“Hello, Laura,” he managed, oranges and DeLaine Hussey completely forgotten as he took in the face that had haunted him night and day.
Laura’s expression instantly gave away her feelings, for her pink lips suddenly lost their smile and fell open slightly. Her eyes, refusing to obey her edict of caution, stared widely into his before fluttering to his bronze chest, then back up. And she’d squeezed Josh’s hand so hard, he now squirmed and howled, then yanked free.
Reminded of the boy’s presence, Rye smiled down at him. “Hello, Josh.”
“You’re the man with the funny name.”
“Aye, and do y’ remember it?”
“It’s Rye.”
“Aye, it is. So next time I’ll expect a proper hello when I meet y’.”
But again he turned his eyes to Laura, and she could not resist asking sweetly, “Are the two of you shopping for oranges?”
Rye colored deeply, the flush barely discernible on his face, which was already tanned to the shade of an old copper penny, darker than Laura ever remembered seeing it before the voyage of the Omega.
“Ah, no ... well, I mean, yes, I was out buyin’ oranges for Josiah.”
“And I was out buying oranges for my mother,” Miss Hussey put in, a pinched expression about her mouth.
“And we was out buyin’ oranges for Papa,” Josh piped innocently.
At the word, Rye’s mouth sobered, and he studied Laura’s face.
DeLaine Hussey noted the exchange of glances, but remained stubbornly at Rye’s side.
“Well, how about if we all have one now—my treat,” Rye offered, unable to think of any other way to ease the tension.
“Mmm ... I like oranges!” Josh exclaimed, bright-eyed and eager.
“Then which one will it be?”
It was plain to Laura that Rye was suddenly as eager as Josh. He looked at the chubby hands that touched every orange as if it mattered a great deal which was chosen. And this first innocent encounter beneath the bright June sun in the bustling market square suddenly seemed representative of all the experiences of fatherhood Rye had missed. Laura hadn’t the heart to deny him such a small joy. His eyes shone with delight when Josh finally picked an orange and plopped it into Rye’s big hand with a “There!” as if he’d solved a great and important riddle.
Rye laughed, jubilant and handsome and capturing Laura’s heart as she watched his dark, lean fingers tear into the orange skin for his son.
DeLaine Hussey, feeling a complete outsider in this little scene en famille, decided it was time to withdraw and aimed a flashing good-bye to Rye, and to Laura a nod so brisk it was undeniably rude.
No sooner was she out of earshot than Rye caught Laura’s eye. “I’ve been wondering when I’d see you again,” he said, extremely aware of the understatement, and quelling the urge to touch her.
“I come to the market every morning,” she said.
“Every mornin’?” he repeated, cursing himself for wasting all these opportunities.
“Hey, hurry up, Rye!” Josh demanded, seeing that the peeling process had suddenly slowed while Rye and Laura indulged themselves with the sight of each other’s faces.
“Aye-aye!” Rye snapped nautically, tearing his attention away from Laura long enough to finish the job. He handed half an orange to Josh, then began sectioning the rest, his eyes again on her.
She watched each dexterous movement of his fingers, the square nails separating the delicate filaments so expertly that not a drop of juice escaped. Hands, hands, she thought, there is no forgetting hands.
Just then one of his came toward her, offering a bright crescent of fruit. Her eyes flew to his. It was nothing, she thought, just a piece of an orange, so why was there a little drum tattooing the message through her veins that she was answering some unspoken innuendo as she reached breathlessly for Rye’s offering?
Without taking his eyes from hers, he lifted a section of orange to his lips. They opened in slow motion to receive the ripe, plump fruit, and as he bit down, a succulent spurt of orange juice flew into the warm, summer air.
As if mesmerized, she answered by lifting her own delicacy, tasting old memories as she bit into its sweetness, her every sense heightened by awareness of the man before her.
In his turn he ate a second piece, and this time a sweet rivulet of juice drizzled down his chin, and her eyes followed it, unable to do otherwise.
