by Luanne Rice
“The one Maripat gave you!” Clea whispered to Caroline. Caroline nodded, eyes on Joe.
“It gives us a context,” he said. His voice was deep and sonorous; it filled the auditorium. “The record of earth’s history is probably written with more fidelity in the oceans than anywhere else on earth. Except, maybe, in the diary of a little girl who lost her mother. It’s historically accurate, and purely true, words of grief written by someone who never expected them to be read. Clarissa has helped us piece together the story of the artifacts we bring up from the sea bottom.
“The diary was given to me by the same person who told me about the wreck in the first place, many years ago,” Joe said, and Caroline felt herself blush in the darkness. “Our own histories intersected in a way that parallels the story of the wreck. At one time you might have said we were close friends. At another, someone might have called us enemies. Everything is changeable. Even the truth, or perceptions of it as time passes. On a dig like this, that can’t help but seem significant.
“We bring up a lot of artifacts aboard the Meteor, a lot of sediment. It’s not clear until later which will be helpful and which won’t. We never know until we get to the lab whether the metal we find is gold or nickel. Whether our test bores hold a decipherable record of sea-level change or just mud. But then”—he took a deep breath—“nothing is just mud.”
The audience laughed, and when they realized Joe was finished, they began to clap. Caroline sank lower in her chair. She stared at Joe, and she could swear that he had found her in the dark, was staring at her. His blue eyes were bright and clear, squinting past the beam of light. The auditorium lights were switched on, and he continued to stare at her while audience members milled around him.
“That was interesting,” Clea said, leaning past Caroline to speak to Sam. “Your brother is an excellent speaker.”
“They’ve asked him to come to Yale next year,” Sam said, “as visiting professor. I’m not insanely jealous or anything.”
“I thought you were the one interviewing,” Caroline said.
“Are you a professor?” Clea asked.
“No, but I’d like to be. I interned at Dartmouth for a semester, but now I’m on a boat in the North Atlantic, sending out résumés from every town in Newfoundland and Labrador that has a post office. I interviewed here, they haven’t given me any word yet. But my brother…”
“Really, here? Joe at Yale?” Caroline asked, still watching Joe, wondering whether he was thinking about accepting. Would he actually settle in the area, give up constantly traveling for a while? She tried not to care what his answer would be, even though he was coming toward her with his eyes focused on her like test bores.
“You made it,” he said. “Thanks for coming.”
“I enjoyed your talk,” Caroline said, looking straight at him. “Dr. Connor.”
“Hope you didn’t mind me using you to illustrate a point,” he said.
“I guess that depends,” Caroline said slowly.
“On what?” Joe cocked his head. His eyes held a glimmer of a smile. He waited.
“It ought to be obvious, Joe,” Sam said.
“Really? Tell me,” Joe said.
“Whether she’s your friend again,” Clea said. “Or still your enemy.”
“God, the whole family’s in the act,” Caroline said, making a joke to cover her discomfort.
“My friend,” Joe said quietly. “She’s my friend.”
Driving home, Caroline played his words over in her mind: “She’s my friend.”
“It was good to hear him,” Clea said. “He’d make a good professor.”
“Yes,” Caroline said.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if he and his brother could teach together?”
“It would.”
“At Yale. So close by. We’d probably see him once in a while,” Clea said, her voice neutral, “now that you’re friends again….”
“Clea,” Caroline said. Her voice was stern, but her face was smiling.
Once they got off the highway, they drove through the village of Black Hall. It contained large white shipbuilders’ houses with black shutters and window boxes full of red geraniums, white petunias, and blue lobelia; white picket fences; a yellow Georgian mansion with white columns, once a boardinghouse for the American Impressionists, now a museum; a gas station; stately beech and maple trees; American flags everywhere; two white churches: one, a famously painted Congregational, the other Catholic. Heading south, out of town, they passed the marshes and inlets of the Connecticut River; a third white church, this one Episcopalian; and the fish store with its blue fish weathervane.
“Want to stop by Mom’s?” Caroline asked on the spur of the moment. “To see Skye?”
“Great idea,” Clea said.
