A Simple Thing (26 page)

Chapter 27

Susannah 2011

She walked to the truck feeling both proud of her strength and somewhat concerned about Barefoot's likely reaction to the fact that she'd destroyed the door of his beloved boat.

When she turned the truck into the driveway, she saw Katie standing by the gate. Katie ran up as Susannah rolled down the window to talk to her.

“Where have you
been
?” Katie said. “God. I've been trying to call you and you've been gone for like an hour. Quinn's really sick. He won't get off the couch, and I think he has a fever. He's been throwing up, too. He's really, really hot.”

“Could you get through to the clinic?”

“No. The Internet and cell phones aren't working because of the rain.”

Within minutes Susannah was kneeling on the floor next to the couch where Quinn lay curled in a ball.

“My stomach hurts a lot,” he said. His face was flushed with fever, his blond hair damp across his forehead.

“Is it like before?” Susannah asked. “Like other stomachaches you've had before? Did you try the hot water bottle?”

Quinn started to cry. “Yes. It didn't help. It really, really hurts.”

Susannah took his temperature: 103.5. She got out the medical encyclopedia and thumbed through it. Quinn had all the symptoms of appendicitis.

Susannah's mind started to spin. The Pavalaks were gone; Barefoot was gone. She needed to get Quinn to the clinic in Friday Harbor right away. Jim had taken his boat to go to Anacortes. She could take Barefoot's boat, the
EmmaJeanne,
the boat he'd showed her how to drive. A boat in this stormy weather. It was everything she feared most.

She turned to Katie.

“We're going to have to get him to Friday Harbor.”

“I can't drive a boat,” Katie said, shaking her head. “I mean, I've been out with Hood a few times, but I didn't pay attention. I—”

“I'll drive the boat,” Susannah said. “I can do it. Barefoot showed me how. Do you know where his keys to the other boat are, the
EmmaJeanne
?”

“He leaves them on the boat,” Katie said. “This is Sounder. Everyone does that.”

“Okay. Let's go, then.” Susannah bundled Quinn into a rain jacket and a blanket, and walked him to the truck. Katie was helpful, ready to do whatever she asked, but wide-eyed, scared. Quinn lay down on the front seat, his head on Susannah's thigh. Katie hopped in the truck bed. Susannah started slowly down the gravel drive, but Quinn cried out with every rut in the road, every jolt of the old truck. She stopped and got out.

“Katie, you drive. I think maybe it will be better if I can sit next to you and hold Quinn in my lap. Maybe I can absorb the bumps and it won't be so bad for him.”

Katie got behind the wheel without a word. Susannah held Quinn tight as they made their way down the driveway, with Katie hopping out to open and shut the gates. Quinn was hot in her arms. Within minutes they were at the road by the dock.

“You did a good job driving, Kate,” Susannah said. “Thank you.”

“It's okay, Mom.” Katie's eyes locked onto hers.

We are in this together,
Susannah thought.
She's going to help me
.

The water of the bay was black and choppy, dotted with whitecaps and sprays of whitewater where the ocean crashed into the cliffs at the other end of the bay. The sky beyond was thick and low and gray, like an animal waiting to pounce. Still, she'd made the trip to Friday Harbor with Jim and Barefoot in worse weather than this. It was rain and wind, and boats were made to handle it. She tried to carry Quinn in her arms, but he was too heavy for her. So she and Katie made a chair out of their arms and carried him, one of his arms curled around each of their shoulders, down to the metal float at the end of the dock. Katie untied the green dinghy.

“I'll row out and get the boat started and pick you up here,” Susannah said, with more confidence than she felt. She'd only driven Barefoot's boat the one time. What if she couldn't control it? What if she crashed into the dock and her kids? What if—
Stop
.
You can't think about that now.

“I'll come with you,” Katie said. “Maybe I can help.”

Susannah gave her a grateful look. “All right. Thanks. Quinnie? Hold tight right here, sweetie, and I'll be back in the big boat in five minutes.”

The
EmmaJeanne
was anchored to a buoy about fifty yards out. Susannah climbed into the dinghy and began to row, trying to keep the bow pointed straight into the driving wind. Katie sat across from her in the stern. They pulled up next to the
EmmaJeanne,
and Katie clambered up the side and then leaned down to grab the rope of the dinghy. Susannah climbed on board and looked back to where Quinn sat huddled his yellow rain poncho. He was counting on her.

Katie found the key right away, in a blue mug sitting in a mug holder just below the chart box, to the left of the wheel. Susannah had to give Katie credit; after months of working on the
Gota,
she knew boats inside and out. The
EmmaJeanne
was also an Albin, somewhat newer than the
Gota
but so similar as to be almost its twin.

Susannah tried to remember the checklist Barefoot had reviewed with her about starting the boat. There was the switch to turn on the battery, and the fuel shutoff knob. The knob was pulled out, so she had to push it in to start the boat. She closed her eyes and tried to picture Barefoot standing next to her that first day all those months ago. She flicked the switch for the battery, pushed in the knob, and turned the key in the ignition. The engine turned over and began to chug in a steady, reassuring hum.

Katie looked at Susannah in surprise. “Wow. You actually know how to start the boat.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Can you steer, too?” Katie said, but she smiled as she said it.

“Very funny. Can you row the dinghy back to the dock? I'll swing by and get you.”

“Don't forget to raise the anchor.”

“Thanks, chief. I'll remember that.” Susannah realized that Katie was teasing her, but gently, trying to help her to remember all she needed to do.

