The Other Side of Blue (14 page)

The key fits, turns. I push and the bottom of the door scrapes along the sand, leaving a curved scar.

I climb into the boat. Where would he have put a note, if he left one? I run my hands along the lip of the boat frame, certain the police missed something. What do they know about anything? I search under the seats. Sometimes the Arabic-language teacher at school would tape a prize to the underside of a student's chair, a random surprise—a set of notecards, a book of children's poetry in Arabic, a package of date candies.

Nothing on the motor or under the anchor, the rope coiled on top. Nothing. Wait—a shard of broken glass under the seat. It's so sharp, and my hands so damp, maybe I cut myself. I grasp the sliver of glass anyway.

My eyes sting with salt. If he had drowned himself on purpose, he would have left a note for me, telling me not to worry. A note that said whatever happened had nothing to do with me. Wouldn't he? Isn't that what fathers are supposed to do?

Maybe the police found something after all and destroyed
it. Maybe Mayur's cousin pocketed a note and started rumors about it on the island. Maybe everybody knows but Mother and me. What if even Martia knows? Or what if Mother came the first night after they brought the boat in, and she was looking for the same thing, a note, some sort of evidence. Perhaps she found a note and burned it in one of the bonfires they lit on the beach for the returning search party. While everyone else seemed to care more about the body they were bringing in than she did. The flicker of scorched paper would have carried high on the wind like a prayer offering.

I lie in the bottom of the boat. The wooden ribs dig into my back as I press myself down. The planks still smell of the sea, even though the netting hangs long and dry along the walls. When I close my eyes, the boat seems to move up and down in rhythm with the waves pounding against the shore outside.

It seems to move, and I feel myself moving, too, as if I'm being tugged out to sea by the tide. I trace my fingers along the bottom, feeling for more clues.

That day, I stayed under the deck, my favorite hiding place away from the sun. Yet I was close to home, so I could sneak in to see what Martia was doing. Close enough to hear Mother and Dad above me, talking. That morning, Martia had packed a hamper for him and filled an ice bucket. I heard him ask Mother to come with him, to paint at sea.

She said no. She couldn't concentrate on art when the boat bobbed in the water. Having all that blue around her—
the sky, the sea, the boat itself—it was too intense, she said. I almost laughed and gave myself away. Too much blue? How could that be, when Mother surrounded herself with it? She couldn't even look at me without thinking of blue.

Dad's voice softened. He said it would be something she could do for him. Since he'd come all that way, after he'd stayed away for several summers, maybe this once she could go with him. He'd given up something, he said. What, I couldn't hear. Mother didn't answer him, but she didn't get up, either. Dad's footsteps echoed across the wooden flooring and steps. When he made it to the sand, his footsteps stopped making any sound at all. If he'd turned and looked down while he was on the deck, he would have seen me there. But he didn't. Above me, I heard Mother's steps, too. Only hers headed inside and stopped when the French doors closed.

From my hiding spot, I watched Dad moving toward the water. I didn't do anything that day but watch him go. Now, in my mind, I revise how it happened. I see myself scooting out from under the deck and running to catch him.

“Wait, Dad.” I wave my arms. “I can go.”

He turns, but it's almost as if he doesn't see me. He's looking up toward the widow's walk, looking for someone else.

“Not this time,” he says, smiling. “You hate fishing.”

I watch him push the boat into the water, wade out knee-deep, until the blue boat clears the sandy sea bottom. He hauls himself over the side, water spilling down his tanned legs. He lowers the motor into the water and turns away from shore, toward the open sea.

Even in my revision, he does not take me with him.

 

From outside, I hear something at the door. Something more than ghost crabs this time. I can't move. It wouldn't do any good anyway. There's only one way out. The window is bolted shut. Maybe it's just someone walking past the boathouse to fish in the surf. Maybe one of Mayur's cousins. Even from here, I can tell the sky is changing outside, lightening with the dawn. I close my eyes and cover my face with my scarf. It's still dark inside and there's no electricity. Maybe I'll look like an abandoned tarp.

