Chapter 38

SATURDAY

heir last day at the beach dawned cloudy and rainy Mel, packing her bags in her bedroom, was glad. It would be hard to leave paradise on a brilliant sun-drenched day Rain seemed more conducive to her mood. Over on the dresser her cell phone was flashing its sad little light, warning of an unheeded call. She checked and was surprised to find a message from Leland.

“How you doing?” the message said. He sounded strange. Melancholy and strange. “I was just calling to see how you’re doing.”

Mel sensed that he wanted to chat, which was odd because she and Leland never called each other to chat. She hoped he wasn’t on the verge of senile dementia, some latent mental illness that would drive him steadily and progressively back into his dismal childhood. Or hers. She had learned years ago that revenge was an unhealthy obsession. She had forgiven him, she had to, to get well, but the forgiveness was for her sake and not his own. Sooner or later Leland would have to wrestle with his own demons.

She pushed a button and erased the message. She’d call him tomorrow from the airport.

She finished packing and went downstairs to check on the others. They had planned to spend their last evening on the boat, but the rain would, no doubt, change all that.

She was surprised to find Captain Mike, Lola, and April in the kitchen laughing and talking, apparently unconcerned by the weather.

“The front’s scheduled to move out by early afternoon,” Captain Mike explained, “and we’ll have smooth sailing from then on.” He was loading fish into a cooler. April was loading kitchen supplies into a plastic tub. She glanced over her shoulder, giving Mel a wan smile. She seemed friendlier, more relaxed, as if she, too, realized that this trip was almost over and she was grateful for that.

“Well, I might be wrong but I don’t think you’ll get Annie out on a boat in rough seas,” Mel said, sitting down at the breakfast bar to pour herself a cup of coffee.

Lola glanced at Mike but he smiled and closed the lid to the cooler. “You leave Annie to me,” he said.

True to form, Annie refused to budge. They sat in the great room all morning watching the storm-tossed seas through the long windows. Mike tried to tell her the front would be moving out by midafternoon. Lola offered her Xanax, which she had somehow miraculously found. Finally Annie said, “I don’t know why you’re pushing this, Lola. You know how dangerous it can be out there in a storm. They don’t call it the Graveyard of the Atlantic for nothing.”

“I know,” Lola said in a soothing voice. The hint of sadness that seemed to follow her had returned, settling around her narrow shoulders and delicate face. She seemed nervous; every time the phone rang she jumped, and Mel imagined how hard it must be for her, contemplating a return to Briggs. “But there’s this hidden cove I really wanted you to see. I wanted all of you to see it by moonlight.”

“What moonlight?” Annie asked in a wavering voice. “It’s pitch-black out there.”

Captain Mike stood at the window watching the rain, his hands clasped behind his back. “It’ll clear,” he said.

And then, as if following his command, it did clear. By three o’clock the gray clouds moved off and the sun peeked through, shimmering across the wet landscape. The sea continued to roll wildly, great foamy waves crashing against the beach, and Annie watched them anxiously Lola went over and sat down next to her on the sofa. She put her arms around Annie.

“Don’t worry,” she said in her little-girl voice. “Captain Mike knows what he’s doing. You’ll be fine, I promise.”

“I won’t take it out into open sea while the water’s rough,” Mike said to Annie. “I’ll keep to the coves and inlets.”

“Oh, all right,” she snapped. “I don’t want to be the one ruining everyone else’s fun.”

“That hasn’t stopped you before,” Mel said.

“Bite me, Mel.”

Sara laughed. Lola said mildly, “I just want it to be special. I want our last night together to be special.”

True to his word, Captain Mike stuck to the coves and inlets. The women sat in the salon, sipping tall glasses of iced tea and watching the narrow islands pass beyond the long windows. They motored through the Carolina Beach Inlet and through Myrtle Grove Sound, past Masonboro Island and Wrightsville Beach. Dusk was falling as they passed the wide beach and tangled underbrush of the Isle of Pines, and continued north through Topsail Sound, anchoring finally in a sheltered cove off the northern tip of Lea Island. The water in the failing light was an oily gray color, and far out beyond Topsail Inlet the sea was a wide dark shape.

