A Simple Thing (10 page)

Within a month Betty could see that they wouldn't come close to breaking even in their first year, with all the money they'd put into buying the farm and building the chicken house, not to mention paying for and feeding the chickens. They'd had the help of other islanders in the planting, or they'd have had even more expense. “We'll give it two years,” Bill had said when they decided to move to Sounder, and Betty doubted they'd break even by then. But she surprised herself with her lack of worry over their finances, or the future. Her husband had cheated on her; she'd buried two babies—what was the worst that could happen?

And then, after five or six months, her anger began to fade. Bill didn't say or do anything different; she had no sudden flash of insight, or word of wisdom from a friend. But more days than not she woke up next to Bill and lay there for a few minutes listening to his breathing and the vast silence of Sounder, and felt content. She was physically stronger than she'd ever been before in her life from all the time spent planting and digging and chopping wood and scrubbing and lifting, and she liked the way her body moved and looked. She didn't have to pretend an interest in fashion or decorating or entertaining, as she'd often felt she had to do at home. Bill had worked harder than she'd ever known him to work before, and she thought she could feel a change in him, something solid and true and permanent.

In the mornings she would press herself against Bill's warm back in the bed, marveling at how far they had come and all they had been through in the four years since they'd gotten married. She could begin to see a useful life for herself here, she thought, even without children of her own. And it was, at long last, a life she relished.

Chapter 10

Susannah 2011

Susannah was desperate for a cup of coffee. At the crack of dawn she had slipped on her wool clogs, ventured outside, and made her way through the frost-covered grass to squat by a tree at the back of the house, where she had promptly peed on her clogs. When she came in, after running through the cold grass in her bare feet, the fire in the stove had gone out, so she'd had to stack it with wood and get it lit. Now her clogs, which she had slid under the stove to dry out, were giving off a distinct aroma, and the water in the teakettle still hadn't boiled. She turned the handle on the hand-cranked coffee mill and sighed.

“I don't want to go to school,” Quinn said. He slid into a chair at the round oak dining table and stared at the glass of orange juice she set there for him.

“It's natural to be a little nervous,” she said.

“What if I throw up?” he said.

“You can run outside,” she said. “Jim said the school has outhouses, one for boys, one for girls.” She picked up a thick blue dish towel and wrapped it around the handle of the teakettle, which had finally started to whistle. “But you're not going to throw up.”

“Really?” Quinn said. “The school doesn't have indoor bathrooms?”

“Nope,” Susannah said. She poured the hot water into the French press and put the kettle back on the stove.

Quinn contemplated this. “So I can just walk outside when I want?”

“Well, I assume you need to let Jim know you're going, but with only fifteen kids I would guess it's not a big deal.”

Quinn looked more cheerful. “So you can go outside if you feel like throwing up.
And
there's no bus and no bus stop. I think I might like it here.”

“You didn't like riding the bus?” she said.

Quinn picked up his glass, took a sip of juice, and put it back down. “Not much.”

Something in his tone caught her attention. “Why not?”

To her surprise, Quinn turned a bright, furious red and said, “I just didn't. I don't want to talk about it.”

Katie walked in and sat down on the living room sofa, dressed in jeans and a skin-tight tank top.

“You're kidding that the school bathrooms are outside, right?” she said.

Susannah shook her head. “No. And that shirt is too tight and too low cut to wear to school. Go change. Do you want scrambled eggs?”

“Outdoor bathrooms? Oh, my God.” Katie threw her head back on the couch and closed her eyes. “I will never forgive you for this,” she said, her face turned toward the ceiling. “You have no idea what you're doing in bringing us here.”

And Susannah—sleepless, coffeeless, shoeless—felt a familiar jolt of shame.
Look what you've done,
the little voice in her head said.
You always make mistakes
.

Sometimes, with a start, she recognized in Katie's words the echoes of the harsh, critical voice her father had used whenever he was loaded up with a few drinks. For a while it had lain silent: During all those early years when her children were small she knew, in the way she loved them and the way they blossomed, that she was doing something right. But over this last year, Katie—with her words, her looks of contempt, her disdain for everything Susannah said and did and thought—had brought that voice roaring back, and Susannah didn't know how to still it now.

