The Pirate Queen (21 page)

“Let’s take a sandwich on the raft,” said Tobias. “I’m going with Mrs. Warren,” he told Eddie.

“Any other takers?” she asked.

“What time is it?” Turner came awake. “Did I burn?” Still in a stupor, he was rubbing his arms for signs of a sunburn.

“We’re going below to have some grub,” said Ramsey. “You’re not burned, big brother. You fell asleep in the shade.”

“I guess it’s just you and me, Tobias,” said Saphora.

Turner lowered the raft into the water. Saphora climbed down the ladder and steadied her feet as she climbed into the craft. She told Tobias, “Climb down using both hands. Eddie, you bring us two sandwiches and two cold sodas.”

“Can I drive it?” asked Tobias. “It’s a small motor. I know how.”

“Let me show you a few things first. Then I’ll sit fore of the raft and tell you where to go,” said Saphora.

Eddie came galloping back across the deck. “Liam stuffed a whole sandwich into his mouth. He looks like a puffer fish.” He jumped onto the ladder and climbed down. “Uncle Ramsey put your food and drinks in a bag.” He handed the bag to his grandmother. “Here, Tobias, I’m giving you this.” It was Bender’s water bottle. Eddie had adopted it, and now he was giving it to Tobias.

“You sure you’re not coming with us?” she asked Eddie.

“Daddy?” he asked. “Can I?”

“You stay here with me,” said Turner, self-consciously avoiding eye contact with Tobias. “We need some father and son time.”

“Hand me two rods and reels and the small tackle then,” said Saphora.

Turner handed her two sets over the stern. “Here’s your tackle box,” he said. “The signal’s weak on cellulars this far out, so don’t stray on us.”

“If we’re not back in an hour, send a posse,” she told him, still suffering pangs on account of Tobias.

Tobias held up the Wake Forest water bottle. “Thanks, buddy.” He strapped on his backpack. “I brought fruit, Mrs. Warren. Dr. Warren told me that if I’m ever lost at sea, I could live a long time on apples and oranges.”

“He told you that? We’re not going to get lost, Tobias.”

The South River floated like a pond in some places. Tobias figured out the small motor’s workings as fast as a racetrack grease monkey.

The landscape was part riverbed, part marshland.

“There’s an old cemetery out this way,” said Saphora.

Tobias was overly eager to navigate. Finally he aimed the dinghy straight down the middle of the river. “It’s a riot!” he kept saying. It wasn’t a phrase she had heard from any of her grandsons. But Tobias said it whenever he gunned the small motor. “It’s a riot!”

Saphora laughed each time. “Take her over to that old dock. There may be some fish under that old wood.” It was also a good place to drop a line and eat a sandwich. She opened the sack lunch.

“Were there soldiers that died out this way?” he asked.

“Why do you ask?”

“You said there was a cemetery.”

“Could be. There’s one story says the plague hit here back in the last century. The survivors had to leave, so they resettled farther down the Neuse. Some think that’s how Oriental got started.”

“The plague. What was it?”

“A terrible disease. Everyone died of it. Now wet your line.”

Tobias squeezed a sinker onto his line and then let her fly. The lure slapped the water and dropped dead into the green stink of the marsh. He held the rod between his knees and stripped off his black windbreaker.

Saphora gave him the sandwich. “It’s ham. Hope that’s all right,” she said.

“I like ham. I like everything. Unless it’s yellow.”

“What’s wrong with yellow?”

“Yellow is the color of one of my meds,” he said like an old doctor.

“How much medication do you take?”

“Sixteen different kinds. Some of it tastes so bad I throw up. So I have to keep taking it until it stays down.”

“It’s not fair.”

“You’ve got a bite,” he said.

The tip of her rod bent toward the water’s surface. She jerked the reel and set the hook.

“You always catch a fish?” he asked.

“I think you’re my lucky charm,” she said, preparing to wrangle her catch.

“My mom told me that too.”

A pretty green trout flipped into the air.

“You’ve got to be patient with this guy,” she said. “Trout can outsmart humans.”

Tobias put down his rod to watch. “Don’t let him go, Mrs. Warren. We’ll make the others jealous they didn’t come.”

“That’s right. They were too interested in eating.”

“It’s me, Mrs. Warren. I know that. I’ve seen it before.”

“Don’t say that,” she said. She reeled the trout toward the raft. It had a lot of fight in it. She gave it some line and then started reeling again.

“I don’t keep a buddy long.”

“Eddie’s your buddy for always.”

“Sometimes I get mad about it. But what’s the point? What am I going to do? Yell at my dead mom for giving me AIDS?”

“This guy is not going to come to us easily,” she said. For a second, she thought she had lost him. Then he flipped into the air and slapped the water before submerging. “Did your mother know you were sick?”

“I don’t know. She was passing through town. She stopped long enough to have me and then dropped me off at the hospital’s emergency room door. She left me in a hamburger sack. The nurses told that to the cops, so the McDonald’s baby is what the newspapers called me.”

