Adam didn’t do much the next couple days other than just enjoy being around Blanche Tickle, Mary, and Matty. They did a few piddle projects around the construction work, but there really wasn’t much they could do since the b’ys were out on the multi-day cod opener. From the snatches of radio conversation heard down at the store, things seemed to be going well, but the final word wouldn’t be known until the opener was over with and the catch had been hauled to the processing plant.

Other than that, they sat around and talked a lot, played with Matty more than a little, and a couple of times took some of the artists out for sails on the Mary Sue. It was a popular activity, and there always seemed to be a lot of sketch pad activity on those cruises.

One of the things Adam particularly enjoyed was the evenings, when Mary would often invite one or more of the people from the settlement over to talk to the artists about life in the community, fishing, and just tales of the old days. There were some good stories to be heard, and some of them were downright hair-raising though they all had the ring of truth to them.

Even after just a couple days there, Adam felt it was a shame that he couldn’t stay longer than planned, since he was really enjoying himself. With the airline reservations already set up the time to leave would come too quickly. Maybe he could come back this fall, maybe this winter; although he knew he was something of a stranger here and always would be, he really liked the place and wanted to experience more of it.

The next morning, Mary came to him at breakfast. “Adam, we’ve got a problem,” she said. “An’ I’m wonderin’ if ye can help me out with it.”

“If it’s something I can do, I’ll be glad to help.”

“I think ye can handle it,” she said. “The day you got here, I took a woman over ta Ballycotton Cove, one of the artist folk. She wanted ta camp out there for a couple days, ta take in the peace and loneliness of the place, an’ ta do some paintin’ an drawin’, naturally. I was supposed ta pick her up today, but Sinead just told me that the guy from St. John’s is supposed ta be here for the final plannin’ on the sewer system, ’cause he’s gonna have a crew in here the first of the week.”

“So that leaves you hanging a little.”

“Aye. Andrew an’ I need ta be here ta meet with him, but I don’t want the poor woman ta be sittin’ over in Ballycotton Cove thinkin’ she’s stranded. Most cases I’d get one of the b’ys ta go pick her up, but just about anyone I can ask is still out on the cod opener. But I’m thinkin’ since ye got your own boat and know a bit about sailin’, ye could take the Mary Sue and go pick her up.”

“Are you sure you want me to do it? The Mary Sue is a lot heavier boat than the Knick-Knack, and has more draft. Besides, I’ve only been to Ballycotton Cove once.”

“Aw, ye can find it, an’ if ye can’t the GPS on the boat has a waypoint marked. The weather is supposed ta be fine, an’ I can’t imagine ye’d have any problems.”

“All right, Mary, I’ll do it, and I can probably handle it. Given a choice I’d rather not do it on the Mary Sue since I know how much it means to you and how much it meant to Matt.”

“Aye, and that’s a big part of why I’m comfortable with ye doin’ it. You’re gonna be extra careful because of that. But don’t worry none, ’cause ye ain’t gonna have any problems.”

Although Adam felt like he was barely beyond the novice stage as a sailor, he was pleased at the confidence Mary had in him. The Mary Sue was more than just a boat to him; it was an honored spot of his history, of Matt’s and Mary’s. It was good to know that she was willing to trust him with it.

There wasn’t much he could do but row the skiff out to the Mary Sue’s mooring, tie the skiff off and get the Mary Sue going. It wasn’t totally strange since he’d now been out sailing on it with Mary several times, and mostly she’d let him sail it while she shot the bull with the passengers. The big difference was that it had a roller reefing jib, rather than the boomed regular jib of the Knick-Knack, but he’d learned how to handle the difference on previous trips with Mary. It only took him a few minutes to get everything ready to get under way, and the harbor was open enough that he could sail right off the mooring on the mainsail, rather than having to motor out like he was used to at Frenchtown.

As he got out in the harbor a little bit, he unrolled the jib; the wind was light enough and in the right direction to let it out all the way, not quite as far as the Knick-Knack’s drifter, but enough to get the boat moving with a distinct heel. One of the things he had to be careful about with the Knick-Knack was that the boat was lightly ballasted enough that he could almost lay it over on its side without any great amount of wind. The much heavier keel on the Mary Sue meant that the boat was a lot less tender. He felt he could push it harder if he’d been of a mind to and the wind had been strong enough. Though the boats were physically close to the same size, he didn’t have to be an expert to recognize the differences between the two.