Mel leaned back and put her arm up across the back of the curved sofa. “Annie, are you still with us?”

Annie had taken Lola up on her offer of the Xanax. She’d taken half a tablet and sat now looking out at the distant shape of Lea Island with a dazed expression on her face. “It’s strange,” she said.

“What’s strange?”

She turned her head slightly, trying to focus on Mel’s face. “The way I feel. I mean, I know I’m in danger, I know the boat may capsize and we may all drown, but I don’t really care.”

“I know,” Lola said brightly. “Isn’t it great?”

“Don’t get used to taking pharmaceuticals,” Sara warned Annie, as if there might be a danger of this. “I see a lot of sad cases come through the court system.”

“Speaking of pharmaceuticals,” Mel said to Lola. “Were you able to score some weed?” Lola grinned and gave her a thumbs-up.

Sara said flatly, “I told y’all I’m not doing that.”

“No one’s twisting your arm.”

“I mean it this time, Mel.”

“I know you do, Sara. And it’s okay.”

“I’ll do it,” Annie said, waving her hand vaguely. “It’s probably the last time I’ll ever do it, so I’ll do it for old time’s sake.”

“You’re already under the influence. I think you should leave it at that,” Sara said.

Annie stared at the rolling sea, her eyes narrowing slightly. “I only took half a tablet. And it’s wearing off. In about two hours I’ll need something to take the edge off.”

Mel laughed. “Here’s to taking the edge off,” she said, lifting her glass of sweet tea. They all raised their glasses. Annie sipped her tea slowly, then set the glass down on the table. “We did what you wanted to do,” she said, waving her finger at Sara. “Renew our friendship—we did that.” She looked around the room as if daring anyone to dispute this, and no one did. “And I did something I’ve never done before. I dyed my hair. I let you dress me up like a tart. So now it’s only fair that we do what Lola wanted to do, and smoke some weed.”

Mel patted Annie’s arm. “Easy there, Anne Louise. It doesn’t have to be a group thing. Let’s lighten up on the peer pressure, okay?”

Sara leaned back in her chair and crossed one leg over the other. “We still haven’t done what Mel wanted to do either.”

“You mean fuck Captain Mike?”

“That’s right.”

“Hey,” Mel said. “The night’s still young.”

The weed was a gift from Captain Mike, some BC bud he’d picked up on a fishing trip to Canada. They sat out on the aft deck after dinner, smoking and enjoying the cool evening. The sky had cleared, and the moon shone like a lantern. Clouds of fireflies flickered in the darkness of Lea Island. Captain Mike and April cleared the table, carrying dishes into the galley. They left the women to their own devices (or vices), although as she was going in through the sliding doors, April gave them a smirk, the kind of look a cheeky teenage girl might give an octogenarian who shows up wearing a bikini on the beach. A look that said clearly, Why don’t you women act your age?

Just wait, Mel thought dismally, watching the girl turn and step through the door. Your time will come.

She relit the doobie, which was professionally rolled and spoke volumes about Captain Mike’s extracurricular activities. (“What,” she’d said when he gave it to them, “no bong?”) She passed it to Lola, who took a hit and passed it to Annie.

“Don’t you just hate getting old?” Mel said. The moon peeked shyly from behind a screen of swiftly moving clouds. The water shone as smooth as glass.

“It sure beats the alternative,” Annie said, exhaling.

“We’re not old,” Sara said, putting her feet up on one of the deck chairs. “Forty-five is not old.” No one offered her a hit. Through the glass doors they could see Captain Mike and April, laughing and talking in the brightly lit galley.

“Well, we’re not young either,” Annie said.

“We’re experienced” Mel said.

“That’s a nice way of putting it.”

“In some ways I like it better now,” Annie said. “I’m more settled than I was at twenty-two. The boys are grown, and it’s just Mitchell and me now, and that’s been a change, that’s not been easy, but I’m starting to get used to it.”

“So what are you and Mitchell going to do now that the kids are grown?” Mel asked. “Sell the big house and move to Boca Raton?”

“I’ll never leave that house,” Annie said. She and Mitchell had talked about traveling more, now that the business was going well and the boys were grown, but she was a homebody. She liked her nest.

