Chapter Seventeen

The ship was much more dramatic than I’d expected.

Sails the color of old parchment billowed from the tall masts. A complicated web of rigging draped from one wooden post to another, like someone had forgotten to erase the architectural lines in a drawing. All it needed was the Jolly Roger flying to put viewers in mind of pirates.

Cora craned her head back. “How long did this take to build?”

“Five years,” Dad said. “There’s a pretty good documentary about it. They followed Gary as he built it.”

A hearty-looking man barreled toward us. “There’s my intrepid adventurers!” he cried, which sounded like the type of thing one might say if used to being followed by a film crew. He wore a vest and khaki shorts, and had a large, bulbous nose, ruddy skin, and watery blue eyes. “Glad you could make it.”

“Thanks for having us.” Dad clasped the man’s hand. His warm tone made it clear he liked the guy. “Wouldn’t miss this for the world.” He placed a hand on my shoulder and indicated the rest of us in turn. “This is my daughter, Jordan. And Dr. Cora Bradley, and do you remember my assistant, Ethan?”

“Ah, one of the Barbanel brood!” the man said in his louder-than-life voice. He bent his knees—he was tall, maybe six five—to smile at me. “And Jordan, you look just like your mother! So glad you could make it.” He turned to greet Cora more formally, but I was too stunned to take anything else in.

This guy had known my mom? I’d been under the impression Dad had met Gary Dubois—and this had to be him—because they both spent summers on Nantucket and were into old boat stuff. How was my mom involved?

I had no time to ask. Gary hustled us along a theoretically stable gangway connected to his ship. I craned my head back to take in the huge masts and the crow’s nest high above, then exchanged a wide-eyed, impressed look with Ethan.

“Mike will bring your things to your cabins,” Gary said, introducing us to a crew member. “I’ll give you the grand tour, and then you can get settled in before dinner.”

Gary led our quartet around, patting the rail fondly as he gave us the ship’s biography. “She’s one hundred twenty-five feet. Just finished her two years ago. This is the first time we’re out to Nantucket, though—I kept telling Tony I would come.” He nodded at my dad.

“What do you do with the ship the rest of the year?” Cora asked.

“We keep her out of Philadelphia most of the time. I’ve got a team running tours on her—day trips for schools and tourists, and we do five-night trips, too. We can accommodate a dozen guests along with our crew on those longer trips, and the day classes are often fifty or so.”

He’d built the ship because he wanted a ship, we learned, but it was also a business. And it wasn’t all historical. While the deck and spars were made of Douglas fir, the hull and masts were steel. He led us through the decks, pointing out all the different sections: the fore, midship, and aft; then the bow, the front, the stern, the back. He named the masts—main, fore, and mizzen—and the parts of each mast, but by then I was starting to get a little loopy.

To make our way downstairs—excuse me, “below deck”—we descended steep stairs. Weren’t sailors notoriously drunk? Wasn’t the ocean, you know, not steady? This seemed ripe for disaster.

“You lot are in our midship cabins.” Gary pointed to doors where aesthetically pleasing and functionally useless gilded lifebuoys encircled our names. “Over here’s the crew quarters.” We peeked in at a room full of bunks and suitcases and people in their twenties, who waved. I imagined what it would be like to be them, headed off to sea on their own, on an adventure.

The largest part of the lower deck looked like an old-timey hotel restaurant, with a long bar along one side and skylights letting in natural light. “This is the grand salon. When we’re not on deck, we’re hanging here. Meals, socializing—and come look,” Gary said, with a wink at me.

He opened a door into a small, cozy room shaped like an octagon with books lining its walls. The ceiling lights resembled stained glass and glowed with a candle-warm light. Four armchairs nestled around a small coffee table in the center of the room, and two side tables held lamps whose stained glass shades complemented the ceiling. “My husband insisted,” Gary said. “Said if I got a ship, he got a library.”

Cora peered at the titles. “Is this whole shelf…murder mysteries set on cruise ships?”

Gary grinned. “You gotta give the people what they want. The people being my husband, Brent.”

Gary showed us back to our quarters and told us the ship would depart in forty-five minutes. My cabin was the size of a postage stamp, barely large enough to turn around in, but charming all the same. Pink and teal throw pillows and blankets enlivened the crisp white linens. The bed was beneath a round port window. I kicked off my shoes and scrambled up to peer out, smiling involuntarily at the wash of blue before me. There was also a mirror, a dresser, and a TV screen bolted to the wall—so much for historical accuracy. My suitcase had been rolled neatly into a corner.

After unpacking, I knocked on Ethan’s door. I wanted to tell him about Andrea and Frederick, and everything had been such a scramble of packing this morning I hadn’t gotten a chance. He didn’t answer. I found him on the upper deck, excitedly talking with Gary and my dad about the experiments they had planned for the trip. Of course. But I wasn’t as bitter as I might have been a few weeks before. In fact, it struck me as cute, how excited they all were.

