The family sloop was christened Ariel. It was a long-seasoned, weather-stained, beautiful forty-foot sailboat with a deep hull and a square stern. It had been in the family for decades. Today its bare mast stood up stiffly, cutting the dome of the sky like a knife. A pelican sat on the line that tethered the boat to the dock.
Brooks was barefoot, in cutoffs and a green Tulane sweatshirt. He wore his father’s old army baseball cap. For a moment Eureka forgot she was mourning Madame Blavatsky. She even forgot she was mad at Brooks. As she and the twins approached the boat, she enjoyed his simple movements—how familiar he was with every inch of the boat, the strength he displayed tightening the sheets. Then she heard his voice.
He was shouting as he moved from the cockpit to the main deck. He leaned down the stairs, head level with the galley below. “You don’t know me and you never will, so stop trying.”
Eureka stopped short on the dock, holding the twins’ stiff hands. They were used to Eureka shouting at home, but they’d never seen Brooks like this.
He looked up and saw her. His posture loosened. His face lit up.
“Eureka.” He grinned. “You look terrific.”
She squinted toward the galley, wondering whom Brooks had been yelling at. “Is everything okay?”
“Never better. Top of the morning, Harrington-Boudreauxs!” Brooks lifted his cap at the twins. “Are you ready to be my double first mates?”
The twins jumped into Brooks’s arms, forgetting how scary he’d just been. Eureka heard someone climbing from the galley to the deck. The silver crown of Brooks’s mother’s head appeared. Eureka was stunned that he would say what he’d said to Aileen. She stood on the gangway and held out a hand to help Aileen up the steep, slightly rocking steps.
Aileen offered Eureka a weary smile and held out her arms for a hug. Her eyes were wet. “I loaded up the galley with lunch.” She straightened the collar of her striped jersey dress. “There are plenty of brownies, baked fresh last night.”
Eureka imagined Aileen wearing a flour-dusted apron at three in the morning, baking her anxiety into sweet-smelling steam that carried the secret of the change in Brooks. He wasn’t just wearing Eureka down. His mother seemed like a smaller, faded version of herself.
Aileen slipped off her kitten heels and held them in her hands. She turned her deep brown eyes on Eureka; they were the same color as her son’s. She lowered her voice. “Have you noticed anything strange about him recently?”
If only Eureka could open up to Aileen, hear what she’d been going through, too. But Brooks came and stood between them, putting an arm around each of them. “My two favorite ladies,” he said. And then, before Eureka could register Aileen’s reaction, Brooks removed his arms and walked to the helm. “You ready to do this, Cuttlefish?”
I haven’t forgiven you, she wanted to say, though she had read all sixteen groveling text messages he’d sent this week, and the two letters he’d left in her locker. She was here because of Madame Blavatsky, because something told her that destiny mattered. Eureka was trying to replace her final image of Blavatsky dead in her studio with the memory of the woman at peace under the willow tree by the bayou, the one who’d seemed convinced there was good reason for Eureka to sail with Brooks today.
What you do once you’re there is up to you.