Glimmering

They launched on Friday in mid-December. Morning came, sky corrugating into emerald and cerulean and the brilliant yellow that seeps beneath a door closed to fire. On the porch Martin watched the day crack open. He had not slept, chased by fever and the knowledge that this would be the last time he’d sit here and look down Mars Hill to the bay, past decrepit cottages and leggy phlox and the Wendameen’s silhouette, to sparkling water and the eastern horizon. He felt beyond sorrow, oddly ebullient; buoyed by the very futility of his task. When he heard the first birds rustling in the lilacs he stood. He went inside to boil water for tea, then walked quietly into the bedroom to rouse Trip.

He slept soundly, as always. For a long time Martin stood above him, one hand on the headboard, and watched. He had always loved to do this, observe his lovers sleeping. It was like laying claim to a hidden part of them, like watching years fall away to reveal the other’s pith. John had always looked childlike when sleeping, one hand curled close to his face upon the pillow, mouth parted, brow furrowed.

Trip did not. Trip, sleeping, seemed least himself. He never moved—and Martin checked, Martin would stand there, memorizing the precise pattern of cheek against pillow, outflung arm, crooked knee. The boy’s face had a strangely slack look, not relaxed but deflated, the skin waxen and dull, lips pale, eyelids like little white shells laid across his eyes. As though some vitalizing spirit had gone. Martin frowned, thinking of all those stories where the hero’s soul flees him at night, of shamans who can leave their bodies and travel to the other world, returning with magic stones, coals wrapped in leaves, miraculous cures for blindness and plague. He gazed at Trip’s right hand, coiled against his breast, the gold ring there. He sighed, and gently shook Trip’s shoulder.

They had a small audience for the launch—Mrs. Grose, Diana, Doug from the Beach Store. Jason had made his farewells, stiffly, during his last visit; finally collapsed into tears and let Martin hold him. Martin had hoped Dick Graffam might come, but the weather was clear, no clouds that he could see; Graffam would be out fishing. It was high tide, waves lapping at pilings and gulls swooping overhead. On her jackstand the Wendameen gleamed cerise, reflecting the bright sky.

“You ready?” Martin clapped a hand on Trip’s shoulder.

“I’m ready.” Trip grinned.

“Let’s do ’er, then.”

Diana and Doug helped them spread rotten vegetables along the ways, cabbages and zucchini and stalks of jewelweed which spurted clear liquid when you broke them. Martin removed the wooden gate that held the boat within her cradle and, with a flourish, tossed it into a patch of withered tiger lilies. The boat creaked, its bow angling down—it looked monstrously huge up there, a terrible lion whose cage had been flung open—and began to slide forward.

“She’s coming!” yelled Martin. Doug cheered. Diana waited at a safe distance with a pail of sand to throw onto the ways, to slow the boat if necessary. Martin and Trip stood to each side, armed with crowbars, but they didn’t need them. As though in a dream of sailing through the sky, the Wendameen slid down the launching ways as Martin and Trip walked alongside, both of them gazing up and laughing for sheer wonder.

“Look at her!” yelled Trip. “Holy cow, she’s gonna do it!”

And she did, leaving a crushed trail of green and red and brown in her wake, like the track of some immense slug: she swept down the gravel beach and into the bay. There was an awful moment when she listed to one side, and the cradle seemed to be caught. Martin gave an anguished yell and ran down the shingle, but before he could reach the water she righted herself. Trip and Doug held two of the lines, walking out onto the pier. Martin followed, so excited he could scarcely talk.

“We did it! We did it!”

Trip turned to him with shining eyes. “You did it,” he said, and looked out to where the cradle rested in the shallows, the doors of Martin’s Camry showing faint yellow from beneath dark water. “You got her in the water…”

But they didn’t leave that day; and by the next morning a storm broke. It raged for almost a week, hurricane winds, Trip and Martin frantic that the Wendameen would sink. She didn’t; but she was damaged, so that there were more repairs to make. And another week slipped by, and another; more bad weather, and more time passing still. Until when they finally did get under way it was late in December, an insane month to be sailing, but what was to be done?

They made their farewells quickly. Everything had been loaded below, containers of water and extra foul-weather gear, lines and charts, sleeping bags and mildewed wool blankets that Mrs. Grose forced on them, just in case.

“Godspeed, Martin,” she said, and held her pug to her breast. Her tortoiseshell eyes were bright with tears. Looking into them Martin knew what she saw for him, but he was not afraid.