Sailing Lessons

by Hannah McKinnon

  She turned suddenly and saw Piper. “Goodness, you startled me.”

  “Sorry, Mama. I just woke up.” She sat down on the lounge beside her.

  Lindy swiped at her eyes quickly with the back of her hand as she turned to face her.

  “Are you crying?” Piper leaned closer.

  “No, no. What’s up?”

  “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  Lindy brightened. “Oh? Good, because I’ve got something to share with you, too.”

  Piper was still thinking about her mother’s red-rimmed eyes. “You first.”

  Lindy pressed her lips together. “I’ve been thinking about your father coming back. And how to best handle this for you girls.”

  This was the only thing that had worried her about her father’s return. How it would impact their mother. “Mama, you already did—for all those years you raised us alone. You handled it better than anyone could have.”

  Lindy let out a sad little laugh. “Well, I don’t know about that. You’re leaving out a lot of ugly mistakes.”

  Piper felt like an imposter sitting there talking with her mother so openly like this, all the while clutching her own invisible basket of mistakes.

  “So,” Lindy said, “after thinking about this, I’ve decided there’s one thing I need to do. I need to be there when you see your father.”

  “Really?” Piper was an adult; she squelched the childish hope that burst momentarily in her chest at the thought of her parents being together, if only in the same room.

  “Wren called. She told me he wants to take you out for dinner in town.”

  “So, you’re going to join us?”

  Lindy shook her head. “No. I’m going to hold the dinner here.”

  “Here?” Piper glanced around. This was the last place she had pictured them reuniting. Bowser in his cone with dog beds spread all over the house. On her mother’s turf. And with Hank? “But Mom.”

  The look on Lindy’s face silenced her. “Don’t give me too much credit, kiddo. This may be self-interest.”

  “Won’t that be hard for you? And what about Hank? Even if you host it here, I still don’t think Shannon will come.”

  “That’s okay. I respect her decision.” Her mother set down her iced tea and rested her elbows on her knees. “Look, I couldn’t change the fact your father stayed away. But I’ve always felt guilt about telling him to go.”

  Piper pressed a finger to her scar. They never talked liked this. “You were trying to protect us.”

  “Still. I was there the day he left, and I’ve been there every day since, haven’t I?”

  Piper nodded.

  “Then honor that. Let me be there the day he comes back.”

  “If you’re sure. Do the others know about this plan?”

  “I called Wren while you were napping. She called your dad, and Shannon, too. Dinner is at seven.”

  “So Dad is coming here?”

  Lindy nodded. Piper couldn’t imagine what he must be thinking about that. “And Hank?”

  Lindy smiled. “Is a saint. He’s at Chatham Market picking up some things for dinner right now.”

  Piper stood, the people and facts roiling around in her head. “I guess I better shower and pull myself together.”

  “Wait,” Lindy said. “What were you going to tell me?”

  Piper paused in the doorway. “Oh, nothing important. Nothing that can’t wait.”

  Twenty-One

  Hank

  There was no line at Shop Ahoy Liquor, but Hank was creating quite the holdup standing at the counter considering his wine options. “What are you pairing the wine with?” the owner asked, trying to be helpful.

  Hank sighed. Damned if he knew. Could he recommend a dry white for estrangement? Perhaps something full bodied and red for family angst? In the end he chose a Semillon and two Malbecs. Then pointed to his old standby, a bottle of Maker’s Mark, on the shelf behind the cash register. It was going to be a long night.

  He had nobody to blame except himself, however. Lindy had been fretting about all week. Fretting about the girls and the dog. Fretting over how the grandkids might best be introduced to Caleb, if indeed Shannon would allow her kids to be introduced to him at all. They were big decisions, decisions that involved a number of players over a number of years of heartache. That week Hank had watched Lindy cook, garden, talk, and pace into a state until he could watch no more. And so last night, as they went for their evening walk around the neighborhood, he proposed his idea. It was an idea he did not relish. But it was the only one that gave him some sense of control in a situation that was clearly beyond any of their control: they would invite Caleb Bailey over for dinner.

