Free Sudden Sea by R.A. Scotti

herself.
Frolicking
was an old-fashioned word. It sounded almost quaint in this day and age, when women smoked on the street and men kept their hats on in elevators. But it was the perfect word for the couple in her binoculars. Young lovers frolicking in the surf. Catherine turned away, not wanting to intrude. Margaret, four years old, was tugging at her skirt, wanting to look, too. The older girls, Anne and Cathy, ten and eight, were at school in Westerly, and Geoffrey … She began fretting. Geoffrey was at it again. He was just reaching the defiant adolescent stage, and he was determined to be independent.
    An hour later the Coast Guard called. Both boats were missing. Retrieving the binoculars over Margaret’s protests, Catherine scanned the bay again. She picked out a speck on the horizon that could be Geoffrey and Andy. The Moores’ cabin cruiser was anchored at the Watch Hill Yacht Club. The
Mageanca,
a name made up of the first two letters of their children’s names: MArgaret, GEoffrey, ANne, and CAthy, was forty-two feet, and Catherine was petite, barely over five feet. It was too big for her to handle alone. She called her husband at the mill.
    Westerly is roughly six miles west of Watch Hill. In ten minutes Jeff Moore was at the yacht club, taking the
Mageanca
out into Little Narragansett Bay. He headed for the point, motoring at full throttle, churning a high wake. The water was white-capped, as foamy as ale poured out too fast.
    The
Mageanca
caught up with Geoffrey, Andy, and the runaway sailboat out at the clam flats at the end of the sandspit, where the water was shallow for some distance. Jeff turned the boat and backed into the flats, trying to maneuver close enough for the boys to wade out. The big cruiser ran aground, and they had to flag down another boat to tow them off. By the time they finally got home, the wind was whipping and the waves in the bay were two and three feet, higher than they had ever seen them.
    At lunch Geoffrey began describing the wild chase to his mother. It was a sleigh ride out to the point, and Geoffrey enjoyed every minute of it. He never stopped to wonder how he would get back until he had snagged Anne’s sailboat and tried to turn around. He was rowing hard just to hold his position. Realizing that they could never make it back, he and Andy dragged the boats up on the sand. As they started walking home, Andy spotted the
Mageanca.
    Geoffrey was in the middle of the story when his father suddenly turned an ashy white, clutched his chest, and slumped over the lunch table. Jeff Moore was much bigger than his wife or his son, and a good forty pounds heavier than Andy. Somehow, though, they managed to get him from the dining room, across the hall, into the living room, and onto the couch. Catherine gave him a shot of brandy to revive him and tried to take his pulse. It was so faint, she telephoned the doctor. As she dialed, she was thinking,
Could anything else go wrong today?
    That same morning on the island of Jamestown, after the school bus had picked up his children, Joe Matoes ferried his truck across the bay to deliver his milk in Newport. Matoes made his rounds every other day, stopping at the downtown restaurants, then swinging by the mansions along Bellevue Avenue and around Ocean Drive, dropping off bottles at the few houses that were still open. He finished his milk route around two o’clock. Although the sun was bright, the wind was whipping and surf was breaking over the seawall on Ocean Drive.
    Matoes caught the 2:30 P.M. ferry home. It was a rough ride, much rougher than the morning run. The boat was more crowded than usual. Workers from Newport, concerned that a northeaster was coming, were trying to beat the storm home and the first rush of teenagers was returning from Rogers High in Newport. Jamestown didn’t have a high school of its own. Matoes watched them from a distance — his niece Marge Matoes, Bill Chellis from the lighthouse, and maybe a dozen more