As for your son. Still wondering what on earth is up with Ms. Oblivious, he motors the O.J. from its slip and out of the basin, Jane having neatly cast off the dock lines. She then takes the wheel and heads for the channel buoys, nattering on about bare-boat chartering in the Aegean, while he goes forward to winch up sails. There is a tiny southerly breeze in midriver, just enough to move old Osborn on a beam reach down from the bridge toward Hambrooks Bar Light. Gorgeous as such sailing is, though, Jane declares — the spanking meltemia of the Cyclades; the crystal-clear Caribbean, through which you can see your anchor plainly in five fathoms; salty Maine, where you can’t see your bow-pulpit in the fog — give her the snug and easy, memory-drenched Eastern Shore: cattails and mallards, loblolly pines and white oaks, oysters and blue crabs, shoal-draft sailing, the whole tidewater scene.
Except in July and August, I amended, when I would happily swap it for Salty Maine etc.; also January through March, when give me that crystalline Caribbean instead of the—memory-drenched, I believe she’d called it? With the motor off, sails (just barely) filled, and water rustling lightly now along the hull, my spirit calmed: I was able to begin to savor my unexpected good fortune, while still wondering what accounted for it. Jane, Jane.
She turned the wheel over to me, took her ease on the cockpit seat, and named off in order the points between us and Chesapeake Bay — Horn, Castle Haven, Todds, and Cook on the south shore going out; Blackwalnut, Nelson, Benoni, Bachelor, Chlora, Martin, and Howell on the north shore coming back. She guessed she and Harrison had anchored in every one of the creeks and coves between those points, and run aground on every shoal, when they’d first cruised the Choptank back in the early thirties. And before that, before she’d even met Harrison, back in her “Scott Fitzgerald” days, she’d done the regatta circuit from Gibson Island right around the Bay, bringing in the silverware with her Thistle at a time when few women raced sailboats. Let her son think what he pleased, she was glad the rich had bought up all the waterfront property in large holdings before the general prosperity after World War II; otherwise it would be subdivided by now into tacky little hundred-foot frontages, each with its dock and its outboard runabout — her own master plan for Dorset Heights! As it was, she could see on the aerial photos made by her real estate people that many of those coves were as unspoiled now as they’d been when she and Harrison first anchored in them in 1932—indeed, as when the Ark and the Dove reached Maryland in 1632.
She was being memorious, I affirmed; even historical. That she didn’t choose to live in the past didn’t mean she’d forgotten it, she replied. Her tone was neutral. I was impressed. The little breeze evaporated: the sails hung slack; we began to set gently astern on the incoming tide. Out in the Bay the sunset promised to be spectacular. In a different voice she asked: Can’t we keep right on, Toddy? Let’s motor clear out to Sharps Island again.
Toddy, Dad. And Sharps Island! Be informed, sir, that Sharps Island is where Jane and I made love for the second time together, on the beach, in the afternoon of 13 August 1932, a Saturday.
Sharps Island wasn’t there anymore, I reminded her. All washed away: nothing but a lighthouse and buoys to mark the shoal where it used to be. Imagine people outlasting their geography, I added: just the opposite of your unspoiled coves.
Ah, now she remembered: where the three of us used to tie up the boat and picnic on the beach, the last edition she’d seen of good old Chart 1225 showed only Subm piles. Let’s go to Todds Point then, okay? She’d like to see what I’d done to the cottage.
#8 L, Dad.
Not much to see, I said. I’d made a few changes, not many: new kitchen, new plumbing and fixtures. Something between unspoiled coves and Sharps Island, I supposed. I went ahead and said it: Our bedroom’s the same.
She didn’t respond; seemed truly lost in thought, looking out to westward toward Redmans Neck, where already we could see lights on the steelwork of Schott’s tower. What are we doing here? she wondered presently. I could just hear her; couldn’t judge whether she meant the Choptank or the River of Life.
Drifting, mainly, Jane, I said. Making a bit of sternway. I’ll kick in the motor if you want.
She roused herself, smiled, touched my hand, shook her head, stood up quickly. Okay, then, she said, let’s drift. But let’s don’t just drift. Shall I switch on the running lights? Down the companionway went the white suit; from the wheel I could just see it moving about the darkened cabin. She found the switch panel and cut in the running and masthead lights, then went over the AM band on the ship-to-shore till she picked up a D.C. station doing something baroque as their signal faded with the light. Smartly she located their wavelength on the FM band and set the automatic frequency control. I had come up to the companionway to watch her; no need to steer. The white jacket came off. Then the red scarf.
Then the blue blouse. Was there a hanging locker? she asked with a smile. Fine flash of white teeth, white eyes; white jacket held out by the collar in one hand, the other on the placket of her white slacks. White bra against her dark tan. I came down the ladder and kissed her.
Goodness gracious me. The main cabin settee of the Osborn Jones makes into a snug double, Dad, but Jane thought it unseamanlike for no one to be on deck. Anyhow it was balmy and beautiful up there, more like late June than mid-May. We took our time undressing; hung and folded everything. I lit a cabin lamp to see her better. She liked that: let me look and touch all I wanted; did a bit herself. Sixty-three: it was not to be believed. She was the cove, I told her, proof against time. I feared I was Sharps Island. She’d settle for Todds Point, she laughed, and went back up the ladder — calling pleasantly that I needn’t take precautions, as she’d ceased her monthlies some years ago. Jane, Jane! Above the masthead a planet gleamed: Jupiter, I believe. An osprey rose from and returned to her pile on a nearby day-beacon (19A, off Howell Point); a great blue heron glided past us and landed with a squawk somewhere out of sight. Albinoni was followed by Bach on the FM, after a commercial for Mercedes-Benz. Sedately, patiently, but ardently, Jane Mack and I made love. Traffic streamed across the New Bridge toward Ocean City for the weekend, an unbroken string of headlights. Stars came out: Arcturus, Regulus, Pollux, Capella, Procyon, Betelgeuse. Our combined ages are 132 years. Dew formed on the lifelines, gunwales, cockpit cushions.
Polly Lake goes at it like a trouper, Dad: lots of humping and bumping and chuckles and whoops. Jane Mack does it like an angel: lithely, gracefully, daintily, above all sweetly. Suddenly she clutched my shoulders and whispered a long O. For an instant I feared something was wrong. Heart attack? Coronary? Then I understood, and wondered why Bach didn’t pause, the bridge traffic, all the constellations, to hear that O.
Sweet surprise. Afterwards she lay for a minute with her eyes closed (registering with a small smile my own orgasm); then she slipped dextrously out from under and into the head compartment to clean up. The air was chill now; there were patches of mist on the river. I wiped off with a paper towel, dressed, broke out a couple of Windbreakers from a hanging locker, spread bath towels on the cockpit cushions against the dew, started the engine, and went forward to lower and furl the sails. When I came back Jane was sitting with her legs curled under — dressed, jacketed, hair in place — smoking a cigarette and sipping a brandy. Another was set out for me. When I bent to kiss her, she gave me her cheek.