Summer Island

We have battles to fight; there is no doubt about it, but Im afraid to ask the questions, and she, I can tell, is afraid to answer them. So we dance out of time to different pieces of music.

Quid pro quo. My secret for one of yours; this is the game we have begun to play. With it, I know I wont be able to stand on the edge of intimacy. Sooner or later I will have to dive into those cold, deep waters, and there is no end to the ripples my entrance will make.

I will learn things about my mother that I dont want to know. Hell, I already have. I know, for instance, that she ran away from home right after high school and never spoke to her father again.

Even yesterday, I wouldnt have been surprised by that. I would have said, “Of course. Running away is what Nora Bridge does best. ”

But I watched her eyes as she spoke of her father. I saw the pain . . .

It hurt her to run away. Part of me wishesI hadnt seen that because, as I stood there, listening to my mothers heartache, I wondered for the first time if it hurt her to leave her children.

Chapter Nine

Dean sat cross-legged on the end of the dock, watching the sunrise.

The Sound was rough now at the changing of the tides. Waves slapped against the old sailboat that bobbed alongside the dock. The lines creaked and moaned.

He heard the sound of motors in the distance, and he smiled.

The fishing boats were going out. They were too far away to see clearly-they were, as always, hugging the coast of Shaw Island on their way to Haro Strait—but Dean had seen it all a thousand times, the battered, rattrap boats, made of painted wood or aluminum, setting out for the day. How many times had he and Ruby stood on a dock somewhere, watching Rands boat chug out to sea? Shed always squeezed Deans hand at the last moment, when the Captain Hook rounded the point and disappeared. He had known, without her ever having to tell him, that she lived with a tiny bit of that one day her father wouldnt return.

Dean had taken his watch off when he arrived on Lopez Island, so he wasnt sure how long he sat there. All he knew was that by the time the sun gained strength and heated his cheeks, hed been there long enough.

Tiredly, he got to his feet and turned around. To his right, the old family sailboat bobbed wearily in the tide.

The mast-once a bright white-had been discolored by the endless rain and pitted by the wind. Red sides had been scraped down to bare wood in a dozen places, and the deck around the big metal steering wheel was hidden beneath a layer of blackened, slimy leaves and green-gray mold.

Of course, that was when he heard her voice: Lets take out the Wind Lass, Dino, come on!

He closed his eyes, remembering Ruby. In the beginning, hed flinched at every memory, held his breath, and waited for the images to pass, but then the memories had started to fade, and hed gone in search of them, reaching out like a blind man.

Now he understood how precious were his memories of first love, and he treasured both their pleasure and their pain.

He grabbed the line and pulled the boat closer to the dock, then stepped aboard. The boat undulated unsteadily, as if surprised to be boarded after so many lonely years.

He had always felt free on this boat. The flapping sound of sails catching wind had buoyed his spirits like nothing else. He and Eric had spent so much of their youth on the Wind Lass. On these teak decks, theyd spun dreams for a future that stretched Out years and years. Though neither of them had ever said it aloud, theyd both imagined growing old on this boat, bringing wives and children and grandchildren aboard.

Dean loved to sail, and yet hed walked away from it, let sailing be part of the life hed left behind. . .

Obviously Eric had done the same. The Wind Lass could have been docked in Seattle, a stones throw from Erics house, and yet here she sat, untended and untouc

hed.

And suddenly Dean knew what he needed to do.

He would restore the Wind Lass. Scrape the old paint away, strip the wood and re-oil it, scrub its every inch. Hed take this forgotten, once-loved boat and return it to its past glory.

If he could get Eric out here for an afternoon--just that, a single afternoon--maybe the wind and the sea could take them back in time . . .

Ruby woke to the smell of frying bacon and brewing coffee. Snagging yesterdays leggings off the floor; she pulled them on underneath her long nightshirt and hurried through her morning bathroom routine, then padded downstairs.

Nora was in the kitchen, maneuvering the wheelchair like General Patton along the front. There were two cast-iron skillets on the stove, one with steam climbing out. A yellow crockery mixing bowl sat by the empty skillet; a metal-handled spoon rested against its side. She smiled up at Ruby. “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”

“Fine. ” She stumbled past the wheelchair and poured herself a cup of coffee, adding sugar and cream.

After a sip, she felt more human. Leaning back against the cupboards, she saw that her mother had made bacon and pancakes. “I havent eaten a breakfast like this since you left us. ”

It was obviously an effort for her mother to keep smiling. “Do you want me to put an M-and-M face on your pancakes like I used to?”