Head Wounds (39 page)

After clearing the last set of buoys, I pulled the ties off the mainsail and clipped the halyard to the head of the sail. Then I had Amanda hold us in the wind so I could raise it up the mast.

“Not as easy to steer as the Audi,” she said.

We managed it anyway, and I took the wheel from her, killed the engine and we heeled to starboard as I let the wind grip the sail and shove us back toward the north. Once the jib was out, we were fully underway at a gentle five knots. There were a few open fishing boats bobbing around the buoys, but otherwise we had the bay to ourselves.

“I spent the morning with Markham Fairchild,” I told her once we were comfortably settled into a stable port tack.

“Really.”

“I already gave him his bookcase, so he had to give me all the test results.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he had just the right spot for the bookcase and ordered another one.”

“If you aren’t going to tell me you shouldn’t bring it up.”

“I want to tell you. That’s why I wanted to get out on the water today. To talk about it.”

She looked ready to do that, but I suggested we wait for wine and cheese, having missed breakfast. She busied herself with that while I flicked on the ancient Autohelm and set a course we could hold for at least an hour.

“Okay,” she said after we clinked glasses. “Spill it.”

“Markham got the MRIs from when I got slugged by Buddy Florin back from the Town evidence room. Then he had me do it again, and took another set of X-rays. They also ran a bunch of blood and urine tests to compare with others in the past, including what I gave them the day after conking out in the shower.”

She tensed.

“You’re leading up to something.”

“I am.”

She set her wine glass on the cockpit table and sat back, folding her hands in her lap.

“Before you say anything,” she said, “I want you to know that I’ll be there for you no matter what. I know I haven’t always been. I’ve sent you all kinds of foolish mixed messages. I think I’m over that. I think you’re over doing the same thing to me. I’ve been through too much with you now to have it any other way. So whatever’s ahead, I’m seeing you through it whether you like it or not.”

“That’s fine with me, as long as you skip the cosmopolitans.”

“Sorry?”

“Yeah, keep your poisonous concoctions to yourself.” I stood up and leaned over her with as much grace as the sea motion of the boat would allow and kissed her forehead. “Now I’m confused,” she said.

“My mother told me I was allergic to eggs when I was a little kid, but I grew out of it. As far as I know she never fed me pomegranate.”

Amanda put her hand over her mouth.

“Oh my God.”

“Markham said my blood was still chock-full of histamines and leukotrienes the day after I passed out. So they ran allergen screens, including one for the component parts of pomegranate, which I told them I had the night before. Markham said it was pretty rare, but something in me really hates pomegranates. Enough to bring on anaphylactic shock. He said, ‘Don be t’inkin’ dis is all good news. Anaphylaxis do in more people every year den lightnin’.”

“What about the MRIs? What did they say?”

“He still thinks I should give up my boxing career, which I already have. But he said the latest stuff looked pretty good, that the neurologist saw little lasting damage from the last concussion. Doesn’t mean some evil crap couldn’t sneak up on me over time, but right now, all clear.”

She got up this time and wedged herself next to me behind the helm. She put her arms around my middle and her head on my shoulder and stayed like that for a long time as we reached across the Little Peconic Bay, holding hard to the prospect of peace and serenity that the sacred waters promised to bestow.