Sadie Walker Is Stranded (6 page)

“Is he yours?” he asked suddenly.

“What?” My pulse froze.

“Shane.” Moritz nodded toward the crumpled form to my right. “Is he your boy?”

We may have spent the night in a disturbingly intimate way, but I hadn’t been given the chance to tell him much of my personal history. He seemed to read my startled expression and lowered his eyes. I stared at him, rigid. And fuck, did I really
look
like a mom? Was it bad if I did?

“He’s my sister’s,” I said brusquely. “My nephew. I need some water.”

The German—or rather the Swiss—said nothing. As I stood and turned toward the cockpit, I saw him draw something out of his inner coat pocket. Maybe I’d ask him about it later, probe into his private life, poke around and make him uncomfortable. What was that in your coat? Did it belong to your son? Your girlfriend? I sighed and rubbed my forearms to get warm. He was just trying to be concerned, I decided. It wasn’t his fault that I was still touchy about losing Kat and inheriting Shane, and it was logical to guess that a woman my age with a young boy would be his mother. Everyone in our neighborhood had known that Shane was my nephew and that talking about my sister was a surefire way to earn a tense silence.

I wasn’t his real mom, I reminded myself for the umpteenth time, but I had to at least act like I was.

The big jug of clean water was in the cockpit, propped up beside the stack of white bread loaves. I tore off a piece of bread, softened it in a tin cup of water and ate. The sickness was abating and I hoped day two would be easier. This whole debacle was already reaching
Gilligan’s Island
levels of absurdity and I was ready for a strong dose of
boring
.

Half-hidden in the cockpit, I could watch Mr. Kellerman without being seen myself. His back was to me, but I could see that he was studying the object he had pulled from his coat. It was a little square of photographic paper, a Polaroid. Weird. I hadn’t seen one of those in ages. Who even used a Polaroid camera anymore? Didn’t they stop making those when they realized they were, ya know, completely fucking useless?

The photo was too far away for me to see clearly. He turned it this way and that, examining it from every angle and then returned it to his coat pocket. His first instinct had been to ask if I had a child, so maybe he had his … or a wife. I ate another piece of bread and decided to leave him alone.

We were all tender creatures now, wounded.

A pair of fluffy white seagulls floated along beside the boat, drifting up and down like paper airplanes coasting on the breeze. Drifting and coasting … Totally unaware that, somewhere behind us, Seattle was burning again. Did they know? Did they care? In my illustrations, animals talked. Maybe those two seagulls were carrying on a silent conversation or maybe they were just fucking seagulls, focused on fish and fish alone.

Uncle Arturo was soon up and moving about the boat. He ignored me, having his morning cigarette as he consulted a waterway map that looked like nothing but a series of loops and dots to me. The bloodstained nurse was where we left her the night before, curled up at the bow, her face pale and serious. It was too bad; she was a pretty woman and would probably break a few hearts if she learned how to smile … and ditched the blood-soaked uniform. Those tended to go over badly on a first date.

Andrea found me in the cockpit and we shared a hunk of bread as she yawned and rubbed the sleepiness out of her eyes. She glanced at the stern, her glittering blue eyes filled with mischief.

“What?” I asked, dreading the answer.

“So how was last night?”

“Superb. Moritz and I—he’s Swiss by the way, I’m thinking of calling him my Swiss Mister—made mind-blowing love until dawn. Then he cradled me gently in his tweedy academic arms and I realized that, like the moon over the Alps, he was precious and perfect to me. And we didn’t even mind that there was a
child two feet away, you moron, what the hell is wrong with you
?”

“You developed a sense of humor,” she observed, stone-faced. “Should I be worried?”

“Not yet.”

She took a thoughtful sip of her water and chuckled to herself. That couldn’t be good. “Vomit sex, eh? I did that once. Does not bear repeating.”

“I don’t know what befouled vent of hell birthed you, but I seriously hope we’re sailing back there to drop you off,” I said. “For good.” She winked and finished her cup of water. “I’m not joking.”

“Neither am I,” she said. “Although that’s not the worst of my transgressions.”

She was baiting me, and like a bunny staring down a hole full of carrots, I just had to leap and bite. I had no idea how apt that comparison really was. Luckily we were relatively alone, with Shane snoring softly a few yards in front of me, the blankets still pulled up over his head. “What do you mean by that?”

