Saling to The Bottom

I adjusted the pilot seat for her height and worked it close to the wheel. Then with my hands over hers, I let her steer the boat.

"Keep her sails at an angle to the wind," I whispered in her ear. She had no idea what I meant, but she took to steering the boat like a duck to water.

"She's a natural," Diane said from behind me. She had entered the cockpit as Orian left. Now Diane proceeded to lean over the console and read the satellite weather reports while I enjoyed helping my daughter, and I had no doubt she was my daughter, the natural sailor steering Annabelle.

"Looks good and clear," Diane said.

"There is a hurricane in the Atlantic," I said.

"Yea, about three hundred and fifty miles north and east of us."

She was right the storm they were calling Jose was unlikely to affect us on our course.

"I'm going forward to tighten the Jib," she said.

Diane was looking to pick up speed to get us to Fort-de-France in plenty of time to get through customs and hit the nightclubs. I didn't mind it left me alone with my daughter.

"Look," I said pointing to starboard to where a shoal of flying fish had broken the surface. Kat giggled at the sight of them. It was a pleasant sound. She otherwise seemed a very serious child.

"I hear they call you Kat," I said.

"Yes."

"My names Michael."

"I know, Michael Dougherty because you're my father."

I had to pause a moment realizing that she had been told who I was."

"What do you think about that?"

"I don't know. I guess it's ok," she said with a shrug.

"What did your mother tell you about me?" I asked unsure what the answer would be.

"She said I needed to be on my best behavior because your feelings were hurt. She said she didn't mean to hurt you, but she did."

"Is that all she said?"

"Just that I needed to get to know you in case."

"In case what?"

"I don't know just in case."

At that moment, Leslie came up into the cockpit from the lower deck.

"Ok," she said," time for some little girl to have a nap."

"But I'm steering the ship," Kat protested.

"I'm sure that Mike can manage without help. You were up very early this morning."

"Be a good girl and do as your mother says. Tomorrow I'll take you someplace very special," I said.

Leslie gave me a smile and mouthed the words thank you. As they descended to the lower deck, I wondered if Leslie had been listening to our conversation. She had arrived promptly before Kat could let slip just what "in case" meant.

****

The trip into the Fort-de-France harbor had been uneventful. Kat came back up to help me steer, but Leslie hovered like a protective mother bird. You could feel and see how close the two were. We saw a school of porpoises to the west of Diamond Rock; I told the story of how the rock had been made a ship in the British navy. Kat refused to accept this.

"It doesn't even look like a ship," she argued.

This was an odd feeling having this little person who was so connected to me. It was a pleasant feeling, one that dispelled the gloom that had been hanging over my life. It pushed back the lonely hopeless feeling that had been at my back like an approaching storm. It was a sunny and unusually mild day, and I was on a pleasant cruise with a family I suddenly had. I refused to remind myself it would not and could last.

Inevitably, driven by a strong sea breeze, we passed the fort and came into the bay.

Orian took the passports and papers to the authorities and secured us a good berth. We had arrived at the right time of year. There were no cruise ships and few pleasure yachts in the harbor. What was there was mostly Martinique's year-round residents? This was as good a place as any in the Antilles to ride out a storm. The trouble was that the storms had become far more powerful. Irma was a category five storm something that had once been rare and now was common. She was followed almost immediately by Jose another powerful storm, but it looked like we were in for a break as we settled into Martinique.

After docking the boat, I took the opportunity to go knock on the stern cabin door to see if the passengers needed anything. Kat answered the door she was already in her nightdress, and I could see the remains of her dinner on the table. Orian had prepared his version of fish sticks and French fries with a small salad. The fries were all gone, and the fish half eaten, but she had done a good job on the salad. From past experience, I knew the salad had been mostly fruit and very heavy on the bananas.

"Where's your mom?" I asked.

Kat pointed to the shower.

"Oh," I said.

"She's going out with the sailor lady," Kat informed me.

"Ok," I said.

"She said you would take care of me," Kat said, but it seemed more a question than a statement.

"I'll be back later then," I said giving her a smile that I realized I actually felt.

Orian served me a light dinner. He and the other adults were preparing for a big night out in the city.

