Emerson had been apologetic then, but she wasn’t now. “Like you wouldn’t have done the same thing? I’ve seen you do way worse to get ahead. So don’t act all holier than thou.”
“Girls,” I said. “Let’s just calm down and talk this out.”
“Talk it out?” Caroline said, and I immediately regretted turning her fury toward me. “She played my husband’s mistress on TV. What’s there to talk about?”
Emerson crossed her arms. “It was a part.”
They both looked at me. “Look,” I said, “I can’t answer this one, but I wouldn’t have done it, Emerson.”
“Of course you wouldn’t have,” she replied.
I was taken aback. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What it means,” she shot back, “is that you’re just like our mother. Vanilla. Predictable. Never done a shocking thing in your life.”
I smirked because, believe you me, I could blow that theory right up.
“Fine,” Emerson said, stomping into the salon. “Just gang up on me like you always do.”
“Do we always gang up on her?” Caroline asked.
I scrunched my nose. “I’m pretty sure we don’t.” I paused. “But she isn’t wrong about finding happiness in a new way.”
Caroline softened and nodded. “I know. I’m going to try. I really am.”
“Do you think you’re going to let him move back in?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Caroline said. She paused. “Maybe when the summer is over.”
“There she is!” I said, interrupting Caroline, as Vivi emerged from the cabin, bleary-eyed. Her hair was messy from sleep, and she was wearing a huge T-shirt and gym shorts. But she was still beautiful, with that fresh face you really couldn’t appreciate until you were older. She was a little Caroline, no doubt about it. But she was sweet—an upgrade if you asked me. This was a conversation she definitely didn’t need to hear.
TWO HOURS LATER, EMERSON had reappeared, and I heard her quietly apologize to Caroline. I felt like I deserved an apology too, but I wasn’t going to rock the boat.
I announced on the radio: “Camp Seafarer tower, this is the vessel Miss Ansley requesting permission to dock.”
I laughed when I heard the signature response, “Ahoy, there, Miss Ansley!”
“Ahoy, there,” I said.
Vivi rolled her eyes, and I said, “Oh, sugar. Get used to it.”
“Take a southwest approach,” the voice on the radio said. There was a pause, followed by, “Welcome back to camp, Captain Caroline and mates Sloane and Emerson.”
We all laughed.
This was one monster of a boat to dock, and the current was ripping through the channel. Emerson was in charge of the bowline, and I had the stern. “Bow to stern,” Caroline said, the steering wheel spinning through her hands. “Actually,” she said, reversing the port engine at the last minute, “stern to bow. The current’s got me.”
“Switch the lines!” I yelled to Emerson, as I pulled the rope out of the port cleat and moved it starboard. I always wondered why you couldn’t just keep lines on both sides of the boat, but Caroline always chastised me, saying that wasn’t proper yachting.
I recognized the camp director as she hustled down the dock. “Caroline! Sloane! Emerson!” she cried. Seeing the campers captaining their Sunfish and tiny Boston Whalers brought back fond memories of making friends, sharing Reese’s Cups from the canteen, writing letters to the boys at Camp Seagull, and sneaking out of the cabin at night to meet said boys on the golf course. It was all so innocent, so simple. I wanted to hug Vivi and beg her to never grow up.
LATER THAT NIGHT, SO late it might have been morning, it was as if it were calling to me, as though I could feel it. The crisp linens and bedding my mom had chosen for the room on the boat draped around me. They made me feel protected and secure in the way only the most comfortable beds can. It was cool and perfectly dark in the boat that night. Yet, I couldn’t sleep. Because I could feel it. I ignored it for what must have been hours. But, finally, like a clandestine lover you know is wrong but can’t resist, I went up to that canvas.
I rolled up the sleeves of Adam’s oxford, soft and thin from being washed so many times, like another layer of my own skin. It felt like his arms around me, and I imagined him whispering in my ear that he loved me. The water was perfectly still, the moon’s reflection bright on the surface. As the stars danced and twinkled, I prayed that my husband was fighting, that he was feeling me supporting and loving him. Because I was. With every breath.
My easel set up overlooking the boats in the Beaufort, North Carolina, harbor where we had moored for the night, I tentatively swiped my brush into the paint, and with that one motion, I was gone, consumed by another world that lived inside my head, a world that was trying desperately to get out, to escape the darkness and burst into the light.
I have always been cautious with my paintings. I am a perfectionist by nature and refine and edit until they are perfect. But not that night. That night I tore through the canvases, strokes flying. I didn’t care if the paintings were complete, didn’t want them to be perfect. They weren’t supposed to be perfect. They were supposed to heal me, to give me courage, to set me free.
I let myself feel the thing I thought I shouldn’t. It welled up inside me and took over my mind, my body, my brush. Anger. Not only that Adam had left me, that he was sacrificing himself, us, our family, but also about everything in our marriage that had ever been tough, every time I’d wanted to stand up for myself but hadn’t, every time I had wanted to speak my piece but held it in. For the first time, I didn’t feel guilt, just pure, unadulterated, hot rage. This stroke was for all the times Adam came
