The Deepest Blue (27 page)

“Michael has grown into a healthy, well-adjusted young man who has a strong sense of himself and his future. He knows he is making a choice that is in his own best interest by requesting these arrangements. He understands the consequences of this decision, and he is prepared to embrace those consequences fully. Ms. Delaney is a responsible adult, one who took on the role of mother when she had no obligation to do so. She accepted the job even with no commitment from Mr. Wilson himself, though that was clearly forthcoming before his untimely death. To take this young man away from the only other family member he has would be untenable, and would be akin to losing another parent. Your Honor, he has already lost two parents in very difficult and tragic circumstances. It would be a shame for him to lose a third.”

Ms. Young takes her yellow legal notepad, her stacks of papers, and returns to the chair beside me.

“Mr. McIntyre,” says the judge.

McIntyre heaves himself from the chair and heads to the center of the room. Sweat blotches darken the back of his beige suit.

“Thank you, Your Honor.” He clears his throat and dabs at his forehead again with the handkerchief. “Mrs. Mayers doesn't claim to be perfect. She doesn't claim to be without faults that, in the past, have led to mistakes and most assuredly, to regrets. But she does claim something that no one else in this room can claim: a blood tie to Michael. She is his biological mother, and therefore, in the eyes of the court and the eyes of the law, she is his legal parent and guardian.” He clears his throat again, and I wonder if he's going to cough up a wad of phlegm in the middle of his lecture. “Mrs. Mayers has the love and support of a husband, which Ms. Delaney does not. She has the means to provide a lifestyle of advantage for Michael, which Ms. Delaney does not. But above all, she has the love that only a real mother can provide, the love that only blood can provide, which Ms. Delaney does not and will never have.”

Behind me I can hear Maggie taking deep, shaking breaths, and I know that she is crying. I want to turn around and let her know that it's going to be okay, but I'm too afraid to move. McIntyre is spinning a glass shell around us, and if I move wrong, it will shatter and fall in on us, and cut us all to shreds. I look at the judge to see
if she is buying any of this crap. She is looking at the top of her desk, taking notes, giving nothing away.

McIntyre finishes. “Thank you, Your Honor,” he says with a grandiose bow. She doesn't acknowledge him.

“We will reconvene tomorrow at one o'clock, at which time you'll have my decision.” The judge looks up from the desk for the first time in a while.

“All rise,” says the bailiff. We do.

“This court is now in recess to reconvene at one o'clock tomorrow afternoon.”

The judge leaves. We sit still. Julia and McIntyre huddle together, their heads almost touching. Ms. Young stands, takes my arm and pulls me up, nods toward the door, and we all make a hasty retreat to the hallway.

It's dark outside, though it's only around four in the afternoon. The black clouds blotting the sky make it feel as if it's midnight. I'm so exhausted I could drop to the floor like a pile of rags.

Ms. Young pulls us into a knot and whispers, “I can't get a clear read on the judge. I'd like to say I'm confident, but I'll be honest, that last little stunt of Mrs. Mayer's may have won her a few points.”

Chuck puts an arm around my shoulder, and I want to pull away, but I can't move. “What do you think she is likely to do?” he asks.

“She's a wild card,” Ms. Young says in a hushed voice. “I've only appeared before her once, but I've been studying her cases. She's hard to figure out.”

“I don't feel good,” I say.

“I'm sure it's going to turn out fine,” Chuck says. He squeezes my shoulder.

Maggie looks at me.

“No, I mean . . .” I duck from under Chuck's arm and find the nearest trash can into which to puke the soda I drank at lunch.

Maggie takes a paper napkin from her pocketbook and wets it in the drinking fountain. She puts it on the back of my neck. “Blood is thicker than water. That's crap,” she says. I laugh in spite of the foul taste in my mouth and the feeling I might hurl again. We sit on a wooden bench in the darkened hallway.

