The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud (4 page)

Her sea journey would take four months, maybe more, and to be honest, there were no guarantees she would ever make it back. Her mother seemed to know every case of a solo sailor vanishing or skirting death, like the Canadian who sank off the Canary Islands, escaped in a life raft with three pounds of food and eight pints of water, and survived seventy-six days.

“Hey, girl, you’re not getting any lighter up there,” Tink shouted from below.

“Sorry,” she said. “Just trying to memorize what everything looks like.”

Back on deck and out of the harness, Tess made for the cockpit, where she pulled out a clipboard with her checklist. This weekend trip was her last chance to make sure everything—absolutely everything—was shipshape. She would inspect the sails, autopilots, electronics, and survival equipment. Then she would take a few days off with her family and friends, and try to relax before the starting gun next week.

She could feel Tink’s breath as he peered over her shoulder at the list.

“You sure you don’t want me to come along?” Tink said. “You know, in case it gets lonely or cold out there.” He nudged her with a big paw.

“Nice offer, but I don’t need any more ballast onboard.”

“Who’s going to hoist you when the main gets stuck again?”

“I’ll figure something out,” Tess said. “Now tell me about that low-pressure front. What’s the deal?”

“It’s not good,” he said, pulling a computer printout from his pocket and unfolding it. In the sail loft, Tink was in charge of cutting and sewing. For the big trip, he was Tess’s go-to guy and meteorologist. He had worked in Bangor as one of those jovial TV weathermen doling out forecasts and cheer, but his broadcasting career ended prematurely. One night on the eleven o’clock news, he got fed up with a blow-dried, emaciated anchorwoman and called her a “skeletal gasbag.” No one disputed the characterization, not even the station manager, but Tink lost his job anyway. So he threw out his hairspray and makeup, moved to the North Shore, and went into sail-making and marine forecasting.

“It looks like a lot of low pressure coming down from Maine,” he was saying. “You can see the isobars on the back side of the depression.”

“That means more wind,” Tess said, grinning.

“Wish you weren’t going out at all, but you better head southwest and get ahead of the storm. Don’t want you to break anything on this boat before you have to.”

“See you Sunday, big guy.”

“Radio if you need me,” he said, going to the rail. “And remember, I’ll be pining away for you.”

“Pining away with a few hot dogs at tonight’s game?”

“I’ll have an extra one for you.” Tink jumped down to the dock as Tess turned the key, and the onboard engine rumbled. She put one fist on the throttle and was ready to push off when she heard a voice call out.

“Hey, sailor,” a woman said from the wharf. She was in her late fifties, with fluffs of gray hair poking over a sun visor. “Got a good-bye kiss for an old lady?”

Grace Carroll was every inch as tall as her daughter, and despite hip-replacement surgery a few years ago, she moved up the gangway with forceful steps. “I was in the kitchen looking out the window and I saw you on the mast,” she said. “Thought I’d come down to say hi.”

“Awww, Mom,” Tess said, “I’m sorry I didn’t call. I’ve been so busy—”

“Don’t worry about me,” Grace said, stepping aboard. “I’ve been running around like crazy getting the fund-raiser ready for next week.” For years, Grace had been on the board of the Female Humane Society, the town’s oldest charity, which was founded after a gale turned seventy-five Marblehead women into widows in the early 1800s. “Just be careful out there,” she was saying. “I’m counting on you to entertain all the old ladies.”

“I’ll be there,” Tess said. “Don’t worry.”

“Don’t forget WBZ is coming Wednesday to interview me about your race. Better tell me what to say or I may embarrass you.” She chuckled, looked up and down
Querencia
, then said, “Dad would be so proud, and darn jealous too.”

It was true. He would be proud
and
jealous. He had taught her to tack in a little tub with a broomstick mast. He had cheered when at age five she won her first race week series in a Turnabout. Above all, he had encouraged her to live boldly and see how far she could go in the world. “Dive for dreams,” he used to say, quoting the e. e. cummings poem. “And live by love.”

When the heart attack hit him two years ago—no doubt from too many lobster rolls at Kelly’s in Revere—a gaping hole opened up in Tess’s universe. She had tried everything to fill the void, but it was futile. So she decided to do what he told her—push the limits and see how far she could go. Her race around the world was in honor of him.

