Matters of Faith (5 page)

“Mom,” she'd whispered, sidling against me and avoiding Cal. “I think I might know where he is.” I filtered this astonishing announcement through Corbin's vague suppositions about Marshall's whereabouts and hung up on him without explanation.

“What?” I cried, leaning down into her face, my hands tight upon her small shoulders. “Where? Why have you waited so long? Where is he, Meghan?”

She cast a doubtful glance at her father and then said, in an even smaller voice, “I think maybe he took Daddy's boat.”

“What?” I asked, even as Cal bolted for the back door where a row of keys hung on pegs. I heard him shout, “Dammit!” and knew his second set of keys, on their ubiquitous red-and-white buoy key ring, weren't there.

I left Meghan, nearly shaking with the unknown outcome of her revelation, and met up with Cal in the outbuilding where he stored all of his charter equipment and kept his records in a small office. He'd already raised Marshall on the radio, and I hung back as I listened to him yell at him, reminding myself that my son deserved every bit of it. After pinpointing Marshall's location, Cal arranged for Sea Tow to haul him and the boat, simply out of gas, back to the marina.

When Marshall arrived home, things only got worse, and we all suffered with it. Marshall had been allowed to take the smaller boat,
McKale's Ferry
, by himself since he was fourteen, but it had always been arranged beforehand, and never had he been allowed to take it after dark. I was just glad he'd left the large boat,
Trillium's Edge
, designed for overnight trips out in deep water, at the marina and was now safe at home.

But Cal took it as a personal affront, a slap in the face of his trust in Marshall, in his assurance that his son knew the dangers of the water and boating in the 'Glades, how quickly things could go wrong. He hadn't been allowed to take the boat on his own since, and hadn't asked.

Ada gaped at Cal while Meghan slipped lower in her seat. Marshall simply nodded. “Maybe we can talk about it later,” he said, calm and reasonable, to my surprise, deflating the tension like a pinprick to a balloon. Cal flicked his gaze my way and I raised my eyebrows at him. He seemed nearly ready to laugh.

“Yeah, later,” he finally said. “Like when you're forty.” And at that Marshall was the one to laugh, causing Ada and Meghan to glance between them in confusion. I was a little confused myself. Ada recovered first.

“What sort of art do you restore?” she asked me, and I silently thanked her for the change of topic.

“I mainly work on oils, but I can do just about anything,” I replied. “I've wound up specializing in Highwaymen for the past few years. Word gets around with collectors.”

“Highwaymen?” she repeated.

“They were a group of artists who specialized in Florida landscapes back in the sixties,” I said. “Their work wasn't very expensive at the time, and it wasn't always treated very well. I clean them up, fix some paint loss, kill some mold.”

“Is that what you went to school for?” she asked. I shook my head.

“Not really. I sort of fell into it by default; I was an art history major. What about you? Marshall says you're pre-law?”

She nodded, keeping her eyes on her plate. “Well, there's not actually a pre-law major or anything. There's just classes they suggest you take. I'm a political science major, so law schools can tell that I'm serious about being a lawyer. I'd rather do something like what you do though.”

“Why don't you?” Meghan asked.

Ada shrugged, color splotching her cheeks unevenly. “I don't know. I used to want to be a writer, or an artist. It's more important that I become a lawyer though.”

“Why is that?” I asked. “The world needs writers and artists more than it needs another lawyer.”

“Not where I live,” Ada said. “Anyway, my scholarship is for political science, so that's sort of a lot to concentrate on.”

“You lose your scholarship if you're not going to law school?” Cal asked. “That doesn't seem very supportive.”

“No, everyone is really supportive,” she replied quickly, her color heightening again. “I do want to be a lawyer. Just sometimes I think it would be nice to do something creative, too, that's all. What did you go to school for?”

“I didn't,” Cal said, without a trace of self-consciousness. It had never bothered him that he hadn't gone to college. It bothered me considerably that I hadn't earned my degree. After my parents disappeared, it was just too hard to go back, and then I was pregnant with Marshall. It felt right at the time, but I'd never gotten comfortable admitting that I'd gone to school but never graduated. People tend to ask where you went to college, not whether you graduated or not, and so my answer was always honest, but perhaps not always complete.

