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Ruffling Feathers Chapter 22 - Inland Passage
Paul picked up Amy from the dock at the bottom of the Inn at Whiteside's beach stairs at seven the morning after the MCP gala. "Family Pride—good name for a boat." Amy said, grinning at Paul as he helped her aboard the sloop. She had dressed in layers, as he had instructed her to the night before. In the chilly morning mist, they ate breakfast as Paul motored out of the bay and outlined the day ahead of them. They would start by sailing a four-mile stretch of open water around the cape to an inside passage, and then do a thirty-mile cruise that would take them from the Kennebec River to Pemaquid Point. "The only way to understand what MCP is working to save is to experience it." Paul explained. Amy, her second cup of tea warming her hands, sat in a stern rail seat and watched Paul sail. He looked so different here—fisherman's sweater and jeans, deftly working the boat to make her respond as he wanted, checking his instruments. He was a master in his element, strong and capable and sure. "You look happy." She said quietly. He glanced at her, smiled, and then looked up at the main sail and trimmed it slightly. "I am happy. Actually..." He paused, lifted his binoculars, and then handed them to Amy, "Look, there—seals sunbathing. We'll see more upriver." As Amy looked at the seals, Paul continued, "Actually, this is a watershed day for me." "Oh..." "I remember you told me about writing your goodbye letter to..." Paul's voice grew husky, "...to Greg Hansen on the continental divide. I liked the symbolism of that. Well, tomorrow I'm starting a new life myself and taking you on this little voyage upriver seems appropriate. You see..." He paused again to take a long sip of coffee. He surveyed the shoreline, "I've sold Donovan Industries. The press conference is tomorrow. I'm officially retiring from being a slash-and-burn industrialist, as you used to like to call me." "Yes, but that was..." "It was true. I can't believe I did the things I did last year. I had blinders on and but for you, I would have destroyed anything good that was left inside of me. The truth is, I hated being a corporate boss—I never wanted that kind of a life. My mother knew that—when I was young, she used to argue with my father about letting me live my own life. When they died, I gave up every thought of doing something other than run Meriweather Explorations, as it was called then. I tried to clean up the company, but I hated the work, I really did. The meetings, the politics, the maneuverings, the wheeling and dealing. This here wheel," Paul said as he patted the sailboat wheel, "is the only wheeling I want to do." He told her that he was going to spend his time building sailboats and working as a political consultant for groups like MCP—"they have good people who are passionate about their work, but they haven't a clue how to get legislature passed." He was going to make a difference to his home town, not just have a house there. He was going to make a difference with his life, not just take up space. "You showed me the way. You're so wrapped up in your work—it's an eloquent statement of who you are. I never met anyone who would fight so hard to protect her home as you did. After I got over being mad at you when you left for London, I realized that I was ashamed that I wasn't doing something worthwhile myself." Her throat tight with emotion, Amy forced herself to speak, to take his part. "But you were trying to resolve your parents's deaths. The environmental conspiracy theory wasn't actually that farfetched—the eco-terrorists have done some really heinous things over the years. I can't believe I'm saying this, but Dennis Brown could have been right—he had circumstantial evidence. You had to help the FBI..." "Amy, the truth of the matter is that I couldn't think straight. I was living a life I hated, feeling guilty over hating it, and I jumped at the opportunity to relieve myself of that guilt. God help me, I was ready to let Greg Hansen hang just so I could feel like I had been a good son and had avenged my parents." "But you didn't did you? You could have let Greg hang, and Lisa. You made them go soft, didn't you?" Amy's lower lip quivered and her eyes glistened. Paul looked up and away, and then wordlessly, his own eyes full, he nodded. "I love you, Paul." He took her hand and held it to his cheek. She felt the dampness of his smooth, clean-shaven skin. His fingers squeezed hers. Paul wrapped an arm around Amy and pulled her into him. Her head resting on his chest, her eyes closed, he stroked her hair and rested his head on hers as he sailed his sloop up one of Maine's majestic rivers. It was a day from a book. As the climbing sun warmed the river and burned the mist away, Amy and Paul slowly peeled off their layers of sweater and sweat shirt until noon found them shirt-sleeved and swathed in sunscreen, snapping photos of osprey diving for their dinner as the boat chased schools of bluefish upriver. They glided past deer and raccoons on the river bank and lifted their faces to watch blue herons, Canadian geese, and kingfishers fill the skies around them. They rounded a bend that opened up into a wide expanse. Amy gasped to see two white heads swooping high in the sky. "Are they...?" she whispered to Paul. "They are," he answered back. "You know...bald eagles mate for life. I've