The Many Daughters of Afong Moy(110)

“What are you doing?”

He smiled again and leaned closer.

“I wanted you to hear my heartbeat when I kiss you for the first time.”



* * *



In the darkness, Dorothy felt the warmth of his body leave her side. In the void left behind, she felt coolness and the heavy rocking of the ship. She heard waves breaking against the hull, the creaking and groaning of timbers. The air smelled mustier, danker, a murky bouquet of fermenting barley, savory cooking spices, and straw, along with the smoky essence of pine tar, redolent of oil and freshly sawn wood. Her shoulders ached and her back was stiff as she sat up, realizing she’d been sleeping on the floor beneath a pile of tattered blankets. She looked around the darkened hold and could make out the faint outlines of a pantry: well-stocked shelves, barrels and casks, hogsheads and rundlets. She turned toward the sound of shuffled footsteps and saw a sliver of light as someone tried their best to slowly, quietly open the creaking door. Flickering lamplight from the galley spilled into the room where she’d been sleeping, and she saw the silhouette of a young boy with a limp, teetering on his good leg.

“Alby?”

“Go back to sleep,” he said.

“What are you doing?”

He put a hand on the wall to steady himself as the ship swayed.

“I can’t stay.”

“Please,” Dorothy said. “You need to rest.”

Alby tried to speak but coughed instead, covering his mouth with his scarf.

Dorothy stood and gently closed the door. She found his hand in the near darkness. With her other, she touched his forehead, his cheeks, which were hot, damp with perspiration. He was shaking with chills, burning up with fever.

“Lie back down,” she said tenderly. “Let me help you.”

He hesitated, then squeezed her hand and with her assistance nestled down amid the pile of blankets. His teeth chattered as she knelt beside him, straightening the covers of their makeshift bed. She propped his head with a straw pillow and began unbuttoning his coat, careful of his swollen neck and the parts of his body that, like her parents, had been racked with purple sores.

He inhaled and then let out a soft, anguished cry, the unspoken language of someone without much time. He struggled to swallow, wincing.

“You shouldn’t be this close to me.”

“You’re burning up,” she said.

“I’m freezing.”

“I know,” she said. “Let me take care of you.”

He tried to push her hands away.

“Just go,” Alby said, his voice hoarse and raspy. “There’s nothing you can do but get sick, and I don’t want that. Not you, not anyone.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

She suspected that if he had the energy, he would put up a good fight, push his way out the door, but he had nothing left, no one left. He struggled to breathe.

She leaned him forward then slipped behind him, his back toward her, her legs on either side of his. Gently, she reclined him, holding him close. She hoped he could breathe easier by sitting upright—at least partially—to let gravity ease the gurgling in his lungs. She pulled the covers up to his chin and rested her cheek alongside the top of his head, running her fingers through his hair. “How’s this?”

He didn’t answer, but in her arms his teeth stopped chattering, she felt his shivering subside. Though even as he relaxed in her embrace he began to quake anew, like the panic of a stray animal in a thunderstorm, heart racing, on guard against an ever-present yet unseen menace.

“I miss… my mother,” he said.

“It’s okay to miss someone. It means you loved them. Grief is unexpressed love.” She tried not to think of a certain woman, waving at her from a pier, a silhouette, swallowed by flame.

“I don’t want to be here anymore.”

“I know, Alby,” Dorothy said, though she was unsure if he meant on the ship. Or in this life, this tragic moment, hanging on. “I wish I could take you someplace better.”

He didn’t say anything for moment, then he rested his hand atop of hers. “This is close enough to better,” he said.

She held on to him, letting the ship rock them both in the cradle of the ocean.

“I’m scared,” he whispered, his breath liquid.

“You’re safe with me. I’ve got you right here.”

She wanted to tell him everything was going to be all right. That she wouldn’t let anything bad happen to him. That he would feel better in a few days. A few weeks, a few months. But she didn’t want to lie. All she could give him was honesty. All she could do was hold him close even as she was letting him go.

“It’s so dark.” He tried to turn toward her. “Can I see your face?”

She slipped around him and eased his ragdoll body into the blankets. She tucked him in again, then lay next to him, holding his hand.

He looked at her, struggling to speak. “Will you… miss me?”

She wiped a tear from his cheek, nodding. “But I’ll see you again.”

He smiled, nodding, almost imperceptibly.

He drew a labored breath and exhaled, so long and slow she feared he was leaving her. Then he stirred. He patted her arm as though he wanted to share something.

She leaned in close, brushing her hair back.