on land and get away from them whenever we like. Send them to school or leave them with babysitters.
Suddenly Fleur and Sybil decide to fly at the same time. They sail across the deck holding the same rope. Screaming. Their skirts whip in the wind & they are laughing.
Careful! Tomas shouts. Don’t hurt the Americans. They will sue us!
* * *
—
It’s morning. Georgie sleeps off his fever in the next room. My mother has just left for the bus stop with Sybil. Out my bedroom window, I watch them walk away together down the sidewalk. Sybil is wearing her galoshes, the ones that squelch, and a bright yellow jacket. She looks like a swordboat captain dressed for heavy weather. My mother throws her gauzy scarf over one shoulder. The spring wind plays with it. I lose sight of them.
I stand there at the window, looking at the empty length of sidewalk, worrying that I should not have made Sybil enter school so late in the year. But I came back to this town specifically to make things normal.
Normal.
Normal.
What an abnormal word.
It feels large and fatty in my mouth.
I step from the window. Where was I? Ah, yes, another day to stay alive. To host a pain so large that it crowds out selfhood. To my credit, I have extremely low expectations. I make the bed. Well done! I go to the window to see if my mother’s coming back yet. For one dazzling moment, I fear these few minutes alone in the house with Georgie. The house feels huge, absurd. I push open the closet door, sink to the floor upon my pillows, and feel immediate relief.
After a while, the front door opens. My mother shuffles in. I hear dishes clinking in the kitchen. I sit very still and listen to her movements. An hour passes.
I go into Georgie’s room to check on him. I lean over his bed and watch him breathe without strain. His face is turned decidedly toward the filmy light through the window. Does he dream of the boat? I touch his forehead. Warm, not burning. His eyelids flutter.
There is a form of dizziness that makes the sailor almost unable to exist on land. The inner ear gets so used to motion that stillness is intolerable. I remember the first time I woke up on land, at a hotel in Kingston after I got the news about Michael. As if it wasn’t bad enough to try to figure out how I had gotten there, as if it wasn’t bad enough that I had to face that shattering first day as a widow, the room started swinging like a picture on a hook. I clung to the mattress. Even now, as I stand upright, dizziness washes over me. I hold my head in my hands.
Are you OK?
I jump, hand to heart.
My mother watches from the doorway.
You scared me, I whisper.
Sorry. Everything OK? How’s George?
Fine, I say. He’s sleeping.
I leave the room on tiptoe and close the door behind me. We stand there for a moment in the hallway.
He’s always been a good sleeper, I say.
You were too, my mother says.
Was I?
Oh, yes. You could fall asleep anywhere as a child. At the dinner table even. Once, at the beach, you wandered off and fell asleep behind a sand dune. We were beside ourselves with worry. Until we found you there, snoring.
I lean against the wall, remembering with fondness.
Michael never slept, I say. He only needed a couple of hours of sleep, tops. But he never got tired. He was so efficient. When you think about it, sleeping seems so indulgent. I mean, why doesn’t the sleeper produce anything? Like an egg, or silk?
My mother laughs softly. We hear pistons. The garbage truck is inching up the street.
You shouldn’t worry about George, she says. It’s just a fever. It must be hard not to worry it’s something worse. But it’s not. Don’t worry.