Ship Fever Stories by Andrea Barrett

Author:Andrea Barrett
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780007392391
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

We stop here, usually, or actually a little before this: If one of us is telling tales to a stranger we stop with the raised glasses and the toast. As we do with our history, we try to maintain a light tone when we talk about that night. We try to make it sound like a tale of youthful excess, pharmaceutical madness; a last gasp from the seventies. The sort of escapade someone older and wiser can look back on with a smile.

Time passed. Lots of things happened to both of us, some important and some not. We met now and then, when Bianca passed through Boston on the tail end of some journey, but after that night we met casually, mimicking the interaction of any pair of sisters. Mostly we talked on the phone.

Our lives continued like this for almost a decade, until our father got sick and we went to Hammondsport to see him. During the time of his dying we saw each other intensely, intently, but where it counted we were as separate as stones and it seemed clearer than ever that the ruby fluid had failed us.

A year after that, though, we returned to Hammondsport for the first anniversary of our father’s death. What happened then is not a part of our history. We swore we’d never tell anyone and still can hardly mention it between us.

[3. Speaking with Suky]

You said, “Look down into the water. A hole will open if you spin the surface with your hand or a stick, and you will see what you need at the base of the hole.” We’re sure that’s what you said. Under clear skies, on a hot day, in a greenpainted Comet with natural trim, during a summer when we were still children and you were still around. We spun the water beside the boat with an extra paddle, twirling and twirling until a vortex formed. Looking down, into the hole that seemed to lead to the bottom of the lake, we saw grandpa Leo’s face.

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