by Luanne Rice
A foghorn moaned over the sound of waves crashing against the steel hull. Checking his loran, Tim swung right into the Manasquan Inlet. The water grew calmer, but he could still feel the Atlantic waves pounding in his joints. He had traveled a long way. Great rock and concrete breakwaters flanked either side of the channel. Houses looked warmly lit; Christmas trees twinkled in picture windows, and Tim imagined other sailors’ homecomings.
The radio crackled. Tim’s ears were ringing from the constant roaring of the wind and throbbing of the Detroit diesel, but nevertheless he heard the high seas operator calling him.
“Aphrodite,” the voice said. “Calling vessel Aphrodite …”
Tim stared at the set. His first thought was that Malachy had relented. Tim felt a quick spread of relief; he had known Malachy couldn’t stay mad forever, that he wasn’t cold enough to just banish Tim from his life. Malachy Condon was an old oceanographer, scientific as they came, but he had a family man’s romantic vision of the holidays. Malachy believed in setting things right. He would want to fix things between them, press Tim to change his ways toward his daughter, her mother, Tim’s brother.
“McIntosh, aboard the Aphrodite,” Tim said, grabbing the mike, ready to greet the old meddler with “Happy Thanksgiving, what took you so long?” A click sounded, the operator connecting him to the caller.
“This is Jennifer Hanson from the emergency room at St. Bernadette’s Hospital in New York City. I’m afraid I have some bad news….”
Tim straightened up, the human response to hearing “bad news” and “emergency room” in the same sentence. He hated New York, and so did every other fisherman he knew. Even worse, he despised hospitals and sickness with every bone in his body.
“A woman and child were brought in several hours ago. They have no ID save a card with your boat’s name on it.”
“The Aphrodite?” he asked, bewildered.
“The woman is slender, with blond hair and fair skin.”
He held on, saying nothing.
“Blue eyes …” the nurse said.
Tim bowed his head, his pulse accelerating. His mind conjured up a pair of familiar periwinkle eyes, searching and ready to laugh. Marsh-gold hair falling to her shoulders, freckles on pale skin. But with a child in New York? It wasn’t possible.
“Thirty-four or thirty-five,” the nurse continued. “Type O blood. The child is about twelve, has type AB.”
“I don’t know them,” Tim said, his mouth dry. Didn’t his daughter have type A? His head felt strange, as if he had the flu. The rough seas getting to him. Payback time for running out on his daughter time and again. He felt guilty enough already, obsessed with the way he lived his life. Malachy had never written him off before, and the old man’s final rage had shaken Tim to the core.
Throttling back, Tim turned toward Red’s. The docks and pilings were white with snow. Ice clung to the rigging of the big draggers. Woman with a twelve-year-old kid. In New York City? He had thought she was too sick to travel, but she had been on Nova Scotia last summer.
“The woman was wearing one earring. A small diamond and sapphire, kind of dangling …”
That did it. Glancing up, Tim saw himself reflected in the wheelhouse glass. Flooded with shame and regret, he remembered the little house by the Hawthorne docks, and he could see those trees his wife had loved so much, the ones with the white flowers that smelled so sweet. She wouldn’t be calling him though. Not after what had happened last summer.
“The bag is satin,” the nurse continued. “It has a tag inside, with the name of a place—”
“It came from the Schooner Shop,” Tim said, clearing his throat. “I gave it to her one Christmas. The earrings belonged to my grandmother….”
“Then, you do know her?” the nurse asked tensely.
“Her name is Dianne Robbins,” Tim said. “She was my wife.”
The Briggs taxi was an old blue Impala. Tim sat in back, staring out the window as the driver sped up Route 35. From the bridge, he saw suburban houses under snow, decorated with wreaths and lights. A few had snowmen in the yard. As they approached the Garden State Parkway, kids bombarded the taxi with snowballs.
“Heh,” the driver said. “I should be offended, but in my day I’d’ve been doing the same thing, snow like this.”
“Yeah,” Tim said, thinking of himself and his brothers.
“Heading up to the city for a good time?”
“To the hospital,” Tim said, his throat so dry he could hardly speak.
