8


QUINN SHARED HIS NEWS WITH THEM THE NEXT TIME they dined together, as usual, on Friday night. He had chartered the Molly B for the entire summer, until September, when he planned to leave. And he invited them to join him on it the following weekend. This time Jack couldn't do it, he had agreed to take his new girlfriend on a picnic with some of her friends. But Maggie looked extremely enthusiastic.

“Do you mean that, Quinn? I don't want to be a nuisance or a pain in the neck. I don't want to intrude.”

“I wouldn't offer it if I didn't mean it, Maggie. I'm going out on her tomorrow. Do you want to come?” Looking at him with a sheepish smile, she admitted that she did.

It was a perfect day for sailors the next day, on Saturday, when they left. She met him outside his front door, in a heavy white sweater, jeans, and her bright red sneakers, that always made her look like a kid to him. It was a cold, blustery day with a strong wind, and they took off out of the harbor at a good speed. The seas were rough that day, and he could see that Maggie loved it. The stewardess was seasick, and one of the men made lunch for them. They had sandwiches and tea, and Maggie sat smiling on the deck, next to Quinn, as they ate them. By late afternoon, the sun came out. They stayed on board for dinner, and were both happy and relaxed when they finally went home.

“You're so nice to share the boat with me. I don't know what I did to deserve all this,” Maggie said gratefully as they drove home. He had changed her life with his kindness and generosity, and now with their adventures on the Molly B. She had no idea how to thank him, and when she said as much to him, he said he enjoyed her company. He said he was going back on the boat the next day, and invited her to come with him again. “How rude would that be?” she asked him honestly, and he laughed at her. There was something lighter and happier about his tone these days. His friendship with Jack and Maggie had lightened the load for him. He seemed happier and far less gloomy.

“Not rude at all. I can be alone on her whenever I want. I was thinking of taking her out for a couple of days this week. I don't need to be alone tomorrow. Why don't you come?” She could see in his eyes that he meant it, and she enjoyed his company too. So she went with him.

They had perfect weather and a gentle breeze. They sat in the shelter of Angel Island, and sunbathed on deck. Quinn had brought shorts with him, and she wore a bathing suit. And by the time they left the boat that night, she felt as though they had been friends forever. He started talking about Jane on the way home. He told her about the poetry Jane had written to him, most of which he hadn't seen until after her death. But when he spoke of it now, he sounded proud more than bereft. He was healthier than he had been since her death.

“It's amazing how you think you know someone, and then find out you don't,” he said thoughtfully, and Maggie smiled and sighed as she looked at him as they drove home.

“I felt that way about Charles too, but not in the good way you mean. After he left, I wondered if I had ever known who he was in eighteen years of marriage. It's an odd feeling, and not a nice one, in his case. I think he hated me after Andrew died. He needed someone to blame, so he blamed me.”

She had had a double trauma in losing both of them, and Quinn could only guess at what it had done to her. He had seen it in her eyes the day they met, but her divorce papers had only arrived the day before. They weren't a surprise for her, but they must have hurt anyway, and he could only guess at how much. Her husband had delivered the ultimate one-two punch, and it had decked her for a while, but she seemed to be slowly coming back to life. Quinn's friendship had been an immense source of strength and peace for her, as had Jack's. But it was Quinn who, in some ways, was the anchor of the group. Jack was the common bond they shared. And Maggie was the light and joy and fun for Quinn, far more than she guessed, or knew. He enjoyed her sunny spirit, her energy, her dry humor, and occasionally insightful wit. But more than anything, he appreciated her tenderness and compassion, which she shared with him and Jack. She was the motherly woman's touch he and Jack both needed and sometimes longed for, without even knowing it. She was Peter Pan's Wendy to the two lost boys they had both been when they all met. And now they were all getting stronger.

Maggie heard from Jack that Quinn had gone out on the boat that week, and had sailed up the coast for two days. He came home on Friday morning, and was in good spirits when they met on Friday night. He told them all about it, and reported on his own boat's progress in Holland. Everything was going according to plan, and Maggie was happy for him, although she was beginning to dread what it would be like when he was gone for good. She and Jack would still have each other, but Jack seemed to be getting serious about the woman he had met, and she knew that one day there might no longer be room, or need, in his life for her. Eventually, in their own ways, they would all have to grow up and move on. But for the moment, it was so nice the way things were.