Katie climbed out and began to row while Susannah studied the instrument panel. There was an indicator that displayed the engine's rpms, an oil pressure gauge, an engine temperature gauge, and a fuel level gauge. So far so good; it was just like a car.

She looked out the window. Katie was back at the dock. She pushed the throttle forward and the boat surged through the water. All the old fears rose up in her at the sound and feel of all that mindless power rising beneath her and around her. She stilled her thoughts and focused on one thing at a time, pouring all her attention into each step.

She turned carefully in a wide circle and headed toward the dock. The wind was coming from the southwest, so it would hit her broadside as she pulled alongside the dock. Better to keep it behind her and then turn at the last minute, so the wind and waves wouldn't rock the boat so much. It was harder to see than she remembered, with rain pelting the windshield. There had to be a windshield wiper switch somewhere. But she couldn't look for it now because she was steering the boat, trying to remember how it responded to the wheel in her hands, trying to see through the rain-spattered windshield to the two figures on the dock in their yellow ponchos.

The water and wind buffeted the boat. Susannah gripped the wheel with both hands. She was almost at the dock. Katie was standing and waving, while Quinn sat farther back. She turned the boat and angled it so she'd slip in alongside the dock, but the boat didn't respond as quickly as she'd expected. She cut back on the throttle, but not in time. The boat rammed into the dock with a thud.

“God, mom, you could have killed me!” Katie said, after Susannah swung the boat around. Katie had been knocked flat on her backside by the impact, but the metal dock and the boat were fine. So was Quinn, although he was moaning in pain.

“I'm sorry,” Susannah said.

“It's okay,” Katie said, wiping her hands on her damp jeans. “Although I'm soaking wet now. Just remember, it drives like
a boat,
okay? It doesn't respond as fast as a car.”

“Okay,” Susannah said. She clamped down on the fear in her mind.

Katie helped lift Quinn onto the boat. Susannah insisted they wear life jackets, and put one on herself. She wanted Katie and Quinn down in the cabin, where they'd be safe, but when she went to open the cabin door it was locked and padlocked.

“Kate? Do you know if there's a key?”

“No.”

“Why is the cabin locked?”

“I don't know. Maybe Barefoot keeps stuff down there he doesn't want anyone to mess with.”

“But you kids have to ride in the cabin.”

“We'll be fine here, Mom. See?” Katie helped Quinn up into the chair opposite the pilot chair, and then stood behind Susannah. She unrolled the canvas flap that provided a back wall, of sorts, for the wheelhouse.

“Okay. Everybody please hold on. I mean it, Kate.”

“Don't ram into anything else,” Katie said, after Susannah had backed the boat up and then started to move forward again, away from the dock and out into the bay.

“Lucky for you there isn't much to ram once we're out of the bay,” Susannah said. “Except other islands, and I can usually see those before I hit them.”
I hope
.

Katie peered at her mother's face. “Are you making a joke?”

“I'm trying to point out that I'm not as grossly incompetent as you assume, even if I did bump into the dock.”

“Bump!” Katie said. “Collide, or crash, is more like it.” But her voice was mild.

They moved out of the bay and toward the wide expanse of Governor's Channel. The currents were strongest here, Susannah knew, and the sea the roughest. She could feel the water like a live thing, swelling and swirling beneath them. Back along the shore, the trees leaned in the wind. The waves were bigger now. She kept the boat headed straight into the wind. It climbed each swell and then dipped back down, up and down.

Susannah held the wheel with both hands and tried to concentrate on the rise and fall of each wave, on keeping the boat steady, on remembering to keep track of the wind.

Katie picked up the radio. “I can call ahead to the marina in Friday Harbor and see if they can have a police car or ambulance meet us to get us to the clinic.”

“Good thinking.” Susannah had forgotten that once they arrived in Friday Harbor they'd need to get Quinn from the boat to the doctor.

Katie put in a quick call on the radio and then clicked it off.

“I thought you were afraid of boats,” she said.

“I am. Or I was.”

“Are you afraid right now?”

“No,” Susannah said. She hoped it was true.

It was after four o'clock, and getting dark. Susannah switched on the boat's running lights, and peered at the radar screen.

“Kate, do you know how to read the radar?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Then can you watch the radar?”

“Sure.”

Susannah found a small manual switch for the wipers and was relieved to see them swish back and forth. As they entered the channel and the water grew wilder, Susannah grew more and more calm. Maybe it was the lingering effects of Barefoot's heart medicine, or just the realization that there was nothing more she could do right now to affect the outcome of whatever was going to unfold over the next few hours. She watched the water, held tight to the wheel in her hands, and tried to feel the boat respond to the swells beneath them, the shifting winds.

“You're doing good, Mom,” Katie said. “We're right on course. It's maybe another forty-five minutes to Friday Harbor.” She paused a minute. “I'm impressed,” she said. “I mean I know you don't like boats, but you're handling this really well.”

“Thanks. I never would have been able to do this alone.”

Katie smiled, a small smile of self-satisfaction. “It's okay.”

Quinn sat up and vomited.

Katie's calm cracked. “Oh, my God! Oh, gross!”

He moaned.

“Mom!” Katie said. “He's really, really sick. You have to do something. Call the Coast Guard!”

“The Coast Guard is for real emergencies, like when the boat is taking on water, or someone has a heart attack. We're half an hour from Friday Harbor.”

“But what if we don't make it?”

Susannah stopped watching the waves for a moment, just long enough to lock her eyes on her daughter's face. “I can do this, Katie,” she said. She was not thirteen years old and terrified, cowering before her father's criticism, his certainty of her incompetence. She
could
do it. “Quinn is going to be okay. You're doing great. Hang on a little while longer.”