What made it so hard was that it seemed as though he couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t around. They had known each other most of their lives and had attended the same schools throughout their younger years. In third grade they were best friends, and he gave her two cards on Valentine’s Day, but after that, they drifted apart and simply coexisted as they progressed from one grade to the next. Catherine was gangly and thin, always the smallest in her class, and though Garrett always held a special place in his heart for her, he never noticed that she was slowly becoming an attractive young woman. They never went to a prom together or even to a movie, but after four years at Chapel Hill, where he majored in marine biology, he bumped into her at Wrightsville Beach and suddenly realized how foolish he had been. She was no longer the gangly girl he remembered. In a word, she was beautiful, with wonderful curves that made men and women alike turn their heads whenever she walked past them. Her hair was blond and her eyes held infinite mystery; and when he finally closed his gaping mouth and asked her what she was doing later, they started a relationship that eventually led to marriage and six wonderful years together.
On their wedding night, alone in a hotel room lit only by candles, she handed him the two valentines he’d once given her and laughed aloud when she saw the expression on his face when he realized what they were. “Of course I kept them,” she whispered as she wrapped her arms around him. “it was the first time I ever loved someone. Love is love, no matter how old you are, and I knew that if I gave you enough time, you’d come back to me.”
Whenever Garrett found himself thinking of her, he remembered either the way she looked that night or how she looked the very last time they went sailing. Even now he remembered that evening clearly—her blond hair blowing wildly in the breeze, her face rapturous as she laughed aloud.
“Feel the spray!” she cried exultantly as she stood at the bow of the boat. Holding on to a line, she leaned out into the wind, her profile outlined against the glittering sky.
“Be careful!” Garrett shouted back, holding the wheel steady.
She leaned out even farther, glancing back at Garrett with a mischievous smile.
“I’m serious!” he shouted again. For a moment it looked as if her grip were weakening. Garrett quickly stepped away from the wheel, only to hear her laugh again as she pulled herself upright. Ever light on her feet, she made her way back easily to the wheel and put her arms around him.
Kissing his ear, she whispered playfully, “Did I make you nervous?”
“You always make me nervous when you do things like that.”
“Don’t sound so gruff,” she teased. “Not when I’ve finally got you all to myself.”
“You have me all to yourself every night.”
“Not like this,” she said as she kissed him again. After a quick scan around them, she smiled. “Why don’t we lower the sails and drop the anchor?”
“Now?”
She nodded. “Unless, of course, you’d rather sail all night.” With a subtle look that betrayed nothing, she opened the door to the cabin and vanished from sight. four minutes later the boat was hastily stabilized and he opened the door to join her. . . .
Garrett exhaled sharply, dispelling the memory like smoke. Though he could remember the events of that evening, he found that as time was rolling on, it was becoming more and more difficult to visualize exactly the way she looked. Little by little her features were beginning to vanish before his eyes, and though he knew that forgetting helped to deaden the pain, what he wanted most of all was to see her again. In three years he’d looked through the photo album only once, and that had hurt so much he’d sworn it was the last time he’d ever do it. Now he saw her clearly only at night, after he’d fallen asleep. He loved it when he dreamed of her because it seemed as though she were still alive. She would talk and move, and he would hold her in his arms, and for a moment it seemed that everything was suddenly right in the world. Yet the dreams took a toll as well, because upon waking, he always felt exhausted and depressed. Sometimes he’d go to the shop and lock himself in the office for the entire morning so he wouldn’t have to talk to anyone.
His father tried to help as best he could. He, too, had lost a wife and so knew what his son was going through. Garrett still visited him at least once a week and always enjoyed the company his father provided. He was the one person Garrett shared a real understanding with, a feeling reciprocated by the old man. Last year his father had told him that he should start dating again. “It isn’t right that you’re always alone,” he’d said. “It’s almost like you’ve given up.” Garrett knew there was a measure of truth to that. But the simple fact was that he had no desire to find anyone else. He hadn’t made love to a woman since Catherine had died, and worse, he’d felt no desire for that, either. It was as if part of him were dead inside. When Garrett asked his father why he should take the advice when he himself had never re-married, his father simply looked away. But then his father said something else that haunted them both, something he later wished he hadn’t said at all.
“Do you really think it’s possible for me to find someone else who’s good enough to take her place?”
In time, Garrett returned to the shop and started working again, doing his best to go on with his life. He stayed at the shop as late as he could, organizing files and rearranging his office, simply because it was less painful than going home. He found that if it was dark enough outside by the time he got back to his house and he turned on only a few lights, he didn’t notice her things as much and her presence wasn’t as strong. He got used to living alone again, cooking, cleaning, and doing his own laundry, and he even worked in the garden as she used to, though he didn’t enjoy it as much as she did.
He thought he was getting better, but when the time came to pack up Catherine’s things, he didn’t have the heart to do it. His father eventually took matters into his own hands. After a weekend spent diving, Garrett came home to a house stripped of her belongings. Without her things, the house was empty; he no longer saw any reason to stay. He sold it within a month, moved to a smaller house on Carolina Beach, thinking that by leaving, he’d finally be able to move on. And he had, kind of, for over three years now.
His father hadn’t found everything, though. In a small box that sat in his end table, he kept a few things that he couldn’t bear to part with—the valentine cards he’d once given her, her wedding ring, and other things that people wouldn’t understand. Late at night he liked to hold them in his hands, and even though his father sometimes commented that he seemed to be doing better, he would lie there thinking that no, he wasn’t. To him, nothing would ever be the same again.
* * *
Garrett Blake went to the marina with a few minutes to spare so he could get Happenstance ready. He removed the sail cover, unlocked the cabin, and generally checked everything out.
