The Rattled Bones(10)

But sometimes the moon and her tides can fool you. When the sun and moon sit at right angles to each other, they bring a neap tide that will soothe the ocean, making it hard to tell the difference between high tide and low tide.

Like me now, having a hard time telling the difference between what’s real and what’s imagined.

I sit up, throw my legs over the side of the bed to stand. “You need to get going.” This is our deal. Reed sneaks out before sunrise, before Gram and Dad wake up—just Gram now.

He rises from my bed, slides his jeans onto his long leanness. How is it possible that his sun-blond hair can be so bright even when the day is still dark? Reed comes to me, nestles his lips against my neck. “Countin’ the minutes,” he says. His signature send-off.

“Love you,” I whisper.

“Love you more.” Then Reed is out the window, dropping spiderlike along the steps of the trellis. He disappears into the yard as morning pours across the sky in the distance, making Malaga’s trees look like a shadowy mountain and a mirage all at once.

I slip on leggings and a tee and tiptoe down the hall. I want Gram to get the rest she needs, but it’s zero surprise to see her bedroom door already open; we’re a family used to waiting on the sun. My stomach rumbles, asking me if ?I think Gram might be making French toast with sliced hothouse tomatoes, but then I see the pool of electric light seeping from underneath the attic door where she paints. I leave Gram to her place of repair—her words—knowing that the attic door will be locked. It’s always locked. That was Gram’s request after I was born and my parents came to live in the house where my mother was raised. My family could call Fairtide home, but Gram needed the attic as her private place. I respect her privacy always, the way Dad taught me.

In the kitchen, I brew tea and test the powers of the lemon, still dubious about their mood-lifting capabilities. I fix two sandwiches while I eat an apple. I don’t see Gram’s note until I reach for my boat’s keys. She’s left me a spray of white heather. And a note:

For protection.

For making wishes come true.

Love, G

I lift the dried heather to my nose, breathe in the echo of its confident earthiness. I grab my keys and head to my boat, sputter past sleeping Malaga Island to my traps and wonder what my wishes are. Because the one, the big one—having my dad back, my family—is impossible. And it’s hard to want anything else. Except I do. A part of me hopes Gram’s heather will give me protection from that dark place that stole my mother. Because I can’t help fear that these visions make me too much like her.

*

The docks at Yankee Fishermen’s Co-op sway with activity by the time I arrive, my tanks filled with today’s catch. It’s the start of the busy season, when tourists cram around lighthouses and feast on lobsters. I wait on the Rilla Brae as lobstermen haul their catch to the scales, one by one in the order we arrive, fishermen forever loyal to fishing’s egalitarian principles.

When it’s my turn, I put the Rilla Brae in gear and coast her starboard side to the edge of the wharf.

Hoopah—Neal Hooper in any other part of the country—ties the dock lines to pull my boat in snug. “Ya got some bugs in there, Rilla?”

I open the hatch. “One or two.”

“Ayuh. Mind if an old man takes a look?”

“Have at it.”

Hoopah boards the Rilla Brae like the good co-op owner he is and unloads my catch onto the scale. He rips me a receipt for the two hundred and sixteen pounds I deliver. He doesn’t ask after how I’m doing, because he knows the answer. I’m surviving.

When I head out of the harbor, Reed’s boat is approaching the wharf, but I don’t wait for it to dock. Instead, I meet Reed on the water and we quiet our engines.

“Good catch?” he calls over the waves.

I nod. I don’t tell him how the sea felt different today, a stranger.

“Just bringing mine in now. Pick you up for the quarry later?” Reed asks. It’ll never not amaze me how his face is so often filled with hope, like everything is possible in any moment. I want to be the girl who swims away the afternoon with him, but it’s already hard to remember the version of me that had the freedom to do anything so indulgent.

“Don’t you have class? For your GED?”

“I’ll head over there tomorrow. Gotta help my granddad, and then I need to chill. Come with?”

“Meet you there.” I know this is a lie—I’ll never go to the quarry again. But he’s lying too. It’s always tomorrow when it comes to school.

“Countin’ the minutes.” Reed throws me two fingers, a peace sign.

“Love you.” I tell him. The truth.

I start toward home, but I just can’t.

Instead, I drop anchor off the shores of Malaga. There’s no University of Southern Maine boat today, so I climb into my skiff and untie it from the Rilla Brae. I row to the rocky beach with my suspicions trained on the water, my ears perked open. But the water merely curls over itself, fixing its focus on the business of slapping waves. At the beach, I drag my skiff onto land and grab my pack. My eyes are alert, searching for that girl, her baby.

I return to the highest part of the island and spot the USM research boat. It bobs off the south shore—if you can call the granite ledge a shore. My instinct leaps to protect the craft from the tangle of fierce currents.