The Unsinkable Greta James(35)

“Your dad used to do that for your mom,” she says, and Greta is frowning, trying to remember balloons of any kind, when Mary adds, “At school.”

Years ago, Mary had taught third grade at the same elementary school where Helen worked as a nurse. Not long after, she went back for her master’s in education and became a principal in the next district. But for a brief time, the two of them worked in the same small building together, carpooling every morning and afternoon, sharing lunches and trading gossip.

“You didn’t know?” Mary says. “Every single birthday, he’d show up at the door to her office with all these balloons. The kids loved it.”

“I had no idea,” Greta says, though it’s not really a surprise. She remembers watching her parents dance at their fifteenth-anniversary party, the two of them pressed together under the fairy lights in the backyard. “Gross,” Asher had said, making a face as he watched them kiss. He was eleven then, and firmly against such displays of affection. But Greta couldn’t take her eyes off them, the way they looked at each other, like each thought they were the luckier one.

“He used to come have lunch with her every Friday too,” Mary says. “They’d meet in the cafeteria, and all the kids would make kissy faces and say, ‘Mrs. James has a boyfriend.’ And your dad, he’d just grin at them and say, ‘She sure does.’?”

Greta shakes her head in disbelief. “Every Friday?”

“Every Friday. By the time he got all the way across town, he could only stay for fifteen or twenty minutes. But he never missed it. Not once in all those years.”

“They never said.”

“They called it date night,” Davis says with a grin. “I always told him he could do better than pizza day with a bunch of second graders, but it made your mom so happy.”

They all fall silent. Mary reaches for Davis’s hand and gives it a squeeze. Todd puts an arm around Eleanor, who leans into him. And at the other end of the table, Greta sits alone, turning over the stories and memories, the small joys and rituals of a shared life.

After a moment, Davis pushes back his chair. “We don’t want to be late for trivia,” he says, picking up his tray. “Gotta defend our title from yesterday.”

“Come with us,” Eleanor says to Greta. “It’ll be good fun.”

“The prizes are great,” Todd tells her, pulling a pen from his pocket. It has a little cruise ship on the top.

Greta smiles. “Maybe another day.”

“You sure?” Davis asks. “We could use some help with the music category.”

This isn’t true. Davis knows everything there is to know about music. But she can tell they’re trying to make her feel included, which is sweet.

“When in doubt,” Greta tells them, “go with the Rolling Stones.”

As she walks out of the dining room, she spots Ben at the far end of the buffet, balancing a tray filled with a fairly ridiculous collection of bowls and cups. When he sees her, he stops abruptly, standing frozen in the middle of the breakfast rush. Then, looking flustered, he turns and hurries off in the other direction.

Greta blinks. There’s a part of her that can’t help feeling a little stung. But the other part is examining this one with something like bemusement. Because it was always a ridiculous idea, wasn’t it? What was she supposed to do with a bookish college professor anyway? A guy who wears dad jeans and spent the last however many years in the suburbs of New Jersey?

For a fleeting moment, she imagines what it would be like to plunk him down in the middle of her life, the late-night writing sessions and the long months on the road, the interviews with eager reporters in local cafés and the high-powered performances that hardly leave energy for anything else. It’s difficult even to picture him at one of her shows, amid the strobe lights and thumping bass, the sweaty, swaying, shouting crowd. It would be like bringing a puppy to a mosh pit.

Whatever this is, it’s got to be chalked up to boredom. After all, she’s stuck on this ship in the middle of nowhere with thousands of gray-haired tourists and screaming children. Her dad is holed up in his room, responding to her texts one word at a time—How are you feeling? Fine. Do you need anything? No—and the cell service is too spotty to call anyone else, even if the only person she wants to call right now didn’t happen to be dead.

There’s something uniquely awful about feeling lonely when you’re trapped on a ship and surrounded by this many people. Greta moves through them like a salmon swimming upstream—past the shuffleboard court and the empty taco bar, the crowd waiting outside the auditorium for a wildlife lecture—feeling a clawing restlessness.

But there’s no escape—not today—so instead she heads for her room, where she grabs a notebook and a pen. Back outside, she finds a wooden lounge chair on the promenade deck and settles in, watching the mountains slip past, each one bigger and more snow-covered than the last.

She uncaps her pen and stares at the blank page.

She grabs one of the scratchy plaid blankets and pulls it over her legs.

She squints at the slanted sun, hard and bright in the crystal air.

Two women in puffy vests power walk past her, and then again a few minutes later, and again after that. Each time, they pause their conversation to smile at her, and Greta nods back.