“It’s time to go, Allie,” said Jack.

He stood beyond the boarding gate looking at her; she had not yet followed him on board.

“Where is this thing going?”

“Away from here.”

The steel platform on which she stood was so broad that its far edges disappeared into foamy mist. The full sun was halfway down in the west, lengthening her shadow and making the whole scene warm and golden. Peering over the edge, one could see below the gray boxes of the cityscape, buildings and roads, and toward the horizon were farmlands. Sometimes she was enveloped in a cloud as it swept past, leaving her wetted and chilled.

The elevator box was the only other structure on the platform and the only way down. The elevator bell rang and Allie glanced over her shoulder: others were emerging in a kind of bewilderment, some stepping timidly out, others surveyed the scene and broke into a run and leapt across the gate and disappeared into the large tunnel.

The winds at this altitude were strong; they muffled conversation and whipped Allie’s thin skirt and sandy hair. She mechanically drew locks out of her eyes and tucked them behind her ear with a fingernail only to have them fly loose again.

Across the gate was the enormous shining mouth moored to the platform one hundred feet wide in front of her, welcoming whoever would come. The deep passage greeted those who boarded like the foyer of a theater or opera house. It led into the heart of the vessel, as vast as any city. They were told that passengers would have plenty to eat as well as comfortable accommodations.

“Allie! Come on!”

Little dramas were playing out around her on the platform: a pair of lovers fighting and pleading with one another—she couldn’t hear what about; a father in a threadbare suit hustling two fearful children across the gate; a woman on crutches hobbling toward the entrance and throwing her crutches behind her as she stepped over; a shirtless man, young but prematurely-aged limping across with no possessions of any kind.

That arguing couple: the woman in a calico dress struggled to get free from the angry man who held her by one arm. She cried, “No! Let me go,” breaking free and desperately clambering across the loading bay onto the deck, leaving him panting and astonished.

Allie saw it and she looked back across at Jack. The sunlight enveloped her, turning her sandy hair into burnished gold and her freckles into a fine, sculpted complexion.

“What if I change my mind?”

“Allie! It’s about to leave! You have to come now!”

“How long until we come back?”

“It’s not coming back!”

“I love my momma! I can’t leave her!” The harrowing wind cowed her, threatening to blow her off the platform.

Wet winds soddened her cheeks and carried off the steam from the engines preparing to depart. The last of the stevedores jumped across the platform and began to untie and roll in the ropes from the moorings.

Tears mingled with dew and ran salty into her mouth. The taste: it reminded her of a frosted blue birthday cake rimmed with white icing and words written in red on top, “Happy Birthday Allison,” and one, two, three, four…seven candles. Momma stood beside her, leering with pride. Momma led the room in singing Happy Birthday. She told Allie when to blow out the candles. Allie was beaming and so, so happy.

Daddy was still there that day, leaning against the counter in the kitchen, muttering along, singing out the side of his mouth with a cigarette pinched on the other side, golf shirt and slacks, gold Omega wristwatch on his hairy arm, the ice clinking in an empty tumbler in his hand.

She blew out the candles. Her momma and a couple of friends from her first-grade class clapped and cheered. Momma cut squares of cake and set them on little paper plates. Her friends plunged forks into their cake. But Allie sat down at her seat to a plate of cold grouper and a few beets and potato squares from last night’s dinner. “Now, I warned you,” Momma’s smile became a taut line that tucked down at the corner. “You’re gonna clean that plate first, and then you can have cake with your friends. I don’t wanna hear none of your complaining.” Allie slowly picked up her fork.

“Come on!” Jack shouted with full force. “We’re about to leave!”

Her fingernails clawed the side of her face. “You go on. I’ll come on the next one.”

“There’s only one ship, Allie! You have to come now!”

Jack’s voice was thin against the roaring wind in her ears. A man holding his hat on his head ran past her, leaping across the gate. Then she was seven again and Momma was saying something.

“This is Darrell. He’s gonna be staying with us for a while.”

“Where’s daddy?”

