of Natalie. He imagined her at home, curled up on the couch in the den. She was coming here. A fact Noah found hard to imagine. Sometimes, at home, before they fell asleep, they’d lie in bed conjuring up their fantasy child—a baby boy—whose ascendance into the nighttime world of forgiveness and fantasy was like religion for them. The boy would be a prodigy, of course, but a prodigy of ordinariness. This meant a Little League career that included errors and strikeouts galore but also a zest for the game straight from the little guy’s good nature. It meant a seventh grade girlfriend and questions about her. It meant high school and the prom and ski trips up to Sugarloaf with the boy and a couple of his pals. It meant college at Dartmouth, Nat’s insistence, and law school and a job in downtown Boston where the two of them—Noah and his son—could get together for lunch on Fridays. There were no dislocations in this fantasy, no shipwrecks. And certainly no ashes stowed in the shed.
“Winter’s in that wind,” Olaf said, turning the collar of his shirt up.
His voice startled Noah from his reverie. He hadn’t noticed the outright chill in the air but felt it the moment his father mentioned it.
“You fell asleep.”
“It’s awfully damn late for me.”
Noah turned his attention back to the lake and the rippling water. Steadier now, the waves lapped gently against the dock posts and onto the beach. “Two weeks ago that sky would’ve been a circus with northern lights,” Olaf said, pointing upward. “It’s a goddamn sight.
“My first year on the Loki I used to sit watch from midnight until four. Ninety percent of the time this meant just staying awake. Sometimes I’d be up in the pilothouse, sometimes down on deck, dependingon the weather and where we were. It was a boring job, boring as hell to tell the truth, but my captain that first year was a German guy named Wolfgang, a hell of a guy, smart as anyone I ever knew. He introduced me to the stars, so to speak.” Olaf nodded up at the sky. “He taught me some things about navigating. Just basic stuff, but I was hooked. He said that a true seaman could sail around the world without anything more than a watch and a sextant and the sky to guide him. I didn’t even know what a sextant was, just figured you knew where to go if you were in charge of one of those boats. I never reckoned there was any science to it. Wolf taught me how to take sun sights, how to chart our course, how to estimate our position using dead reckoning when the sky was cloudy and the shore out of sight.” He paused, cleared his throat. “Now it’s just a bunch of satellites telling you where you are and where to go. Back then it was still something beautiful to steer a ship.”
Olaf stopped talking, looked up at the sky, and pointed to different clusters of stars, marking the air with fingertips. Noah, in all his life, had never heard his father say so much at one time. He’d never heard him say half as much.
“What are you pointing at?”
Olaf looked down. “Nothing,” he said. “There was a lot of down-time on the ship, especially as a kid when I didn’t have any responsibilities outside my watch. On clear nights I used to stand on the stern deck looking out at the wake. There’re a lot of things to see in the night sky, especially on Superior. And there were a lot of reasons to be lonely, especially if you were the new kid onboard. But when you’re aching to get away, which I was, even the worst loneliness doesn’t sound too bad.
“Anyway, I got interested in what the captain was teaching me. I used to watch him take his sights, consult our charts, mark our position,do the math. After a couple seasons I had a real sense for this stuff. I could keep time in my head. I knew where we were all the time. I got good at it.
“You see there?” he asked Noah, pointing nearly straight up at a cluster of bright stars. “That’s Andromeda, you can tell by the spiraling
“Winter’s in that wind,” Olaf said, turning the collar of his shirt up.
His voice startled Noah from his reverie. He hadn’t noticed the outright chill in the air but felt it the moment his father mentioned it.
“You fell asleep.”
“It’s awfully damn late for me.”
Noah turned his attention back to the lake and the rippling water. Steadier now, the waves lapped gently against the dock posts and onto the beach. “Two weeks ago that sky would’ve been a circus with northern lights,” Olaf said, pointing upward. “It’s a goddamn sight.
“My first year on the Loki I used to sit watch from midnight until four. Ninety percent of the time this meant just staying awake. Sometimes I’d be up in the pilothouse, sometimes down on deck, dependingon the weather and where we were. It was a boring job, boring as hell to tell the truth, but my captain that first year was a German guy named Wolfgang, a hell of a guy, smart as anyone I ever knew. He introduced me to the stars, so to speak.” Olaf nodded up at the sky. “He taught me some things about navigating. Just basic stuff, but I was hooked. He said that a true seaman could sail around the world without anything more than a watch and a sextant and the sky to guide him. I didn’t even know what a sextant was, just figured you knew where to go if you were in charge of one of those boats. I never reckoned there was any science to it. Wolf taught me how to take sun sights, how to chart our course, how to estimate our position using dead reckoning when the sky was cloudy and the shore out of sight.” He paused, cleared his throat. “Now it’s just a bunch of satellites telling you where you are and where to go. Back then it was still something beautiful to steer a ship.”
Olaf stopped talking, looked up at the sky, and pointed to different clusters of stars, marking the air with fingertips. Noah, in all his life, had never heard his father say so much at one time. He’d never heard him say half as much.
“What are you pointing at?”
Olaf looked down. “Nothing,” he said. “There was a lot of down-time on the ship, especially as a kid when I didn’t have any responsibilities outside my watch. On clear nights I used to stand on the stern deck looking out at the wake. There’re a lot of things to see in the night sky, especially on Superior. And there were a lot of reasons to be lonely, especially if you were the new kid onboard. But when you’re aching to get away, which I was, even the worst loneliness doesn’t sound too bad.
“Anyway, I got interested in what the captain was teaching me. I used to watch him take his sights, consult our charts, mark our position,do the math. After a couple seasons I had a real sense for this stuff. I could keep time in my head. I knew where we were all the time. I got good at it.
“You see there?” he asked Noah, pointing nearly straight up at a cluster of bright stars. “That’s Andromeda, you can tell by the spiraling
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