pillows on a closet shelf. There were some blue pillows left up on the shelf. She arranged them on the bed. The room looked like a different place.

  The empty area over the headboard needed some framed art. She would look around the downtown shops for something nautical, like what hung over the Sailing School’s fireplace.

  She slipped into a pair of yoga pants for sleeping and a T-shirt. She pulled back the linens and was getting ready to turn on the TV to find a late-night movie. But the moon outside seemed to be telling her that TV was such a spoiler when the river was running past. She opened the balcony door. The wind sent the tree leaves into faint, shuddering spasms. She opened the door wider and sat on the edge of the bed to hear the night sounds. And yet the frogs were quiet. The silence created a tension in the air that made Saphora pause.

  Sherry had left chai tea on her nightstand. She poured a cup and then took it out onto the balcony to drink. Some women sipped, but Saphora always drank deeply, so much so that her cup was quickly empty.

  She walked to the balcony’s edge. Finally, the sound of the river was in its place and there was a small frog chorus down along the banks.

  Luke puttered around his backyard. She could see his flashlight beam gyrating above the fence. No surprise that it sounded like he was digging again. She put down the cup, listening until she decided that curiosity was enough reason to put on her leather flats. Before she could question how shallow she was to spy on Luke, she was tiptoeing downstairs and then outside, standing at the gate. Through a crack in the gate, she could see a shop light illuminating the spot where he worked.

  That was when Bender’s light came on in the library. If he looked out and saw her, he might ask for an explanation. There was no single explanation for what she was doing snooping around the neighbor’s fence. She pushed up on the lock. The gate opened and she walked through. She found a place to squat and hide behind a bush.

  Luke stood over a hole, wearing a knit cap, perhaps to keep the hair out of his eyes. However, the warm night air did not warrant a winter cap. He looked very nearly grim in the light of the lantern. He had clamped a metal light onto his back fence, and an oil lantern hung on a kind of hook like the ones used for hanging hummingbird feeders.

  He took off his eyeglasses and cleaned them with his shirttail. Plaid suited him.

  Saphora moved slowly toward him without coming out of the shadow of the trees. She stayed hidden behind a large photinia. There was a faint smell of magnolias. Tourists tended to bring them to plant and make their seaside home like their mountain home.

  Luke might have cooked out on a grill for his dinner as there was also a faint cloud of burnt charcoal and lighter fluid.

  He shoved the tip of the shovel into the hole. It went down at least a foot. He was digging a serious hole, possibly for a tree, Saphora decided. She looked back at her house. Bender’s light had gone out. Eddie was still up. The light through his window on the side of the house shed a dim yellow cast across his blinds, probably the lamp left on while he conquered a video monster.

  She moved in for a closer look. That’s when she startled Luke’s cat. The animal bolted out of the shrub, hissing like cats do when their privacy has been invaded.

  Luke came up from looking into the hole. When his cat tore past him, he scolded her and then returned to digging. Then he stopped and jerked the flashlight up and aimed it within a foot of where Saphora crouched.

  Saphora didn’t know what he was looking around to see. The light was so bright that when it fell across the photinia, Saphora thought he had spotted her. But he was too intent on returning to his hole. There was no tree nearby or any sort of plant with a root ball that might fit into such a large hole.

  Luke looked down into the hole. Then he took the tip of the spade and tapped all around inside the hole, a strange ritual. “You can either stand there all night or come and help,” he said.

  Saphora looked beyond his digging place to see who Luke might be addressing.

  “Mrs. Warren, is that you?”

  She came out of the dark and said apologetically, “It’s me. Did I scare you?”

  “Just Johnson.”

  “Johnson?”

  “My cat.”

  “I can help, if you need it,” she said, nervous and embarrassed that she looked nosy rather than helpful.

  He picked out a second shovel from a utility cart and gave it to her.

  When she took her place on the other side of the hole, he said, “If you don’t mind, there’s another hole I need about two feet back from where you’re standing.”

  Saphora stepped off the distance; but after marrying Bender she had decided to never agree to anything without full disclosure. “Are we planting something?”

  “Just let me know if you find anything.”

  The ground had been saturated. She saw the water hose running the length of the fence. The sandy soil was soft, so she got at least a half shovelful out of the first try. She dug until she heard a sharp clink against the tip of her shovel. The sound did not escape Luke’s attention. He came alongside her and helped dig. As she lifted out shovelfuls and dropped them alongside the fence, he got down on his knees and grubbed out the sifting soil around her spade.

  Finally she pushed downward on the top of the spade with her toe and lifted, but the shovel resisted. “I’ve hit something. Don’t know what,” she said.

  Luke ran and got a small hand spade. He dug around the object until he could get his fingers around it. “You’ve brought me luck, Mrs. Warren.”

  “The suspense is killing me,” she said. She had never had any luck with any games of chance or the state lottery. She dropped the shovel and fell alongside him. She paused, looking at her nails. So much for the manicure! She dug her nails into the soil.