seen that pair before. They're old lovers now, but still riding on the wind together, their old eagle eyes spying fish or mice or rabbits to take back to their eerie..." "...to share with each other over a nice bottle of cabernet?" Amy finished for him with a laugh. "Precisely. Now, are you ready for lunch?" "Paul, tell me about the party last night." Amy took another bite of cheese, and tore off a hunk of bread. Paul had brought a ploughman's lunch—bread and sausage, cheese and fruit. "What do you mean?" "I mean that I felt like I walked into a play in the middle of the second act and I didn't know the story, but everyone thought I did. Or assumed I did..." "You were mean to Dave." Amy looked evenly at Paul. "That's changing the subject. But yes, I guess I was mean to him." Her voice tightened as she defended herself, "But he came up to me in that sweet, charming way he has and so earnestly asked after my family, 'all my family.' I'd have to be brain dead not to know that who he really wanted to know about was Jenn, and so I let him have it. She is doing great—she's dating an old friend, a fellow teacher, and I expect they'll get married soon. All of it's true, so don't look at me like that." "If you're going to be mad at someone, be mad at me." Paul retorted. "Dave left Piñon to go to Florida at my request. He was working for me." "But the man knows how to use a phone. He has a corporate jet at his beck and call. He didn't need to dump her like that. How can I be happy when Jenn's miserable?" "I thought you said she was doing great—going to get married, I think you said." "Jenn marrying Roberto would be like me marrying Richard. You don't really marry your backup boyfriend, you just say you're going to. Jenn won't marry Roberto, she's just tired of being lonely." Amy reached across and took Paul's hand in her own, "I was mean to Dave. I'm sorry." "I can't make him go back to Piñon, you know." "I know that. I don't think I'd want him in love with my sister if you could." "So Richard's your backup boyfriend?" Paul teased Amy, with just the tiniest edge in his voice. "In all the years I've known Richard I've never known where I stood with him, what I really meant to him. He teases and flirts with me; makes passes and extravagant proposals; but at the end of the day, I could never see who was behind the mask. You can't fall in love with a mask." "Richard is my closest friend. We're closer than brothers. We spent summers in Carlisle Point together; grew up together." Paul's voice was low as he struggled to express the thought that was forming, "Just as I was living a life I hated, I think you see a mask on Richard because he's not being true to who he is either. Whether it be a life of quiet desperation or one of sound and fury, it's wearing to try to be someone you're not." The gurgling sound of the river lapping the sides of the
sailboat filled the air as Amy and Paul silently looked into each other's eyes
and grappled with the realization that their happiness, the love they shared,
was intimate. The rosy hue the world had taken on was for them alone. It was
glorious, and a little sad. Jenn and Dave and Richard and Ellen and all the
other players in their world would somehow have to do what they did—find the
courage to be true to themselves. The afternoon was hot. Sultry. Big puffy clouds piled one on top of another. Like thunderheads in Colorado, Amy thought, but this isn't Colorado, so she didn't say anything. They had reached the end of the inland passage, with the river coming back out at Pemaquid Point, and were sailing back down the coast toward Carlisle Point. After lunch, Amy and Paul hadn't talked much. Comfortable silence, punctuated with soft smiles and passing caresses, rendered words superfluous. "What did you think of Addie?" Paul asked after a time. "Ellen's little girl? She has a crush on you." "Apart from that. Notice anything unusual about her?" "She sees a lot. She chatters, but she doesn't miss much." "Some people say she can see into the future. She thinks she can." "Do you?" "No. I think she's just really smart and doesn't know what to do with all that's rattling around in her head." They fell back into silence. Paul didn't tell Amy what Addie told him the previous night about her. It was after Paul had persuaded Amy that she wasn't intruding and that he was glad she was there and he had taken her arm and led her inside and introduced her to Ellen, who had met him at the door with Richard and Addie at her side, it was then that Paul noticed the stricken look on Addie's face. A solitary tear had left a wet streak down her thin cheek and her eyes were cloudy and troubled. Paul had quickly asked Richard to escort Amy and Ellen upstairs to the gallery, then he stooped down and gently asked Addie to tell him what made her sad. "You love her, don't you?" Addie declared, her lip quivering. "Why do you say that?" "Oh, Paul," Addie cried. "She has a shadow on her face. A shadow like that." She pointed to his arm where freckles formed the tiny heart she had claimed for herself. He looked into her eyes, his heart in his throat, "And what does that mean, Addie? What does it mean that she has a shadow of heart on her face?" he asked, struggling to keep his voice from cracking. "I don't know, Paul. I don't know." she sobbed, burying her head on his shoulder, and clinging to him.
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