The Rattled Bones(18)

That seems like the hardest thing in the world. “I’m not sure how to.”

“We’ll figure it out.” Hattie pulls me closer, and I let her hold me for the time it takes the sun to rise. She lets me cry. Doesn’t tell me to hush or that everything will be okay. She just lets me be me.

*

When I’m out on the water, the VHF squawks with static. Then Reed’s voice. “All in, Rilla Brae?”

I grab the mouthpiece. “All in.” I’m at sea. I love him. I’m all right. And I feel some normal fall around me. Hattie is back and the rocking chair doesn’t matter. Nothing matters beyond what’s real. Gram. Hattie. Reed. The waves under my boat.

I haul fifty traps by midday, load them with bait and set them back into the deep. It’s a mere fraction of the hauling Dad and I would do together in peak season, and even though I’m proud of my catch, I’m aware that it isn’t enough. That I’m not enough. Maybe I do need Hattie out here.

At the wharf, I hop off the Rilla Brae as Hoopah weighs my haul. One hundred and four pounds.

“Not bad,” he says, tearing my slip from his receipt pad. But it’s not great, either. Hoopah knows I need a hundred pounds per trip just to cover gas and bait. Never mind the costs for maintaining the boat. If he sees the calculations race through my head, he doesn’t say.

I’m about to step back onto the boat when Old Man Benner elbows past Hoopah to crowd my face. He reeks of dank cigar and bitterness.

Old Man Benner condescends a nod at my boat. “Whatcha got there, girlie?”

Girlie. I straighten my shoulders and pull up my sarcasm. “You’ve been fishing all your life and can’t recognize a day’s catch?”

Behind me, Hoopah snickers. I stand taller, fully aware that my father wouldn’t have tolerated me talking to any elder this way. But I know he wouldn’t have tolerated Benner’s assholery either.

Benner rips the slip from my hand, scoffs. “A hundred pounds ain’t come close to a day’s catch. Didn’t ya fathah teach ya nothin’?”

My teeth grind in hate, barely letting words move past their gate. How can this man possibly be related to Reed? “You don’t know a thing about my father.”

“I know he’s gone now and Little Miss Fancy’s gonna need money for that uppity school ya so keen on running off ta.”

“Easy now, Benner,” Hoopah says.

I stare Benner down. “My work has exactly nothing to do with you, Benner.” But I hate that he’s right. I do need money, better hauls. Dad averaged close to five hundred pounds a day. Few families could survive on less.

Benner flicks the receipt at my chest, and my reflexes snag it before it sails away in the air current.

“Ya’ve got ya business done here today, Benner,” Hoopah says. He steps between me and Old Man Asshole so that their two chests almost touch. “Seems to me it’s time ya move it along.”

Benner looks Hoopah dead in the eye. “Only one doesn’t have business being he-ah is that girl, and there ain’t a fisherman who doesn’t know it ta be true.” He lets his emphasis hold tight on the man part of fisherman. Benner spits his tobacco onto the dock and plunges his finger into Hoopah’s sternum. “Ya let girls fish and this whole industry’ll be ruined.” Benner clips his thumbs into the bib of his rubber overalls and slinks off. I try to breathe.

Hoopah squeezes at the ball of my elbow. “Don’t ya mind him. He went and got a fishing hook caught up his arse years ago.”

I force a laugh, like Benner’s words can’t penetrate my skin. “I should be getting home.”

“Don’t ya be takin’ anything he says with ya, now. Ya leave his words he-ah on the dock where the gulls can shit on them, ya he-ah?”

“I hear.”

“Ya dad was a good man, Rilla. Ya come from good stock.”

Do I? Everyone knows my mother left me and Dad, and now Benner makes me want to retreat, the same way she did. I can already hear the gossip I’d leave in my wake if I took my packed bags and headed due south for Rhode Island.

Brae girl leaving her family behind, just like her mama.

Brae women ain’t built for the sea.

Always knew she’d run. Jonathan probably knew it too. Probably what made his heart give up right there in his chest.

It’s that last bit of speculation that breaks me. I nod to Hoopah. It’s all the good-bye I can manage. Because if I open my mouth, I don’t know what will bubble up. A cry. A scream. Or some monstrous combination of both.

As I navigate away from the dock, I don’t turn around. I can’t bear to see Hoopah staring at me. What if his eyes can’t hide the fact that he doubts me as much as I do?

I turn toward home even though I know I’m not going home. I knew it hours ago when I stuffed my pack full of biscuits. Even then I knew I was headed to the island.

This time, I’m not looking for the girl.

I need an escape.

I need to see Sam.

I need to drown in the island’s story. The old woman’s story.

Any story that’s not my own.





CHAPTER SEVEN


The USM research boat is anchored on the lee side of the island, which sends up a small flicker of pride in me as I throw anchor and toss my pack aboard my skiff. By the time I’ve rowed to shore, Sam is on the craggy beach waiting for me.