“No one had ever spoken to me like that.”
“Ah, then you’ve never been romanced—only desired.”
Keeve gave me a knowing look. He was a sea captain full of wisdom and the romance of faraway places. And who was I to know different?
“So, you believe me, Girl?”
“I do—I must. Where have I been and what do I know compared to you, Captain?”
“Find him again—and this time, don’t let him go.”
It was easy for him to say, but nothing magical can ever be planned—or counted on to repeat, or be saved for another day.
He came in with the waves and would leave the same way. He told me that—and asked me to go with him then—not tomorrow, not next week, but then.
I hesitated and he sailed away. He might be back, he said.
I find myself waiting every day.
I recall how it began, sitting beneath a shady tree on a tiny hill overlooking the sandy cove…
The clouds were white galleons driven across the vault of sky
I was dreaming, my book face down in the sand, its covers splayed like the wings of a dove—I was dreaming of far away places, of islands and beaches below the borne.
His sailboat appeared on the horizon and I watched its steady progress, tacking in the wind, until at last, he swooped round the cove and anchored just yards away from where I lay.
He dove off the side of the skiff scarcely rippling the water and in a few strokes made it to the sandbar where he waded the rest of the way until he was standing before me, tall and dark in the sun.
“I’m Adam,” he said simply, and I nodded, propped myself up on one elbow, looking askance at him and staring out to sea as if waiting for the advent of some mystery—and, it was standing before me all the while in the dripping boy with the shy smile and sad eyes.
At that time I was still imbued with aloof coquetry and the studied indifference of the skyscrapers from whence I came.
I was immune to enchantment, unaware of magic, cared less where the trades journeyed or the sails that followed them, or gypsy boys that surrendered their wills to them and allowed themselves to be borne away.
“I came from that cloud,” he said, pointing to a billowing cumulus tower rising out of the sea.
“How nice for you,” I said drolly, on guard against careless boys who emerged from the sea clothed with little more that the sun and the wind.
“You’re not from here, are you?”
I smiled. “Neither are you, apparently—you’re from that cloud.”
He sat down beside me and began to finger paint in the wet sand. He drew a fanciful map of nowhere really, and called it Erehwon.
“That doesn’t impress me—I read the book—it was lame.”
His face brightened. “Then, you know all about utopias.”
“I know they’re nowhere to be found.”
“I found one,” he confided shyly.
“Really?” I scoffed. “What’s it called, Shangri La?”
He frowned. “I didn’t think to give it a name—no one lives there but me.”
“Figures,” I laughed.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Vanessa.”
“I like that. It’s beautiful. I’ll call it Vanessa.”
“Call it anything you want, Nature Boy—just don’t get any notions about staking a claim on me.”
His eyes grew huge. “I would never do that.”
A pang of guilt passed through me—but I suppressed it, like everything else—pushed it away, distancing myself from it, until I was again aloof and unreachable, like the skyscrapers from whence I came.
“”You seem to live on a star,” he smiled.
I smirked, my lips ready with a testy reply, but he looked so innocent and vulnerable—I didn’t want to hurt him.
“I suppose I do—live near the stars—in a tall Toronto condo by the lake.”
“Do you like it there?”
“I suppose. I like water and I like trees—there’s plenty of both there.”
“But you live in a city,” he said, puzzled.
I felt myself go defensive. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing—it’s just that when I talk to people from cities their souls are cluttered—like a jumbled maze of streets and buildings—they make me dizzy.”
“And what do you see when you talk to me?”
“I see a star breaking free from clouds—drifting alone in a moonless sky. You are very solitary.”
“That’s me,” I say bitterly.
“You are disappointed,” he whispers.
“I guess I am.”
My mind flashes back to the small art gallery I co-owned with Sylvia—the betrayal when she eloped with Dwight, mere months before he and I were planning to be married. I broke all ties and resolved not to go back.
I journeyed several thousand miles south, but never left—not really. I’m still there in my lonely condo in the clouds feeling sorry for myself and staying distant.
Now, as the realization sinks in, I just want to die. I’m burnt-over ground and I’ll never be the same. I’m dead inside already, merely going through the motions, but resigned to never being truly happy again.
“You’re a painter, aren’t you?”
I narrow my gaze. “How do you know that?”
He shrugs. “You have the feel of a painting.”
“What if I tell you you’re wrong?”
“It won’t change the fact you’re a painter, and you’re painting even now—only using one color, because you’re sad.”
“Believe me—I have no easel, no brush, no box of colors.”
He shook his head. “A painting is not just oil on canvas. I can’t paint, but I can see souls—and inside you is a lovely rainstorm with black umbrellas dripping pools of blue.”
I held my breath. Rain in the Mews—the canvas I was painting, intending it as a wedding present for Dwight.
“Even then, your heart knew what your head denied—you were already crying inside.”
I began to weep—sitting there on the sunny sand—oblivious of long white waves, or clouds freighting, driven by persistent trades. He had given me permission, and I wept.
He stayed with me long after the red sunset, long after the blue waters went black, long after the moon rose and laid down a glittering track—he sat and talked of many things he learned while wandering over land and sea.
It was magic the way he gave back my soul to me.
I fell asleep with my head cradled in his lap while he talked to me of enchanted things, and when I awoke in the early light, he was gone, leaving a longing deep inside me.
You know the mournful sound a seashell makes when you hold it to your ear—that’s the plaintive note of sadness that now echoes inside of me.
He came in with the waves and would leave the same way. He told me that—and asked me to go with him then—not tomorrow, not next week, but then.
I hesitated and he sailed away. He might be back, he said.
I find myself waiting every day.
