12
They arrived at the Jamestown Settlement mid-morning the following day under cloudy and threatening skies but no rain yet. They did a brisk walking tour of some of the Settlement’s outdoor exhibits but skipped the museum and recreated sets for lack of time. They did pause above the site of the original fort and looked at that frail and vulnerable outpost set against the wide and spring-swollen James River flowing past in the background.
“How did they survive?” Jodie wondered aloud.
“Most didn’t,” Leah said.
On the way back to the car, they paused in front of the tall bronze Pocahontas statue set on its rough stone platform. Jodie took the cue to step up beside the statue and mimic the arms-forward, hands-open gesture of welcome and assurance from the Indian princess with surprisingly European features. Leah snapped a photo of the two princesses—one flesh, one oxidized metal—with her cellphone then proceeded to relate a thumbnail history of the brief life of this human bridge between two cultures.
“She was one of many children of the native chief Powhatan. At the age of thirteen she intervened to prevent the execution of the captured English settler John Smith. She herself was later captured and held for ransom by the settlers. During her captivity, she was baptized and married John Rolfe. She bore him a son. The family sailed to England where she was greeted as something of a celebrity, either as a princess or as a curiosity or maybe both. She even had an audience with King James. She died at the age of twenty-two early in the voyage to return to her native land.” Leah had spoken this summary to the statue in a reverent tone, recalling the facts from a teenage fascination with the tragic heroine’s short life. She’d visited Jamestown then, with her high school history teacher Miss Peacock, and even had a snapshot taken by Miss Peacock of her standing beside this very statue, though at the time it was on a taller granite pedestal and located opposite a statue of John Smith positioned outside the village’s brick church.
She turned to Jodie, who had descended from her perch and stood now next to her. “Sorry. Guess I got a little carried away by the past,” Leah said.
“It’s sad.”
Leah laughed. “My story or hers?”
“She didn’t belong anywhere.”
Leah’s face shed its mirth. She looked again up at the statue, Pocahontas’s far-seeing gaze backed by gray clouds. “She belonged where she was placed.”
“At the crossroads of history?”
“In her life.”
Jodie shrugged. “Guess you can say that about all of us.”
They drove onto the small ferry that carried them across the James River. They stayed in their seats for the short trip, rocking from side to side as the car and the boat beneath it vibrated in the river’s white-capped chop.
Ashore on the far side, they headed east through flat muddy fields planted to soybeans and brown marshes still clinging to winter’s dormancy. Unlike three days earlier, Jodie was wide awake and talkative during the drive. She told Leah how she was looking forward to her return to Seattle, how her long-time housemate Andrea had held her room despite her uncertain return, how there were several productions in the early planning stages and she had the inside track on set design for each. “If it all works out, I might even have to hire some employees. Can you imagine that, Leah? Me a boss!”
Leah nodded. “I can imagine it quite easily.”
“Would you want to work for me?”
Leah thought a minute then said, “Your passion would be worth the price of your expectations.”
Jodie laughed. “Ever the diplomat.”
“Just telling the truth,” she said, then added, “But make sure you hire someone who shares your passion.”
“Need to get the jobs first.”
“Do you need money to help tide you over?”
“I’m O.K.”
“You’ve missed a lot of work, and now this travel and the move back.”
“Thanks, Leah. But I’ll be fine. I live cheap and Dave has me well cared for.”
“Really?”
Jodie laughed. “How do you think I’ve survived all these years? Not on a stagehand’s wages. I think Dave is trying to make up for all those fights, and I’m glad to let him.”
“That’s generous.”
“Me or him?” Jodie said, holding her straight face just long enough to illicit a frown from Leah before saying, “I’m joking. I thank Dave regularly with text photos showing what his funding has provided—street signs in LA, the view from my room at the boarding house, my plate before and after a sushi meal. He loves it, says I’m the best bargain in the world.”
“Does Brooke know?”
“I assume, but he doesn’t say.”
“And you won’t tell.”
“That’s between him and Mom.”
Several hours later, they arrived at the coastal ferry station. Leah remembered it as a two-room modular house; but it had grown to a large clapboard-sided Visitor’s Center complete with a gift shop (selling what?), vending machines, a sizable display of maps and tourist info, and bathrooms that were spacious and sort of clean. Outside were rockers lined up on a veranda overlooking the dunes leading to the beach and several picnic tables, all empty this day as the rain that had held off for most of their trip now fell in slow but steady determination.
