It was a little after eleven on a Wednesday night when I entered the house after my flight home. Evangeline was cuddled with Rufus on the living-room couch, watching an old movie. At the sight of me, she clicked off the TV as if she’d only been killing time.
“Tomorrow is Thanksgiving,” she said. There was no how was your trip or you must be tired. “Lorrie took me to the store today. I bought a turkey—a small one—and some dressing mix and salad stuff and potatoes and a pumpkin pie. We should invite Lorrie and Nells to eat with us, don’t you think? She didn’t ask or anything. I just think it’d be nice.”
“I’m sure they already have plans,” I said, shifting my duffel to my other shoulder. “Besides, Thanksgiving is really for family.” This made no sense considering the holiday’s history and our current situation. Yet somehow I’d stumbled on the right word with “family.” A smile flashed over Evangeline’s face, one she tried to suppress.
“Okay, but we’ll have lots of leftovers.”
“Nothing’s better than turkey sandwiches,” I said. “I’m heading to bed. It’s after two in the morning East Coast time.”
I was nearly out of the room when she said, “Oh my gosh. I can’t believe I didn’t even ask you about your trip. Did everything go all right back there?”
I stopped and turned to her. I think she saw my surprise.
“I’m working on not being a selfish asshole,” she said. “I need a lot of work.”
AFTER THE LONELINESS OF PENNSYLVANIA, Thanksgiving Day—with its lit kitchen and warm smells, the two of us working side by side, laughing when the stuffed turkey slipped to the floor and Rufus scarfed mouthfuls of sausage dressing—felt an entirely different world.
As we sat at the dining-room table, candles lit, Evangeline asked about my aunt and my childhood and my trip east. I could see her mind wandering at my responses, but I also saw her efforts to bring it back. In the two weeks I’d been away, the girl had changed, newly open to the possibility of relationship beyond transaction.
I think it was the growth I saw in her, the potential for more, that made me consider my own restrictions, had me wondering who I might be if I were willing to face them.
A WEEK LATER, I stood at the kitchen sink at eight on a Saturday morning, rain hitting the window in waves. The old plum tree thrashed with such fury I worried its limbs might break, and I was thankful to be inside with Rufus snoring in his chair, with the woodstove kicking out a good heat, with the drip-drip-dripping of the faucet I needed to fix. Thankful to be inside with the girl, the pregnant girl, sleeping late in her room down the hall.
Student projects on the physiology of microflora stacked the kitchen table, but I was too distracted to start. Just then Rufus bounded off his chair, barking and leaping at the mudroom door. George Ellis, the Friend who’d taken over my clerk duties, stood huddled under the mudroom eave, round and wet, looking like a water-slicked pumpkin in his orange rain jacket.
When I opened the door, the dog jumped happily on George. I grabbed his collar, trying to yank him off.
“It’s okay,” George said, removing his coat and shaking it outside as he stepped in. “You know I love Rufus.” He knelt and began petting the dog. “You and I go way back, don’t we old boy? I’m happy to see you too.” He stood, an effort with that large belly, and said, “Been a while.”
“I appreciate you coming,” I said, leading him into the kitchen.
“I was grateful to be asked.”
As I poured him a cup of coffee, I said, “My father’s name was George.”
“I remember that.”
“It’s a good name.”
“I always thought so.”
We didn’t talk as I got out the prior night’s biscuits and pushed aside the stack of papers on the table. George pulled up a chair and took a bite of biscuit, gazing about the kitchen as if seeing earlier times. He likely expected me to explain why I’d invited him, but I hesitated. I hadn’t been to meeting since Daniel’s memorial, and my planned request would not be a small one.
After a prolonged silence, he said, “Is there anything the meeting can do—I can do—to make it easier for you to return?”
I shook my head. “I’d hardly be good company.”
George sipped his coffee, set it down, and said in deadpan, “Ah, yes, meeting, it’s all about being entertained.”
I laughed, and it felt so good I said, “You jackass.”
