Buck stood waiting. He looked nervous but only about what we’d think of his boat. Just as I had pictured, he was wearing Abercrombie safari gear. His tunic had enough flap-ammo pockets to start another Zulu War; but underneath, the collar of Buck’s favorite ragged orange T-shirt showed, frayed. This spoiled the Great White Hunter effect and forced me not to loathe the man on sight.

  A big old yam-colored galoot, Buck thrust one callused hand my way, “Come aboard, son. Bout damn time. Put her there.”

  It was clear that Grace had told him next to nothing about her sad history with Clyde, with Dix, and me. This alone kept my meeting Buck relatively meaningless and therefore cordial. I hadn’t come all this way to talk to him.

  Buck’s innocence made the rest of our afternoon possible. He grinned through pleated skin so sunned it’d thickened to the surface of an inner tube. His huge and able hands were constantly moving, straightening lines, smoothing tarps. The head—raw, noble, outsized—looked like some battered, lichened bust of Justinian. If not brilliant, Buck was plainly civil and surely durable. Like Clyde, he stood about six one. This made me feel both queasy and at home. Lullingly familiar, to be pivoted, seasick like this—between Buck’s sleepy Clyde-like goodwill and Grace’s lazy buzz of scintillating flirtation. She was already doing that to Bethany, who kept disloyally giggling about something. Not, I hoped, me. Not quite yet.

  Buck said he soon planned to “take us out.” But first he rigged my girls with hot-pink life preservers. Not two minutes later, his crew of three arrived. The timing, I must say, was perfect. We were quietly under way in less than four minutes. I could see how well his staff knew More Trouble.

  Three freckled boys the color of honey-baked hams today wore French sailor shirts. Grace’s idea of celebrating? Was this her nautical equivalent of my candied-apple Jag? Having three young strangers in charge made the brisk sail possible and thoughtless. Their presence also kept our talk more general and therefore more bearable. Two crew members must have been a few years older than our girls. Once More Trouble slid past the jetty, these kids all freely visited and talked. The prettiness of them, stationed in silhouetted clumps against the brilliant blue-green, gave our day at sea an extra glamour. I felt calmed despite my eighteen years’ resolve to force Grace toward some logical conclusion: to explain herself. At last, a full-frontal apology might be nice. For killing Clyde, for permanently shipping me away at eight. One “I’m so, so sorry, son.” Was that too much to ask?

  I’d hoped our girls might sneer a bit at Grace and her gift of five-dollar caps. But Deirdre and Sara wore those with great pleasure, kept adjusting the brims’ angles all day, getting the tilt over one eye ever more fetching. (And our girls took the things home as the prizes of their trips; they later wore them to costume parties, kept the caps up in their rooms at least till college. You never know what flashy haberdasher’s knickknacks a kid will take to.)

  If Grace acted overfamiliar with our daughters, she stayed slightly formal with my wife, and that, today, seemed wise. Grace flattered Bethany by saying how much she looked like “the youngish Katharine Hepburn.” The “-ish” made such praise more acceptable. (Grace hadn’t overheard that very compliment used on herself.)

  “Actually, when we met,” I piped in, “I thought Bethany was the image of the young Gene Tierney,” I said, “which, in my book, is as good as you get.” But my wife, I saw, preferred hearing her calcium compared to Hepburn’s, and by a woman herself no stranger to good bones. Mom admitted Tierney had been beautiful, “but waxy. Not a real peach, more a wax one. Better full-face than in profile as I remember.”

  Bethany seemed as easily wooed by Grace as our two pushover daughters. Decades of hearing about my boyhood abandonment had produced very little chilly reserve among my life’s other women. Gracie impartially cajoled and teased me. She flirted with her crew, her son, her husband. She flirted with seagulls, flirted out at an ocean called Atlantic, flirted overhead with a major necessary star named Sun.

  And everything but me winked back.

  Buck explained, as the two of us did a little casting off Trouble’s fantail, how in ’49 he’d come to invent a particular filtering-and-friction-reduction feature now used in all state-of-the-art offshore-oil-drilling bits.

  “My first brother-in-law was a patent lawyer. Kid right out of U.T. and real ‘hungry.’ Just blind luck really, my getting there first,” Buck shrugged then cast.