“When will you be back?” Grace said.

“Sunday for dinner, or maybe sooner. Depends on the wind.”

“Want me to make chowder?”

“More than anything in the world.”

Grace ran her hand through her hair, then said, “Tell me something. Who on earth am I going to feed every Sunday night when you’re gone?”

“That’s easy,” Tess said. “Tink and Bobo.”

“Bobo? That old hound. He’ll eat me out of house and home! You sure you can’t bring him around the world?”

“Wish I could, but it’s against the regs. No companions allowed.”

“Silly rules. What’s the point without a companion?” Grace’s pale eyes managed somehow to ask questions without words, and Tess knew exactly what her mother was wondering: Why haven’t you found one yet? Why haven’t you settled down? Why haven’t you said yes to either of those two marriage proposals? Then, Grace’s expression changed, and she was back in the moment. “Love you,” she said. “Have a good sail. And don’t forget you need to go see Nana when you get back. She could use a hug from her granddaughter.” She turned to go back down the gangway, but Tess stopped her with a hand on the shoulder.

“Come here, Mom,” she said, opening her arms. She pulled her tight, the way Dad always did, and thought for a moment her mother might break in her arms. It was as if Grace’s body had shrunk from the lack of physical contact and the absence of her life companion. Tess could feel her mom’s arms around her, too, squeezing, as if she didn’t want to let go.

After a few moments, they released each other. Grace pinched Tess’s cheek, kissed her, and walked down to the dock.

Tess leaned forward on the throttle. The boat glided away from the slip, moved into the channel, and passed a thousand vessels moored in the harbor. She inspected the clipboard with the weather map and the course Tink had charted. A thick black line zigzagged southeast past Halfway Rock, then west through the Cape Cod Canal into Buzzard’s Bay, then angled back. It was the easy route, away from the low pressure bearing down from the north.

But Tess wanted action. She wanted to tense the sails and feel the speed. She could hear the boat creaking, anxious to get going. The sheets flapped against the mast. On the horizon, she could see a vast expanse of gray altocumulus clouds with small ridges underneath like fish scales. She thought of the mariner’s rhyme, “Mare’s tails and mackerel scales make tall ships carry low sails.” It would be blowing hard in a few hours, just the way she liked it.

When she cleared the harbor mouth and passed the light, she aimed the boat on an unlikely course. Her compass indicated a 58-degree heading straight for the Eagle Island Channel and the Powers Rock buoy. For Tess, the easy route was never an option. If she couldn’t make it through a little low pressure, how would she ever get all the way around the world? So she eased the sheet to a broad reach and filled the mainsail with wind. Then she watched her instrument dials leap as
Querencia
gained speed and rode a rising wind straight into the storm.

SIX

T
HE WOMAN IN THE BLACK DRESS WEPT.

She kneeled beside a gravestone and clutched the granite slab with one hand. Her frail body jerked with every sob, and her gray hair, wrapped in a careful bun, seemed to shake loose strand by strand.

Charlie St. Cloud watched from behind a boxwood hedge. He recognized the woman but kept his distance. He was respectful of the pain. There would be a time to step forward and offer a helping hand, but not now. So he tucked his work gloves in his back pocket, unwrapped a piece of Bazooka, tossed it in his mouth, and waited.

He had opened this very grave that morning, carried the casket from the hearse, lowered it into the ground, and backfilled the job when the funeral was done. It was the only burial of the day in Waterside Cemetery. Work was pretty quiet. One of Charlie’s men was out trimming hedges. Another was pressure-washing monuments. A third was collecting branches that had come down in a storm. September was always the slowest month of the year in the funeral business. Charlie wasn’t sure exactly why, but he knew December and January were definitely the busiest. Folks passed away more often in the coldest months, and he wondered if it was the frost or a natural response to the excess of the holidays.

Thirteen years had gone by since Charlie had first come to Waterside. Thirteen years had passed since the paramedics failed to revive his little brother. Thirteen years had vanished since Sam was buried in a small coffin near the Forest of Shadows. Thirteen Octobers. Thirteen World Series. Thirteen years keeping the promise.