The door squeaks.

“Cyan?”

Mother. If I don't speak, will she go away?

“I know you're here.” Her voice is soft. I can barely hear her over the waves beyond. She must have watched me, then waited, certain there was nothing here for me to find.

“Couldn't you sleep?” she asks. I don't trust her voice. It's too soft. I wait for the snap. Part of me wants to say something. It wants to say no, I can't sleep. No, I can't get full.

“It hurts me, too. Don't you know that?” she asks.

She comes inside and closes the door. We're both in the dark.

I force my breathing to match the rhythm of the waves in the background. Not giving myself away. I want to say something, to tell her it was her fault. He shouldn't have been fishing alone that day. She should have gone with him. He'd still be with us if she'd gone.

“I loved your father, too. Nothing is ever as simple as you think it is, Cyan. You have to understand that.” This is the most Mother has said about what happened in a year. For a whole year we have walked past each other, not talking about it. During that time, Mother decided she will marry another man. Even then we did not discuss what happened.

After a few minutes the door opens, letting in a moment of moon glow before it closes once more. The boathouse is again black inside, so dark my eyes see sparkles when I squeeze them shut and then open them wide. Just like that time in Hato Cave when the guide turned out the light.

They found Dad's boat the next day. The currents had carried it out. They pulled it onto the beach and found his body entangled in the fishing net underneath. He tried to pull himself out of the water, the police report said. They found microslivers of blue paint under his fingernails, and one nail had ripped off. They think that occurred before death. His shoulders and arms had been bruised. From the strain of trying to save himself? That was possible. Maybe fingernail scratches and not the netting itself or the anchor rope caused the blue paint to rub off in spots.

All the evidence suggested his death was accidental.

But the champagne bottle troubled the commissioner. That and the missing wineglasses. There was no alcohol in his body, though, the autopsy report said. He wasn't drunk. Nor were there any fish in the ice chest. A few shards of clear glass lay scattered in the bottom of the boat, along with a wineglass stem. Had the glass been broken on purpose? By accident? Where were the goblets?

They collected the evidence in a clear plastic pouch, except for the glass sliver I found just now. A tragic incident, the newspaper said the first day after. The police report used fewer adjectives. Its conclusions were vague.

“That's the way of all bureaucrats,” Mother said as we waited at the airport to leave. “A way to angle money out of you as you wait for them to tell you something. When you can go. When you can take the body. I went straight to the American embassy. You can bet they moved faster after that.”

I lie in the boat until light comes through the window. Dust motes float in the air like microscopic jellyfish. I brush my footprints away from the door when I relock it, and pocket the key. Covering up the evidence.

B
ACK AT
Blauwe Huis,
I slink to my room without seeing Mother. I pass by Kammi's door, careful to avoid the spot in front that squeaks. I save the sliver of glass in my box. It doesn't fit with the sea glass. It's too sharp and clear, and I'll cut myself on it if I forget it's there and run my hand inside the box. But there's no other safe place to keep it.

Martia doesn't hum or sing the whole day. She walks around the house silently, not even firing up the stove. We eat cold salad and sandwiches for lunch, almost as if it's a Sunday and Martia has gone home. For once, she doesn't tell us to fill up, to eat more.

Late in the afternoon, after listening to Mother pace upstairs in her studio, I hear her creep downstairs. She walks past Kammi, who's flipping through art magazines at the table, and me, lying on the jute rug, staring up through
the clear glass coffee table, studying the undersides of the shells. She doesn't even look at me, much less mention the boathouse.

“Martia, please call a taxi,” Mother says.

“Jinco, he is no working today.”

“So call another cab. There must be someone else you know. We're going out to dinner.”

Apparently, even Mother can't stand the silence of the house.

“
Sí,
” Martia says.

Martia places the call from the kitchen, as if she doesn't want Mother hanging over her shoulder, criticizing which cab company she chooses.

When she returns, she says: “Twenty minutes. The cab, it is coming.”

“Come with us,” Mother says. She motions Martia closer.