“I think I've thrown up more in the past week,” I say, my voice sounding like a little kid's, “than I have in my whole life combined.”

“You goin' for some kind of record?” Maggie asks. She smiles as she hands me the wet napkin.

“Not on purpose,” I say.

Maggie points to the drinking fountain on the wall near the door to the courtroom. “Go rinse out your mouth. You'll feel better.”

I take a gulp of water from the fountain, swish it around in my mouth, and then spit it out. I do it again.

“Better?” Maggie asks as she moves beside me. She smiles at me.

“I just want this all to be over. I want to go home and sleep, and play with Rocket, and ride my surfboard.” I want to see Rachel, too, but I leave that out.

The storm outside is raging as we make our way to
the car. We drive to Maggie's house and sit around the kitchen table. Rocket leans hard against my leg. The lights flicker overhead but stay on. My knees feel wobbly, like I just got off the boat for the first time after not being on land for months. I look at Chuck talking on his phone. A sudden surge of panic rushes through me like lightning, and my mouth opens before I know what I'm saying. “What about the boat?” Chuck stops. His brow furrows, and the lines of his mouth draw tight. He looks at Maggie.

“Let me call you right back,” he says, then he slides the phone closed.

“What about the boat?” I say.

“What about it, Mike?”

“What's going to happen to it?” I don't know why this is suddenly so important to me, but it is, and I need to know.

“We haven't gotten that far yet,” Chuck says.

“Are we selling it? Is Jack Sutton gonna buy it?”

Chuck lets out a sigh. “I don't know yet, Mike. We'll figure that out another day.”

“We can't let it sit too long. It needs maintenance. It needs work. I need to know what we're gonna do with it, so I know what I need to do. Do I need to clean it up? Am I going to keep it and run charters? What are we doing?” My voice arcs.

Chuck looks at Maggie, frantic and confused. “Can you help him understand?” he says.

“Mike,” Maggie says firmly, “let's get through tomorrow. We'll talk about the boat after that, I promise.”

I look at her. She's not mad, but she has a serious look that says “drop it,” so I take a deep breath and hold it. I let it out slowly and wait for my heart to stop banging around like a gorilla trapped inside my chest.

“If you try to take on everything at once, you'll drown,” Maggie says. “Let's just deal with today. Then we can figure out the rest later.”

I let the pounding in my chest die down, sucking in air through my nose and letting it drift out. I can't let go of the feeling that I need to deal with the boat. Then I hit on an idea. “I need to get out for a little while. Can I go with Jayd for a drive?”

Maggie looks at Chuck, who has his head down, scrolling through something on his phone. She looks back at me. “Only for a little while. I'm afraid this storm is going to get worse, and we have a big day tomorrow.”

I grab Maggie's phone and call Jayd's cell. “How'd it go?” he asks without saying hello.

“Don't know yet,” I answer. “We won't know until tomorrow.”

“That's rough, dude. So what are you doing?”

“Hoping you can spring me for a ride. I need to get out for a little while. Can you take off for an hour or two?”

I hear Jayd cover the phone and ask his mom if he can go. I can't hear the discussion, but he comes back quickly. “Yeah, I can come for about an hour.”

“I'm at Maggie's.”

Jayd disconnects, and I hurry to change out of the suit and into black-and-red shorts and a T-shirt.

Chuck is heading out as I reappear in the kitchen. “I'll be here before noon,” he says to Maggie, and then he pulls the door closed behind him.

“Are you hungry?” Maggie asks. “We still have all that food in the fridge.”

“I'm good,” I say, eager for Jayd to arrive.

Maggie walks down the hallway to her room, and Rocket follows. I decide to have a few bites of potato salad even though I'm not really in the mood to eat. It's cold and creamy, and I eat more than a few bites as I realize how hungry I actually am.

Maggie comes around the corner in a pair of jeans and a gray T-shirt that I know belonged to my dad.

“That looks good on you,” I say.