By keeping the steeples on the left and the water on the right, they eventually got to the sea road. The road tunneled through a dark forest of hemlocks and old oaks, the branches meeting overhead. The ledge rose on the right, and the road burst free of any tree cover. A vista of open water spread before them, rough water dancing under sunlight, Joe’s ship riding on the waves.
A long drive wound upward through the forest. Wrought-iron lightposts, each topped with an evil-looking bat, lined the way. Her father had commissioned them from an artist he knew in Vermont. They had skeletal black wings, some spread and others drawn close about their spindly bodies; when lit, their eyes glowed red. Hugh had installed them to scare intruders away from Firefly Hill, so nothing bad would happen there again.
Caroline’s stomach flipped. What would they find when they got there? She told herself not to care, that Skye was a grown woman in charge of her own life. She tried to pretend they weren’t stopping just to check up on her.
When they got there, Skye was drunk.
Augusta was needlepointing, looking upset. Simon and Skye were sitting together on the sofa, flipping through a design magazine. Skye could hardly hold her head up.
“Hi,” Caroline said, her heart falling. Clea stood beside her, saying nothing.
“Skye spent the day in her studio,” Augusta said dubiously. Her eyes were red-rimmed and haunted. She looked at Skye, then away. Skye had a bottle of beer tucked behind the sofa leg. She reached down, looked Caroline straight in the eye, and took a slug.
“All she needed all along,” Simon said wearily.
“Needed you, baby,” Skye whispered. “Needed your big…”
How drunk was she? Caroline wondered, listening to Skye whisper little pornographic promises into Simon’s ear. It made her heart ache—literally—to watch her beautiful sister demean herself this way. Augusta pretended not to hear, an anguished expression in her eyes. Clea breathed heavily, as if she had just run up a hill. The whole family feels it, Caroline thought.
“Skye,” Caroline said sharply.
Skye ignored her. She kept tickling Simon, murmuring her sexy words into his ear, just slightly too loud.
“Skye, stop it,” Caroline said.
Skye’s face reacted as if she’d been slapped. “He’s my husband.”
“Then respect him, and wait till you’re in private to talk like that.” The words were out so fast, they surprised even Caroline. Is this telling the truth? she thought. Is that what I’m doing now? Clea squeezed her hand.
Skye blushed. Simon scowled, said “Christ,” and left the room. But Augusta looked relieved. Caroline watched her mother, noticed the way her mouth relaxed, her fingers stopped working her black pearls so incessantly.
“Get a man of your own,” Skye said darkly.
“You turn ugly when you drink,” Caroline said. “Do you know that?”
“What did you do in your studio today?” Clea asked, quickly trying to make peace.
The silence was heavy, the storm about to break. Caroline and Skye glared at each other. Homer stuck his wet nose in Skye’s face. Surprised, she tossed her head. The interruption seemed to make her forget the fight. “What?” she asked.
“What’d you sculpt today?” Caroline asked. “Mom said you were in your studio.”
“That,” Skye said, pointing.
Caroline’s gaze fell on a piece of clay. It sat on a table beside a cut glass vase overflowing with day lilies, beach roses, honeysuckle, larkspur, sweet peas, and mint. Six inches high, the clay looked like a three-peaked mountain range. Skye’s work wasn’t generally abstract. Her sculptures of the human figure were usually vivid and emotional; she filled her subjects with yearning. She usually sculpted women known for their fire and passion: Joan of Arc, Sappho, Lena Horne, Amelia Earhart.
“What is it?” Caroline asked, kneeling down.
Clea knelt beside her. She turned the piece around to see it better.
“Redhawk,” Skye said bitterly. “Can’t you see the mountaintops?”
“No,” Clea said, looking into her eyes. “It’s something else. Isn’t it?”
Skye nodded, her eyes suddenly swimming in tears.
“Oh, the mountains,” Augusta said, from across the room. “I used to feel so left out! But I wanted my girls to have their time with their father….”
“It’s not Redhawk?” Caroline asked, wondering if the degenerative state of Skye’s art would become a permanent result of her drinking.
