The Goldfinch

“Right.” I’d heard many, many stories of Mr. Barbour sailing off into “snappy waters” that turned out to be nor’easters, State of Emergency declared in three states and power knocked out along the Atlantic Coast, Andy seasick and vomiting as he bailed salt water out of the boat. Nights tilted sideways, run aground upon sandbars, in darkness and torrential rain. Mr. Barbour himself—laughing uproariously over his Virgin Mary and his Sunday morning bacon and eggs—had more than once told the story how he and the children were blown out to sea off Long Island Sound during a hurricane, radio knocked out, how Mrs. Barbour had phoned a priest at St. Ignatius Loyola on Park and Eighty-Fourth and sat up all night praying (Mrs. Barbour!) until the ship-to-shore call from the Coast Guard came in. (“First strong wind, and she hightails it to Rome, didn’t you, my dear? Ha!”)

“Daddy—” Platt shook his head sadly. “Mommy used to say that if Manhattan wasn’t an island, he could never have lived here one minute. Inland he was miserable—always pining for the water—had to see it, had to smell it—I remember driving from Co

I blinked, not knowing what to say. “No. I didn’t know that.”

“Well, she did,” said Platt tonelessly. “Kitsey’s named after her. Jumped off a boat in the East River during a party—a lark supposedly, that’s what they all said, ‘accident,’ but I mean anyone knows not to do that, the currents were crazy, pulled her right under. Another kid died too, jumping in trying to save her. And then there was Daddy’s uncle Wendell back in the sixties, half-crocked, tried to swim to the mainland one night on a dare—I mean, Daddy, he used to yammer on how the water was the source of life itself for him, fountain of youth and all that and—sure, it was. But it wasn’t just life for him. It was death.”

I didn’t reply. Mr. Barbour’s boating stories, never particularly cogent, or focused, or informative about the actual sport, had always vibrated with a majestic urgency all their own, an appealing tingle of disaster.

“And—” Platt’s mouth was a tight line—“of course the hell of it was, he thought he was immortal as far as the water was concerned. Son of Poseidon! Unsinkable! And as far as he was concerned, the rougher the water, the better. He used to get very storm-giddy, you know? Lowered barometric pressure for him was like laughing gas. Although that particular day… it was choppy but warm, one of those bright su

“In hindsight, I know, it seems poorly considered, but—you see, I could have sailed it single-handed. Daddy was going stir-crazy in the house and what was I to do, wrestle him down and lock him up? and then too, you know Andy, he never thought about food, the cupboard was bare, nothing in the fridge but some frozen pizzas… short hop, something to eat on the pier, it seemed like a good plan, you know? ‘Feed him,’ Mommy always used to say when Daddy started getting a little too exhilarated. ‘Get some food down him.’ That was always the first line of defense. Sit him down—make him eat a big steak. Often that’s all it took to get him back on keel. And I mean—it was in the back of my mind that if his spirits didn’t settle once we were on the mainland we could forget about the steakhouse and take him in to the emergency room if need be. I only made Andy come to be on the safe side. I thought I could use an extra hand—quite frankly I’d been out late the night before, I was feeling a little less than all a-taunto, as Daddy used to say.” He paused, rubbing the palms of his hands on the thighs of his tweed trousers. “Well. Andy never liked the water much. As you know.”

“I remember.”

Platt winced. “I’ve seen cats that swam better than Andy. I mean, quite frankly, Andy was just about the clumsiest kid I ever saw that wasn’t out-and-out spastic or retarded… good God, you ought to have seen him on the te

Our chummy college-girl waitress was approaching behind Platt’s back, about to ask if we wanted another round—I caught her eye, shook my head slightly, warning her away.

“It was the hypothermia that got Daddy. He’d gotten so thin, no body fat on him at all, an hour and a half in the water was enough to do it, floundering around at those temperatures. You lose heat faster if you’re not perfectly still. Andy—” Platt, seeming to sense that the waitress was there, turned and held up two fingers, another round—“Andy’s jacket, well, they found it trailing behind the boat still attached to the line.”

“Oh God.”

“It must have come up over his head when he went over. There’s a strap that goes around the crotch—a bit uncomfortable, nobody likes to wear it—anyway, there was Andy’s jacket, still shackled to the life-line, but apparently he wasn’t buckled in all the way, the little shit. Well, I mean,” he said, his voice rising, “the most typical thing. You know? Couldn’t be bothered to fasten the thing properly? He was always such a goddamned klutz—”

Nervously, I glanced at the waitress, conscious how loud Platt had gotten.

“God.” Platt pushed himself back from the table very suddenly. “I was always so hateful to Andy. An absolute bastard.”

“Platt.” I wanted to say No you weren’t only it wasn’t true.

He glanced up at me, shook his head. “I mean, my God.” His eyes were blown-out and empty looking, like the Huey pilots in a computer game (Air Cav II: Cambodian Invasion) that Andy and I had liked to play. “When I think of some of the things I did to him. I’ll never forgive myself, never.”