Charlie St. Cloud Part 2

The boy seemed confused and worried, both perfectly normal under the circ.u.mstances.

"Where's Sam?" he muttered. "I was just talking to Sam. I promised-"

"What's your name?"

"-I promised Sam I wouldn't leave him."

"Tell me your name, son."

"St. Cloud," he said faintly. "Charlie St. Cloud."

"You're gonna be okay, St. Cloud. I'm doing the best I can for Sam." Florio crossed himself and prayed silently.

Thank You for the gift of breath.

For the gift of life.

For the gift of every moment . . .

Then he heard Charlie say again, "Where's Sam? Where's my brother? I can't leave him. . . ."

The words didn't really make much sense, but Charlie understood the urgency in the man's voice. It was a tenseness that adults always showed when things weren't going well. When they were out of control. The paramedic was working on Sam right beside him.

Systolic pressure is 60.

He's no longer posturing.

Unable to intubate.

Then Charlie felt a wave of pain in his back and neck. He grimaced and cried out.

"I'm here with you," the paramedic said. "I'm giving you something that'll make you sleepy. Don't worry."

Charlie felt warmth spreading through his shoulders, down his legs. Everything grew blurry, but he knew one thing for sure. He had given his word to his little brother. A promise to take care of him. Their fathers may have come and gone, but no matter what happened, he would never leave Sam.

Sure, they would be in giant trouble. Mom would ground them for a long, long time. But nothing was ever permanent. No matter what she did, there was no stopping them from growing up. No stopping them at all.

In Charlie's numbed mind, a parade of images floated along: Someday soon, they'd be old enough to leave home, go to college, get real jobs, and live near each other. They'd have families. They'd play catch with their own boys and have season tickets to the Sox.

Charlie had never really imagined the future before. He lived in the present tense with Sam and Oscar. But in that moment, his neck in a brace, an IV in his arm, he somehow pictured the days and years ahead-the days and years with his brother at his side, always together, no matter what. There was no alternative. Life without Sam was simply unfathomable.

He reached out across the narrow divide of the ambulance. He pushed his hand past the thick waist of a paramedic. He found Sam's skinny arm, the IV, the baseball mitt wedged next to his body. He felt his brother's hand, all limp and cold. And Charlie held on as hard as he could.

FIVE.

THE FLAGS ON THE WHARF WHIPPED IN UNISON AS T TESS Carroll pulled her banged-up '74 Chevy Cheyenne to a stop. She got out of the truck and studied the snapping shapes in the wind. There were tiny clues in every curl, subtle hints in each twist. She knew this was a calming southeasterly breeze, no more than four knots. It began up in the ice floes of Nova Scotia, blew down with the trades over New England, and eventually would meander all the way to the Caribbean. Carroll pulled her banged-up '74 Chevy Cheyenne to a stop. She got out of the truck and studied the snapping shapes in the wind. There were tiny clues in every curl, subtle hints in each twist. She knew this was a calming southeasterly breeze, no more than four knots. It began up in the ice floes of Nova Scotia, blew down with the trades over New England, and eventually would meander all the way to the Caribbean.

Tess walked to the flatbed and tried to open the tailgate but the darn thing wouldn't budge. She had bought the old pickup from a junkyard, and her dad had put life into it with a used engine. When it needed another motor, he told her to trade it in. She didn't listen, and years later when he died without warning, she knew she would never get rid of that Chevy. She kept it running herself now, holding on to the smooth steering wheel like it was a piece of him.

Tess reached over the siding, grabbed hold of a big nylon sail bag, and hauled it out. She was tall and lean with dark straight hair in a ponytail that poked through the back of a Patriots' cap. She balanced the sack on one shoulder, turned, and walked toward the dock.

Bella Hooper was sitting in the sun on an aluminum lawn chair with a hand-painted sign propped next to her advertising: THE WOMAN WHO LISTENS THE WOMAN WHO LISTENS. When she saw Tess coming, she lifted up one Walkman earphone and bellowed, "Pull up a seat!" A bartender for thirty years at Maddie's, Bella had retired a few years back to start a new business. For $15 an hour, she would listen to anything you had to say, confidentiality guaranteed. She didn't dispense advice, and she definitely didn't accept health insurance, but she was always busy with clients who came down to the dock to give her an earful. Bella's great gift-perhaps even art-was the ability to keep a one-way conversation aloft with just the proper number of "uh-huhs" and "oohs" and "then whats."

"C'mon, Tess, I'll give you my special friends-and-family discount," she was saying. "Only five bucks for an hour of quality listening."

