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Fresh air and an idea. Mexico with Andy, the only family Mitchell had yet to know. Self-inflation, thinking he could. When they returned from the disastrous road trip Andy slept for a day and a night at Mitchell’s place. Their’s was the silence of the defeated. Andy departed to become a teacher. Maggie drove Mitchell to the hospital and while he healed the pressure sore he began researching sailboats by telephone from the hospital library. Lying on his belly and propped on his elbows on a push-gurney he logged his findings then studied the differences between rigs and familiarized himself with their makes and reputations. He searched newspaper classifieds and called everyone with a boat for sale. He called shipyards and marinas and the Boston yacht clubs. The he called marine surveyors, because they earned their living exploring every inch of a boat’s soundness.
Russell had purchased Mitchell’s property for a price that would satisfy the town and state in regards to sales tax, a relatively small sum because the land had no right-of-way. They fixed a second price privately, one with the timber in mind. Mitchell salted away enough money to buy a boat, if he could find an old one, forgotten somewhere and waiting like himself for life again.
"A wife and four kids in school and a mortgage," the sloop’s owner said when Mitchell asked why he was selling. "Rain is the only water the boat has seen in ten years. My father and I owned it. It’s what we did together when he was alive, so it’s hard to let it go, but with the family I can’t give it any real time. Maybe someday when the kids are older they’ll get an itch to do some sailing. I like to think so. Where are you calling from?"
When he had healed Mitchell asked Maggie to drive him directly from the hospital to the Essex shipyard, a maritime landmark on the Connecticut River and only a few miles from the apartment complex. She drove across the crushed stone on the yard’s bulkhead, vacant except for three boats up on poppits, their keels sitting on railroad ties, their bottom paint chipped and peeling.
"Which one?" Maggie stopped the car and put it in park.
Mitchell reached out the window toward the unused boats. "The one with the small stern."
"Look at these over here," she said, admiring the newer boats trimmed in their slips and staring proudly from the water. "These are beautiful."
"Uh-huh." Mitchell studied the strength of the lines on the boat he knew was his. "Like life itself."