“Yes,” I said loud to her empty sweat-barred chair. “Yes, Mother. Thank you, Mother. Who is fucking my wife, Mother? I’ve had suspicions, but you of all people should know. And, hey, muchas gracias for sharing. And during our first talk in eighteen motherfucking years!” (And yet I felt relieved. I found I had known, too. It was her OB-GYN. We entertained him and his wife almost monthly. The monthlies. And what about certain “male complaints”?)

I felt self-conscious—why? I turned to see our young navigator at his chromium wheel. He smirked toward my solitary conversation here in sunlight. Luckily, the wind on deck, the thick curved glass kept him from hearing me exactly. Still, he’d seen my bitter gesturing, my chatting myself up and lecturing Mom’s deck chair. I now flashed the kid his own fakey salute. He nodded and, smiling, raised one circular-motion finger to his own temple. The international sign for lunacy.

I still don’t know if he meant my lunacy, Bethany’s, Grace’s, or the world’s. Till now, he hadn’t seemed all that philosophical.

…

“Tell me about Clyde,” I started again, tactless, before she, straddling teak, had quite regained the chair between her legs, “since you’ve just offered me my own wife’s history in the stirrups.”

Grace now handed me a heavy glass tumbler. Its sides were gilded with this ship’s entire ridiculous name, doubtless hand-painted in China. (Some poor piecework family, non-English-speakers. At least not at first.) The tumbler held about a pound of serious liquid, smelling good, the darkest, costliest rum. Truth serum. As if I needed it!

“What do you really know about Dad’s ancestry?,” I began hard. Settled now, she was slathering more coconut essence across her westerly haunch.

“Clyde’s people?”

“Yeah. You did spend a decade with him. You do remember the husband I’m asking about?” Snorting, she gave me such a look. “Sorry,” I relented, hands lifting, palms exposed. “Really.”

“You’re bitchy enough to be gay, Meadows. Know that? It always seemed a possibility. Shouldn’t have shipped you to that all-boys school. No tellin what they did to my baby. Maybe that’s what’s sent your wife off antsy elsewhere. You might not even know your own nature yet. It’d be fine by me. Half my pals are, and one ex.—But Clyde? Never did meet Clyde’s folks. We had a quick justice-of-the-peace wedding. He never seemed to hear from them. Wasn’t there a sister somewhere? Times, Clyde did act a little ashamed of his family. But, then, who doesn’t?—Right, son?”