amy storrow

When Strange Was Normal
(a working title)
by Amy Storrow

"You're eleven, you decide," Mom had said, and my eleven-year-old self thought that if I'd been given the power to choose, I'd better reward the power-dispenser by choosing her way. She'd lured me home from my cousin Rachel's house by saying that she, Dad, and Sam could always go on vacation without me. I'd left behind an older cousin who could drive and who bought me ice cream and Smarties; a pool; and the state of Massachusetts, infinitely superior to Connecticut, The Disappointment State. Massachusetts was where Rachel lived with her regular family.

So we were on our family vacation, sailing from Stonington to Block Island. It was nighttime. Mom had said the sail would be beautiful, but I was immune to beauty, so then she'd said I could read in the cabin. We were all alone in the world in our little eighteen-foot Marshall catboat, the Clam. Dad had named her Clam because, he said, clams ooze in black mud. I didn't understand this explanation at all, but I thought it would make sense when I got older, the way I'd been told by a babysitter that I'd eventually understand the real meaning of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." Dad, Mom, and Sam sat in the cockpit, enjoying beauty. The sail creaked, and the black ocean rushed and fizzed beneath us. I'm sure there were stars, at least at first. I was down below, as promised, reading Alive by flashlight, my father's foul weather gear, creaky and vinegary, across me like a blanket. Rachel had lent me Alive. People stew, I was thinking, was just not a good idea.

Dad had forgotten his glasses, so he'd asked Mom to read the yellow chart, to trace her finger along lines of longitude, to look out for rocks. The wind was starting to rise.

I'd rather eat Spam than people stew.

The water slammed against the prow, pounding, and the boat arched free, only to be yanked down and slammed again. When Clam was in the air, I felt weightless, suspended; when the boat hit the water, everything was the blankness of the crash. I didn't feel scared because I had Alive.

I heard Dad say, "We better put in a reef."

"Now?" Mom said. The sea punched.

"You'll have to do it. My glasses. I'll try to head her up."

"Mom," Sam said.

Mom came down into my little cave. Her face was bunched and pale. She rooted around in the port storage locker under the bench.

"Mom," Sam said.

When you put in a reef, you make the sail smaller. You let it down some and then use those little cords--reef points--dangling from the sail to tie the extra to the boom. You use a slipped reef knot because it can be undone in an instant. So Mom had to clamber around in the dark all over the deck of a small boat heaving in the sea and tie twelve special knots. She pulled a life jacket out of the locker and lifted it around her neck.

Sam appeared behind her. He sat in the gangway. It wasn't the battery-powered light that made him look green. Mom read his face, turned to the pots and pans stored in the galley corner, and the second she thrust the bottom of a double-boiler under his chin, he puked. It was the lumpy kind at first, then thin, slimy green spurts. "My poor baby," Mom said. She rubbed his back.

The smell spread through the cabin. I breathed through my mouth. Only babies get seasick.

I turned back to Alive. I'd rather eat people stew than get blinded by looking at too much snow. If I had to choose.

Mom stepped back outside.

I put down my book. Sam looked at me. He held out his right arm, palm up. He whimpered.

"You're such an idiot," I said. "But okay."

He worked his way down the starboard bunk toward me, his puke smell eddying around him. Fear crowded his eyes. "It's all right," I said. "Just make sure you face away." He crawled under a patch of Dad's foulies and arranged himself beside me. He was to leeward. We were spoons.

"Do you ever think about dying?" Sam said. His hair was exactly the same shade as mine.

"No," I said. "Never." The sail started flapping, great shudders, dinosaur wings. "Jesus," Dad shouted. We heard a line zinging through a block. "Now, now, now," Dad screamed. "As fast as you can."

Mom bumped and thumped and scurried on the roof above us.

"Faster, Jesus," Dad yelled.

"I can't see," Mom said.

I pulled Sam closer to me, breath and all. Stupid family on a stupid vacation.

"George, I can't see." Her voice was wire-tense.

The sail lumped and slammed.

"George--" and a crash above us, like when lightning and thunder arrive at the same instant, and you know the hit's too close. Then an odd squeaking sound, like a pig or a hurt dog.

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