Into the Wind Page 5

  I got back into the boat and started bailing. We didn’t speak until Hazel said in a lighter tone, “By the way, I see you have something new on your boat!” She seemed to notice every detail when it came to boats. “It’s a beauty!” As if on cue, the wind indicator swung to follow a slight change in the breeze. She smiled and gave me a wink that said we shared a secret. “Where’d you ever get the money for that?”

  CHAPTER 11

  A Rainstorm

  The next week, the third week in July, it rained on and off a lot. The hull of my boat filled again with water, and I didn’t get out sailing. In summer school, we started on measurement—inches, feet, yards, meters, and miles.

  “How about nautical miles?” Hazel said one afternoon when I was doing homework in her kitchen. “Anything about that in your math book?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that’s crazy! Nautical miles beat regular miles every time. A nautical mile is longer. So tell me this. If a knot is one nautical mile per hour—which it is—and say you’re sailing your boat at ten knots while somebody racing you on land is driving at ten regular, boring miles per hour, who’s going faster? Who’s going to win?”

  “That’s easy. I am.”

  “Right! You ought to tell your teacher about that. Whoever wrote your math book wasn’t a sailor!”

  • • •

  At supper a couple days later, Dad told Lizzy and me that he’d talked to Mom’s doctors and they’d said she was “stabilizing,” but they couldn’t say much more than that. I didn’t know how to feel about this. It didn’t seem bad, and it didn’t seem good. Mostly it just felt like more of the same, more waiting.

  In the six weeks since Mom had left, I hadn’t completely gotten used to her not being home. I’d written those three letters—all in my best handwriting—that she still hadn’t answered. I’d told her that I had a sailboat that I was learning to sail. I’d asked her if she was in a nice room, if maybe there were flowers there. I’d asked her if she’d made any friends and if she had any of her favorite books with her—I would send some if she wanted them. In all my letters, I wrote at the end,

  When are you coming home? Soon I hope.

  Love, Rusty

  At night, especially as I was turning off my lamp, I still listened for her steps on the stairs before she’d come into my room to talk and to say “Sleep tight.” Some mornings, I still waited for her to open my curtains and say in her coaxing voice, “Another school day. Rise and shine.” Though I didn’t feel as bad as I did those first nights, there were lots of times when I couldn’t fall asleep and I couldn’t stop thinking, Will she ever come home? One night the shapes in my room seemed to move—my belt slithering across the rug, the knob on my closet door turning with a click—and I had to reach over and turn on my lamp to make everything still. Then I read my sailing books again.

  At other times, it didn’t surprise me that I couldn’t hear Mom’s steps on the stairs, or that my curtains were closed when I woke up, or that her chair was empty at the kitchen table, or that she wasn’t around to make tea for herself and a sandwich for me when I came home from summer school. This was just the way things were. When I wasn’t at Hazel’s, I drifted through those rainy afternoons, killing time in the work shed, or watching TV in a sleepy fog. I didn’t know what was worse, getting numb like that and not feeling all I was missing. Or feeling it all—which really hurt.

  Meanwhile, as the days passed, Dad seemed to have a harder and harder time, though he tried not to show it. Things kept slipping his mind—and not just things like forgetting to do the wash. One night he put a carton of ice cream away in the cupboard and bananas in the freezer. And one Thursday, his day off, while Lizzy was at camp and I was at school, he didn’t close the upstairs windows around the house when a big storm came through. If Mom was home and her normal self, she’d have run around to every room “to batten down the hatches.” But somehow Dad forgot the windows that day. So when I arrived at lunchtime, took off my raincoat, and went up to my room, the curtains were soaked, and my sailing books, open on the windowsill, looked like heads of lettuce. The pages were drenched, wrinkled, and curled, with some of the pictures so smeared that I couldn’t tell what they were about.

  “Oh, no!” Dad said, when he came up about ten minutes later and saw me sitting at my desk with two boxes of Kleenex, trying to dry and flatten the pages. He looked horrified. “Russ, I’m so sorry. How could I have forgotten?”

