Queequeg’s coffin, now a life buoy, rises from the sea; it floats by Ishmael’s side. And Ishmael says: “On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan.”

“Read it again—the whole story,” I said to my grandmother, when she got to the end.

“When you’re old enough, you can read it again—to yourself,” Nana said.

“I will,” I told her, and I would—again and again.

But that first time I also asked my grandmother: “You named my mom for ‘the devious-cruising Rachel’—you named her for a ship?”

“Not devious in the bad way, Adam—devious can also mean wandering, or without a fixed course. And not just any ship!” Nana exclaimed. “The Rachel rescues Ishmael. Well, dear—truth be told—your mother rescued me.”

“You were at sea? You were drowning, Nana?”

“Heavens, no!” my grandmother declared. She explained that Abigail, her eldest, had just been sent away to the school for girls in Northfield; in the following year, Nana told me, Martha would also be sent away. What my grandmother meant was that the birth of my mom rescued her from being left alone with Principal Brewster. While I had not found the principal emeritus to be a lot of fun, I didn’t consider him in the same category as drowning at sea.

“Oh,” was all I managed to say. I suppose I sounded disappointed.

My mother had chosen to be with her winter job—for almost half the year—instead of choosing to be with me. I know Nana could detect my disillusionment with my mom; after all, she’d been somewhat less than a Rescue Ship Rachel for me.

“Listen to me, dear,” my grandmother then said. “Your mother had her reasons for naming you—you’re not the first Adam, you know.” Thus getting my attention, my grandmother maintained—much to my surprise—that my mom had named me Adam for the following reasons: “You’re not only the first man in her life, dear; you’ll be the only one. You’re all that matters to her, Adam—as far as men are concerned,” Nana told me.

This completely contradicted my earliest impression of my pretty, young mother. From my sexually innocent perspective—long before I embarked on my own misguided sexual path—I’d presumed that my mom’s foremost love was being single. And didn’t she choose to be single because she liked meeting men?

I was not yet a teenager—ten, eleven, twelve—when my grandmother read Moby-Dick to me. Yet Nana seemed to be saying that my mother wanted nothing to do with men—only me. At the time, the truest thing I knew was this: my grandmother was my mom’s most constant advocate; therefore, I didn’t entirely believe her.