A Thousand Shades of Blue

by Robin Stevenson

  I don’t say anything. My ankle is itching under the tensor bandage. Behind me, I can hear the slippery rustle of Tim getting out of his sleeping bag.

  “I don’t know what to do with you,” Dad says. His face is red. “We’ve given you every opportunity, and you seem to be intent on throwing it all away.”

  “Mitch.” Mom puts her hand on his shoulder.

  He shrugs her hand off, just like he did last night. “The way you’re going,” he tel s me, “you’ll go nowhere. You’ve got choices to make, Rachel.” He holds up one finger. “And your life is the sum of your choices.”

  “Spare me.”

  “Don’t you dare roll your eyes at me.”

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  We stare at each other, neither of us budging an inch.

  My heart is pounding.

  “Mitch.” Mom’s voice is louder this time. “Just…let them get up, okay? Let’s al have breakfast. There’s a lot to talk about and there’s no point…” She trails off and makes a helpless gesture. “What you two are doing here isn’t going to get us anywhere.”

  “Goddamn it, Laura. Don’t undermine me.”

  I step closer to the stairs and duck a little, so that I can see Mom’s face. She’s so tal , taller than Dad. She’s standing beside him in the cockpit, her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, a baseball cap shading her eyes. “Listen, Mitch—”

  “We agreed to present a united front. Rachel’s behavior isn’t acceptable, and I’d like you to back me up.”

  “I just don’t think—”

  “Jesus Christ, Laura. The way you always make excuses for her doesn’t help. In fact, that’s probably at least half the problem right there.”

  She stares at him. It’s like they’ve both forgotten Tim and I are here, listening. “Are you blaming me for what happened last night?”

  He doesn’t answer her question. “Are you with me or not?”

  Mom just looks at him, her face unreadable. She looks like she’s thinking about something, like she’s a thousand miles away. After a long minute, Dad says, “Laura?”

  She shakes her head and I can see tears glinting on her cheeks. “No,” she says. “No, Mitch. I’m not.” She steps away 178

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  from him, swings her legs over the stern rail and climbs down the ladder.

  Dad leans over the edge of the boat. “Laura! Goddamn it, Laura. Get back here. Let’s talk about this.”

  She doesn’t even answer.

  I step away from the companionway as quietly as I can and sit back down on my berth. I hope Dad will just forget that Tim and I are down here, though it seems unlikely. Tim is standing behind me, wide-eyed, still in the clothes he was wearing last night. I guess I am too. I glance down at my faded jeans and remember Col’s hands unbuttoning them and sliding them down over my hips.

  “I’m going with her,” Tim says. He pushes past me and scrambles up the steps and out to the cockpit.

  “Wait a minute,” Dad says. “We need to talk.”

  “I’m going with Mom,” Tim says, and he hops over the railing and down the ladder.

  Great. Just me and Dad. For a second, I contemplate running after Tim, but given that I can barely walk, I discard the idea. Besides, I don’t want to be with Mom either.

  I close my eyes for a second and picture Col’s face. I wish I could go away with him. But then I remember how he acted after Dad’s call on the radio. He couldn’t get rid of me fast enough. And then when Dad told him how old I was…

  I hope he doesn’t hate me.

  Dad climbs down into the cabin, a mug in one hand. He dumps a spoonful of instant coffee into his mug, pours hot water from the kettle on top and mixes it careful y. Three stirs one way, three stirs the other way.

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  “That guy you were with last night…” He doesn’t look at me.

  “Col.”

  “Whatever. How old is he?”

  “Twenty-five.”

  Dad shakes his head again. “I should’ve called the police.”

  “Dad! Don’t be…that’s crazy. Anyway, it’s not Col’s fault. I told him I was eighteen.”

  He closes his eyes for a second. “Jesus. He’d have to be an idiot to believe it. You look more like fourteen.” He opens his eyes and looks right at me. “Please tell me you didn’t have sex with him.”

  My face is on fire. “I didn’t. Oh my god, Dad. I can’t believe you just asked me that.”

  “Your mother should be having this conversation with you, not me,” Dad says.

  Something inside me flashes hot and angry. “I bet you’d like that,” I say. “I bet you’d like her to take care of everything so that you could just go back to ignoring us.”

  He stares at me. “What are you talking about?”

  I’m practically screaming now and I’m embarrassed, sort of, to be so out of control, but I can’t seem to stop.

  “I’m talking about how you never pay any attention to anything Tim or I do. I’m talking about the fact that you’ve been practically living at your office since forever and maybe you haven’t even noticed that I’m not a little kid anymore.”

  “That’s not true.”

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  “It is so true. You blame Mom for everything, but at least she tries. You’ve never even bothered. You have all the time in the world for the stupid screwed-up teenagers you see at work, but no time at all for us.”

  Dad’s voice is low and angry. “You think I want to work all the time? Do you have any idea what it costs to pay for Emma’s care? Or to be able to save for university for you and Tim?”

  “I bet you couldn’t name a single one of my teachers from last year,” I say. “I bet you never even looked at my report card. Christ, Dad, you barely even made time to visit Emma.”

