THE SECOND NIGHT the Neva was in port sailors from the other watch filled the apartment. They were just as chatty as the starboard watch had been but drunker. This time Sarah got drunk with them and Livy drank too. She watched Sarah move around the room, aware that every time Sarah looked at her, she was already looking at Sarah. By 1:00 a.m. Livy was solidly drunk like everyone else. Sarah invited her to stay in her bedroom again.
“You can sleep on the mattress and I can sleep on the floor if you want,” she said.
“That’s ridiculous, it’s your bed. Are you leaving? With them when they go? You said they were your ride.”
Sarah shook her head. “We’re going to meet up somewhere down south. I have things to tie up here first.”
Livy nodded. “I know him.”
“You know who?”
Livy crossed to a wall where a list of names appeared on butcher paper.
“I know him.” She tapped the fourth name down. “He’s an asshole. He’s married to a teenager—well she’s probably not technically a teenager—he’s rich and prefers Tibetans.”
Sarah gaped. “How? Do you have his address?”
Livy laughed. Sarah’s cheeks flushed. A patch of red blossomed across her collarbone and her lips turned faintly purple. Livy dropped her hand from the paper.
“What?” said Sarah.
“What you look like when you’re really excited. It’s how I thought you would look.”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“I’m drunk, never mind,” said Livy. “This name—” She rubbed it a little hard putting a tear in the paper. “This name, Cyril. I know him. You don’t need to know him. He won’t help you do anything. He’s just the classic Allfather with too much power and— Hold on. Make fun of you? You’re beautiful and smart and—why would I ever make fun of you? I wouldn’t. Not for anything.”
The room spun slightly. Livy turned back to the wall.
“A jerk of sky-god proportions who lives in Singapore and has no daughters.” She slapped the name Cyril.
Sarah looked confused.
“Don’t worry. Never mind. I’m just talking trash,” said Livy.
Sarah came close, so close that Livy knew if she closed her eyes she would still know exactly where every part of Sarah’s body was.
Livy leaned back against the wall pulling Sarah with her and kissed her, but right when it was getting good Livy started crying.
“Fuck. I’m drunk. It’s not you. Sorry. Kiss me again,” said Livy.
“I have to tell you something,” said Sarah.
“I don’t want to know anything.”
She put her hands lightly on Sarah’s shoulders.
“It’s important. I did something bad. I thought it was good but it was bad.”
“Nope,” said Livy, shaking her head. “I still don’t want to know.”
“I called your mother.”
Livy became still. All the small movements of her body, the swaying and shifting stopped. There was only her breath.
“I should have told you,” said Sarah.
Livy lifted her hands from Sarah’s shoulders and lowered her arms.
“I pulled her number from the emergency contact sheet at the center and called.”
“Why would you do that?”
“You weren’t going to do anything about the captain. I’m leaving and I don’t want to be the only one who knows what’s going on with you.”
Livy moved off the wall and sat down where she’d slept the night before.
She couldn’t think of Kirsten. She hadn’t been able to for weeks. Because when she did think of her, Livy was little again, afraid of trees at night, afraid of being reincarnated as a mouse and not seeing the owl, all those strange untranslatable fears from the dawn of memory.
“I need to sleep,” she said.
Livy crawled under a blanket. Sarah lay down on the mattress and blew out the candle. The room was dark and silent but for breath and rain.
The next morning Livy found Marne on the docks. They had spoken several times on the night Marne had stayed at Sarah’s and Livy was pretty sure if any of the sailors were in charge of anything, it was her.
“I need to leave Juneau,” Livy told her. “I have experience at sea. Do you have a job?”
Marne said nothing.
“I’m good at knots,” said Livy.
“Round turn and two half hitches is all I’d let you do—and anyone can do that,” said Marne.
“I don’t really care what you make me do.”
Marne shrugged and took her below to meet the captain. An hour later Livy had signed papers waiving all liability and was assigned a canvas seabag with a number on it and a hammock inside.
“You’re going to need a rig.” Marne tapped the knife and marlinspike on her belt.
“I lost my marlinspike.”
“I’ve got an extra. I’ll make you a knife when we’re under way. Just find a belt.”
“What kind of gloves do I need?”
Marne smiled. “We don’t use gloves.”
Livy spent her last afternoon in Juneau walking around downtown looking at jewelry in windows. Even the smallest pendants were more money than she had. After a while, she found herself in the makeup aisle of a drugstore staring at gaudy necklaces.
On a plastic arm between necklaces with saucer-sized peace signs or dollar bills or bells, she saw a charm bracelet with three charms, one of which was a captain’s wheel. She slipped the bracelet off the rack and dropped it into her inside pocket.
At a coffee shop she took the bracelet apart, then used a pen to work open the stitches in her pocket and fish out the necklace she’d stashed there. She slipped the jade pendant off Cheyenne’s necklace and replaced it with the captain’s wheel. Whatever she left Sarah, she wanted it to come from her alone. Or at least as much as possible. She put Cheyenne’s jade pendant in her coat lining. Taking a flier from the wall that advertised a show long over, she wrote Sarah a letter on the back in case she didn’t see her before she left. She thanked her and apologized. Then she folded it around the necklace with the captain’s wheel and borrowed tape from the barista to seal it shut. Sarah was home when she got there, though, so when she wasn’t looking, Livy left the envelope in the key drawer.
Sarah wasn’t surprised when Livy told her she was leaving.
“I have a belt. It’s leather. You can have it,” she said. “I got it for free. It has a buckle with a Big Dipper stamped into it but I guess that doesn’t matter.”
Livy put the belt on but pulled her shirt down over it.
They stood on the porch.
“My mom would like you,” said Livy.
“She left me a message saying I should be banned from ever working in a domestic violence shelter.”
“You should.”
“And that she was going to call and get me blacklisted.”
“She will,” said Livy.
“She did. Yesterday.”
Livy smiled. “How did she sound?”
“Angry. It was just a message. I didn’t call back.”
Sarah crossed her arms and shivered. She’d stepped out onto the porch without her jacket.
“She thanked me too,” she said.
“That also sounds like her.”
Sarah fixed her eyes on the rain glinting under the streetlamp. She forced a smile. “I’d like to stay in touch.”
Livy stepped into the field of Sarah’s radiant body heat, kissed her, and stepped back.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” she said and left.
The Neva got under way the following morning. They took up the shore power and water. The dock lines were singled and taken, fenders pulled and stowed; they motored out into the current.