She taps through the pictures while describing the various attributes I don’t fully understand. The boat is what I think of when someone says sailboat. It’s sleek and sexy, but still holds just the right amount of charm, with teak finishes and custom sails.
I look at the price tag. “Holy shit. I didn’t realize they were that expensive.”
“Oh, this isn’t expensive. This is a well-kept ten-year-old boat.”
“Damn, that’s small. I mean, I knew they weren’t big, but, yeah, there’s really only room for one person.”
She laughs. “It’s only small to someone living in a thirty-eight-hundred-square-foot house. Spacewise, it’s really only a little smaller than this.”
She indicates the boat we’re on, and for the first time I really take a look around. Everything has a place. All kinds of compartments are tucked everywhere. Regular items double as something else—the living room futon turns into a bed, the stovetop turns into a cutting board.
“Thinking about you and me on something that size,” I say, indicating the sailboat, “is heaven. Thinking about you, me, and three girls on something that size is just this side of hell.”
She laughs. “I agree, which is why I started looking at cats.”
“Cats?”
“Catamarans.”
I know even less about catamarans than I do about sailboats, and I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed.
She flips through pages, finds a catamaran the same age as the sailboat she gazed dreamily at, and pulls up the listing.
“Shit, it’s even more expensive,” I say.
“Only by forty or fifty grand.”
“Are you secretly filthy rich?” I only half tease.
“It’s going to be my house,” she says. “My only major expense.”
Okay, that’s fair. “True. Why is this more?”
“It’s a lot bigger, inside and out.” She flips through the pictures. “Four separate bedrooms in two separate hulls for lots of privacy, and big windows letting in lots of light. Two full heads—bathrooms—with standing showers. A real living room surrounded by windows, so you have views inside and outside the boat, bigger kitchen and dining table, storage spaces tucked in everywhere.”
There are people in these photos, so I get a better idea of scale, and I breathe easier. Small, sure, but not impossible.
“And a huge deck all around the boat, fore and aft. Big swim deck off the back, lots of covered or uncovered lounge seating and drop-away tables, and tons of storage for gear and tools.”
“I like this,” I say.
“I thought you would.”
“Why would you choose the sailboat you showed me over the catamaran?”
“It’s less expensive and this is more room than I need for myself, but that’s not the main reason. A catamaran is a smoother, more stable ride. I love the feel of a boat heeling in the wind.” She taps through some images on Google and brings up one where a sailboat is tipped so far over, the sail is almost parallel with the sea. And she’s grinning from ear to ear. “There is nothing like the rush of a good wind to feel the power of Mother Nature. Someday, I’d love to take you out in a single hull and show you.” Her excitement quiets, and she gives me a one-shouldered shrug. “But I’ll let you get used to basic sailing first.”
“Kind of you,” I tease.
There’s no doubt my heart is beating faster. My skin is tingling. Just the thought of this possibility has opened my view of the future from thirty degrees to two hundred and seventy degrees. That shift in vision makes me realize how every one of my past choices has tightened the scope of my life another ten degrees, until all I can see in front of me is a narrow view showing me only one path—the traditional path I have to take to get three little girls into adulthood without a mother. After that, coaching them through college. Then navigating husbands and grandkids and retirement.
Kat’s view shows me freedom and excitement and lifelong learning and travel. Just by Kat being Kat, she’s shown me things I’ve never even considered possible, let alone dreamt of.
Now I wonder if including me and the kids is limiting everything she’s always wanted. “What about your dream sailboat? Wouldn’t you be missing out on that thrill?”
She rolls up on her side and smiles at me. “In reality, cats are actually faster than sailboats, so there will be plenty of thrills. As for the excitement I’ll lose from heeling, you and the girls will make up for it tenfold.”
My heart skips. It skips so often, I consider she’s given me an arrhythmia. “Maybe I can cover the extra cost.”