“What about you, Lola, now that Henry’s grown and soon to be a married man?” Sara asked.

Lola took a hit and lifted her chin, exhaling slowly. “Briggs wants to sell the place here and buy something in Aspen. He says he’s tired of the beach.”

“But what do you want to do?” Mel asked.

Lola shook her head, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to her. “Hawaii sounds nice,” she said. “Someplace tropical.”

“What about you, Mel? Do you think you’ll ever remarry?”

“No. I’ve learned my lesson. I’m not the marrying kind, I guess.” It felt good to let go of that, finally. She had tried, and failed, at something she just wasn’t cut out for. She had seen so clearly, as a young girl, the path her life must take, and despite the detours she’d taken along the way, despite wandering for so long in a desert of doubt and uncertainty, she saw clearly now that her youthful vision had been true. What was it Robert Frost had said, prattling on about two roads that diverged in a yellow wood? I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

Captain Mike opened the sliding door and stuck his head out. “You girls okay?” he asked. Behind him, Pete Yorn sang on the sound system.

“Hey, turn that up,” Mel said as he disappeared and a few minutes later the deck speakers came on. Mel smiled at him through the glass doors. She watched him duck his head and step through the salon door to the staterooms. “Not that I wouldn’t like a little male companionship in my life.”

“Well, there’s always the UPS guy.”

“I’m sorry now that I told you about that.” She stretched her legs out and put her feet up on the side of Sara’s chair. “One thing’s for certain,” she said. “When I get back to New York I’m looking for a man just like Captain Mike. Someone with a little experience who knows how to look after himself. Someone who’s good with his hands.”

“Har,” Annie said.

“You know what I mean. Someone who’s smart and funny but handy around the house, too. The kind of guy who listens to public radio and works on his own car. Someone you’d feel safe with walking down Union Turnpike at three o’clock in the morning.”

“You’ll have to move south to find someone like that,” Annie said. Lola smiled and passed her the joint. The moon disappeared behind a cloud. Far off in the distance a rumbling began, low and mournful as cannon fire.

Annie paused, holding the glowing joint in front of her. “Is that thunder?” she said.

“I don’t believe all that crap about everyone having just one true soul mate,” Mel said, still talking about her love life. “I mean, look at me. I’ve had four.”

Sara looked at her quickly and said in a dubious tone, “Are you including Tom in that group?”

Mel took the joint from Annie and inhaled slowly. She put her head back and exhaled, staring at the moon as if she was weighing something she had to say, wanting to make sure she got it right. “If you’re asking me if I had it to do all over again, would I break up with him, knowing what I know now? Probably not. He was perfect for me. But was I perfect for him? Could I have given him the things he wanted, a stable home life, children? Could I have made him happy? I don’t think so. And he deserves to be happy. He deserves you, Sara.”

Sara smiled faintly, her face coloring delicately. She moved and tucked her feet underneath her.

Mel passed the joint to Lola. “Since I’m getting everything off my chest, since I’m confessing, I just want you to know, I never really blamed you for what happened between you and J.T. Sorry, I mean Tom. I just felt left out when you two got married. It was hard, losing my two best friends at the same time. It made me really bitter for a while.”

Annie said, “Your two best friends?”

Sara plucked at her sleeve. “And I felt guilty,” she said, glancing at Mel and then down again at her sleeve. “I felt like I’d stolen something from you, which is ridiculous because you didn’t want it. You didn’t want him. You were already married to someone else.”

“Yes.” Mel nodded dully.

“I almost picked up the phone a million times to call you but over the years it just seemed to drag on. It just got more and more awkward.”

“It felt like there was a wall between us. Something I couldn’t get over.”

“Which is crazy when you think about it.”

“After all we’ve been through together.”

“Yes.”

The sky, where it met the sea, was a deep luminous green. Waves lapped gently against the side of the boat.

Lola stirred, giving them a dazzling smile. “See,” she said. “Isn’t this better?”

Mel pulled her knees up to her chest and stared at the distant horizon. “He wanted babies and I didn’t. He wanted a settled life and I didn’t. Anyone who’s ever seen you two together knows you were meant for each other.”

