As he got nearer he was about to call out, but something in the way his father was standing made him stop. He saw how still the old man was. How he was not shading his eyes from the sun but had them closed, and was breathing deeply and slowly, breathing like it was his job. When his father finally opened his eyes and began walking down the street, Ned didn’t follow him. Instead he sped back to Limberlost, unbalanced by the weight of the sail, unbalanced by men who could not stay steady.

~

Ropes in the shed, ropes in the attic, ropes in old apple netting. Ropes coiled into loops, ropes looped in on themselves. Soft ropes, unused for years, maybe never used, probably bought when Limberlost was bigger and more fruitful. Ropes of all lengths and girths. All the rigging he needed.

He didn’t know how to tie on the sail, how to configure it properly. So he cycled past the nearby jetties that lanced out from the shoreline. He studied the yachts and boats moored at each one, taking note of where and how their sails sat, were tied, were folded. A consistency of design began to emerge: the places where the mainsail met the boom and mast, where the backstay was tied to the transom.

Out on the water he saw yachts at work, not dormant like their moored cousins but awake, dancing, alive. He saw how theirs jibs swooped towards the bow. How they swung around to catch the push of the wind. He drew these sights in, stamped them in his thoughts, stamped hard enough so that he was able to go back to his boatshed and attach his sail in a way that looked right.

It was too big; there was too much material; it hung on the rigging like a listless ghost. He took it down, wondered at the problem. He decided to cut out the eyelets, trim the sail around its borders, then restitch them. The cutting went fine—he used measuring tape and a sharp knife—but the stitching proved more difficult.

Eventually he went to Maggie, asked for help. She smiled in a way that made Ned feel she was laughing at him, that he was foolish, but she brought her sewing kit to the boatshed and showed him how it was done. How to push a needle, how to drag a thread. When he was finished he hoisted it high. It hung better. Not perfectly, but with a pleasing tautness he hoped would stand up to the wind’s strength.