Firefly Beach (26 page)

He talked about roaming the seas in the R/V
Meteor,
diving on shipwrecks and exploring the ocean floor. He spoke of research as a by-product of his treasure hunts. He explained how climate and sea level responded to past changes, how sediments were packed in complicated patterns of layered wedges. Cylinders of gray mud were brought up and dated by the ship’s paleontologist through microfossils contained therein.

“Drilling holes deep in the seabed to retrieve cores of mud and rock allows us to interpret the earth’s distant past, going back thirty-five million years,” he said. “Diving on a ship such as the
Cambria
is a way to interpret the last two hundred.”

He spoke of how his work combined geology and archaeology, how he juxtaposed his interest in the sea bottom with curiosity about human behavior. At his signal, the lights were dimmed, and he began to project slides on a screen at the front of the auditorium.

“Our current site,” he said, “is a perfect example. The
Cambria
was an English barquentine, her holds full of the king’s gold. She went down in a storm in 1769, and all hands were lost, including the captain and a woman who had fallen in love with him.” Joe paused, clearing his throat.

The screen showed a three-masted ship. It was the drawing Caroline had seen hanging in the
Meteor’
s chart room. Joe clicked a button, and pictures of gold coins and barnacle-encrusted cannons appeared. Another click, and a page of Clarissa’s diary filled the screen.

“The woman was a wife and mother, and she left behind a little girl,” Joe said. “The child kept a diary, and recently I came into possession of a copy.”

“The one Maripat gave you!” Clea whispered to Caroline. Caroline nodded, eyes on Joe.

“It gives us a context,” he said. His voice was deep and sonorous; it filled the auditorium. “The record of earth’s history is probably written with more fidelity in the oceans than anywhere else on earth. Except, maybe, in the diary of a little girl who lost her mother. It’s historically accurate, and purely true, words of grief written by someone who never expected them to be read. Clarissa has helped us piece together the story of the artifacts we bring up from the sea bottom.

“The diary was given to me by the same person who told me about the wreck in the first place, many years ago,” Joe said, and Caroline felt herself blush in the darkness. “Our own histories intersected in a way that parallels the story of the wreck. At one time you might have said we were close friends. At another, someone might have called us enemies. Everything is changeable. Even the truth, or perceptions of it as time passes. On a dig like this, that can’t help but seem significant.

“We bring up a lot of artifacts aboard the
Meteor,
a lot of sediment. It’s not clear until later which will be helpful and which won’t. We never know until we get to the lab whether the metal we find is gold or nickel. Whether our test bores hold a decipherable record of sea-level change or just mud. But then”—he took a deep breath—“nothing is just mud.”

The audience laughed, and when they realized Joe was finished, they began to clap. Caroline sank lower in her chair. She stared at Joe, and she could swear that he had found her in the dark, was staring at her. His blue eyes were bright and clear, squinting past the beam of light. The auditorium lights were switched on, and he continued to stare at her while audience members milled around him.

“That was interesting,” Clea said, leaning past Caroline to speak to Sam. “Your brother is an excellent speaker.”

“They’ve asked him to come to Yale next year,” Sam said, “as visiting professor. I’m not insanely jealous or anything.”

“I thought you were the one interviewing,” Caroline said.

“Are you a professor?” Clea asked.

“No, but I’d like to be. I interned at Dartmouth for a semester, but now I’m on a boat in the North Atlantic, sending out résumés from every town in Newfoundland and Labrador that has a post office. I interviewed here, they haven’t given me any word yet. But my brother…”

“Really, here? Joe at Yale?” Caroline asked, still watching Joe, wondering whether he was thinking about accepting. Would he actually settle in the area, give up constantly traveling for a while? She tried not to care what his answer would be, even though he was coming toward her with his eyes focused on her like test bores.

“You made it,” he said. “Thanks for coming.”

“I enjoyed your talk,” Caroline said, looking straight at him. “
Dr.
Connor.”

“Hope you didn’t mind me using you to illustrate a point,” he said.

“I guess that depends,” Caroline said slowly.

“On what?” Joe cocked his head. His eyes held a glimmer of a smile. He waited.

“It ought to be obvious, Joe,” Sam said.

“Really? Tell me,” Joe said.

“Whether she’s your friend again,” Clea said. “Or still your enemy.”

“God, the whole family’s in the act,” Caroline said, making a joke to cover her discomfort.

“My friend,” Joe said quietly. “She’s my friend.”

Driving home, Caroline played his words over in her mind: “She’s my friend.”

“It was good to hear him,” Clea said. “He’d make a good professor.”

“Yes,” Caroline said.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if he and his brother could teach together?”

“It would.”

“At Yale. So close by. We’d probably see him once in a while,” Clea said, her voice neutral, “now that you’re friends again….”

“Clea,” Caroline said. Her voice was stern, but her face was smiling.

Once they got off the highway, they drove through the village of Black Hall. It contained large white shipbuilders’ houses with black shutters and window boxes full of red geraniums, white petunias, and blue lobelia; white picket fences; a yellow Georgian mansion with white columns, once a boardinghouse for the American Impressionists, now a museum; a gas station; stately beech and maple trees; American flags everywhere; two white churches: one, a famously painted Congregational, the other Catholic. Heading south, out of town, they passed the marshes and inlets of the Connecticut River; a third white church, this one Episcopalian; and the fish store with its blue fish weathervane.

“Want to stop by Mom’s?” Caroline asked on the spur of the moment. “To see Skye?”

“Great idea,” Clea said.