Sara gave her a grateful smile. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

The boat rocked peacefully beneath them. Moonlight fell in a wide swath across the water. Lola leaned her cheek on the palm of her hand and said to Mel, “Your novels are your babies, if you think about it.”

Mel smiled. Funny, she never had.

The distant rumbling had stopped but there was a smell of rain in the air. A sudden gust of wind blew out the candle on the table.

“It’s not getting ready to storm, is it?” Annie asked, looking around at the others. She giggled suddenly. The BC bud was definitely beginning to take effect. The weed was stronger than anything they’d ever smoked in their youth.

“Let’s play a game,” Mel said. “Let’s go around the table and say something about ourselves that no one else knows.”

“No!” Annie put her fingers in her ears and began to hum.

“Haven’t we already played this?” Lola asked.

“Okay,” Mel said. “I’ll go first.” She took another hit and held it, tilting her head back to the green sky. She exhaled slowly and passed the joint to Annie. “Seven years ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer.” She had meant to sound somber but her voice came out high and strained. Like Minnie Mouse. Like Minnie Mouse sucking on a helium balloon.

Annie sputtered all over the joint.

Lola sat there staring at Mel as if she hadn’t heard her clearly.

Mel said, “I’m not kidding.” Sara blinked, a look of studied concern settling over her features.

“Cancer!” Annie whooped and put her head back.

“Damn it, Annie, I’m serious.”

“Oh, sure!”

“I had cancer, damn you,” Mel said, fixing Annie with a severe look, but it was hopeless and she knew it, and then she, too, began to giggle.

Gallows humor. Under the influence of Xanax and BC bud, Annie had it in large measure. As, apparently, did Mel. When they had stopped snorting and punching each other on the arms, Sara got up and went to use the head. When she came back out on deck, her face was pale. She sat down at the table, not looking at Mel, not looking at anyone, her eyes fixed on the dark, slumbering shape of Lea Island. As the joint went by, she reached out and took it, inhaling deeply. “Okay, let’s make a pact right now,” Sara said tightly. “We never talk about this. Ever.”

“What happens on the boat stays on the boat,” Mel said, nodding gravely.

Looking at her, Annie sputtered and began to laugh again.

“I’ve got kids,” Sara said, ignoring them. “I can’t tell them to just say no to drugs and alcohol if Mommy isn’t saying no.”

“Sure you can,” Annie said. “We all do it.”

“But doesn’t that make us hypocrites?”

“No. It makes us parents.”

“That’s right,” Mel says. “Do as I say, not as I do. Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Annie and Lola thought that was very funny. “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” Lola repeated like a Girl Scout. Sara waited for the THC to take effect. She waited for the joint to go around the circle several times before she was ready. Then she looked at Mel and asked, “Why?”

Mel stopped giggling. “Why what?” she said.

Annie, sobering suddenly, said, “Sorry about laughing about your cancer.”

Mel said, “That’s okay. It feels good to laugh.”

Sara rapped her knuckles on the table to get Mel’s attention. “Why didn’t you tell us? Why did you try to get through all that on your own?”

Annie leaned over and relit the candle on the table. Lola watched her dreamily, letting the joint go out.

Mel shrugged and put her drink down. “It was early stage. I had a lumpectomy, followed by six rounds of chemo, and I’ve been fine ever since.” She flicked the lighter and held it to the tip of the joint while Lola inhaled deeply.

“But how could you not tell us?” Sara said. “How could you go through that alone?”

Mel tossed the lighter on the table. She leaned forward on her elbows and put her head down, and when she looked up again her voice was calm and reasonable. “I didn’t want people making a big deal out of it. I didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. I knew it was something I could get through. You had your own lives to deal with.”

“We’d have been there for you,” Annie said.

“I know that. And I knew that if things got bad, I’d tell you.” She took the joint from Lola and passed it to Sara. “It’s just that when something like that happens, all of a sudden you feel doomed, like you’re the only one in the world going through this run of bad luck. You see other people, bad people, shallow people, and you think, why did this happen to me? Why can’t they get cancer? What did I do to deserve this? And all around you life goes on just like before. Everyone goes on with their own lives, and their lives seem so perfect.”