Suddenly he laughed and broke the spell, Laura following suit, while he untied the red bandana from about his throat and wiped his chin, then offered it to her.
It smelled of salt and cedar and of him as she brushed her lips with it. He peeled another orange for Josh, whose eyes were too busy to note the looks being exchanged between his mother and the tall cooper.
“So y’ come to the market every mornin’?” Rye asked.
“Well, almost. We come to get milk, Josh and I.”
“And I carry it, too,” Josh declared proudly, backhanding his orangy lips, making them both laugh down at him.
Something powerfully sweet swelled Rye’s heart. He’d missed being this child’s father, didn’t even know if it was a great accomplishment for a four-year-old to safely carry a pitcher of milk. But it was heady learning, sharing such first revelations with the boy.
‘‘You do!” Rye exclaimed, bending down to test Josh’s biceps. “I can see why. Y’ve a fine set o’ muscles in that arm. Y’ must’ve been haulin’ traps or pullin’ rigging.”
Josh laughed gaily. “I ain’t old enough for that yet, but when I get big like my papa, I’m gonna be a whaler.”
Rye’s eyes flashed briefly to Laura’s, then back to their son. “Whalers get mighty lonesome out there on the big ships, Josh, and sometimes they miss out on lots of fun, bein’ gone so much of the time. Maybe you’d be better off bein’ a clerk like ... like y’r papa.”
“Naw, I don’t like it in the countinghouse. It’s dark in there, and you can’t hear the waves as good.” Then, with typical childish caprice, Josh scarcely paused as he changed subject. “I wanna hear the auctioneer, Mama. Can I go over and listen to him?” He squinted up at her.
Aware of Rye suddenly turning pleading eyes to her, aware of her own heart thumping away in double time, Laura knew it was safer to keep Josh beside her, yet answered as her heart dictated. For what could happen out here in the middle of Market Square? “All right, but stay right there until I come for you, and don’t go anywhere else.”
“Aye-aye!” he answered, imitating Rye, then scampering away toward the lower end of the square.
Rye’s gaze followed the boy. Softly, he said, “Ah, but he’s bonny.”
“Yes ... yes, he is.”
They were alone now, but hesitated to look at each other or say another word. Laura sought equilibrium in the oranges, turning to test them, selecting some to place in her drawstring bag. But while her hand moved from fruit to fruit, Rye’s hovered beside it, doing likewise. He squeezed one, took it away, then squeezed another, but at last his hand fell still. A long motionless moment passed before Laura looked up to find his eyes upon her, full of her, taking their fill now as they hadn’t been able to while Delaine and Josh had been with them.
His gaze moved up to the tiny springing curls beneath her bonnet brim, then to her lips, softly parted, and to her brown eyes, which seemed caught in his. “Jesus, but I’ve missed you,” he breathed.
Her lips fell open further, and she stammered, “D ... don’t say that, Rye.”
“It’s the truth.”
“But better left unsaid.”
“And now I can be miserable thinking about the boy as well?”
But she was as miserable as he at the thought. She’d read his longing plainly enough in each glance he’d given Josh, each exchange of words they’d shared, and the small insignificant gift of peeled orange: a father’s first offering to his son.
“Rye, I’m sorry.”
“He’s dreamin’ of makin’ the same mistakes I’ve made.”
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“He has a good fath ... a good man to steer him.”
“Aye, he does, and it cuts me t’ the quick t’ know it.”
“Rye, please don’t. You’re only making it harder.” Momentarily, he glanced at the brick building across the square where even now Dan Morgan worked at his desk. “Have y’ talked to him yet? Have y’ told him ... asked him ...”
She shook her head, chin lowering, oranges suddenly becoming blurred by tears. “I can’t. It would kill him to lose Josh now.”
“And what about me? Josh is my son—have y’ had a thought for what I’m feelin’?”
