Water Lessons (19 page)

"The Vice President of the Confederacy," Jim said. "The acne-scarred, ninety-six pound 'little big man' from Georgia. Complex guy."

"How so?" Walter said.

"He paid for men and women, white and black people to be educated," Jim said. "Yet he still wrote and campaigned for slavery."

"Correct. And who was Richard S. Ewell, otherwise known as 'Old Bald Head'?"

"A general blamed by a few of his men for losing Gettysburg."

"I guess you could say that, son," Walter laughed.

"Ewell is my middle name, but there's no relation."

"Hmm. Okay, now who was John Slidell?"

"He was a senator from my state who later became a Confederate diplomat to France. He almost pulled Britain into the war on the Southern side. I grew up near a town named after him."

"Correct. Yep, they were prisoners there. You know, those men were treated so well in there that they wrote letters for some of the Union guards who later went into battle, that should they be captured, they were to be treated by the rebels with the utmost care."

"I like that."

"Sounds like you know a lot of this already. Yeah, yeah, Mr. History," the old man leered askance at him with a look of mischief, "but do ya know about the Lady in Black? Otherwise known as the Black Widow?"

"No, sir. Sounds very nineteenth-century, Victorian."

"You'll like this one. Maybe weave this little yarn into what you're writing." Walter shook his finger, pointing upward. "During what you guys down below the Mason-Dixon used to call 'the War Between The States,' back when Fort Warren was a high-security military prison, there was a Confederate lieutenant there named Lanier. He mailed details on where he was imprisoned to his wife. So the guy's wife came up all the way to Hull and stayed with a Southern sympathizer. In her luggage, she'd brought two items: a pickax and a pistol.

"One night she took a rowboat to George's Island, bypassed all the sentries, and ran to a specific section of the dungeon wall. Behind this, her husband and some of his fellow officers were waiting. They hoisted her up with a rope made of bedsheets, right through a cannon's embrasure.
 

"The husband hid her for months in the dungeon. Prisoners built a tunnel with the pickax. One night, many men attempted to escape, right through the tunnel across the parade grounds. They sprang from the hole in the ground. With them came Lanier and his wife, who ran into a corridor. A guard confronted the wife. She aimed her pistol and fired. It was an old black powder box type, exploded upon firing. Instantly killed her husband just next to her.
 

"The Colonel on duty—guy named Dimick—had no recourse but to hang the wife as a spy. Her only request? That they bury her in a dress, since she'd dressed in a fake Union uniform. Some of the guards found some black robes worn in a recent play put on by some of the rebel prisoners. She was hanged in those robes. To this day, the ghost of Mrs. Lanier is said to haunt Fort Warren. Her spirit's even mentioned several times in prison records.
 

"You know, Fort Warren was finally decommissioned when I was in Korea. From that woman's death to the time the fort was decommissioned, that prison had many documented cases of soldiers seeing the Lady in Black. A few soldiers were court-martialed for discharging their rifles and running. One fella tried to desert after seeing her, literally fled his post."

"Guess he didn't get far," Jim said with a wry smile. "There just doesn't seem to be much room to run back there."

"Ha, I guess you're right. A soldier was court-martialed after blasting his rifle off while on sentry duty. He said he'd seen the ghost and was just scared to death. The best account is of the time three soldiers were walking under the big arched sallyport, or entrance. Suddenly, they saw these footprints starting from nowhere and going for maybe twenty feet and then disappearing. And they were tracks made by a woman's shoes! Where she walked to her execution."

"
That
is quite a tale, Commodore."

"I always did know how to 'swing the lamp.' So you know, that Lady in Black, or the Black Widow, it's almost as if her spirit, or part of it, rather, is imprisoned still on that island. I got a friend who lives on the Cape, in Barnstable. He was garrisoned on that island in the late forties. Swears he saw her ghost. And George wasn't drunk on any Narragansett when he saw the apparition, okay?"

A twinkle of humor peeked out of the old man's eyes.