"Too bad you don't take Blue Cross," Tess said with a smile. "Maybe next time. I've got to get out on the water."

"Suit yourself," Bella said, adjusting her earphones and settling back into her lawn chair.

Up ahead, a few old wharf rats were playing pinochle on a bench. They were retired fishermen who got by on Social Security and keno jackpots and who lounged around by the water every afternoon, keeping track of boats, monitoring the price of lobster, and telling lies.

"Hey, princess!" an old-timer rasped, peering through Larry King gla.s.ses that dominated his scraggly face.

"How you doing, Bony?" Tess said.

"Losing my s.h.i.+rt," he said, throwing down his cards. "Need a crew for the afternoon?"

"Wish I could afford you."

"I'm begging," he said. "I'll work for free. I can't take another minute here."

"He can't take another losing hand," one of the guys cracked.

"Please, Tess, let me sail with you."

"You really want another heart attack?" Tess said, adjusting the sail bag. "You know I'll give you one." She winked.

"Whip!" Bony said, using the local slang for "d.a.m.n" that had been pa.s.sed down for generations.

"Down bucket!" Tess answered. For reasons lost to time, it was the automatic response, a phrase that had been coined when slops were thrown out of windows in centuries past. Marblehead was indeed an ancient and cloistered place, where only fourth-generation residents earned the right to call themselves true "Headers." Everyone else was considered a new arrival, and townies used expressions like "whip" to separate themselves from the off-islanders who had invaded the peninsula, pushed up prices, and brought cappuccino to Pleasant Street.

"See ya later," Tess said, heading down the dock.

"Watch out for the weather," Bony called out.

"Will do, and try not to break any hearts while I'm gone."

The gang laughed as she walked on. She was wearing khakis with flowery patches on both knees, a white tank top, and an oversize blue b.u.t.ton-down. Her eyes were a soft shade of green, and her nose came to an impossibly fine point, the kind women in Los Angeles and New York paid plastic surgeons thousands to create. She was one of those lucky New Englanders who always looked great at yacht-club clambakes or at the ice rink for midnight broomball. Indeed, she was a natural beauty who never bothered with the mirror except to make sure she wasn't b.l.o.o.d.y after a rough night at the mast.

Tess strolled along the dock toward her gleaming thirty-eight-foot sloop, an Aerodyne with a slate-blue hull, an immaculate white deck, and QUERENCIA QUERENCIA painted in gold on the stern. The tide was half and rising, and she could smell the seaweed and salt in the air. painted in gold on the stern. The tide was half and rising, and she could smell the seaweed and salt in the air.

"You going to help or just sit there?" she said to a ma.s.sive mound of a man who was dangling his feet over the side of the yacht.

"You're doing fine without me," Tink Wetherbee said, standing up and straightening his T-s.h.i.+rt that announced in bold letters: MAY BE USED AS A FLOTATION DEVICE MAY BE USED AS A FLOTATION DEVICE. He was 64, with a chest as puffed out as a spinnaker, a furry face, and s.h.a.ggy brown hair that he chopped himself. Tess liked to joke that if Tink strapped a barrel around his neck, he would look exactly like a St. Bernard.

"You know," he was saying as she stepped aboard with the sail bag balanced on her shoulder, "you're pretty strong for a girl."

"You mean, pretty strong for a girl who signs your paycheck and could kick your sorry a.s.s," Tess said, heaving the sack toward him. It hit squarely in his prodigious stomach, and he stumbled back.

"What's sorry about my a.s.s?" He held on to the sail bag and craned his neck for a look.

"Trust me, Tink. It's a sorry sight." Tess hopped into the c.o.c.kpit of the boat, elbowing him in the ribs as she went by. "Just one more week," she said as she untied the wheel. "One more week and I'm gone. Think you'll miss me?"

"Miss you? Did the slaves miss their masters?"

"Funny," she said, taking the covers off the navigation instruments. "So how's our mainsail? Ready for the big trip?"

"The best we've ever built," he said. "You'll be the envy of the world."

"I like the way that sounds." She stretched her arms and back, reaching first to the sky, then down to her red Converse high-tops. Her body ached from all the preparations of the past few months. She had done thousands of military presses and biceps curls. She had run and swum hundreds of miles. Every step and stroke had been carefully calculated so she would be ready to lash sails in Force 10 winds, stand long watches in high seas, and haul anchors.