All in all, it was a pleasant sail on as bright and clear a day as Newfoundland gets, moving right along without being frantic about it. Soon he was out of the harbor, pointed in the direction of the head a few miles off he knew he’d have to get around before pointing up the long bay where Ballycotton Cove was located. There were more waves rolling in than he was used to, but he’d been out in moderately big waves before, with Jake in the Pixie and with Mary on this boat, so he wasn’t exactly a stranger to them. Once again, the Mary Sue was telling him she could take it and enjoy it in the process. No wonder Matt had come to love this boat!

Things calmed down a little once he got around the head and started up the bay toward Ballycotton Cove. Things seemed familiar, and he didn’t bother with the GPS; after a while, he began to pick out the familiar tumbledown settlement ahead of him. As he got closer, he could see a single figure with a couple bags sitting on the ramshackle pier. Not wanting to risk a sail only landing on the pier, he rolled in the jib, then dropped the main, and started the boat’s diesel to creep up to the landing.

“Hello,” the woman said as he got close. “Where’s Mary?”

“Mary had to meet with a guy about the sewer system,” he replied. “She sent me to pick you up. I’m Adam Caldwell, Matty’s grandfather.”

“Oh, so you’re Matt’s father, then,” she said. “I’ve heard a lot of stories about him and a few about you.”

“It was someone else, I assure you,” he said as he nudged the Mary Sue close to the dock. She tossed her bags on the deck and hopped aboard like she’d been doing it all her life as he continued, “I was somewhere else at the time and can prove it. So how was your stay in Ballycotton Cove?”

He put the Mary Sue’s prop into reverse to back away from the dock as she replied, “Good for the most part, although it got a little dull in the last day or so. I made some very nice sketches and a few interesting watercolors, so I’ll have something to work on when I get home. I was very happy to see your sail coming up the bay. I’m really looking forward to having a shower. Rinsing off in cold salt water just doesn’t do it for me.”

“I was never much of a camper as a kid,” he replied, looking at her a little more closely. At a guess, she was probably close to his age, relatively slender, although not quite as thin as Carolyn, with auburn hair and a nice smile. “I got out with the scouts a few times, but camping alone in an abandoned settlement is something I never really thought about.”

“Oh, it was an adventure in its way. I wasn’t exactly camping, though. I unrolled my sleeping bag on the floor of what Mary said was her house when she was a little girl. Should I put my gear down in the cabin?”

“Probably wouldn’t be a bad idea,” he said. “It might be a little lively on the way back.”

“Good,” she said as she put the gear below, then took a seat on the opposite cockpit seat. “A lively sail sounds like fun. It’s been too long.”

“You’ve done some sailing, then?”

“Quite a bit, before my husband died a few years ago. We used to go out quite a lot in the summer time. We had a boat that was a little bigger than this, a thirty-foot Alberg. We spent a lot of time on Georgian Bay with it.”

“Then I need to pick your brain a bit,” he said. “A friend of mine and I are heading up there in a couple weeks.”

“There are a lot of neat places, but if you’re in the Thirty Thousand Islands, never get out of a marked channel. I mean, never, unless you’re running dead slow under power and ready to drop into reverse at any instant. Fortunately the water is always pretty clear, but they really ought to have named the place the ‘thirty trillion rocks.’”'

“I’ve heard it’s pretty wild and rugged, but this is going to be my first time there.”

“Well, it’s not really all that wild, I mean, like wilderness. A lot of it is cottage country and you see cottages in the damndest places. But it’s nice cottage country; my family has one near Flower Harbour. I’m probably going to be heading up there for a couple weeks myself, but that’s as much to see the grandkids as anything.”

“That’s pretty much why I’m here,” he told her. “Matty is my only grandchild and I don’t see him enough.”

Adam thought he was more than far enough away from the pier, so he swung the Mary Sue around, got it heading down the bay, and started breaking out the sails. A little to his surprise, the woman was doing what she could do to help, and doing it competently; it was clear that she knew something about sailing. Before long they were going up the bay at a good clip, the sails full and the boat heeled. The waves weren’t large, but once in a while they’d hit one a little wrong and a few drops of spray would splash up. She was clearly enjoying the ride; he could tell by the grin on her face.

“I guess you really do enjoy sailing,” he commented.

“I used to really enjoy it, and I miss it a lot. After my husband died, well, there was no point in keeping the Alberg. I mean, I think I could have handled the sailing, but the upkeep and all the other stuff, well, it was a little too much on my limited income. Bert left me a good pension, and I get to do a lot of things I enjoy, but something had to go and that was the obvious thing.”