  Lindy had halted in the middle of the road, and at first, he was afraid she’d smack him. “Brilliant!” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck. He’d stood there staring up past the shingled rooftops at the pink sunset, feeling the fierceness of her love, and right then something deep and knotted he had not realized was tied up inside him had loosened. Like a tangled spool of thread unwinding.

  “You’re right. This is the only way to do it,” she gushed, as he quickened his pace to keep up with her on the way home. Her stride was swifter, lighter, which was more her usual self, but already he lamented her getting away from him so quickly. He could’ve stayed there in the middle of the road holding on to her all night. “We will face him head on, together. And on our own turf.” She’d paused, as if trying to catch her own thoughts. “It’s good it’s not the old Ridgevale house, but the home we’ve since made without him. I think it’s emotionally safer that way.” Hank listened carefully for any hint of ire in her voice, for some sense of raking Caleb Bailey over the coals as she invited him right up her front steps, but there was none. He wasn’t sure how he felt about this.

  There had been plenty, back in the early days. Resentment. Lament for the loss of his role in their lives. Girls needed their fathers, she said, and he did not disagree. But although he initially wished she’d be more upset now with Caleb, he realized maybe this way was better. Anger was passion. And as far as Hank could tell, the only passion Lindy reserved these days was in relation to her children and himself. And how she could make this sudden reunion easier on all of them.

  With the setting decided upon, next up was the matter of the guests. It was determined that it would be just the Bailey women for this first meeting. As expected, Shannon would not commit, but Lindy held out hope. The last item was the menu.

  “It will be yours and the girls’ favorites,” Lindy told him that afternoon as she bent over the kitchen island, twirling a pencil thoughtfully in her hand. Piper was upstairs napping, and they were speaking softly so as not to wake her. She hadn’t looked good to Hank, and she was another question mark on his mind.

  “Don’t worry about me,” he’d said. “Depending how things go, I may end up drinking my dinner anyway.”

  Lindy began listing. “Grilled salmon. Strawberry spinach salad. Oh, and let’s grill some of those little fingerling potatoes with fresh rosemary.” Here she’d rushed out to the garden with a pair of scissors and returned with sprigs of herbs which she quickly dipped into mason jars and filled with water on the windowsill. Then she tore the list off the pad of paper with a flourish and held it out to him. “Got all that?”

  He did now, in four different bags across the backseat. He thought of the last thing Lindy had said as he walked out the door, keys in hand.

  “You do a lot,” she’d allowed. “For all your girls.”

  It was a phrase Lindy did not use often, but it still had the same effect on him since the first time she’d uttered the words. They’d been married about a year when she’d had quite a row with Shannon over a missed curfew and a subsequent grounding. Hank had seen more than his fair share of temper tantrums and tears before. There had been some good sisterly spats thrown in there, too. But he’d not seen the likes of this, the kind of digging in of heels and stubbornness, as if to the
death. There had been screaming accusations and slamming of doors and finally a standoff in the form of a silent streak that went on for two days. He couldn’t remember all the details now, but Wren had sided with her sister out of solidarity and Piper had cried on and off because no one would play with her, and Lindy was unreachable, so entrenched was she in her attempts to get her daughters to concede.

  Finally, he had been the one to make the rounds. To knock on doors and sit on the edges of beds, to withstand the cross looks and dramatic sighs. It did not go smoothly. He’d appealed to Wren and soothed Piper, and finally, endured the floodgates of tears as Shannon poured out her heart. At one point, he’d looked up to see Lindy standing in the cracked doorway as he sat still as a statue while Shannon howled and cried and blew her nose into his tear-stained sweater.

  He wasn’t sure if any of it had done a damn bit of good until he came downstairs a couple hours later to a sound that had become foreign in the house. Laughter. He peeked around the corner and there they were, the four of them. Lined up on the couch, passing a tub of ice cream back and forth between them watching Little House on the Prairie. It was a miracle what a tub of ice cream and Melissa Gilbert could do for four warring women.

