That Good Night (17 page)

“So what about family? I guess they'll just thank us for taking sick old Mom out for a nice sail so she could die at sea. Are you nuts?”

“Charlie, calm down. There is no family. No friends. No church. I'm it. I'm the executor of the estate. Everything goes to the Claremont Elementary School. There's nothing to worry about here.”

“You knew this, didn't you? That Doris was going to kick
the bucket on this trip and you didn't tell me. Maybe
you
did a Kevorkian. Jesus, Ernie, you put my whole world right between a rock and a hard place. There are things that you don't know.”

“Care to explain?”

We sat down in the cockpit facing each other. For the next half hour, I told Ernie about escaping Sunset, leasing the yacht. Being tracked by an investigator. That any inquiry was going to sink my plans like a stone in water. That I wished to God almighty that my anchor never found bottom in West Harbor. That he was an unmitigated prick that used me.

“Let me think,” Ernie said, not buffeted at all by my tirade. He stood and left the cockpit to go forward. I watched him saunter along the darkened deck. None of this was any good. When people die, it's all about inquests, post mortems, wakes, funerals, caskets, burials, flowers, processions. When people died at Sunset, more people went to the funeral than ever came to the home to visit. The vessel of death overflows with guilt. When Lori died, people came out of the woodwork. Some I never met before. Where were they when she needed them? I was convinced that coming back without Doris would raise a storm of accusations. My days of sailing bliss were in great jeopardy.

That Good Night
sliced through the dark, leaving a hissing sound in its wake. The chart plotter's updated ETA had us arriving at the Atlantic Canyon at 0338 hours, an hour and a half to go. Ernie came back to the cockpit. “You want some coffee?” he asked. I nodded. He went below and soon returned with two steaming mugs.

“Sorry about all this,” he said. “I promise that I didn't plan Doris's demise. I guess I should have left her back in town.”

“Yeah, that would have been good,” I said.

“But Charlie, what would have happened to her? I mean, let's get real here. She'd have been like those folks in the nursing home you left behind. I've known these two for a lot of years and to tell you the truth, while I'm sorry about all the crap this lays on your shoulders, I'm glad she'll be joining Ivan. They had been married for sixty-three years. Except for Ivan's wartime service, they were apart for maybe ten minutes. Joined at the hip is an apt description. They ran a candy shop in West Harbor where they lived above the store. No children, no family, no relatives. They shut down the store only after Ivan could no longer make it down the steps to open up. You know what Doris's last words were?”

I shook my head.

“She asked me if she could kiss Ivan goodnight. To put your mind at ease, Doris just died. I didn't do anything to hasten it and I didn't get in the way. She just died.”

The depth meter stopped registering after five-hundred feet. We had reached the Atlantic Canyon. Thankfully, with the exception of a gentle swell, the sea was calm. Doris couldn't have weighed more than eighty pounds. We wrapped a bed sheet around her clothed body then spiral bound the sheet with a good length of line. I on one end and Ernie on the other, we struggled getting Doris up the companionway steps. Still pliable, she was nearly bent in half by the time we got her to the cockpit. From there, it was a matter of dragging the poor woman up onto the aft deck. It was my job to jump down onto the swim platform where Ivan was secured. We slid Doris off the aft deck, plopping her down next to Ivan.

“How about some weight, otherwise won't she just float?” I asked.

“Good point” Ernie responded. “Have any old chain on board?”

“No, I do not. I do have about forty feet of chain on my lunch hook. Never been used.”

“That'll have to do,” Ernie said. “I hope you don't mind.”

“No choice, Ernie. It's just chain.”

After busying ourselves for a half hour unshackling the chain from the small anchor and wrapping it tightly around Doris, she was ready to join Ivan for burial.

Bowing our heads, Ernie mumbled something under his breath that I couldn't understand except for the words
commit
and
deep
. With that we rolled both bodies off the platform into the sea where they disappeared forever.