  He seemed so at ease with himself in reaching over and matter-of-factly showing me how to snap my reel’s release. Our hands touched but he offered none of the usual male cringing. Buck was certainly no beauty. I guessed some might’ve compared his seamed home-base of a face to that of the late Bogart’s, the very late Bogart’s.

  I could, while squinting into the sun, see new ways he might be Grace’s latest try at recouping a Clyde. I felt glad that Mom at least remained loyal to one type! Monogamy takes many forms.

  She said they planned to whisk us out for dinner once ashore, before we headed back to Orlando. More Trouble Than It’s Worth II would ride the waves till just at drinktime. Secretly, I already checked my watch.

  While my daughters, Bethany, and Buck eased below decks, settling in the sleek galley kitchen to play cards, as our young crew forty feet aft of us smoked Camels (or could that wafting herbal scent be reefer?), I chose to join my putative mother sunning herself on the foredeck. I knew this private family moment only seemed arrived at accidentally; everyone, the crew included, must be in on it.

  Gracie rested slung here in a powder-blue two-piece. She was mostly wearing just white wing sunglasses while inhaling one very white Doral. She’d basted herself all over with several sunscreens or balms or other. She smelled like a coconut just macheted whitely open; she also smelled like overheated rope. There blew off her in gusts a sweet and nameless scent I recognized. At first sniff, I felt some simple infant headlong gratitude; I smelled a girl.

  But something clamped down in me like some titillated hanging judge’s verdict—“No.” I breathed briefly, censored, through my mouth. If she had once smelled like overripe fruit, that’d mellowed. Time had salted that toward, say, braised grilled baby vegetables—a range easier to live with day to day, if also something of a loss.

  The bikini showed the body of some rawboned divorced lady park ranger. Strong, but from what? For what?

  Still, yeah, admit this, it was still pretty darn “good.” As a body, I mean. Is it strange to admit you’d—in a blind taste-test—probably choose to jump your sixty-odd-year-old Mother if invited? And if you didn’t know. She was. Your mom.

  I flashed on the ancient tale of a young man who—not knowing—marries his own mom and kills his father on the road. Once he understands, he can only blind himself. I turned to stare at her.

  This particular matured and glazed Grace seemed related only by marriage to that gloomy pallid novel-reading girl. The girl whose sighs had once contained blank white cartoon thought-balloons, each waiting to be filled by statements, anybody’s. I recalled her muttered inventory of people and place names. I imagined I had once heard “Boca” huffed aloud among that wild kid’s dreamed and itchy destinations.

  Now I hoisted one of the teak deck-chairs and resettled it, angled nearer hers. Surprising to find a young sailor stationed in the wheel-house, steadily guiding More Trouble. He posed beyond domed green glass, just four feet behind Grace’s forward-looking chair and out-turned thighs.

  I nodded toward the boy as he gave me, through windshield, a mock three-fingered salute. It was then I noticed on the wheelhouse window ledge (the ship’s dashboard, as it were) two awful brand-new-looking anchor-shaped import-store brass bookends, orange price-stickers still showing. And wedged between those, one Nurses’ White Bible from our old days, flanked by first editions of my own two books. Their only editions, come to think of it!

  A felt bookmark had been left at the very back of each. I’d admitted she still looked great; that was hard enough. Now, to find Clyde’s gift and my own work on board: it was the only thing so far that had truly moved me. She’d probably guessed how this would throw me way off guard. But maybe that was cynical. I don’t know.

  “So—Clyde gave you the Bible?”

  Behind shades, she nodded, “And the sweet fool signed its front page, ‘Because no other Good Book is Good enough for MY little woman!’” Even with our eyes averted, we both laughed. Each of our laughs stretched out and died its own rolling natural death. Two laughs, evolved, complete, but utterly different. Unified only by shared subject.

  “And you have my books.” Craning around, I kept staring at them. “Which is rare. Hell, I hardly have my books.”

  (The kid at the wheel smirked, seeing me shift again; he seemed to think I was admiring him! What else would he expect of Grace’s son?) Overclarifying, I pointed at the volumes then to my chest, and turned my back on him. Next, taking lessons from this woman, I simply faced the sun, soberly as some pagan would—duty-joy: one thing. “Try not to try,” some superior, fatherly part of me instructed the callow child. And that boy obeyed him. Briefly.

