by Luanne Rice
Joe had wanted to bash heads. Everyone who had ever hurt his mother. The shellfish company owners, for making her work too hard. Hugh Renwick, for breaking both his parents’ hearts. Joe’s father had died in the Renwicks’ kitchen, friendless and alone. And his gold watch: his father had died wearing his watch, the watch he had always let Joe play with, and Joe’s mother had never bothered getting it back. The missing watch had been a symbol of everything Joe thought he had lost.
Staying friends with Caroline after learning the truth would have taken a miracle. For Joe’s seventeenth birthday, his uncle had taken him out to the Spindrift to get him drunk. Joe was underage, but that was beside the point. They had sat on barstools, drinking boilermakers, while Uncle Marty told him the truth about his father’s death. He was a jealous man, Uncle Marty said, out of his mind. Killed himself right in the Renwicks’ kitchen. The kids had been there, Uncle Marty had said: Caroline and Clea. Caroline had watched his father die, heard his last words.
How could a friend know something like that, such a brutal part of his life, and not tell him? His friendship with Caroline was over. Whiskey numbed the initial shock, so Joe kept it flowing. He turned to the sea, studies, and drinking to forget. To block out how bad he felt, how angry it made him. After a while he cut out drinking, but the first two still worked.
Trying to forget the flower stand lady, Joe did his errands. He had supplies to pick up for the Meteor, letters to mail, packages to send. His divers had collected some timber fragments and rust scrapings, and he was sending them to Woods Hole for analysis, in order to date the vessel. Today he planned to enter the wreck, when the tide was right, so he was in a hurry to get back. Nothing like a dive to take his mind off his emotions.
Before returning to sea, he had one final stop to make. He drove down Main Street, away from the small business district, through the outskirts of town. He pulled into the shady parking lot of Shoreline General Hospital.
“I’d like to leave these flowers for a patient,” he told the blue-smocked lady at the information desk.
“What’s the name, please?” she asked politely.
“Skye Renwick.”
“Whitford’s her married name,” the lady said, smiling. She didn’t even bother typing Skye’s name into the computer, and Joe recognized the doings of a small town. “I’m afraid she can’t have visitors quite yet.”
“All right,” Joe said, relieved because he didn’t want to meet her anyway. He scribbled a note and handed the lady his flowers. “Would you please see that she gets these?”
“Aren’t they beautiful?” the woman exclaimed. “I certainly will.”
“Thanks,” Joe said. He turned to walk out of the hospital. The air-conditioning stifled him. He couldn’t wait to breathe the sea air. In an hour or so he’d be in the water, diving down to the wreck. He’d be away, he’d be free.
Caroline knew Skye wasn’t supposed to see anyone, even family, but she stepped off the elevator with authority, a folder of papers under her arm, and she said a brisk hello to the nurses she passed instead of stopping to ask if it was okay for her to visit. No one questioned her. She had known they wouldn’t, from all the times she had sneaked in when her father was sick.
Skye was awake. She was propped up in bed, staring at a card someone had sent her. It was a large, expensive greeting card with bluebirds, roses, a waterfall, and a rainbow on the front. It was supposed to be painterly and beautiful, but the artist had, perhaps unintentionally, given the bluebirds leering expressions in their large eyes. They looked like winged lechers.
“The word is out,” Caroline said. “Fan mail is arriving.”
Skye looked up and forced a smile. Her bruises had darkened and yellowed. The bandages around her head were disheveled from sleep; they hadn’t been changed yet that morning. It was painful to look at her hands shaking from withdrawal, but Caroline couldn’t take her eyes away.
“Who sent the card?” Caroline asked. Although, of course, she knew.
“Mom,” Skye said, and with that she really did smile. She passed the card to Caroline, and her smile grew wider. It was a fact in the Renwick family that their mother bought and sent cards for all occasions, the more sentimental and glittery, the better. In turn, when Augusta herself received a card in the mail, she always checked the back to see how much the sender had spent on her.
Caroline turned the card over, to see the price.
