Leaving Lucy Pear(53)

“Maybe I’m not being clear,” said the skinny man. “It’s our pleasure to escort you. Make sure a lady gets home safe.”

“I’m grateful for your concern, Officer, but it’s our pleasure to stay.”

“I’m a federal agent!” He leaned forward, both hands on his gun, squinting at her. “What. You the ones taking all them pears? The serial harvesters?” He laughed nastily.

“I haven’t heard about that.”

“Local cops told us. Weren’t supposed to. They kept it out the papers, some reason.” He scrunched his nose as if he’d smelled something bad, and Emma understood that Josiah Story must have been the reason. Her stomach rolled. “You’re doing something out here, lady.”

“We’re waiting out the fog, sir.”

He spit over the side of the boat. It must have been a large, well-made wad because it sounded like a rock, hitting the water. “Well, then. We’ll just wait with you.”

Emma did not look at her children. Her breath was sour with panic. The fog was beginning to loosen into tendrils; slivers of black could be seen; the men’s faces sharpened into view. The large one grinned. She calculated uselessly: if she admitted to the pear situation, their run would be over, the shack emptied, and Roland would come home to failure and scandal; if she tried for a lesser offense, having taken the skiffs, Buzzi might get caught up, and the local cops notified, who in turn would notify the boat owners, Story’s brother and Story’s father, who would question Story about Emma, which would likely lead to other revelations, about Emma’s pears, both actual and metaphorical, which would make for another, worse sort of scandal.

A groan split the air, distant yet clear: a vast, creaking, cracking chorus, as if a forest were coming down all at once. The marsh shuddered.

“What the f*ck was that?”

The men’s eyes lit up. They might have licked their lips, their hunger was so clear. The big one yanked the motor to life, and they were gone.

Emma prayed, O Lord. O Lord in heaven, thank you. But as she watched the Feds disappear down the creek, as she heard the thrum of their motor die off, she knew that whoever or whatever had made that crashing sound—her first, implausible thought was a string of derricks collapsing—was in far more danger than she and the children had been and that this, their reprieve, had nothing to do with Jesus or Mary and everything to do with luck. Every one of her children had at some point come close to disaster. They had almost poked their eyes out, almost chopped their fingers off, almost expired from fever. There was polio, there was the woodstove, there were Roland’s axes, there was abandonment. Yet here they were, staring at her with astonishment. Adrenaline snaked up her legs. She gripped the oars hard to stop the shaking of her hands. The fog lifted, making way.





Twenty-one




Under a blanket in the parlor, Ira read:

LOCAL CRAFT BELIEVED TOTAL LOSS

Sch. Esmerelda J. Mendosa Bound Home, Wrecks off Eastern Point

July 21—Late last night, the Esmerelda J. Mendosa, returning from the Grand Banks, smashed upon Webber Rock.

Capt. Mendosa and five members of the crew abandoned ship and rowed in the ship’s dories for shore. Two men are badly injured. Their names are given as Luis Pereira and Roland Murphy.

Residents of Eastern Point and beyond were awakened by the crash of the Mendosa, who lies now with her bow buried in rock, one mast fallen, a gaping hole in her side, and her engine room full of water.

According to members of the crew, the accident was due to dense fog. They could not see the signals from the lighthouses at Thacher Island or Eastern Point, and a whistle buoy they waited to hear had recently been removed from the water, leading them to believe the ship was farther offshore.

The Esmerelda J. Mendosa has on board an estimated 4,500 pounds of fish. As of late this morning, men were making frantic efforts to save all they possibly could from the doomed vessel before the waves and water claimed her for their own.

The Mendosa was 90 feet long, 72 tons net, and insured for $30,000.

Ira’s mind moved so quickly, so determined to leap and prove itself, to be nothing like his body, that he didn’t at first notice the basic information contained in the article. He thought of the men, less than a mile from home, weighing whether to anchor or keep on. They would have been caught in fog before. They would have thought, But this is only that again.

It took Ira three tries to get through the article. He kept drifting, half dreaming.

Albert was wheeling him up the drive from a visit to Mother Rock (Mother was Vera). Through the line of sycamores Ira saw the pear trees, the fruit nearly ready to pick. He asked Albert to take him into the orchard, and Albert tried, but the field was bumpy so Ira had to sit and watch all that beauty—the late-July light playing with the leaves, the pears basking, the funny dignity they had about them—and not be able to get there himself. Albert picked a pear so Ira could feel the cool weight in his palm, but what Ira felt was guilt: this pear would not ripen well.

He shook himself to attention, straightened, read again. The lighthouses . . . He forced himself: the sentence. It was convoluted, they were always writing convoluted sentences these days, ignoring the beauty of parallel structures, losing track of their subjects. They . . . and a whistle buoy they . . . leading them to believe . . .

It struck him with sublingual clarity, his stomach fisting, his heart knowing, before he thought, Bea. Her fit. The whistle buoy. He read the names of the injured crew again, and thought, Emma. Roland Murphy. Bea, Emma. A choice had to be made. Here he shone, his mind clearing, a fine, taut wire. In one case—Bea—there might be something to be done; in the other—Emma—if her husband was going to die, he would die. And of course, there was Bea-Bea. Ira’s loyalty to his niece was a weight he couldn’t remember not wearing. It dragged at him but held him steady, too, a sort of medal, reminding him of one thing he had always, mostly, gotten right.