*
It was easy. A communications firm caught the towboat's radio signal, shifted it over to the phone lines for two-way communication, and charged a small fee.
“Cost my company about six bucks,” Captain Joe said. “I figure they can stand the freight.”
“Daddy?” Arlette cried at Nick's voice, and then, to someone else. “It's Daddy! He's on the phone!”
A thousand-ton weight seemed to fall from Nick's shoulders. He could feel his heart melting, turning to warm ooze within his chest. The breath came more easily to his lungs. He felt two inches taller.
“Hello, baby,” he said.
“Where are you? Are you okay?”
“I'm okay, baby. I've been on a boat on the river with ...” He looked at Jason. “With someone I met,” he finished, saving that explanation for later.
“On the river?”
“The Mississippi.”
“But you were coming by car ...”
“Nick!” Manon's voice, coming in loudly after the click of the extension picking up. “Nick, are you all right?”
“I'm fine. A little sunburned, that's all.”
“Thank God!” Manon said.
“He's on the river,” Arlette explained to her mother. “On a boat.”
“I'm on a towboat right now,” Nick said. “The captain let me use his radio. But we've been drifting on the river for a couple days.”
“Are you with Viondi?” Manon asked.
There was a moment of silence. “No,” Nick finally said. “Viondi didn't make it.”
“Oh, Nick,” Manon breathed.
“I'm sorry, Daddy,” said Arlette.
Nick licked his lips. “The car wrecked in the quake,” he said. “I got out by water. Somebody picked me up.” He looked at Jason again. The boy was trying not to look at him, to give him privacy. “We've been on the river, and we just now got picked up by a towboat.”
“So you're okay,” Arlette said.
“Yes.” The sounds of the voices were bringing visions to Nick's mind. The big clapboard house just outside of Toussaint, with its oaks and broad porch. Arlette by the phone in the kitchen, dressed in a checked cotton blouse and blue jeans worn white at the knees. Manon upstairs in the bedroom, pacing back and forth at the full length of the phone cord the way she did, with the lace curtains fluttering in the window behind.
Fantasies. Nick couldn't know whether they were real or not. But they felt real, very real indeed.
“I'm sorry I missed your birthday yesterday,” he said.
“It wasn't much of a party. Not with the way— well, not the way things are here.”
“But you're okay? And Ed, and Gros-Papa, and .. .”
“We're all fine,” Arlette said. “The house came through the quake okay. But we're on an island now. We don't have electricity, but they managed to repair the phone exchange, at least for the houses in town.”
“We have food from the store,” Manon said. “We have enough boats, we can get away if we want. But there doesn't seem to be anyplace to go—”
Arlette's excited voice broke in. “Maybe you can sail here in your towboat!”
“I'll do that, baby,” Nick said, “if the captain will let me.” And his eyes sought Captain Joe, who stood beaming in a corner of the pilothouse with his hands in his pockets.
“You tell your girl that I'll do what I can,” he bellowed without knowing what had been asked of him. “Anybody who got a Gros-Papa is a fren' o' mine!”
Nick talked to Arlette for a long while as the captain beamed and grinned. The words just seemed to float out of him. He was having a hard time not floating away himself.
Eventually the words wound down, and he saw Captain Joe standing with a pensive expression on his face, and the man on watch staring neutrally out the window.
“I should go, baby,” he said. “I think I've been using the captain's radio long enough. I'll call tomorrow if I can, okay?”
He brought the call to an end. Captain Joe turned to Jason. “You want to make a call, son?” he asked.
Jason gave a short little shake of the head. “No one to call,” he said, and left the pilothouse.
Captain Joe gave Nick a look, brows raised. Nick only shrugged.
“Let's get us some chow, podnah,” Joe said.