word home. Jamal's strangeness would soon be confirmed, his dangerousness. He would receive no love or comfort after his mother died.
Ben would ruin him.
Water slapped the sides of the boat. A strand of kelp snaked past, its rubbery amber-colored pods floating like a string of miniature bowling pins. Ben turned the boat more directly into the wind, and it heeled so hard to port that his grandfather grabbed the railing for balance.
“We're going pretty fast,” his grandfather said.
“Yes, sir,” Ben answered.
“You're in charge, buddy. You're the sailor.”
“I know.”
Ben steered straight out, away from shore. Behind him, windowpanes flashed from rows of diminishing houses. His own hair whipped at his face and it seemed as if his compromised spirit was lashing him, irritating and weak. He brushed the hair angrily out of his face. The wind was getting stronger. It was probably time to take down the jib but Ben left it up, he wanted more wind and more speed. He wanted to lose himself, to sail so hard and fast he would be nothing but that, a claw cleaving the water. He turned more squarely into the wind. The mainsail and the jib had gone taut as balloons, the boat was heeling so far to port that water splashed up over the side. His grandfather looked back at him. Ben could see the fear on his old, weary face. For now, for a little while, his grandfather had left his world and entered another, a world Ben commanded. The boat was clipping along so fast the wind half blinded him, and he turned still another degree into it. His grandfather said, “Son, aren't we going a little fast?” Son, he'd called Ben son. He couldn't bear it, the love or the shame, and in a last spasm of love and shame he turned the boat too far and it capsized. Ben saw that it was happening. He saw water boil up over the side and he saw his grandfather's face, the pale confused rising of his soul from his body, and then the boat flipped over and spilled them both into the water.
She saw time passing. She saw that fear would be foolish, like wearing an extravagant hat on a windy day and cursing at the wind. Jamal spoke to her in a language she had once known. She was on fire and she felt fine.
The water felt wonderful. It was cold and utterly clean, alive with froth and the sting of salt. Ben lingered underwater, looking from the brightly wrinkled skin of the surface down into the green darkness below him. When he finally surfaced he saw his grand-father's sputtering head less than ten feet away.
“Are you okay?” his grandfather asked.
“Yeah. Are you?”
“What in the hell happened?”
“We capsized.”
“I know that.”
“We're okay,” Ben said. “We're not in any trouble.”
“How could this happen?”
“It happened.”
“Can we tip the boat up again?”
The boat lay on its side, its hull rising like the back of a small white whale, its sails floating gracefully. Ben looked at the boat and he looked at his grandfather's angry head.
This was the end of the little journey. Now it was time to right the boat, get in, and return to everything that waited on shore.
“It may be hard to do,” Ben said.
He wanted only to stay in the water, to join the cold nowhere of it.
“Salesman told me it wouldn't be a problem,” his grandfather said, paddling with his strong, thick arms and breathing heavily.
He was right. It would be easy to take hold of the gunnel and bring the boat back up out of the water.
Ben said, “I better go get help.”
“What are you talking about, get help? We don't need help.”
But Ben started swimming away. He wasn't ready to go yet, so he swam away. His grandfather shouted, “Where are you going?” Ben had no answer beyond the fact that he was swimming away. He wasn't going toward another boat. He wasn't going toward shore. He was going away and with each stroke of his arms he felt freer. Salt water slapped his face and he swam as hard and fast as he could. Ahead there was only more water, water and the blaze of the sky. He swam away from the boat and his grandfather. He only swam. He didn't think. He heard his grandfather calling his name but he was swimming away from that, too. He didn't stop. He didn't slow down.
Zoe laughed at the strangeness of it, the strangeness and the unexpected simplicity.