Someone tapped at the window. “They're here,” Quinn said, standing up so fast that he bumped into the table and almost knocked over his juice. “I see Baker.”

Quinn and Katie grabbed their coats and backpacks and were out the door before Susannah had a chance to make Katie change her shirt, or even eat breakfast. With a sigh, she pressed the plunger down on the French press and poured herself a cup of coffee. She sat down at the table and wrapped her hands around the mug, grateful for its warmth. She was alone for the first time in the quiet, quiet house. This is what she had chosen; this is what she wanted.

And now that she had it, she wasn't sure she wanted it after all.

 

“But how did you get this up here?”

Susannah stood in a grassy patch at the top of Crane's Point. Before her, set up on a short scaffolding of lumber and steel tubing, was a twenty-seven-foot boat. The hull was white with a blue stripe running along the top. A wide wheelhouse, covered with a navy blue canvas roof, stood in the center. The name
Gota
was painted across the back in gold letters outlined in black. This was the shape on top of the cliff that Susannah had noticed as they'd come into the bay yesterday.

Barefoot scowled. He stood shoeless on the rocky ground, khakis rolled up above his ankles, immune to the cold wind that whipped at Susannah's hair and reddened her cheeks.

“What the hell does that matter?” he said. “It's here, and it needs work.”

Susannah had driven Betty's truck up the mountain to pick up Barefoot, who didn't own a car. They were going down to the dock, and then to Friday Harbor on Barefoot's other boat, the one anchored in the bay. She had parked at the end of the long gravel road and walked up a slight rise to find the incongruous sight of Barefoot standing on the deck of the
Gota
.

“What exactly are you doing to it?”

“Refinishing the wood in the cabin, building a new table and some shelves, fixing the plumbing for the sink and the head—” Barefoot paused and looked at her. “Why? You know something about boats?”

“God, no,” Susannah said. “I haven't been on a boat in more than thirty years.”

“Right,” Barefoot said. He tilted his head back and stared at her from under thick, wiry brows. “You're a strange woman,” he said. “Can't quite figure you out.” He shook his head. “Oh, well. I need to get my wallet. Come on down to the house.”

Barefoot's small, white frame farmhouse sat downhill, to the left of the cliff top. Susannah stepped onto the gray painted porch, where Toby lay sleeping, and followed Barefoot into the house. She stood in stunned silence for a moment. The room that faced her was rectangular, with a row of windows along the front, white walls, and a stone fireplace. Ordinary enough. But a beautiful Indian miniature painting in deep jewel tones glowed above the mantel; a sterling silver tea service reflected the light from the windows; two perfect Chippendale chairs framed the fireplace. Other exquisite objects—a set of Minton porcelain, a carved stone head of the Buddha, a string of jade beads—sat on the tabletops. Beneath her feet lay a silk rug with a pattern of richly detailed leaves and flowers on a ruby red background. Instinctively, she slipped off her shoes.

“You have such beautiful things,” she said.

“I used to travel a lot. Picked things up here and there.”

“Here and there?” She eyed another painting on the wall.

“Asia, mostly, and Africa. Part of the job.”

Before dinner last night Jim had told her a little bit about Barefoot's past. He had worked as a scientist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture during a career that had spanned more than sixty years. He had tramped through India, Tibet, Assam, Nepal, and Iran in search of plants for the USDA and for museums in the United States and Europe. Along the way he had collected and cataloged some of the most exotic species ever seen, in places with names like Kulu Valley, Yusufabad, and Zahedan.

“Jim told me you spent a lot of time in the Middle East.”

“Persia—Iran. And farther east—Tibet, Nepal, India.”

He disappeared into the bedroom to get his coat, and Susannah took the opportunity to peer into the kitchen. Bundles of drying herbs hung from the ceiling, tied neatly with twine. Another beautiful rug—this one in shades of turquoise and orange and red—covered the worn wood of the floor. A verse was painted in flawless black cursive above the back door that led out to the greenhouse:

 

Since my house burned down / I now own a better view / of the rising moon.

—Mizuta Masahide

 

“Anything else you'd like to see?” Susannah jumped as Barefoot appeared at her elbow.