Leah stood at the Center’s windows looking out on the empty ferry dock. Despite the expansion of facilities, for some reason the station looked smaller and much grayer than on her last visit, a round-trip pass in the spring—about this time of year—to spend a week on the island with Brooke and Onion and their new-born baby Jodie Michelle. She remembered that trip as being a jumble of unprecedented experiences—the beach in the spring (cold and blustery for most of that visit), her sister as a housewife, her sister as a mother, learning how to change a diaper. But mainly she remembered her sister’s nascent discontent, already pushing back against the walls closing around her—her moody husband, her nosy in-laws, her unchanging routines. The long gray island winter only briefly lightened by the springtime birth of her daughter (at a mainland hospital) now threatened to become a gray island summer—at a beach no less!—and how could she bear that? She had endlessly questioned Leah about her semester just ended and her upcoming trip to Europe as part of her college’s summer program abroad. Leah never forgot the image of Brooke standing on the ferry dock as she departed for the mainland, her newborn budding from her hip, waving in forlorn misery, as if sentenced to a lifetime in exile. That day had been sunny and warmer but did little to lift Brooke’s spirits or Leah’s concern.
Jodie came up from behind, her pedestrian’s ticket in hand. “Looks like it’ll be a choppy crossing,” she said.
“You want to wait for calmer weather? Tomorrow is supposed to be clear.”
Jodie laughed. “Oh, this is nothing. On at least three occasions I was on the last passage before they suspended service. Once a car shifted off its blocks and slammed into the pickup in front of it. The crew got everyone out of their vehicles and in the passenger lounge then handed out life preservers and made sure we all had them properly fastened. Then the lights went out. Passengers, and not just kids, were puking everywhere. The toilet was overflowing. It smelled horrible. One of the crew members was my Uncle Mike and he pulled me aside and said that if we ran aground to stay near him no matter what.”
“So what happened?”
“We made it across and docked and I stayed afterwards and helped Uncle Mike and Dad clean up the vomit and the broken taillight from the pickup. They joked about being able to tell what each person had for lunch from their leavings on the floor.”
“Gallows humor.”
“Island endurance.”
“How old were you?”
“About eight.”
Leah shook her head—the things she didn’t know about her niece.
“So this crossing should be a piece of cake,” Jodie said as the rain started to fall harder.
Leah felt a hole in the pit of her st
omach. She’d never worried about Jodie before. Why now? “Your father will be waiting on the other side?”
She nodded. “Probably sharing a nip in the harbor master’s office.”
“How will you get to the airport for your flight to Seattle?”
“I’ll catch a ride with someone driving up that way, or maybe even on a plane. I’ve done that a few times too—skipped the ferry all together and flown directly to the airport.” She leaned over and hugged her aunt. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”
Leah peered into the rain. Just then a faint light rose out of the gray haze. Ever so slowly the silhouette of the ferry formed below it, pushing landward through the storm. Two foghorn blasts penetrated the walls of the building.
They watched in silence, as if mesmerized, the bustle of activity beyond the window as tenders in yellow rain gear directed the big boat into its tire-cushioned slip with elaborate gestures and soundless shouts. Then they raised the dock’s ramp and unchained the ferry’s gate and directed the handful of cars and SUVs off the boat and toward the exit road, onward to their lives inland.
After just a few minutes of straightening up the ferry’s deck and checking the lounge, the dock master waved toward the Visitor’s Center to begin loading, pedestrians and bikes first.
“That’s you,” the ticket seller said from her desk to Jodie, the only paying pedestrian on this passage.
“That’s me,” Jodie said, barely a whisper breaking their long silence. She turned to Leah. “I guess this is good-bye for now.”
Leah grinned tight-lipped. “I’ll walk out with you.”
“It’s pouring.”
“Got to go out anyway to get to the car.”
Jodie shrugged then opened the door and stepped out onto the veranda, followed closely by Leah. The rain and the wind and the sea and the ferry’s diesel engines and the engines cranking up and down the line of waiting vehicles all combined to create a near-deafening roar after the stillness of the indoors. Jodie paused at the top of the steps leading to the path to the dock and pulled the hood of her sweatshirt up over her head. Leah unfurled her black umbrella. Then together they stepped out into the midst of the storm.