***
Upstairs, Rye approached the broad pigeonholed desk before which Dan Morgan sat on a high stool. A candle in the hurricane lamp with a bowl-shaped reflector shed light onto the open books spread out on the desk, for though Nantucket lived by whale oil, ironically, it rarely lit itself by it. As the saying went, “Why burn it up when you can sell it and get rich?”
Morgan glanced up as Rye’s footsteps echoed on the oiled pine floor. His quill pen paused, and the corners of his mouth drooped. But he eased from the stool to greet Rye on his feet.
Rye stopped beside the desk, his feet planted wide in a new way to which Dan was not yet accustomed, his thumbs caught up on his stomach flap. It seemed suddenly intimidating, this seaman’s stance, so solid, so self-confident. And he was reminded that Rye was half a head taller.
Rye, too, assessed Dan. After five years he was still trim and fit. He was dressed in a stylish coat of twilled mulberry worsted, his neckpiece impeccably tied, and a striped waistcoat hugged his lean ribs. He was dressed like a man who enjoyed financial security and wanted to display it in even so reserved a fashion.
Momentarily, Rye wondered if Laura was equally as proud of Dan’s natty mode of dress.
He extended his hand, thrusting jealousy aside, and for a moment he thought Dan would refuse to greet him civilly. But at last Dan’s hand clasped Rye’s briefly. Their touch could not help but bring back memories of their years of friendship. There was, within each, an ache to restore that friendship to its original vigor as well as the realization that it would never again be recaptured.
“Hello, Dan,” the taller man greeted.
“Rye.”
They dropped hands. Clerks and subordinates moved around them, carrying on business within full view and earshot. Curious eyes turned their way, making their exchange cautious.
“Starbuck sent me up t’ collect my lay.”
“Of course. I’ll make out the bank draft for you. It’ll only take a minute.” Rye even talked in a new clipped seaman’s vernacular, Dan noted.
Dan again sat down on his stool, pulled out a long ledger, and began making an entry. Standing above him, watching his hands, Rye remembered the hundreds of times they’d threaded bait for each other, gone gigging for turtles in Hummock Pond, or digging clams at low tide, sharing their catch over an open fire on the beach, often with Laura sitting between them. Rye stared at Dan’s well-shaped hands as he penned the figures in the ledger, then wrote in an elegant, swirling English roundhand—square, competent hands with a faint spray of light hair on their backs—and he realized those hands had known as much of Laura as his own. The conflict between old loyalty and new rivalry created a maelstrom of emotion within Rye.
My friend, my friend, he thought, must you now be my enemy?
“Y’ve provided well for Laura, I can tell,” he said, speaking quietly so nobody else could hear. “I thank y’ for that much.”
“There’s no need to thank me,” Dan replied without looking up. “She’s my wife.” Here he did look up, a challenge in his eyes. “What would you expect?”
They confronted each other silently for a moment, knowing well that each would suffer in the days ahead.
“I expect a hell of a good fight for her, from the looks of it.”
“I expect no such thing.” Dan stood up and extended the check, scissored between two fingers. “The law is on my side. You were reported lost at sea. In such cases there is what is legally referred to as an assumption of death, so in the eyes of the law, Laura is my wife, not yours.”
“Y’ haven’t wasted any time checkin’ on legalities, have y'?”
“Not a day.”
So a fight it will be, Rye thought, disappointed at this new disclosure. Yet if Dan had gone to all that trouble, it meant Laura had cast some doubt into his mind about her intentions.
“And so the battle lines’re drawn, old friend?” Rye asked sadly.
“Put it as you will. I will not give up either Laura or my son.” His meaning was clear. His posture was stiff.
So, that was how it was to be. But Rye could not resist placing one well-aimed barb as he pocketed the check and gave a brief salute.
“Give them both my love, will y’, Dan?” Then he turned on his heel and left.