“Daddy’s gone. Somewhere. I don’t know. But let’s try to make Darrell feel at right at home, alright? Now, stand up straight and say ‘Hi Darrell.’ You might even start to call him ‘daddy’ some day. Wouldn’t that be nice? He can be your new daddy. Now say Hello Darrell.”

“Hello Darrell.”

He reached out an arm. “Hey there, little nip. Come here and let me have a look at you.”

Darrell stayed for years and took daddy’s place in momma’s bed. He was there for Christmas and her birthdays, for her fourth-grade Choir Recital, and Field Day when she won first place in the sack race. Allie remembered how strong he was, so strong he could lift her one-handed into the lower branches of a tree, pushing her up with one big hand on her little butt so she could climb it. He was good with one hand because the other almost always had a beer can in it.

She got used to him and he was very kind to her, buying her ice cream cones and any souvenir she wanted. He practically paid for her entire dolphin collection that she cherished and kept on a shelf in their two-bedroom house.

Every Easter he insisted she have a new dress. He liked lace and frills and ribbons, and if possible, a matching hat or bonnet. Momma was so pleased and she made such a fuss over her new outfit while she looked demurely upward at Darrell with affection and said all kinds of sweet things about how generous he was and how she would do anything for him.

Most evenings while Darrell watched sports, Momma kept a strict regimen of chores and homework. Allie either had to make dinner or else clean up afterward, which meant she usually did the cleaning up, including washing all the dishes by hand, drying them and putting them away. Then homework at the kitchen table. Momma checked her arithmetic and spelling, and corrected her handwriting, and heard recitations of the names of the presidents and the Gettysburg Address. Then she had a bath, brushed her hair and teeth, and got into her nightgown. Then she had to go and say goodnight to Darrell, and he made her get up in his lap and snuggle into his chest while he petted and stroked her hair and legs and shoulders and muttered, “That’s my girl, that’s my girl. Such a big girl you’re getting to be.” She slid off his lap, and he adjusted his trousers and watched her skitter off to bed.

Momma was there when Allison entered womanhood, and she taught her about boys and babies and hygiene. Darrell got muscular and sounded angry when any talk of boys entered the house. He told her that she couldn’t have any boyfriends until she was eighteen, and he muttered threats about any boy who might try to make any advance on her.

She thought of that night she was not allowed to go to the midnight premiere of a movie that was very popular with her friends. They were all going in costume and would be out until two or three in the morning. Not only was it an unchaperoned event, but money was tight and Darrell said they couldn’t afford it.

Jack’s face was now in the full sun and he shouted as loud as he could, “Come on, Allie! Come on! Come on! We have to go!”

“Okay, I’m coming!”

She slowly stepped toward the line at the edge of the platform. More steam clouds whisked past her. There was a loud whistle that made her clamp her palms on her ears. She looked around, shaken and fearful, and again she looked across the line of the edge of the platform at him. He was still shouting “Come on!” at the top of his lungs but she could not hear him.

She felt a growing rumble in her feet, a vibration that shook the whole platform and created a new noise that was added to the wind and the whistle and confused and anxious voices behind her. She crouched a little, her knees at awkward angles, almost falling off her feet. He reached his hand out to her, his mouth wide and shouting at her. More stragglers leaped across the gate in the nick of time.

“I’m coming!” she shouted.

But wait! Would they have peppermint schnapps where they were going? Oh, that memory! One of the sweetest and darkest memories she had. That day when she was fifteen and Darrell had been drinking a bit too much himself, switching from beer to bourbon a year or so back. He sat in his chair when she had walked past to use the bathroom. He called her over. Had she ever had peppermint schnapps? It’s like candy that you can drink. He gave her a glass with a warning that it was pretty strong. She loved it. He had her sit on his lap again as she drank, just like she used to do. They both got the giggles. She spilled a little on herself—and on him, laughing and snorting.

He introduced her to other liqueurs: first peach schnapps, then Frangelica, Duvet and Grappa. Some she liked and others were bitter. It was becoming a regular event a couple of times a week that he would introduce her to a new flavor. He confided to her that all of the new bottles had been lifted from a bar he frequented when the bartender was not looking. Many were costly and he could never have afforded them. But he did it for her, because she seemed to enjoy it so much.