  Luke pulled on the object. She dug around it, loosening it while he yanked. After a dozen hard tugs, he pulled it out of the ground.

  “Whatever it is, it’s coated in mud,” said Saphora.

  Luke turned on the hose and blasted the object. Then he held it up as Saphora aimed the flashlight at it. “It’s an old roller skate,” he said.

  “Is that important?” she asked.

  He tossed it aside. “Not to me.” He was so let down that he extinguished the lantern and then sat on a bench at the edge of his garden.

  “If I knew what it was I was looking for, I could be of better service.” When he did not answer, she said, “You know treasure hunters use Geiger machines or something, don’t they? Have you thought of using better equipment?”

  “It’s getting late. I don’t want your husband worrying, Mrs. Warren.”

  “He’s practically comatose on his cancer drugs, Luke.”

  “Cancer? How long has Dr. Warren known?”

  “Longer than me. A month. I don’t know for sure.”

  “He kept it a secret?”

  “Until the day of my Southern Living party. He figured he couldn’t go it alone after that.”

  “Why do they do that?” He talked under the full li
ght of the moon. He picked dirt from under his nails, saying, “They don’t want to worry you. It’s like they want to be strong, protect you from the pain as long as possible.” He sounded glum, as if all of the sadness flooded the land from the river to the spot where he sat, pouring into the hole of his life.

  “Don’t they know it’s worse to not share the news?” she said.

  “That’s it. But you shouldn’t feel guilty, Mrs. Warren. I carried enough guilt for me, Mabel, and the whole Weston clan.”

  “Was that her family?”

  “Mabel Birch from Jackson, Mississippi. My family is the Westons. I never would have thought I’d marry a cheerleader.”

  “Why not?”

  “I had my nose in a book since age four. Won the Virginia state science fair in the seventh grade.”

  “Class nerd.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Warren.”

  “I’m fond of nerds. My daughter, Gwennie, was like that. Always scholastically driven. She made cheerleader just to prove she could do it, but then turned them down flat.”

  “Mabel was head cheerleader.”

  “Gwennie would have taken over, that’s for sure.”

  “Mabel always had a cause. We rented this house year after year. We called it our summer place even though it was a rental. But I was too stubborn to buy it for her. She wanted it so she could volunteer to baby-sit turtle eggs or keep watch for rare birds. She would have taken Tobias right into our house. That’s how I got Johnson.”

  “So you know about Tobias?”

  “My cousin’s an idiot.”

  Saphora did not know how to answer.

  “Is he all right?” he asked.

  “You know kids. They act all right for our sake.”

  “Wayne’s a gutsy kind of guy. Catches those big fish, marlin, tarpon. Caught a kingfish once, hours on end he sat in that hot Atlantic sun reeling and fighting the fish until he pulled it on board. But he wouldn’t know anything about what a kid like Tobias goes through. He was just taking care of business. That’s Wayne for you.”

  Saphora couldn’t share Luke’s sympathy for Wayne. “I should get back.”

  “You tell Tobias to hang in, all that.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.” She got up.

  “Mrs. Warren, you’re a great lady.” He came to his feet. He bent to kiss her.

  It was only a cheek peck. Still, it left her flushed from the chest up. “I’ve got to go,” she said. She nearly tripped getting through the gate.

  She had trouble opening the french door because her fingers were caked with mud. Finally, she gripped the knob two-handedly and pushed the door open with her hip. Electronic sounds of fighter knights and raging dragons filtered downstairs from Eddie’s room. He needed to turn that love of adventure toward a good book every now and then. But Turner was so overwhelmed working long hours just to pay day-care costs he never thought to sit Eddie down before bed to read to him.

  “I thought I was dreaming.” Bender’s voice startled Saphora.

  “Bender, you’re up.”

  He lay stretched out on the sofa. “I wake up most every night. The same drug that puts me to sleep startles me awake. I hate nights because of it. I heard a noise. I turned off my light to see outside. You were going through the neighbor’s gate.”

  “It’s only Luke.”

  “Oh. What’s on your hands?”

  “Helping him dig a hole.” She put her hands behind her, even though she had nothing to hide.

  “Lunar gardening, I guess,” he said.

  “I don’t know much about him. I’m sure he’s affected by his wife’s death. Why do you look so strange?” By that she meant it was as if he were looking at her for the first time.

  “I’m admiring my wife. Is that all right?”

  She was still flush from digging.

  “Jim says I should watch so I don’t get eaten up with regret. Seize every minute, he says. Try to make your wishes come true.”

  “Like what?”

  “Every cancer patient makes a wish. I wish I’d done more for you.”

  “You’re tired.”

  “If I had, instead of you traipsing through the neighbor’s fence for companionship, you’d have come to me.”

  His epiphany should have made her feel flattered or justified. But he was only annoying her. “Luke’s not my outlet for companionship, Bender.”

  There was a silence during which neither Saphora nor Bender engaged for about a minute. It was exactly the kind of minute that married people usually used to gather up ammunition so they could lob words like Eddie’s knight hurled magic goo at the dragon. But Saphora only wished for something between them besides tension.