“My life isn’t perfect,” Sara said mechanically. She sucked the joint and passed it on, narrowing her eyes as she exhaled. “My son has a mild form of autism. He goes to a special school. It’s been the hardest thing in the world, worrying about a child and who will take care of him when I’m gone. When Tom is gone. It’s nearly destroyed my marriage.”

Another sudden gust of wind rattled the candle in its glass globe. The moon sailed slowly behind a covering of dark clouds. Lola leaned over and laid her hand on Sara’s arm. “Is there any treatment?” she asked quietly.

“There are all kinds of treatments, many of them controversial. We’ve tried a lot of different things. Adam is highly functional but even so he doesn’t do well in social situations. He doesn’t have any friends, he doesn’t get invited to spend the night. I go to the mall and I see teenage boys hanging out together and I think, Adam will never be one of those boys. It’s hard.”

Mel remembered the boy she’d seen in the airport all those years ago, his face fixed in a strange concentration as he navigated the crowd. She leaned over and put her hand on top of Lola’s, giving Sara’s arm a little tug. “I’m sorry,” she said sincerely.

“Thanks,” Sara said. She stared at Mel’s hand. “I always wondered if it would have been different with you and Tom. If you two would have had normal kids.”

“We wouldn’t have had any kids at all,” Mel said. “And that would have killed him. He always wanted a family.”

Above them the broad shape of the dinghy rose from the flybridge, covered in its bright blue tarpaulin. Clouds scuttled across the moon.

Mel was quiet a moment, pulling her hand away. “I never told you this,” she said, “but years ago I saw you in an airport. It was Christmas and I was coming back from a book tour. I saw Tom first—your daughter was sitting on his shoulders and your son was walking alongside—and the thing I noticed most about Tom was that he seemed so happy. I’m talking deep, life-affirming joy here. It was written all over his face. And I knew then that we could never have been happy together. All the fantasies I had carried over the years were just that, fantasies. They weren’t real. They weren’t what you and Tom have. What you and Tom and your children have.”

Sara’s face softened in gratitude. She looked like she was going to cry, and they could see her struggling to contain herself. “Thank you for telling me that,” she said.

Mel leaned over and hugged her fiercely, and Sara hugged her back. The moon peeked from behind the clouds and shone brightly in the applegreen sky. Mel let her go. “I know it’s a daily struggle. If you ever need to talk to anyone you can call me, or any of us.”

“I know that.” Sara ran her finger under her eyes. She smiled and looked around her circle of friends. “We’re lucky that there are so many good doctors in Atlanta. Lately, we’ve been sending Adam to a neurologist who specializes in Lego therapy.”

“Lego therapy?” Annie said. “You mean those little blocks that stick together?”

“Yes.”

“My boys always loved those.”

“This doctor has discovered that autistic children seem drawn to Legos. Adam’s room is filled with them, all meticulously put together. Anyway, the doctor has formed play groups where he’ll bring in several boys and engage them by using Lego sets. They’ll make movies together, use the sets in imaginary games, interact in ways no one thought possible. So it’s definitely a step in the right direction.”

“Oh, Sara, that’s wonderful,” Lola said.

“I know things will work out,” Annie said, trying to be hopeful. She’d known about Adam—Sara had been calling for years to confide in her—and she was glad things seemed to be going well. There had been so many hopeful beginnings, so many failed therapies. She felt another quick flush of gratitude for her sons, whole and healthy.

“What about you, Lola?” Mel asked, trying to change the subject, trying to take the pressure off Sara. “Do you have any secrets you’d like to share? Other than the fact that you like porn?”

Lola shook her head. “I don’t,” she said.

“Did you ever tell Henry about your wild and crazy youth?”

“Of course I did,” Lola said. “I don’t have any secrets from Henry.” She frowned and sipped her iced tea. “Well, maybe one,” she said, setting the glass down. She was quiet for a moment, staring at her hand as if it belonged to someone else. “I never told him about Lonnie.”

No one wanted to talk about Lonnie. Mel got up and went into the galley to get another pitcher of tea. Captain Mike and April had disappeared, obviously heading down to the crew quarters for the night. She put “The Day I Forgot” on the CD player and came back out on the deck. The sea was calm and placid. A fish jumped, its scales glimmering in the moonlight. The storm seemed farther away now, the thunder more distant. Mel poured another round of sweet tea and sat down. She looked around the table at her friends, who sat staring pensively out at the water. “Shit, Annie,” she said suddenly, “what’d you do with the joint?”