Charlie was still a handsome young man with a flop of sandy hair. That mischievous dimple in one cheek always flashed when he smiled, and his caramel eyes melted just about everyone he met. With each passing year, his mother insisted he looked more like his father—a compliment of sorts because the only picture he had ever seen of his dad showed a rugged man on a motorcycle with shiny aviator sunglasses propped on his head.

Charlie had grown a few more inches and stood 6¢3≤. His shoulders were square and his arms well muscled from hauling caskets and stone. The only legacy of the accident was a slight limp, and it was barely noticeable. The doctors had said the pins, screws, and plates in his femur and fibula would set off metal detectors—but he never had the chance to find out.

After the crash, he had finished high school, spent a couple of years at Salem State College, and gotten a degree in emergency medicine. He was a licensed paramedic, but no matter how hard he tried to move away, he could never go too far from Waterside. Even the love of a pretty teacher in Peabody couldn’t pull him away, for he was always drawn back to this place and the promise.

Waterside was his world, eighty acres of grass and granite encircled by wrought iron. He lived in the caretaker’s cottage by the forest and ran the whole operation—interment, mowing, and maintenance. It was a responsible job, and he was a responsible young man, except for that one night on the bridge that had changed everything.

Now twenty-eight, Charlie had spent his adult years looking after the dead and the living of Waterside. He had sacrificed greatly to keep his word to Sam. He had given up on big dreams of working for the Red Sox front office at Fenway Park or even Major League Baseball on Park Avenue in New York.

Today, like every day, he watched someone weep, and his heart ached. It was always this way. Young, old, healthy, or infirm: They came, they coped, and they moved on.

The woman’s knees touched the fresh mound of dirt where he had done his job with the backhoe. Thirty-six inches wide, ninety-six inches long, four feet deep. Eighteen inches of soil on top. All in strict accordance with the laws of the Commonwealth.

The woman tried to stand but wobbled in her heels, then fell back to one knee. This was the moment to offer a hand. Charlie got rid of the Bazooka and moved toward her. He was dressed in the Waterside uniform: a pale blue polo shirt with the cemetery logo, pressed khakis, and work boots.

“Mrs. Phipps?” he said.

She looked up, startled, and seemed to stare right through him.

“It’s me,” he said.

She shook her head, puzzled.

“It’s me, Charlie St. Cloud. Remember? Tenth grade English?”

She wiped her eyes, then nodded. “Of course I remember, but you seem to have forgotten the predicate nominative. The correct syntax is: ‘It is I.’ ”

“I is sorry,” Charlie said, his dimple flashing.

Teetering in pointy shoes with a run in her stocking, Ruth Phipps managed a faint smile. Back then she was known as Ruthless Ruth, the terror of Marblehead High, renowned for ruining grade-point averages with her evil pop quizzes and impossible final exams.

“Charlie St. Cloud,” she was saying. “Let’s see, you got an A on the first test, and then that crash—your brother—”

“That was a long time ago,” he said, jamming his hands in his front pockets. “Anyways, I came by to offer my sympathies. And I wanted you to know that you picked one of the most beautiful spots in the cemetery.”

She shook her head. “It was just so sudden. So unexpected. I never even had time to say good-bye.” Mrs. Phipps wiped the tears from her oval face, and she suddenly seemed human like everyone else. Her arms were as frail as a willow’s, her eyes as brown as bark. Death was the great leveler.

“I’m so sorry,” Charlie said.

“What’s going to happen to me now? What will I do?” Her body was still shaking. “What about my sweet Walter?”

“Trust me,” he said. “It’s going to be all right. It just takes time. You’ll see.”

“Are you sure, Charlie?” Her voice was a whisper.

“Not a doubt in my mind.”

“You were always such a bright boy. I wondered what happened to you.”

“I live over there in that cottage by the forest,” he said. “You’re welcome anytime.”

“That’s good to know,” she said, pushing a loose strand back in her bun. She straightened her dress and took a few tentative steps on the grass.

“I ought to get going,” she said. “Thanks for your help, Charlie.”

“My pleasure. That’s why I’m here.”