“So what do you do these days?”

“Oh, this and that. I enjoy my painting even though I know I’m a dabbler at it. This camp seemed like an interesting idea and I’ve worked with Andrew a little before, so I decided to come up and give it a try for a couple weeks. This place is certainly picturesque, isn’t it?”

“It is all of that, but to be honest, I think the people interest me as much as the physical beauty, which is considerable. I’ve been here in the winter, and it’s pretty awesome then, too. That time of year you get a really strong feeling for how tough their lives have been, and what a hard, self-dependent and competent people have resulted.”

“That’s really true, isn’t it? You must have a better feeling for it than I do.”

“Actually, I haven’t spent all that much time here, but I feel a special connection to the place because of Mary and Matty. They’re the ones who belong here. I just get to visit once in a while.”

“Where do you come from? I can tell from your accent that you must be a Yank.”

“Detroit area,” he replied. “How about you? You must be Canadian, but all I can tell from your accent is that you’re not from Newfoundland.”

“Yes, that accent is pretty distinctive, isn’t it? I’m from the Toronto area, just outside, actually. So what do you do with your life when you’re not sailing?”

“That’s an interesting question. Right at the moment I’m in the process of getting semi-retired from a secondary auto parts manufacturing company.” He didn’t want to get into much more detail than that; he wasn’t one to boast about how much money he had, even though he hadn’t had it for long. He didn’t want people interested in him for his money. “I’m still going to be involved with the company for consulting and special projects. It’s going to eat up some time but I’m not sure how much yet. Possibly not very much. So what do you with your life when you’re not painting?”

“I’m afraid not very much,” she said. “I have a friend who owns a gallery. I help her out with it sometimes, and get involved in a few other activities here and there. Mostly I live a quiet life, and try to stay at least a little active at doing things I’m interested in, like my painting. I’m afraid I’m not going to be the next Andrew Wyeth, but I enjoy it and I occasionally get to sell a painting. What about you? How are you going to be using your time?”

“I’m still working on that one,” he admitted. “I’ve been getting into sailing. I’d never been out on a sailboat until last year, but I’m getting hooked on it. I bought my first boat this spring and I’ve been sailing it all I can. I’m thinking I may do some extended cruising in future years. That’s still pretty fuzzy, though.”

“You seem to sail like you know what you’re doing.”

“You see me being very, very careful,” he replied. “This boat, well, it’s very special. Not only was it Matt and Mary’s, it was the only home Matt ever owned. I feel very close to him on it, and the last thing I’d want to do is put a scratch in it.”

“I wish I could have met him,” she said. “From the stories Mary tells he must have been a very nice young man.”

“I always thought he was. If Mary has told you about him, you probably know he felt he was under a death sentence and was determined to wring all he could out of life. I think I’ve learned a few lessons from him.”

“It must have been very sad for you.”

“It was,” he said. “But I had to deal with it, and it was tempered a little by the fact that I knew it could happen sooner or later. At least I was able to deal with it. My wife just couldn’t handle the reality. It cost me my marriage, and she wound up in a mental institution. I still feel a little like I abandoned her, but it was time to go. I knew that I had to get on with my life, and she just couldn’t come to that realization.”

“Perhaps it was for the best.”

“I think it was,” he said. “My horizons have widened quite a bit since I made up my mind to do that. I wouldn’t be sailing, for one thing.”

Both of them shied away from the topic of Brittany; his woman passenger must have realized it was a touchy subject with him. They got talking about other things, art and sailing and Matt and Mary, along with some of the things she’d done with her husband. She never came right out and said it, but Adam got the impression that he must have been gone about five years, dying of a sudden and unexpected heart attack. She’d had a lot of adjustments to make in coming to grips with a life without him, but it seemed to Adam that she’d managed well at it.

By the time they reached the end of the bay the sea was rolling in, and they were pitching up and down as they quartered into the waves going around the headland, salt spray occasionally crashing over the deck. The Mary Sue took them like the sea boat she was, with no concern to either of the people on board, just giving them a nice ride. This, Adam thought, was what it was really all about, not just drifting about on Lake Erie in gentle breezes, but alive, active, and he knew he wanted more of it.

Things settled down quite a bit after they’d gotten around the headland; they were a little shielded from the waves rolling in from offshore now, but the wind was still fairly strong so the Mary Sue moved right along. Somehow, in some way, he felt like Matt was along with them, and he must have been enjoying the sail, too.

