Chapter 9: Nassau

"That's her," Lawton said.

He was staring at the water where his beer had gone in.

"That's Mariel."

I played it again.

I didn't mean to be cruel.

I needed to hear it twice.

"Stop spending my husband's money, sweetheart."

Lazy. Amused. Not one ounce of fear in it.

"She called me," I said. "She found my number and she called me to laugh at me."

"Rue."

"I'm going down there."

He turned his head.

"To Nassau?"

"The card was swiped at a marina bar. Bartenders remember people who tip. I'd remember her."

"You're fourteen weeks pregnant."

"I'm pregnant, not made of glass. I worked a roast for three hundred people tonight."

"Then I'm coming."

"I didn't ask you."

"I know." He stood up. "She was my wife. Whatever she did, she did it to you with my name. I'm coming."

I wanted to say no on principle.

I looked at his face and couldn't.

"Fine. But I do the talking at the bar."

"Fine."

Clancy came out of the dark with a beer in each hand, having heard everything.

"Nobody's flying commercial," he said. "I'll take you down in the Piper. Leave at seven."

"You have a plane?" I said.

"I fly fishermen to the islands. Didn't Lawton ever tell you?"

"Lawton never told me anything."

Clancy looked at his best friend.

"Well," he said, "that tracks."

The Piper was old and white with a blue stripe and six seats that smelled like suntan lotion.

Clancy wore aviators and sang the whole way down along the coast of Florida.

Lawton sat beside me in the back and didn't say a word for an hour.

Then, over the blue water south of Bimini, he said, "I picked out the songs at her memorial."

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