As the work progressed, there was never a quibble over expenses or style. Every call requesting money was answered with a prompt deposit in her account, and no issue of taste or method was raised. They never met Dave Jaspars. No one from AMO came to inspect their work. The only visitors were occasional riverboat nuts (whom Daniel always invited to dinner and pillaged for lore) and the workmen they hired for special tasks. Daniel, who favored wood heat and the original oil-lamp chandeliers, was disgusted by the power lines and the backup generators in the engine room.
Annalee had hoped they would finish by Daniel’s twelfth birthday, but they’d just started painting the dining room when March arrived. Annalee had given him his major birthday present – an excellent telescope – that morning, so when they’d finished his birthday dinner, they took the telescope up to the top deck and looked at the winter constellations. The chilly, wind-whipped evening soon sent them inside to the captain’s dining room, which they’d made their own. Daniel waited at the head of the table while Annalee ducked into the galley and immediately reappeared with his birthday cake, twelve candles blazing, and set it in front of him as she sang happy birthday. Daniel’s eyes glistened in the candlelight.
‘Don’t forget to make a wish before you blow them out,’ she reminded him.
Daniel thought for a moment, took a deep breath and blew out all the candles except the one in the center. Annalee quickly reached over and pinched it out.
‘I guess I don’t get my wish,’ Daniel said. Annalee seldom heard self-pity in his voice. She didn’t know how to respond to his sudden shift in mood. ‘You know what I wished?’ Daniel said, then continued before she could answer. ‘I wished I knew who my father was.’
She grasped the connection with his birthday, but she was still stunned. She sat down across from him, feeling suddenly old and helpless. ‘I’ve told you before, Daniel – I don’t know. I was young and crazy and lost. I was sleeping with anyone who’d hold me warm all night. It could have been a number of men. I wish I could tell you.’
‘Tell me,’ Daniel cried. ‘Tell me! You have to know!’
‘I can’t, Daniel. I honestly don’t know.’
‘Liar!’ He exploded from his seat. ‘Tell me!’ He raised his right arm and smashed his fist down on the cake.
Annalee slapped him so hard it numbed her hand. Daniel staggered, barely catching himself against his chair. He brought his frosting-smeared hand to his cheek, blinking rapidly at the tears.
‘Goddammit, you little shit,’ Annalee yelled, ‘it hurts. Do you think it doesn’t hurt me too?’
Crying, Daniel nodded mechanically.
‘Where is this coming from? Why are you doing this?’
Daniel kept nodding.
‘Talk to me, Daniel. You can’t do that to me and go hide. What is it?’
Daniel sobbed. ‘I just want to have something. Something I can imagine.’
Annalee understood now what he wanted. She sat down, suddenly calm. ‘I first saw your father,’ she began, ‘when I was hiding out at a resort in Anchor Bay, about fifty miles down the coast from the Four Deuces. There’d been a bad drought for almost two years; nearly everyone was out of water. I woke up one summer dawn and looked out the window. Thin fog was swirling outside, milky in the first light. I saw a man out in the pasture, a tall, bearded man wearing a top hat and a flowing black cape. He was witching for water with a forked stick, holding it in front of him. I could feel his attention as he worked the field. I walked out in the pasture and stood in front of him. He spread his cape on the ground. Without a word, we made love. When we were done, he covered my shoulders with the cape. Before he left, he pointed out into the field and said, “There’s a deep spring near the center, but there’s no need to dig. It’s going to rain soon.” And the next morning I woke to a soft, soaking rain.’
Daniel nodded solemnly.
‘Your father,’ Annalee said, ‘was a riverboat captain. His boat was the Delta Queen. I was a serving girl, a young Cajun from the bayou. I remember how strong his arms were from handling the wheel. You were conceived on the pilot house floor while the wheel twirled slowly and the boat ran free. The next night there was an earthquake. I couldn’t feel it on the water at first, but you could hear people screaming on shore and see the treetops lashing in the moonlight. The river just seemed to roll over everything and you could hear the boat’s timbers snap loud as gunshots and glass shattering in the salon. I was on my way up to the wheelhouse with a bottle of brandy and was knocked back down the stairs. People were screaming and jumping overboard. Suddenly your father was there, lifting me in his arms and carrying me down to the main deck. There was a small dinghy lashed to the bow. He cut it loose with his knife, then lifted me inside. He kissed me, said he loved me, then lowered it. He went back to help the others. As I drifted away, still holding the bottle of brandy in my hands, I saw him run into the salon just before it burst into flames.’
Daniel shut his eyes, absently touching his cheek where Annalee had slapped him.
‘Your father was a bandit,’ she continued. ‘I was working as a cocktail waitress in this horrible Chicago bar. We’d closed up and the bartender and I were washing the last few glasses when he stepped out of the bathroom with a pistol in his hand. He tied up the bartender and locked him in the store-room, then emptied the till. He skidded a roll of dimes down the bar toward me, where he’d told me to sit and not move. ‘Put some music on the jukebox,’ he said. I asked him what he wanted to hear. ‘Whatever puts you in the mood,’ he laughed. It was the sweetest, loosest laugh I ever heard. I ended up driving the getaway car to his apartment. No. Wait. I’m lying to you.’
Daniel glanced at her sharply.
‘We didn’t go to his place. We made love right there, on the long mahogany bar.’
‘Mom!’ Daniel blushed. ‘Geez.’
‘You want to know your father and I don’t know who he is. So I’m going to tell you everything that moved me in the men I’ve known, what I’ve admired and enjoyed and dreamed and desired. And when I’m done, you still won’t have a father, still won’t know who your father is, but you’re going to have a much better idea who I am, and that you’re my son, and that I love you.
‘Your father was a mountain climber who disappeared on the peak. I met him in a Katmandu café just before he started the ascent. I remember …’
The smashed cake between them untouched, Annalee went on for nearly two hours, every man of flesh or dream she could remember or invent, heroes, poets, outlaws, fools. Daniel listened intently, and when she finished he did something that brought tears to her eyes: He broke a piece of the mangled cake and offered it to her.
To their mutual amusement, they finished the boat on April Fools’ Day. Their work, they agreed, was excellent. The forlorn queen had been restored to magnificence – from the Belgian carpet to the chandeliers, she possessed a muted elegance and luxurious dignity.
Annalee phoned Dave Jaspars that evening and told him the work was complete.
‘Fantastic!’ He sounded genuinely pleased. ‘Take a vacation for a few weeks or just hang out and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Elmo’s supposed to pass through toward the end of the month and he’ll tell you what’s next.’
‘I don’t suppose you’d have any idea what that might be,’ Annalee prodded. Dave Jaspars loved to gossip, and was always dropping hints he knew far more than he could tell.
‘Well …’ he began, letting it trail off. ‘You know I shouldn’t tell you this – but you’re going to Indianapolis to join the Sisters of Blessed Mercy convent and Daniel is going to Paraguay to study hallucinogenic medicine with a Yatati shaman.’