They sailed on, talking in a gentle way about their lives as well as the sea and shore surrounding them. Adam thought she was a good conversationalist, and was interesting to talk to. She and Bert had clearly had a good life together and they’d made the most out of it; even as a widow she managed an active and interesting life of many facets. There was something to learn from that, he thought.

Eventually they could see the entrance to the harbor at Blanche Tickle in the distance before them. It didn’t slow their conversation down much, and Adam was really enjoying himself with her, and it was going to be a little sad that it had to come to an end.

All too soon they were in the harbor, in front of Mary’s house and the rental houses. “I hate to say this,” he told her. “But I think I’m not sailor enough yet to be able to sail right up to the mooring pennant. I’ve seen Mary do it but I don’t want to mess anything up. If I drop the sails and come up to it on the diesel, can you grab the mooring pennant and hook us up?”

“Of course I can,” she smiled. “It won’t be the first time I’ve had to do it.”

Adam rolled in the jib partway across the harbor, and got close to the mooring before he dropped the main and started the diesel. She got up on the foredeck as he came into the wind and idled slowly up to the mark, and had the Mary Sue hooked up quickly.

She was a big help in getting the boat set to leave at the moorings, too; it was clear she knew what she was doing there. In only a few minutes her gear was in the skiff, and Adam was rowing them back to shore. “Well, we made it back safely and the boat is still in one piece, so I guess that was a success.”

“Quit pulling my leg, Adam. That was a wonderful sail and I’m glad you came to pick me up. I really enjoyed it, and I wish we could go sailing more.”

“Well, to tell you the truth, I enjoyed it too. You’re fun to go sailing with, and I’d do it again any time.”

“I would too. Maybe we can, but I’m afraid not this trip. I’m heading back to Toronto tomorrow.”

“All good things must come to an end, I guess. It’s going to be a couple days for me, and I’ll have to head back myself. But who knows? Maybe a chance to go sailing together will come again.”

“I’d like that if we can arrange it, maybe here, maybe somewhere else. By the way, I don’t know if I ever told you my name.”

“No, you didn’t. I guess it never came up.”

“I must be getting sappy in my old age, Adam. It’s Audrey, Audrey Melbourne, and I’ve been pleased to meet you in more ways than one.”

“I’d be willing to buy you dinner,” he said. “But as long as we’re in Blanche Tickle, I’m afraid we’re stuck with Nessa cooking it, not that it’s bad, by any means.”

“No, it’s not. But maybe an opportunity will come up to do it somewhere else.”

“I’d like that,” he replied. He would, too; she was an interesting woman and he’d enjoyed his time with her.

“I’ll tell you what, while one of Nessa’s dinners sounds interesting, I’m heading for the shower as soon as we get back. Ballycotton Cove may be nice, but those houses haven’t been cleaned in years, and I feel dirty as a pig.”

“Happy shower, then,” he grinned. “As soon as I get the skiff tied up, I’ll help you with your bags.”

Adam didn’t see much of Audrey the rest of the day – she was meeting with Andrew, and working on something incomprehensible to do with her painting. He did meet her again at dinner, which was good as always, and joined with the rest of the group as a couple of elderly women from the settlement told tales of the old days in Blanche Tickle; he learned things he’d never dreamed of.

He talked with Audrey a bit at breakfast the next day, and she was still a joy to talk to. He would bet good money he’d never see her again, but it had been an enjoyable interlude. Right after breakfast one of the women from the settlement took her to the airport in St. John’s, which was a long drive off. Adam was pleased to think that the taxi service meant more money from the artist colony to the settlement. This was turning out to be a good deal for Blanche Tickle, he thought.

The rest of his time in the settlement went quickly. He, Mary, Matty, and a couple of the artists got out on the Mary Sue one more time, the next day; Mary mostly sat back telling stories and talking with the others while she let Adam sail the boat. It still seemed like an honor, and he felt close to Matt when he did. What a life he and Mary must have shared on this boat!

The next morning he had to go. He knew he had a long drive to get to the airport at Gander, so there was no putting it off. “I don’t know when I’m going to get up here again, Mary,” he told her before he got into the tinbox rental car. “My plans are still up in the air and I need to see how the new arrangement with the company is going to work out. Maybe in the winter, maybe not until next spring.”

“It’s always good ta see ye again, Adam, an’ you always bring a freshness an’ a good spirit with ye. Don’t be a stranger, now.”

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