Dreams Adrift (A River Dream Novel) (19 page)

“
Hey, Mike, do you have any plans
for today?” he asked when I came into the kitchen. He was putting
on a fresh pot of coffee.

“
I thought I’d go through the
stuff here and try to get this place cleaned up some for Rhiannon.
Speaking of which, will I be able to borrow the Suburban to help
her move?”

“
I don’t know. Can you drive
something that big?” my father joked.

I gave him an exaggerated eye roll and shook
my head. “No, I can’t,” I said. Then I informed him, “That’s why
you’re going to come along, to drive your bus and help move her
furniture. She said Uncle Lind was going to go up with his
truck.”

“
That sounds fine, son. I’ll be
glad to do it.” He got himself a mug out of the cabinet and poured
himself some coffee. After a tentative sip he turned to me and
said, “Now, are you still sure you want to do this trip to the
Islands?”

I took my empty mug to the sink and washed it
out. “Yes, Dad, I’m sure. Why do you ask?”

He stared into his coffee, his lips pressed
tightly together. Finally, my dad took a deep breath and said,
“Because I’d like to go with you, at least for the first
leg.”

I looked at him in surprise. “Dad, I’ll be
fine. You don’t have to do that.”

His expression told me I’d misinterpreted his
reason for wanting to go. “Oh, I have no doubt you’ll be fine,
Mike, but I’d really like to go for myself,” my dad said. “I talked
it over with your mother, and she agrees. I need to get away from
here for a while. And I think it’ll be good for us, as father and
son, to spend some time on the sea together.”

The idea made me chuckle. “Dad, first Malori,
and now you. Why is everyone so anxious to get away from
here?”

My father shrugged as he refilled his mug.
Holding the carafe out to me he replied, “I don’t know. I just need
a little change of scenery to recharge my spiritual batteries, I
guess. Besides, I’ve always wanted to take a slow cruise down the
coast. What do you say?”

In response to his unspoken offer to pour me
more coffee, I held up my empty mug and then placed it in the
strainer. That gave me a few seconds to think over his request to
join me on my trip. Surprising myself, I realized I’d be glad for
his company.

“
I say, welcome aboard. Just
remember, on my boat I’m the captain.”

He laughed and then suggested that we take
Hey 19
out for a day of practice. “It’s been a while since I
trimmed a sail, Mike.”

That decided, we headed back to their place,
rigged
Hey 19
, and headed out through the inlet to open
water.

My dad was a little rusty. Years before, he’d
sailed often with Malori, but as she grew older she took
Hey
19
out less and less. Other interests, most specifically
horses, had replaced sailing for her. Malori never forgot the
promise she made me, though, and kept the boat ship shape all those
years. Before we were done for the day, my father was back in the
groove. We’d missed lunch, but we didn’t care.

When we docked the boat, my father was a
little slow climbing onto the dock. I reminded myself that he was
fifty-six years old. My father was in great shape, but a long day
on the water, when you’re not used to it, would wear anyone
out.

My mother had evidently been watching for us
because by the time we’d secured
Hey 19
, she was coming down
the dock with two big glasses of freshly squeezed lemonade. She
wouldn’t allow powdered drink mix in her house. I don’t know why. I
loved Kool Aid. It was a taste I developed over many summers at
Camp Riversail.

Handing us our drinks, my mother told us,
“While you two boys were out sailing up and down the beach like a
couple of pirates, Malori and I were working ourselves ragged
trying to get your house into decent shape for your guest,
Michael.”

I took that to mean they’d boxed up all
Maeve’s things that had been left in the house. “We left you a few
things you may need while you are still here. Do you want to look
over what we packed up?”

After nearly emptying my lemonade, I replied,
“No, I don’t think so. Unless you noticed something special,
everything I wanted was at River Dream.”

“
Very well then. You two should go
clean up. We, Malori and I, have decided that you are going to
treat us to dinner at Primavera’s,” my mother said. “I am in the
mood for something expensive for dinner.”

My groan elicited a tight smile from my
mother.

I drove to the Nadeau house, cleaned up, and
changed clothes. Before long, my mom, dad, and Malori arrived in my
mother’s new Buick LeSabre. I don’t think she’d ever owned any
other make or model.

My mother moved to the back with Malori, and I
sat in front with my dad. I tried to remember the last time the
four of us had gone out to dinner as a family like that, and
couldn’t.

“
Mike, promise me you won’t beat
up any guys that give me the eye,” Malori teased from her seat
behind me.

Turning around in the seat, I teased back, “I
can’t make any promises.”

“
Michael, you had better behave,”
Mom warned me with a stern glare.

“
Yes, ma’am,” I said. I hadn’t
been to Primavera’s in years. I wondered if Mr. DeLuca would
remember me.

Twenty-eight

“
Michael Lanier, is that you?” a
familiar male voice boomed out from behind the hostess station as
we walked up to get our name on the waiting list. I looked around
and there was Mr. DeLuca, looking a bit older, but a lot happier,
than I remembered him.

“
Yes, Mr. DeLuca, it’s me,” I
said, stepping over to take his proffered hand. “How have you
been?”

“
I have been well,” he said. Then
with concern, he asked, “How are you, Michael? I was very sorry to
hear about your lovely wife.”

“
Thank you, sir,” I said, biting
my lip and shifting my feet.

Then I remembered that Mr. DeLuca had lost his
first wife tragically following the suicide of his son Dominick all
those years ago. If anyone understood what I was going through, it
would be him.

“
You understand how hard such a
loss is,” I said.

His eyes misted over as he nodded soberly.
“Only too well, Michael,” he said. “But we must go on, mustn’t
we?”

“
Yes, sir, we must,” I said,
blinking away the tears forming in my own eyes.

