The Other Side of Blue(40)

She comes inside and closes the door. We’re both in the dark.

I force my breathing to match the rhythm of the waves in the background. Not giving myself away. I want to say something, to tell her it was her fault. He shouldn’t have been fishing alone that day. She should have gone with him. He’d still be with us if she’d gone.

“I loved your father, too. Nothing is ever as simple as you think it is, Cyan. You have to understand that.” This is the most Mother has said about what happened in a year. For a whole year we have walked past each other, not talking about it. During that time, Mother decided she will marry another man. Even then we did not discuss what happened.

After a few minutes the door opens, letting in a moment of moon glow before it closes once more. The boathouse is again black inside, so dark my eyes see sparkles when I squeeze them shut and then open them wide. Just like that time in Hato Cave when the guide turned out the light.

They found Dad’s boat the next day. The currents had carried it out. They pulled it onto the beach and found his body entangled in the fishing net underneath. He tried to pull himself out of the water, the police report said. They found microslivers of blue paint under his fingernails, and one nail had ripped off. They think that occurred before death. His shoulders and arms had been bruised. From the strain of trying to save himself? That was possible. Maybe fingernail scratches and not the netting itself or the anchor rope caused the blue paint to rub off in spots.

All the evidence suggested his death was accidental.

But the champagne bottle troubled the commissioner. That and the missing wineglasses. There was no alcohol in his body, though, the autopsy report said. He wasn’t drunk. Nor were there any fish in the ice chest. A few shards of clear glass lay scattered in the bottom of the boat, along with a wineglass stem. Had the glass been broken on purpose? By accident? Where were the goblets?

They collected the evidence in a clear plastic pouch, except for the glass sliver I found just now. A tragic incident, the newspaper said the first day after. The police report used fewer adjectives. Its conclusions were vague.

“That’s the way of all bureaucrats,” Mother said as we waited at the airport to leave. “A way to angle money out of you as you wait for them to tell you something. When you can go. When you can take the body. I went straight to the American embassy. You can bet they moved faster after that.”

I lie in the boat until light comes through the window. Dust motes float in the air like microscopic jellyfish. I brush my footprints away from the door when I relock it, and pocket the key. Covering up the evidence.





Chapter Twenty-One


BACK AT Blauwe Huis, I slink to my room without seeing Mother. I pass by Kammi’s door, careful to avoid the spot in front that squeaks. I save the sliver of glass in my box. It doesn’t fit with the sea glass. It’s too sharp and clear, and I’ll cut myself on it if I forget it’s there and run my hand inside the box. But there’s no other safe place to keep it.

Martia doesn’t hum or sing the whole day. She walks around the house silently, not even firing up the stove. We eat cold salad and sandwiches for lunch, almost as if it’s a Sunday and Martia has gone home. For once, she doesn’t tell us to fill up, to eat more.

Late in the afternoon, after listening to Mother pace upstairs in her studio, I hear her creep downstairs. She walks past Kammi, who’s flipping through art magazines at the table, and me, lying on the jute rug, staring up through the clear glass coffee table, studying the undersides of the shells. She doesn’t even look at me, much less mention the boathouse.

“Martia, please call a taxi,” Mother says.

“Jinco, he is no working today.”

“So call another cab. There must be someone else you know. We’re going out to dinner.”

Apparently, even Mother can’t stand the silence of the house.

“Sí,” Martia says.

Martia places the call from the kitchen, as if she doesn’t want Mother hanging over her shoulder, criticizing which cab company she chooses.

When she returns, she says: “Twenty minutes. The cab, it is coming.”

“Come with us,” Mother says. She motions Martia closer.

Mother has never asked Martia to come out with us. If Martia’s surprised, she doesn’t show it. She raises her hand, pushing away the offer, as if Mother is just teasing her with the promise of an expensive meal in Willemstad.

I almost bang my head on the glass coffee table getting up. “Come on, please.” Suddenly, I want Martia to come with us, more than anything else I’ve wanted this summer.

She smiles at me, a wistful smile, but she shakes her head. Her place is not with us there. Her place with us is only here, for one month, in a house that doesn’t belong to any of us.