"The boys!" Betty said, as if Kit and Henry were brothers, were Annie's children. "I bought ice cream."
It was hard to think of Kit as anything but a boy. He seemed to be a very good father, warm and loving, gentle and firm when Henry behaved badly, appreciative the rest of the time. He had the patience of a saint--or a babysitter, Betty thought. There was something easygoing and relaxed about the young man that was extremely charming, but was a grown man with a young son supposed to be so at peace? Betty remembered when she first married Joseph. Annie had been almost as young as Henry. Joseph had not spent all his time playing with the girls. He had been at work, and when he was home, he had agonized about work. Joseph wanted to build a future for his family. That's what he told her at night when they lay in bed, arms around each other, dreaming of all the good things that would someday come their way. Well, Betty thought, here we are in the future, and what good did all of Joseph's planning and concern do them? Perhaps Kit's way was better. The child was his chum, his companion, his "little buddy." He always had time for him, except for those occasions when he had to go into the city for an audition. He was an actor, so he never had any work. He did always seem to have plenty of money, however, taking Miranda out to extravagant restaurants and appearing at the cottage with expensive bottles of wine. Perhaps Kit's way was better, Betty repeated to herself. Yet it was hard to accept him as an adult person. He was so intensely boyish, as if not the theater but being boyish were his profession. He seemed to have sprung from Henry's loins rather than the other way around.
Kit had taken Miranda sailing that morning. She had never sailed much before, but in the last month, Kit had taken her out almost every morning. She preferred sports that actually allowed you to move, like tennis or skiing or, in a pinch, golf. But sitting next to Kit on his Aunt Charlotte's sailboat, his unconscious youth illuminated in the rich autumn light, his skin burnt by the sun and the wind, his pale gray eyes squinting into the benign autumn sun, the sail full and bleached white against the richness of the sky, snapping in the wind, the clouds racing the sailboat across the blue expanse, sitting beside Kit, the sky so deep a blue and so alive on her skin, sitting there, so still, not moving a muscle, yet shooting through the waves, the spray cold and fine, Miranda had rediscovered the joy of speed.
This was not the same as movement, a sensation she knew so well, a sensation she needed and cultivated constantly, clapping her hands, waving her arms, striding purposefully across a room, standing, sitting, crossing and uncrossing her legs. Movement was a language Miranda could speak. But this was something entirely different. This was a rush of excitement, this was the universe's movement, not her own, this was beyond her control. For the first time in years, Miranda was passive, flying through time, hurtling toward her fate, whatever that fate might be.
Henry had been there, too, of course, on all the sails, swaddled in a fat yellow life preserver. That morning he had spent most of the time on Miranda's lap asleep. When he woke, he pointed at an airplane, at a seagull, at a plastic bleach bottle bobbing in the water, naming them as God named the birds and beasts of the Bible: plane, bird, bottle. Children are not very discriminating, she thought, seeing his gleeful eyes, and wondered where she fit into his interests. When he asked her to sing a song, she could think of nothing but "Puff the Magic Dragon." But when she got to the part about Little Jackie Paper going away, Henry began to sob.
"It is sort of tragic," Miranda said apologetically to Kit, who took the gasping child and tried to comfort him. "But who ever pays attention to the words? Except for them maybe being about pot."
"Really? I never knew that."
Kit replaced Henry on her lap, and the little boy wiped his face in her sweater. She patted his silky head as if he were a cat, feeling the sweet pressure of his face against her. My little pussycat, she thought, feeling oddly shy, unable to say it out loud.
Kit was still so young that his own childhood was very much alive for him. When he spoke about his family and his youth, his face lit up. Then he gave a relaxed sigh, like someone after a good meal.
Why, he was young enough to be her assistant.
The perfect assistant, an assistant who took over one's life. He poured coffee for her from a thermos. He peeled an orange and passed her bright, perfect sections. He handed her ropes and told her to pull them taut or release them slowly. This, this was what she had been searching for in an assistant all these years--a skipper.