John Casey - Compass Rose

“How are you , Rose?”

“I’m okay. I mean, there was a little while when Tom got me and we didn’t know. He kept telling me it was probably okay, but he didn’t know. Oh — Mom was listening to Captain Teixeira’s radio just when they pulled Dad out and she fainted. Now she’s got a white streak in her hair. She’s embarrassed about it, so when you see her be sure to tell her it looks good.”

Mary said, “Oh, Rose …”

Rose said, “Look — I’ve got to go. I’m at May’s house, and they’re all just coming in the driveway.”

After Mary hung up, she sat down at the kitchen table and began to cry. She was taken by surprise — on one side relief that Dick was all right, on another distress for Dick’s losing Spartina . But what undid her was Rose — whether Rose was being bad or blurting out a kindness for Elsie, Mary ached for her.

After she wiped her eyes, she patted JB’s hand. She was glad enough he was there, but she didn’t feel at all like explaining everything to someone new in town — fresh off the boat, as her father used to say.

“So that was Rose,” he said. “Is everyone all right?”

At least he knew Rose, and, come to think of it, he knew Elsie. He knew a thing or two about Jack Aldrich. And mightn’t he have heard South County stories as he lay in bed with his old flame Tory Hazard? That thought put her in a drier mood. She said, “Yes. Rose’s father’s boat sank, but everyone’s safe. Captain Teixeira had one of his boats close by, thank God.” She turned and said, “You’ve heard of Captain Teixeira?”

“Yes. He and Tory’s father were friends. Tory thought it was a model friendship. Captain Teixeira must be ancient by now.”

“He is. I don’t know what keeps him going. I guess being the patriarch. I’d always hoped Dick would end up like Captain Teixeira — he could keep on being crusty but in the middle of family who know when to let him be in charge and when to let him think he’s in charge. Now that Dick’s on the beach, he’ll get fierce all over again. He’ll get restless and hard and foolish just when he should be getting older and wiser. He’ll be sixty soon enough, and he’ll tear himself apart trying to be young again. He was a terror when he was building Spartina; he’d get up to anything. And even after, he took her out in a hurricane when he had a wife and two sons and Elsie pregnant with Rose. What is it with men and this big rush to be a hero? And he went and did it again — giving his survival suit to that little twerp Jack Junior. Oh, I know it’s honorable and noble and God knows what else, but I’m as certain as I’m standing here that Dick felt that flash inside him that said, ‘Here it is — a moment of manly glory.’ And that’s it, it’s a flash. And there’s Elsie taking care of Rose for years. And Miss Perry as well. And here Dick is, the hero of the hurricane and now the hero of the shipwreck. A day then, a day now, and all the men cheer. Christ, I don’t know why we put up with you.”

JB had tilted his head agreeably when she’d got to Elsie and Rose and Miss Perry, but at her last outcry his eyebrows shot up.

“I shouldn’t have gone off like that,” she said. “The man’s in the hospital.”

“But he’s all right?”

“Yes. But that boat was everything. Going to sea in your own boat — if you’re not rich enough to buy land, that’s the last place you can go be on your own, and to hell with what they’re doing onshore.” She sighed. “So I love him for his free spirit and I think he’s a selfish old bastard. It just occurs to me. I may have got it wrong when I said he gave up his survival suit in a flash. It may have been part manly code: this is what you do if you’re captain. But I wonder if it didn’t cross his mind that he was teaching a lesson to Jack Aldrich — this is how a man does things, you desk-hugging landlubber in your yacht-club blazer. I wonder if Jack didn’t get a whiff of that, and that’s why he … I’ll tell you what. Call up your pal Tory and tell her we’re buying. If Jack fires me, I’ll start a restaurant right on his front doorstep.”

“I was thinking of a used-book store.”

“Fine. Both. But I’m in a mood to stick someone in the eye, and it might as well be his nibs.”

Dick said, “May said she was sending you over. You here to take care of me like you did Miss Perry? Last night they were fussing like I’m on my last legs, so don’t you join in. Either make me laugh or get me out of here.”

Elsie stood still. She’d been imaging something sweeter, but this was better. She said, “You’re awfully bossy this morning. You have any other complaints?”

“The food’s no good.”

“You haven’t even been here a whole day.”

“All I got last night was some kind of broth, and breakfast was instant oatmeal. What’d you do to your hair?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re not being rude about it.” She walked to the edge of the bed. She thought, This doesn’t count. She bent over and kissed his mouth. She touched his cheek and kissed him again. She turned around and pulled up a folding chair and sat down. She was going to hold his hand, but it was bandaged so thickly it was as big as a boxing glove.

He said, “Jesus, Elsie. I said ‘make me laugh.’ ” He closed his eyes. After a bit he said, “Could you crank the bed up?”

She raised the bed and plumped his pillow. She put her hand on his cheek again, looked at his face, felt the air between their faces. All this was more deliberate than a kiss.

She sat down again, and after a while she said, “I’m sorry about Spartina. ”

“I’ll tell you — it’s not tearing me up like I thought it would. It’s hard to say how come. It’s like I’ve been inside myself, and inside there was this big dark space. It wasn’t something to be afraid of, not like being stuck underwater. I don’t mean that thing they say, that you see your whole life. It wasn’t like a newsreel. All I can say is I feel like I got taken apart and put back together.”

She wasn’t sure what that meant, but it made a space in her.

He said, “Not that that takes care of any real problems. The insurance company’s going to take their own sweet time. Say they need to ‘investigate the cause of the accident.’ I don’t know how they figure to do that. The Coast Guard helicopter spotted a lifeboat floating just under the surface not so far from where Spartina went down. The pilot got a look when the lifeboat rolled up on a wave. He guessed maybe eighteen or twenty feet. Spotty red paint over what looked like metal. We sure as hell ran into something, and a derelict steel lifeboat fits the bill. The Coast Guard sent a cutter to recover her, but she must have sunk before the cutter got there. Spartina likely banged the last bit of buoyancy out of her. It was likely her bow punched into us. Likely. Likely is all anyone’s going to know.” Dick folded his arms, curled over them. “Tony says the hole was big as a door. Below the waterline. Water coming in knocked Tran off his feet. Tony came up and took the wheelhouse door off its hinges, see if that’d work. I went below. I couldn’t see the hole, just the surge pushing Tran around. No way we were going to …” Dick sat up and waved his bandaged hand. “So I told them to get the hell out of there.”

Elsie said, “Dick, I’m …” She held her jaw but cried anyway.

“Yeah. I know. But come on, Elsie. We’re all in one piece.”

“Yes.” Dick reached across with his good hand and touched her arm. She took a breath and said, “What happened to your hand?”

“That’s another thing got a hole in it. Only reason I’m still in here is a specialist has to take a look, see if there’s nerve damage. We were banging around some getting into what was left of the dory, hit my hand on the sharp end of a busted strake. Jack Junior — you got to feel sorry for a kid gets called Jack Junior. The reason the dory busted up was Jack Junior launched her on the weather side. We’d lost steerage way by then, so I couldn’t swing Spartina around. You know how high a dory rides before she’s loaded, bobs around like a cork. She would’ve held the four of us and settled down. But empty as she was, she bounced up against the rail and cracked her gunwale and another couple of strakes. Tony and Tran were below, seeing if they could get a pump working. I was in the wheelhouse, on the radio. I saw Junior; I was banging the window and yelling, but he couldn’t hear me. The poor bastard had been seasick the second and third day out, but he was strong enough to get the dory over the side. We were wallowing, and I guess he just shoved her whichever way was downhill at the time. We were sinking by the bow, so that made it easier, too.”