The sail back to West Harbor was quiet and uneventful. On watch, I sat thinking about how death visits us all. When you're young, it's weddings and baptisms and birthday parties, anniversaries and celebrating the Red Sox or whatever team strikes your fancy. With age, it's wakes, funerals, and burials. Before Lori died, we had been to quite a few. Same old, same old: little kids darting around with death so remote that they couldn't care less. Grieving family members sniffling, wiping tears. Old people thinking about how it's going to be for them. Lori and I had planned our funerals down to the last detail. We laughed at how similar it was to planning our wedding. What to wear, selecting the pallbearers, the words to engrave on the tombstone, whether cremation was an option. Sometime during our sixties, we bought a double plot in Quiet Hills Cemetery, plopping down a good bit of money for perpetual care. Isn't that foolish? Making sure that our grave site would have its grass manicured, flowers on Memorial Day. We also paid a
good chunk of money for a hunk of granite engraved by some machine. Crazy, huh? Lori didn't think so and God bless her soul, there she is today, resting peacefully in a dark box six feet underground. Her particulars are engraved on the left side of the stone: birth and death dates, as if what happened between those years were as common as dust. Is it that everyone in our overloaded cemeteries has essentially lived the same life over and over again? On my and Lori's stone, the right side has my name, my birth date and an empty space for the death date. So, what do I do with that? Maybe have them engrave
lost at sea
. I think not. Perhaps
went off to sea
. Maybe mention that I liked Bach or was a nut about baking the perfect molasses cookie. I'm sure as hell not going to make my way back to Northern New York to die. And I can't just die alone drifting around the Atlantic on a ghost ship, Ernie's right about that. A bit of a quandary.

As Ernie had suggested, the inquest was five minutes of reaffirming the death certificate, accepting Ernie as the executor. Case closed. The Coast Guard never entered the picture.

Leaving the courthouse, I asked Ernie “Why the Claremont Elementary School?”

“That's where they met,” he answered. “Ivan and Doris fell in love in the fifth grade.”

I left West Harbor at 0430 just as eastern light was cutting through the fading night. Ernie and I had said our goodbyes the night before, after dinner—a sumptuous meal of roasted pork served with some chocolate sauce conjured up by Mildred. She said it was a secret recipe but admitted to hot sauce, maple syrup, and cinnamon as being a part of the ingredients. She gave me a cup of it to take on board. I never made a roast in my life and doubted that I would be using her wonderful sauce, but I couldn't refuse.

My plan was to get to Maine as soon as possible with a stopover in Boston. I figured that three easy days of good sailing would get me from West Harbor into Boston Harbor where I would spend a few days enjoying one of my favorite cities.

From West Harbor, my first stop on my cruise to Boston was Point Judith, a harbor of refuge located on the southern tip of Rhode Island. It was a rather miserable forgotten place, with deteriorating breakwaters and scenery that would make a moonscape look inviting. Just after setting the anchor, I heard a persistent ding-a-ling sound coming from somewhere down below. My heart pounded. Engine alarm? I checked the engine gauges. Dammit, I didn't even have the engine on. Shallow water alarm? Depth meter read seventeen feet. High water in the bilge alarm? I left the cockpit to go below, certain that I was
going to step into a foot of water in the cabin. Bilge was dry as a bone. The alarm stopped. I checked for a propane leak, nope. Bewildered, I went back up to the cockpit.

Ding
.

I wasn't even sure if I heard it.

Ding
.

The damn thing, whatever it was, reminded me of some gadget that Mike Peterson had hung around his neck back in Sunset. I think it was some kind of pump that shot stuff into his bloodstream to keep him half alive. But poor old Mike wasn't on board. I was half way down the companionway when it I heard it again. I went below and stood on the cabin sole and waited. Aha! Whatever it was, it was coming from the forward stateroom. I moved forward.

When it dinged again, I narrowed it down to my bedside table where sat a carbon dioxide alarm with the screen blinking,
low battery
. I pulled out the dead batteries and stuck the gadget into my bedside table drawer, promising to get to it later. My eye caught my cell phone that I had turned off after the
Little Turnip
call. I flicked it on. It beeped once. A message on the screen read: Message.