“Wow,” she said. “You really rate.”
“A four-dollar card,” Skye said, smiling harder. “You’re not jealous, are you?”
“Don’t rub it in,” Caroline said, pretending to scowl. She read the handwritten message:
Darling,
When will you learn to ask when you need something? My car is yours whenever you need it. You had no business driving that old junker anywhere—never mind all the way to Moonstone Point. What ever possessed you to go there anyway? Come home soon! I am rattling around this big house without you!
Love,
Mom
“Vintage Mom,” Caroline said, laying the card beside Skye’s breakfast tray.
“She misses me,” Skye said.
“She misses the point,” Caroline said.
“Hmmm,” Skye said.
“Not one word about vodka in that whole four-dollar card.”
“Caroline, I feel bad enough,” Skye said. “Don’t rub it in, okay? I was an idiot, driving in the first place. I’m sure Joe Connor thinks I’m out of my mind. I know you don’t understand, and I don’t really feel like explaining it right now, but I had something I wanted to tell him.”
“Tell me,” Caroline said. She sat on the bed, waiting to hear Skye try to talk her way out of the situation. Skye’s expression turned sullen.
“Don’t torture me. I was hammered. I admit it.”
“You don’t remember, do you?”
“Blackout city,” Skye confessed.
“It’s not funny, Skye,” Caroline said. “Last night your doctor told us you’re an alcoholic.”
“They say that about everyone,” Skye said. “Look where I am: the rehab unit. It’s how they make their money. They think everyone who has more than two beers is an alcoholic.”
“Do you think you are?”
“No! Of course not! But I’m going on the wagon.”
“You are?” Caroline asked, surprised. It wasn’t something she had expected Skye to say.
“For now. I’ve been drinking too much. I admit it, okay? But things with Simon…and I can’t get my work to go right…Does Homer miss me?”
“I’m sure he does. I stopped by to walk him this morning.”
“Good, he was there?” Skye smiled, wanting to divert Caroline with speculation about Homer’s secret life. He would take off, and they never knew when to expect him back. But Caroline wanted to stay focused on Skye. She sat still, not saying anything.
“I was worried,” Skye went on. “What if he didn’t come back? I mean, he’s so old now. Doesn’t it seem like he was just a puppy?”
“Something about Joe coming to town,” Caroline said as if Skye hadn’t spoken.
“What about it?”
“Stirring everyone up. Upsetting you.”
“Not me,” Skye said, smiling expectantly.
Trying her best to cajole Caroline, Skye hadn’t noticed her bandage slipping over one eye. Reaching over, Caroline gently straightened it.
“When you were drunk,” Caroline said carefully, “you said maybe Joe’s father didn’t mean to kill himself, and I know you had to be thinking about what happened with you. About shooting Andrew Lockwood.”
“The beauty about it…” Skye said. She was sitting upright in bed, her knees drawn up. A white cotton blanket was spread over the sheets, and she had worked one of the threads loose, tugging the loop with her index finger. “Is that I don’t really remember what I had in mind.”
Both sisters seemed engrossed in the loop of thread. Skye wove it back into the blanket so seamlessl
y, Caroline couldn’t detect where it had been. After a few minutes, Skye closed her eyes and faked being asleep. Caroline sat quietly at her side, wondering what to say. A candy striper walked in, wheeling a cart of flowers. She placed a large vase of beautiful flowers on Skye’s table.
“Look,” Caroline said, causing Skye to open her eyes. She handed her the small card.
“Oh,” Skye said, frowning at the flowers. She read the card, then smiled up at Caroline. “They’re from your boyfriend.”
Caroline read the small card: “ ‘Get well soon. Call me when you want to talk again. Joe Connor.’ My boyfriend? Not quite.”
“He has nice handwriting,” Skye said, grabbing the card. “Very masculine. Here, let me analyze it for you.” She squinted, examining the words.
In spite of herself, Caroline was curious. Skye was no handwriting expert, she was just playing around. Even so, Caroline’s interest was piqued. “What?” she asked.
