It was ghastly.
Within days, it became impossible to step foot out of my house without being followed and badgered. Everywhere I went, I dragged with me an unwelcome entourage. Your father took to bringing Kitty with him whenever he came to call, perhaps to act as a buffer between Us and Them （although, to be honest, Kitty was such an affable soul that she never managed to rebuff much）。
Kitty, in fact, became one of the photographers’ favorite subjects, maybe because all decent people love dogs, and it truly seemed like she was nearly always smiling. Even when I would toss away the articles about me, I would save the clippings that featured her, usually captured in some pose close to your father’s side, walking or sitting or gazing up at him with worshipful eyes.
Those clippings must still be around here somewhere. I left them behind when we departed for Europe, but surely someone packed them away for me.
When the lack of privacy became crushing, the only solution was to flee. Since both the Fifth Avenue mansion and my own home on East 37th were so plainly situated in the public right of way, the newsmen simply waited to ambush us, following us every step of the way wherever we went.
So we began taking the Noma to Beechwood more and more, or else to Ferncliff Farm in Rhinebeck, with its hundreds of protected acres of meadows and forest. Or we’d simply seclude ourselves onboard, Jack and I—as well as my parents, and sometimes Katherine, too—and just sail and sail wherever we wanted to go. No journalists, no photographers, no one to gape. Only us, the crew （who were far too well-paid to gape）。 The glory of all that deep open cobalt surrounding us, endless.
We ate and drank and laughed and caught what must have been bushels of fish. My hair became licked with mahogany; my skin began to turn brown.
Back then, the ocean was a friend. Back then, being out at sea felt like freedom.
So many precious days and nights your father and I spent tossed about the waves together, both before the wedding and after. How strange it seems now that I never had any sense of what was to come.
August 1911
At Sea
“Madeleine. Wake up.”
“Father?”
The night had been rough. The Noma had been weathering a bruising purple gale for hours on her way from New York to Newport. Even as the yacht bucked and tossed, Captain Roberts had assured Jack and everyone else that there was nothing to worry about, that it was more a windy wet storm than a proper squall, and the Noma, so sleek and sturdy, was more than enough of a ship to handle it.
The captain had actually winked at Madeleine as he’d added that last bit. Winked. It was so patronizing and out of character that her anxiety instantly increased.
After a dinner of swordfish and salad, she’d retired to her cabin with her stomach pitching; she fell asleep at last with her fingers knotted in the sheets. Even so, she had dreamt of the storm, of being thrown from her feet with black heaving waves washing high over her, over the deck of the yacht, over Jack and Father and everything. She heard teakwood cracking apart, brass fittings and rails twisting and groaning. The smokestacks collapsing, gurgling with water. The wind, screaming and screaming, the Noma ripping into pieces, and still she couldn’t get to her feet, she couldn’t fight the greedy cold ocean—
It had been real enough that when her name was spoken above her head, she snapped awake at once, sick with certainty that they were all about to drown.
“Maddy, get dressed. Come up to the deck.”
“Is it the storm?” she gasped, sitting up, grabbing her father’s hand. She’d left a single electric sconce glowing on the far wall, just in case.
“The gale’s blown south, and we’re not in danger, but there’s trouble afoot. Another boat, nearly gone over.”
She realized the yacht was no longer rocking quite so wildly, and the noise of the engines had fallen to a low, rumbling hum. Water slapped the topsides; footsteps—many footsteps—thumped back and forth along the deck. Rising thinly above it all was the harsh, uneven clanging of a bell.
She flung back the covers. Father went to the door.
“We’re in the midst of a rescue. The colonel thought you might like to see.”
*
The Zingara had floundered, her sails shredded by the storm. The sloop had nearly capsized, her hold filling with water from the powerful black waves （so much like her nightmare, so very much） surging over the wreckage and the five men clinging to the debris. From Madeleine’s vantage up on the bridge, the men looked anemic, slight as paper cutouts, turning their faces away in misery from the searchlight aimed at them from the Noma.