What the hell ever happened to phones that rang? I had a a bunch of messages, all from Baxter with the same message:
Call me back ASAP
. I went topsides and hit
Send
.

“Not good news,” Baxter said right off. “I've been trying to get you since you left.”

I explained that I had turned the phone off.

Baxter went on to tell me about the insurance investigator's visit. “He's an idiot, Charlie. But this guy is dangerous. I tossed him out of my office, I mean literally tossed him like throwing
out the trash. I didn't tell him a thing. Remember Evan and Carol, your dock mates? Well, he tried them, too. They gave him nothing but a brush-off. But before telling them to go to hell, he yelled to them that he was going to Maine. That he didn't need their or anyone else's cooperation. He's a nutcase Charlie, and I would be very wary if I were you.”

I took a moment to think, and then said, “I understand. Thanks for the heads-up.”

“Where are you now?” Baxter asked.

“Am I in the clear to talk or is that prick still around?”

“He's gone and I told my security folks to nail him if gets near my place again.”

“Maybe the less you know the better. Let's just say I'm on the water and having a hell of a time. Now, Baxter, go back to selling yachts and forget about this idiot. I owe you one and don't doubt for a minute that I'll be popping in on my way south. And thanks again for making it all work out.”

I hung up and called Bob to give him the latest news.

“Like I said before, let him come. It might even be fun,” he said without a hitch.

“Fun? What fun?” I asked Bob.

“I'll tell you when you get here. Where are you, anyway?”

I told Bob that I was heading for Boston by way of Point Judith and Sandwich.

“Point Judith? With all the great places on the North Shore why Point Judith? Didn't we stop there years ago? Run down place as I remember it.”

“Nostalgia,” I answered. “I have good memories of the place. Lori and I stopped there back too many years to count.”

“Your call, but Newport's right around the corner. Sailors'
paradise with a bar on every corner.”

“I'll give it some thought. Maybe for Emma.”

“Who?”

“Emma,” I repeated. “Didn't I tell you about her? The lady from back at Sunset?”

“If you did, I don't remember. Doesn't matter. Listen, with this guy on our trail, why don't you lay over in Boston until I deal with him.”

“What are you going to do with him?”

“Just let me deal with it. I'll give you a call with the all-clear.”

I decided to go along with whatever Bob had in mind. He was nuts in many ways, and I worried about what he might do, but I would have bet my life on it that he wasn't a killer.

I changed the subject. “How's the woodpile coming along?”

“I'll show you when you get here. Remember, don't come until I call.”

I stayed in Point Judith last night. Taking Bob's advice, I pulled anchor and headed to Newport, about ten nautical miles northwest. Taking advantage of a light breeze, I motor-sailed, flying the jib on a starboard tack. After securing the boat to a rental mooring, I called for a motor launch and headed to shore. The place was teeming with tourists. Whirly jigs, flags, discreet flashing lights (after all, this was Newport!), and hawkers in costumes added to a festive climate of capitalism at its best. I watched kids getting what they wanted from parents aiming to please, young couples walking arm in arm, retirees nestled together on any number of benches thoughtfully placed along the sidewalk. Amidst all this flurry of families on vacation and people enjoying each other, I had a stab of loneliness that I hadn't felt since the day Lori died.
What the hell am I doing here
?

I felt old. I was old. Maybe too old. How does one escape their life? Go sailing. Alone. At eighty-four years old? I walked over to an empty bench that looked out over the harbor. I have had these stabs before when I was on the road looking for business. I tried flying first class; buying attention was what it was. It didn't work. I can see why escort services are so popular, though I never used one. Here I was in vacationers' paradise with people all around and I didn't feel a part of any of it. I was less lonely sailing with me, myself, and I. I looked out over the
harbor. It took a while for me to recognize
That Good Night
amidst hundreds of boats. My spirits gladdened. She might be fiberglass, cloth, and wood, but she was where I rested my soul. I had an urge to get back, but resisted it in favor of taking a good long walk. What a great privilege it is to take a walk. Ultimate freedom. That's what a walk is. Go where you want, at whatever speed, to anywhere or nowhere at all.