He climbed aboard A Family Affair and walked reverently fore and aft along the boat’s side decks, running his hands along the custom-made stainless hardware, the hand-varnished dorade boxes, the dodger grab rails covered with supple elk hide. He bent to feel the elegantly shaped teak toe rails. Belowdecks, not one, not two, but three cabins, every corner rounded, every detail perfected, down to the dovetail drawers, the custom-built dish rack, the teak flush-mounted knife stand.
Rob collected the papers and tried hard not to think about the thing with his mother and the money. He tried not to think about the fact that Eliza’s high school boyfriend lived in Little Harbor too. He tried not to think about the “casual drink” Eliza had had with the boyfriend when she’d first arrived. He tried not to think about the way she’d worked that into their only conversation, scrupulously careful to make it sound like no big deal.
Don’t be an asshole, Rob. Probably it was no big deal. Russell Perkins was just an ex, and everybody had exes! He had Kitty Sutherland, whom he’d dated the first two years of college, before he met Eliza. Headbanded, Kennedy-like, blond-bobbed Kitty Sutherland, who, even in the most grungy of the grunge days in Providence, never exchanged her ballet flats for Doc Martens, her tailored pants for oversized men’s jeans with flannel shirts.
But Kitty Sutherland meant nothing to him anymore. Could Eliza say the same about Russell Perkins? There was something about those men who worked with their hands, who pulled their livings right out of the sea, like some sort of mythical creatures, that made Rob feel hopelessly inadequate. There was a fear, always tickling the back of his mind, that one day he’d lose Eliza to the world she came from. And he couldn’t lose Eliza. She was the light in the darkness, the bird singing in the trees, and every other cliché he could come up with. If he ever lost her, he wouldn’t be able to go on.
8
LITTLE HARBOR, MAINE
Eliza
Today’s shelter dog was a corgi and Great Pyrenees mix named Elijah. Eliza, packing to go home, squinted at the photograph in Evie’s text and wondered how on earth those two breeds were able to mate. Actually, she wouldn’t mind seeing it, if only to verify that it was possible. It seemed like the beginning of a dirty joke: A corgi and a Great Pyr walk into a bar…
She texted back, WE CAN’T GET A DOG WHOSE NAME IS SO CLOSE TO MINE, and immediately came the reply: WE CAN CHANGE THE NAME.
Whoever had thought it was a good idea for young children to be able to text from iPads deserved a swift kick in the pants. Eliza loved Evie to the moon and back, of course, but there were times when it was perfectly fine to be out of touch. In her opinion. How were these kids going to grow up with even a half an ounce of self-sufficiency when they had grown-ups at their constant disposal? She texted back, NOPE! Then she added the blowing-a-kiss emoji (Evie could be sensitive, and an emoji could make all the difference) and turned off her phone. She could always blame Little Harbor’s spotty cell service.
Of course, there were plenty of parents who wanted to be in close touch with their children 24/7. “It’s ridiculous,” Sheila Rackley had said about Jackie a few weeks ago, all fake-complainy. “She texts me all the time.” You could tell, though, that she was proud of the fact, like she and Jackie were both members of the same popular high school clique.
Her father had gone down to check something on his boat.
“How’re you going to get yourself out there?” Eliza had asked suspiciously, indicating his hurt arm.
“I’ll have one of the kids row me out. I want to ask around anyway, see who can help me out. Don’t want to stay too long off the water.”
Eliza had studied her father over the past few days as carefully as she could manage without his shrugging her off. He looked tired, and he was sleeping more than usual, but he’d been through a shock, that was to be expected. Eliza had examined the wound on Charlie’s head, which was healing nicely. The sling was the bigger problem: of course he couldn’t haul with the use of only one arm. Although with enough help, the right kind of help, he could at least ride on the Joanie B—he could maybe even drive it, one-handed, and direct somebody else to check his traps. With a sternman and one other guy, he could probably manage. Not that Charlie Sargent was big into asking for help. But he was worried about his traps, left untended for this many days, so he’d take hauling with help over not hauling with no help.
“You promise me you’re just checking the boat, you’re not going to go sneaking off into open water, are you?” she’d said.
“Never had any reason to lie to you before, Eliza, not going to start now.”
She tried not to harp on the fact that he didn’t meet her eyes when he said that.
If she left by one o’clock she’d be home before dinner. If Charlie found the right kind of help he’d go out to haul in the morning. By the time she woke at home he would already have risen in the predawn darkness and had his usual cup of coffee and fried egg sandwich at Val’s and started the motor of the Joanie B and headed out under a gorgeous summer sunrise. He’d turn to his sternman and say something about how Bobby Cutler had better start hauling like a man if he wanted to pay off that new boat before his son got old enough to take over, and life would start to return to normal.
And Eliza would be slumbering in her own bed next to her own husband with her children just down the hall in their respective rooms. School had been out nearly a week! Let the summer commence. Trips to the beach. A day sail on A Family Affair. Evie’s theater camp performance. And, of course, Deirdre’s charity gala, East Africa Needs You. Eenie meenie miney moe, Sheila had said, and Deirdre hadn’t laughed. Of course not. She was taking this all very seriously, as well she should, but Eliza couldn’t help but think that if they took all the money and effort that went into the gala and just sent it right to Africa…well, wouldn’t it have a bigger impact?
But Deirdre’s heart was in the right place, and Eliza’s fund-raising experience was nonexistent.
She unzipped her bag and started to pack the pile of clothes she’d carried down from upstairs. It was amazing how many of her things were scattered around her father’s small house. Not only amazing, it was totally rude and inappropriate. She would have chastised the girls if they’d left such a mess in someone else’s house. She supposed she had reverted to her own untidy teen years, being back in her childhood home.