The Point of Vanishing - Maryka Biaggio (large ebook reader TXT) 📗

Ethan grasped the back of his neck and stared out at the sea. “I like to think he meant the virtues of the heart as well.”

Barbara hesitated about asking a question Conrad’s Lord Jim had provoked in her: When a man has committed a dark deed, can he be saved from himself? Then she saw her mother step up onto the deck and swivel around looking for her.

“I’m here, Mother.”

“Well, come along,” her mother said.

Barbara turned to Ethan. “Good night to you.”

✭

This sailor Ethan intrigued her. She wanted to draw out more of his musings and linger over their meaning. But his quiet manner evoked an uncharacteristic shyness in her, and reticence overcame her whenever she passed him in the alleyways or on deck. Still, as she observed his comings and goings, she couldn’t resist angling for another occasion to speak with him.

Two days after their evening encounter, she spotted him seated against the foremast, the corner of a sail strewn over his lap and the rest of it wafting in the breeze. Needle in hand, he bent intently over the sail, mending away. The cook’s black and white kitten pounced on a sudden billowing of the sail and then eyed the thread Ethan tugged through the fabric.

Her heart raced at the sight of him. Part of her wanted to turn away, but she knew she wouldn’t. She strode up to him. “Hello, mate, may I keep you company?”

“Yes. You might help, in fact.” He elbowed the kitten away from the thread. “Can you restrain this rascal?”

Barbara scooped up the kitten and, seating herself against the railing, nestled it onto her lap. She glanced from aft to stern: at the first mate manning the helm; at the masts soaring overhead; at the clutch of crewmen on the poop deck chattering away. They made her smile—the way they laughed and bantered.

Barbara stroked the kitten’s cheeks. It twisted onto its back and batted its paws at her. “Thirty days to Hoquiam, Captain says. Figure he’s right?”

Ethan finished a stitch and glanced up at her. “Most likely. He and the first mate compare sextant readings every day.”

“Well, I’m hoping for a good long journey.” Barbara looked out over the shimmering ocean. “This is my idea of paradise.”

Ethan smiled. “You’re a romantic of the sea, aren’t you?”

“And you? You say you can’t imagine anything else.”

“It’s true. The sea’s magic has me in its grip, though on snowy winter nights, I like nothing more than a blazing fireplace, a book, and a cup of tea.”

Barbara looked down. The kitten had fallen asleep on her lap. “Where is home for you?”

“Born in Hoquiam. Washington. Just like this ship.”

The wind had died down. The sails merely rippled, and the ship sloshed aimlessly. “Not moving more than a knot or two, are we?”

“No, see those clouds on the horizon?” He poked his chin starboard. “A storm is moving in.”

Barbara twisted around for a look. Billowy cumulus clouds crowded the horizon, with gray streaking their bottoms and bright blue expanses shimmering over them. “Ah, yes. But nothing serious.”

“Your sailing ways are showing.”

Barbara grinned. “Are you reading anything just now, mate?”

“I’ve taken up Lord Jim again. It’s my favorite among all books.”

“Why, it’s my favorite, too.” Her heart fluttered, but shyness warned her off belaboring the commonality. “How do you find life on the Vigilant?”

“Much sunnier than that on the Patna. I feel safe aboard her.”

Barbara pressed her back against the rail, relishing its firmness. She studied Ethan’s broad shoulders and the way he hunkered over as he worked. The sight of a husky man sewing—so earnestly, even contentedly—amused her. “A ship doesn’t disappoint the way people do. It gives you its all.”

“You’ve found just the words for my feelings.” He paused in his sewing to rub his neck in that uneasy way of his. “And said them better than I could have.”

It struck Barbara then: He suffered the same bashfulness with her as she did with him. It made her ache with sympathy. As he took up his sewing, she studied the sure grip and thrust of his tanned hands. “The Vigilant satisfies in the most profound way, doesn’t she?”

He stretched out of his hunched position, rolling his shoulders back. “Yes, both the senses and the soul.”

Something about him called forth her most cosmic reflections. He said he felt safe aboard this ship. She understood. The strength of its masts, the cut of its prow, the lovely arch of its ribbing—it all lulled her into a state of dreaminess as if sea time ran on its own course and this ship were the center of another universe. As if the two of them, like the whales lumbering through the depths and the shiny-backed porpoises flirting with waves, belonged to the sea. Ethan, in some mystical way, became an extension of the Vigilant, sturdy and unassuming, full of the glory of the moment. Leaning toward him, she caught his gaze, and an orb of warmth shot up her torso. “We’re of our own world now, the world the Vigilant has created for us, here in the middle of the ocean.”

The kitten leaped out of her lap and pounced on Ethan’s thread. Their laughter erupted, as spirited and abandoned as that of children. Barbara somersaulted onto the rippling fabric and snatched the kitten up, holding it overhead.

“Just in time,” said Ethan. “Nearly sewed her into the sail.”

Barbara drew the kitten to her chest and tickled its tummy. “What a mischief-maker.”

Ethan turned serious and asked, “Can you help me fold this sail and take it down below?”

They bundled up the sail, and Barbara trotted down the rear stairs behind him, balancing the kitten on her shoulder.

“Here,” he said, standing in the alleyway by a shelf atop a cabin door. “It gets tucked in this cranny.”

Barbara stood on tiptoes and reached up. The kitten dug its claws into her shoulder. “Ouch.”

Ethan swung toward her, and the sail unrolled over them. Barbara snatched the kitten from her shoulder. As Ethan held up the