Chapter 7 #2
Brody’s grandparents had defined silence.
His grandfather had been a skilled carpenter, which was how his parents had met.
At the time, Brody’s father had been supervising an expansion of military housing, and his grandfather had been responsible for the kitchens.
Brody’s grandparents could go an entire weekend without speaking a word.
Their home was the only place where the younger Brody could spend hours in his father’s company and feel safe.
Yachting magazine had recently named Oriental the nation’s number-one small town for sailors, a secret most locals wished had never become public knowledge. There were signs of growth everywhere. Even so, the town itself remained steadfast in its connection to quieter, simpler times.
Mia Reames met them, as always, with hugs and soft words. Only the location had changed. Her home was a newly built condo at the point where Whittaker Creek met the Neuse River. The scent of brackish waters and rattle of halyards on sailing masts greeted them through her open balcony doors.
The condo was spacious and welcoming, the living room’s hardwood floors decked out with woven rugs Brody did not recognize. The furniture was mostly new and old-fashioned at the same time. Mia Reames might as well have resided there for years.
Brody did not wait for his sister to push him into speaking.
He seated himself in a new leather settee and began with a recital of what he had told Olivia.
As he spoke, even more memories rose to the surface.
When his uncle had fashioned the marina’s upstairs studio into a haven for Brody, Travis had said nothing except that the young kid was welcome.
His mother’s brother would not permit Brody to criticize his parents’ home, but he said nothing as Brody inserted himself ever further into the marina life.
The sun emerged from behind a passing cloud as Brody talked.
Light struck the wind-dappled waters and reflected into Mia’s new home.
Colors played in a liquid flow across her ceiling, illuminating her simple chandelier.
A Christmas tree between the fireplace and the balcony blinked in solemn cadence with Brody’s telling.
Mia and Olivia sat in two padded rockers he didn’t recognize.
As far as Brody could see, the only items his mother had brought from their former home were the sea-glass trinkets he had gathered and fashioned as a child.
Only now they were set against matching pastel backings and framed in what appeared to be hand-polished driftwood.
They hung on every parlor wall, surrounded by early photographs of him and his sister.
The formal family portraits his father had annually insisted on were absent.
Mia punctuated the end of his first episode by offering her children lunch.
Brody followed them into the kitchen, feeling as if he saw the two women with new eyes.
As if his confessions had erased a veil he had not even realized was in place.
His mother wore a patterned skirt and loose-fitting cotton sweater that buttoned up the front.
She was neat and precise in her movements, an intelligent woman who was comfortable with people discounting her abilities, which were many.
For as long as Brody could remember, Mia Reames had been the public face of her husband’s subcontracting business.
She bid on projects for the military bases, she shaped the work sheets, she ordered, she kept the office running smoothly.
Where possible, she poured her own personal unguent over wounds her husband opened.
She served one of Brody’s favorite meals, split pea soup simmered and thickened for hours, flavored with homemade chicken stock and butter-basted sorrel.
Dessert was a bundt cake, using the cast-iron pan her family had handed down for generations.
A bundt pan was shaped like a giant donut, which meant extra crust in every serving.
Mia flavored her cakes with double cream, crushed almonds, and baker’s chocolate that oozed over Brody’s fork.
They remained at the kitchen table as Brody delved further into long-held secrets.
How his childhood fascination with numbers had not faded as his father and most others assumed.
Travis had noticed the young boy’s ability to add numbers faster than Travis could enter them into his calculator.
He had challenged Brody to study inland tidal flows and weather forecasting and ocean currents.
All were vital elements for anyone wishing to skipper an ocean racer, he explained, then watched as Brody had gobbled up everything his uncle could find.
Travis had then urged him to take online classes and enroll at the community college.
As Brody described the delight of being challenged to delve further and grow faster, he saw how Olivia lost every last vestige of tension.
His sister seemed to shrink, actually grow smaller as he talked.
For Brody, it felt as though he dipped his toe into a fast-moving river.
Testing the water, seeing for himself what existed beyond his long-standing boundaries.
When he paused for breath, Mia took the opportunity to rise and brew coffee. She spoke for the first time since inviting them into the kitchen. “Then Brother died.”
“Twenty months after he challenged me,” Brody confirmed. “Midway through my fifth term at Carteret Community.”
Olivia asked, “How old were you?”
“A few weeks shy of my twentieth birthday,” Brody replied, remembering. “And already head over heels in love with econometrics.”
“I’m still having trouble understanding what that word means,” Olivia said.
The simplest definition was a mathematical description of how people spent money.
But what Brody discovered in those heady days was an entirely new world.
The study of markets and stocks and bonds and commodities and currencies gave both structure and form to his love of math.
He was moving beyond math for math’s sake.
The seas of international finance and markets were now his to navigate.
He could build charts to define the coming storms and risks.
He could define a lifetime of new quests.
Brody stopped, gave it a beat, then repeated his mother’s words. “Then Uncle Travis died.”
The event had rocked his world as few things ever had. And the timing could not have been worse.
The marina had long been owned by the international group currently seeking to acquire Beaufort’s town docks.
One of their regional managers stopped by every few months, checking the books, surveying the structures, giving employees the stink eye.
Or so Brody thought, until the manager called and offered him the top job.
At nineteen. Great salary, hours, and time off twice yearly for his racing fix. It was, in effect, a dream come true.