“I didn't mean to snoop,” she said. “But I'm fascinated. I like your house very much.” She looked up again at the quote above the door. “Who's Mizuta Masahide?”

“Seventeenth-century Samurai warrior and poet. That was the first thing I did when I moved into this house: paint those words up there.”

“Why?”

Barefoot turned his blue eyes on hers. “Because I like to remind myself that we all decide for ourselves whether things are bad or good. It's all how you choose to look at things.”

Susannah picked up a small, framed photograph from the counter. It showed a woman in a long dark skirt and flowered tunic sitting barefoot in front of a tent. Strands of black hair escaped from the scarf on her head and fell across the angle of her cheekbone. She was strikingly beautiful.

“Who's this?”

“My mother. Dorelia. That was taken in 1920, when she was nineteen.”

“She's lovely.”

Barefoot shrugged. He picked up a string bag from the counter and stuffed it in the pocket of his parka. “Enough yammering. We need to get to town.”

They drove down to the dock, parked in the gravel by the Laundromat, and rowed the green dinghy out to Barefoot's other boat, the
EmmaJeanne
. Susannah climbed on board and looked around with suspicion. There was a pilothouse, covered at the back with a thick canvas flap. Barefoot held the flap open and she stepped in. At least you were inside here, not sitting out uncovered, where you could fall or get bumped out of the boat. She took a deep breath and sat down.

Barefoot looked at her, at her pale face, her hands clenched together in her lap. “Good God, we haven't even untied yet,” he said. “You know, this could be fun.”

That's what her father had said, Susannah remembered.
This will be so much fun
. That boat, the one her father had rented for their outing, had been big, with two seats in front that swiveled and two more big, padded seats at the back, on either side of the inboard engine. Lake Michigan had been calm when they set out under clear blue skies. She remembered the boat skimming across the surface, the exhilarating sense of speed, her father's brown-black hair blowing back in the wind, the dark sunglasses that made him look even younger, even more handsome
.

“Come here,” Barefoot said. He stood behind the wheel of the boat and put the key in the ignition. “Stand next to me.”

She stepped back. “You want
me
to drive the boat?”

“Yes, I want
you
to drive the boat. What are you, five years old? You can drive a car, you can drive the boat.”

He flicked a switch. “That's the battery. You turn that on first. This”—he pointed to a red knob—“is the fuel shutoff. You push it in before you start the engine. Then it's like a car: you turn the key and start the engine.” He turned the key and the motor chugged to life. “It's got a two-hundred-and-sixty-five-horsepower diesel engine. The top speed is less than thirty miles an hour. You control it; it doesn't control you. Ever ridden a horse?”

Susannah nodded.

“That horse has a mind of its own. No matter how good a rider you are, that horse can still do things that surprise you. Not this boat. You're in charge. Worst it can do is quit on you. And with a diesel engine like this, it's not likely to do that.”

You're in charge
. That day her dad had been in charge. He'd been behind the wheel of the boat.

Barefoot stood next to her as she got the feel of the wheel, showed her how to work the throttle. She tried not to think about Janie, about the bright orange life jacket. She took a deep breath.

Barefoot backed the boat away from its mooring, then put it in forward and stepped aside to let Susannah take the wheel. The
EmmaJeanne
moved steadily forward, lifting and falling gently with the waves, the motor a reassuring hum.
This isn't so bad,
she thought. But Barefoot looked at her, at the whiteness of her knuckles gripping the wheel, and said, “Here.” He reached a bony hand inside the front of his parka and pulled out a silver flask. He unscrewed the top and handed it to Susannah.

“What is this?”

“My heart medicine. It'll calm you down.”

“Heart medicine?”

She opened the flask and sniffed. “What is it?”

“You sure ask a lot of questions.” Barefoot took the flask from her, put it to his lips, and took a long swig. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and held the flask out to her.

She looked at it.
It's just a few beers,
her father had said.
Nothing I can't handle
.

“Here.” Barefoot took the wheel from her while she drank. The whiskey warmed her, and there was a sweetness, too—sugar? Orange juice?

“I hope this doesn't make me seasick,” she said.