Startled, Annie looked around. “I must have dropped it.”

They all got up and began to look.

“Don’t think this gets you off the hook,” Sara said to Annie. “You still have to tell us something about yourself that we don’t know.”

Annie looked surprised. Then she put her head back and laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Mel asked.

“Everything.”

“Tell us.”

“I wish I could always feel like this.”

“Don’t we all,” Sara said.

Annie told them about Professor Ballard. They sat around the table, smoking and listening, their faces pale and disbelieving in the candlelight. They were still listening ten minutes later when Captain Mike stuck his head out to check on them. “The sea has calmed,” he said to Lola. “Do you still want me to take us offshore?”

Lola, who had been sitting with her chin in her hand, stirred and looked around the table. “I thought we’d take a moonlight cruise on our last night together. There’s something I want to show you. It’s not far,” she added, looking at Annie as if she feared the trauma of an open sea cruise might be too much for her.

But Annie, in the middle of the tale of her doomed love affair with Paul Ballard, wasn’t concerned. It was amazing how good it felt, finally telling someone. She felt purged, peaceful. Her back prickled, as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She didn’t even wait for Captain Mike to leave before she began again.

They sat listening to her, expressions of grief and outrage on their faces. Annie was so elated and caught up in her story that she hardly noticed when Captain Mike fired up the engines and headed for open sea.

She hurried on, telling them everything.

They cruised for a while and then anchored a mile offshore. It was quiet here; there was no sound but the gentle lapping of the waves against the hull. Lola made Captain Mike turn off all the lights and they sat in the darkness, listening. The water, in the moonlight, was smooth and calm. Strange phosphorescent lights lit the depths, and sitting there it was easy to imagine how the Earth must have looked before time began. All along the mainland and the distant islands, lights twinkled, scattered outposts of civilization in the vast, quiet darkness.

“Does Mitchell know?” Mel asked suddenly, and everyone turned to peer at her in the dim light. The candle flickered in the center of the table, reflecting their somber, composed faces.

“No,” Annie said quickly.

“You sly dog,” Mel said.

“It’s not really something I’m proud of, Mel. It’s something that just happened.”

“I know that, Annie. But it makes you more human, somehow.”

“We all make mistakes,” Sara agreed, not looking at anyone in particular.

Lola tapped her fingers against the candle’s smoky globe. “I’m hungry,” she said.

“I’m starving,” Sara said.

“Do you have any junk food on this boat, Lola?”

“I’ll see.” She got up and went inside and a few minutes later all the lights came on in the galley. Lola stuck her head out the door. “How about a big plate of nachos?”

“You got any chocolate?” Mel asked.

“No chocolate, just nachos.”

A short while later, she came out carrying a huge platter in her hands. She was wearing pajamas and her Coke-bottom eyeglasses. “I thought Mel and I would sleep in the master stateroom and Annie and Sara in the VIP stateroom,” she said, setting the plate down on the table. She scooted over and sat down next to Mel.

“I am getting kind of sleepy,” Annie said.

“No one goes to bed before twelve,” Mel warned. “This is our last night together. We have to make it last as long as possible. Although I’d like to go on record as saying that I think we should do this more often.”

“I second that,” Sara said, lifting her empty glass.

“Me, too,” Annie said.

Lola pointed to the platter. “Shall I make more nachos?” she said.

They all went below to put on their pajamas and then came back up on deck to finish the nachos. After that, Lola made another plate and then heated up a frozen pizza she found in the freezer.

“Now I remember why I don’t like smoking dope,” Sara said. “I’ll put on five pounds before I get home tomorrow.”

Mel said, “It doesn’t matter. Your husband will be glad to see you anyway.”

Sara grinned. “You’re probably right,” she said.

A ship passed slowly along the horizon, its lights twinkling. Pete Yorn sang “Come Back Home” in the salon.