He smiled. “There’s my friend. You’re too hard on yourself, Isaac. Come to meeting. It’ll do us all good.”
I shook my head. I had no interest in a God who denied me his presence while inflicting loss after loss. Yet there was George, radiating an easy grace as he sipped my terrible coffee, took another bite of stale biscuit, as if everything he wished for were here, in this kitchen, on a wet Saturday morning.
I took a deep breath, held it, allowed one last second to retreat, then said, “Not meeting. I can’t do meetings right now. But I’ve been thinking about a clearness committee.”
His hand with the biscuit dropped.
“Do you think you could put one together?” I asked.
“You sure? You want to dive right into the deep end like that?”
I nodded. I didn’t know what else to say. Didn’t know how to explain that if I were to find my way to truth, I needed eyes and hearts focused solely on me, watching my every move.
“Then of course I can. Of course.”
“It may be a substantial commitment.”
“My God, Isaac. We would commit a year to it. Two if needed. You know that.”
I laughed. “I doubt I’m that hopeless. A few months, maybe.”
“Anything. Tell me what you need.”
Most clearness committees were transient, a couple of two-hour meetings held a week apart, usually to help process a major life decision such as a career move or a marriage. My needs were more complex. I couldn’t even name the issues I’d seek to clear.
We agreed that George would find two other Friends. We’d start once a week for two hours, and he’d try to secure an initial two-month commitment.
When George left, I slumped in Rufus’s chair. The dog sat at my feet. I patted his head, and a deep kindness rose in me—a brief but remarkable love of the world. Remembering what a comfort a dog could be, I thought of Jonah’s dog, Brody, of Lorrie’s anguish when she found him torn from his grave.
Rufus placed his paws on my thighs, gave me a look as if his heart ached with mine, and I felt the world’s suffering as a vast and permanent expanse, an ocean that stormed and settled, that could on a moment’s whim sweep anyone it chose to its depths.
Rufus began to whine and nudged my thigh with his nose. I got up, and he bounded into his chair, a dog content to recover what was his. He stared at me a long while, as if speaking to me. At last, frustrated at my obvious lack of understanding, he sighed and turned away.
THE FOLLOWING FRIDAY, George called to ask if I’d be up for sailing the next day. When Daniel and the Ellis kids were young, the eight of us would crowd on their thirty-two-footer and take off for a day sail, dogs and kids in colorful life vests tripping over one another. As the kids grew busy with their own affairs, the four adults would sail without them, though less and less over time. It’d been years now since I’d been on his boat.
“Mid-forties, ten to twenty knots,” he said. “Should be fun. Bring Evangeline along.”
The next morning, we arrived at the marina at eight. The sun glowed fuchsia behind a distant ridgeline, the air pungent with low tide. Gulls, resting on pilings, flapped their wings and squawked as Evangeline and I headed down the dock. She wore Katherine’s discarded ski jacket and a pair of rain pants she couldn’t quite zip, the legs swishing noisily.
When we reached Simplicity, Evangeline stared at the boat as if she’d never seen one this close, walked up and down the dock, checking it from every angle. I saw in her eyes my own love of boats, their grace and functional beauty. The wild, dangerous freedom of them.
On board, she ran her hand over the railings and the wheel. George called to us from below, and we found him in the galley. He greeted us with hot chocolate, but Evangeline was busy ducking her head into the berths and opening cabinets.
“Check under the settee cushions,” George said, gesturing to the salon.
“Settee?”
I pointed it out. She pulled up one of the cushions and lifted the lid on the compartment beneath. Just some extra lines and a coiled water hose, but she straightened, smiling. “Everything’s hidden everywhere.”
He nodded. “While I was designing her—during the build-out too—I fought for every square inch. Shouldn’t be any wasted space on a boat.”
That set them talking. Evangeline wanted to know how he knew “how to do all this stuff,” and George showed obvious pleasure that she was taking an interest in his favorite topic. When he produced cinnamon rolls made by his wife and set them in the salon, Evangeline exclaimed at the table’s ability to raise and lower with the release of a lever. With some nudging on my part, we managed to get off the dock only an hour late.
