Laura had no illusions about her feelings for Colin. She wanted him the way she had been wanting the wind: with all her heart and soul. She spent her turn at the wheel in a trance, like someone does who drives alone on an empty highway at night. There was time enough and more to relive Colin's kisses; time enough, and more, to turn away desire. But her heart, like the wheel, seemed to be turning from one side to the other: to Sam, and the solid ties of marriage; to Colin, and the wild unknown. She brushed away a windblown strand of her hair with her hand and smelled Kentucky Standard. Sam's tobacco. Colin's tobacco.
When Stubby came up on deck to relieve her he took one look around, braced himself against the boats pitching angle, and said, "Holy cow! This is more wind than I've seen in a while. Shouldn't we take in a reef?"
It was true. While Laura was off on another planet, the wind had been steadily increasing. If she meant to keep her word to Sam to be careful, she would have to turn out all hands to shorten sail. "I suppose we must," she said, reluctant to disturb anyone's precious hours of sleep off-watch. Besides, it was a nerve-wracking, harrowing business, especially at night.
But shorten sail they did. Laura pointed the Virginia's bow up into the wind and held it there, her teeth chattering from the noise and wind, while Colin lowered each wildly slatting sail in turn, and Billy and Stubby bound up the lower part of the sail in reef knots. She held her breath while Billy climbed out along the footrope of the main boom to tie in the last few reefs in the sail; one wrong step and he'd be in the ocean. Billy had reefed the mainsail a hundred times before, in far worse conditions; but Laura's nerves were still a jangled mess from the near-miss with Neil.
At last they had the sails down to a more manageable size. The Virginia moved along on a more comfortable angle of heel, taking only occasional spray over her decks. She seemed less like a runaway horse, more like a slow but steady pack mule. There were no congratulations that a difficult task had been done well; it was part of the routine at sea. With a collective sigh of relief, Billy, Colin, and Laura went below to salvage what sleep they could.
"This is the worst of it, I think," said Laura quietly to Colin as she stood at the door to her cabin. "The awful toll on one's sleep. You let me catch up all day, but who can spare you for so long?"
It was a tremendous compliment, and an acknowledgment that Colin was more valuable to the safe operation of the schooner than she. Laura saw in his face that he was moved by her admission. "I'm good at catnaps," he said, and again he leaned forward, as he had earlier that night, to kiss her.
This time she did not trust herself, but shyly averted her head. "Sleep well, Colin."
"Now that, I doubt," he answered with a rueful smile.
In his resignation he looked handsomer than ever. Mood by mood, minute by minute, he was becoming more irresistible to her. "Is your berth not comfortable, then?" she asked naively, grateful that she had painted it recently.
"Oh, you dear lady!" Colin said, almost in a moan.
She escaped to her own cabin. The lamp inside had run dry but she saw by the light of the saloon that Neil was there, curled up in her berth. "Neil? Are you all right?"
She startled the boy. He bolted up and cried, "Help!"
When he felt his mother's arms around him he whispered, "I got afraid, Mama. The wind was blowing so, and Dad isn't here to tell us what to do."
"No, but Colin is," she found herself saying, a little to her amazement.
"Is Colin any good, do you think?"
Laura said, "Yes," and Neil whispered sleepily, almost sadly, "I knew he would be .... Can I stay here?"
"Yes. Just this once." She cradled him against her breast and wrapped her arm around him reassuringly. "Just this once."
****
By morning it was raining; by afternoon, sunny again. The wind slackened and veered into the south-southwest, the worst direction of all. They had been incredibly lucky so far, avoiding headwinds. Not any more. They shook out the reefs and resigned themselves to a snail's progress. But the next morning the wind shifted a little more to the southwest, letting them creep up closer to their course.
Then in the afternoon a cold front pushed through, drenching them with welcome fresh water. They were ready and waiting. As the black, rolling cloud-line approached, they reduced sail, expecting wind. They got little of that, but the torrents of rain that fell straight down were so cool, so clean, that Billy and Stubby grabbed bars of soap, stripped down to the buff and left Laura to look in some other direction while they bathed loudly and happily. Neil followed. And Colin. Laura was left alone in the cockpit, filling up their spare buckets, while her four male crew pranced and hooted in the bow, engaged in some primal rite of bonding whose essence was that she couldn't join them.