“Hey, man,” the driver said. “Sorry.” He fell silent, and Tim was glad. He didn’t want to talk. The heater was pumping and the radio was on. Tim didn’t want to tell some stranger his whole life story, how he had been running away for eleven straight years and had been just about to run even farther when he’d gotten this call.
Christmastime. Maybe Malachy had been right about this time of year: Families reunited, women forgave, children got better. Tim had wrecked his chances with everyone. He had stolen Dianne from his brother, married her, then walked away from her and their daughter.
Tim had just barely been able to live with himself all these eleven years, way out at sea. But he had burned his bridges with the old Irishman, the man who had made listening to dolphins off Nova Scotia his lifework, and that had woken him up. Malachy Condon had always urged him to make things right with Dianne. Maybe this was Tim’s last chance.
Amy woke up slowly. Her first thought was Mama! Her second was Dianne. Amy was in a hospital bed. The walls were green and the sheets were white. She had a cast on her arm, which was held up over her head by a metal triangle that looked like a trapeze.
“Is Dianne okay?” she asked the nurse standing by her bed.
“Is that your mother, honey?” the nurse asked.
Amy shook her head. She felt tears hot in her eyes. Her mother was back in Hawthorne. Amy wanted to call her, wanted her to come. “Tell me, please,” she said, choking on a sob. “Is Dianne-” she tried to ask.
The cabdriver took the Holland Tunnel. Tim hadn’t been in a tunnel in more years than he could remember. His life was the sea: crustaceans, the price of lobster at the Portland Fish Exchange, cold feet in wet boots, the smell of diesel fuel, and regret.
Tim’s life could have been different. Passing the nice houses decorated for Christmas, he wondered why he had given it all away. Once he had had it all: beautiful wife, nice house, prosperous lobstering business. Sometimes he felt guilty for taking Dianne from his brother, but the choice had been hers. She could have stayed with Alan-the great doctor-if she had wanted, but she had chosen Tim.
“I’m gonna take Hudson Street uptown,” the driver said. “West Side Highway’s stopped deader’n hell.”
“Just get me there,” Tim said. Dianne was in some New York hospital, just minutes away now. The closer he got to her, the harder his heart pounded. He had made mistakes, no doubt about it. But maybe he could undo some of them: He could go to the hospital now, see if he could help. Tim was a good guy at heart; his intentions had never been bad. He wanted Dianne to know that.
Maybe she understood already. Hadn’t she gotten the nurse to call him?
Tim would like to show Malachy. He hated picturing their last time together: spit flying from Malachy’s angry mouth, shouting at Tim as they stood on the Lunenburg dock. Acting more like Alan than Malachy: sanctimonious, looking down on Tim for his shortcomings. But this might be Tim’s chance to help Dianne, to prove both Alan and Malachy wrong.
Besides, didn’t the stars point to something? Why had Tim been steaming into Point Pleasant instead of somewhere else? He might have bailed into Nantucket, avoided yesterday’s storm. Or he could have veered into the Gulf Stream, headed farther south than New Jersey for his first port, had the radio off, not heard the call.
“Dianne,” he said out loud.
New York was filled with people and cars. Couples stood at every street corner. The Empire State Building was lit up green and red. Christmas t
rees down from Nova Scotia, where Tim had been the previous summer, filled the city air with the lovely fragrance of deep pine forests. Dianne loved the holidays. She was a good person, full of love, and she saw the holidays as one more chance to make her family happy-to bring joy to their daughter, he was sure.
As he thought of the little girl he had never met, Tim’s eyes stung. Dianne had told him her name was Julia. It didn’t help that Alan was her pediatrician, that he used to send letters to Tim through Malachy. Tim had torn them all up. The child had been born damaged.
No renegade lobsterman wanted to be reminded of lousy things he’d done. Dianne had given birth to a sick baby, and Tim hadn’t been able to handle it. That’s what fishing the Atlantic was for: tides and currents and a big lobster boat named after the goddess of love to take him the hell away.
