XIII
As soon as I finished adjusting the spring line and getting Gorda safely secured to her dock back at the Larsens’ place, I glanced toward my cottage and saw the Windsurfer board and sail spread out to dry on the grass. I gave a whoop and started running. Pit must have heard me because he stepped out the front door and threw his arms around me just as I arrived.
“Hey, little sis,” he said, and stepped back, putting his elbow on my head to show me how much taller he was than me, just as he had when we were kids. “Great to see you.”
I pushed him away and held him at arm’s length. “Where the hell have you been? You drop your stuff off here and then disappear for days. What kind of way is that to treat your baby sister?”
He just grinned that lopsided grin of his and shrugged. “Didn’t know you were going to try to be your brother’s keeper. I’m not used to telling anybody where or when I go.”
“Man, it’s good to see you.” I hugged him once more, then slipped past him into the shade of the cottage’s cool interior. “Come on in and tell me what’s been going on in your life.”
I grabbed a couple of cold beers out of the fridge. It was early, but seeing Pit was worth celebrating. We sat at opposite ends of the couch as he told me a little about what it’s like to be an ocean nomad. He had crewed on the delivery of an eighty-foot racing sailboat down to Rio, flown over to South Africa for some world championship windsurfing tournament, then spent six months in Europe windsurfing the Med’s mistrals. Finally, he’d come back here via the Caribbean and another yacht delivery into Fort Lauderdale.
“So,” I said, “I take it I’m not to expect you to settle down and produce a sister-in-law or any nieces or nephews any time soon?”
He smiled and rubbed his chin for a moment as if he were thinking real hard. “Nope.”
“You goofball,” I said, and kicked him lightly in the shins.
He set his beer down on the end table, turned to me, and narrowed his eyes. “That a challenge?”
“No way,” I said. “Our years of wrestling are over.” But knowing my brother, I placed my beer bottle safely on the other end table. “We’re supposed to be grown-ups now, you know.”
I had barely gotten the last words out before he pounced on me, rolled me off the couch, and had me pinned with my arm twisted up behind my back. “Gonna say uncle?” he shouted.
What he didn’t know was that his little sis had been taking some aikido lessons from B.J., and with a simple twist and roll I was out of his grip and standing on the other side of the trunk that still rested in the middle of the living room. He looked up at me from the floor.
“Damn. Not bad.” He crossed his arms behind his head and, looking up at me, said, “So, what about you? You and B.J. going to be ringing the wedding bells soon?”
I waved my hand in the air as though to dismiss the question. “Let’s not go there. That’s a bit of a sore spot these days.”
He laughed. “Hell, we Sullivans make damn lousy spouses, eh?”
“Just look at Maddy,” I said, and we both giggled.
Pit’s laughter stopped abruptly, and he got to his knees and crawled over to the trunk. “You opened it,” he said, suddenly solemn.
“Yeah. You just left it here and disappeared.”
“I wanted to open it, you know. But something stopped me.”
At that moment, I didn’t want Pit to know about the Cartagena trip and all the questions it had raised. I didn’t want him to feel what I had been feeling, wondering if Red had been involved in drug smuggling. “Yeah, it’s just a bunch of old stuff.” I grabbed the stack of photos off the counter, dropped them into the trunk, and started to close the lid.
“Wait, I’d forgotten all about this old jacket.” He reached in and pulled out Red’s old navy peacoat. The musty smell of the wool filled the room when he stood, shook the coat out, and slid his arm into one of the sleeves. It still didn’t fit him.
“Remember?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said, “that afternoon in the garage.” His eyes seemed to be looking across the living room, but they weren’t really focused on anything in that room. He grinned. “I can still hear him yelling at us.”
I touched the sleeve of the coat. In spite of having been closed up in that trunk for years, it still harbored a faint hint of Red’s smell. I stepped toward Pit and pressed my nose into the rough fabric of the coat’s sleeve and tried to remember my father as he was when he was healthy. I put my arms around my brother and inhaled deeply the odor still living in the wool.
“Some days I miss him so much,” I said in a half-whisper.
“I know,” he said. “Me too. Sometimes I wonder if that’s why I keep moving all the time. Keeps me from thinking about what I don’t have.”
I pushed back and took hold of his hands. “Hey, you’ve still got a family. I’m here. Maddy is, too.”
“Do we have to count him?” he asked, and we both laughed again.
“We really lucked out in the father department,” I said, “but how Red could have sired Maddy, I’ll never know.”
Pit started to take off the jacket. “You know, it’s not nearly as much fun making fun of him when he’s not here to turn all red and get pissed off. What do you say we go down to see him and torture him like we used to?” This time when he laughed, it helped make the tightness in my throat ease off. God, I’d missed Pit.
“I’m afraid Maddy wouldn’t exactly be happy to see me.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s a long story, but a few months back he got down several thousand dollars at the track, and some not-so-nice guys I’d been involved with kinda took it out on him. Really did a number on his face. Later, when I bought him out of Gorda and he paid off his bookie, he didn’t cut me any slack. Still maintains the whole thing was my fault.”
“Sounds like my bro.”
When we’d first come in, I had noticed the red light was blinking on my answering machine, but I had wanted to take these few minutes to catch up with Pit first.
“Hope you don’t mind, but I’ve got to check this.” I pushed the button and a female voice, slightly accented, started to speak.
“Allo. This is Martine Gohin.” I sat down on the couch and lowered my head over the machine, anxious to hear every word she would say. “I heard about this Earth Angel child on the television, and I would like to help you very much. I am working on my radio show this morning, but if you could join me at my home for lunch, that would be very nice.” She went on to give her address and cell phone number. I checked my watch. I had about an hour to spare—just enough time to swing by and check on Jeannie and Solange.
When the machine clicked off, Pit asked, “Earth Angel? What are you into now?”
I told him the most abbreviated version of the story that I could manage.
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Might be. How are your navigation skills?”
“Great. I was the navigator on the last delivery up from St. Maarten.”