“He is very lonely,” Skye said, trying to sound mysterious. “He has no one to talk to. He searches for treasure to replace that vital thing missing in his life.”
“Which is?”
“Hope? Love?” Skye asked. “His long-lost sweetheart. I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him. That will be three dollars.”
“Sorry, I forgot my checkbook,” Caroline said.
“It’s okay,” Skye said. “I owe you anyway.”
When Caroline pulled up to Firefly Hill, her mother’s car was gone. She walked up the porch steps and went in through the kitchen door. Homer was lying on his rug. At the sound of Caroline, he glanced over. Without actually moving, his eyes changed expression and he looked deeply happy to see her. Then his tail began to wag. It swished once, twice, across the tile floor. He clambered to his feet, wobbling on his legs. Then, with a little forward momentum, he came across the room to greet her.
“Hi, boy,” she said, rubbing his head. “Good dog. You’re a good dog, Homer.”
He carried a faded blue hand towel in his mouth. The towel, or one like it, had been his toy ever since he came to live at Firefly Hill fourteen years ago. Her father had given him the first one. Caroline tugged the towel. Homer tossed his head, playfully pulling back.
“You win, Homer,” Caroline said.
He stood at the door, waiting to be let out. Caroline walked across the yard, and he stayed close by: Today wasn’t a day for one of his mystery sojourns. The ships were visible on the horizon, Joe Connor searching for treasure. Caroline stared at them for a minute, but Homer was eager to get to the beach.
He left his towel at the top of the tall stairway leading down the grassy bluff. It was painful to watch how slowly he moved, how every step seemed to tire his legs and hurt his back. His thick golden coat had turned thin and brittle, bald in patches. Watching him descend the steps, Caroline remembered him as a grief-stricken young puppy, his face dark with his owner’s blood.
They walked down Firefly Beach, along the high-tide line. Bits of dry kelp and eelgrass stuck to his tufty fur, but he didn’t care. He was happy to be outside with Caroline, the human he had loved most since Andrew Lockwood. When they turned back toward home, Caroline heard someone call her name.
It was Maripat. Her niece was nine, and she came running full tilt down the beach, holding a book in her hand. Homer barked, overcome with joy at the sight of another family member. His back leg faltered, and he went down. But he was up in time, panting happily, when Maripat got there.
She wore blue shorts and a tee-shirt Caroline had brought her from Nantucket. Her silky brown hair was long, pulled back in a French braid. She had the Renwick eyes, wide and clear, and she wore glasses with enameled green wire rims.
“Brought you something,” Maripat said, kissing her aunt and patting the dog.
“For me or Homer?” Caroline asked.
“For you,” Maripat said, smiling.
“What is it?” Caroline asked, accepting the book Maripat held out to her.
“Mom told me about your friend,” Maripat said, “the pirate. Is he really a pirate?”
“He says so,” Caroline said. “That’s him, out there.”
Maripat shielded her eyes, looking at the big white boats shining in the late sun.
“They look like yachts to me,” she said doubtfully.
“Modern pirates,” Caroline said. “They don’t know what they’re missing. Too much luxury and not enough creaky old planks. What’s the book?”
“The ship that sank?” Maripat said, her eyes bright as she got to tell her aunt something she didn’t know. “The Cambria? Well, she was an English barquentine, or brigantine, the one with more masts, I forget which.”
“Barquentine, I think,” Caroline said, thinking back to third grade.
“The captain was a rat,” Maripat said. “Considering he went to the lighthouse and fell in love with the lady who lived there. And that she was married to the light-keeper.”
“What a stinker,” Caroline agreed.
“The lady had a little girl,” Maripat said.
“That’s right. I forgot,” Caroline said, watching Homer dig a hole in the cool sand and lie down in it. “What were their names again?”
“The captain was Nathaniel Thorn, and the lady was Elisabeth Randall. The little girl was Clarissa.” Maripat paused, her eyes shining, her excitement so palpable, there might have been an imaginary drumroll. “And that’s her diary!” She thumped the book.
