you’d think torture would run contrary to Divine Will, but there you have it.
Does the arc of history bend toward justice? Well there is no arc of history. That makes history sound like it has an ending, like a rainbow. No. It just keeps bending & bending…
* * *
—
I jump—there’s a knock on the closet door.
Juliet, my mother whispers through the wooden slats. Juliet.
In here, I say.
She parts the closet doors and peeks in. Her damp skin looks radiant in the soft light. We stare at each other for a moment.
Are they asleep? I ask.
Yes.
Come in, I say.
She looks doubtful. Come in there? With you? Are you sure?
I clear a space next to me, moving my sweatshirt, books, wrappers, laptop. Slowly she maneuvers herself down beside me. Her old knees crack. She swats back the sleeves of Michael’s shirts.
We both stare myopically into the logbook. I flip forward again.
He sure did have a lot to say, mutters my mother.
He could be a real windbag, I say.
March 12. Hotter than Hades. Kids spent the day in tiny swimming pool at Casa Relax. A late-afternoon downpour sent us all to the room where there is this exotic thing called AIR-CONDITIONING. We all sat bathing in the Freon…sublime. The heat doesn’t quit until dusk. Everybody in this state of suspended animation. Too hot for birds to fly, too hot for dogs to bark, too hot for everything but the mosquitoes. Those wait until dark, then they like to make feasts of your ankles. We slather the kids w/ DEET. As for me, I don’t like the stuff.
W/ reluctance, got new SAT phone. Will help to make plans w/ other cruisers & to keep in touch w/ Therese & Mom, plus we can be found in an emergency.
Also, finally got around to calling Harry to see how he’s doing,
* * *
—
There, my mother says. That’s him!
owed it to the guy. But as soon as we started talking, Harry rolled right onto the old track, “Why don’t you bring the boat back now, we’ll sell her, make lots of cabbage, or you can keep her at the marina, if you don’t want to sell, sail her around the Long Island Sound all summer etc. etc.” Suddenly I think, Maybe it’s not about the money at all. It’s like he misses me.
I am processing this thought when out of nowhere he tells me he’s coming to Cartagena.
I laugh nervously. I’m like, You are?
Yeah, he says. I love that city. Always thought I might retire there.
When I don’t say anything like, Great!! Or, Can’t wait to see you!! he gets this kind of wounded tone and says he’s got another boat he wants to buy down here.
I won’t bother you, he says. He has a hotel where he always stays, he says. In Getsemani.
Before I catch myself, I’m saying our hotel is in Getsemani too.
What’s the name of it?
Casa Relax, I say.
Then everything’s smoothed over. Like he’s relieved just to get this one crumb of information. Now he knows how to find me. And I think, No skin off my back. Call the guy. Hang out w/ the guy. I kick myself a couple times for getting into this fix. Need to convince him to let me out of the contract. Fine. Will do this in person.
* * *
—
My mother and I glance at each other. I skim ahead, but it’s just page after page of fine-grain detail about boat transmissions, coffee, the arc of fucking history…
Maybe it would be easier to go backward, I say.
I skip straight to the last page of the book, where the pages are blank.
As I turn the pages backward, page after smooth and empty page, the pages compound my grief. I cannot help thinking, These are all the words