The Pirate Queen Read online

  “He slept the whole way.”

  “When did you ride in an ambulance?” asked Emerald. She got down off the stepstool and put it back in the pantry.

  Saphora did not want Tobias to tell Emerald about his illness. “Who hasn’t ridden in an ambulance?” she asked.

  “I’ve ridden six times, maybe more,” said Tobias.

  “You haven’t!” said Emerald. “I once rode in an ambulance with my ex. Heart attack, he thought, but no. Just anxiety. Blamed it all on me, then served me with divorce papers.” Her voice was getting tinny, like it did before she started to cry.

  “Tobias, you know you can come here all you want, whether Eddie’s here or not. If you’re going up in the tree house, though, just let one of us know,” said Saphora.

  “I was born sick,” said Tobias to Emerald. “Liam probably told you. He tells everyone.”

  “That you’re doing so much better,” added Saphora. “Emerald, why don’t you take your cleaning project into the bathroom next to the library? I’m sure it needs attention. Sherry won’t be back for a few days.”

  Saphora had finally reached her with the news, poor thing. She was sobbing and promised she would stop in at Duke on the drive back.

  “I knew there was something peaked about your eyes. I’ll bet you’ve got leukemia. Poor little boy,” said Emerald.

  She was tuning up for a squall when Tobias said, “I don’t have leukemia, Miss Lacey.”

  “What then? Scoliosis? No, that’s not what I mean. What do they call that thing I’m trying to remember?” Em was mixing up her diseases and conditions. But that was Em.

  “HIV, ma’am.”

  “What is that? You don’t mean AIDS,” said Emerald. She came out of the library still toting the maid’s caddy. “Saphora, does Bender know?”

  “He’s a doctor,” said Tobias. “He knows everything.”

  “You can’t mean it. But what with Bender’s cancer, isn’t that taking a risk?” asked Emerald.

  “He’s fine, Emerald. Talk about something else,” said Saphora.

  “I’m going back to my house,” said Tobias. He hugged Saphora and was even polite to Emerald. “I’ll come back when Eddie’s here,” he said. He left through the front door. A moment later, he rode past the front window on his bike.

  “Really, Saphora, I understand your need for tolerance and all, but Bender’s very susceptible.”

  “Emerald, this is how it is. Tobias is a guest here whenever he decides to come over. Please don’t talk over his head as if he’s not here or ask him about his illness,” said Saphora. She was up to the ears with Emerald’s commentary. “Bender likes Tobias. He makes him happy when he’s around. If you understood anything at all about health, you’d know how important Tobias is to us.”

  “Again, you’re choosing someone else over me,” said Emerald. “But it’s always like that. I’m the last person on your list. Any excuse, and you shuffle me out of your life like refuse.”

  “I’m not shuffling you out of my life. It isn’t that, and you know it, Emerald. If you’d just stop and listen, I wouldn’t mind explaining these sensitive matters to you.”

  “Like I’m a five-year-old. Is that what you mean?” asked Emerald.

  “More like when you bury your head in the sand, you can’t see the world around you.” Saphora had not meant for her resentment against her sister to erupt into a full-blown squabble. “I do it too, Em.” She had done well to hold her tongue up until this point. “But Tobias is a little boy born sick. Does it not come to you, without any prompting, that he needs a little sensitivity?”

  “I only say what I say to show I care.” Now she was blubbering so much she was hard to understand. She dropped the caddy onto the kitchen countertop. “I’m not lifting a finger to help in a house where I’m so disrespected. That’s what I do, allow myself to be used. It’s my plight.”

  Emerald would not fly back to Chicago until Thursday. Saphora would count the days.

  Later in the evening, Saphora ate her dinner upstairs on the bedroom patio. Emerald took to sulking so much that it made being around her all the more depressing. Saphora left an open container on the stovetop for Emerald to find and warm over.