  “You are at sea with Grace,” eyes shut, I told myself, “you’re drifting with her latest hubby, with your family, with one of Dad’s Bibles, with your own two lonely little books and, maybe most of all, with that implied ghost, Captain Clyde himself.” I could almost picture him behind me doing some intentionally idiotic Buster Keaton eye-shading pose, staring at the horizon. Or else disguised as a dolphin following More Trouble, the one Atlantic dolphin with a lighted Camel in its mouth! The very image almost made me grin, eyelids still closed.

  “You must’ve hired a detective to track down my work,” I spoke straight into bouncing sea-glare.

  “No,” she said. “Amazon dot com. You’re listed, right in there with the greats, son. And you know, they rushed us both your books in under seven days? I swear. Felt so damn proud when your name came up onscreen between Delicious Muffins Anyone Can Bake Fast and Delray Beach Oceanfront, Real Estate, a Guide….”

  I gave Grace one side-look. We were on a boat; we had a decorative French-looking crew. My girls below deck could now be heard to exclaim over holding so many face cards. And I lolled here near a beautiful woman (Merle Oberon, Ava Gardner, even a little Lena Horne) whose lower body had somehow fed me to the world.

  I pictured her when young, wearing that sea-green nightie, padding barefoot into the kitchen of our small sad home and sticking her head in the fridge, as if always expecting that someone else had just magically restocked it with melons, hams, sliced smoked turkey since last she checked.

  “Wasn’t that some dive, that rental place we had?” But it was she who spoke these words, and the very second I sat picturing our place.

  I felt scared that I was leaking, spooked that Grace should lift so much directly from my thoughts. Maybe mere coincidence, and not some synchronous genetic patterning. “One pitiful little house,” I admitted. “Funny, I was just this second thinking of it.”

  “You know?” she called through smoke. “Buck has all the videos of The Honeymooners below deck. And we were watching one the other night—Alice reminds Buck of his second wife, the love of his life. And that apartment of theirs, the cheap set Gleason used? It sure made me think of our old Elm Street rental. Ours was even laid out like the Cramdens’, wasn’t it, son? Same sink, the bedroom door right off the …”

  “And that awful brass bowl of wax fruit … I’ve wondered at times, Grace, why we couldn’t have afforded something just a little better.”

  I heard her shift then tilt my way, propped on one elbow. “Want the truth? ’Cause Clyde kept saving it all for you. A nickel here, quarter there. Insurance policies. For your college. He was right to, of course. I’ve read both your books. Read every word except the notes and stuff in back. Of course, I didn’t know the Roman speeches and the plays you wrote ’em on. But I can see you’re very witty on the page. Sharp as hell. It’s real well written. You worked out every single sentence, son, and that sure shows. Plus, you clearly know your shit.”

  “Thank you … Grace.” I sat here, staring at the beautiful horizon. Burgundy lines were marbled under water showing an almost milky jade-green. I knew I must now offer her something kind in return. I could half-sense Clyde just behind me, vertical if gangly, swaying Blanche-like in the breeze. It seemed he kept insisting, nodding, trying to get me started, on some belated gentleness, toward her. A kindness that was really all his; and that was most everything I learned from him.

  I gazed out on an ocean aqua-blue as swimming-pool paint. The boat now moved through a miles-long hula fringe of golden grasses. I remarked on these growing so far from shore.

  “Yeah, they live on plankton, no roots, no dirt, no nothing. We’re in the Gulf Stream. Way warmer here. The fishing is incredible this far out. Those purple lines all through the blue? That’s miles of coral reef. All alive. Don’t the colors absolutely slay you? They do me.”

  I looked over at her. “For someone who skipped the scenery in every novel she read, you sure have taken to panoramas. I mean, it’s great. I’m glad you’re showing me.” She asked how I’d known she always hopped the novels’ scenery. “I saw you. Your finger would speed up. You’d mumble, ‘Mountain, mountain. Stream, stream.’ You’d hurry toward what you called ‘the good parts, the people parts.’” She groaned at the phrase, laughing, “A regular Einstein, hunh? That what you saying?”

  “No, you were a real reader, Grace. We had lots more than the Cramdens’ fruit bowl. I mean, our little house was packed with books.”

  “Reader, me? Well, if you call Daphne du Maurier reading!” and cackling once, she took in half a Doral.