Mel had passed Captain Mike in the passageway and he’d smiled and said, Cute pajamas. She’d wondered for a moment if he was flirting with her, but then he said, Good night, and strode along the passageway to the crew quarters. She stood there watching him disappear, wondering what he would do if she followed him. She imagined herself standing outside his door, rapping lightly with her knuckles and then throwing herself into his arms when he appeared, sleepily, in the passageway.

What was it she always told herself just before beginning some particularly desperate enterprise? This experience will make me a better writer.

Maybe, after all, that was the best she could hope for.

Annie sat watching the moonlight shimmer on the water. The distant island was like a bowl overturned in the sea. She should have felt anxious, sitting here on a moonlit ocean far, far, from shore but instead she felt sleepy and content. And maybe even a little homesick. She wished that Mitchell was here.

Far off across the water the lights of Wilmington twinkled faintly. A radio tower blinked, its red beacon glowing dimly.

“Should I tell him?” Annie hesitated, staring at the distant lights. “Should I tell Mitchell?”

“About what?”

“About Professor Ballard.”

Mel was quiet for a moment considering this. “Do you think it’ll make him happy to know?” she asked carefully.

Annie shook her head. “No. It’ll make him miserable. It’ll ruin his life.”

“Then you can’t tell him,” Sara said.

“There’s your answer,” Mel said.

Annie sat quietly, feeling the gentle rocking of the boat beneath her. Forgiveness comes when you least expect it, she thought, dropping from the heavens like a cool rain. She smiled faintly and said, “But it’s okay now, isn’t it? I’ve told you.”

“Yes, you’ve told us,” Lola said, touching Annie’s hand. “You don’t have to think about it anymore.”

“You’ve been happy together for thirty years,” Mel said. “Don’t let anything spoil that.”

It was then that Annie put her head down and began to cry.

They all cried for a while and then it was over. They wiped their faces, blew their noses, and looked at each other sheepishly. Mel got up and poured everyone another glass of tea, then she sat down again. She took a deep breath, pulling one knee up against her chest and resting her foot on the edge of her chair. “There’s something I have to say,” she said, and the others, sensing her gravity, steeled themselves for another revelation. She breathed again, more quietly this time, and turned to Lola. “I don’t know how to begin,” she said.

They waited patiently. Lola stirred the ice in her glass with a straw.

“Just say it,” Annie said.

“Get it off your chest,” Sara said.

Mel sighed heavily. She paused, avoiding Lola’s eyes, and then said quickly, “Back in college. The night Briggs put Lonnie in the hospital.” She hesitated again, but this time she met Lola’s steady gaze. “It was me who told him about you and Lonnie.”

No one said anything. Lightning flashed along the distant horizon.

Sara shook her head mutely. “I don’t believe it,” she said finally.

“How could you?” Annie said.

“I had no right,” Mel said, and Lola dropped her chin to stare at the candle, a reticent expression on her face. “I was afraid you’d run off with Lonnie and be unhappy, and I didn’t want that to happen, but I had no right. It was none of my business who you ran off with. It was your life, not mine.”

Lola stared at the candle. “Did you tell my mother?”

“No. Briggs must have done that. Lola, I’m so sorry.”

Sara stood up abruptly and walked over to the side of the boat. She put her hands on the railing and leaned out over the water as if she might jump. Annie chewed a mint leaf and stared solemnly at the moon.

“I didn’t want to see you get hurt,” Mel repeated slowly.

Lola took a deep breath. Her face, lit by the moon and the flickering candlelight, was calm but thoughtful. “It’s all right,” she said finally. “I know you did it for the right reasons.”

“I was trying to protect you. But I shouldn’t have done that. If I hadn’t done it, you wouldn’t have married Briggs and been so unhappy all these years.”

“Hush,” Lola said.

“I just wanted you to be happy.”

“I know,” Lola said. “Everyone wants me to be happy.”

There was nothing else Mel could say. She sat back with her hands dropped carelessly in her lap. Lola’s features, small and delicate, maintained their passive expression. The only sign of any inner agitation was a slight trembling of her chin.

She cleared her throat and leaned over, stretching her hands out across the table to Mel. “I forgive you,” she said. “I know you did it with the best of intentions.” She held on to Mel, then let her go, leaning back in her chair. “Besides, my mother would have hunted us down and had the marriage annulled, and I would’ve wound up married to Briggs anyway.”