  He turns away from me and slams his palms down flat on the counter. He stands there for a moment, and I can hear him breathing hard. I bet he’d like to slap me and for some reason I almost wish I could make him do it. Make him lose control. After a minute, he turns around and faces me again. His face is very red. “Rachel, get a grip on yourself,” he says. “This is…not acceptable.”

  “What the hell do I have to do to get you to pay attention?” I ask, only slightly more quietly. “Maybe if I started smoking crack? Or developed an eating disorder? You find those interesting, right? What would you prefer?”

  “Rachel! Stop it!” His voice cracks and for the first time ever, I think I can see tears in his eyes. Actual tears.

  I stare at him and say nothing.

  He slowly sits down beside me. “You know I love you and Tim and Emma. I love you all so much. You’re the most important things in my life.”

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  “You sure hide it wel ,” I say quietly. I stare at the faded denim of my jeans, pulled tight across my thighs, and feel like I’m crumbling inside. Like I needed every bit of that anger to hold me together, and now that I’ve let some of it escape I might just fall apart. “I don’t know anything anymore,” I whisper. “I don’t know who Mom is, and I don’t know who you are. I don’t know why you two stay together. And I don’t know why you bothered to bring us on this trip.”

  Dad sighs. The maybe-tears are gone, and I wonder if I imagined them. “What do you want, Rachel? First you say I should spend more time with you instead of working and then you complain about this trip. The whole point of which was to spend time together.”

  “The trip was your thing,” I say. “It was your dream.

  You were the only one that real y wanted to do this trip.

  You never asked us what we wanted.”

  There is a long silence. Finally Dad says, “Okay, Rachel. I’m listening. You now have my full and undivided attention. What is it that you want?”

  I don’t know what to say. I want everything to be different. I start to cry, s
tupid hot tears that I don’t want him to see. I stand up and walk to the stairs. Outside in the cockpit, Tim is crouched down, watching us. I didn’t hear him come back and I wonder how long he’s been standing there listening.

  “We want you and Mom to stop fighting,” he says. His voice is loud and unsteady. “We want everything to be okay again.”

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  Dad sighs again. His hands are laced together so tightly the knuckles are white. “We want that too,” he says. “We want that too.” Then he turns away and takes his coffee up to the V-berth.

  I watch the thin wooden door slide shut behind him.

  Apparently the conversation is over.

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  I grab a couple of slices of bread and climb outside to join Tim. Dad stays down below, drinking coffee, while Tim and I sit in the cockpit, wondering what to do. It doesn’t look like the family meeting is going to happen anytime soon.

  “Did you catch up with Mom?” I whisper.

  Tim nods. “But she said she needed to be alone for a while. To think.”

  A cold fear settles into the bottom of my stomach.

  Everything feels unpredictable. Fragile. I look out at the boatyard. Around us, on cradles, sit a dozen or more boats with varying degrees of damage. Several have hit reefs or rocks and one actually has a huge hole in the side of its hul . A couple look like they’ve been sitting here for years, slowly rotting. Beyond the boatyard, the blue water of the harbor sparkles in the morning sun. I wonder if Mom has gone to see Wil .

  “Do you think…,” I start to say; then I let my voice trail off. There is no point in talking about any of it. Besides, 184

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  I’m sure Dad can hear us. I want to get off the boat, but I know what Dad will say. There’s no use asking.

  We sit there in silence. I eat my bread. It tastes like nothing at all, but I’m starving. I could cram slice after slice into my mouth. After a while, Tim lies down on the deck and goes to sleep. I try to do the same, but I have this awful feeling of foreboding—that low thrum of anxiety is buzzing around inside me again. I can’t sleep.

  It’s at least an hour before Mom comes back. She sits down in the cockpit beside me. “Did you have the meeting without me?”

  “Not exactly.”

  She sighs. “Sorry I left. Is your father…?”

  “Down below.”

  Mom disappears down below for a minute, and I can hear the two of them whispering. I can’t make out the words, but it’s obvious they’re arguing.

  Tim opens his eyes. I think maybe he’s only been pretending to sleep. “They’re going to get a divorce, aren’t they?”

  He’s asked me that question before. Lots of times. I’ve always said, “How would I know?” or “Don’t be stupid.”

  And I’ve sometimes thought it’d be better if they would get a divorce and get it over with. Now though, I’m not so sure. I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly feeling chilled. “Maybe,” I say. “Maybe.”

  After a while, they call us to come down below for

  “a little talk.” They’re sitting side by side on the port side berth, so I guess they’ve gone back to the idea of 185

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  presenting a united front. Tim and I sit down across from them.

  I feel like there isn’t enough oxygen for us al .

  Mom looks nervous. She crosses her legs first one way and then the other; she twists her wedding ring around on her finger. I shoot Tim a sideways glance, but he’s watching Mom.

  “Well,” she says at last, “I want to say first that I’m so glad you two are both home safely. Last night…” Her voice catches, and she swallows so hard I can see the movement in her throat. “If anything had happened to either one of you…”

  There’s this awful thick silence and I know we’re all thinking about Emma.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  Tim nods. “Yeah. Me too. I just sort of needed to get away.”

  Mom sniffs a bit, and Dad clears his throat.