“Really?” Ada said.

“Never wanted to. My parents couldn't afford it, and I wasn't good enough in high school to get a scholarship, but it didn't matter. I knew what I wanted to do, and I knew how to do it. College isn't for everyone.”

“You told me I had to go,” Marshall said.

“You didn't have any idea of what you wanted to do,” Cal pointed out. “Still don't, as far as I can tell.”

“Of course you had to go,” I said, shooting a cautionary glance at Cal. “And Meghan will go too.”

Meghan nodded. “I want to go,” she said.

“Will you study music?” Ada asked. “Marshall says you're a great pianist.”

Meghan shook her head. “No, I'm no good.”

“She is,” I protested. “She just doesn't have the confidence.”

“No,” Meghan said again, firmly, and I sighed.

“Do you want to do what your mom does?” Ada asked. Meghan looked at me briefly, almost scientifically.

“No,” she said. “I think . . . I don't know. Maybe I'll be a lawyer.”

I made some sound; I don't know exactly what it was. A laugh, a choke, down in my throat, and she added quickly, “Or maybe a teacher.”

“I bet you'd make a great teacher,” Ada said.

“Sure she would,” Marshall said. His hand stole under the table, and I could tell he'd grasped Ada's. “And you'll make a great lawyer.”

“And what will you make?” Cal asked.

“I was thinking about moving to poli-sci,” Marshall said. “You're right. I haven't been able to focus on what I want to do. But Ada's really helping with that. I think there's a plan for me.”

“And do those plans include dessert?” I asked, standing too quickly and making the legs of the chair scrape against the floor. “Cal, want to help me?” I turned away with my plate before I could register his response.

“What was that all about?” he asked as I dumped the remains of my pasta down the sink.

“I just—What's all this about becoming lawyers?”

“So what? They're just reacting to Ada. Meghan will change her mind twenty times before she even reaches high school. And I'd be happy if Marshall would decide on anything. What do you have against lawyers, anyway? That's a pretty unoriginal bias for you.”

“It's not that I have anything against them. I just thought our kids would do something less . . . corporate.”

He sighed. “I don't know, Chloe. Could you just try to have a good time this week? Stop criticizing their future before they even get there.”

“Oh,” I said, turning around with my hand to my throat. “Forgive me. Was I being critical? I thought that was your job.”

“Stop,” he whispered fiercely. “Just stop, Chloe. Damn, what's wrong with you? Is it the tattoo? What? Let the kid grow up, would you?”

“Like you have?”

“At least I'm trying.”

“That's why you won't let him take the boat? In broad daylight? After asking nicely?”

“Is that what this is about? You're trying to get me to let him take the boat?”

I shrugged. It was a non-answer for me. In fact, I couldn't decide what was keeping me on edge. Nothing I touched upon—tattoo? her still unspecified religion? Marshall growing up?—settled in me as concrete. But apparently my shrug was answer enough for Cal.

“All right. I'll bite. I let him take the boat, you'll relax?”

“Do what you want,” I said. We stared at each other, silent now, daring the other to up the ante or fold. We did this in our marriage. This was our shorthand. This was our passive-aggressive, avoid-a-fight way. It worked. Passive-aggressive is hugely underrated when it comes to marriage.

“Mom?”

Meghan startled us out of our cold war. She'd poked her head around the swinging door and was looking at us with a mixture of irritation and concern.

“You want me to help with dessert?”

“Sure, honey,” I said with a bright smile at Cal. If he rolled his eyes, he did it after he turned away.

When the three of us carried in the bowls of strawberries and tofu flan, Ada and Marshall were leaning in to each other, their temples touching as Marshall said something in Ada's ear. She was laughing softly. The intimacy of it nearly took my breath away. They did not jump and pull apart the way I would have when I was their age. The way I would have expected. The way I was still standing there waiting for.