Tim handed the driver a pile of money and jumped out at St. Bernadette’s Hospital-a complex of redbrick buildings too huge to figure out. He ran into the ER, pushing past a guard who told him he had to sign in. The nurses were nice. They took one look at him and knew he needed help fast. Tim had been aboard Aphrodite for days, and he needed to wash and shave.
“The woman and girl,” he said to the head nurse. “Who were brought in earlier, the accident, you called me …”
“You’re the fisherman,” she said kindly, handing him his grandmother’s earring.
Tim shuddered and groaned. He dried his face with the oil-stained sleeve of his brown Carhartt jacket. His knuckles were cracked and bloody from winter in northern waters. He clutched the ancient earring Dorothea McIntosh had given Dianne on their wedding day, and he remembered it sparkling in the Hawthorne sun as they’d said their vows.
Tim had been roaming for so long, searching for something that would help him forget he had run out on his wife and daughter. Julia had been born sick and crippled. Tim had been too afraid to see her.
“Where’s Dianne?” he asked, wiping his eyes.
The nurse led him through the hospital. Tim followed, their footsteps echoing down long corridors. The hospital seemed old, several brick buildings connected by a warren of hallways. Accustomed to starlight, Tim blinked under the fluorescent lighting. Entering a more modern wing, they rode an elevator to the twentieth floor.
“I’m taking you to see the child,” the nurse said. “Her mother is still in surgery.”
“No-” Tim began.
“The girl is scared,” the nurse said. “She’s hurt, and she’s all alone.”
“My daughter,” Tim whispered. Was it really possible? After eleven years, was he about to meet his little girl? His stomach clenched. He had never seen her, but in his imagination she was stunted and palsied, like other damaged children he had seen. By then, sure he was on the brink of meeting her, Tim steeled himself for what he would see.
“In here,” the nurse said, opening a door.
“Which one?” Tim asked.
It was a double room. Both beds were filled. The occupants of each were quiet, their faces in shadow. The nurse indicated the girl with a broken arm. She lay in traction, her arm suspended overhead with lines and crossbars, like the elaborate rigging of a brigantine. Stepping closer, Tim was stunned.
Lying there was a beautiful young girl. Her arm was in a cast, her forehead was bruised, but she was perfect. Dark lashes lay upon delicate skin. Her face was oval, her nose straight, her lips full. As Tim stared, he began to shake.
“My daughter,” he said, his voice croaking.
“She’s waking up,” the nurse said.
The child began to stir. She licked her lips, tried to move her arm. Her cry was awful to hear, and Tim wanted to put his arms around her.
“Oh,” she wept. “My arm hurts.”
“There, honey,” the nurse said soothingly, bending over the girl. She spoke quietly, helping the child to orient herself, blocking Tim from her sight. Tim pulled himself together the best he could. He didn’t want to meet his daughter for the first time in shock and looking like Captain Ahab-or worse.
“I want to go home,” the girl cried. “I want to go back to Hawthorne.”
“It’s okay,” the nurse said kindly. “You’re going to be fine, honey. And you’re not alone. There’s someone here to see you.”
The young girl blinked. Stepping out from behind the white-clad nurse, Tim watched the child bring him into focus. Blood pounded in his ears like waves smashing over a ship’s bow. He tried to smile, not wanting to frighten her. But he needn’t have worried. Her fearful expression changed instantly the moment she saw him into one of sheer delight and love.
“Dr. McIntosh!” she exclaimed, bursting into tears.
Tim was too choked up to speak. Hearing only his last name, he thought for one minute that his daughter knew him already. Dianne had showed her his picture. Maybe they kept it on the mantel. They had talked about him all this time.
“Oh, Dr. McIntosh,” she said again, and now Tim heard the rest, the “Doctor.” Shit. She was calling for his brother. Alan. In her groggy, posttraumatic state, she had caught sight of one McIntosh and mistaken him for the other. Tim’s heart fell. He closed his eyes and knew that the little girl had made a mistake.
And so, he thought, probably he had too. But he was going to set it straight. He had to see Dianne.
Conscious only of bright light and searing pain in her arm and head, Dianne moaned. Her eyes tried to focus. Shapes swam before her, green beings saying her name over and over.