  “I guess this need to get away is contagious,” Mom says.

  Her voice catches again, and she starts crying. “Damn it.”

  There’s not enough air down here. There really isn’t.

  My heart is racing. “What do you mean?”

  Mom looks at Dad and he gives this little shrug as if to say, Go ahead. Tell them yourself.

  “I’m going to Nassau for a few days,” she said. “Your father and I…we’ve been having some problems. I need a little space. To think.” She reaches a hand out to us, but we both just sit there staring at her. “I’d like you and Tim to come with me.”

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  “What about Dad?”

  She glances at him. When he doesn’t say anything, she answers for him. “He’ll stay here with the boat. Make sure the work gets finished, get the boat back in the water.”

  “Will we come back?” I’m thinking about Col and whether I’ll see him again.

  “Of course. I think so. But…” She stops.

  But maybe not to stay? Was that what she meant? Or perhaps, But maybe not to your father?

  “Like, you mean we’d stay in a hotel or something?”

  Tim asks.

  He’s trying to picture it, I think. To make it real.

  Because right now, none of this feels real at al .

  A voice cal s out from outside. “Rachel!”

  I stand up, climb out to the cockpit and look over the side of the boat. Becca is staring up at me, with the sun low in the sky behind her, and her fuzzy blond dreads are glowing in the morning light.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey. Look, I heard…” She breaks off. “Wel . Want to come for a walk?”

  I nod. “Just a second.” I poke my head back into the cabin. “Becca’s here. I’m going to go talk to her.”

  Dad shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Oh, let her go, Mitch.” Mom stands up. “She needs to talk to someone. Anyway, what difference does it make?”

  I don’t wait for an answer. I look at Tim, sitting on the berth with his long legs folded up in front of him and his shoulders hunched. I hesitate for a second; then I hold out 187

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  a hand toward him, beckoning. “Tim, why don’t you walk with us? We can check if there are any messages at Exuma Market.”

  “Rachel…” Dad frowns.

  Tim ignores him. “Okay. Sure,” he tel s me.

  Z

  The three of us walk into town together. My ankle hurts, a little stab of pain with every step, but at least I can walk.

  I tell Becca that we might be going to Nassau for a few days, but I don’t get into the reasons for it. What I real y want to talk about is Col. Not in front of Tim though. I glance sideways at him and half wish I hadn’t invited him along.

  When we get to Exuma Market, Mango is sitting outside in a patch of shade. He waves to Tim. Tim’s face splits with a wide grin. “I’m gonna go talk to Mango.”

  “Meet you back here in half an hour?” I say. Tim nods.

  As soon as he’s out of earshot, Becca grabs my arm.

  “Look, Col called me this morning, right after the net. He told me what happened last night.”

  “He did?” I wonder how much he said.

  “Just that you were over there and then your dad called.” She squeezes my arm sympathetically. “What a mess, hey? I’m so sorry.”

  I feel like the bread has turned to a big lump halfway down my throat. “Yeah. A big mess.” I think about Col’s lips on mine, and then I remember the look on his face 188

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  before he walked away. “Dad told him how old I am,” I whisper. “Does he hate me?”

  She hesitates; then she shakes her head. “Of course he doesn’t hate you.”

  “He’s not mad?”


  There is a long pause, and I can see Becca choosing her words careful y.

  “He was upset. He says your dad looked at him like he was some kind of child molester or something.”

  I swallow and taste tears at the back of my throat. “He did.”Becca puls me close and gives me a hug. I hold onto her shoulders and try not to cry. “I just…I didn’t think he’d be interested if he knew I was only sixteen.”

  She nods. “I know. Wel , he shouldn’t have been.”

  “I don’t think age should matter,” I argue, pulling away.

  “Not if two people real y like each other.”

  Becca is quiet for a minute. “I don’t know,” she says.

  “Twenty-five is a lot different than sixteen.”

  “You don’t even like Col,” I say. For some reason I feel like picking a fight with her, which is stupid as she is the only friend I have here.

  She shrugs. “I think you could do a whole lot better.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Seriously? Same thing I said before. He’s a player.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “I think this all means a lot more to you than it does to him.” Becca pul s on her lower lip with her teeth and looks at me as if she’s trying to decide whether to say more.

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  “What is it?”

  “Don’t answer this if you don’t want to, but how far did things go with you guys?”

  I look around. Tim and Mango are still sitting in the shade, a couple of cruisers are waiting impatiently for the store to open, a cluster of local kids are kicking a Hacky Sack around. No one is paying any attention to us. No one is close enough to hear. I sit down on the curb, and the concrete is warm on the backs of my thighs. “Far enough,”

  I tell her. “Not, you know. We didn’t have sex.”

  She sits down beside me. “I mean, it’s none of my business.”

  “That’s okay.” It’s a relief to have someone to talk to about it al . “I think we might have though. You know, if Dad hadn’t called.”

  “Wel , if you do, be careful. Okay?”

  “Yeah.” I make a face. “I think Dad figures I’m going to be a pregnant, drug-addicted drop-out by my seventeenth birthday. I got the big lecture about making wise choices blah, blah, blah.”