By keeping the steeples on the left and the water on the right, they eventually got to the sea road. The road tunneled through a dark forest of hemlocks and old oaks, the branches meeting overhead. The ledge rose on the right, and the road burst free of any tree cover. A vista of open water spread before them, rough water dancing under sunlight, Joe’s ship riding on the waves.

A long drive wound upward through the forest. Wrought-iron lightposts, each topped with an evil-looking bat, lined the way. Her father had commissioned them from an artist he knew in Vermont. They had skeletal black wings, some spread and others drawn close about their spindly bodies; when lit, their eyes glowed red. Hugh had installed them to scare intruders away from Firefly Hill, so nothing bad would happen there again.

Caroline’s stomach flipped. What would they find when they got there? She told herself not to care, that Skye was a grown woman in charge of her own life. She tried to pretend they weren’t stopping just to check up on her.

When they got there, Skye was drunk.

Augusta was needlepointing, looking upset. Simon and Skye were sitting together on the sofa, flipping through a design magazine. Skye could hardly hold her head up.

“Hi,” Caroline said, her heart falling. Clea stood beside her, saying nothing.

“Skye spent the day in her studio,” Augusta said dubiously. Her eyes were red-rimmed and haunted. She looked at Skye, then away. Skye had a bottle of beer tucked behind the sofa leg. She reached down, looked Caroline straight in the eye, and took a slug.

“All she needed all along,” Simon said wearily.

“Needed you, baby,” Skye whispered. “Needed your big…”

How drunk was she? Caroline wondered, listening to Skye whisper little pornographic promises into Simon’s ear. It made her heart ache—literally—to watch her beautiful sister demean herself this way. Augusta pretended not to hear, an anguished expression in her eyes. Clea breathed heavily, as if she had just run up a hill. The whole family feels it, Caroline thought.

“Skye,” Caroline said sharply.

Skye ignored her. She kept tickling Simon, murmuring her sexy words into his ear, just slightly too loud.

“Skye, stop it,” Caroline said.

Skye’s face reacted as if she’d been slapped. “He’s my husband.”

“Then respect him, and wait till you’re in private to talk like that.” The words were out so fast, they surprised even Caroline. Is this telling the truth? she thought. Is that what I’m doing now? Clea squeezed her hand.

Skye blushed. Simon scowled, said “Christ,” and left the room. But Augusta looked relieved. Caroline watched her mother, noticed the way her mouth relaxed, her fingers stopped working her black pearls so incessantly.

“Get a man of your own,” Skye said darkly.

“You turn ugly when you drink,” Caroline said. “Do you know that?”

“What did you do in your studio today?” Clea asked, quickly trying to make peace.

The silence was heavy, the storm about to break. Caroline and Skye glared at each other. Homer stuck his wet nose in Skye’s face. Surprised, she tossed her head. The interruption seemed to make her forget the fight. “What?” she asked.

“What’d you sculpt today?” Caroline asked. “Mom said you were in your studio.”

“That,” Skye said, pointing.

Caroline’s gaze fell on a piece of clay. It sat on a table beside a cut glass vase overflowing with day lilies, beach roses, honeysuckle, larkspur, sweet peas, and mint. Six inches high, the clay looked like a three-peaked mountain range. Skye’s work wasn’t generally abstract. Her sculptures of the human figure were usually vivid and emotional; she filled her subjects with yearning. She usually sculpted women known for their fire and passion: Joan of Arc, Sappho, Lena Horne, Amelia Earhart.

“What is it?” Caroline asked, kneeling down.

Clea knelt beside her. She turned the piece around to see it better.

“Redhawk,” Skye said bitterly. “Can’t you see the mountaintops?”

“No,” Clea said, looking into her eyes. “It’s something else. Isn’t it?”

Skye nodded, her eyes suddenly swimming in tears.

“Oh, the mountains,” Augusta said, from across the room. “I used to feel so left out! But I wanted my girls to have their time with their father….”

“It’s not Redhawk?” Caroline asked, wondering if the degenerative state of Skye’s art would become a permanent result of her drinking.

Skye shook her head. She was crying freely now. She reached for her beer. But she didn’t drink. She gripped the bottle until her knuckles turned white.

“It’s sisters,” she whispered.

“Us?” Caroline whispered back, shocked, trying to shield the disappointment in her voice.

Skye nodded. “You, me, and Clea.”

“I love it,” Clea said fiercely.

Caroline stared at the piece. Primitive, unfinished-looking, a child might have done it. The three shapes were connected but separate. They touched at the bottom, leaned away from each other at the top. The sculpture showed none of the skill or technique that marked Skye as an artist, but staring at it, Caroline was suddenly filled with wild emotion.

“Can you see?” Skye asked through her tears. “The three sisters?”

“I see,” Caroline said through tears of her own. “I love it too.”

Caroline’s affirmation set loose something in Skye, and her body was racked with sobs. She couldn’t hold them back. She sat on the sofa, clutching the brown beer bottle, and both of her sisters climbed up beside her. The three Renwick sisters held one another as tight as they could.

We’re like Skye’s sculpture, Caroline thought. Three lumps of clay thrown together. Joe’s sea mud. Thinking of Joe, remembering the truth, Caroline held on tighter. Sisters. Three sisters. She thought of Skye’s initial explanation, that her sculpture was of mountains, and she knew that was partly true also.

With three sisters, truth doesn’t come in one piece, Caroline thought. Skye’s drinking might be Caroline’s travel. When one sister was ready to tell the truth, the others might still want to hide. Stop hiding, she thought, holding her sisters.