She sailed on the Molly B again with Quinn that weekend, and on Sunday night when he dropped her off, he invited her to come out on the boat with him again that week. They were starting to show his house, and he didn't want to be around. It was hard to believe that it was already early May. She had nothing else to do so she agreed to go with him. She told him she was turning into a sailing bum, and loving every minute of it.

The crew left them alone most of the time, except when Quinn and Maggie wanted to chat with them. And after lunch, as they sailed peacefully down the coast, she lay on the deck near Quinn and fell asleep, and when she woke, he was sound asleep himself, lying next to her. As she looked over at him, she smiled to herself, thinking that it had been a long time since she lay next to a man, even a friend.

“What are you smiling at?” His voice was a low, gentle rumble as she lay looking at him.

“How do you know I'm smiling? Your eyes are closed,” she said softly, wanting to cuddle up next to him, but she didn't want him to think she was strange. She was just hungry for human contact and affection. It had been so long since she'd had that. And the proximity to Quinn reminded her of that, and was very pleasant.

“I know everything,” he said wisely, as he opened his eyes and looked at her. They were near the bow of the boat, on comfortable mattresses, lying in the sun. The crew were on the fly bridge deck, and the aft deck, and it was nice to be alone. “What were you thinking when you were smiling?” he asked, as he rolled over, and looked at her, with one arm tucked under his head. It was almost like lying in bed next to him, while wearing all their clothes.

“I was smiling because you've been so kind to me … and I love being here with you, Quinn.… I'm going to miss you next winter when you're gone.”

“You'll be busy by then. You'll be teaching again.” He stopped for a minute, and looked at her, and then spoke very softly in their shelter from the wind, as they lay beneath the sails. It was the perfect place to be. “I'll miss you too,” he said honestly, surprised himself that he meant it.

“Will you be lonely out there all alone?” she asked, as she moved imperceptibly closer to him. She didn't realize she'd done that, nor did he. It just seemed easier to talk.

“It's what I need,” he said quietly. “I don't belong here anymore. I don't belong anywhere. My roots are gone… like our trees that fell last winter.… I've fallen, and I'm drifting out to sea.” Just hearing that made her sad for him. She wanted to hold out a hand, but she wasn't sure it would make any difference to him. There was no holding him back, and she had no right to anyway. All she could do was watch him leave and wish him well on his travels. Their time together was limited, and destined to end soon. “I was kind of that way when I was married too. I came and went a lot, but I never really felt I belonged anywhere. I always wanted to be free. My family paid a big price for that, but I couldn't have done it otherwise. I think Jane understood it, but it must have hurt her terribly.” It was what most of her poetry had been about, about letting him go, and knowing that he needed freedom more than he needed her. “I was always unhappy when I thought I was on a leash.”

“And if you had no leash?” she asked quietly.

“I would sail away and probably turn up again eventually, like a bottle in the ocean, with a message in it,” he said, smiling at her. He could smell her perfume again, and feel her warmth as she lay near him.

“What would the message be?” she asked gently, and without thinking, he put an arm around her and pulled her close to him, as they lay on their backs, looking up at the sky and the sails above them. There was nowhere else on earth either of them wanted to be, and no one else they would have wanted to be with. He was perfectly content lying next to her, and he hadn't felt that way in years, nor had she.

“The message would be,” he said thoughtfully, pondering it, “I can't be other than I am… even if I wanted to… the message would be I love you, but I have to be free…if not, I'll die… like a fish out of the ocean, gasping for air….I need the ocean and the sky, and the fine line of the horizon with nothing on it but the sun as it goes down…. That's all I want now, Maggie … wide, open, empty space. Maybe it was all I ever wanted, and I wasn't that honest with myself before. Now I have to be.” And then he looked down at her with her head on his shoulder, and he smiled. “Have you ever seen the green flash when the sun goes down? It just happens for an instant, and you have to be looking at just the right time. It's the most perfect moment in any sunset, and if you blink, you miss it.… That's all I want now… that perfect instant, the green flash when the sun goes down, and night comes. …I have to follow that wherever it leads me….”