Next week with the blast of the starting cannon, Tess would set sail on a solo race around the world and, if lucky, ride the wind more than 30,000 miles. It was the greatest adventure in sports-the dream of a lifetime-and an enormous opportunity for her sail-making business. Fewer people had circ.u.mnavigated the world alone than had climbed Mt. Everest, and Tess's goal was to become one of the first ten women ever to make the journey. So far only eight had succeeded.

The whole community was rooting for her, holding bake sales and lobster cookouts to raise money for the quest, and the selectmen even pa.s.sed an official resolution declaring her an amba.s.sador to the world. Starting in Boston Harbor, the race itself would be covered by every TV station in New England, and journalists around the globe would track her progress. Even the town teenagers were onboard-Mrs. Paternina's science cla.s.s at the high school promised to e-mail every day with news from home.

Tink kneeled on the deck and pulled the mainsail from the canvas bag. The sheet was folded like an accordion, and he began to spread it out. Tess bent down to help. "It's gorgeous," she said, stroking the green taffeta outer layer. This wasn't any old piece of sailcloth, like the one she had cut from a bedsheet and st.i.tched for her first boat. This main was a state-of-the-art laminate with Kevlar fibers, built to ride out the worst weather in the world, and everyone in her company had worked weeks fine-tuning it.

"Sure hope we spelled my name right," she said, pulling the corner of the sail to the mast, where she unscrewed a shackle and attached the tack. She kneeled on the deck, turned the winch, and began feeding sail to Tink. Inch by inch, he put the slides on their track, and the green sheet began to climb the mast.

Tess smiled as the triangle emblazoned with her company name-CARROLL SAILS-took to the sky. Mariners on five continents would see it, and with any luck, they would want one for their own.

She turned the winch more slowly now, and the main was almost two-thirds up the mast. Almost unconsciously, she felt light air tousle her hair. Without checking the weather vane, she knew the wind was from the northeast, the first feelers of that low pressure. The susurrus of the sails, luffed by the breeze, and the tickle on the back of her neck told her it would be rough later on the water.

Tess loved the wind and its ways. As a girl, it had been her constant companion. From a sunny morning twenty years ago when she ventured into the harbor in her first Brutal Beast, she had always tracked the ripples on the water and the lean of the tall gra.s.s on the sh.o.r.e. She knew the difference between true and apparent wind, and she had mastered the air in every form, flying hang gliders and sailplanes, racing Windsurfers and catamarans, and-to the horror of her mother-thrilling to the free-fall of parachutes.

As a woman, she had made the wind her livelihood. Straight out of Williams with a physics degree, she went to work for Hood Sails in Newport, learning fast and immersing herself in the advanced science of modern sail design. She wors.h.i.+ped Ted Hood, a Marbleheader and America's Cup skipper, who knew more about striking a curve on a spinnaker than anyone on earth. But after a couple of years, she realized she just didn't like having a boss, and even worse, she hated spending her days running computer models on lift and drag ratios. So with $186.40 in the bank, she quit and moved home.

Dad went in on a bank loan with her, and she opened her own sail loft on Front Street, determined to compete with the big boys. Within a year, she had hired a dozen of the smartest designers, cutters, and sewers in the area. She made a family of them, paid them better than anyone around, and encouraged this team to dream up ways to make boats go faster.

Now the wind was picking up, and Tess cranked the winch, but the sail suddenly seemed to jam. She pushed hard on the handle, then Tink gave a hand, but the sail wouldn't move.

"Better get up there to take a look," she said.

"Want to hoist me?" he said, patting his belly.

"n.o.body's that strong." She walked over to one of the lockers, pulled out the bowswain's chair, fastened it to another halyard, and positioned herself on the wooden seat.

"Up, up, and away," she said, and with a few good tugs of the line, Tink lifted her in the air.

A seagull wheeled overhead as Tess soared to the top of the forty-seven-foot mast. She grabbed hold of the pole and could tell immediately that the halyard was jammed.

"Release the downhaul," she yelled to Tink. Then she reached into her pocket for her army knife, jammed the point under the halyard, and lifted it back into the sheave.

"We're clear," she shouted. "Just give me one more second. I love it up here." She looked down on the town curving along the waterfront. She saw fishermen on the rocks casting for stripers. Across the harbor, kids were flying kites on Riverhead Beach. In the distance, she made out the mausoleums and obelisks of Waterside Cemetery sloping down to the sh.o.r.e. Her dad was buried there under a j.a.panese maple. When her mother chose the spot, she wanted him to have a perfect view of the harbor.

