LAUREN SMALL
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watched the gull circle over the mast until he disappeared into the
whiteness of the sun.
After a while my father took out the sandwiches. Ricky refused to
relinquish the tiller. To my surprise - he had never been able to eat on
the boat before - he wolfed down his sandwich and asked for another.
The sun made me tired. I leaned back, rested my head on my arms, and
slept.
Sometime later I heard a sp lash. I sat up and saw my father swim–
ming naked alongside the boat. The wind had died down. Becalmed,
the boat rocked gently back and forth. Ricky was resting his head on
the deck, his eyes closed and his face pale. The rocking of the boat had
finally made him sick.
My father whooped and hollered. His legs and arms, the curve of his
back, flashed bluish-white against the dark water. He took a fistful of
water and splashed me. "C'mon in!" he shouted. "It's great."
I looked over the side of the boat. The water looked black, endless
and bottomless. My father swam with strong strokes around the boat,
submerging and reappearing. Ricky didn't lift his head.
The sails hung empty; the boom slipped listlessly from side to side.
My father tread water, and grinned. "C'mon toots!" he hollered. "Just
jump in." He used both hands this time to splash me.
Water hit the side of my face. I reached up and brushed it away
from my cheek, enjoying the coolness as it evaporated in the sun. Then I
felt something different, a new coolness against my cheek. The wind.
The sail tightened. The boom slid to one side then was still, rigid
and straining. I didn't feel as if we were moving, but my father was get–
ting farther and farther away from the boat.
He began to swim, his arms plunging in and out of the water with
strong strokes. But still we sailed away.
"A line!" my father hollered.
"Ricky," I whispered.
"Throw me a line!" my father screamed.
"Ricky!" I yelled.
Ricky looked up, his face white, his eyes glazed over.
Frantic, I scrambled along the deck for a line. Which one? There
were so many. I remembered my father explaining them all, this one for
the mast, this one for the jib. I grabbed a rope and tossed it out to him.
For a second it hung in the air, a long, curling line, like a wisp of
smoke. Then it hit the water and - because I had forgotten to secure it
to the boat - dropped under the surface and disappeared.
Still the wind pushed against the sail, driving the boat forward. My
father was swimming, swimming as hard as he could. But he couldn't
reach us. Eventually, I knew, he would tire. He would tire, then he