But once outside, his jaunty attitude vanished. In its place came a worried frown as he paused to glower in the direction of Crooked Record Lane. Ship lifted her head off her paws and lumbered to her feet, raising patient eyes. Rye seemed unaware of the dog’s rapt attention, but presently he slipped his palms inside his stomach flap and spoke softly. “Well, Ship, it seems she’s truly his wife after all. And what are we t’ do about that, mate?”
The dog’s mouth opened while she looked up Rye’s length, waiting for some signal. At last the man turned away from the spot he’d been studying and strode off in the opposite direction, the click of canine toenails accompanying him across the square.
But the pair had not gone ten yards before approaching footsteps echoed eerily and came to a halt before them. Rye looked up and stopped in his tracks. The familiar creased eyes of Dan’s father were relaxed on this sunless day, so the lines radiating from their corners were strikingly white in the mahogany face. He’d grown thinner, and there was less hair on his head than ever. For a moment neither spoke, then the pleasure at the sight of the long-loved man forced Rye to move forward again.
“Zach, hello.” He extended a hand, and Zach came forward to take it. He had hard, horny hands, those of a fisherman who’d hauled both sail and nets all his life. They were burned by sun, cured by salt to the color and texture of brine-soaked ham.
“Hello, Rye.” The handshake was brief and bone-crushing. “I heard the news.” Zachary Morgan lifted his eyes momentarily to the countinghouse behind Rye’s shoulder where his son was working, then met Rye’s again self-consciously. “It’s good to hear you’re alive after all.”
“Aye, well, it’s good to be back on dry land, I can say that for sure.”
But the unsaid hovered between the two men. They shared a history that commanded them to care, but there were new obstacles between them.
Zach bent to scratch Ship’s head. “Ah, and the old girl’s glad to have you back, aren’t you, Ship? Haven’t seen you for a long time.” The dog was a convenient diversion, but only temporary. When Zach straightened, they were ill at ease again. “Sorry about your mother, Rye.”
“Aye, well ... things change, don’t they?”
Their eyes met, spoke silently. And now my boy is your grandson, Rye thought, and his mother your daughter-in-law. I won’t be runnin’ in and out o’ your house like I used to. “But the old man tells me your missus is healthy and spry.”
“Ayup, same as always.”
An enormous void fell, a void five years wide. It used to be so easy to talk to each other.
“You’re not out fishin’ today.”
“Fog’s too thick.”
“Aye.”
“Well ...”
“Give my best to Hilda,” Rye said.
“I’ll do that. And say hello to Josiah.”
They’d said nothing. They’d said everything. They’d said, Understand, this is hard for me—I love them both, too. They turned their backs on each other and their footsteps parted in the fog, then Rye turned to watch Zach disappear into the countinghouse, presumably to talk with his son about this queer quirk of fate.
The fog seemed the perfect accompaniment to Rye’s morose mood. He and Ship plodded through its shreds, both with heads hung low. Along the silent streets the silvery saltboxes blended into the enveloping whiteness, their painted shutters the only glimmer of color in the otherwise bleak day. Occasionally those shutters were blue, the color reserved for captains of whaleships only. The close-pressed yards were surrounded by picket fences that soon gave way to those into which the ribs of whales were woven. Out near the tryworks the odor of putrefaction hung in the air, the gray smoke of decomposing blubber inescapable, lo
cked as it was about the island by the veil of fog.
Whaling! It was everywhere, and suddenly the despondent Rye Dalton wanted to escape it.
Seeking the solace of isolation, he made for Brant Point Marshes. The low-lying land spread out like a sea of green, providing a nesting area for thousands of species of birds. Their voices lilted through the haze that pressed close above the cattails and sedge. There was a constant flutter of activity about the thickets of highbush cranberry as the birds fed, and the scene was lent a surreal quality by the swirling mists that were constantly on the move. How many times had three children come here in search of nests and eggs? Rye pictured the three of them as they’d been then, but immediately Laura’s face alone emblazoned itself upon his memory, not as she’d been yesterday, surprised and stunned, but as in the days of their awakening sexuality, when she’d first looked at him through a woman’s eyes—wondering and tremulous. Next he pictured her turning from the hearth with the spoon handle wrapped in her apron; then his son running in, heedless ...