Then Mrs. Phipps walked slowly down the hill toward the great iron gates on West Shore Drive.

It was closing time, and Charlie zoomed the utility cart up and down the narrow paths, taking the turns like a grand-prix racer. In his early days on foot, it had taken more than an hour to cover all the acres, looking for mourners lost in thought, picnickers asleep on the lawns, teenagers hiding behind headstones. To speed up this routine over the years, he had modified the little vehicle, secretly adding horsepower and improving the suspension. Now, in the little wagon with
WATERSIDE
stenciled on both sides, he could secure the grounds in twenty minutes.

He always started at the north end, high on the hill where angels with trumpets alighted on marble, and made his way south across the fields of stone packed in tidy grids. Every pound of granite, every begonia blossom, Charlie thought, was proof of the enduring human need to be remembered. Now he drove along the Vale of Serenity and gazed down at the harbor, where a vintage schooner was sliding into a slip. Then he stopped to greet an elderly gentleman wearing a seersucker suit and wielding a red watering can.

“Evening, Mr. Guidry,” Charlie said.

“Well, hello, Charles!” Palmer Guidry said. His hair was wavy and white, and his face was stubbled with an old man’s uneven shave. He was one of the so-called cemetery familiars, the regulars who came every day to pull weeds from his wife’s grave and wipe dust from her stone. An old cassette recorder playing Brahms was propped against a tree.

“It’s closing time,” Charlie said. “Can I give you a lift?”

“Why, thank you. So good of you.”

Charlie stepped from the cart, shook the old ache out of his knee, and walked toward Mr. Guidry. “Here, let me give you a hand with your things.”

It was a conversation repeated almost word for word every evening. Charlie had looked up Mr. Guidry’s condition. It was called early-onset Alzheimer’s and it afflicted his short-term memory. He couldn’t recall yesterday or the day before, but he could still summon images from the distant past. That was why he had no idea he had cleaned his wife Betty’s grave the day before, but he could still imagine her in his arms the very first time they danced at the prom. It was why he didn’t have a clue that Charlie often picked him up at night but could remember the puzzled look on Betty’s face when the stroke rippled through her brain all those years ago.

Mr. Guidry folded his dust rag neatly and tucked it in his satchel. He switched off the tape player and made one last inspection.

“I love these hollyhocks,” he said, running a hand along the crimson bloom of one plant. “You know, they were Betty’s favorite.”

“I think you told me once,” Charlie said, picking up Mr. Guidry’s bag and cassette machine.

“Did I ever tell you about the time Betty planted the whole backyard with pink hollyhocks?” he said, tucking the red watering can under his arm and shuffling toward the cart. “They grew seven feet high!”

“I think you mentioned it once.”

“Night, Betty,” he said, climbing into the front seat. “Sweet dreams, my love. Be back soon.”

As they headed down the hill, Mr. Guidry recited the story of the hollyhocks for the thousandth time. Charlie loved the way Mr. Guidry twinkled with each word and how the tears always fell as they passed under the iron gates and made their way onto West Shore.

“Thanks for the story, Mr. Guidry,” Charlie said.

“Want to come over for dinner tonight? I’ll cook one of Betty’s favorites. Finest meat loaf on God’s green earth.”

“Thanks,” Charlie said. “I’d love to, but there’s somewhere I have to be.”

“Suit yourself,” Mr. Guidry said. “You have no idea what you’re missing.”

He watched Mr. Guidry get into his gold Buick and slowly pull out onto the two-lane road. Then he checked his watch. It was 6:12
P
.
M
. Sundown was exactly thirteen minutes away. The great iron gates creaked as he pushed them shut. It was definitely time to squirt oil in the hinges. Then again, there was something reassuring about the familiar sound.

He turned the big skeleton key in the lock. Waterside was now closed for the night, not to reopen until eight the next morning. He walked back to his cart and sat down in the seat. He looked out across the grounds, where sprinklers were shooting mist into the air.

The serenity around him was palpable. Now he had this paradise to himself; fourteen hours until the world returned. For him, these were the most precious moments. Time for himself. Time to be. Time to think. But most of all, time for his most important activity, hidden deep in the woods.