Soon the buckets were overflowing. There was a sense of abundance, a feeling of abandonment. Everyone was having a joyful time except Laura. She stole a longing—and curious—look at the merriment. She felt deprived. She felt willing. She felt like taking her clothes off.
And so she did. Quietly, without a lot of fuss, alone in the cockpit, Laura stripped and let her body be bombarded by raindrops. Nature was a big Scandinavian masseuse, pummeling and pounding away days of tension and close calls. Laura turned slowly round and round, relishing the cleanness, soaking up the violence of it. She bent over double and let streams of water run up her spine and through her hair, carrying away two weeks of salt crystals with it. Water ran down her thighs, water ran around her breasts, rivers of it: fresh, clean water. It seemed inconceivable to her that she had ever felt this way by turning on a faucet. Nothing in life ashore could approach the keen satisfaction of that moment.
It could not last; she understood that. They were at the whim of nature, and that gave the moment its magic. Still, when the last of the thunder rolled away and the downpour thinned to a sprinkle, Laura was disappointed. Over? So soon? She sighed, then glanced forward: the others were hanging back, waiting for her to be done. Fifty feet separated them from her, but even from that distance she saw the intensity in Colin's face, the coiled tension in his body. She hurried below.
****
"22 September, 1934. We have been handed the win but at great cost. The Brits will take us to war over this one. I can't blame them. There were two protests. In the first Sopwith was wrong. In the second it was Vanderbilt, if you ask me. In a tight spot he has nerves of steel. But everyone told him to luff to avoid the Endeavour, and he did not. He says there was 90 feet between the boats. The other side says 10 feet. I say 30 feet. Sopwith pulled his Endeavour away—too far—and Vanderbilt shot on by. It is not a game for boys."
****
After the rain the wind went light from the north, which was fine with Laura. It was a comfortable course, a lazy course, and it contributed to the sense of well-being that had come over them all after their romp in the rain. They finished off the last of the oranges during early evening, as the Virginia sailed majestically on, with her sails flung out over either side like great white wings. Laura and Colin took turns reading aloud to the crew from Pitcairn's Island until the sun got low. Then Stubby took over the wheel from Billy, who went below to nap, and Neil bent over his mother's lap and dozed.
"It's a wonderful sunset," Laura said contentedly, marveling at the red-rimmed horizon. "I'd like to put it in a basket and take it below with me."
"I'd like to weave it through your hair and let it keep lighting up your face, the way it's doing now," said Colin, leaning back against the cabin house and watching her languidly.
She should have stopped him—Neil might easily hear—but it was thrilling to listen to him. "Oh, look, dolphins!" she cried softly as a school of them came into view, leaping and gamboling toward the boat. "Did you know, the ancient Greeks believed that the souls of lost sailors abided in dolphins, waiting for rebirth? It's a lovely legend."
"Legend? It's the god's truth."
Neil shifted in her lap as she continued. "The trip is going wonderfully well," she said, not disguising her happiness. Knock wood. I could sail on forever like this." It hit her at precisely that moment: she meant every word she said. She looked away quickly, flushing as crimson as the sun.
"What would it be like, do you think?" he pursued softly. How far would we go? Would we sail on to ... Pitcairn? Would you—could you—leave everything that far behind?"
Slowly she turned back to face him, her look deeper than the ocean on which they sailed. "I think I could," she whispered.
"We'd need more drinking water," he said with a smile that made her heart lurch. "And oranges."
"We could eat breadfruit," she said wistfully, wishing that he would take her in his arms. "The mutineers planted some on Pitcairn, didn't they? Or was that Captain Cook?"
"It isn't a fruit, more like a potato ...."
"I wouldn't care at all ...."
"Darling—"
The word was pure electric current. She tensed, and Neil stirred, and suddenly Colin was saying brusquely, "Hey, mate, if you're planning to take the dog-watch with me, you'd better get on to bed."
A sleepy smile drifted across the boy's face as he kissed his mother good night and said to Colin, "Don't forget to wake me at four."