  Later that night, in the privacy of their bed, Lindy rolled over and propped herself up on one elbow. He’d steeled himself, at first. This posture usually preceded a “concern” that required discussing. Hank was not up for this. He was tired, and his book was particularly good, and frankly he just wanted to be left alone.

  “I learned something today,” she’d said. “It’s important that you know it, too.”

  He drew in a breath, thinking back to Shannon’s outpouring. Piper’s tears. “Did I do something wrong?” he asked, warily.

  Lindy shook her head. “It’s about the girls.”

  He waited.

  “They’re not just mine anymore. It seems they’re your girls, too.”

  That was all. She’d leaned in then and kissed his forehead, before rolling over. Soon her breathing evened out into the soft snore of slumber. But Hank had sat awake a long time, the page of his particularly good book left unturned, replaying his wife’s message. They were his, too. Those three stubborn, unpredictable, beautiful girls. It was the greatest gift she had ever given him: permission to love them like his own.

  Which is how Hank had ended up driving to Shop Ahoy Liquor and then pushing a grocery cart around Chatham Market, a stepfather buying dinner for an estranged father. He’d checked everything off the list that Lindy had requested. There was one important item not on the list that Hank had made sure to add to the cart: two tubs of ice cream—the good kind. Vanilla for Wren and chocolate for the other three. What Lindy failed to realize is that she, too, was one of his girls.

  He hoped this idea of his would not backfire. What, exactly, he wished for he could not say. Hank did not want Caleb Bailey in his life. And he worried what this meant to his wife, how it might change her. Or, ultimately, change them. But he also wanted peace for the girls, which he knew would ultimately give Lindy peace, too. Maybe the stars would align, and it could be a success. It could also be a spectacular disaster.

  Back at the house, Piper greeted him at the door in a pretty white sundress, her long wet hair smelling of lavender. She took the grocery bags from his arms and he followed her into the kitchen where Lindy stood at the island chopping greens from the garden. Wren was there, too, sitting on a stool with a glass of wine. Her expression was somber but when he walked in, she looked up and smiled.

  Lindy did, too. “There he is.”

  Twenty-Two

  Wren

  When she’d dropped him off at the Chatham Motel, her father had the rumpled and unslept look about him that comes with riding a bus across the country over several days. Now, as he stepped out of the car at the foot of her mother’s front porch, he was a different man.

  Caleb paid the Uber driver and turned to face her. He’d dressed casually for dinner in a short-sleeved button-down shirt and Bermuda shorts, his standard summer look that flashed with bright familiarity from her childhood. His hair was neatly combed, and he carried a small bouquet of flowers. Anyone walking by with their dog on this lovely summer evening would have guessed he was just another dinner guest, not a man who’d been missing for twenty-three years, about to climb the steps of his estranged ex-wife’s house to meet with two of his three daughters.

  “Beverly’s house,” he said, appraisingly. He raised his eyebrows. “She here?”

  Wren had to smile. “No. Not yet, anyway. It’s Mom’s and Hank’s now. Beverly still comes up every July.”

  He looked slightly relieved to hear that as he started up the steps. “Everyone’s inside,” Wren told him.

  He brightened. “Shannon?”

  Wren shook her head. She wouldn’t make an apology for her sister; Shannon wouldn’t have it.

  Caleb ran a hand through his hair and smoothed his shirt. He didn’t try to give her a peck on the cheek or a hug in greeting, though he looked like he could have used either one of those things himself.

  “All right,” he said.

  Wren held the door open for him.

  • • •

  Before, if someone had asked her to imagine how a dinner like this would have gone, she might’ve guessed it would be painful. There was so much to consider. Like the long-held questions finally able to be asked and released into the air. The hard truths of the answers, assuming any were given. She might’ve predicted Piper’s nervous enthusiasm, her vast and uneasy attempts to pull everyone together in conversation. She would’ve surely predicted the set of her mother’s jaw, her abiding silence at the table. Hank was a wild card. On the one hand he was as predictable in his disposition as the local tide charts, but the man loved her mother in a manner so singular that Wren could imagine some kind of confrontation. How wrong she would have been on all counts.

