Alcova, 1971   Thirteen, so I knew all about it — how to tack, how to jibe, how to sail it flat on a broad reach or close-hauled, with the prow pointed home, the foam boiling astern, cat’s-   paws ghosting the water, the telltale clues to the fickle mind of the wind — oh, I knew all that, I’d read not one book, but two, so all those words were mine. He let me buy   it: bright yellow Sunfish, thirteen feet, used, let me launch it just two weeks after ice- out on a raw, squally spring morning, too soon but I could’t wait, wouldn’t wait, I   said I was ready and hoisted the sail, cleated the halyard, ducked the boom that missed my head by inches, inducted myself into the Order of the Orange Life-Vest —   he cinched me in tight. I clambered aboard, took up the tiller, fumbled for the sheet, squinted into the wind like Nelson, Horn- blower, Jones. I said I was ready. He   pushed out the prow, reconsidered, then stepped a big step, unexpected, irretrievable — barely onboard as the boat leapt ahead, quickly planing as the wind heaved   its shoulder full force into the sail’s belly — and I hadn’t thought of any of this, how it would really feel, surging pell-mell into the lake, hearing the frantic hiss   of the water gurgling beneath us, how the sheet would cut into my untested right hand, or how the hull would buck and jounce while my left hand fought a phantom that wrestled   me for the tiller. I hadn’t dreamed of fear, of being overmastered — my command redoubled. We beat a hard beam reach, downwind fifty yards, no more, and I   shouldn’t have fought the gust that turtled us, should have dropped the tiller, let the sheet slip harmless from my stubborn fist, should have trusted the old adage — just let go, the ship   will find its own level — but no, I held on tight and over we went, first a shock knocked me breathless, electric ice, the shell of the hull slowly rolled belly up, rocked   away from my groping, squirted away slick, ungrabbable, the daggerboard streaming snotbrown water, and then — what? I may have lunged for his flailing hands, may have screamed   Dad! — may even have seen him go down, slip silently down while I bobbed above, useless as a newborn in the bright orange grip of the vest — I may have watched myself lose   him, may have seen what I had to unsee, to make unhappen: his face disappearing into the dark beneath. Some fury of refusal possessed me — no, not here,   no, not now, no, no — possessed me to poke my frozen fingers at the frozen buckles savagely till they gave, the vest broke away like a parachute and I ducked   myself madly ass over end, kicked, felt the burden of my clothes, my shoes, the skull- crushing cold, I came to him, saw him still sinking, still, like a statue in the dull   filtered light, a waxen head with arms raised as if in blessing, or forgiveness, or surrender, simple surrender, a dazed emptiness, limply sinking. I lunged for   his wrist, latched on, kicked hard, up, clumsily tugged him upward to the light, up, I clawed for the light, lungs heaving, up, suddenly broke the surface, gasping violently — by God   he gasped too, coughed up water, breathed again. Dad! I sputtered. Are you okay! He nodded dully, eyes half shut, lay shivering when I draped his arms across the gently bobbing   hull, hooked the frozen claws of his hands on the upended chine just as the roar of a motor approached us fast, a friend appeared (the man who ran the music store   in town) — he’d seen it all, revved his ski-boat, rescued us. I can’t seem to recall how we ever managed to get warm, how we got home — another thing we never talked about.                                  for my father, on what would                                have been his ninetieth birthday     © Michael Fleming Brattleboro, Vermont July 2010