His father had called just as he was stepping out the door on the way to the docks, and Garrett found himself remembering the conversation.
“Would you like to come for supper?” he’d asked.
Garrett had replied that he couldn’t. “I’m going sailing with someone tonight.”
His father had stayed quiet for a moment. Then: “With a woman?”
Garrett explained briefly how he and Theresa met.
“You sound like you’re a little nervous about your date,” his father remarked.
“No, Dad, I’m not nervous. And it’s not a date. Like I said, we’re just going sailing. She said she’d never gone before.”
“Is she pretty?”
“What does that matter?”
“It doesn’t. But it still sounds like a date to me.”
“It’s not a date.”
“If you say so.”
* * *
Garrett saw her walking up the dock a little after seven, dressed in shorts and a red sleeveless shirt, carrying a small picnic basket in one hand and a sweatshirt and light jacket in the other. She didn’t look as nervous as he felt, nor did her expression betray what she was thinking as she approached him. When she waved, he felt some familiar pangs of guilt and quickly waved back before he finished untying the lines. He was mumbling to himself and doing his best to clear his mind when she reached the boat.
“Hi,” she said easily. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”
He took off the gloves he was wearing as he spoke. “Oh, hi. And no—I haven’t been waiting long at all. I came out here a little early to get her ready.”
“Did you finish everything you needed?”
He glanced around to make sure. “Yeah, I think so. Can I help you up?”
He set aside the gloves and extended his arm. Theresa handed him her things, and he set them on one of the seats that ran along the deck. When he took her hands to pull her up, she felt the calluses on his palms. After she was safely aboard, he motioned toward the wheel, taking a small step backward.
“Are you ready to head out?”
“Whenever you are.”
“Then go ahead and take a seat. I’m going to get us out onto the water. Do you want anything to drink before we get going? I have some soda in the refrigerator.”
She shook her head. “No thanks. I’m fine right now.”
She looked around the boat before finding a seat in the corner. She watched as he turned a key and the sound of an engine hummed to life. Then, stepping away from the wheel, he released the two lines that held the boat in place. Slowly Happenstance began to back out of its slip. A little surprised, Theresa said, “I didn’t know there was an engine.”
He turned and answered over his shoulder, speaking loudly enough so that she could hear him. “It’s a small one—just enough power to get us in and out of the slip. We put a new one in when we rebuilt her.”
Happenstance cleared the slip, then the marina. Once it was safely in the open water of the Intracoastal Waterway, Garrett turned into the wind and cut the engine. After putting on his gloves, he raised the sails quickly. Happenstance heeled to the breeze, and in one quick motion, Garrett was next to Theresa, leaning his body close.
“Watch your head—the boom is going to swing over you.”
The next few actions came furiously. She ducked her head and watched as it all happened just the way he said it would. The boom moved above her, carrying the sail with it to capture the wind. When it was in the correct position, he used the lines to secure it again. Before she had time to blink, he was back at the wheel, making adjustments and looking over his shoulder at the sail, as if to be sure he had done everything correctly. The whole thing had taken less than thirty seconds.
“I didn’t know you had to do everything so quickly. I thought sailing was a leisurely sport.”
He looked over his shoulder again. Catherine used to sit in the same spot, and with the setting sun splitting the shadows, there was a brief moment when he thought it was her. He pushed the thought away and cleared his throat.
“It is, when you’re out on the ocean with no one else around. But right now we’re on the Intracoastal, and we have to do our best to set a course out of the way of the other boats.”
he held the wheel almost perfectly still, and Theresa felt Happenstance gradually picking up speed. She got up from her seat and started back toward Garrett, stopping when she reached his side. The breeze was blowing, and though she could feel it on her face, it didn’t seem strong enough to fill a sail.
“All right, I think we’ve got it,” he said with an easy smile, glancing at her. “We should be able to make it without having to tack. Unless the wind changes, of course.”
They moved toward the inlet. Because she knew he was concentrating on what he was doing, she kept quiet as she stood next to him. From the corner of her eye, she watched him—his strong hands on the wheel, his long legs shifting his weight as the boat heeled in the wind.
In the lull of conversation, Theresa looked around. Like most sailboats, this one had two levels—the lower outside deck, where they were standing, and the forward deck, about four feet higher, which stretched to the front of the boat. That was where the cabin was located, and there were two small windows, coated on the outside with a thin layer of salt that made it impossible to see inside. A small door led into the cabin, low enough that people had to duck their heads to keep from bumping them.
Turning back to him, she wondered how old Garrett was. In his thirties, probably—she couldn’t pin it down any more than that. Looking at him closely didn’t really help—his face was a little worn, almost windblown, giving him a distinctive appearance that no doubt made him appear older than he actually was.
She thought again that he wasn’t the most handsome man she’d ever seen, but there was something arresting about him, something indefinable.
Earlier, when she’d spoken with Deanna on the phone, she’d tried to describe him, but because he didn’t look like most of the men she knew in Boston, she’d had a hard time. She’d told Deanna that he was about her age, handsome in his own way and fit, but that he looked natural, as if his strength were simply the result of the life he’d chosen to live. That was about as close as she could get at the time, though after seeing him up close again, she thought she wasn’t so far off.
Deanna was thrilled when Theresa told her about going sailing later that evening, though Theresa had gone through a period of doubt immediately afterward. For a while she worried about being alone with a stranger—especially out in the open water—but she convinced herself that her worries were unfounded. It’s just like any other date , she’d told herself most of the afternoon. Don’t make a big deal out of this . When it was time for her to head to the docks, however, she almost didn’t. In the end, she’d decided it was something she had to do, mainly for herself, but also because of the grief Deanna would have given her if she didn’t.