The Captain's Daughter
Meg Mitchell Moore
For Frank Moore, 1947–2016
And for Shannon Mitchell, another captain’s daughter
PART ONE
June
1
BARTON, MASSACHUSETTS
Eliza
“No,” Sheila Rackley was saying, “that’s not how it happened at all, you have to listen to this, it was way worse…”
Just then one of Sheila’s children, whose hair was red, whose skin was a pinky brown with freckles, and whose eyelashes were pale, just like his mother’s, appeared before the group of women. He cleared his throat like a senator about to introduce a bill, and said, with great ceremony, “Jackie is being mean to me, Mommy.”
An expression of annoyance briefly crossed Sheila’s face; its passage was so fast that Eliza Barnes wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it or not. It was June, the last day of school, and already hot. They were at the club. Someone had ordered a round of Bloody Marys, which were sweating as much as the women themselves, though the women did it more delicately. Even the celery in Eliza’s drink seemed to have given up, allowing itself to slip in an undignified manner into the tomato juice. Sheila held up a hand to the women and said, “To be continued,” before turning to her son and stage-whispering, “Edward, you did absolutely the right thing, telling me politely instead of screaming, it’s just that Mommy was in the middle of a story—”
“Is that someone’s phone?” asked Jodi Sanders.
“I don’t care,” said Catherine Cooper. “If it’s mine, I’m letting it ring and ring. It’s summer vacation! I’m off duty.”
“Actually,” said Eliza. “You’re sort of on duty, now that it’s summer vacation, wouldn’t you say?”
“I’ve got two words for you, Eliza,” said Jodi. “Summer. Nanny.”
“Hear, hear,” said Sheila. Her Bloody Mary was gone; she flagged the pale wren of a girl who was serving that day and asked her for another. “Kristi Osgood is home from McGill.”
“I already hired her,” said Deirdre Palmer.
“Figures,” said Sheila. “You need her for your one perfect, well-behaved Sofia.”
“She does!” said Eliza. “You have no idea how much work this EANY gala is for Deirdre.” East Africa Needs You, Deirdre’s pet project. Deirdre and Eliza went way back—all the way to a breast-feeding class they took at the hospital soon after Sofia and Zoe were born. Sofia and Eliza’s oldest daughter, Zoe, had no choice but to be best friends, really; their friendship had such auspicious, intimate beginnings.
“Eenie, meenie, miney, moe,” said Sheila, one hand on her son’s shoulder. “Anyway. To continue what I was saying. What was I saying?”
“Mom,” said Eddie. “I mean really mean, let me just tell you what—”
Sheila emitted a small frustrated huff, made a sun visor out of her hand, and peered at her son. After a quarter of a minute she stood and led him firmly to a secluded spot farther from the pool where she crouched in front of him and gesticulated wildly. Eliza could see Eddie nodding, then shaking his head, then nodding again, before turning away and trudging back toward the knot of kids by the pool, a doleful sag to his skinny shoulders.
Eliza scanned the pool area for Zoe and her other daughter, Evie; Sofia and Zoe were reluctantly and temporarily allowing Evie’s ten-year-old earth to orbit their thirteen-year-old sun.
Whenever Eliza pointed out that she herself would have given her eyesight or at least three of her toes for a sister when she was growing up, Zoe let her eyes drift into an almost-roll that she always caught at the last second. Because she knew that Eliza’s loss of her own mother when she was so very young (only twelve! Younger than Zoe was now!) had induced in Eliza a pain that had faded over time but had never gone away, that still—often—came out of nowhere to strike at her wrathfully and unforgivingly, like a rheumatoid arthritis flare-up.
Eliza had not had the vocabulary at the time to define the effects of her mother’s death. But she understood, then and now, on a deep and primordial level that every day after the event would become a search for the thing she’d lost.
As a result: lots of therefores.
· Therefore, Eliza would be the best mother possible, because she was alive to be so.
· Therefore, she would appreciate each and every day, no matter what it brought.
· Therefore, she would take exquisite care of herself: omega-3s, mammograms, the occasional green juice.
· Therefore, she would kiss her daughters good night and tell them she loved them even on days that they infuriated her or left their dirty clothes on the bathroom floor and hair balls in the shower drain. All of which they did.
Eliza lifted her face to the sun and let the voices of the women around her fade into the background. Jodi was asking, “Whose phone is that?” Sheila was ranting, “Honestly, if they spend all summer bickering I’m going to hire two separate nannies and spend the whole summer by myself in Hyannis,” and Catherine was saying something about how Henry was incensed about the increase in docking fees at the club this year and how some people were starting to look elsewhere; didn’t the superior beings who ran the club know that they couldn’t just do that without any warning?—some people did not have unlimited funds with which to dock their boats. Not that it was a problem for the Coopers, of course, but what if it was a problem for others?
Eliza breathed in, breathed out. Sun on her face on a June day. Drinks in the early afternoon, carrying with them a sensation of illicitness that made them taste even better, like the women were all teenagers, getting away with something while their parents had their heads turned the other way. Cosseted offspring splashing gleefully about in the safe confines of the yacht club pool, slathered in expensive sunscreen, clad in swimsuits that ranged from adorable (Evie, rocking a mini Boden one-piece with age-appropriate polka dots) to borderline tasteless (Jackie Rackley, also thirteen, in a bikini that looked ready for Copacabana). Who would have thought that this, any of this, was what the future held for a lobsterman’s daughter?
Eliza didn’t want to open her eyes, because if she did, if she caught the glance of Jodi or Catherine or Sheila, one of them might whisper aloud what Eliza was sure they all thought of her secretly. Interloper, they’d say. You don’t belong here.