"Permission to go ashore?" Diane asked mockingly as I sat at the starboard dining table. Diane was wearing a thin, tight-fitting red cloth dress. It had a halter top that cupped and covered her breasts but exposed them from the sides. It was obvious that she was wearing neither a bra nor possibly panties except for some sliver of a thong.

"Should I expect you back tonight seaman?" I asked in I hoped just as mocking a tone.

"Probably not unless I completely strike out," she said.

"Well don't get arrested."

"Don't worry I'm taking along a wingman," as she said this Leslie stepped down the passageway.

Leslie was also wearing a halter style dress. The fabric was heavier, but it was cut down the front to her navel where she sported a diamond encrusted gold ring piercing. The dress stopped north of mid-thigh but wasn't near as tight as Diane's. There were definite wrinkles over her abdomen as if she had lost weight recently.

"I'm leaving Kat with you, Mike. I have her showered and ready for bed. You ready to play daddy tonight?" Leslie asked.

"Hopefully," I said.

"You better do more than that. She will need a long story and maybe a game of candy land before bed. She had her nap today remember."

I nodded, "Should I expect you back tonight?"

She smiled a wicked smile at this and said," don't wait up."

Then she when back to the stern cabin to take her leave of the child. I followed her as far as the cabin door and ease dropped a bit. They hugged, and I could see the mixed feeling that the mother had leaving her child, but something not spoken was motivating these two.

"You going to be ok, kitty Kat?" Leslie asked.

"Yes, I'll be good," the child asserted.

"Remember, this is just in case. I'm depending on you," Leslie said wiping a tear away.

Before they could see me, I stepped away and up the stern ladder.

"Don't trip in those heels," I said to both women's backs as they sauntered up the dock in their come fuck me heels."

Orian was next to leave, and I truly didn't expect to see him again until we were due to leave. He had a woman on Martinique who was a desk clerk in one of the big resorts. She like most of his women had other suitors, but Orian was her main man. He was very well appreciated by his women. He was very considerate. He never showed unexpected. He always called first to make sure there would be no unpleasant surprises. He had a woman here, another on Dominica, and two on St. Lucia. They all contributed to his support. His main woman Adele ran his bar in Castries on St. Lucia. It did very well, but Orian end of the profits like most of his earnings went to where he called home, Cuba. He left his family behind when he immigrated. There was a mother, a wife, three children and his primary mistress. They all needed support. His father, brothers, and sisters had all been executed by Castro. He never spoke of why this happened or why he could not go home even for a visit.

Long ago, I had decided he was a good man, but I doubted he felt the same way about me. He had always suspected I was running from something, now that he knew what he probably thought even less of me. The idea of running away from a woman for any reason was totally foreign to him. To leave because you caught her with another man was in his mind simply ludicrous. If he had caught one of his women as I had Leslie, she would get a severe dressing down maybe even a trip across his knee. However, Orian didn't give up his women without a fight, and nobody with any sense would fight that big black man for his woman. Certainly, none had ever dared twice. There were a couple of fools in Castries who tried to move in on Adele, but they thought better when Orian explained things to them, and Adele threatened to cut off their privates.

As I watched Diane and Leslie walk up the Martinique dock toward the shore, I had a pang of jealousy. I knew what this was about. Leslie was deliberately trying to provoke me, and Diane was helping her. They weren't fooling, and they were dressed to kill. I knew enough of how Diane operated to know where this was going. They were headed to one of the out of the way bars, a place with local atmosphere. Diane would attach herself to a tourist couple with an attractive female component. Married, engaged, or just together it didn't matter. When the couple was drunk enough on the Local rum, she would split the woman off for a dance. If all went well, they would spend the night in one of the modest hotels. With a wingman as she had called Leslie, the pattern was the same except her companion got the now unattached male.

The unsuspecting couple would wake up in the morning in bed with strangers. If Diane's luck was bad, there were always the local girls with the right orientation, or the wing woman could seduce a man for a threesome. Whichever way things went, they had told me they would not be back that night, and I believed them. I watched them reach the end of the dock and be approached by two men. These were clearly, local boys trying to pick up tourists. The ladies tried to shake them off, but they were stubborn. The four began to walk toward the street where the taxi drivers aggressively sought fares.