  She got to the lukewarm corn on her plate, moving it around until it tasted more like the peas. Bender’s phone vibrated on the nightstand. She picked it up but the number did not identify the caller. Bender had missed thirty-seven calls. She had not gotten that many calls in a year. Come to think of it, not one neighbor from Davidson had called to check on her or Bender, at least not on her phone.

  The river was down since it had not rained in over a week. A flock of geese had landed in the backyard and ratcheted up the noise so much that Saphora yelled to shoo them. The birds were running back and forth to the water’s edge. She set her plate on the patio table and then closed her eyes. When she opened them, she found she had fallen asleep and night had come. She could hear Emerald shuffling around below her on the lower deck. Her sister had lit a candle and turned on a country radio station. It was playing too loudly, but Luke would be the only one to hear it.

  The moon was a sharp crescent hanging over the river as if it had been dropped accidentally and precariously dangled over the Neuse.

  The light came on across the fence. The gate opened slightly and Luke said, “Saphora! Emerald! Come over. I’ve got something to ask you.”

  Saphora groaned. She was not ready to share a conversation with Emerald around. Emerald was surprised to know Saphora was on the upper deck looking down on her. She turned quietly. “Saphora is coming, Luke. I’m going inside,” she told him.

  “It will only take a minute, Emerald,” he told her. “You come too.”

  Saphora turned off Bender’s phone completely and dropped it into the nightstand drawer. By the time she slipped on shoes and made it down to the lower deck, Emerald had already met Luke inside his fence, probably to avoid eye contact with her sister. Luke waited inside his gate. He said, “I’ve made something. I need your opinion.” He led Saphora and Emerald into his garage. The lights were bright from above and below. He had strung lights from the rafters and then clamped more lights onto the wall joists. His pottery projects took up one side of the garage, leaving the other side for his small car. “This is what I made for Gwennie.” It was the vase she had told Saphora about. It was big enough for a hotel lobby, tall enough to sit on the floor and still be waist high on Luke. Around the shoulders of the vase were ornately fashioned scrolls and embellishments. He had mixed pots of stain and lined them up next to the vase on a stand.

  Luke turned a spotlight directly onto the vase. The embellishments were small fish undulating around the vase’s widest perimeters. “Gwennie loved the idea of a fish motif. She told me she saves bowls of seashells and starfish.”

  “Since she was really young,” said Saphora.

  “I found an ancient fish pattern and used that,” he said. “It’s Native American.”

  “What are those lines going down the vase?” asked Saphora.

  “Native Americans believe the soul travels south after death. So the lines represent the journey from life to the afterlife.”

  “It’s beautiful, Luke,” said Saphora.

  Emerald was still angry with her and did not seem to want to comment right after her. But finally she said, “It’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen. Gwennie will love it. I love fish too,” she said. “When do I get my vase, Luke?”

  “You know her tastes, Saphora. What do you think of this blue green stain?” he asked. “I’ll contrast it with a bronze, a flourish of gold, and then I’ll use a walnut-tinted stain blended from the bottom up.”

  “You’ve got impeccable style,” said Saphora.

  “I’ll have to ship it. She’ll never get it home on a plane.”

  “Her birthday’s in three weeks,” said Saphora. “Perfect timing.”

  “It’s Gwennie’s birthday? That’s like her not to tell me,” he said.

  �
�She’s not given it a second thought,” said Saphora.

  “My Tom starts planning his birthday the day after the last one,” said Emerald.

  “Given the fact she’s had her life caught up in everyone else’s business, she’ll be elated you’re sending it just for that,” said Saphora. “She’s coming this weekend. She knows you’re making it, though, right?”

  “She’s not really seen it. Not like this. I’ll tell her I had to start over. I’ll put out another piece that I’m working on. It’s not as beautiful as this one,” said Luke.

  “That is a thought,” said Saphora. “The last thing she’d do was look around for it if you used another one as a decoy.”

  “I can hide it at my cousin’s motel,” he said.

  Saphora did not comment.