“Whose diary?”
“Clarissa’s! Some old lady, her husband was in the Coast Guard and took over the light, found the diary, and had it printed. I’d kill my mother if she ever did that to me. But we had to read it in school, and when Mom told me about the treasure guy, I said oh-my-God. Read it!”
Together they opened the book, and Caroline read the first entry:
July 19, 1769
Today I found a finback whale which had run ashore. She was bigger than the lifeboat and the same color as the rocks of our island, and she was lying on the south shore with her eye wide open, just staring at the sky. Mama and I tried to free her for hours, until darkness fell. We kept her wet with sea water carried in the fire bucket, because Mama said if her skin dried out, she would die. And she bade me watch the whale’s blowhole, because that was where she breathed, and if water got in, she could drown. The tide took so long to rise! Tonight my arms ache from carrying water, from pulling on her tail to free her from the rocks. But it is worth it. Mama and I watched our whale swim away when the tide finally came to its full height, with a fat orange moon full on the water.
“I like her,” Maripat said. “Don’t you? Doesn’t she sound cool?”
“Very,” Caroline said, touched that her niece had brought her Clarissa’s diary. “This wasn’t around when I was in third grade.”
“Maybe they just didn’t bother printing it back then,” Maripat said helpfully. “Did you and Mom and Aunt Skye ever free a finback whale? Did there used to be many around here?”
“No, we never did,” Caroline said, smiling. It cracked her up, the way Maripat thought her mother and aunts had lived “back then,” in olden times, historical days like Clarissa Randall, when finback whales were as thick in the water as minnows.
“Are you going to show the diary to that guy?”
“Which guy?”
Maripat pointed out to sea. She seemed to be suppressing a smile, and Caroline wondered what Clea had told her about Joe. “Him,” she said.
“I might, come to think of it,” Caroline said.
“He’s down in the shipwreck,” Maripat said reasonably. “I think he should know about the people involved.”
“That makes excellent sense. After I read it, I might let him borrow it. Is this from the library?”
“The school library. Only students can borrow there, but I signed it out till September. For you,” Maripat said with shy pride.
“Thank you,” Caroline said.
“He was like a brother to you, right?” Maripat asked, blush
ing slightly. “You were pen pals?”
“Sort of, when we were young,” Caroline said. She sensed Maripat wanting to ask more. Her niece came from a totally stable home, with parents who had been married to each other forever, and she seemed fascinated with her two aunts and their troubled world of men. Ex-boyfriends, stormy love affairs, even broken friendships with boys intrigued her and got her curiosity working.
“Where’s your mother?” Caroline asked.
“Up there,” Maripat said, glancing up at the house.
“Let’s go find her,” Caroline said.
Together they waited for Homer to get to his feet. Caroline moved down to the hard sand, where it would be easier for him to walk. A fly buzzed around his nose, and it made her sad to see him ignore it. Not so long ago he would have chased that fly until he snapped it in his mouth.
“Poor Homer,” Maripat said. “It’s hard for him to walk.”
“He’s sixteen. That’s old for a dog.”
“You love him, don’t you?” Maripat said. “He’s like your baby.”
“I’ve had him since he was a puppy,” Caroline said.
“A brand-new puppy?”
“Well, not quite brand new,” Caroline said.
“I wish Mom would let us get a dog,” Maripat said. “And that she’d let her sleep on my bed. I’d get a girl dog. Not that Homer isn’t nice—I know he’s a boy and all—but one boy is enough in our house. Mark drives me crazy….”
Caroline nodded, listening to Maripat chatter on, happily complaining about her brother, their lack of pets, her rival in swimming class, her father’s thinning hair, her recent discovery of lemon Popsicles shaped like great white sharks. Caroline was grateful Maripat hadn’t kept asking about Homer. Questions came as easily to the child as her next breath, and Caroline was pretty sure her mother hadn’t told her the story of Homer’s first owner. Caroline certainly didn’t intend to tell her now.
