44
NORM STALLED in the boat barn, pacing along the full length of the fifty-six-foot-six-inch mast he and Brandon had roped—in sections—to the truck and hauled from Anacortes in the slow lane with his hazard lights flashing. Why hadn’t he waited until he’d found a good price on a short rig? The taller stick would come in handy in light air, sure, but fifty-six-six? Christ. He’d read enough to know that the bigger the mast, the bigger the sails and the bigger the trouble.
He’d pulled the trigger on the rest of the rigging, too, from some salvage guy in Sacramento, of all places, who swore it was all brand-new and should arrive by the following weekend. Flipping through the Yanmar catalogue for another look at the two-cylinder twenty-five horse, he pictured his shiny sloop swaying in the boat-lift slings at the marina, rocking his head slightly to enhance the fantasy.
He didn’t know what exactly explained it, whether the stroke had cleared his head or if it was the removal of his daily burdens or what Jeanette would probably call karma. He just knew things looked as different as they did after the first snowfall. Brandon, especially. He was far better at running the dairy than Norm had expected and seemed to communicate more easily than ever. But Norm still couldn’t make sense of the notoriety he continued to generate. The tunnel discovery was a freak show unto itself, with people always stopping by to fawn over him. And he flatly couldn’t believe what Sophie had told him about the pothead professor taking a serious interest in Brandon’s art. Plus she now was throwing an art show cocktail party strategically scheduled just hours before the grand opening of the casino. Jeanette said it would feature some of their son’s work that nobody had ever seen. He’d even received an invite in the mail. When would it ever stop?
The idea of everyone standing around staring at Brandon’s paintings went down like castor oil. He’d never understood art for art’s sake, which left him bored and snickering at the suckers who bought into it. Brandon’s took it a step further and confused and embarrassed him, as if it exposed something unflattering about the Vanderkool gene pool.
When daylight flashed inside the barn, Norm could hear crescendos of laughter coming from next door. The party sounded large even by Sophie’s standards, so apparently even the anti-casino doomsayers were turning out en masse to see just how cheesy this “Vegas-style” monstrosity was inside, after first checking out the artwork and grabbing a few free drinks.
“Brandon?”
The youthful voice puzzled him, since he’d assumed it was Jeanette coming to scold him about being late for the party. He stepped out from his semi-enclosed workstation, looked down and saw nobody. “Hello?” he hesitantly replied.
A moment later, a slender, short-haired woman with bright eyes ducked out from beneath the broad camber of the hull. It took Norm a couple breaths to recognize Madeline Rousseau.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Didn’t mean to interrupt—”
“No bother.”
“Saw the light and couldn’t resist peeking,” she explained. “I had no idea how big it is. You could go anywhere in this, couldn’t you?”
“If I can get her out of the barn.”
“Can I have a look inside?”
“By all means.”
She climbed the stairs, stepped confidently aboard and spun a Lumar winch. “Look at the size of these suckers.” She disappeared below, clucking and whistling. “Had no clue it would be this … awesome.”
Norm didn’t notice the knee twinges as he descended into the galley.
“Bronze portals, laminated beams, teak trim. You’re a real craftsman, Mr. Vanderkool.”
Norm blushed. “Don’t look too close.” He’d heard the professor had put her in rehab for a couple weeks. He’d also heard she went away to college in Ontario, or had gone to see an aunt in Manitoba. He unlatched the electrical box and waved her over to see the color-coordinated wiring, feeling like a sweaty kid showing off his science-fair project. “Got it all labeled, see? Bow light. Anchor light. VHF.”
She at least feigned interest. “I’m stalling,” she confided after he shut the box. “I don’t feel up to going to Sophie’s quite yet.”
“Me neither.”
She laughed, and Norm wondered why he’d just now realized how pretty she was. He’d always thought her sister was the beauty. “You were looking for Brandon?”
She smiled. “Been thinking about him a lot lately.”
Norm scrambled to catch up with the significance of the words and the smile.
“I got my job back at the nursery. And if I can stay sober”—she tapped a knuckle on the cabin trim—“I’ll apply for winter quarter.”
He nodded, admiring her candor.
“So part of my plan,” she continued, “is to get back into sailing—not racing, just sailing—which got me curious about your project here. What do you still need?”
“Plenty.” Norm inhaled as Sophie’s party clamor crested again. “For starters, an engine, so I’m—”
“What else?”
“Little things, sails being the biggest, but I’m a long ways from being able to afford even a Yanmar, so—”
“Why not just buy some used sails online and drop her in the bay?”
He laughed awkwardly. “Think I’ll have a hard enough time maneuvering her with an engine, Madeline. You see, I don’t have all that much experience under sail.”
“I’d love to help you figure it out,” she said. “We could learn how to sail her together, Norm—in and out of the marina, if we had to, until we can get an engine for her.”
He turned away, pretending to sneeze. The biggest difference the stroke made was emotional. He couldn’t remember ever breaking down quite like he had earlier in the week when the tall doctor in her white lab coat gave them the verdict on Jeanette’s condition: “It looks like early Alzheimer’s.”
“Looks like,” Norm had repeated petulantly, zeroing in on the chink in the diagnosis. “So you don’t actually know what it is.”
The doctor looked at each of them confidently, patiently. “My experience tells me that’s what it is, but there isn’t a blood test or—”
“So you don’t know,” he snapped.
“That’s true, but—”
“Well, why do you—”
“Norm,” Jeanette said calmly. “It’s okay. I’ve got it. It’s almost a relief. Really, it’s okay. I’ve known it for some time.”
It wasn’t her graceful acceptance so much as her attempt to comfort him that got him blubbering. But even little things uprooted him now. Jeanette’s reminder notes that she posted for herself all around the house. Brandon bottle-feeding a calf. So something as incidental as Madeline Rousseau calling him Norm for the first time could move him, much less her offering, in the gentlest way imaginable, to teach him how to sail his boat.