The wind was erratic, and we had a few rough tacks against the gusts, sudden swings of the boom and lurching heels that sent items crashing below. George raised a brow when I lost my grip on a sheet and a sail flailed, loose and whipping. “A little rusty, are we?”
Evangeline laughed in the twenty-five-knot winds as if on an amusement ride, disappointed when we fell into a calm around noon. We took advantage of the lull, lunching on ham sandwiches and store-bought cookies as we wallowed in the wake of the occasional power vessel that roared by. As we drifted near a channel marker, a sea lion, lounging on its base, roused in irritation. Evangeline couldn’t take her eyes off it. She kept trying to mimic its long, guttural calls, the way its mouth shaped the sounds, tonal leaps full of warnings and complaints, demands and pleas.
“It’s singing a story to us,” she said. “And it sounds pretty epic.”
After lunch, Evangeline took the helm as we headed back, her red hair flaring like embers in the afternoon sun. George and I trimmed the sails as best we could, but with the wind at five knots and some flawed course work by the pilot, the sails kept luffing.
She scowled at us. “Keep the shape,” she commanded, one of George’s favorite lines.
We laughed. “Not a lot we can do about wind,” George said. “But the boat’s heading is too straight on. If you fall off a little, we might have a chance.”
She understood. She’d been listening all morning, asking about terms we used. Now she headed the boat a tidy thirty degrees starboard, and with some tweaking of the lines the sails did take shape.
“Nicely done.” George handed her a thermos of hot tea. “You know, there are sailing schools in town if you’re ever interested. A great boat-building school too.” Evangeline didn’t say anything, but she glanced my way, trying to gauge my reaction.
Back at the dock, George and I folded the sails as Evangeline scrubbed the deck without complaint. Afterward she and I stopped by the pizza place. We were tired and windblown, and I thought we’d eat in peace at home, but she said, “Can we eat here? Please.”
“It’s just a pizza place.”
“Still.”
She was so urgent I agreed.
When we walked in, she stood tall with a strange pride. She scanned the room in an obvious way, not like she wanted to see who was there but to see if anyone saw her. I wondered if this was about family, about proving she wasn’t alone.
When the pizza was set hot and crisp before us, Evangeline dug in greedily. I marveled that I’d survived the day without breaking down. I’d seen the ghost of my young son in those fluttering sails, but the pain was familiar, almost sweet. I’d been missing that little boy for years. When the kids abandoned the boat for other activities, the adults would see the empty deck and feel how those particular children were lost to the past. We mourned them even then but kept them alive by laughing and telling their stories:
“Remember when we couldn’t find Kristie, then found her napping in the jib on the bow?”
“And Daniel captaining the dinghy with Rufus as first mate? He had to fish that mutt out of the water more than once!”
I could picture my young Daniel so well, his joys and disappointments, his irritations and affections. But I’d lost sight of his inner life these last years. There’d be glimpses here and there. I knew he suffered. I knew that. A few months before he died, Daniel punched a hole in his room’s drywall after a fight with Sammy. He never said what had happened, but my nearly grown son let me take his hand in mine, dress its wounds. Afterward he helped me patch the damage in quiet submission. When we were done, he said, “Things kind of built up. I figured the wall could take it.” A hidden life under that surface beauty, a life with longings and losses, with passions that could explode.
When Evangeline and I got home, Rufus leaned against my leg, subdued. His muzzle and paws had gone gray since he’d jumped from the dinghy all those years ago. Of anyone living, it was Rufus who knew who Daniel had been these last years, Rufus who’d slept on his bed every night.
Evangeline thanked me for the “fun day,” said she was tired, and headed to her room. Rufus trotted after her. I was about to call him, wanting the dog to spend the night with me. He might dream of Daniel’s lost years and share the dreams with me. Just then, Evangeline reached down and patted Rufus’s head in a gesture of easy affection. With whom else could she share that kind of touch?
I smiled and sighed and let the dog go.