The Great Wide Sea (27 page)

I looked away.

“It was a mistake,” Dad said. “I should have—”

The sun grew hotter. The silence stretched thin.

Dad pulled the duffel bag out from beside Gerry and handed it to me. Gerry watched. The smile on his face was changing.

Dad took out his wallet. He gave me four hundred-dollar bills. “That might be enough for a plane ticket,” he said. “If it's not, I'll wire it. Just telephone. I'll—”

The halyards rang like bells and the dockworkers called to one another. I shoved the money into my shirt pocket.

“Please,” he said again.

I looked at the road.

“Shake?” Dad finally asked, and held out his hand.

I took it. He held my hand a long, long minute.

“Good luck,” he mumbled. Then he climbed quickly into the cab beside Gerry. He spoke to the driver. The car started.

Gerry spun in his seat and looked at me out the back window as the car drove away. “What about Ben?” His mouth turned into a black square. “What about Ben?” He pressed his hands flat against the inside of the window. His palms went white. “What about Ben?” he cried, and the car slowly turned a corner on crunching tires.

Then I was standing alone on the dock with my bag hanging on my back. I touched my shirt pocket. It was stiff. That was the money—and Mom's picture. She didn't look as good as when I first stuck her in the pages of my diesel engine book, but she was still there. I took her out and looked at her while I held the sachet to my cheek. I noticed she had Gerry's eyes and Dylan's mouth. I was the one who looked like Dad.

I squinted my eyes against the sun's glare and felt my insides swell with missing Mom. We never got to tell her good-bye. We never got to say how much we loved her. Now all I could think about was how bad it hurt to have lost her. I closed my eyes and stretched my jaw and slid Mom back into my pocket.

And then, like turning a book of blank pages and suddenly seeing a picture, I saw the golden day again. I felt that cool breeze and heard that gentle ocean and saw my brothers' bunny butts hopping off into the water while I sat there watching them and trying helplessly to remember something. My stupid brain had been like an engine trying to start, trying to turn over. A chug and silence. A chug and silence.

Then standing there in the painful sunshine with my new ship in the harbor and slipping Mom's picture into my pocket under the crisp bills, I felt the engine start, and the sound I heard was Dad. I heard Dad on the night after the baby died.

I had given up getting a drink and had left Mom crying and Dad murmuring in the dark kitchen. When Mom slowly climbed the stairs and went to bed, I lay still, pretending sleep. Even later, I listened as Dad checked the doors downstairs and then came up himself. I heard him look in on Gerry and then come into our room. I heard him adjust Dylan's covers and stand quietly for a moment by his bed. Then he came to me. He touched my hair. I turned over and saw him standing there in the half dark.

He sat down on my bed and looked out into the lighted hallway. “You know, Ben,” he said, “I didn't want children.” He turned and looked down at me. “I wanted freedom. At least that's what I said.” He touched my arm. “But really I was afraid.” He picked up my hand. “How can anyone be a dad? How can you do all the things you need to do—all day every day for a lifetime?”

He put my hand down and patted it. “And I knew,” he said quietly, “there would be days like today. From the day I first held you, I have been afraid of a day like today.”

He leaned back against the headboard and closed his eyes. “I heard you on the stairs,” he said. “You saw us in the kitchen tonight, didn't you?”

I nodded on my pillow.

“You saw us crying. You know we're sad.” He paused. “I'll tell you a story.”

He folded his hands in his lap and I closed my eyes.

“Once upon a time, there was a man who was afraid. He felt safe in his study, but he was lonely. On an island nearby lived a beautiful woman. Sharks circled her island night and day, never resting. The man had a choice. He could close his door, learn not to think of her, and stay lonely. Or he could go outside and jump. He jumped.”

Dad stopped. I opened my eyes and waited.

Then he went on. “It's been that way with each of you,” he said. “The knowing about the sharks and the jumping anyway. Tonight and for a long time to come, your mom and I will be hurting. But we are not sorry we jumped.”

I turned slightly under my covers to face him. The light from the hall cast his silhouette in strong relief. He looked toward me. He took my hand again.

“When you are a man—” he began, then stopped.

“What?” I asked. “Will I jump?”

He put my hand down again and stood. “I don't know, Ben.” He bent and kissed me lightly on the forehead. “That's your part of the story.”

Then he walked away, and I lay in my bed, listening to Dylan breathe until I finally fell asleep.

Now, standing in the sun, I heard Dad again. My dad. My only dad.

The CDs broke as I dropped my bag on the cement dock.

Then I was running.

And that, I tell Gerry, is the end of the story. We went home. We found a new house. We unpacked the boxes.

And when April came around again, we bought a new boat. We docked it at the lake, and now every chance we get, we take it sailing.

Just us—skimming the lake, riding the wind.

A boat. A dad. And three brothers.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Don K. Haycraft, Stephen and Ann Marlowe, Captain James E. Herlong, Dr. Stephen W. Hales, and Captain Cliff Block for generously sharing their expertise and support as the adventures of the Byron family unfolded.

 

—M. H. Herlong