  “But you were also big on Rose Macauley. There was some Henry Green. And Brideshead. I remembered later, I recognized your old covers in used-book stores.”

  “Well, great. You tell me good things about me. You did take an interest after all. Isn’t the temperature out here perfect, Meadows? And hardly any wind. Today it’s our Atlantic, buddy. You know, the crew just thinks Buck hung the moon. He’s puttin that cute little blond one through aviation-repair school. They’re like sons to him. Say, your girls are total knockouts. Sweethearts, too. Not stuck-up in the least. I didn’t know what you might’ve told them. About me. Looks like you spared them the complete blow-by-blow. For that I thank you. I expected I’d have to work way harder on ’em than I have. But I’d be willing to do anything to see you all again. You can’t imagine.—Yeah, son, looks like you’ve done a mighty good job with those kids.”

  I nodded, fighting forty emotions and one bucket of gorge. I accepted the truth of her praise, knowing it as so. But I waited for whatever else my mom could offer me this late. I just expected further damage, more retraction.

  But then Grace added, genuine, “Amazing we’re both alive, isn’t it? How do you explain it, Meadows, who gets to go on and who not?” I dared not speak. I only aimed my front side half away from her, hers, hoping this high-grade a sunscreen might actually protect me.

  “Your Deirdre is a sure-nough beauty….” Grace hung right in there.

  “Looks just like you did. Even the old eye-ear-nose guy from Cleveland said so.”

  “Stan? Quite a character, that Stan. He’s told me twenty of the jokes our Clyde loved most. Same timing, everything. A kick to pretend they’re new. After all these years, they practically are.—Now, your wife, ‘Beth’—no, ‘Bethany.’ There’s definitely no shortcut for ‘Bethany,’ hunh? She’s nice too, but I don’t think she’s real sure, about being down here with us regular folks and all. Acts like she’s a little scared Buck and I are going to pull down our pants and shit on deck.”

  I had to laugh. I admitted aloud: that certainly did make quite an image, didn’t it? I tried assuring Mom, Bethany was really all right. She’d been the major sponsor of my getting back in touch like this.

  “Well excellent. She’s nice enough, okay. Don’t get me wrong. Maybe she still has a bit of ye ole New England permafrost clinging here and there, ya know? Seems great with your girls, though.—But, look, are you two going to make it? I mean, your marriage and all? You sure she’s not seeing somebody else, longtime-type thing? I’ve definitely got a nose for this stuff. She’s nice, but I thought you’d have, you know, a potter or somebody. A gal somewhat rounder. Little powerhouse. Probably Bethany’s from good stock, though. Her father Harvard? President of the stock exchange or somethin? You mind spreading a little oil across my upper back?”

  “Yes. Have you always talked like this? And can you take it as well as dish it out?—So you think my wife’s getting some steady on the side, hunh? Well, I respect expert opinion. But, Grace? isn’t this risky, even somewhat rude of you? First time you see me in eighteen years and you immediately point out a little flaw like that? I mean, one hour after meeting my wife for the first time ever? I’d be within my rights to get furious at your telling me she’s got a lover, Mom. Fact is: it’s either her decorator, her hair guy, or the gynecologist. Sounds like some Clyde-joke, doesn’t it? ‘Hear the one about the wife whose whole staff … ?’ Just my luck. A spouse that finds the only heterosexual decorator and beautician in New Hampshire. Truth is, I’m a little worried she encouraged our meeting, yours and mine, because she’s about to bail on me. She thinks you’ll help me with the girls when things get rough. I shouldn’t admit all this to you. It sounds weak to, Mom. But everything feels so … Bethany’s dad’s is actually the Lincoln-Cadillac dealership in Buffalo. But her mother’s family, well, her mother was a Cushing.”

  “Whatever that is. Sounds like something we should all be sitting on. Still, beautiful thin nose, great bones. You got her good bones into your girls, that counts.—You got the best from her, whatever finally happens between you two. It’s the doctor. That’s a gal with too much class to ‘do’ the decorator or some hair-burner. Has she been going in for extra checkups for something she sorta vaguely calls a female complaint?” I sat very still. “Want a good stiff drink, son? That, I can dish out. Rum’s wonderful for the nerves. The darker the better. Your earlier pirates knew that,” and Grace rose, moved off without asking what I’d actually like.