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Virtual Silence Page 14
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Now that I’ve had some time to think about it, I know too, even if you may not yet be ready to admit it to yourself, that you have at least some feeling for me. Otherwise, why would you have taken the time and the trouble to wrap the _____ like that? It must have taken some effort, given the fact that your hand was all bandaged up. How did you cut your hand, Frankie? Why were you so annoyed when I asked about it?
And let me say a word too about the gift that I gave you, which you will have opened by the time you read this. The A&S ad I enclosed, I fear after the way we parted company, may seem to you to be some kind of an affront, even the outfit may. But that is just the opposite of what I intended. I only wanted you to know that I believe in you, that I believe in your future.
I look forward to seeing you next week.
Sincerely,
G.J.
14
12-25
Dear Sharon,
You won’t believe what’s happened since I last wrote to you … yesterday? Yes, it must have been, although it seems more like last week.
I wrote your letter and one other and then I went down into the galley to help Ida, who was making sandwiches. As we were working, Goliath appeared and said, “Ida! What are you doing making sandwiches? You’re the captain!”
You see, Ida had some sailing lessons a while back, some courses and then a week or so of hands-on. She had to show the various certificates that she’d earned to the man at the marina in order for us to charter the boat. She was the only one who was qualified to sign for it. The man went out with us for a few hours, to familiarize Ida with this particular craft. He reviewed the nautical charts with her, and then he had her do some tacks and turns, etc. When he was satisfied, we sailed him back to the marina and took off on our own.
As soon as we were underway though, it was Charles who took over. Ida didn’t seem to mind, really; like Terri, she’s rather submissive by nature. But when Goliath came down and said that about Ida being the captain, Ida sat down, and I realized that it had been bothering her all along.
She began to cry, not hard, but a few sniffles, and with her head turned to the side so that Goliath wouldn’t notice. But of course Goliath did, and then she came and sat next to her, and with a genuine look of concern on her face, wrapped her long arms around her. “Sweetheart,” she said, “you’ve got to learn to stand up for yourself. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there. If you don’t look out for yourself, who’s going to?”
Well, to make a long story short, Ida broke down and confided in her. She told her all about how Charles has been emotionally abusive to her over the last several months and how she doesn’t know what it is that caused him, a loving husband for twenty-one years, to change. She showed Goliath this little tattoo she got back in October right behind her ear, a little red heart with an “I” in the middle of it that’s supposed to remind her to love herself even when Charles seems not to. And as proof that Charles seems not to most of the time, she confessed that Charles still hasn’t seen the thing, which happens to be in the very place that he had once liked most to kiss when their lovemaking was through.
Well, Goliath was wonderful, holding her and rocking her as if Ida were a little girl. Naturally, that only brought on more tears, more confessions. (You may be wondering how this could all have taken place in front of me, but if you remember from my first letter, I am a non-talker now. The fact is, when you stop talking, people, adults at least, seem to forget that you are present and will often carry on just as though you weren’t.)
Goliath rocked and Ida, between sniffles, catalogued the various campaigns, in addition to the tattoo, that she has undertaken in recent times in order to rise above Charles’s indifference. She has been to rebirthing classes, along with my mother, where, apparently, the self you don’t like attempts to deliver a self you do. She has gone for “skipping therapy” (yes, you read it right), the premise of which is that since our happiest years were those in which we were uninhibited enough to skip in public places (ages three? four?), a return to skipping, after hours, on our high school track, will ultimately resuscitate the child within. The list goes on: Shiatsu, Tui Na, channeling, and, most recently, a winter solstice workshop in which the return of the lengthening light of the sun, and thus hope, is celebrated. “Nothing’s helped,” Ida lamented.
Goliath went to the sink, wet a dishcloth, and gently wiped the tears from Ida’s face. “Now we’ll try something new,” she declared. “It’s called Take Charge Therapy.”