I consciously put them out of my mind. I had Katrina to take care of, and I was looking forward to that. I found her where she was supposed to be in the stern cabin. She was watching cartoons on a tablet.

"They sound funny," she told me.

She was getting one of the local French stations. The resort she had been at on St. Lucia was a primarily English place. Even on Martinique, most people in the leisure industry used English, but the locals and officialdom used French or what they called French.

"They're speaking French," I said.

"Oh, mommy said I might have to speak that if I came to live here," she said.

That set me back a bit. Clearly, Leslie had plans she had not shared.

"Would you like to play Candyland?" I asked.

"No that's for little kids. I'm almost five. My birthday is November 3rd."

"Another game perhaps?"

"We didn't bring any. Do you have some?"

We had a chess set and a set for backgammon on board. I thought possibly I could devise a child's version of backgammon. It was an expensive set I found in one of Annabelle's storage lockers when I bought the boat. I set the board and the pieces up on the table, and we began to play a simple version of moving the pieces around the board. I was surprised how fast Kat understood the point of the game and how quick she was with the dice and counting the spaces. She was a bright little girl and clearly talented with numbers like her mother.

We played until she began to yawn, and then she said, "I think it's time for my story."

She had a book of modernized fairy tales, but she didn't want me to read her to sleep in the big bed.

"I don't want to sleep alone in this place."

There had been no attempt to make a separate Sleeping arrangement in the cabin for the child. I suspected this was deliberate. I carried her to the pilot's bed and showed her how we set up the settee bed. With her in the pilot's bed and me laying on the settee, I began reading; but she was soon fast asleep. Alone with my thoughts once again, my mind wandered to what the woman who was still my wife was doing that night, and what she had been doing for the last five years. She had been no nun; I was sure of that. There was another troubling question: What was she really doing here? It wasn't just because she found me. Originally, I had hidden, but I had stopped hiding when I reached St. Lucia three years before.

It might have been difficult to find me, but the woman I knew could have easily accomplished the task had she really been actively seeking me. I reasoned that the Leslie I knew, burdened with a young child and a demanding job, would have written me off as a bad investment and gone on with her life. So, why was she here now? For Kat to meet her father? Maybe, but what was "in case" about, and why did Kat think she was staying?

I must have fallen asleep pondering my situation. The morning tide woke me as it shifted the boat. Kat was still asleep as I woke and realized I was in yesterday's clothes. The sun was just starting to rise as I came on deck. It was deadly quiet. I checked the instruments. The satellite weather forecast was indefinite. There is a low-pressure center in the Atlantic east of the Lesser Antilles, but a good distance away. This time of year that was to be expected. Not every low pressure means a hurricane, and we just had two. However, it needed watching. It was September after all.

I turn at a noise from the dock. It was still in shadows, but a figure emerged and walked up the gangplank to Annabelle's deck. I had to exit the cockpit to identify who it was. It was Leslie in the dress she left in last night but carrying her hose and shoes. She looked quite a little worse for her night out. She saw me paused and looked a bit guilty.

"Hi, didn't expect anyone to be up. Is Kat alright?"

"She's fine. We had a good time. How about you?"

"Oh fine," she said moving to the ladder to go below deck, but as she reached it, she stopped, "Looked me dead in the eyes and said, "I wasn't crazy, and it wasn't as bad as I probably look." Then she descended below deck.

I was left standing on the deck wondering just what that last statement meant.

*****

"And what will we be having today."

Breakfast is at a small private hotel on the Caribbean side of the island. It's a relatively secluded and unknown place, but it never lacks for customers. It's one of the local treasures we'd like to keep to ourselves, but the proprietor and her staff have to make a living.

"Pancakes with cheese," I answer.

"Le crepe au formage, we serve no pancakes," the waitress says.

It's our little joke. I order the same thing each time, playing the crude American to their French sophistication.

"And for madam?" she asks Leslie.

"Are they real strawberries?"

"Yes, but unfortunately frozen." Still, Leslie orders the crepes with strawberries.