“Once,” she said, lowering her voice, “I screwed a Rabbit.”

I blinked. “Once? Once
when
?”

“A few weeks ago.”

“And you thought this was a bright idea because…?”

“Lighten up,” Andrea replied and refilled her water cup. She swirled it around like a brandy snifter. “He was cute. Huge,” she said significantly. Then she stuck out her tongue. “Covered in tattoos, though, weird ones.”

“Let me guess, there was a tally tattooed on him somewhere with how many women he managed to knock up.”

“Maybe,” she replied casually. “It was dark. There was some Latin around his neck, a big rabbit on his shoulder that looked like it was on steroids.”

“So they’ve embraced their nickname?” I laughed. “How forward-thinking of them. I don’t suppose you used protection?”

Andrea threw back her head of long, dark hair and laughed. The floppy hat perched on her head nearly tumbled down her back. “I’m on the pill. Big idiot thought he was getting the last laugh.”

“Well, when the syphilis develops I think he probably will.”

That was the most eventful conversation of the day. Thank God. The boat continued north, out into a broader waterway, away from the tip of Discovery Park, and then farther north, north beyond beaches and coasts I had never seen and only glimpsed on a map. The rugged green outline of the shore remained more or less the same, dotted at random with buildings and homes. Shane was restless, contented only when I sat with him and said nothing as he watched the birds hovering over the water.

We needed to talk.

“What happened with Carl…” God, this sucked. It’s always easier to self-flagellate in your mind. The shame is amplified a few hundred times when you have to say it aloud. To a kid. A kid that you let down in a big, big way. “I made a rotten choice. I wasn’t thinking straight, letting him hang around with us. Sometimes … adults are clumsy and make stupid decisions. We were sort of safe, I thought, and I got careless.”

Shane stared down at his hands, his fingertips red where he had picked at the nails. God only knows how many neuroses brought on by my moronic behavior.

“I miss your mom and dad,” I said finally, hearing the catch in my voice. “She wouldn’t have done something so … so thoughtless.”

I just wanted something … one word … one indication that he didn’t hate me to the core.

“It’s not going to happen again.” I gestured to each compass point on the boat and lowered my voice. “These people? We’re with them, but it’s really just you and me, right? They could turn out okay, but from now on I’m only going to worry about you.”

“You don’t like them?” he asked, looking up at me finally.

“It’s not that,” I said quickly. “Like I said … they might be okay, but you matter most.”

And with that, he nodded, whispering a breathy, “I guess that’s okay,” before staring back down at his red fingers.
Okay.
One word. One indication. It would have to be enough for now.

*   *   *

It’s amazing how quickly the options for diversion are exhausted on a boat. Uncle Arturo never spoke much but he was nice enough to lend Andrea and me a deck of ancient playing cards. Cross-legged on the deck, with the water swishing by and the clouds gathering overhead, Andrea and I played gin rummy when Shane decided to nap next to us. Arm’s reach, I insisted—if he didn’t want to play cards he would have to at least stay at arm’s reach.

Sadly, there was no actual gin to accompany the rummy.

“What’s the verdict on Scrubs McBloodstains?”

I glanced over my shoulder, following Andrea’s eye line. The nurse—still in said scrubs, of course—sat huddled against the pointed apex of the bow. She held a patched carpet bag to her chest as if it was a buoy and we were going down. At different points during the afternoon, the young man, Noah, and Kellerman had tried talking to her. The attention only seemed to make her more withdrawn, though that didn’t stop Noah from trying. It was surprising, actually. I didn’t expect someone Noah’s age to put that much effort into comforting the nurse. But he seemed genuinely concerned. Maybe teenagers weren’t teenagers anymore, I mused, watching him crouch next to her and wait, patiently, for some kind of response. The one thing he could get out of her was a name, Cassandra. A tiny chain of islands shimmered into view and slid by behind the woman’s profile.

“Something tells me we don’t want to know,” I replied, looking back at my cards.

“Seems mean to just let her sit there shaking like a leaf.”

“Maybe that’s what she needs.”

“We could ask if she wants to play cards,” Andrea suggested, still watching Cassandra.

