He blinked, then grinned. A tidal wave of relief nearly toppled all of them.
“Did you . . . hold your breath coming up?” she asked, recalling the air embolism.
“Of course not,” he said. “Your friend the Negro warned me not to.”
?PART SEVEN
The Sea, the Sea
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
* * *
It was only when Dexter returned to his automobile outside the Red Hook boatyard that he had the ease and solitude to revisit his discovery. The Cadillac’s fragrant leather seat received him like a pair of arms, and he settled exhaustedly into its embrace. A trying dispute had followed his “blowup,” pitting him against not just the Naval Yard men and Kerrigan’s daughter but also his own boys and even the skipper. These unlikely bedfellows were united in the belief that he should go back to the bottom and rise again slowly, with stops along the way, so as not to get the bends. Dexter waved them off. He felt fine, no pains anywhere—in fact, he felt damned good, considering he’d muffed the dive and had to be fished out of the harbor like a rag doll by the very men he’d forced into submission earlier. He hardly cared. Behind all of it beat the tattoo of his discovery. He was aware of it through each step of dismantling their voyage, all the way to the end, when he shook hands with Kerrigan’s daughter and her colleagues and noted without rancor that the men met his eye as equals.
He’d chanced upon his favorite hour: a premonition of dawn without any visible sign of it. He started the car to warm it, then let his mind turn at last to the revelation that had bombarded him during his ascent. But the flash of comprehension, of illumination, was all he could remember.
Dumb with surprise, Dexter returned to the moment of discovery: rising through the dark water faster, then faster still, the friction of the rope making a hot stripe through the middle of his gloves. Meanwhile, dawn leaked under a rim of Brooklyn sky and a hush fell on the harbor, lighters and tugs and freight-car floats falling briefly silent in the sudden faint light like strangers in an elevator.
Had he really forgotten?
He could still get home before sunrise. This wish—to make today ordinary, like any other day—hardened into urgency. He pulled away from the curb and accelerated through Sunset Park and Bay Ridge, racing against the sun. The stakes seemed to rise as he drove, until he was convinced that if he could just begin at the usual time, in the usual place, something would have been repaired. Success hinged upon rhythm and timing, like the old game of sidearming pennies under moving streetcars. You had to know exactly when to release the penny to get it through.
A pointed brightness had gathered above the Flatlands by the time he reached Manhattan Beach. He’d beaten the sun. He was breathing hard, unaccountably relieved as he entered the silence of his home. He heated the coffee Milda had left, poured himself a cup, and drank it on the porch with the wind in his face, exactly as he’d imagined. The sun rose humbly, scattering weak light over the sea. The dawn minesweepers reminded him of custodians waxing a lobby floor. A procession of ships shouldered past each other beyond Breezy Point. Gulls hung stationary, like kites. All of it felt salubrious, as if his proximity to the sea had rubbed everything—Kerrigan’s daughter, the dive, even his revelation—into insignificance.
He wondered if Tabby might join him. She’d done little besides mourn and mope since Grady had shipped out nearly three weeks before—a bereaved widow of sixteen. Dexter would have missed his nephew, too, had he not been so relieved to be rid of him.
He refilled his cup twice and drank coffee until sunlight laid bare his need for sleep. He descended to his sunken bedroom, picturing Harriet dreaming in their bed and longing for her—for his wife specifically—in a way he hadn’t in weeks.
He found the blackout shades raised in their bedroom. The resulting slash of brightness affronted him after the gentle murk he’d anticipated. He heard running water from behind the bathroom door. Saturday. Why on earth was she up so early?
He was on the verge of rapping on the door to pose that question when something made him wait. He went to his dressing room, removed his piece and locked it up, released his socks from their garters, and unfastened his cuff links, which he’d worn beneath the diving suit. When the bath taps had been turned off, he called through the door, “You’re up early, darling.”
“I’ve a bridge game at the club,” she called back. “Tabby’s coming, too.”
Gently, he turned the doorknob but found it locked. The twins had a habit of bounding into rooms. “Is she awake?” he asked.
“She spent the night at Lucy’s with some other girls. A Carmen Miranda party.” He could hear her washing. “They make headdresses out of fruit and hang curtain rings from their ears and dance to ‘South American Way.’ As I understand it.”
This onslaught of bright detail had the same off-putting effect as the sunlight. “I’m surprised she has the spirits for it,” he said at last, through the door. “With Grady gone.”
“Oh, I think she’s getting over that.”
He heard her rise from the tub. A few moments later, she opened the bathroom door in her satin coral peignoir, expensive smells lazing in the steam behind her. Dexter had met Carmen Miranda when Down Argentine Way first opened, and she could not hold a candle to his wife. He approached Harriet, aroused by the beads of humidity gathered in her hairline. She brushed past him into her dressing room, closed the door partway, and flung her peignoir over the top. For a second time, Dexter found himself making conversation through a slab of wood. “Since when does Tabby play bridge?” he asked.
“Felicity’s got her hooked on it.”
“Felicity.”
“Booth’s daughter.”
“Ah.” He lowered himself to the bed in his trousers and shirtsleeves. The sun jabbed his eyes. “You didn’t mention Boo Boo.”
“I told you days ago. We’re playing a rubber and having lunch, and then I’m driving the girls to the Squibb Building to wrap coats for Bundles for Britain.”
Something about this litany of plans had the airtight quality of an alibi. Dexter lay back on the bed and waited for Harriet to emerge in the sporting ensemble she usually wore to the club. She appeared in her new “capote” scarf-hat with mink along the face, presumably for the mirror—she wasn’t leaving yet.
“I’m glad Boo Boo is putting our gasoline to good use,” he said.
“Booth.”
“You call him Boo Boo.”
“I know him better.”
“And getting to know him better still. Using my gasoline.”
“You’re a fine one to talk.”
Dexter sat upright. She was throwing open windows, letting in wind, along with more sunlight. He left the bed and moved close to his wife. He took both her hands in his, interrupting her flurry. “Harriet,” he said. “What can you possibly mean by that?”