  Emerald said, “I’m headed back to the house. But thanks for including me in your project for Gwennie.” There was still that wounded child in Emerald who was slinging arrows Saphora’s way. She left the garage and closed the door behind her.

  “Is Emerald all right?” asked Luke.

  “Just a little testy. I made her mad,” said Saphora. “She thinks I’ve got it in for her.”

  “Gwennie says she’s sensitive.” He lifted his brows and made her laugh.

  “She got like that when she was young. She didn’t have the highest IQ between us. Then our father was a doctor and our mother was a college professor.” Saphora remembered how so often it seemed as if Emerald was asking to be picked on. It was as if it was her way of drawing attention to herself, even if it was negative attention. “She didn’t aspire like the rest of us.”

  “She’s a really nice lady. She seems tender,” said Luke.

  Luke was kind to notice Emerald’s good points. But she could not bring herself to compliment her when it seemed so false. “Your vase is not like anything I could go and buy. I might commission you to make one for me.”

  “I have some sample books. You can look at them and let me know if any of my past pieces appeal to you.”

  He made her a chai tea, and she went through all of his large notebooks. He kept photographs of his work dating back ten years.

  “I like them all,” she said.

  “Find your favorite. It will say something about you.”

  “This small one looks like a river stone.”

  “Is that your favorite?”

  “For some reason, yes.”

  “You’re an earth mother.”

  “Not according to Gwennie.”

  “You make sure everyone in your circle is well fed, nurtured.”

  “That’s a ploy so I can get them all out of my hair.”

  “Or you love deeply.”

  “I wish I could see what you see.”

  “You see life minimized down to its most basic and honest equations.”

  “Such as?”

  “Believing that time will give you the answers you seek.”

  “You got all that out of my picking out a vase?”

  “And observation.”

  “Luke, if I may ask, how is it that you see love in me? When I look in the mirror all I see is a critic and a cynic.”

  “Maybe your inner critic is working overtime. If I didn’t shut that guy up, I’d never finish a single piece of pottery.” He pulled out a worksheet and wrote a note about Saphora’s pottery selection. “You have more control over those inner voices than you realize.”

  Grief must have its benefits. Wisdom spilled out of Luke like an artesian well.

  “There’s a dance downtown this Thursday. Gwennie won’t be back, and I’m sure she would like it if I got her mother out of the house,” said Luke.

  “You’re inviting me to a dance? What makes you think I can dance?”

  “Everyone can dance.”

  “Where’s the dance?”

  “Down at the town hall. It’s Salsa and Salsa night.”

  “I don’t know anything about salsa dancing. Bender and I are old rockers.”

  Luke turned on a CD in the player next to his box of tools. The music was soft. He turned to the left and then the right. “I’ll show you the steps.” He demonstrated a basic salsa movement. Then he took Saphora in his arms. He was comfortable with intimacy. He talked just as comfortably looking straight into her eyes as he did across the room.

  “I’m clumsy,” she said.

  “No apologies.” He showed her another move. “Just follow me as I do it.”

  She placed one hand in his and the other around his back. She remembered when Bender was lean and fit like Luke. He had taken her dancing in uptown Charlotte at a small dance club. She practiced dancing privately for several days leading up to their first real date. Bender had moved like an athlete. But Luke moved more gracefully. Saphora felt his hips leading hers. He spun her away and then back.

  “Mrs. Warren, you’ve been keeping yourself in that house cooking and cleaning for too long. You are a dancer, madam.”

  He turned up the song. The rhythm was driving. She could see the shop lights around the garage spinning as he turned her around.

  “We’re coming to the finale, Saphora. I’m going to spin you out and then back and then I want you to trust me. Drop backward over my arm.”

  She did as he asked. He moved her out and then back next to him. Her arms came free, and she lifted them up overhead as she arched back over his arm. She could feel the strength of years of pottery making in his forearm as he held her up effortlessly.

  “You’re wonderful!” he said. He helped her straighten up.