Laura jumped up beside her son and said, "I'll tuck you in, honey. I never get to do that anymore." Her look to Colin was filled with agony. "Don't get up—please."
Still wobbly with desire, Laura straightened out Neil's berth in the forecastle and brushed away the crumbs. She put him to bed, held him close, drawing some strength from the act, and kissed him good night. Then she went back to her cabin and pulled off the skirt and blouse she had worn to celebrate being clean again, and—waited to fall asleep. It was hopeless. She had no more control over her desire, over her body, than a cat in heat. It staggered her, this continual yearning. She was so tired of it. It was the most compelling thing she'd ever felt, but she was so tired of it.
It was dark outside, and airless in the cabin. Her yearning seemed to her worse in the dark, so she got up to light the small kerosene lamp that hardly swayed in its gimbals on the cabin bulkhead. She adjusted the wick downward, turned around, and he was there. She was not afraid, or even startled; a decade at sea had accustomed her, after all, to inevitability.
Without a word she went up to him and put her arms around him. It seemed so futile to fight off the passion; a terrible waste of energy, somehow.
His kiss was almost reluctant, heated and yet sad; he was exhausted too. "I'm sorry, Laura—" he began, but she put her hand over his mouth.
"No, no. It's not our fault, any more than the weather is. It's ... our paths are ... coincident ... that's all. Oh, Colin—"
They kissed: long, long and hungrily, as if the kiss were payment for a thousand miles of suffering. There was nothing tentative about it, no testing of the waters before the plunge. It was a kiss between lovers who have come to terms with their longing. He wanted her right then; his deep kiss made that clear. And she was waiting for him; the inside of her thighs was wet to his touch.
She half opened her eyes from the kiss, drugged by its power. But his own eyes were shut tight; his jaw, square and clenched, gave him a look of agonizing pain. "Now," he said. "Before I die."
He took away her underthings almost roughly, as though they were an affront to his sensibilities; his own clothes came off with the same careless impatience. And then they were in her berth together and her first thought was, how meltingly smooth his skin is; how young. He was kissing her everywhere, on her breasts, her neck, her stomach—as if he were desperately thirsty, and she was water. The depth of his desire overwhelmed her.
But hers was deeper, she was sure of that. All her life she had been looking for him, and up until now she hadn't found him. When she'd run away from home, when she'd tried to go to Cuba—it was Colin Durant she was looking for. She'd found Sam and he had helped her on her way—but it was Colin she was looking for. She'd had a son whom she adored—but it was Colin, always Colin, that she was looking for. She arched her body in rhythmic response to his kisses; she had found him at last, and the joy of her discovery was inseparable from the pain.
"Colin... Colin," she said in a soft wail. "Who are you?"
He came back up to her then, pressing his body against hers, flat against curve, solid against soft, and cupped her face in his hands. "I'm whoever you want me to be ... whatever you need ... I'm you, Laura .... Can't you see that?" He kissed away the tear that trickled down her cheek and laughed softly. "Salt—despite all that rain."
He skimmed her face with random, nibbling kisses, lingering at her mouth, kissing away the sorrow, leading her to the light. "I've circled the globe twice, looking for you, darling. I don't know how I missed you the first time," he said with a poignant smile.
"I was probably ... delivering ... a load of cement from Portland," she murmured between kisses. "Oh, Colin, I—"
He kissed her quickly. "Shh ... don't say it. The word isn't good enough for what we feel."
She stared at his handsome face, awestruck. She had wanted to say, "I love you" but hesitated; she'd used the phrase before for an entirely different feeling, and it no longer did seem good enough. He understood that; even more, he seemed to feel the same.
She drew his mouth to hers in a kiss of surpassing emotion. The kiss burned away speech, leveled thought with its fire. Second thoughts could not survive in its caldron, nor could pangs of conscience. Time withered in its heat: yesterday's memories and the threat of tomorrow became a handful of ashes in the coal-hot present.
He came into her then, and the final meltdown began: they were no more man or woman than they were guilty or innocent, seduced or seducer. They were none of these and all of these, a bit of meteorite blazing across the night sky. They were, despite their reluctance to use the word, in love.