Pierpont drove past the hotel, past the town where people knew them and respected them. Past his old house, as though going back in time to where they’d first met. The lake shined grey under a grey sky ringed with dead trees reaching up. The only boat on the water was theirs, with Dottie in it. On foot he stopped by the water’s edge, reaching pathetically towards her. But he had to go on, to run ahead to where the boardwalk ended and he could wave and call out to her. The wind shouted over his voice and snaked through his coat. It felt pointless to be out here when the lake was so blank and he could have no power over it. Without anyone there to see the lake, it didn’t mean anything.
The boat turned and motored towards him, so that Dottie drew close. “I know I’ve done wrong by you,” he said when she could hear. “I need you to tell me what to do, where to go from here.”
She watched him and said, “No. The man I married was strong.”
“But everything’s been stripped away. I’m not the same man anymore. Dottie, I’m sorry.”
She said, “Is that supposed to make everything better?”
“I need to know you still love me, no matter what.”
“No,” said Dottie.
The air was sliced from his lungs, but his heart didn’t react. “No?”
“Not ‘no matter what’. Get a dog if you want unconditional love. You can kick and curse at a mutt and have it come back to lick your boots, so its affection doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t prove you’ve got any worth. I married you because you were brave and honest and hard-working — because you deserved it. If you’re going to snivel, then you don’t.”
“But I can’t be that person anymore!”
She said, “Why the hell not? What do you want? Why did you come here?”
“I want you to give me—” Pierpont said, then stopped. Advice, or time to himself, or her love in spite of his being a worm?
“I’m tired of giving and giving,” said Dottie. “Don’t apologize. Do something. Be somebody. I almost don’t care what or who. But if you expect me to give you everything for nothing because I said some vows to a different man, then this boat is going right back out.”
Pierpont wasn’t the same man, because he’d let himself become so worthless and relied on her to take care of him. His resentment fed on him, made him weaker in the end, and he kept coming back to the thought that she should love him anyway for being who he was, which was nothing, which made him hate himself even more. “I don’t want to be like this,” he said.
“That’s up to you,” said Dottie.
What could he offer her anymore? He had wrinkled hands and a false heart. He didn’t deserve her, and he didn’t deserve to be given a new heart. He should have accepted his son’s judgment and died. But he wanted to feel again. To do something meaningful. To be a man instead of an invalid. To own something, earn something, deserve pride in himself. “But I have so little to offer,” he muttered. Dottie was watching him, sitting in the boat as his Lady of the Lake, and he knew that she deserved at least as good a husband as he had once been. Now, he wasn’t good enough. But despite his dead heart and tired body, all his anger at himself flowed from the thought that things didn’t have to be this way. That he could still fight but wasn’t doing it, because he was too weak and stupid.
There was a place, he remembered, where people still fought. He said, “There’s a way to start again.” That fleeting vision gave him the strength to do something daring, to make one last effort at being worthwhile. “Run away to sea with me,” he said.
Dottie said, “What?”
Pierpont got down on one stiff knee on the rough boards. “Dottie, I want you to be proud of me and I want to take care of you. Marry me again and we’ll leave this place behind, and go far away. I’ll give you—”
“Give me what?” she said, her hands tight on the boat’s side.
“I’ll earn your respect, with whatever time is left to me. We’ll start over, and build the most amazing hotel in the world. We’ll get filthy rich and, I don’t know, match the machine in my chest with computers in our heads and diamonds in our teeth. We’ll do everything.”
“You want to give me all that?” she said.
“No!” said Pierpont, feeling a smile creep onto his face. “What will you trade for it?”
Dottie was quiet for a while. “If you’ll stand up and be someone, I’ll make your dreams come true.”
“Then we’ll do it!” said Pierpont, getting up to take her hand before he knew what he was doing. “It doesn’t matter what we are now. We’ll be something better.”
Dottie looked at him with worried eyes as the snow began to fall again. “Starting over, though? Are you serious?”
“I am.” It felt good to say. “I can be alive again.” He climbed carefully into the boat, feeling younger at heart.
18. Garrett
Rafters came.
Garrett found them when he went on watch one morning. A barge with a straw canopy had anchored beyond the farm, and a slim craft ill-suited to the sea approached from land. He called for Zephyr, then confronted the Pilgrim who’d been on watch. “How did you not notice these?”
“Sorry, sir. Wasn’t looking in the right direction.”
“’Wasn’t looking’? Your standard video game guard is more observant.”
“I wouldn’t know, sir.”
“Dismissed.” Garrett sighed; he’d deal with the lookout problem later. He opened a radio channel and challenged the strangers.
One boat said, “Good morning from Sea Venture, here to party!” The other didn’t answer.
Garrett lifted his binoculars again. The smaller boat was a fishing craft with three women in it, no life vests, and not even a radio antenna. The thatch-roofed one had a guy smiling and waving, and several dozen people milling around.
“Castor Station here. Define ‘party’.”
Someone different came on the line, like the fine print on an advertisement. “We’re a tour boat looking to dock for the morning.”
Garrett scratched his head. “Uh… I get ten percent of whatever you’re charging.”
“Deal,” the man said too quickly.
Zephyr tapped Garrett’s shoulder. “I’ve suggested that people start the lockdown plan, and our lab is set.”
“Good. Get the security folks on duty.”
The station’s loudspeaker simply echoed his words. “Okay,” said Zephyr.
The women’s boat drew close enough for them to be seen waving. It was rolling alarmingly. Garrett pointed at the dock, wanting them to get out of the pathetic hull before it killed them.
That one docked first, nearly wrecking itself and the nearest farm panels. Garrett was there with two Pilgrims to get the boat secured and greet the underdressed women: “What are you doing, taking a craft like that out of harbor?”
The oldest of the three said, “Hi to you too, guy. How much for a room?”
Garrett eyed them. He knew why they were here, and if he let them stay he’d be knowingly profiting from crime. Or something that was a crime pretty much everywhere. It was one thing to say “let’s let people live how they want” in theory, but another to actually allow it.
He named a price. “Checkout is noon, services are extra, and there’s a cleaning deposit.”
One of the women laughed. “Any barter for those ‘services’?”
Garrett felt queasy but helped the businesswomen aboard. “No, thanks.”
Then the partygoers flooded onto the station, and Castor was overwhelmed. The platform’s population had suddenly and dramatically risen, and there were men and women in grey glaring at the colorful tourists while Garrett went ragged patrolling the place and trying to keep people from falling off the topdeck. Phillip glared at him, saying, “How long?”