Maren produced the nightdress, and the Court said to Mr. Yeaton that it did not see how the buttons and the nightdress were relevant.
“We will connect them hereafter and offer them again,” Yeaton answered.
Rich stands at the chart table, a microphone uncoiled and in his hand. Staticky sounds — a man’s even, unemotional voice -drone from the radio over the quarter berth, but I cannot understand what the man is saying. Rich seems to, however, and I watch as he bends closer to the charts, sweeping one away onto the floor altogether and examining another. I am looking for a sweater for Billie.
Rich puts the microphone back into its holder and makes markings on a chart with a ruler and a pencil. “We’ve got a front coming in faster than they thought,” he says with his back to Thomas and me. “They’re reporting gusts of up to fifty miles an hour. Thunderstorms and lightning as well.” A wave hits the sail-boat side to and floods the deck. Seawater sprays into the cabin through the open companionway. Rich reaches up with one hand and snaps the hatch shut.
“The wind alone could put us up on the rocks,” he says. “I’m going to motor in towards Little Harbor, the same as the other boat, but even if we get caught out in the open, we’ll be better off than we’d be here. There’s not enough swinging room.” He turns and looks from Thomas to me and back to Thomas, and seems to be making lists in his mind. He is still in his wet T-shirt and shorts, though this is a different Rich from the one I saw earlier, organized and in charge. Alarmed, but not panicked.
“Thomas, I need you to put sail ties on the main. Jean, I want you to heat some soup and hot coffee and put it into thermoses, and put dry matches, bread, toilet paper, socks, and so on — you decide — into Ziploc bags. We need to lock down everything in the cabin — drawers, your cameras, the binoculars, anything in the galley that could shift. There are cargo straps in that drawer over there if you need them. Get Adaline to help you. We want all the hatches tightly closed.” Rich turns around to the chart table. “And you’ll need these.”
He opens the slanted desk top and pulls out a vial of pills, which he tosses to Thomas. “Seasickness pills,” he says. “Each of you take one — even you, Thomas — and give a half of one to Billie. It could be a little uncomfortable today. And Thomas, there are diving masks under the cushions in the cockpit. Those are sometimes useful in the rain for visibility. Where is Adaline?”
Thomas gestures toward the forward cabin.
“She’s sick?”
Thomas nods.
I look at my daughter, struggling with the jacket of the foul-weather gear. I open a drawer to retrieve the plastic bags. Beside the drawer, the stove is swinging. I realize that it is not the stove that is swinging, but rather the sloop itself. Seeing this, I feel, for the first time, an almost instantaneous queasiness. Is seasickness in the mind? I wonder. Or have I simply been too busy to notice it before?
Rich goes to the forward cabin and leaves the door open. Adaline is still lying motionless on the berth; she has thrown her arm across her eyes. I watch Rich peel off his wet clothes. How casual we are being with our nakedness, I think.
Rich dresses quickly in jeans and a sweatshirt. I can hear his voice, murmuring to Adaline, but I cannot hear the precise words. I want to know the precise words. He comes out and pulls on a pair of foul-weather pants and a jacket. He slips his feet back into his wet boat shoes. I can see that he is still thinking about the storm, making mental lists, but when he walks past me to go up on deck, he stops at the bottom of the ladder and looks at me.
It is strange enough that just a half hour before I was willing — no, trying — to make love with my brother-in-law. But it seems almost impossibly strange with my daughter in the berth and my husband at the sink. I feel an odd dissonance, a vibration, as though my foot had hit a loose board, set something in motion.
Thomas turns just then from the faucet, where he has been pouring water into a paper cup. In