"I do love those stories," Jim said. "Some are fantasy and some are hallucination. But you know, sir, down in the South we still believe in ghosts." Jim thought of Freddy, and shuddered. "There are spirits, and there are souls, and they are two different things altogether. If you or some writer isn't pulling my leg on that one, that was a
spirit
."

"Speaking of such beliefs, my boy, you and I are the same. I'm of an older generation here that still holds those beliefs. The generation of my children—really mine are young enough to be my own
grandchildren
—well, they've rejected much of the old foolishness. But in many ways, they also rejected a lot of our wisdom and the sweet things. Many admire decadent celebrities and, of course, their own whimsy. But what can I do? I wanted to put Davie in a military academy to straighten him out. What I want to change is that he has little respect for anyone, even his elders. And he's just plain
lazy
. And he runs with a rough crowd. So I considered an academy for him."

"Decided against it?"

"Kathleen cried and begged me not to."

Jim fidgeted with the wheel, turning it to the right. Seconds later, he corrected it toward the left. He remembered how he and his father that night had grappled, swinging each other in one direction, and then another.
 

Jim winced at the memory. He had not been grateful enough for the man. But Jim felt like he could never impress him, and Jim mused once again that he perhaps instead sought his father's replacement in other elders.

Jim looked out past the biminy onto the deck. Jack held up a line to the chaperones and the boys, who sat on the deck. They had taken a break from raising and lowering sails. Jim hoped Jack would touch on controlling the boom and not wait until moments before the boat docked in Boston Harbor.

"I know it's gettin' a little rough out there with my little girl. She wearin' ya down?" The old man probably had heard some of it from her and could intuit the rest.

"The new distance between us is taking a little toll on her. She admitted it last night."

"I know my little girl. She keeps so much inside. But she divulged a bit to Kathleen yesterday. You guys just need to visit each other more. Knock off work a bit early, if you have to. The work on the schooner's going swimmingly. Shave a little more time off to see my girl. It's fine."

"Thanks, Walter. I've wanted to visit her more. I suspected the distance would be a little hard on us, but I didn't want to neglect the project."

"Maybe a week or two more, with your men going full blast. Once you finish the deck, we're in the clear. We'll be primed for the big trip up the coast."

"I can't wait. And it's a real treat for the kids."

"I am quite pleased with everything," Walter said.

They looked past the biminy at the group. The boys took turns tying a cleat hitch as Jack and the chaperones looked on.

Behind them in the distance loomed Deer Island and Logan Airport off to the right and the buildings of the Financial District straight ahead. Barely visible on the horizon were the obelisk-like Customs House and the gold-capped State Street building. To the right of these buildings, between downtown and the airport, the beautiful arches of the Zakim suspension bridge spanned the Charles. Across the river, just to the right, rose Bunker Hill and the rowhouses of Charlestown. He had grown nearly as accustomed to these landmarks as those of New Orleans.

Soon they would dock. He would finally be on solid ground, and with Maureen at last. A week had passed since he had seen her. He would be with Maureen, but with Maureen he would have to contend. Jim did, after all, have some vital questions for her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

After the
Undaunted
found its moorings at Rowe's Wharf downtown, and after Tim Murphy and Reverend Ward had spirited their energetic charges away to Sunday services, after Jack's Saab rolled reluctantly away to its strife-filled abode in Chatham, and Walter had set off homeward in his old station wagon, Jim climbed into his truck in the parking garage and leaned his head back against the headrest, his eyes closed.

The truth was he had slept little on Lovells Island, and it had nothing to do with ghosts, loud children, or the snapping campfire. The latest conversation with Maureen, however brief, had shaken him to his core. This had all been her father's idea: Jim's move to the Cape and his leaving the stock and bond brokerage for the boat brokerage. And Maureen had more than approved; she had strongly championed the entire idea. Jim made the leap, and he was happier. But instead she was in the doldrums now that she faced the reality of it all.

What was he to do? Was it his fault?

He had hoped for an upbeat Sunday with Maureen. He wanted a day filled with laughter and the jokes and anecdotes he had intended all week to share. He wanted a day spent exploring one of the oldest and greatest American cities.

