Chapter 11: The Catboat

I looked at the catboat for a long time.

She was swinging gently on her mooring, her one fat sail furled on the boom, the morning sun on her old cedar.

My grandmother had taught me to tack in her when I was seventeen and couldn't look anybody in the eye.

"Where do I sign for the house?" I said.

The lawyer showed me.

I signed my whole name, Charlotte Wakefield, on three lines.

It took less time than reading the email Hugo hadn't read.

The lawyer blotted it and slid the next page over.

"And the boat."

"No."

He looked up.

"I'm sorry?"

"No," I said. "Not the boat."

He waited for me to explain.

I didn't.

Behind me, Bess had stopped breathing.

"Miss Wakefield did say you might be difficult about it," the lawyer said.

He put the page away very slowly.

"She asked me to tell you she'd come and discuss it in person."

"She knows where I am. She tagged it."

He left.

Bess waited until his car was over the hill, and then she screamed so loud a gull fell off the shed roof.

"You said no! You said no to them!"

"It was one word, Bess."

"It was the best word! It was the greatest word! Gran! She said no!"

Gran, on the porch, raised her coffee cup.

Arabella came the next afternoon.

She didn't come alone.

Two cars of reporters rolled down the dirt road ahead of her.

A man with a camera on his shoulder walked backward down the slip, filming her as she came.

White linen dress.

Pearl earrings.

Archer's ring.

She'd brought a box of pastries from the good bakery on Thames Street, which she held in front of her.

She found me on the slip, holding the pram we'd faired, while Seth and Bess turned it over.

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