Mother has never asked Martia to come out with us. If Martia's surprised, she doesn't show it. She raises her hand, pushing away the offer, as if Mother is just teasing her with the promise of an expensive meal in Willemstad.

I almost bang my head on the glass coffee table getting up. “Come on, please.” Suddenly, I want Martia to come with us, more than anything else I've wanted this summer.

She smiles at me, a wistful smile, but she shakes her head. Her place is not with us there. Her place with us is
only here, for one month, in a house that doesn't belong to any of us.

“Is better. You go to nice place, have a good dinner.”

Even Martia wants us away on this day. She doesn't like the way the house feels any more than we do.

 

The shiny blue air-conditioned taxi arrives on time. Crisply dressed, the driver holds the door for Mother, something Jinco never does. The car is solid, expensive, with leather seats. Kammi scoots into the middle between Mother and me. She smoothes out her linen skirt and tucks her flowerprint purse on the seat between us.

The driver smiles into the rearview mirror at Mother. His eyes never stray to look at Kammi or me. He knows who has the money. “Where are you going?”

“Otrobanda. Café Azul.”

“Ah, yes, Azul, very good fish, shrimps, there.” The man eases the car out of the driveway smoothly, not the way Jinco does, leaving a trail of dust everywhere.

“You are new here?” the driver asks.

“No, we come every summer,” Mother says. She doesn't explain that this is Kammi's first visit.

“Oh, that is very good. You know where you are going. No need to point out the tourist sites.”

“Thank you.” Mother turns her head to look out the passenger-side window.

Kammi nudges me, points at the colors of the sky to the west.

I nod. The colors mean it will soon be dark. That night, Dad didn't return. Mother finally stopped pacing along the widow's walk and called the police to report him missing. I told her to tell them to check the airport. Maybe he'd taken the boat to Willemstad and then taken a plane back to Maine or Italy. Mother just told them Dad had gone out to fish and he hadn't come back. I sat outside on the deck growing colder and colder despite the tropical air until Martia wrapped me in a shawl and made me hot chocolate, the kind my grandmother used to make, with the miniature marsh -mallows on top. The locals—I don't know how they knew; maybe Martia summoned them like spirits—set bonfires on the beach, to provide a light should Dad be lost and unsure of the shoreline.

The trip to town takes forever with the traffic. Lights begin to twinkle on as the taxi driver winds down narrow streets, eases past slower cars, avoids pedestrians. Despite the crush, he never jerks the steering wheel. He'll charge Mother more than Jinco does, but she won't mind paying.

“Kammi, look over here,” Mother says, pointing to the floating market.

“Remember? That's where the boats go, the ones that come from Venezuela for trade,” I say. “The fishing boats.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.

Mother sucks in her breath.

Kammi unzips her purse, takes out a small map, and quickly unfolds it. I recognize it's a cruise-ship map, one we picked up in Willemstad on our previous trip. The map posts all the important tourist spots, or at least the shops that pay to have their names printed on the map. “The pottery place. May we go there? My mom—my mom likes pottery.”

“Perhaps after dinner. I think there's a shoe shop in Otrobanda, too. You need hiking shoes.”

Kammi says, “I'm sorry. I should have brought some.”

“Nonsense, how would you have known? But I can't send you home with blisters on your feet.”

I wriggle my toes in my flip-flops. I don't have hiking shoes, not even sturdy sports sandals. I left them in Maine.

Mother pays the taxi driver a partial fare, and he agrees to wait for us.

Café Azul looks out over the water. The waiter gives us a table right by the window. Mother motions Kammi into a chair close to the window and then sits opposite her. Leaving me to sit to the side, like an extra chair leg.

The air smells fresh, despite the grills going full blast in the kitchen.

Mother orders a Blue Bay for herself, sodas for us—mine a diet—not even asking what we want.

“Do you like spicy?” Mother asks Kammi.

“How spicy?”

“Pepper and lime, almost like a curry. Just a hint of hot. I recommend the mango fish platter. If it's as good as last year.”