  She moved closer to get a better look at him. He had used the walker, obviously. It was beside the couch. His head lay against the sofa pillow. His eyes closed, like one of his animals shot down in the Serengeti. Saphora helped him settle more comfortably. “Let me help you.” She took him by the shoulders and helped position him into a reclining position, his head falling into the sofa cushion. She covered him with the afghan. He was snoring so fast she thought he was kidding around. It was an attractive quality; it made him like everyone else.

  The only way she could fall asleep was to bend their rule and take a sleeping pill. Sherry was right down the hall anyway. So she did and slipped away into that deep nonawareness that comes with prescription sleep aids.

  The next morning Sherry had to wake her and bring her strong coffee.

  Saphora did not bother to change out of what she had slept in before coming downstairs. She found Eddie at work on a bowl of oatmeal. Sherry was coaxing him. “Throw raspberries into it,” she said, “for vitamins.”

  Saphora poured her own juice and sat across from Eddie. She could see the top of Luke’s fence beyond the tree house. Whether or not he had returned to digging holes, she didn’t know. Bender’s words and the fact that he was sitting and waiting for her to return from Luke’s place made her feel as if she had betrayed her husband. Even if that was not exactly it, Bender had stirred up a mixture of emotions that deflated her.

  “Where’s Dr. Warren?” she asked Sherry.

  “I’ll see about him,” said Sherry. She had not been gone a half minute when she came out, wide-eyed. “Miss Saphora, you’d best come.”

  In the seconds it took her to cross the kitchen into the library, she could only think of how Bender was so close to opening up to her the night before and how she could have responded differently. But she had lived most of her married life between guilt and regret. When she followed Sherry into the room, she found Bender sitting on the side of the hospital bed. He looked frail. His arms were thinner since beginning the chemo. He buried his face in his hands. On his pillow lay all of his blond curls, downy as if a goose had nested there overnight.

  Sherry told him, “I’ll take care of all that, Dr. Warren. I’ll put it all in a bag and get you a clean pillowcase.” She was trying not to cry, but her voice broke. “I’m sorry, Miss Saphora. I’ll pull myself together.”

  While Sherry went for cleanup materials, Saphora stood stunned at the sight of Bender without hair. She tried to comfort him. “We knew this was coming. You know bald heads are back,” she said. “All of the young men shave their heads now.”

  “It’s all right,” he said. “You don’t have to think of the right things to say.” He had lost every bit of his hair. His eyebrows, even his lashes lay like kitten hairs on the pillow.

  She offered him coffee.

  “Just hot tea is all,” he said.

  She went into the kitchen, where Sherry rummaged through a drawer for a plastic bag. She was wiping her eyes over finding Dr. Warren in such a state. “This is so sad, Miss Saphora. I can’t believe this is happening.”

  “We can’t do him any good falling apart,” said Saphora. She took the kettle off the burner and poured hot water into the teapot he had brought home one winter from Austria. It was the color of the Austrian sky, he
had told Saphora. Now it was the color of her mood.

  “It’s just so hard to watch him lose a little more of himself every day.”

  “You gather up his hair, and I’ll bring him his tea.”

  Saphora was about to break open, and Sherry must have realized it. She grabbed on to Saphora, and the two of them stood there with Dr. Warren’s tea brewing while they held on to one another. There was no script for what to do next.

  “What do I do with his hair?” asked Sherry.

  “Take it out to the trash bin in back of the house so he’ll forget about it.”

  “You think he’ll forget about it?”

  “Just get it out of his sight.”

  Sherry drew back her shoulders like she was about to go in and clobber Dr. Warren’s cancer. She walked into the room, holding out the plastic bag and not showing that she had been crying.

  Eddie came up behind his grandmother. He wrapped his arms around her and said, “Sherry was crying, Nana. I saw her. Is it Papa? Is he dying?”

  “Eddie, don’t think like that.”

  “Can I go in to see him?”

  “Good idea. Get the breakfast tray and put some of those berries on a plate. Maybe he’ll eat for you,” she said. A minute later she pulled the bags from the tea and put the pot on the tray Eddie had found.

  Eddie led the way, Sherry opening the door for him. “Papa, eat,” said Eddie. When he saw his grandpa’s slick head, he glanced down at the floor but kept walking toward him, carrying breakfast.

  “Eddie’s brought you fruit, Bender. What do you say?” asked Saphora.

  “I’ll try, Eddie.”

  Sherry cleared away the lost hair from his pillow. Saphora replaced the pillowcase while Eddie wobbled around like a little Pinocchio, balancing the breakfast tray on the end table.

  “What do you think about Papa’s new hairstyle?” asked Bender.

  “Very cool,” said Eddie, barely above a whisper.

  Saphora watched Eddie, his forced smile, the way he stood awkwardly in front of Bender. She had seen Turner stand in a similar manner. He could put on such a show for his friends, but in front of Bender he quietly stood as if under an obligatory spell, awaiting his father’s dispensation. Bender did not dole out compliments regularly.