“I’ve had a thousand thoughts for what you’re feeling, Rye.” She raised tormented eyes and he saw tears sparkling on her lashes. “But if you could see the two of them together—”
“I have! I do! I see them in my nightmares, just the way they were the day I came home. But it doesn’t alter the fact that I want t’ be his father now, though it’s four years late I’ll be startin’.”
“I’ve got to go, Rye. We’ve been together too long as it is. Dan is sure to find out about it. ”
“Wait!” He reached out quickly to stay her with a wide hand on her yellow sleeve. Shivers radiated through her from his touch. Reading her reaction in those brown, startled eyes, he immediately withdrew his hand. “Wait,” he entreated more softly. “Will y’ meet me here in the market tomorrow mornin’? I’ve somethin’ to give y’ ... somethin’ I made for y’.”
“I can’t accept gifts from you. Dan will ask questions.”
“He’ll know nothin’ about this one. Please.”
She looked up to find his face filled with pain and longing, just above hers, and wondered if it was not just a matter of time before she gave in to him—all the way in. She backed up a step, guilty for the thought, once again withdrawing to a safe distance, yet unable to deny his request. “We’d best not meet at the oranges again.”
He glanced around, searching the crowded square. “Have y’ planted y’r garden yet?”
“Most of it ... not all.”
“Do y’ need seeds?”
“Parsnips.”
“I’ll meet y’ by the flower carts. They sell seeds there, too.”
“All right.”
Their eyes clung for a last look.
“Y’ won’t disappoint me, now, will y’, Laura-love?”
She swallowed, wanting nothing so much as to fling her arms about his neck and kiss him right here, and the whole square be damned.
“No, I won’t disappoint you, Rye, but I must go now.” She turned away, her heart knowing a delight it had not felt in years, that rapturous torture of first love happening all over again. The giddiness of secret meetings, of sharing small intimacies under the noses of others. How often they’d dared such things in years past. To do so again was dangerous, yet the idea seduced Laura in a way that made her feel more vibrant, more alive, than she’d been since Rye Dalton had sailed away.
When she’d taken a mere three steps, his voice came softly from behind her. “Bring the boy. I’ve known too little of him, too.”
Without turning around, she nodded, then headed for the lower square.
***
Josiah noted the difference in Rye but offered no comment as his son sauntered into the cooperage, flipping three oranges up for grabs in quick succession, almost faster than Josiah could nab them. “There, y’ old sea dog. Y’ needn’t worry about the scurvy catchin’ up with y’ now. Is the boy back yet?”
“Ayup, and gone again. I fear he’s takin’ advantage of me, but I’ve got a soft old heart, as y’ well know, lettin’ all m’ help run out in the sun and leavin’ me here to molder in the shadows of the place and carry on business without a bit o’ help.” Josiah chuckled softly.
“I’ve an errand for Chad t’ run when he comes back, so keep him under y’r thumb next time he chooses t’ darken the doorway for a minute.”
When Chad returned, Josiah pretended to pay no attention as Rye fished a penny from his pocket and ordered, “I want y’ to run t’ the apothecary on Federal Street and fetch me as many sarsaparilla sticks as this will buy. And have one y’rself, but don’t break the rest while y’re dallyin’ on the way back t’ work.”
He had promised Laura that Dan wouldn’t find out about what he had for her, but he’d said not a thing about any treat he might bring to Josh, knowing full well word of sarsaparilla sticks would reach Dan’s ears. If he couldn’t get Laura to make the first move toward separation from Dan, maybe he could get Dan to.
That night Rye opened his sea chest, still thinking of the sight of Laura and the boy standing in the sun against a backdrop of bright fruit and a pony cart filled with daisies, lilies, and tulips. It had been so unexpected, looking up to find her there after so many lonely days of searching faces on the streets each time he walked them.
How many times during the past five years had he thought of that face just as it had looked today, with its wide, bright eyes, delicate lips alluringly open, and that look about her that said she still felt the same?