Soon, everyone had gathered for the official departure. Gary stood at the front of the crowd. “Hello! Hello, everyone!” he cried. “I’d like to welcome all of you to the Salty Fox—yes, I named the ship after the bar where Brent and I met,” he said to a few chuckles, nodding at a blond man smiling abashedly. “Some of you have been sailing with me for a bit, but I’d like to welcome our newcomers for the next few nights. We’ve been joined by my neighbors from New York, who are spending the summer on Nantucket, Doctors Ishikawa and Wrisberg, along with my old friend Tony Edelman, his daughter, Jordan, and his student, Ethan. We also have Dr. Cora Bradley with us, a brilliant astrophysicist.”

Everyone waved and called out hellos.

And I thought, Old friend?

“Tony here is responsible for this little adventure to see the Arborids in the darkest skies imaginable, away from light pollution. He’s been ‘lightly’ suggesting this for two years now.”

The adults laughed politely.

Gary introduced the people already onboard: his sister and brother-in-law and their college-aged kids, an old colleague, a writer and a tech bro, whose connections to Gary I missed. The crew came next, most of whom were professionals, and a few students and volunteers. “As for the person actually in charge,” Gary said, gesturing to a woman beside him, “Captain Laskshi runs the show around here, along with First Mate Wójcik and Second Mate Foster.”

“You run the show, I think,” Captain Laskshi said with a smile. “I run the ship.”

With introductions done—and a few safety measures imparted to us newcomers—we set off. Gary popped a bottle of champagne and everyone cheered as Nantucket dwindled behind us. Then, with the sun only now starting to lower, we headed into the lounge for dinner.

The newcomers ate together, and Gary and his husband, Brent, joined us. The food was better than I’d expected: sweet potatoes and tofu marinated in a soy-and-honey sauce, plus a spinach side salad and fresh-baked roll. Conversation inevitably circled to the meteor shower, which would peak for the next few nights. “We’re lucky to have our very own expert,” Gary said to Cora, smiling broadly. “Will you mind being peppered with questions?”

“Not at all.”

“The Arborids come from Gibson’s comet, isn’t that right?” one of the doctors asked. “We were wondering—why aren’t they named after the comet?”

“People knew about meteor showers long before they connected them to comets,” Cora said. “They’re usually named after the constellations it looks like the meteors originate from.”

“Where’d people think meteors came from?” Ethan asked.

“That’s outside my realm.” Cora looked at Dad. “Maybe our resident historian knows?”

I swear Dad blushed. “Ah—well. For a long time, people thought meteors were religious signs, or rocks falling from thunderstorms. Scientists were skeptical, since they didn’t think rocks could fall from the sky. But in the eighteen hundreds, a dramatic shower in France made people start thinking they were credible.” He tilted his head. “I’m not sure when people figured out they came from comets.”

“On that note,” Gary said. “Shall we go watch rocks fall from the sky?”

We arrived back on deck just as the sunset’s hues brightened into a spectacular lightshow. We watched the sun sink into the waters and the meteor shower begin as the streaks of white grew in vibrancy. We lay on the deck, a scattering of humans on a few planks of wood in the middle of the open sea, surrounded by shooting stars. For a dizzying moment, I imagined them falling into the water, sizzling as burning rock hit the icy waves.

Everyone stayed out for hours, but Ethan and I stayed out later than most. It was like we’d been waiting for a chance to be alone together, and now here we finally were, lying on a picnic blanket in silence as the deck emptied out around us.

“Are you ready to have your mind blown?” I asked.

“In a good way or a bad way?”

“A good way! Andrea Darrel and Frederick Gibson did know each other. He took her astronomy course, she writes about it in her diary. And…” I waggled my brows.

“And what?”

“They were in love.”

Ethan leveled up, propping himself up on one elbow. He looked delighted. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. They hung out during the first summer, and over the next few, and then he came to see her in Cambridge. I thought…I don’t know, I want it to work out for them. Do you know if he married, who he married?”

He shook his head. “I think he married a New York socialite.”

“Ugh.” The hope drained out of me. “Well. He didn’t seem sure he wanted a wife with a career.”

Ethan winced. “Wow.”

“The nineteen-tens, man.” I leaned my head back to take in the pinpricks in the sky above us. “She must have been so jealous.”

“Of his wife?” Ethan asked.

I laughed. “No—of his discovery. She was the astronomer, right? She wrote about sweeping the skies at night—that’s what you do, when you’re looking for oddities, like a comet. It’s how she calmed herself down when she was stressed; it’s how Maria Mitchell discovered her comet. But it was Gibson who discovered a comet. That would have sucked.”

“Maybe she was happy for him.”

I scoffed. “She’d have to be a bigger person than I am. What are the odds, right, that the professional astronomer doesn’t discover the comet but her amateur boyfriend does?”

“I guess he got lucky.”

“Guess so. When did he discover it?”

“Nineteen eleven.”

In 1911, they might have still been together; they’d been sharing their thoughts on marriage at the end of 1910. I remembered the beginning of the summer, watching Ethan get all my father’s attention. I’d felt like I’d been stabbed. Andrea Darrel, watching Frederick Gibson make the discovery she’d always wanted? She must have been ablaze with envy.

Maybe that was what had broken them apart. Love conquers all, they said, but did passion for a person exceed passion for your own goals?