“Dianne?” she heard. “Dianne, can you hear me?”
“Mrs. McIntosh, how many fingers am I holding up?”
“Amy …”
“Hold steady, that’s right.” She felt the pressure of a hand on her forehead. The Plaza, Christmas lights. Headlights came at her, and she cried out. But they weren’t headlights. A man in green was standing there, shining a light in her face.
“Dianne, do you know where you are?” came a woman’s voice.
“She’s lost so much blood,” a male voice said.
“Her pressure’s dropping,” came another voice.
“Please, help,” she murmured. Was this a nightmare? She could not move, and her thoughts swarmed in her mind. “Julia,” she mouthed, but she had been with Amy, hadn’t she? Julia was at home with her mother. Alan should be here … if he came, he would know what to do. He would save her. Memory fragments began to materialize, shifting around like parts of a terrible puzzle.
“Mrs. McIntosh,” the nurse said gently. “Amy is being taken care of. Everything we can do is being done. You need to be strong. Stay with us.”
Dianne’s mind was fuzzy with pain and injury and blood loss and whatever drugs they had given her. She felt herself losing consciousness. She wished she could open the door and walk through the snow to the marsh. Trying to see, her eyes would hardly focus. She was in New York. That’s right, they had come to New York to see The Nutcracker.
Shivering, thinking of Amy’s imagined terror, Dianne cried out in anguish.
“Stay with us, Dianne,” one voice said. “Mrs. McIntosh!” called another. She thought of her home by the Connecticut marshes, her mother and daughter, and Alan. The nurse had called her “Mrs. McIntosh” as if she were still married to Tim. A long time ago Dianne had dated both McIntosh brothers. They had both loved her, and at different times she had loved each of them. Alan was day, Tim was night. Dianne, for whom life had always been gentle, fair, and kind, had chosen the brother with a dark side. She had married Tim, and she had paid a price.
But over the last three magical seasons, she and Alan had started to come back together. For the first time in eleven years, Dianne had just started to love again, and now she lay in this strange bed in a New York hospital, so far from home, feeling as if she were starting to die. She spun back: winter, fall, summer, all the way to last spring….
It was April, and the scent of flowering pear trees filled the air of Hawthorne. The trees had been planted one hundred years earlier, along the brick sidewalks aro
und the waterfront, and their blossoms were white, fragile, and delicate. Looking up as she passed underneath, Dianne Robbins wondered how they survived the fresh sea wind that blew in from the east.
“Flowers, Julia,” she said.
Her daughter slept in the wheelchair, unaware. Reaching up, Dianne stood on her toes to grab hold of the lowest branch and break off a twig. Three perfect blossoms curved from thread-fine stems. The petals were pure white, soft pink in the center. Dianne thought they were beautiful, the more so because they lasted so short a time. The flowering pears of Hawthorne stayed in bloom less than a week.
Julia had once seen a flower and said “la,” her first word. So Dianne placed the twig on her sleeping child’s lap and continued on. She passed White Chapel Square, named for the three churches that surrounded it. The sea captains’ houses came next, gleaming white Federals with wide columns and green-black shutters, overlooking the harbor and lighthouse. Dianne had always dreamed of living in one of these houses, ever since she was a child.
She slowed in front of the one she loved most. It had an ornate wrought-iron fence surrounding the big yard and sea-flower meadow. At age nine Dianne had stood there gripping the black fence rails and imagining her life as a grown-up. She would be an architect and have a wonderful husband, beautiful children, two golden dogs, and they would all live blissfully in this house on the harbor.
Glancing at her daughter, Dianne pushed the wheelchair faster. The breeze had picked up, and it was cold for April. Low clouds scudded across the sky, making her wonder about rain. They had been early, with time for a walk after parking the car. But now it was almost three o’clock, time for Julia’s appointment with her uncle, Dr. Alan McIntosh.
Alan McIntosh sat as his desk while Mrs. Beaudoin went through Billy’s latest pictures in search of the perfect one for the Wall. She was a very young mother-Billy was her first baby-and Alan had long since learned that every patient’s mother’s goal was to see her child properly enshrined in the collage of photos hanging behind his desk.