Just then, as if on cue, Charles called down, “Aren’t you girls done with those sandwiches yet?”
Foolish Ida, who only a moment before had nodded determinedly in response to Goliath’s suggestion, rose from her seat and moved toward the sandwich tray. Goliath and I both saw what was about to happen and beat her there. Ida looked at us and laughed, and when we were all up in the cockpit again, she said, “Charles, I’d like to take over for a while if you don’t mind.”
Charles only stared at first, but then Goliath gave him a look and he smiled and said, “Sure, go ahead.” He took a sandwich and got another beer from the cooler. After he finished eating, he leaned back against the cushions and went to sleep.
Ida was at the helm a good four hours, checking the chart occasionally and giving the rest of us orders when it was time to tack. She smiled the entire time, so I knew that Goliath had done her a world of good.
We spotted land, finally: our little island off in the distance. Everyone stood up to look, including Charles. “I’ll take over now,” he said. Goliath opened her mouth to protest, but Ida caught her eye and gestured with her hand as if to say, It’s okay now, I’ve had my moment in the sun and I’m satisfied.
As we maneuvered through the shoals, Charles explained that there was once a small settlement on the island, but the shifting shoals eventually rendered its small port inaccessible to all but the shallowest-drafted boats. Though visitors still come to the island now and then, to fish or gather shells, there have been no residents for nearly fifty years. The Rangers come by only when a major storm is threatening, to make sure that no one is marooned there.
Charles decided to make his approach toward the southern end, which was nearest, but Ida, who had the chart, said, “Charles, I think we should head north for bit, to where the port once was.”
“That’ll take longer,” Charles replied. “It’s getting late. We’ll need time to set up the tents before it gets dark.”
His words were gentle, but I happened to glance at him as he was saying them and I saw that there was much more communicated in the look he shot at her than his tone implied. Ida’s eyes moistened slightly behind her glasses. She looked to Goliath for help, but she was busy helping my father taking down the sails.
We came in over the salt marsh, a dense mat of various grasses that smelled like rotten eggs. It thinned as we got closer to the beach and I was able to see a small blue crab scuttling away from us. I saw too a pale-colored whelk, and when it moved, I realized that it was the property of a hermit crab. When we were close enough, we all climbed over the gunwale and began to pull in the boat. It didn’t take as much of an effort as you might think, because the tide was coming in and all but pushed us to the beach. Once there, of course, it was somewhat more difficult. Charles and Dad got back in the boat and, in their effort to lighten it as much as possible, went below and retrieved our supplies. Then they passed them one by one to Goliath who passed them to me, and I passed them on to Ida who piled them on the sand. Then the men got out and we all pushed again, and in the end we managed to get the boat about three-quarters out of the water and onto the beach. Then Charles ordered us each to take something and head inland.
“Shouldn’t we put the anchor down first?” Ida asked.
“What for?” Charles replied. “The boat’s not going anywhere with the tide coming in like this.”
“Well, we can’t leave the boat overnight without an anchor,” Ida said.
“I looked at the anchor earlier. I
didn’t like the looks of it,” Charles answered. “One of the flukes doesn’t pivot the way it should. I think we’re better off tying up for the night.”
Ida looked around. “To what, Charles?”
“Those trees there,” he said, indicating the maritime forest some fifty feet back from the beach.
“We don’t have a line that long,” Ida said.
“We have several lines. We’ll tie them together.”
“Fine. Let’s do that.”
“We’ll do it later, Ida, after we’ve set up camp.”
“Why can’t we just do it now?”
“Because, Ida, we don’t have enough lantern light to be pitching tents in the dark. Let’s get the tents pitched and then we’ll come back and do whatever we have to do to secure the boat.”
They stared at each other, with the rest of us watching them. I’m sure Goliath would have defended Ida, for the sake of principle if nothing else, but she was holding her nose against the terrible smell with one hand and slapping the mosquitoes that landed on her bare legs with the other. When Charles picked up his duffel bag and one of the tents and headed off, Goliath gathered up our sleeping bags, which were all strapped together, and immediately began to follow.