  She imagined Bender holding her that night at the dance. He had pulled her close and kissed her. But what was the name of the song? She could not for the life of her remember. It was crowded out by too many other details collected in daily living. Saphora opened her eyes and realized she had nearly put her lips on Luke’s. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “You’re missing your spouse,” he said. “I understand exactly what you’re going through.” He stepped back from her and turned off the song. He was so amiable, putting her at ease. “Thursday night. Sevenish. Come over here and I’ll drive us.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t,” she said.

  “You’re completely safe with me, Saphora. Of all people, I’m the one who should be escorting you around. Gwennie would want it.”

  “It would look like I’m out on the town while my husband is in a coma.” She shook her head. “Thanks anyway. Good night, Luke.” She left Luke’s creative womb of a garage. When she crossed the lawn, Emerald was sitting on the lower deck again.

  “I heard music,” she said.

  “You were hearing things,” said Saphora. She went upstairs, flush from dancing with Luke.

  14

  We grow primarily through our challenges, especially those life-changing moments when we begin to recognize aspects of our nature that make us different from the family and culture in which we have been raised.

  CAROLINE MYSS

  Emerald made two pots of coffee while waiting for their mother, Daisy, to arrive.

  It took a lot of planning to please Professor Daisy; a White House planner might be overwhelmed attempting to please her.

  Emerald had been on the outs with her mother since she had gotten pregnant before college. But Daisy learned to overlook Emerald’s indiscretions when she fell in love with her first grandchild. No one knew whether or not he looked like his father since she had kept his name a secret. The man who eventually married her gave Tom his name but never fully his devotion.

  Emerald, who had trouble enough juggling her own changing expectations, took up next with a house painter. When he struggled to stay off the sauce, she moved out of his little house by the railroad tracks and went to work for a lady who sold knitting supplies. Emerald started sweaters she did not finish, scarves that lay on her closet shelf still tied to the skein. But she learned enough skills to navigate the knitter’s language and help the customers find what they had come to purchase. Emerald’s boss promoted her to the h
ead manager of the Spin-A-Yarn shop, a loft business in downtown Chicago.

  While Saphora put together a lunch of tomato bisque and field greens, Emerald sat knitting in the place warmed by Bender the past few weeks. “I’m making a wall hanging for your bedroom upstairs, Saphora. Blue and beige. Do you prefer a rose border or seashells? Wait. I know already. It should be seashells.”

  “Mother wants me to take her straight to see Bender tomorrow morning. I called the nurses’ station. There’s been no change,” said Saphora. She was comforted Emerald was not shooting bullets every time she looked at her. She was quick to forgive.

  “I remember when Daddy was comatose,” said Emerald. “I kept talking over him until Mother made me quit. She thought it was annoying him. But if it snaps them out of it, then what does it matter?”

  “Bender told me a million times that his father died in his sleep. He said the Warren men are blessed to live until they just go to sleep. I always thought Bender would go like his daddy,” said Saphora.

  “There’s no way to know. I wonder if I’ll go like Mother’s mom and sisters. They all had accidents. That sounds like a curse when you think about it.”

  “The Horn women all died of cancer, Emerald,” said Saphora.

  “Grandma got up in the middle of the night, fell, and cracked her ribs,” said Emerald.

  “But that was a complication. She was dying of cancer.” She doubled the bags, making stronger tea. “I hear a car in the driveway.”

  Emerald picked up the pace, knitting faster.

  “I’ll get the door then,” said Saphora. Daisy was already waiting on the doorstep by the time Saphora got there. “Mother, here you are. You should have let me pick you up.” She hugged her mother, even though Daisy was not a hugger.

  “I never thought the ocean would look so brown. Hello, lovie,” said Daisy.

  “That’s the Neuse,” said Saphora. “It does empty out into the ocean though.”

  “Oh, the Neuse! I knew that.”

  Emerald sat with her back to them, knitting on the sofa.

  “Emerald, are you helping your sister?” asked Daisy.