It was only when I placed Ada's bowl in front of her that they drew back. Both smiled up at me without guile, and warmth filled my belly. I thought it might be nausea for a moment, but it seemed that whatever reservations I'd had simply burned up, like a scrap of paper afire, a brief blaze and then gone off the tips of the fingers, into the wind. I couldn't help but take a deep breath and something seemed to expand and ease inside me as I sat down and let it out, nearly expecting to see a wisp of smoke. Just a rough start, I thought.

It was new. That was all. When had new stopped being a good thing? When Meghan was diagnosed? That was new. That was a whole world of new to learn. Who wants new after that? What you want after that is
safe
.

And we'd been safe. Amazingly enough, after all the tests and adjustments and frightening trials of new food, we'd been safe. And nothing new had happened in a very long time. Until now. Or maybe we'd been ignoring the new things that had been presented to us over the years. Maybe we had stagnated in our pool of safe. Maybe this was why Cal and I swallowed jokes untold, restrained hands meant to touch.

“Your father has something to tell you,” I said.

“Oh, yeah. You can take
McKale
tomorrow,” Cal said. “But I want the radio on at all times.”

Marshall glanced at me and broke into a wide grin. “Great! Great, Dad, thanks.”

Meghan clattered her spoon into her bowl and looked panic-stricken. “Can I go? I want to go. Can I?” she asked, turning, not to Cal or me, but to Marshall and Ada.

“Sweetie,” I said gently, “I think Marshall and Ada would like to have a little time alone.”

“Meghan, come on,” Marshall said. “We'll do something when we get home, okay?”

“Why can't she come?” Ada asked. A short silence changed everything again, as if we'd all inhaled at the same time, pulling the oxygen from the room faster than it could filter in.

“Can I, Mom?” Meghan asked, her eyes wide.

“Ask your brother,” I said, keeping my tone light.

“Marsh, can I? I won't get in the way or anything,” she pleaded.

Marshall didn't look at Ada. He shrugged and said, “Yeah, all right, I guess.”

Cal looked at me and nodded, as if to say,
See?
I would have pretended to not see that look last week. I lifted a shoulder, tilted my head, and in that off-balance motion of acquiescence I saw Cal for the first time in years.

New.

Dinner. He could scream with the cheesy conversation. His dad, practically preening in front of Ada. It was disgusting. And his mom. He'd had no idea she could be so . . . prissy. She kept putting her hand on her throat like she was trying to close a collar up.

Meghan was a huge pain in the ass. He'd wanted to blast over the Gulf, listen to Ada scream with excitement, then slow it down and wend through the back canals and tributaries on the edge of the Everglades, drift through the mangroves alone with her. He'd already pictured it, could feel the thick air, feel the vibration of the quiet motor as it pushed them through, the muffled flap of wood stork wings and the quickening of the water as an alligator slid beneath the surface.

Unless something was fighting against becoming dinner, it was a languid world. He wanted to see Ada languid, wanted to see her body slow down as the humidity infused it, wanted to see if her hair softened out of its spikes and if her angles, beloved though they were, turned to curves.

None of that would happen with Meghan there. Instead the day would turn bright and happy, filled with the giggling laughter of his sister looking for a mentor of femininity. Meghan could never understand, much less learn, the solemnity of the river that ran through Ada, the serenity of faith only present in someone who
knew
.

This was what had been missing for him. There were gulfs between belief, faith, and certain knowledge. He'd stood on the banks of faith and belief, but never
knew
. Ada was on the other side. She so assuredly
knew
that she could afford to be nearly frivolous with her faith, careless with her belief, like trust-fund babies could toss cash around, as if they didn't care about it. But, in fact, it was the very fabric of their cells, their souls. Without it they would be dismantled, they would disintegrate, dissolve.

He wanted to feel that. He wanted to eat that knowledge whole and feel it spread out from his center to nourish his soul. That was what God was. That wholeness. He couldn't wait to meet Ada's family, the community. Couldn't wait to see them all, as one being, working toward the same goal of sustained enlightenment.