Brunonia Barry - The Map of True Places

“That’s a beautiful sextant,” she said. “Is it an antique?”

“It was my grandfather’s,” he said.

“May I try it?”

“Sorry,” he said. “There’s an aluminum one over there, if you want to give that one a try, but this one’s off-limits.”

He handed the other sextant to her, and she went back on deck looking as if she had just won a prize.

“Hey, where’d you get that?” one of the other women asked.

“Jealous?” She laughed and set up the aluminum sextant in the stern.

Hawk came out on deck and checked the sunset. In the distance the landscape of Boston glimmered red and purple.

Seeing the trace of Boston skyline, Hawk’s mind jumped to Lilly Braedon and her fall into those same waters. Though it hadn’t happened that way at all, in his mind’s eye her fall was in slow motion, the cell phone falling with her as it dropped out of her hand. It seemed such a surreal sight that his mind played it in slow motion frame by frame until she disappeared into the shining sapphire of the water below, slow, dreamlike, impossible to believe even in memory.

Quickly he turned away from the image and in the opposite direction, toward the horizon line. The sun had set about ten minutes ago. It was twilight.

“Check your watches,” he said. “It’s time.”

The chatter that had been a low part of the sound level stopped.

“Tonight we’re looking to fix our position on at least two of the three stars you have chosen. With any luck we will be able to see all three. They should be low on the horizon. This won’t be like the sights you took from the Friendship. There’s a lot more motion out here. You will want to rock the sextants back and forth, watching the arc, and keep adjusting until the star you sight is sitting directly on the horizon line.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “These instruments are built for chop. It’s actually easier to get a reading on a moving ship than from a fixed position.”

He walked back and forth, helping the women position their instruments. “Don’t be fooled by the planets. We’re looking for stars. Planets look more like disks-they don’t twinkle.”

It took a while, but they all seemed to get it. When they began to take their readings, the group grew even quieter. The shyest of them gasped. Hawk leaned over and took a quick look at her sight, then smiled at her.

“Nice, huh?” he said.

“Beautiful.” She seemed amazed.

He had done this thousands of times, but it never failed to fill him with awe. There was a moment when you spotted that first star, a pinpoint of light just where (if you had done your calculations correctly) it was supposed to be in the sky. He’d heard it described as a religious experience. He wasn’t sure about that. But when you spotted that first star or when the stars crossed exactly where they were supposed to cross, there was nothing better. Even if you’d been dead reckoning in the middle of a storm, or if overnight the Gulf Stream had taken you a hundred miles off course. If you had done your calculations properly, there would be a moment when you found that the star you were looking for was exactly where it should be on the horizon. In that instant the universe made sense, and you knew that no matter what else happened in the world, the stars would always tell you where you were, and when they did, you would always be able to find your way home.

The group was quiet on the way back to Salem. Some of them were writing in their logbooks, some just watching the stars as the sky grew darker and the constellations moved higher in the sky.

When he pulled into his slip, some of the crew were there to meet them. His friend Josh tied them up, and another crew member handed him a six-pack of beer he’d brought along.

“You can open the wine now,” Hawk told the ladies.

“Really?” They seemed surprised.

“Sure,” he said. “You earned it.”

Josh handed Hawk a beer. Hawk looked at his watch. It was almost eleven. He definitely wasn’t going to get to Zee’s railing tonight.

ZEE ATTENDED THE CAREGIVER-SUPPORT meeting at Salem Hospital. The room was surprisingly crowded. There were coffee and pastries in the back. It was rather more like a twelve-step program than she had expected. One by one, the people got up and told their stories.

A low level of depression seemed to run through the group, or maybe it was exhaustion. Certainly there was disillusionment and resentment, tales of siblings who didn’t help enough or of parental demands that put such a strain on the caregivers that for the most part they seemed to have given up their lives. One woman, who had teenagers at home, talked about the stresses of trying to care for an ailing parent and deal with teenagers and menopause at the same time. Several other members of the group commiserated or nodded approval.

“Aren’t you a little young to be here?” one of the women asked Zee.

“My father is in his late sixties,” Zee said. “And he has Parkinson’s.”

“I’m sorry,” the woman said.

Though Zee got some good and practical tips for Finch’s care, for the most part this group was depressing. She couldn’t help but wonder if Mattei had known it would be. Perhaps this was a cautionary tale.

“Caring for an ailing parent is a lot like caring for a baby,” the group’s moderator said. “Except with a baby, you get to look forward to the results.”

THAT ZEE WAS ALREADY A bit depressed seemed evident to Jessina, who kept making excuses to stay a little later each day and to try to engage her in conversation, often talking about her son, whom she clearly adored. Tonight she told Zee that Danny wasn’t home and that she’d been wanting to bake a cake for Finch. She didn’t have a proper mixer or the right pans at her apartment, she said. Zee knew it was an excuse, because Jessina had just recently baked Finch a cake at home. So far that cake was only half eaten. Jessina hovered around her and kept asking if there was anything she needed. She didn’t need anything, Zee said, but she appreciated the offer.

At seven forty-five, Jessina finally went home, leaving a spice cake with white frosting in the refrigerator for Finch. At eight o’clock, someone knocked on the front door. At first Zee thought that Jessina had forgotten something, but no, she always came in the kitchen door at the other end of the house, and she had a key. Zee found herself holding her breath, hoping it wasn’t Michael.

In the events of the last few days, she’d almost forgotten about Hawk and the handrails, but she found herself relieved to see him standing here now. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and was carrying a tool bag.

“I have to take some measurements for the railing,” he said, as if thinking Zee might have forgotten why he was there. “Sorry it took me so long to get here.”

She led him to the hallway.

“Is this an okay time to do this?” he asked, seeing her expression. “I can come back tomorrow if you want.”

“No,” she said. “Now is fine.”

She showed him where the OT had said the railing should go, about thirty inches off the floor.

“Usually they’re thirty-four.”

“The OT gave me the height,” she said. “She wants it to match the height of my father’s walker.”

“Makes sense,” he said. He looked inside the tool bag, cursed, then went out to the blue van for a tape measure.

When he came back, she was still standing in the hallway. He made her hold one end of the tape while he measured the wall once and then again.

“I’ve got to run up to Home Depot to get the stock,” he said.

She nodded. “You want some money?”

He shook his head. “Just pay me when I finish the job.”