Chapter 22: Ice-Out

The whole yard turned out for the launch.

The crew stood in two lines down the ramp in clean jackets, and the harbor board came with folding chairs.

The Carol Ann hung in the travel lift above the water, dripping, her white hull scrubbed and her mother's name fresh on the stern.

My father stood at the foot of the ramp with his hat in his hands.

He had been quiet all morning.

"Vic-Vic," he said, and held out a green bottle with a ribbon on its neck. "Your mother named her. Somebody should break it who knew her."

"Dad, I was twelve."

"You knew her best."

I took the bottle.

It was cold and heavier than it looked.

Gabe stood beside the lift with the control box in his hand, waiting for the nod.

He looked at me, and I looked at him, and neither of us said anything in front of eighty people.

I stepped up to the bow.

"I name this boat the Carol Ann," I said, and my voice shook. "God bless her and everyone who sails in her."

I swung the bottle.

It broke on the first try, spraying foam over my hands and the hull, and the crew roared.

Gabe lowered the lift.

The boat slid into the lake with a long hush, rose, and settled and floated.

My father put his handkerchief over his face.

I went to him and put both arms around him.

"She's back," he said into my hair. "Look at her. She's back in the water."

"She is."

"Your mother would have hated the speech."

"She'd have made a sandwich."

He laughed with his whole chest and wept at the same time, and the crew pretended to look at the clouds.

Then someone shoved a plastic cup of beer into my hand and someone else started the music, and the day became a party.

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