I was anxious to get out of there myself, so I picked up the second tent and started off behind them. When I reached the trees, I looked back and saw Ida and Dad coming up with the cooler, a comical sight because Dad is so much taller and his end was higher, while Ida, who was huffing and puffing, had most of the weight.
The forest was dense and dark, but we got through it and came to a sandy knoll from which we could see a line of cottages in the distance. From what Charles had said, I had expected them to be in various stages of disintegration; but, in fact, though some were rundown (broken windows, missing roof tiles) there were a few that looked as if their owners might just have gone out for the day. One even had a perfectly solid picket fence all around it, and that was the one that Goliath was looking at when she exclaimed, “How cute! Why, we don’t need the tents at all. We can sleep in there.”
“But Rita,” Ida protested. “That’s trespassing!”
Goliath turned to look at her, her greenish eyes twinkling with delight. “We’re not going to be doing any harm. No one lives here. No one is ever going to live here. What’s the difference?”
Dad, who had been quiet all day, said, “It may not be structurally sound.”
“Then again it may,” Goliath said. “Let’s find out.”
“It would save us a lot of time,” Charles offered, smiling at Goliath.
“Time,” Ida mumbled, but when the others glanced at her, she just shook her head.
Ida and I sat down on the cooler while Dad, Goliath, and Charles went to look. They got in with no difficulty; the door wasn’t even locked. A moment later a window opened, and Goliath stuck her head out. “It’s furnished!” she squealed, and disappeared again. Then the door opened and Charles yelled, “It’s sound, come on.”
It was more than sound, Sharon. It was charming and not nearly as dirty as you might imagine. “Maybe the park rangers are still keeping it up after all,” Charles said. “Or maybe some fishermen who come here every year,” Goliath suggested.
There were three small bedrooms, with two cots apiece, a kitchen with a coal-burning stove, and a small living room with four club chairs, all with broken springs. We staked out our rooms and spread our sleeping bags out on the cots. Ida found a broom and began sweeping while Goliath took the cushions from the living room chairs outside and beat them against the side of the house. I gathered all the floor runners and shook them out in the little sandy yard. In the meantime, Dad and Charles took a lantern and set out to get the rest of our supplies from the beach and to tie up the boat.
Time passed and it got dark, and still they weren’t back. We couldn’t start dinner because the hibachi was at the boat. Thinking that maybe something had happened to their lantern, in which case they might need help finding their way, Ida suggested that we gather some branches and make a fire in the yard. Once we got it burning, Goliath went indoors and got a bag of marshmallows and a bottle of wine.
They passed the bottle back and forth and Goliath tried her best to keep a conversation going, but Ida responded with monosyllables to her comments about the beauty of our surroundings and kept her gaze set on the direction from which we expected the men to return. When the marshmallows were all gone, she stood up and announced that she was going to look for them. Just then we heard voices in the distance. Goliath laughed and Ida let out a long deep sigh.
It took some time for Charles and Dad to materialize. Goliath called out, “Hurry, would you? We’re all starving!” but neither of them answered her. It occurred to me then that it might not be Dad and Charles after all, and I put my hand into my shoulder bag and lay my fingers on the thing which I told you about yesterday. (I fear by now you will have guessed what it is.)
Eventually, I was able to make out the light of their lantern. As they got closer, I saw that Charles had the hibachi in his arms and two of our duffel bags over his shoulders and Dad had the other duffel bags and the carton containing the manuscript he has been working on, as well as his lap top, cigarettes, and several more bottles of wine. As they approached the circle of light generated by our fire, Goliath stood up and exclaimed, “Why, you’re all wet!”
“We went for a swim,” Dad said flatly. He and Charles looked at each other. There was no pleasure in either of their faces.