Marblehead was definitely her favorite place on earth, a world unto itself. Sure, there were 20,377 people living on the peninsula, but it felt like a small town. Most folks had spent their whole lives here and never even thought about leaving. They were born at Mary Alley Hospital. They were raised on blueberry pancakes at the Driftwood and Joe Frogger cookies at the Rusty Rudder. They went to movies at the Warwick and got drunk at Maddie's. They gathered at the Landing every December to watch Santa and Mrs. Claus arrive by lobster boat for the Christmas Walk. They married at the Old North Church and celebrated at the Gerry function hall. And in the end, when they sailed over to the other side, they were buried in Waterside.

But, much as she loved Marblehead, Tess believed there was more for her out there beyond the rocks. There was a world to see and, G.o.d willing, great love to find. Over the years, she had given a good look at every eligible guy in town, all seven of them. She had dated fellows from Boston to Burlington. But after a series of misses across New England, she knew she wasn't going to find her Prince Charming or even a Regular Joe who would know what to make of her. So she was determined to venture beyond. Somewhere in Australia or New Zealand, she dreamed of meeting a das.h.i.+ng millionaire who spoke three languages, restored fifty-seven-foot cla.s.sic boats, and was tall enough to twirl her around in her heels.

Her sea journey would take four months, maybe more, and to be honest, there were no guarantees she would ever make it back. Her mother seemed to know every case of a solo sailor vanis.h.i.+ng or skirting death, like the Canadian who sank off the Canary Islands, escaped in a life raft with three pounds of food and eight pints of water, and survived seventy-six days.

"Hey, girl, you're not getting any lighter up there," Tink shouted from below.

"Sorry," she said. "Just trying to memorize what everything looks like."

Back on deck and out of the harness, Tess made for the c.o.c.kpit, where she pulled out a clipboard with her checklist. This weekend trip was her last chance to make sure everything-absolutely everything-was s.h.i.+pshape. She would inspect the sails, autopilots, electronics, and survival equipment. Then she would take a few days off with her family and friends, and try to relax before the starting gun next week.

She could feel Tink's breath as he peered over her shoulder at the list.

"You sure you don't want me to come along?" Tink said. "You know, in case it gets lonely or cold out there." He nudged her with a big paw.

"Nice offer, but I don't need any more ballast onboard."

"Who's going to hoist you when the main gets stuck again?"

"I'll figure something out," Tess said. "Now tell me about that low-pressure front. What's the deal?"

"It's not good," he said, pulling a computer printout from his pocket and unfolding it. In the sail loft, Tink was in charge of cutting and sewing. For the big trip, he was Tess's go-to guy and meteorologist. He had worked in Bangor as one of those jovial TV weathermen doling out forecasts and cheer, but his broadcasting career ended prematurely. One night on the eleven o'clock news, he got fed up with a blow-dried, emaciated anchorwoman and called her a "skeletal gasbag." No one disputed the characterization, not even the station manager, but Tink lost his job anyway. So he threw out his hairspray and makeup, moved to the North Sh.o.r.e, and went into sail-making and marine forecasting.

"It looks like a lot of low pressure coming down from Maine," he was saying. "You can see the isobars on the back side of the depression."

"That means more wind," Tess said, grinning.

"Wish you weren't going out at all, but you better head southwest and get ahead of the storm. Don't want you to break anything on this boat before you have to."

"See you Sunday, big guy."

"Radio if you need me," he said, going to the rail. "And remember, I'll be pining away for you."

"Pining away with a few hot dogs at tonight's game?"

"I'll have an extra one for you." Tink jumped down to the dock as Tess turned the key, and the onboard engine rumbled. She put one fist on the throttle and was ready to push off when she heard a voice call out.

"Hey, sailor," a woman said from the wharf. She was in her late fifties, with fluffs of gray hair poking over a sun visor. "Got a good-bye kiss for an old lady?"

Grace Carroll was every inch as tall as her daughter, and despite hip-replacement surgery a few years ago, she moved up the gangway with forceful steps. "I was in the kitchen looking out the window and I saw you on the mast," she said. "Thought I'd come down to say hi."

"Awww, Mom," Tess said, "I'm sorry I didn't call. I've been so busy-"

"Don't worry about me," Grace said, stepping aboard. "I've been running around like crazy getting the fund-raiser ready for next week." For years, Grace had been on the board of the Female Humane Society, the town's oldest charity, which was founded after a gale turned seventy-five Marblehead women into widows in the early 1800s. "Just be careful out there," she was saying. "I'm counting on you to entertain all the old ladies."