She said she’d wanted to see Sandy, to check up on her. She said she probably wasn’t supposed to and apologized and then she said she’d never seen anything like that and she put her hand to her mouth again and started to cry. Seeing those tears made me wonder why neither of us was crying and I remember being hazily aware that I was probably still in shock. Jake stood looking curiously at the girl and then went to shut the door behind her and said he wanted to ask her about something. She wiped at her eyes and said that would be okay. First he got her to describe the crash site: what it had looked like when she arrived. She told us about the demolished vehicle and how her supervisor had known right away that they needed the fire department and the jaws of life to cut out the driver. Sandy was unconscious at that time and the girl had stayed next to her, just talking to her gently through the broken window, in the ten minutes it took the crew to arrive. I did not think to thank her for that at the time, but I have thanked her often since, in looking back on it, offering up my silent gratitude like a futile and hollow prayer.
The girl – who was staring at the floor, remembering – said that Sandy had come around when they cut her out of the car. Jake asked her if Sandy had been lucid at that time, which confused the girl and she said something about them giving Sandy morphine for the pain, but that wasn’t what Jake was getting at. He put his hands on the girl’s shoulders, not roughly, but as if he needed to make sure she understood what he was asking. He asked if Sandy had been aware and understood what had happened to her legs. The girl had to think. Possibly she was thinking about lying to us. But eventually she admitted that Sandy had been crying out about her legs as they loaded her into the ambulance and after that the girl didn’t know any more.
When Jake heard that he sat on the edge of Sandy’s bed and put his hands to his face, as you might if you were splashing yourself with water, only in this case he held them there for a long time. The girl said she was sorry again and I expected her to leave, but she didn’t. Her presence didn’t seem out of place in any way, though, and she stayed with us until Jake stood up and headed for the door and shoved it open and left. I went after him. I came out of that dim murk into the blazing lights of the ward and the noise and the people. I spotted Jake down one of the hallways, moving away from me, hunched forward and cradling his guts as if he were physically hurt or wounded. I called out his name and started to hurry. He reached the end of the hall where there was a big plate-glass window overlooking Oak Street. In front of the window was a gurney, an empty gurney, and Jake picked that up and hurled it at the window. Only the window didn’t break. They must have safety glass in those places, in case of all the things that might happen, things like that. The window didn’t break but the gurney did. It bounced off and landed in a tangled mess, upside down, like a dead mantis.
I reached Jake at the same time as two orderlies. They held him – gently – by both arms, but he didn’t struggle or react to them in any way. It was as if they weren’t even there. He looked at me and his face was teary and boyish-looking and filled with a terrible hatred. Keep me away from that guy, he said, or I’m going to kill him. It sounded like a vow. At that time we didn’t even know the name of the driver, but I told Jake I would and that was just one of the many ways in which I failed him, one of the many ways in which I’m just as responsible as him for all the no-good things that he’s done.
On the boat that night my sleep was as fretful and uneasy as the first night I’d spent at sea. I had dreams and Sandy was in them, regarding me with what you might call a reproachful expression – which was just like her – and though I do not believe in such things as visitations I knew damn well why she’d appeared. By four thirty I was already awake, alert, waiting. I could hear Big Ben snoring in the bunk opposite. I lay there listening to that. It was a very human sound. After a few minutes I reached for my phone and texted Jake: if you really have to do this you won’t be doing it alone. I’ll see you tomorrow. Then I put the phone away. The only thing left was to break it to Albert. Evelyn and Tracy, too. But especially Albert.
It seemed as if most of the day was spent looking for that chance. But I needed to get him alone and the opportunity didn’t present itself. We all had our end-of-season jobs, and moved about the boat in an orchestrated routine: passing to and fro, working around each other. Evelyn was wiping down all the surfaces in the galley and Sugar was inside cleaning our cabin and bunks. Big Ben was gathering any excess gear – ropes, buoys, life jackets – and loading those in the storage locker. Albert was down in his engine room, making a few final adjustments: as pernickety and mysterious as a piano tuner. The urgency of the past week was now gone. We had worked hard up until the last day, and had plenty of time to perform these tasks and we did so with a melancholy sort of reverence. The end was in sight and when it is there’s no longer such a rush to get there.
In the morning, Albert gave me a job I’d done every other season: repainting the boat’s name across the transom. I tied a floating dock off the stern and crouched down there with the brush and bucket of marine paint. I had to use my left hand for the job, since my right was no longer good for delicate tasks. My forefinger and middle finger are the ones that are missing, making it impossible to hold a brush properly. But I’ve gotten pretty good with my left.
I dipped the tip in the pot of white paint and gently stroked the letters, coaxing them to lustre. The boatyard was still and quiet and echoed with emptiness. Some of the other crews, skippered by captains less thorough than ours, had already battened down the hatches and locked up the cabins and headed back to their respective houses or trailers or apartments or whatever abodes they each had waiting.
Around mid-morning my cellphone rang. I fished it out of the pocket of my coveralls. I could see by the number it was Jake.
‘Poncho,’ he said, right off. ‘I need you tonight.’
Just that. He didn’t thank me for agreeing to help. I guess my involvement had been a given, for him. I put down the paint brush, balancing it precariously on the edge of the pot.
I said, ‘You said Saturday.’
‘The job is Saturday. But I’m meeting them tonight.’
‘You’re meeting these guys?’
‘And they want to meet you, too.’
I stood and stared at the water. It was lapping at my little dock, spilling over the edge nearest me, where my weight had lowered it.
‘But you said Saturday. I said I’d come Saturday.’
‘And I’m telling you, I need you tonight.’
‘Albert won’t let me go.’
I could hear voices in the distance. He told me to hold on and I heard him swearing at somebody. Then he was back. He said that if I wanted to sell out there was still time and he didn’t care, but if I was going to help him I had to come tonight. That was it.
‘I can’t do it, Lefty.’
‘Whatever, then.’
‘I can still come tomorrow.’
‘That’s no good. It’s tonight or you’re not part of tomorrow.’ Again I heard the voices, and again he swore back at them. Then, to me: ‘Look, I got to go. Some horse is shitting all over itself or something. Forget about it, okay? Just forget the whole thing and forget I even asked you.’
‘Jake –’
And of course he hung up. I stood and stared at the phone. I was still staring like that when Albert leaned
