The Silver Boat by Luanne Rice Page A

Rory asked. “Come on, I know you did.”
    â€œHell yeah! Sounded about as sweet as a guitar can sound. Even though I can’t play.”
    â€œWho bought it?” Delia asked.
    â€œA guy in DC, big house off Embassy Row. Works for the government by day, gigs at the Hawk and Dove by night.”
    â€œSo cool, love,” Rory said. “This is genius. Getting drunk together like the old days. Before lunch, no less, on the day before we have to start packing.”
    â€œLook,” Dar said, pointing overhead. A pair of snowy egrets flew low to the water, on their way to Chappaquiddick. They raised up to clear the On Time, the small ferry plying the channel between Edgartown and Chappy, then disappeared behind scrub pines.
    â€œDad,” Rory said, setting her bottle down.
    â€œDo you remember?” Dar asked.
    â€œI remember your dad,” Harrison said. “He was the coolest. Knew more about boats than anyone.”
    â€œHe’d tell us stories about egrets,” Dar said. She fell silent, wondering if her sisters had the same memories. He would sit on the porch steps, staring out at the salt pond. At the edge of the sparkling water were shorebirds, and his favorites were the lanky, gawky blue herons and snowy egrets.
    He’d make up stories about egrets who fell in love for life, migrated down dangerous air currents to the West Indies, returning to the same pond every summer. He said they recognized the McCarthys, and their offspring did, and they would never forget—the snowy egrets of Chilmark Pond and the McCarthy family were connected by love and history forever.
    â€œWhy would he tell us stories like that,” Delia said quietly, “and then just sail off?”
    â€œHe meant to return,” Rory said. “With his Holy Grail, or whatever.”
    â€œHis ‘birthright,’ ” Delia said.
    â€œWhat good was it to him if he bottomed out on a shoal?” Rory asked.
    â€œYour father was a great sailor,” Harrison said, gulping half his bottle, putting his arm around Rory. “Here’s to Michael McCarthy, no matter where he may be!”
    â€œCheers to him,” Rory said.
    â€œI still remember sailing with him,” Harrison said.
    Dar felt herself levitating. She saw the scene as Dulse would, and when she returned home, she would write and illustrate it verbatim. The boy of privilege who lived in a storage unit; three sisters haunted by the father who had sailed away and never returned.
    Two more egrets flew across the harbor, this time toward Katama. As in Dar’s life, egrets played a strong role in her graphic novels. They were known as messengers, all-knowing spirits, pure of heart, with long white necks, bright eyes, and black bills and legs.
    Dulse sometimes flew on their backs, letting the strong white birds fly her over low hills covered with silver sage and purple heather, into caves lining sea lochs, searching for fishing nets caught on the craggy rocks. Dulse pulled the nets into the sunlight, combed through them for fish bones, whale baleen, iridescent jingle shells, mother-of-pearl, anything that sparkled. Luminosity, whether in the sky or waves or objects delivered by the sea, always delivered a message to Dulse from her father.
    â€œDar, are you awake?”
    She opened her eyes, saw her sisters and Harrison gazing at her.
    â€œWhat did I miss?” she asked.
    â€œNothing,” Harrison said. “Absolutely nothing. We’re drinking in the sun, and we’re together. Life is good. Isn’t it?”
    They all smiled, answer enough.

CHAPTER FIVE
    T he next morning a fog bank rolled in from the east, melting the last frost and coating cobwebs with silver drops of water, making the house and everything in it damp and chilly. Today was packing day. Coffee percolated, the teakettle whistled, and Dar lit the woodstove.
    Delia, Dar, and Rory’s children hauled the boxes from various hiding places.