The waitress suggests crepes with chocolate crème for Kat. It's an excellent choice. I know I've had them.

The three meals come bathed in a crème that is somewhere between whip cream and Ice cream and nestled between the obligatory banana's, but it is all exceptionally good. After breakfast, we hit the little beach just down the very steep slope from the hotel. The beach has a soft but coarse gray sand which is just perfect for making sand castles. Kat and I go at it while Leslie ensconces herself beneath a beach umbrella, but I can feel this tug as if Leslie is consciously letting go of the child. There is a pain there which is inconsistent with building sand castles.

Leslie is still recovering from her night out. Perhaps that is it, and I'm misreading her feelings. She must be getting older for her recovery time is slipping. I can remember a woman who could party all night and hit the beach ready for volleyball.

I am soon replaced as Kat's helper with the sand castles by two little nut-brown girls who are much more professional at building than I. The three are joined by a somewhat older boy whose pale skin is liberally slathered in sunblock. When he opens his mouth, the words that come out are in German.

I retreat to a beach chair next to Leslie. She has her eyes covered in sunglasses, and whereas the fair-skinned Kat had on a beach shirt and skirt over her bathing suit and was also covered in sunblock, Leslie is in an indecently small bikini and has basted herself in tanning oil.

I try to open the conversation casually, "Why are you here, really?"

She doesn't answer just sits up and greases herself some more.

"Leslie, I need an answer."

"I told you Katrina wanted to know about her father."

"In case— what, and why does Kat think she may have to stay here?"

She turns to me and removes her sunglasses revealing a serious expression, but just as I think she may open up.

"Hello, it's, Leslie, right?" the speaker is a thin woman of average height with short blonde hair. She is pretty but not a great beauty. She is possibly in her early thirties. Her bikini is as revealing as Leslie's, but she does it less justice. She is with a middle-aged woman, perhaps in her mid-forties. The older woman has dark, dyed hair and is wearing a conservative one-piece bathing suit in deference to her more maternal figure. She is the taller woman and was clearly quite beautiful in her youth.

"Oh, high Mia. This is my husband Mike Dougherty," Leslie said introducing me.

"Pleased to me you Mike," Mia said, "and this is my wife Anja."

Anja forces a smile. She is clearly a bit uncomfortable both with the meeting and the way she was introduced. I give her a smile back hoping to dispel the tension.

They, it turns out, are the parents of Ulrich the German boy who is building sand castles with Kat. Mia met Leslie and Diane the night before and got the full story of our failed marriage or Diane's version of it with some corrections from Leslie. Anja was in the hotel with Ulrich while her younger spouse was clubbing. Mia, it turns out, left early and wants to know how the evening turned out. Leslie was evasive, and Mia gets the hint. From what was said I gather Diane pulled her usual trick of trying to separate a woman from her male companion, but Leslie wasn't cooperating. She had played me, deliberately made me jealous over nothing.

"I'm going to take Kat in for a swim," I announce.

Anja decides to take Ulrich as well. The kids all four of them come into the water with us. The water is warm and clear and on this side of the island on a sunny day with a light wind relatively still. Kat has the rudiments of swimming down and does well in the water. She has obviously had lessons. The other two girls swim like little fishes or more correctly like the island natives they are. Ulrich hammers at the water he has a strong stroke, but it's sloppy.

"You do not get along with your wife?" Anja asks as we wade waist deep in the water while the children swim.

"We have had our differences."

"It is hard when spouses have differing inclinations. My husband struggled with mine for years, but he was an exceptional man, and I loved him for it."

I can't help raising an eyebrow at this.

"Ulrich is Mia's son we've only been formally together for four years since the death of my Frederick. You see I was just an ordinary hausfrau, but one married to a handsome and understanding man. I've known Mia intimately for ten years. At first, I thought it was just another casual affair. One more of those female things I did while my husband turned a blind eye."

"But it wasn't?" I asked.

"Not on her side. She was younger then, one of the new lesbian women. They are very proud of their orientation and very determined to let you know it," she said looking back over her shoulder to where Mia and Leslie sat laughing at something, but I can see that Leslie has her eyes on Kat.