"Yes," I said emphatically. He smiled as if I had said the silliest thing. "I promise," I added.
"Promises," he muttered and gazed toward the ocean. "You of all people know they're like balloons. When you first get them, they're fresh and bright and full and then time passes and they lose air or simply explode. Laura and I used to make all sorts of promises to each other."
"I'm not Laura, Cary. I never intended to be. I'm not your sister. I'm--"
He looked at me, his eyes full of expectation. "Yes?" he said.
"I'm your girlfriend, or at least, I hope I am."
"Do you?"
"I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it, Cary. You know how I feel about lies."
He smiled.
"Yes, that I know," he said, nodding. He took a deep breath and looked up at the windows on the second floor of the house. "I'm never going to please him, you know."
"That's his fault, Cary, not yours," I said.
"It doesn't matter whose fault it is. I've been at his side all my life. Ever since I was old enough to walk out to the dock with him. He's a good sailor-- the best. I never felt anything but safe being out there with him."
"That's good," I said. "That's the way a son should feel about his father."
He shook his head. And then he shut his eyes as if a vision so terrible it cut through his brain like a knife had appeared.
"What is it, Cary?"
"I didn't tell Ma everything," he said after a short pause and another deep sigh.
"What do you mean?"
"The doctor doesn't think he will ever be what he was. He wants him to go on disability and stop working altogether," he said. "Too much damage to his heart."
"Oh." I slumped back against the truck beside him, suddenly feeling guilty about yelling at Uncle Jacob. "He doesn't know?"
"He knows; he just won't accept it," Cary said. "When I brought him home, he said, 'I don't want to die on land. I'll die on my boat."
I thought about Aunt Sara and how she would fall apart like a figure of ice surprised by the spring sunshine.
"You've just got to make him understand, Cary."
"Understand? I might as well shout at the wind or stand on the beach and try to scare away the tide. The sea is in his blood. Almost every day of his life, he got up and went to sea." He smiled. "He always says he wobbles when he walks on dry land. He says he gets land sick the way most people get seasick.
"And, he'll worry about the family, making a living. He was planning on expanding the cranberry business, you know."
"You can do all that, Cary."
"It won't be the same for him. Dad's not a man who can spend the rest of his life sitting in a rocker, waiting for me to come home with a report."
"Well what's his solution?" I cried.
"There is no solution," he said. "We'll just do what we have to do when we have to do it, I guess." He took a deep breath and looked at the house. "Let's go back before Ma comes down and finds we ran away from her dinner."
I took his arm and he turned his troubled, dark green eyes to me.
"I'll be at your side to help you whenever I can, Cary."
His eyes brightened and he looked young again, young and strong and hopeful. Then he leaned closer and we kissed. It was just a soft kiss, a moment, but it was like a promise, and not a promise that would burst like a balloon.