“But I didn’t have to make it easy for them. I was your friend.”

“You’re still my friend,” Lola said.

A sudden gust of wind blew the candle out. The sea was dark and still.

Mel said, “You know, I used to dream of rescuing you from that place your mother took you. That hospital. I used to dream of crashing in there like Sylvester Stallone and taking you out.”

“Which is pretty funny,” Sara said, “considering that you helped put her there.”

“Don’t,” Lola said. “None of that matters anymore. This is all I want, the four of us right here, right now.”

Annie leaned to relight the candle. There was a smell of rain in the air, subtle yet persistent, and she lifted her nose and sniffed. Sara came back to the circle and sat down. Mel smoothed her hair off her face and stared up at the bright moon. After a while, she said sleepily, “Can you believe the way this night’s turned out?”

“I feel like I’m in therapy.”

“You are in therapy.”

“We’re all in therapy.”

“Here’s to friendship,” Annie said, lifting her glass and thinking how peaceful it all felt, the slumbering sea, the spreading moonlight. A bank of translucent clouds scuttled across the moon. It was impossible to believe in the randomness of life when looking at a sky like that.

“To friendship,” they all said in unison, lifting their glasses.

The tension, which had been steadily growing between them all week, was gone. The elephant had tiptoed out on its huge feet. Annie drained her glass and set it down on the table. She felt better than she had in years, filled with an airy lightness of spirit. What was it Lola had said? Thaumaturgy. The working of miracles.

Mel leaned back expansively and opened her arms to the night sky. “See, Lola, you’re the only one with nothing to confess. You’re the only one who’s never done anything rotten enough to ask for forgiveness.”

Lola put her head back and laughed, a bright swelling laugh that made the others smile to hear it.

“Why are you laughing?” Mel asked.

“What’s so funny?”

“If only it were that easy,” Lola said.

Mel slept fitfully. She dreamed of a great cat resting on her chest and purring in her ear and she awoke to a distant puttering sound growing fainter, like the hum of an air conditioner or the slight clatter of bilge pumps. She looked at the clock. It was one-thirty The room was shuttered, and dark and cold as a tomb. The bed was vast and covered in down. Mel quickly fell back to sleep and awoke later to a loud pounding on the door.

Captain Mike was standing in the dimly lit passageway. His face looked pale and worried. “I’m sorry to wake you,” he said, “but there’s another storm moving in. I think we should head back to the marina early.” He looked past her. “Mrs. Furman?” he said. Mel turned around. The bed was empty. She went into the bathroom to check but that was empty, too. “She’s not here,” she said, still groggy with sleep, stepping into the hallway.

Sara’s cabin door swung open. “Who’s not here?” she asked, yawning.

“Where’s Lola?”

Sara blinked. “I don’t know,” she said. “I thought she was with you.”

Annie stood behind Sara, wrapping her robe tightly around her.

“Have you seen Lola?” Mel asked her.

Annie shook her head no. Captain Mike swore and pushed past Mel, heading for the stairs to the deck. They could hear him pounding up the stairs, running now. The wind had picked up, and the boat was shifting heavily in the waves. The women made their way up to the deck. All the lights were on in the salon and galley as they passed through and went out onto the aft deck. Captain Mike was leaning over the deck rail, calling frantically for Lola. They all began to call, leaning over the rail to peer into the dark rolling water. A few minutes later, Captain Mike ran up the stairs to the bridge, and they could hear him shouting into the radio.

Mel climbed the steps to the flybridge. The dinghy sat in its cradle, its seats glistening wetly in the moonlight. The instrument dial glowed dimly at the other end of the bridge. Captain Mike turned on the floodlight and slowly swept the dark rolling water in front of them. He shouted for Lola, his voice edging gradually toward panic. April came up on the bridge and said, “She’s not in the engine room. She’s not below.” Mel turned and followed her back down to the aft deck.

The sky was growing light to the east. The mainland was a dim shape, shrouded in fog. Mel leaned over the railing, staring down into the pitching waves, fighting a rising sense of panic. She gripped the rail and shouted Lola’s name.

It was then that she noticed Lola’s eyeglasses, lying forlornly on the deck at her feet.