The Unsinkable Greta James(39)

“And this isn’t helping anything,” Greta says, blinking back tears, “being here. I should be in New York right now, doing press for the festival, trying to salvage my career.”

Mary leans on the rail beside her. “You’re here for your dad.”

“He doesn’t even care.”

“He does. He’s just not great at showing it.”

Greta gives her a skeptical look.

“I know the pair of you have had your issues,” Mary says, eyebrows raised, “but you know what your mom used to always say, right? That you were two peas in a pod.”

“She did not.”

“She did. Whenever you were at each other’s throats, she’d complain about how stubborn you both could be, how neither of you would ever give an inch. How totally alike you were.”

“No,” Greta says, “it’s Asher that—”

“Asher’s made similar choices, and his life might look like your dad’s,” Mary points out with a smile. “But deep down, at the core of who you both are, I think your mom was right. Two peas in a pod.”

“Some pod,” Greta says, frowning out at the ripples of water.

She thinks of their conversation last night, tries to picture her dad as that hopeful young guy behind a bar, tries to picture him as anything other than what he is now—an obstinate ad salesman, conventional down to his toes—but her imagination fails her.

“I’m not saying he can’t be difficult sometimes,” Mary says. “But underneath all that, he wants what’s best for you.”

“He wants what he thinks is best for me. There’s a difference.”

“Fair enough,” she says with a nod. “But that’s also part of the deal. You think I haven’t been praying for Jason to get married for years now?”

Greta knows she’s meant to laugh at this, but she can’t manage it.

“I honestly wasn’t sure it would ever happen,” Mary says. “I used to complain about it to your mom all the time. We spent so many of our morning walks coming up with schemes to get the two of you together.”

“You did?” Greta says, looking over again, incredulous.

“Our two globe-trotting, work-obsessed, commitment-phobic New Yorkers,” Mary says with a grin. “We figured if we couldn’t pawn you off on anyone else, maybe we could at least get the pair of you together.” She laughs at Greta’s expression. “Sorry. It was out of love.”

“I didn’t know she cared so much about that.”

“She just wanted you to be happy. She also understood that that was only one version of it.” Mary reaches out and puts a hand over Greta’s. “She was ridiculously proud of you. You know that, right?”

Greta manages to nod, but honestly, she’s not so sure anymore. Her mom taught her that no matter what she did with her life, she should do it wholeheartedly. That she should try hard and work harder, dream big and care deeply. But for the first time in her life, she feels like she’s in full retreat.

Mary tugs her hat down over her ears and nods toward the doors of the ship. “I should go. I promised the others I’d meet them. But you should come with us to the musical tonight. It’s supposed to be great. Almost as good as Broadway.”

Greta raises her eyebrows.

“Well, maybe off Broadway,” Mary says, and they both glance out at the snow and ice. “Way off Broadway. But you should come. We’re going to the early show.”

“Yeah, okay,” Greta says, thinking she has nothing else to do tonight but sit alone in her windowless room not playing the guitar. “As long as there’s no chorus line.”

Mary laughs. “No promises.”

Soon the glacier is upon them, and the deck begins to fill with people. The voice of a geologist crackles over the speakers, but otherwise, everything is hushed. Greta thinks about her dad alone on his balcony somewhere above, taking it all in.

“Wow,” says a little boy beside her, and she follows his gaze. This close, she can see how absolutely huge the glacier is, a solid block stretching across the space between mountains. The front of it is jagged and craggy, a shade of blue so unreal it’s like someone has taken a spray can to it. Everything is still except for the seagulls that circle the ship looking for table scraps, and though the sun has come out, the world still smells of winter.

Greta draws in a breath, thinking: There will never be a way to describe this.

And then: She would’ve loved it.

There’s a sound like gunfire, a loud crack that echoes out across the quiet bay, and a few people point frantically to the left side of the glacier. When her eyes find the spot, all Greta can see is the aftermath: a splash that breaks the stillness of the water. But a second later, another slab of ice shears off the side and goes crashing down, a mini-avalanche, the sound of it reaching them seconds later.

“That noise you’re hearing,” says the geologist, “is the calving of the ice. Or white thunder.”

“White thunder,” the boy repeats with a kind of quiet reverence.

Greta stares at the place where the ice disappeared, thinking how beautiful it is, all of it—the dreamlike mountains and cerulean sky, the clouds reflected in the bay—and how sad too, to see something so magnificent crumbling before their very eyes.