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Chapter 3: Eurydice

At the memory of that affection, John could not resist once more stealing a glance backward at the silent sailor. He remained as before, eyes downcast, face still, appearing lost in thought. He reminded John of the stout and strong Mister Adams. It had been Mister Adams, during the midst of his carpentry work at their cottage, who had presented John with the small black model ship, a gift, rustling the hair of his head. John had later bequeathed the toy to his teething young brother, who could not be parted with it, leaving tiny teeth marks to ring the upper end of its main mast. Glancing once more at the silent sailor, John turned again to his work, and into thoughts of his past.

One morning John’s father had dressed early. Young John, then toward the end of his sixth year, had not been aware that the year had closed since the time of his brother’s birth. He woke to find mother at the kitchen table, face tight, shoulders racked by convulsions of silent sobs. The cradle lay empty. She threw her arms around his neck and crushed him to her, not noticing that his neck was bent back, breathing pained as his face was smashed into her smothering breast. He put up tiny hands to push her away, but could not. His father was gone a week. John spent much of that time clutched to her flesh like this, her tears streaming through his hair, over his forehead, her salt taste in his mouth. When his father returned home, alone, she refused to acknowledge him. Tensions rose to violence. Six months later she drowned herself.

John reached up to rub his eyes. He stopped rubbing them, then continued, brow furrowing as he lost himself in thought. He didn’t feel quite right. The pleasant air of moments ago had curdled into a discomforting sense of unease, akin to the queasy presence that had overcome him as he beheld the large ship. Perhaps it was simply not having solid ground beneath him, the disconcerting idea of being away from land for the first time. Or even his new marriage. John every day expected some form of uneasiness to well up in him regarding his new marriage, though his suppressed fears became confusingly intermingled with the power of his spiteful defiance of father. He was happily married, of course, and ready, excited, to journey into unexplored realms of intimacy with Iris, whom he loved. Without question he loved her. But the loss of freedom, the undefined boundaries between husband and wife, and his father’s strong objections to the marriage, to women, to her, these were things that John expected to bother him. Certainly more than they had thus far. But John was known for an ability to cast unpleasant thoughts from his consciousness. They would, he thought, they must arise somehow. He just didn’t know how, and was at a loss to describe what his distaste for the marriage might be, were he to experience it. Perhaps he would ease into his new marriage without the slightest pang of discomfort. Certainly he had enjoyed his first married days thus far, in the thrilling high of defying his dreaded father, but, with a creeping dread, a distant part of himself awaited the emergence of these murky undercurrents of untoward feeling, certain to rise to the surface in time, then to exert their force over the actions above.

John touched his face, rubbed his suddenly weary eyes, and, with a sudden thought, turned once more to face the blond sailor. The man was gone. John blinked in surprise, checked outside the open door, but there was no trace of him. John stepped back inside, put his open palm on his chest, hand rising and falling with his shallow breath.

He straightened suddenly, a cloud of doubt falling over his face. “But what is taking Iris so long?” he asked aloud.

In his mind he pictured her smiling at the handsome Adam.

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