I glanced at Ethan, realizing I wasn’t as resentful as I’d been a few months ago. It turned out all I had needed was for Dad to make space for me, to tell me he wanted me to come on this boat, to carve out time for me throughout the week. I still wanted him to be proud of my work, but I didn’t mind him being proud of Ethan, too. Partly because I was proud of Ethan, weirdly. I wanted everyone to be proud of him, including my dad, including his parents. “Your talk is in a week, right? Are you excited?”

He looked away. “Not really.”

“Why not?” I asked, surprised. “Are you nervous?”

He shrugged.

He was nervous. “When was the last time you did a talk in public?”

“Uh—my Torah portion in my bar mitzvah?”

“Seriously? What about school? Didn’t you have to give presentations?”

He shook his head.

Okay. Baffling, but…“Practice on me.”

He gave me a look, skepticism only barely outweighing hope. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not. It’ll make you feel better.”

He hesitated. “It’s not ready.”

“It’ll never be ready,” I said, having watched my dad prepare plenty of book talks throughout the last few years. “It’s important to practice before a live audience.”

His mouth quirked. “You’re a bit of a tyrant.”

“Tell me I’m wrong, then.”

He couldn’t. Taking a deep breath, he flicked through his phone and propped it on his knee so he could read off it. “Here goes.” He plunged in. “Hi, there. My name is Ethan Barbanel, and I’m excited to talk to you today about Frederick Gibson’s work. Famously known for discovering a comet, Gibson devoted his earlier career to wire-dragging alongside Nicholas Heck, some of which work he did here, on Nantucket.”

Despite his nerves, he’d crafted a compelling speech. I could see my dad’s print in the flow of sentences and the insertion of anecdotes, but other parts were all Ethan—the humor, the excitement, the energy. When he finished, I applauded. “That was great!”

His lips twitched. “You’re just trying to make me feel better.”

“Maybe. But I’m also being honest. Dad’s dragged me to enough talks I know a good one when I see it.”

He relaxed. “I bet you have suggestions. Your dad always does.”

“One or two. But it really was good.”

“I can take it.”

“Let me see the speech.”

He offered me his phone. I scrolled to the beginning. “Okay, so you have a really strong opening, but then I’d move this paragraph up above this one…”

We spent an hour on his speech as the meteors flashed above us. Eventually, we faded into silence, watching the darting light against the darkness. Tomorrow would be the best day for watching, since we’d be at the farthest point from land, before turning back the day after. Still, tonight still topped any meteor shower I’d ever seen.

“Gary knew my mom.” The words slipped out. I hadn’t meant to say them, but now they floated between us.

“Really?” Even in the darkness, I could see Ethan’s head turn toward mine. “How?”

“I don’t know. He said my dad was an old friend. And that I looked like my mom.”

“Wow. Are you going to ask him about it?”

I gave a half shrug. “I was thinking I’d ask my dad first. I just…haven’t.”

“How come?”

I wrapped my arms around my knees and pulled them close. “I guess I’m not used to talking about her? It feels like there’s two different worlds, this one and the one before my mom died. And it’s a world I know very little about, but everyone else knows, everyone else visited, so they don’t need to talk about it because they already know it. But I don’t. So I want to talk about it, but I don’t know how.”

Ethan sat up too, nodding as though my rambling made sense. “She died when you were pretty young, right?”

“Four.”

“Do you remember her?”

I gazed at the sky. “Sometimes I think I do, but sometimes I wonder if I just remember stories my dad and aunt have told me. But I think…I remember her reading me Spot the Dog books. I remember playing dress-up and showing her each of my new outfits—a princess or a firefighter or whatever—and she was like, ‘Wow, where did my Jordan go?’ and I was worried because I thought I’d disguised myself too well and now she was scared.”

Ethan laughed.

The sound made me relax into a small smile. “I remember sitting next to her on the futon when I was little. I don’t think I remember her face outside of photos, but I think I remember her body? Cuddling into her. But I wish I remembered more.”

“Do you miss her?”

I squeezed my legs closer. “Sometimes I think I remember the missing more than her. I remember so much crying and confusion after she died. Like a limb had been cut off.”

“I’m so sorry.”

It was what everyone said, but I was still glad to hear it.

Ethan and I stayed out for another hour, watching the streaks of white light across the dark sky. Even knowing they were rocks burning up in the atmosphere, the meteors were magical. What would it look like if we pushed all the space debris into Earth’s atmosphere so it burned up? Small lines or fireballs dashing across the sky? I wondered what Gibson’s comet would look like. I’d never seen a comet before.

At some point, we lay down and our hands found each other’s. We didn’t kiss, but this felt almost more intimate, lying side by side, comfortable with no words or motion between us. We watched until our eyes started to drift closed more than once, then made our way quietly down to our cabins.

We paused outside our doors. It was very late—or very early—and like Andrea Darrel, I didn’t entirely know what I wanted. I didn’t want to say goodbye, I knew that at least. Maybe I wanted to just lie together, to sleep side by side, to feel Ethan’s arm around me.

But I didn’t say anything, and neither did he. Or at least, not what I wanted him to.

“Good night, Jordan,” Ethan said, and kissed me gently, and turned away.