Saphora was trying not to laugh. But Tobias heard her and then he laughed. “My dad always asks if I came with a side of fries.”

Saphora finally laughed out loud.

“Great guns, Mrs. Warren!” he said, standing up in the raft. “You lost him.”

Saphora came up too, reeling up the nothingness of an empty hook.

Tobias looked disappointed and flopped back into the raft.

She asked, “When did your mama pass away?”

“A month after I was born. A nurse kept up with her. She didn’t take good care of herself.”

“That has nothing to do with who you are,” she said.

“I’m who I decide I’ll be. That’s what my mom says.”

“What are you going to be when you grow up?”

“A wrestler.”

She laughed.

“Or a businessman like my dad.”

“First one sounds more glamorous.”

“I know.”

“Your line is moving,” she whispered.

Tobias came up out of the raft. He set the hook as if he were catching a whale. He yanked hard.

“I think you outsmarted my trout,” she said.

“I’m bringing him in,” he said. “I caught him, I caught him!”

Sure enough, it was the big trout. Saphora said a quiet prayer:
Give him this one wish, God
. She had not promised God anything, like she normally did when things went south. She had not even asked God to save Bender. It wasn’t for lack of caring. Her prayers in the past few years seemed to be hitting a brass sky. She felt she had not known how to pray until right now.

Tobias reeled and waited and continued as if he had the patience to fight the trout all day. Finally the fish was beside the raft, its gills flapping in and out from the fight.

Saphora brought the net under him and lifted him into the boat. “You did it.”

Tobias beat his chest and whooped so loud a crane lifted from behind the marsh grass. “Wait’ll Eddie sees him!”

“It’s time to head back to the yacht.”

“Will Ramsey leave and take Liam home because of me?”

“I’ll talk to him. Stop worrying. You’re with me, Tobias. And that’s all the invitation you need.”

Eddie and Liam waved from the yacht. Eddie howled and that set Tobias to howling like a wolf. Liam laughed until Ramsey called him away from the stern. Eddie climbed down in bare feet. “Hand me him, Tobias. I’ll pack him on ice.”

Tobias did not want to let go of his fish. He had held it in his arms all the way back to the yacht.

“Let him help, Tobias,” said Saphora. “Eddie, tell Turner to get the camera. This one’s a good twelve-pounder.”

“Daddy!”

Turner was waiting with the camera when Saphora pulled the ladder up behind them. She felt proud of Tobias but also of Eddie, who would not let his uncle spoil the day.

“Daddy, take our picture,” said Eddie. The fish was big enough for the two of them to hold.

“You boys grin,” said Turner. “That’s got to be the biggest trout any of us’ve caught out in these waters.”

“Mrs. Warren caught him first,” said Tobias. “He’s a caught-twice fish.”

“Is that true, Mama?” asked Turner.

“We think so,” she said.

“Now, Mrs. Warren, you get in the picture with us,” said Tobias.

Saphora posed behind Tobias and Eddie. She held out her calf, turning it sideways to show off her Jolly Roger.

Ramsey headed them back to the marina. They passed a long regatta of boats headed back from the tarpon tournament. There was not a cloud the whole way back. The water rippled in the sun beyond the yacht, like pearls being cast behind them. It was a perfect day.

12

Emerald was sunning in the front yard in a deck chair when Saphora pulled up with Eddie and Tobias. Gwennie had helped Aunt Emerald check into a room at Ida’s B and B. She could walk back and forth from the inn to the house.

“Look at you,” said Emerald. “Skinny sister. And you with a cook and living the life of Riley!”

Saphora hugged her. “You’re here early. How did Gwennie get you here so fast?”

“I rented a car. When they announced the flight would be delayed, I called to tell her not to bother coming, not knowing if we’d be cancelled and all. The man next to me said most flights were coming in later and later. Why do you think that is?” She didn’t wait for Saphora to answer. “I mean, with all the craziness going on, now we’ve got this to contend with. Like it’s not enough.”

“You look well,” said Saphora.

Emerald grimaced. “I’ve not been well. But I said the minute I heard Bender was dying that I wanted to see him alive.”

“Is Grandpa dying?” asked Eddie.

“Oh foot! Shut me up!” said Emerald. “Now don’t listen to me, Eddie. I’m just going on.”

Ramsey and Turner pulled up behind them in the drive.

“Grandpa’s fine,” said Saphora. She already felt the knot of tension that Emerald brought to every gathering. Saphora led them all back inside.

Gwennie was frying Sherry’s burritos. She frowned from the stove.

Saphora said to Emerald, “You take this remote and find you a TV show to watch, sister.” Then she joined Gwennie in the kitchen. “Has she been hard to deal with?”

“The world’s coming to an end is all,” said Gwennie, but not so Emerald could overhear. “To hear Aunt Emerald tell it, you might as well pull the covers over your head and die.”

“She said in front of Eddie that Bender was dying,” said Saphora. “Did she mention how long she was staying?”

“A week.”

“We’ll all be dead by then.”