And a great loneliness overwhelmed him.
He moved on through the marshes, making useless wishes, wondering what she was doing at this very moment.
He stopped on a high bank where last year’s sea oats now drooped, laden with heavy water droplets. The fog swirled about his knees and obscured the distant view of the shore. But from out of the lost beyond came the incessant throb of incoming waves while in the foreground the Brant Point Shipyard was vignetted by a frame of fog. There, below, the Omega was already undergoing a complete overhaul. Like a beached whale, she’d been hoisted onto the skeletal “ways” and careened—turned on her side for cleaning. Workers scurried over her like ants, scraping every inch of her hull, recaulk-ing seams, holystoning, or scrubbing, and revarnishing decks. Already six new cedar whaleboats were being constructed for her davits, while in town, at the ropewalk, new hemp was being woven for standing rigging and manila for running rigging from which the ship’s rigger waited to splice the intricate network of shrouds, sheets, and stays for the upcoming voyage. And in a sailmaker’s loft above a chandlery on Water Street, needles and fids were flying as new sails were being stitched.
But on an embankment above Brant Point Shipyard, a lonely man stood beside his dog, forlornly contemplating the implacable cycle that never ceased in this whaling empire. Whaling! He clenched his fists.
Damn you, you merciless bitch! I have lost my wife to you!
He studied the Omega below, painfully considering whether it would be preferable to sign on another voyage rather than stay here to see Laura remain married to Dan.
But then, with a determined grimace, he turned back the way he had come, stalking the ocean path while seagulls squawked and hammers echoed through the shrouds of mists behind him.
Dan is at his desk in the countinghouse, and she is home alone.
The long stride grew longer, and the dog at his heels broke into a trot.
***
Laura Morgan had been expecting the knock, but when it came she started and pressed a hand to her heart.
Go away, Rye! I’m afraid of what you do to me!
The knock sounded again, and Laura caught her trembling lower lip between her teeth. Resolutely, she moved toward the door, but when it was opened, only stared transfixed at Rye, who stood outside with his weight slung on one hip, his hands tucked inside the stomach flap of his britches. A myriad of impressions danced across her mind, all too quick to grasp—he stands differently; he’s wearing the sweater I made; his hair needs trimming; he’s spent a sleepless night, too.
“Hello, Laura.”
He didn’t smile, but stood at ease, waiting patiently on the stoop. And it happened, as it had happened since she was fourteen—that total surge of gladness at the sight of him. But now caution tempered it.
“Hello, Rye.” Resolutely, she held the edge of the door.
“I had t’ come.”
Somewhere in the recesses of her mind she noted the abbreviated speech he’d picked up on the high seas, realizing it added to his magnetism: a thing she needed to explore, for it made him somewhat a stranger. Her fingers clenched upon the door, but her eyes remained steadily on his.
“I was afraid you might.”
At the word afraid his eyebrows puckered, and his lips seemed to thin. She noted again the pockmark on the top one and steeled herself against the urge to touch it with her fingertip.
He studied her as if she were a rare diamond and he a gem-cutter.
She stared at him as if expecting him to rattle some ghostly chain. The Nantucket mists formed an appropriate background, as if they had levitated Rye Dalton and borne him to her, then hung back to watch what she’d do.
“Can I come in?”
How preposterous the question. This was his house! Outside it was damp and cold, and behind her a fire burned. Yet while he tucked his hands against his stomach for warmth, she hesitated like a gatekeeper.
She glanced nervously down the scallop shell-path, then dropped her hand from the door. “For just a minute.”
As he stepped forward, the dog instinctively moved with him.
“Stay.”
At the word, Laura noticed Ship for the first time. Immediately, she smiled and bent to greet the Lab.
“Ship ... oh, Ship ... hello, girl!” With a whine and a wag, Ship returned the greeting. Laura hunkered in the doorway, holding the dog’s chin with one hand and scratching the top of her head with the other. Her pale gray skirt billowed wide, hiding Rye’s boots as he stood studying the top of her head. But it was on the dog that she lavished her affectionate greeting.