“
Come with me,” Mr. DeLuca said,
gesturing for us to follow him. “I have a table for you right over
here. Tonight’s dinner is on me.”

His offer took me by surprise. “Mr. DeLuca,
that’s too kind. You don’t have to do that.”

Placing his hand on my shoulder, Mr. DeLuca
looked me in the eye and said, “Michael, you once did me a great
service; this is the least I can do.”

It was all I could do to reign in the tears
threatening to fall. “Thank you, Mr. DeLuca,” I did manage to say,
past the lump in my throat.

“
I’ll get your waitress. Please,
enjoy your meal. I will oversee it personally,” Mr. DeLuca
said.

When he left to find our waitress, my father
turned to me. “Michael, I had no idea you knew Mr. DeLuca so well.
Or that the two of you were on such good terms. Isn’t he the one
that year at Christmas…” he said, his voice trailing
off.

That was a bittersweet memory. “Yeah,
actually, that’s when we became, I guess, friends.” I said. “It’s a
long story.”

I related to them a carefully edited version
of what I had learned from Mr. DeLuca that day. My father knew part
of the story, but my mother and Malori were hearing it for the
first time.

Her voice breaking with emotion, my mother
said, “In all these years we have been coming here, I had no
idea.”

“
Wow, Mike, you sure have a way
with people,” Malori said in a tone between respect and
amusement.

When our waitress took our order, I surprised
everyone by ordering the eggplant parmesan.

“
Really, Mike,” Malori said,
“eggplant, since when?”

“
Actually,” I replied, “I’ve never
had it before. But it’s the only thing in the menu I’ve never
tried, so, I’m gonna try it.”

Malori ordered the Clams Italiano. Our mother
had her usual, Stuffed Shells with meatless marinara. Seven-Layer
Lasagna was our father’s choice. Between the salad, Italian bread,
and our entrées, we ordered our dessert – four slices of
Primavera’s famous chocolate mousse – to go.

The meal was delicious. Good to his word, Mr.
DeLuca did not present us with a bill. I tried to guess what the
tab would have been and tipped our server accordingly. We thanked
Mr. DeLuca profusely for his kindness. Much to my surprise, he
actually hugged me as we left.

“
Remember, Michael, your money is
no good at Primavera’s. When you’re in town, you come by anytime.
There will always be a table for you.”

It was a quiet ride home. When they dropped me
off at the house, my dad and I set a time for me to go by his place
and pick him up in the morning. We’d be driving up to River Dream
in the GTO, and I wanted to get an early start. There were some
things I needed to get done before the new boat arrived.

Twenty-nine

When my dad and I got to New Bern the next
morning, I realized I hadn’t been thinking very clearly in bringing
the GTO. “Uh, Dad, I think we’re going to have to go on to River
Dream and get the Cherokee.”

My father frowned. “Now that you mention it, I
guess that would be a good idea. I don’t think the Goat is going to
be able to hold everything you’re planning to pick up.”

That being the case, we drove out to River
Dream, pulled the Cherokee out, and parked the GTO. We had lunch at
the Minnesott Grill before heading back to New Bern.

Once I’d picked up the supplies I needed in
New Bern, we headed straight for Oriental, picking up Highway 55
once we crossed to the east bank of the Neuse. As we passed through
the town of Stonewall, my eyes were drawn to the old boat lying
half-submerged next to the bridge.

“
Dad, how long do you suppose that
old boat has been sitting there?”

Sitting forward in his seat so he could see
the derelict as we drove over the bridge, my father replied, “I
don’t know, Michael. It’s been there in that run-down boat house
for as long as I can remember. It must have been there twenty
years.”

I slowed down as we drove over the bridge so I
could get a good look at the boat.

“
I’d say it’s been there longer
than that. When I was a kid and first saw it, it looked like it had
already been sitting there for that long.”

“
Could be,” my father agreed,
settling back into his seat.

“
I wonder how it got there,” I
said. “Why do you suppose it was left there to rot?”

It was a wooden boat, looked to be about a
twenty-six footer. It was, or had been, a white boat. The deck and
cabin roof had been weathered nearly gray, with traces of brown
holding out against the elements. All the colors were faded and
dirty. The boat listed a bit to its starboard side, the side
towards the highway, and the stern on that side had become nearly
submerged. The boat was pulled into the boat house bow first, and
the way the old structure had collapsed down on it, the bow
couldn’t be seen from the bridge as we drove past.

The boat house itself was located practically
touching the Highway 55 Bridge there in Stonewall. Keeping one eye
on the road, I examined it out the driver’s side window as we drove
past on our way to Oriental.

“
It is hard to imagine anyone
building a boathouse that close the bridge,” I said.

“
I wouldn’t be surprised to find
the remains of an old fishing camp in the woods nearby,” my father
said.

“
That old boat is kind of big to
be this far up the creek,” I noted. “I wonder if you could even
motor back downstream if you managed to refloat it.”

My father turned around to look at it as we
drove past. “I have a feeling that vessel and the boat house are
both permanent parts of the marsh now,” he said.

It was hard to imagine someone getting that
big of a boat as far up the creek as the boat house was, but
someone obviously did. Of course this was as far upstream as they
could have gone as the bridge wasn’t high enough off the water to
allow boat traffic under it.

As it had so many times, the mystery of the
boat plagued my mind. “You have to wonder what the story is with
that old boat,” I continued. “Who owned it first; where did they
buy it? I imagine it was someone’s pride and joy once upon a
time.”

“
I imagine it was,” my father
agreed. “It would be interesting to find out who they were and
where they are now, to find out why they just left it there for the
river to claim. I guess we’ll never know.”

In Oriental we visited Jeremy at the marina to
confirm the new boat would be delivered on time Wednesday. He
assured us that everything was on schedule.