  Many of the pages were stuck together. There were whole chapters I couldn’t read now, some of them my favorites: “Sailing Downwind,” “Reading Wind on the Water,” and “Leaving from and Returning to a Mooring.” Though I tried, I couldn’t say a word.

  Dad grabbed the chair from the hall, sat beside me, and pulled me close, where I felt his long, deep, shaky breaths, and he could probably feel mine.

  At last, when I could speak, I said, “I can get some other books.” Then I said, “It’s okay. It’s going to be all right,” which was something he often told me. A moment later, I added, “It’s no big deal.”

  Though both of us knew that it was.

  CHAPTER 12

  The Painting

  On those rainy afternoons when I was at Hazel’s cottage, she had me do inside jobs—after we’d had lunch and I’d done some math, of course. One day, in her bedroom, I cleared out everything in a closet that stank of mothballs: shirts, heavy coats, and creased pants on wooden hangers, neckties on a little ladder-like thing, and on a shelf, a straw hat like Huck Finn might wear. These were Hazel’s husband’s old clothes, and it felt creepy to hold them in my arms and fold them into the big plastic bags for the Next-to-New sale at the Congregational Church.

  “Time to pass these things along,” Hazel said with a sigh. “If you see anything you or your dad can use, you’re welcome to it. Except for the straw hat. That stays.”

  I said no thanks, and as I tied up the plastic bags, she told me how, after she and her husband, Malcolm, got married, they moved near the city on the mainland. In her eyes, she had a watery look that made me feel strange, like maybe I shouldn’t have been there. “For thirty years that’s where we lived. We raised the kids. But when they moved away, we moved here, right where I grew up. Funny how you come back to things.”

  Later that afternoon, she asked me to wash the insides of the windows in the room down the hall where she’d disappeared on that first day I’d visited. I’d never been in there. The door was usually closed. It turned out to be her studio, which, though it wasn’t big, felt bright and airy, even on a rainy day. It was entirely different than the rest of the cottage—at some point it must have been renovated. The ceiling, with a skylight in it, opened up to the rafters. There were big windows on two sides, and near the largest window stood a tall easel on three legs. On either side were a couple of beat-up tables crammed with curled-up paint tubes, sketch pads, erasers, rags, cans, bowls, and jars filled with brushes and pencils. Drips, smudges, and speckles of color covered everything. Unframed paintings of birds and beaches leaned against all the walls. The little room reminded me of our work shed at home, with our tools scattered over the bench, the smells of epoxy and cedar shavings, and sawdust everywhere, when I’d been repairing my boat.

  The room—and not just its light—seemed to brighten Hazel’s face, and it made me feel better too, like all the rainy days didn’t matter. “This is where I work,” she said, opening her arms wide. “This is me! I love it here!”

  “And these are the things you sell at the Art Barn?”

  “Yes, but I don’t sell all of them. Most are like post cards, just cheap souvenirs: the pictures of gulls on pilings and kids building sand castles. I can do those well enough, the ones that tourists take home to prove they’ve been on vacation. But now and then I paint one that’s a keeper, one that I can’t let go. Like this one here. It’s almost finished.” She seemed suddenly proud and bashful all at once, like a girl who beats all the boys in a race. “It started with a sketch—things always start with a sketch—and grew from there. I’ve been working on it a couple days.”

  We went closer to the easel. On its ledge stood a small painting of the ocean, about a foot across by nine inches high, that was different from the others. For one thing, you could really see how her brush had put on the paint, sometimes in curls, dabs, or skittery lines. For another, you could see how the colors were all mixed up, how the blue of the water had threads, blobs, and smudges of gray, green, black, and brown. And here’s the last thing: looking at it, you almost lost your balance. Everything seemed cockeyed, like the painting was hanging at some crazy angle. It made you tilt your head, because the horizon of huge, choppy waves slanted wildly to the left. Closer, the waves were white on top, and spray streamed back over them. Closer yet, the edge of a sail ballooned with wind. And in the front, right at the bottom, I noticed the inside curve of a boat’s side-deck. It, too, was at a crazy angle to the horizon.