“I helps me feel close to him,” she says. “But if it bothers you . . .”

“No,” I say, setting my fork in the sink and wrapping the bowl of potato salad in plastic wrap again, “I like it. I might try that, too.”

I grab my wallet from the bedroom as I hear Jayd pull into the driveway.

“Not too late,” Maggie says as Rocket climbs onto the sofa beside her. She clicks on the television, and I slip out the door and get into the white car.

“You want to head to the arcade?” Jayd asks.

“I want to go to the marina.”

“I don't have a long time,” he says. “I told my mom I'd be back by seven for supper.”

“Just drop me off. I'll find a way back.” The rain is
easing, and a few streaks of light are slicing through the clouds. “I just want to feel close to my dad. I want to go to the boat.”

We drive down the main island road to the causeway and over the bridge. Jayd is quiet, flipping the radio station to find something he likes. “So what happened today?” he asks as we start over the bridge to Moorehead.

“Julia told a bunch of lies about my dad and about how awesome she is.” I feel my heart speed up a little recalling the events. “But my attorney nailed her with a phone message my dad saved from a long time ago.”

“What did it say?”

“She called me a parasite and told my dad to stop having me call.”

“Ouch,” he says.

The words from the message and the total anger in her voice replayed in my head.
Quit having that little brat leave me messages trying to make me feel guilty. He's nothing but a parasite.

We round the corner to the street that leads to the marina. “Are you just gonna hang out? I can maybe come back and pick you up later if you need.” Jayd steers into the empty parking lot.

“I'm going for a ride,” I say. “I need to feel close to my dad, and this is the only way.”

“You can't take the boat out by yourself,” he says in a loud protest. “There's a storm rolling in and—”

“Who do you think you are? My mom? You have to get in line for that job.” I grab the door handle, determined and eager to get out on the water.

“Don't be an idiot. You haven't ever taken the boat out by yourself. Maggie will kill you.”

I step out of the car and stare in at Jayd. “I need to do this.” I slam the door and head down the walk to the slip.

chapter 22

I have taken the boat out of the slip more than once. Dad let me do it sometimes when it was just the two of us and we would go fishing for ourselves. I maneuver it out without a problem, and soon I am motoring past the channel markers and out into the open ocean. The water is choppy but not too rough, and the big craft bounces and lurches in the swells. The eastern sky has brightened; the clouds are breaking up into smaller and smaller clusters.

“Maybe this is what I'm meant to do,” I say to the open sky. I sit a little taller in the captain's chair and guide the boat past the channel markers, heading toward deeper water.

The boat jolts and sways in the white caps, but I know I can handle it. When I get about ten miles or so off shore, I drop the anchor and move to the deck. The early evening light is trying to break free from the purple clouds. A cool wind is blowing across the deck. If I had any bait, I'd drop a line and see what I could find, but I didn't
really think about it before I came. I walk to the rail and look over. The dream from the other night floods into my memory as I stare into the deep blue water. It's not as calm now as it was in the dream, and I can't see more than a few inches below the surface. Something silver cuts through the waves, maybe a barracuda or an amberjack. It darts under the boat, and another one follows.

“Dad, if you can hear me,” I say into the wind, “just let me know you're there. Let me know everything is going to be okay, because right now it feels like my whole world is caving in, and I have no idea what's happening.” I listen, but all I hear are waves slapping the side of the boat and the wind hissing across the deck.

In my head, Dad's voice calls at me to get someone's line. He cheers for a great catch and chats with guests about where they live. I sit in the galley and smell his coffee. I feel the boat sway and remember the times when I was younger that I would fall asleep here and he would carry me from the boat to the truck and drive us home. The memories flood into my head like old movies flickering on a screen behind my eyes. I remember the day Dad bought the
Mighty Mike,
the day he took me up the coast in the old truck we used to have, and I sat in the middle between Dad and Chuck as we went to pick up the boat.