But Maureen had grown colder, more aloof, more irritable with each visit. Even weeks before the old man had broached the idea of his new job and dwelling, Jim had noted a seismic shift deep within her, and it had worsened.

What had changed in her? What had taken hold in that heart, the very heart that announced its love for him so early on? What had changed within that same woman who divulged over glass after glass of wine every last detail of her past and her longings: of her years growing up and at college, of her plans and her private joys and fears?

What awaited him today?

Jim pulled his Blackberry from his jacket pocket. On the fifth ring, the line opened up. Once again came that voice, burdened not with worry but a tangible moroseness, a voice muffled with exhaustion. "Hey, Jim. I guess you made it to town?"

"With Ol' Betty Sue as we speak, in the parking garage by Rowe's Wharf."

"I'm still in bed. Didn't sleep much last night. Wanna stop by?" She breathed the last three words in one long weary sigh, as if she were both tired, and tired of saying it.

"Of course. I'll find a garage or some spot near you."

"Swing by. I'll give you my MGH card. You can park for free in their lot, then just walk over. Just call when you're two minutes away."

"Roger that. Look for my call. Love ya, Maur."

"Love you, too." She delivered her response in that hushed, hurried tone. The consonants and vowels spilled out in such a manner that they struck Jim as one long word.

He was surprised she let him abbreviate her first name. After all, she had, from the beginning, bristled at any mouthing of the epithets hon or honey, babe, baby, or sweetie, even in the most lighthearted of moments. Perhaps she did not mind because her parents often abbreviated her name.

After paying the attendant on his way out, Jim turned left on Atlantic and headed for Beacon Hill, cruising north around the city's easternmost edge. Atlantic became Commercial Street, which separated the harbor from his old neighborhood, the North End. Commercial then turned almost completely westward and morphed into Causeway Street, which skirted the left of the Fleet Center, where he had seen so many hockey games and concerts. It passed Canal and Friend and Prospect Streets to the left with their vaguely seedy sports pubs. Causeway became Staniford, which coursed up through the West End.
 

He then turned right onto Cambridge Street and passed Massachusetts General Hospital on the right, its surrounding web of streets teeming with researchers, medical students, and young doctors and nurses walking confidently in either scrubs and sneakers or in jeans with leather shoes.

Jim swung left under a bridge and headed up the two-lane, one-way Charles Street, one of his favorites. He loved its many shops and coffeehouses and restaurants and pubs, all quaint yet impressive with their painted wooden signs and Victorian façades upon colonial eighteenth-century edifices.
 

One wintry night he had nearly walked straight into Senator Kerry as he strolled beside his daughter. He and Bryce were embroiled in a deep political discussion as they headed up Charles Street for beers and darts at the Sevens Ale House. The lanky Senator, dapper in his black cashmere overcoat, grunted gruffly at them and glared sternly at Jim for the near-collision. Jim and Bryce whispered to each other their surprise as they stood watching the Kerrys descend the hill toward Cambridge Street.

Jim braked at a stoplight and called Maureen. She answered after a few rings. "Be right down," she said.

Jim turned from Charles onto Mount Vernon Street and veered left onto the cobblestones of Louisburg Square. On his right stood the townhouse, two down from Kerry's. Jim was cheered to see the four-storied Henretty townhouse facing the diminutive park, with its massive oaks and its black wrought-iron fence. Maureen's head extended from behind the large black wooden door. Jim stopped the truck, left it running, and jogged up the steps.

For a writer, painter, or psychologist, Maureen's face proved an interesting study. Weariness exuded from the eyes. Her full childlike cheeks were a bit more weighed down than usual, as if by either a force of gravity or exhaustion. The mouth was pouty with its full lips. Despite the gravitas and the overall negativity of the face, an air of humor lingered about the eyes. Perhaps she was glad to see him. Perhaps, at her core, she was amused. Beneath the eyes, the faintest semi-circles of black had formed.

Her shoulder-length hair was still damp from a recent shower. She was clad in her Red Sox bathrobe. He leaned forward to peck her on the lips. At the last second, she swiveled her head and he got her instead on the cheek. The skin was soft but tight. It was better than no kiss at all.