  Still looking with my head tilted, I swore that I was right inside that boat. Or I mean I was barely inside it, leaning way out over the waves, every muscle stretched to breaking, holding on for dear life, trying to keep the boat from heeling (tilting) too far, as it shot across the canvas, faster than I’d ever sailed.

  “That’s amazing!” was all I could say for a moment. Then I asked, “How do you know what it’s like to sail like that?”

  “Long story,” she said. “It goes way back. But I’ll keep it short.” She stared at a spot above my head where there wasn’t anything to see. “In the winters, my father worked in Cantwell’s boatyard here. During summers, he sailed tourists all around the bay and the sound in a rented sloop-rigged cruiser. He could sail in pit
ch dark, in any weather, in any wind. He knew every rock and shoal. When I was your age, he took me along and showed me the ropes—literally. Often we sailed alone, just him and me. Usually I’d crew for him, but now and then he let me take the helm. He let me tack and jibe. Sometimes we’d run wing-and-wing. It was scary, but I did it. Those were the greatest days…”

  Her voice trailed off, and she brushed a frizzy strand of hair from her forehead. How long had it been since she was a kid? How long since she’d sailed like that?

  Her eyes came back from wherever they’d been. “I’m glad you like the painting,” she said.

  CHAPTER 13

  Dear Rusty

  On one of those sleepy, early afternoons between rainy days, when Hazel was at the Art Barn and I came straight home from summer school, I brought in the mail from the basket beside our front door. There were the usual advertising flyers and some bills that would make Dad say “Ugh.” And then I saw two envelopes, one addressed to Lizzy and the other to me, in Mom’s neat handwriting. My heart jumped. What would she say? Could she be coming back soon?

  Lizzy and Dad wouldn’t be home for hours, but I took my letter right up to my room, closed the door, and tore open the envelope. The letter was two whole pages! I’d never gotten one so long.

  July 26

  Dear Rusty,

  Thank you for your letters, which I keep in my pocket or here on my desk where I can hold them and see them and think of you, as if you’re as close to me right now as your letters are in my hands.

  How are you doing? How is summer school? How are things at home? I know it’s rough, and I wish I was with you. Please try not to be too sad. Keep doing what makes you happy. You wrote that Mr. Clark gave you his boat and that you’ve repaired it and are sailing it. That’s wonderful! I’m so proud of you. How big is the boat? Does it have a name? I can’t wait to see it.

  You asked me what my days are like. On my good days, I eat in the dining hall with all the other women—there are only women here. I have lots of doctors and a counselor who’s a sort of teacher and coach. With her, I have meetings, or we walk in the woods, and often I go to workshops, group sessions, and exercise classes. On my not-so-good days, someone comes and helps me get going in the morning, and I spend most of those days with the horses, which my counselor says is a good idea. Sometimes I brush them. Sometimes I feed them. The horses are so big and calm, their eyes so steady, and somehow they seem to know and trust me without my having to say anything. My favorite is a gray horse named Zephyr, which means a gentle breeze.

  I’ve never written a letter like this and the one I just wrote to Lizzy. I’ve tried to write you a half dozen times, but I couldn’t do it, I didn’t know how, because I knew I should try to explain what’s happened and why I’m here, even if I can’t understand it myself. The doctors say I’ve been very depressed, though for the life of me, I can’t find a reason for it. Your dad is a wonderful husband, and you and Lizzy are wonderful kids. I couldn’t ask for more. Still, there are times when everything seems to get dark and sad, when I think I’m not a good mother, not a good wife, not a good anything, and I get so frightened, and I feel like I’m swirling down and down, everything narrowing and draining, like into a funnel. Do you mind me telling you all this? I know it’s hard to understand. I’m not as strong as I’d like to be. Inside me are cracks, Rusty, like the ones you described in your boat, and like you, I’m trying to mend them.

  In all your letters you asked when I’ll come home. Believe me, I wish I could come this minute. I miss my garden. And mostly I miss you, Lizzy, and Dad so much, right here in my bones. There are nights when I think I might run away and find my way back. But what am I thinking? Me? Run away? I hope I can come home soon. But right now I just don’t know.