Where was Momma all these times? “Humf,” he said. “She likes her own drink. But she doesn’t know her limits. She’s in the bedroom. Best to leave her alone.”

The bedtime routine had eventually become Allie’s own responsibility. Momma didn’t need to be involved anymore. Allie could brush her own teeth, and she brought home all A’s on her report card. That’s all that mattered. With every perfect report card momma praised her for being such a genius and said they could get pizza that night and have a real celebration. Those were the best times, and she looked forward to every six-week progress report showing the new column of A’s. Momma kissed her face and told her how beautiful she’d become. She started calling her princess and said she ruled the house.

Allie’s senior year in high school, they moved out of the house into a doublewide trailer that they shared with two other young men and a girl a few years older than her. During the day while she was at school, Momma and Darrell were running a business at an office complex with about forty girls who made phone calls fourteen hours a day and slept together in a dormitory. From age fifteen, Allie worked the phones too for a couple of hours after school. The other ladies were not allowed to leave the office complex. Meals were brought in. There was more money, but they stayed in the trailer home and they drank at night and Momma took some sugar-like substance from a square of aluminum foil.

After dark some evenings, as he sat in his tattered chair watching a sports game, Darrell still invited her to have a drink with him from time to time. One night, she decided to skip homework knowing she already had A’s and didn’t need to study. He gave her rye with plenty of simple syrup. She said it tasted like cough syrup, and he joked that it would keep her from getting a cough. After one glass she fell asleep on his chest. She woke up in her usual bed on top of the covers feeling a little sore down below. She dismissed it as a menstrual cramp.

She graduated from high school cum laude. Momma and Darrell were both in the stands. They squawked and whistled when she walked across the stage. Afterward she beamed with her friends about college in the fall and some who were traveling to Europe, and then a hasty goodbye. The three went out for pasta at a little Italian restaurant with red wine and bellinis and cheesecake for dessert.

In June, Darrell brought up the idea that Allie should stay on the phones because she had no accent and she could sell investment options with a sexy, youthful voice. She’d been doing it for three years already and knew the business. She said she wanted to go to college, but Darrell pointed out that she still had all summer. He said the business depended on her and they didn’t have money for college anyway. Momma shrugged and muttered with her pimply arms all in a tangle.

“Come on, Allie! COME ON!”

“Momma needs me! I need my momma!”

The rumbling in her feet seemed to rise in tone. Some engine was revving up. Its hum and whirl started to resonate, forming a sound like the rising notes of a symphony. The whistle was joined by other horns and hoots and percussive thumps in something unmistakably like music.

“COME ON!”

Darrell was there, sweaty, unshaven, quietly sucking his teeth and looking everywhere except her face. Momma had lost her upper incisors and had infected spots all over her face and arms. But Allie recognized the same smile she’s seen all her life, the smile she needed like a drug, the approval that gave her worth and meaning. Momma loved her. Of course, she did. How could she leave her momma? Would Momma come with her on board the departing vessel? Impossible. Allie felt the strong pull of her own love, certainly of approval and, vaporous as it was, praise, but also of the regular evening sessions over aperitifs and liqueurs that gently bore her to a thick and unperturbable sleep.

Would she go the same route as Momma? Into harder drugs? Who can say? Momma seemed to like them. And Darrell was very affectionate. He seemed to really like Allie and to treat her more and more as an adult, almost as a girlfriend, the older she got. How sad would they be if Allie just disappeared from their lives! Could she do that to them?

“I’m coming, Jack! I want to come! Oh, I wish Momma were here. Maybe she would come with me. Darrell too. We could all go together.”

“ALLIE, COME ON!”

“Okay! I’m coming.”

A gap opened between the steel platform and the departing ship. White clouds were below and the surface of the earth. The rumbling terrifying symphonic music of the engines now overwhelmed all other sound. Jack’s voice could not be heard. Allie could not hear her own voice or even her own thoughts. One chance remained to spring up and leap across the widening gap. Tears sprang to her eyes for her momma, for Darrell, for the things that had given her comfort in this world, little things that made life bearable. Could she leave them behind?

“NOW ALLIE! NOW!”

“I can still make it…”