Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
“You’re early,” Cap says through an annoyed grunt. He buttons a single button of his shirt and eyes my cutoff overalls. “And dressed like Jed Clampett again.”
“Says the man who dresses like he’s from the cast of Gilligan’s Island.” I squint at the sun from my position on the dock next to The Gypsy. “And Jed Clampett wore suspenders, not overalls.”
A breeze creates a fury of clangs from the metal windchimes on the neighboring boat.
“What’s that guy’s story?” I ask.
“Metalworker.” Cap slaps the captain’s hat on his head and adjusts the oxygen tubes in his nostrils. “Artsy shit, mostly. Some jewelry work. Used to make knives, I think. Smelts.”
“Never met one of them.” I study the arms of a sun-like spinner hypnotically twirling in the breeze before turning back to Cap. “You ready for another fun day of looking for gold?”
Grumbling, he sits to put on his shoe then disappears into the boat, reappearing with a coffee can in his hand. He fumbles to lock the door then limps his way onto the dock, scowling.
“You always ask so many damn questions this early in the morning?”
“I’m an early riser.” Who had to evacuate her squatter’s shed before the unknowing owner woke up. I raise the cups in my hands. “And I brought coffee.”
The $6.16 felt worth it this morning. And since the change was the exact amount I had living in the bottom of my purse, I took it as a sign. Plus, if my life comes down to needing $6.16, I’m already screwed.
He eyes me but doesn’t reach for a cup. Instead, he hobbles to the metalworker’s boat and beats against a window with the lidded coffee can, the contents clattering loudly with the motion.
“Danimal,” Cap barks. “You up?”
“Danimal?” I ask.
A wild-haired man with dreadlocks and no shirt slides open the window, a cloud of marijuana smoke pluming out around him.
Cap gestures with the coffee can.
Danimal nods, takes the can, then slides the window closed.
“That was weird,” I tell Cap.
He grunts, throwing pills down his throat with a slug from his flask before snatching a coffee from my hand.
Okay.
“What do you take the pills for?”
“Everything.” He takes a long sip of coffee, seemingly immune to the fact that the liquid is still too hot for human consumption.
“You’re kind of grouchy in the morning, Dad,” I tease.
His next grunt sounds almost amused.
“You feel better today?” he asks once we’re driving.
“Don’t feel worse.” I take the first sip of my black coffee and pretend it’s as good as yesterday’s London Fog. It isn’t, not by a long shot; it assaults my tongue like a bitter attack. I take another sip. “Yum.”
Cap looks at me sideways; I smile with all my teeth.
When I woke up this morning, I knew today needed to be better. I cried—apparently I needed it—but today can’t go off the emotional rails again. It isn’t helpful. Crying won’t change the $17.32 left in my account.
Before sunrise, I took the world’s fastest shower in the exposed outdoor stall of Nash’s yard, and scurried out of there like my ass was on fire. Then I went for a walk and didn’t stop until I was half covered in sweat and found some semblance of sanity.
It’s natural for me to feel confused about seeing Nash; we were married and divorce is tricky.
It’s bound to bring tricky feelings up no matter how much time passes.
Jonathan and I are good together, and I’m here for the gold.
It’s the only thing that matters, and I won’t let Nash distract me from that.
When the time is right and the moment presents itself, I’ll appease my mom and tell Nash about Bennie, and we’ll figure the rest out.
“My daughter asked about you last night,” I tell Cap.
He’s quiet the distance between two red lights.
“What’d you tell her?”
I flick my eyes to him. “That you’re a grumpy pegleg.”
He makes an amused sound, then another silence follows while we sip our drinks.
“I might like to meet her before,” he finally says.
I give him my full attention at a red light. “Before what?”
A horn honks, and Cap gestures with his cup to the cars swerving around us to get through the green light I’ve missed. “Before you kill us with your bad driving.”
We exchange a contempt-filled look then I push the gas pedal hard enough that he jerks in his seat and grumbles a curse.
Bennie would love to meet him. I might not know what to make of the man who’s forcing me to call him dad, but she would look at him the same way she looks at antiques: with wonder and curiosity at all his strange parts.
“They’re coming next week,” I finally say, causing him to grunt a happier version of the sound. “Mom insisted.”
He’s quiet again, staring out his window until “Gypsy” by Fleetwood Mac comes on the radio. “This song always reminded me of her,” he says.
“Bennie calls her Gypsy,” I tell him before my next sip of coffee.
He doesn’t react, but I can piece together what this is.
His boat, her grandma name. The connection between them was strong enough to transcend decades apart.
They loved each other enough to carry pieces of it with them all these years then weave glimmers of it into their lives.
Long enough it makes me wonder if in thirty-five years I’ll have that same tone of regret when I talk about Nash.
If every time I hear a harmonica, it’ll stop me in my tracks and make me smile like it’s sad.
“She ever tell you how we met?” he asks.
“I didn’t know about you until last week.” My eyes flit to the marsh as we cross a bridge. In the morning light and with no boats on the water, it’s a slick sheet of glass. “I don’t know much other than she loved you, got pregnant, and ran away. Made the choices she made.”
He grunts then gives me room to dwell in the reality of how tricky it is to be a parent—a human.
How one decision leads to another then another, snowballing into something we can’t predict despite how good or bad the intentions were.
My mom lied to me to protect herself. I lied to Bennie to protect her.
It’s all muddled. So many shades of grey even with the most black and white of intentions.
Parents are humans first even though it’s easy to forget to treat them as such.
“I was cleaning a yacht,” Cap finally says. “Big, fancy thing. The owner’s son was taking it out with some friends for the night. Your mom was there, center of it all. Dancing without music.”
He chuckles, and I can’t help but smile. I didn’t need to be there to see it like I was.
“Anyway, they were loading up for a sunset cruise, and I was just finishing up. ‘Hey, diver boy,’ a voice called. I looked, and it was her. Colorful clothes and with all that hair. Smile like a spotlight.” My eyes shift to his as I stop at a red light.
His face is tender, his smile fond. “‘Come with us,’ she called.” He pauses to track a gull cut across the sky.
“I told her I had work that night—had a gigging charter. They were untying the lines as I said it, and she just jumped right off. Didn’t give it a second thought.
Like it was what she came there to do. Like I was who she came to see.
Her friends called after her, but she just waved and laughed.
Told them she’d see them when they got back.
‘Got room for one more?’ she asked me. ‘I’ve always wanted to learn to gig. ’ Free spirit if there ever was one.”
It sounds like her, and I’m overwhelmed by the beautiful simplicity of it.
By how the very thing that led to me existing is one of the things about my mother that drives me the most mad.
And, if I’m honest, the quality of hers I’m often envious of.
She isn’t unthinking, but she isn’t tied down by her thoughts like I am either.
Leave it to her to have a medical condition that only amplifies it.
“She was terrible with the gig.” Cap coughs as I pull into Nash’s neighborhood. “But I fell in love with her in five minutes flat anyway. That’s how you know it’s right.”
Nash is waiting for us on his porch, making me realize I can’t relate to anything less.
The only time I fell in love in five minutes, it was the epitome of wrong.
My mom went on with her life—married Ed, had my sisters—and was happy in a different way.
Nash stunted me. He left, and it took years for me to recover.
Even now, just the sight of him is like ripping open an old scar.
“Plus,” Cap says. “I got lucky that night.”
This makes me gag.
It also makes me laugh.