“So you’ve come to see me at last, silly girl ... and it’s about time, too. You could have dropped by now and then ...” There followed a chuckle as Laura was bestowed a brief whip of a pink tongue on her cheek. She jerked back, but laughingly invited, “No need for you to stay outside, girl. Your rug’s still there.”
Looking down at the two of them, it was all Rye could do to keep from pulling the woman up into his arms and demanding the welcome he, too, deserved.
She rose and led the way inside. When the door was closed, she faced it while Rye paused with his back to it, and they both watched Ship give a brief sniff to the air, then circle twice before dropping to the braided rug beside Rye’s ankles, with a grunt of satisfied familiarity.
The blue eyes of Rye Dalton lifted to meet the brown ones of Laura. The sense of homecoming was overwhelming. Ship lowered her chin to her paws with a sigh while Rye once more slipped his fingers inside his stomach flap, as if they were safest there. His voice, when he spoke, was pulled from deep in his throat.
“The dog’s had a more affectionate welcome than her master.”
Laura’s eyes dropped, but unfortunately they fell to the sight of his palms tucked just inside his hip laces. She felt an unwanted heat pressing upward to steal across her cheeks. “She ... she remembers her old spot,” Laura managed in almost a whisper.
“Aye.”
The unfamiliar term scarcely reached the far walls while she again fought the urge to explore the differences in him. She saw one dark hand slip into the open and reach for her elbow. “Rye, you can’t—”
“Laura, I’ve been thinking of y’.”
His fingers curled around her arm, but she pulled it safely out of reach and moved back a step while her eyes flew to his. “Don’t!”
His hand hung in midair for a tense moment, then fell to his side. He sighed thickly, dropping his chin to stare at the floor. “I was afraid y’d say that.”
She glanced nervously toward the alcove bed and whispered, “Josh is napping.”
Rye’s head came up with a jerk, and he, too, looked across the room. She watched an expression of longing cross his face. Again his blue eyes sought hers. “Can I see him?”
Indecision flickered in her eyes while she threaded her fingers tightly together. But finally she answered, “Of course.” He moved then, crossing the room with light steps that see
med to take eons of time before he stopped in front of the alcove bed and peered into its shadows. Laura remained where she was, following him with her gaze, watching Rye pause, hook a thumb into the top of his trousers again, and lean sideways from one hip. For a long moment he stood silent, unmoving. Then he reached into the recesses of the alcove to take the binding of Josh’s small quilt between index and middle fingers. The fire burned cozily. The only sound was that of falling ash. A father studied his slumbering son.
Rye ... oh, Rye ...
The cry was locked inside Laura’s throat, and her eyes were drawn into an expression of pain while she watched him slowly straighten and even more slowly look back over his shoulder at her. His blue gaze moved down to her stomach, and she realized both of her palms were pressed hard against it, as if she were only now in the throes of labor. Flustered, she dropped them to her sides.
“When was he born?” Rye asked softly.
“In December.”
“December what?”
“Eighth.”
Rye’s eyes caressed the sleeping child again, then he turned away and moved with silent deliberation to the door of the new linter room. There he stopped again, looking in, his eyes moving across its interior to linger on the bed.
A queer mixture of feelings seemed to turn Laura’s stomach over: familiarity, caution, yearning. She studied Rye’s broad shoulders, covered by the sweater she had knit years ago, as they filled the bedroom doorway. He looked at once relaxed and tense as he stood contemplating her and Dan’s bedroom, and Laura wondered if Rye had deliberately chosen to wear that particular sweater today. It strikingly emphasized his ruggedness, and the sight of him in it gripped her with a sudden flush of sensuality as she watched him slowly turn her way and take a slow walk around the edge of the keeping room, eyeing objects, running a finger along the edge of the mantel, taking in the new as well as the familiar. When he reached Laura again, he stood before her with that wide-legged stance of a seaman.
“Changes,” he uttered in a broken voice.
“In five years they were inevitable.”
“But all these?” Now his voice had taken on a harder note. Again he reached for her; again she avoided his touch.