As a result, Brody descended into what felt like a self-made purgatory.
The days and weeks that followed should have held a state of semipermanent bliss.
Instead, Brody felt a restlessness that bit deep, working in his muscles and his attitude until he became trapped beneath his very own personal storm cloud.
And then the reason became clear.
Earlier that year, Brody had reluctantly allowed his econometrics prof to share his honors thesis with a friend on the Wharton faculty.
A month and a half before Travis’s passing, he had been invited up for an interview.
He had gone because Travis had threatened to fire him if he didn’t give it a try.
Called him a coward for wanting to run away.
Asked how he could pretend to be an ocean racer when he couldn’t face such an opportunity head-on.
The man would just not let it go. So he went.
Terrified and excited. Even bought a jacket and tie at Emma’s suggestion, after dinner with the lady one evening and Travis had spilled the beans.
That was all she said: If you’re going, give it your best. Dress nice .
Two months after Travis’s funeral, Wharton accepted him into their business program and offered Brody a rare full ride.
Which was when the nightmares began.
Not every night, but close. They all started the same.
He stood at a crossroads, trapped and unable to move.
Sometimes his feet were encased in concrete, sometimes he was caged, on fire, chained, whatever.
All his directions were dark and threatening.
And then the tide started rising. If he was lucky, he woke before the waters reached his mouth.
For the first time in his adult life, Brody spent most days in a fog. He was so exhausted from indecision, not even racing managed to lift his spirits. And that was what forced him to accept he was going.
There was no joy to the decision, nor even any real fear.
His fog muted the hard moments—giving his notice just after Thanksgiving, writing Wharton, leaving the marina apartment, leaving the Outer Banks.
He knew he would be back. He was also certain it would never be the same.
His bonds to the Crystal Coast were splintered.
From this point on, he would be just another temporary visitor.
“I remember that Christmas,” Mia said. “You looked so ill.”
But he was kept from the smothering emotions of those hard memories by a new realization.
How those early nightmares had brought him to this point, revealing the secrets he had carried for a lifetime.
It felt to Brody as if he was finally joining together the inside man to the exterior mask.
There was no pleasure or relief or comfort in the act.
Reaching the point where his past connected to his now, Brody discovered he could go no further.
There was so much else to tell, about multiple crises striking all together—jobs and sailing and women and life and direction.
He needed a breather. He knew the confession would continue.
He would reveal how lost he had become. How getting exactly what he wanted, all the goals he had set for himself, the defining reasons for life as he knew it, had proven to bring him full circle.
Before Olivia could bounce in with more questions, their mother patted his hand once, twice, as if offering Brody a silent well done . Then she rose to her feet and said, “I want you both to come with me.”
Mia led them out of her condo and up the exterior stairs.
The four buildings all faced the water, their gray facades framed in white and adorned with wide balconies and whitewashed railings.
The rears were open plan, with broad passageways and staircases anchoring either end.
Elevators were tucked discreetly in the northeast corners.
Mia lived on the third of four floors. She climbed the side stairs and led them along the top passage that overlooked the parking area, took a set of keys from her pocket, and unlocked the door to another condo.
“Son, I want you to think carefully on what I’m about to say. ”
Each building had three doors to a floor, set at irregular distances from one another.
Brody assumed some held two bedrooms like his mother’s, and others three.
But this top floor held five doors, planted equidistant from one another, solid wood with brass handles and knockers.
Mia stepped aside, allowing her children to enter.
“You need to take time to think about your next steps.”
Brody glanced at his sister. Olivia’s frown was directed both at him and the empty condo. “Mom, what is this?”
“Pay attention.” The keys were a separate bundle from the ones in her other pocket, those to her home and car. They jangled softly as she slipped them back in her sweater pocket. “I don’t need to hear more to know you’re in a hard place.”
Brody had no idea what to say. The empty condo held one huge room, made larger by how the ceiling was vaulted.
A trio of extensions gave the suggestion of dividers, one for the kitchen, two more splitting the bedchamber from the parlor area.
He wiped his hands on his trouser legs and remained silent.
“I own this and the one next door. I never spent a penny of my salary. I didn’t know if this day would ever come. But it did, and I was prepared.” She gestured to the vast chamber. “I can rent this out in the high season for good money. It’s how I intend to live.”
Olivia started, “What on earth has Daddy done this time—?”
Mia used the rare tone that brooked neither argument nor discussion.
“I won’t allow any comment directed against your father.
Not now, not ever. Is that clear?” When she was certain her daughter had been silenced, she went on, “These three units came with a boat slip across the street. I was going to rent that out as well. But this studio and the slip are both yours for the asking.”
Mia had never been one to cling. She led them back down the stairs and over to Brody’s SUV where she accepted first Olivia’s and then Brody’s farewell embraces.
She stepped back, inspected Brody, nodded once, and said, “You’ve done well to grow beyond a small world defined by defeat. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Brody had no idea how to respond.
She found nothing wrong with his silence.
“The truth is, I don’t think you have any idea where your true boundaries lie.
” She pointed at the top floor. “If there is any chance in heaven or earth that this temporary home might help you chart your way ahead, it is yours. Consider it the Christmas gift I never thought I’d be able to offer.
But this season has brought change to both our lives, and I want you to make the most of it. ”