  Caleb entered the kitchen ahead of her, where the others had taken their places like a well-rehearsed play. Lindy went to him first. There was a moment—an intake of breath—as she allowed herself to get a good look at the man. But there was no demonstration of emotion as to how she felt about what she saw.

  “You’re back,” she said. Before he could answer, she extended her hand like he was a stranger, and shook it.

  If Caleb was disappointed by this reception, he did not show it. He held her hand a moment longer than he might have, but that was all. “Lindy,” he said softly. “You look well.”

  At this point Piper proved unable to contain herself any longer. She edged up beside them, her face open and expectant as a child’s, and Wren had a hard time looking at all the hope it revealed. “Dad? It’s me, Piper.”

  He smiled almost shyly, shaking his head all the while in wonder, and she stepped into his arms and wrapped her own tightly around him. Here Caleb faltered. Wren felt the tears prick her eyes as he tipped his head, as if the sun itself were shining on his face. “Look at you,” he said, stepping back. “A thing of beauty.”

  Wren glanced over at her mother, who was standing at the ready. Lindy looked prepared to jump in at any moment.

  When the two parted, Hank ran the back of his hand roughly across his cheeks and then turned to Hank. “I’m Caleb Bailey. It’s nice to meet you.”

  Wren was proud of Hank. He did not puff up his chest, nor did he linger in the background. Instead he shook his hand and clapped Caleb on the back gently. “Welcome. What can I get you to drink? Wine? Bourbon?”

  At the same time, both Lindy and Caleb answered.

  “Just water, please.”

  “Oh, he doesn’t drink.”

  Hank looked uncomfortably between the two for a beat, then recovered. “Water it is.”

  An awkwardness hung over the kitchen. It wasn’t just the calling out that their father didn’t drink; it was how quickly her mother had spoken for their father, and Wren could tell it surprised Hank, too. Was it possible to fall back into old habits after so much time?


  Wren went to the sideboard and pulled down a wineglass. Her father may not drink, but right now she needed one.

  It was no secret to Wren and Shannon that Caleb Bailey had had a drinking problem. But, it was not something they’d ever discussed, especially in front of Piper. Lindy had always answered any questions they’d had—she’d encouraged it even—but there was something too hard about saying his name out loud, and though Piper would sometimes ask wistful questions or wonder aloud over the years, there was no real danger in it coming from her. She didn’t recall the facts, and for whatever reason the rest of them had done very little to fill the holes in her memory.

  Wren filled a glass with Malbec. While she was at it, Wren poured Piper a glass of white wine and filled a tumbler with ice. “What’s that?” Hank asked.

  She poured two golden fingers of bourbon over the ice and handed it to him. “Fortitude.”

  After that the evening progressed at a quiet, if formal, pace. They sat on the screened-in porch while Hank stood nearby grilling salmon. Caleb asked after Beverly’s health, about the whereabouts of friends from the old neighborhood, what line of work Hank was in. The polite veil of manners followed them into the dining room, where there was a moment’s hesitation as everyone stood awkwardly around the table, unsure of which seat to take. Lindy took her place at one head and nodded at Hank to do the same. Seemingly relieved, Caleb took a seat in the middle, across from Piper and Wren.

  “I do wish Shannon had joined us,” he said.

  Lindy did not reply.

  Luckily the food filled the lull. There was grilled fish and fingerling potatoes, a bowl of garden salad and fresh-baked cornbread. Platters were passed and served, plates filled and emptied. The clink of silverware was the only thing interrupting the conversation, most of which came from Piper. She had questions, so many questions, but their father took it all in stride. He spoke about his work and Arizona. About some of the places he hoped to see while he was back on the Cape. The weather. Everything except what Wren was certain was most on everyone’s mind.