Skye shook her head. She was crying freely now. She reached for her beer. But she didn’t drink. She gripped the bottle until her knuckles turned white.
“It’s sisters,” she whispered.
“Us?” Caroline whispered back, shocked, trying to shield the disappointment in her voice.
Skye nodded. “You, me, and Clea.”
“I love it,” Clea said fiercely.
Caroline stared at the piece. Primitive, unfinished-looking, a child might have done it. The three shapes were connected but separate. They touched at the bottom, leaned away from each other at the top. The sculpture showed none of the skill or technique that marked Skye as an artist, but staring at it, Caroline was suddenly filled with wild emotion.
“Can you see?” Skye asked through her tears. “The three sisters?”
“I see,” Caroline said through tears of her own. “I love it too.”
Caroline’s affirmation set loose something in Skye, and her body was racked with sobs. She couldn’t hold them back. She sat on the sofa, clutching the brown beer bottle, and both of her sisters climbed up beside her. The three Renwick sisters held one another as tight as they could.
We’re like Skye’s sculpture, Caroline thought. Three lumps of clay thrown together. Joe’s sea mud. Thinking of Joe, remembering the truth, Caroline held on tighter. Sisters. Three sisters. She thought of Skye’s initial explanation, that her sculpture was of mountains, and she knew that was partly true also.
With three sisters, truth doesn’t come in one piece, Caroline thought. Skye’s drinking might be Caroline’s travel. When one sister was ready to tell the truth, the others might still want to hide. Stop hiding, she thought, holding her sisters.
After the talk at Yale, Joe couldn’t wait to get back to the wreck.
“You gonna teach there?” Sam asked, his left foot stuck in the right leg of his wetsuit.
“Doubt it,” Joe said, watching Sam tangle himself up even more.
“Why not?” Sam asked, yanking his foot free and banging it on a cleat. Joe reached over, undid his brother’s ankle zipper. He had a distant memory of stuffing the kid into a snowsuit.
“Why should I? I like what I do. Just because you want to teach at Yale doesn’t mean everyone does.”
At sea the sky was clear and the views were long. Joe took a deep breath and thought how that was exactly how he had liked his life to be: clear, with long views. Nothing crowding him. Just him, the wreck, the ocean, and the mud.
“You gotta grow up, man,” Sam said. “You’re out here being a pirate, and there’s a university filled with students waiting to learn about muck. You know? Fossil-laden rocks and mud, telling the story of time. Just like you said in your lecture. Beautiful, man.”
“Thanks,” Joe said dryly. Sliding off his shirt and pants, he put on his own wetsuit. Sam handed him a single air tank, which he strapped on. They were ready to dive.
“I mean it, Joe,” Sam said sternly. “Dry land’s where it’s at for you. Especially around here. Near Black Hall.”
“Why near Black Hall?”
“Think about it, idiot. Just think about it.”
Joe pushed Sam overboard. He watched him splash around, sputtering with surprise. Joe followed him into the cold water. The brothers spit in their masks, then slid them over their eyes. Sam blinked at Joe, tried to dunk him. His big brother pushed him away but he swam back good-naturedly. The water felt cold on Joe’s hands and neck. He took a sharp breath, then another and another, trying to get used to the temperature. Years of warmer waters had taken the New Englander right out of him.
“Black Hall,” he said to Sam, treading water. “Jesus.”
“Think about it,” Sam said.
They stuck the regulators in their mouths and dove.
Sunlight penetrates to a depth of two hundred feet, but to the human eye darkness takes over before that. Diving beside Sam, Joe sensed the wreck looming ahead. It hung on the reef, an outcropping of glacial moraine, a dead forest of black timbers. The three spars were broken in half, their yards and halyards trailing in the sand.
Divers, members of his crew, moved about their work like bees going in and out of a hive. There was an air of flight about them, the way they hovered and swerved, bubbles rising. They swam through a ragged hole in the ship’s bow, a dark cave yawning at the sea bottom. And they swam out, holding bits and pieces of the ship and its loot.