  I love you with all my heart.

  Mom

  I read the letter again and again, my heart jumping and sinking each time. What did she mean by her “not-so-good days?” How bad were they? Were they worse than her bad days at home? Was she getting better or not? How long would they keep her there?

  I thought I might write a letter straight back to her, but I felt too confused to do it right then. I folded Mom’s letter and put it in my pocket. Then I went downstairs and outside, and biked over to the dock. I stepped into my boat, but didn’t feel like sailing. I had no idea where I’d go. From my toolbox in the compartment under the stern seat, I got a rag and Brasso and started polishing all the hardware—the cleats, the chocks, the bow handle, even the little grommets on the sail.

  I must have polished that hardware like crazy, because I didn’t even notice Jack when he walked past and probably said hello. I only noticed him when he’d come back, stopped, and stared at me. “You okay?”

  Startled, I said, “Yes, I’m okay.”

  And eventually I was. It felt good to rub away the salt and grit and leave the hardware gleaming. A breeze rocked the boat and made the rubber fenders squinch. The sun warmed my back, things seemed to slow down and relax, and in my head I wrote a letter to Mom that I’d actually write when I went home. I’d say thanks for telling me about the horses, and that I was glad she liked them and they liked her. I’d say that math was okay, though it was hard to tell because everything depended on a few tests later in the summer. I’d let her know that my boat was a catboat, with the mast way up near the bow. I’d say that it didn’t have a name yet, and that it was a small boat, and broad beamed, its width about half its length. I wouldn’t tell her that once I’d

  capsized. I wouldn’t tell her that Dad, Lizzy, and I were having a hard time, that Dad kept forgetting things, and Lizzy always seemed mad, and when I was home, I just wanted to stay in my room, and some nights I couldn’t sleep. I also wouldn’t mention that I was working for Hazel—somehow that seemed too complicated. Finally I would tell her that I was sorry she couldn’t come home yet, and that I hoped it’d be soon. I’d sign my name after I wrote Love. Then under that, I’d add a P.S.:

  I have your letter in my pocket too.

  • • •

  That evening at supper, Lizzy barely said a word, so I knew that she’d read her own letter before Dad had come home, and now, like me, she was thinking about it.

  “Both of you are downright courteous tonight. What’s wrong?” Dad said, passing the hamburgers.

  I didn’t feel like saying anything about my letter in front of Lizzy, and she didn’t feel like saying anything in front of me. We ate, then washed and dried the dishes in silence, and Dad just let us be.

  A couple hours later, when I was in bed, trying to keep my mind on my new sailing books from the library, Dad came in and sat on the edge of my bed. He ran his hand through his hair. “Did you happen to get a letter from Mom? Is that why you and Lizzy are so quiet?”

  I didn’t say anything, but I guess he could see the answer in my face.

  He nodded that he understood. “Not exactly the sort of news you were hoping for, I suppose?”

  “No, not exactly.”

  “Should I turn off your lamp?”

  “Okay.”

  He turned it off, but didn’t stand up, which meant he still wanted to talk. “We’re going to get through this, Russ. You know that, right? We’re all going to be okay,” he said, though I couldn’t see his eyes to make sure that he really believed it.

  For a few minutes more, he sat there, both of us quiet, as if our ears were almost like hands, reaching out and feeling for something in the dark.

  Eventually, he patted my arm, got up, and went out of my bedroom. I heard him knock on

  Lizzy’s door on the other side of the hall, then open and shut it behind him. I imagine they had a conversation a lot like the one I’d just had, as Dad now sat on the edge of her bed. I could hear their low voices, but not their exact words, and I could almost feel them thinking in the long pauses between their words. Fifteen minutes

  later, Dad came out, went downstairs, and closed up the house for the night. Then I heard Lizzy, my proud, pain-in-the-neck, hard-as-nails sister, sobbing and sobbing in her dark bedroom, though not very loud, because she must have had her face in her pillow.