“Leave her alone,” I said. “She’ll come to us if she wants to join.”

“Do
you
want to be left alone?”

I smiled down at my row of jacks. It was a good question, but I couldn’t really decide. So I said, “No, this is good” and we continued the game.

At nightfall we gathered around the cockpit and divvied up food. Andrea pulled out the cabbages and dried fish she had salvaged from my apartment. As she did, one of my sketches came out as well, stuck to the dried fish package. I grabbed it as quickly as I could and stuffed it back inside. Nobody seemed to care, but when I looked back at Arturo for a handful of almonds, Moritz Kellerman was watching me closely.

That was it, I thought, I can’t hold onto these sketches. They weren’t a liability, not at all; I just didn’t want them anymore. It’s not like they would be suddenly useful on a boat or on an island, or
anywhere
. If I couldn’t say clearly to myself what they represented then there was no use lugging them around.

Kellerman’s glance didn’t mean much at the time, but it certainly explained things when I woke up that night to a rustling right next to my head. The garbage bag full of my sketches and clothes was open, two hairy forearms sticking out the end.

“What are you doing?”

He jumped, the flashlight wedged beneath his chin clattering onto the deck. He went for the flashlight but I was awake now, painfully awake, and faster.

When I shined the beam of light on him he froze, two pieces of paper pinched between his fingers. Busted.

“Those are mine,” I said lamely.

“I … I didn’t mean to snoop.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Yes … all right, but only a very little.”

I sighed, too tired to start up a real argument. “Here,” I said, handing him the flashlight, “get a good long look. Tomorrow they’re going overboard.”

He looked like a huge tweed grasshopper, perched over the garbage bag with his knees sticking out in opposite directions. His scarf hung down like a tongue blue with cold. Kellerman directed the flashlight’s beam onto the sketches and frowned.

“Why would you ever think to destroy these?” he asked.

“Because they’re total shit, that’s why, and there are more important things to worry about.”

Kellerman didn’t argue against that. Real encouraging. He was too busy scratching at his chin, mulling something over. It was too late for this. I wanted to curl up on my blanket again and revel in the fact that, blissfully, I was no longer seasick.

“Who is this woman?” he asked.

He had already seen everything there was to see, no use being coy. “Allison Hewitt,” I said. “She’s um, a bit of an urban legend.”

Over the thin beam of the flashlight, Moritz stared at me unblinking. Right. Nonnative English speaker—I had forgotten. “It’s like a myth, I guess, but a modern one.”

“I know what an urban legend is,” he said, curt but not irritated. He pointed at a panel with one of his long, knobby fingers. “I know her. I’ve met her.”

“You’ve
met
Allison Hewitt?” Yeah right, buddy. “How is that possible?”

“You’ve drawn her too short,” he said, ignoring the question. “And Collin, her husband, he does not look so … so
fatigued
.”

“How did you meet her?” I asked, louder. He chuckled, and then glanced at the others asleep.

“They held a painting for me. So very many houses have been abandoned, and others ransacked. My colleague and I put out a general word of mouth about our services. Allison and Collin came across a Cassatt and kept it for me.”

“Cassatt? Hold on. You mean
Mary
Cassatt?”

“Yes,” he said. Then he smiled and it lit up his whole face. He pulled a Polaroid from his coat pocket and handed it to me. The flashlight beam fell on three people in front of an Impressionist portrait of a pale, lovely woman. “Private collections have gone to ruin everywhere,” he explained, cradling the picture as if it were made out of butterfly wings. “They were kind enough to protect this masterpiece.”

“And you have it?” I asked. Then I felt foolish, seeing plainly that he wasn’t carrying around a gigantic oil canvas. But he nodded.

“In Seattle. It’s at our safe house, in a bank vault on Seneca.”

I squinted down at the Polaroid. There was Kellerman—grinning like a child perched on Santa’s lap—standing between a tall, vibrant man with dark hair and a young woman in a green hooded sweatshirt. Allison. She
was
taller than I thought. And there was Collin Crane too. He had a salt and pepper beard. Had he always had one? I’d never considered a beard. It was like slipping downstairs early on Easter morning to find an actual giant, anthropomorphic rabbit in a pastel bowtie scattering eggs across your sofa.