Sam zipped ahead, eager to enter. Joe put out a warning hand to hold him back. The spotlight illuminated Sam’s wide eyes behind his mask, and Joe was filled with a protective rush for his brother. The kid’s enthusiasm got him into trouble every time, riding his bike into traffic, saying yes to the first job that came along.
Joe motioned for Sam to wait there. The wreck was too dangerous. Sam’s eyes tried to argue, but Joe was firm. He made his face angry, his eyes threatening. Sam let out a big breath of air, backed off. Joe wished he could feel as if he had just won something, but instead he felt guilty for disappointing his younger brother.
Swimming through the silent deep, Joe felt somber—for leaving Sam behind, and because he felt as if he were about to enter a tomb. Which he was; swimming into the wreck of the Cambria, Joe felt a sense of duty. He wanted to honor Clarissa’s mother. In his mind Clarissa was frozen as a little girl, that eleven-year-old child whose mother had sailed away and never come home. Reading her diary, he had gleaned information that made identification of her mother’s skeleton possible. He tried to keep his emotions out of it.
Joe swam into the black hole. Down a long and treacherous path through the twisted and upside-down interior, he followed the dim light that marked the site. His heart skittered inside his chest, but he fought to remain steady. He was glad he hadn’t let Sam come in here. It took great calm to keep breathing correctly underwater. He had watched divers suffer the bends, nearly explode from a surfeit of nitrogen built up from gulping for air, giving in to panic. So he thought of Clarissa and made himself breathe right.
Blue-bright lights glowed up ahead. They illuminated the Cambria’s crushed stern, the old mahogany splintered and covered with barnacles and mussels, now part of the reef itself. Fish darted in and out; the sand machine pulled debris away from the treasure site. Divers worked meticulously, uncovering coins.
He saw the two skeletons. They were clustered together, off to the side. Their mouths gaped, their bones protruded. They might have been screaming for help, for forgiveness.
Joe told himself not to feel.
He hovered about them like a fish himself, striving for dispassion. He felt his heart beating madly in his chest. Taking too much air, he looked away. Then back again. These people had died for love. They had sailed away with dream
s of escape, their desire for each other pulling them away from everything else. This lady had had a daughter.
Was it worth it? Joe wanted to ask her. Dying on this reef, taken by surprise, by some sudden storm. They hadn’t gotten more than twenty miles away from Elisabeth’s lighthouse. Joe thought of his father, dying fifty miles from home. Of his mother and Hugh Renwick, of the mess and madness their affair had created.
Joe felt his heart hammering. All his life he had used women as a port in a storm, one after the other, avoiding anything messy or long-lasting, and this was why: Just look at the agony. He swam closer to the skeletons. Taking a light from Dan, he shined the beam down on the two gaping skulls, searching.
There it was: the object that identified Elisabeth Randall. Joe’s hands were heavy, his throat ached. According to Clarissa’s diary, she had worn it always. Shreds of weed clung to the vertebrae, with a solid object thickly coated with algae and old barnacles nestled in the clavical bones. Joe reached in, gently dislodged it. Over the years and through the wrecks he had trained himself to be unsentimental about death. He had done it a hundred times, reached into a pile of bones and removed a gold chain or diamond pendant or pocket watch. Clinical, scientific. He had taken the loot and never looked back.
But Elisabeth’s cameo should have been Clarissa’s. Time should have passed the way it was supposed to between a mother and child, with the mother growing old and leaving her most precious things to her daughter. Joe thought of his father, his gold watch, how after he died Joe had never seen it again. Parents die far from home, and they take their things with them. The things that might give their kids comfort or solace or even an answer or two.
Not that things were enough, but they were something to hold on to. Objects to hold and examine, reminders of someone who had once loved you. And sometimes they were all you had.
Joe stared at the bones. He tried to pray for the woman, but somehow the prayer included Caroline and Sam. His throat burned. His weight belt dragged him down, his breath rasped in his ears. Restless, the cameo safely retrieved, he turned to leave the wreck.
As soon as he emerged, he looked around for Sam. Not seeing him right away, his heart started pumping. Jesus, he thought. Diving with someone you cared about was too fucking much work. He swam around the wreck, moving faster, looking through the groups of workers.