Laura’s face had been with him through the empty first days of the voyage while the weight of guilt for leaving her still lay heavy on his soul. It had accompanied him during endless hours of listening to the rush of the curling waters climbing the flared planking of the Massachusetts’s bow, washing the wooden knees of the figurehead, the only lady to make the voyage. It had been his reason to exult during the brief hours when a whale was hauled against the side of the ship and he sat on the quarterdeck sharpening spades while the second mate cut away blubber. The scent of her had been his sustenance while he erected barrels, with the sickening stench of half-decomposed blubber filling his nostrils as the trypot sizzled and spat on the deck, melting down fat in various stages of putrefaction. Laura had been the prayer on his lips during the terror-filled days rounding the Horn, when he was certain he would make her not a rich wife but a poor widow.
And during those fevered days of smallpox, when his senses dimmed, Laura had come to him in his delirium, giving him reason to fight for life.
Now, picking from his sea chest a small, flat piece of carved whalebone, he remembered how images of Laura’s face and body had guided his hands as he’d filled the worst hours of all, those nerve-racking days considered the most excruciating by any man, be he deck hand or captain, who’d ever sailed a windjammer—the doldrums.
The doldrums, when the fickle wind denied them her breath, leaving the ship to drift motionlessly upon a merciless, windless sea. The doldrums, when the urge for home became agonizing. The doldrums, when wasted days only lengthened the voyage, profiting nothing, bringing a feeling of utter helplessness until tempers flared and vicious fights broke out on board.
He had shared the doldrums with shipmates who fought the lassitude with the only pastime available—scrimshaw. At first when Rye took up a knife to carve the whalebone, he was inept and impatient. The initial pieces he turned out were rough and hardly worth keeping, so he tossed them overboard. But he persisted, with the help of the others, and soon he produced a smooth splicing fid—a pin for separating the strands of a rope—then a walking stick. Next he tried a jewelry casket, and when it was finely polished, its etchings deep and true, the men started teasing him about making a busk, for they knew he’d left a wife ashore.
The busk was a foot-long strip of bone, fingernail-thick, that could be slipped into a casing along the front of a woman’s bodice, like a batten on a sail. Its purpose was to uplift, it was extremely personal, and was meant to serve as a reminder to the woman who wore it that she must remain true to her seafaring man until he returned.
Yet for all their teasing, no skrimshander carved any piece as caringly as he did a busk, for in the end it became a vent for his loneliness and his hope for the journey’s end.
When Rye finished the busk for Laura, it was smoother than anything he’d done before, and he polished the striated grooves with silicon carbide until it was as satiny as Laura’s v
ery breast. He’d carved on it an entwined design of Nantucket wild roses, among which he and Laura had played as children, adding gulls and a delicate scallop-edged heart. Then he deliberated long over the carved message, rephrasing the brief poem for weeks before deciding on the exact words.
Lifting the busk from his sea chest now, he read:
Until upon your rosy breast
My loving lips are fondly press’t
Wear thee this token made of bone
And know I long for thee alone.
Never while he’d been carving the busk had Rye dreamed it would take on the poignant relevance it did now. He wondered if she’d bury it deep in some bureau drawer or wear it pressed secretly against her skin.
He thought of her sunlit face this morning beneath the brim of a yellow bonnet and recalled gay shafts of sunlight piercing a succulent section of orange, lighting it to near transparency as her straight white teeth broke it. He remembered her brown eyes and how they’d measured his awareness, and orange juice glistening on her lips. He thought of the way she’d clutched Josh’s hand at first, then allowed Rye his first father’s privileges.
And his heart swelled with hope.
Chapter 8
SLEEP WAS IMPOSSIBLE for Rye that night. Eagerness kept him tossing fitfully until finally, at four A.M., he pulled a thick turtleneck sweater over his head and found his boots in the dark, along with the cold nose of Ship, who woke at the sound of his rustling and came to investigate.
They crept out together to sit on the bottom step while Rye pulled on his boots and whispered, “What do y’ say we climb up the rock like we used to, old girl?”
Ship’s tail answered, and her tongue lolled pink from the side of her mouth.