The Silver Boat by Luanne Rice Page B

Sylvia and Obadiah were in charge of putting the moving-company boxes together with heavy-duty tape. Jenny sat on the kitchen floor with Vanessa, tearing newspaper into smaller squares, perfect for wrapping the smallest items.
    â€œWe should separate boxes and write our names on them,” Delia said. “So we know who’s getting what.”
    â€œI would like the duck decoys,” Obadiah said quietly.
    â€œI think your grandmother would want that,” Dar said.
    â€œWhere’s your mother, anyway?” Delia asked Obadiah.
    â€œUh, talking to Dad on the phone,” he said.
    â€œShe found something really incriminating in his e-mail!” Jenny said.
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Dar asked.
    â€œRory hacks into his e-mail,” Delia said.
    â€œWhat did she find?” Obadiah asked.
    â€œThat he and A-L-Y-S were having an affair even before he moved out,” Jenny said, her whole body shivering with a sob. “I can’t stand saying her name, so I spell it!”
    â€œOh, honey,” Dar said, hugging her.
    â€œIt’s terrible,” Jenny wept.
    â€œWhat is terrible?” Rory asked, tearing into the room.
    â€œNothing,” Obadiah said quickly, as if wanting to protect her.
    â€œNo secrets. Tell me.”
    â€œ You have secrets!” Jenny said, her voice rising toward hysteria.
    â€œAunt Dar said I could have the duck decoys!” Obadiah cried out, making such a heartbreakingly desperate attempt to change the subject he began to shake.
    â€œYour father probably has plenty of duck decoys,” Rory said. “In his parents’ house just a mile from here. I’m sure he’d let you use them.”
    Obadiah turned as if she’d slapped him, sensitive to his parents’ breakup and the tensions of his mother and aunts. Jenny sobbed as her brother ran from the kitchen. Then Rory exhaled hard and went after him.
    Dar stoked the woodstove, trying to warm the room. Everyone’s grief was heavier than fog. Her heart cracked, one more window in an old house being broken. She looked around, reading the room as a cautionary love story—the old oak and maple furniture, the paintings, drawings the girls had done when they were little, shells collected on beach walks, stored in old glass milk bottles. Their mother and grandmother had thrown away nothing.
    For Dulse, man-made objects meant nothing. She foraged the beach and woods for shells and pebbles. Iridescence poured from the sky, through silver-edged clouds, turning shell and bone into treasure, and she absorbed her lost father’s love through her fragile skin.
    Looking around the kitchen, Dar knew that “things” mattered. Sea glass, channeled whelks, and driftwood gathered on family walks were just as important as other family heirlooms. She took a deep breath; they had to start somewhere. She reached for a small pewter dory on a mahogany shelf above her grandmother’s spoon collection, then held the boat up. “Who would like this?”
    No one spoke. Dar supposed they all harbored secret wishes, their own private desires for a piece of this paradise. Rory walked in, arm around Obadiah. Both mother’s and son’s blue eyes were bereft. I hate myself , Rory mouthed silently to her sisters.
    â€œHere’s an idea,” Delia said. “What if we took pieces of masking tape, wrote our names on them, and put them on whatever we want?”
    â€œWhat if two people want the same thing?” Jenny asked.
    â€œWe’ll duel,” Delia said.
    â€œWe could play darts and the winner gets it,” Rory said.
    Everyone approved the masking tape idea. As they spread throughout the big old farmhouse, Dar put James Taylor on the kitchen stereo and turned on all the house speakers. She was still holding the small dory; it felt warm in her hand. Her father had left it here; he’d once told her it came from his grandfather’s boat shed in Cork. She wrote