“You went swimming when you knew that we were waiting here to get dinner ready?”
“It was necessary,” Dad said.
As if they had only come by to say hello, Charles clung to the hibachi and Dad to the carton. They kept looking at each other, their faces ghostly in the firelight. Goliath stood before them with her hands on her hips, waiting for an elaboration. Finally Charles gave her one. “The boat got away,” he said.
Ida stepped forward and placed her fingers lightly on Charles’s forearm, but he jerked his arm away from her. Dad said, “When we got there, it was just drifting away. It didn’t seem that far out. We swam out after it. But it was drifting faster than we could swim. At some point, it became clear that it was an impossible situation.”
“We nearly drowned,” Charles added.
There was a long moment of silence. Then Goliath threw her head back and laughed. Charles watched her carefully, and eventually a little smile began to quiver on his face too. “We’re stranded,” Goliath cried. “That’s just great!”
Charles realized that her laughter had been sarcastic and hung his head. Ida put her fingers on his arm again. This time he didn’t shake her off. “It’ll work out,” she said. “Tomorrow someone will find the boat and radio to the Coast Guard and they’ll come rescue us.”
“Maybe,” Charles whispered.
“What if the people who find the boat decide to keep it?” Goliath asked. “That could happen too. Or what if no one finds it?”
“Some visitors might come to the island,” Ida said. She was trying her best to smile, but her brows were furrowed and her real emotion, I guessed, was terror. “Or someone might sail by and we can flag them down. We’ll keep a lookout on the beach.”
“And if no one comes by?”
“If we’re not back when we’re supposed to be, people home will phone the authorities and—”
“Who, Ida?” Goliath snapped. “Charles said your girls are going straight from their skiing vacation back to school. They won’t realize we’re missing for weeks. Ed has no one and neither do I.”
Ida turned to glance at me. “Ginny’s mother,” she replied, straightening her shoulders.
Dad nodded. Charles smiled. “Let’s make the best of it,” he declared, turning towards Goliath. “After all, it was because we wanted a little adventure that we planned this trip. Well, this is an adventure.”
“Yes, that’s true,” Goliath said.
Their moods improved after that, so I didn
’t bother mentioning that Mom and I had parted company on the worst of terms and I doubted if she would care one way or the other if we failed to call her from the mainland on the day we were due back there.
The men went into the house to dry off and change their clothes and Ida, Goliath, and I got the steaks going on the hibachi. We had a super dinner, and afterwards Ida produced from the cooler a chocolate forest cake that she had made at home. Charles opened a second bottle of wine, and claiming that his heart was still racing from his near-death experience, proceeded to drink himself silly. Later he remarked that he was still tense, and Goliath suggested that they go inside and do a little yoga. Charles got up immediately, and giggling like a school boy, waddled indoors. “Yoga, anyone?” Goliath asked. We shook our heads; she shrugged and went in after him.
They had taken one of the lanterns and we could see their silhouettes through the living room window. They were facing each other, a few feet apart. “They look like they’re arguing,” Ida mumbled.
“I doubt that,” Dad said.
Ida turned to look at him, then looked back at the window, but now there was nothing to see. Apparently, they had both dropped to the floor to begin their exercises. “Tell me a little about your book,” Ida began. “Charles says he’s read some of it and that it’s about two female pirates. He said that’s why you wanted to come sailing with us, to gain some experience of the sea as part of your research.”
Dad, who had been gazing off toward the house, looked at her curiously. Then he sighed and looked at me. “Ginny’s going to be helping me with it,” he muttered. Since he seemed to be waiting for a confirmation, I nodded. He turned back to Ida then. “She’s going to critique some chapters for me. I wasn’t going to bring them along, but now that it looks like we might be here longer that we expected, I’m glad I did.” He bent his head and rubbed his fingers on his nose. “It was kind of you not to say anything,” he said. Ida looked confused. “To Charles,” he explained. “About the boat getting away.”