The Rattled Bones(4)

“Good girl.” I pet her console before I set the Rilla Brae in gear and ease nearer to the island. I stop before the sea becomes too shallow. I look for the girl and her boat, but there are no signs of either. I press the heels of my palms against my eyes and know I need more sleep. Could I have imagined her? How else could she be here one minute and not the next?

Because a boat can’t just disappear.

Unless she pulled the skiff ashore and it’s resting in an island inlet I can’t see. I decide that’s what’s happened before turning the helm toward home. I set my course to Fairtide Cottage, the only home I’ve ever known.

And I see our flag at half-mast.

All the flags on our fishing peninsula ripple at half-mast.

When I dock the Rilla Brae, Gram greets me, barefoot as always. She’s made of sturdy Downeast stock and tries to hide the grief that slumps her shoulders as she marches across the yard, intent on inspecting the cooler filled with a sampling of today’s catch. Tonight’s dinner.

With each of Gram’s steps, the melody of the girl’s song returns, rising as Gram gets closer. It feels new and old all at once. Like I know it, but I’m also discovering it. My ears fill with the tune. My heart swells for it. My memory reaches for it. The song wraps me in the safety of my past and promises the same for my future. Come here, come here. My dear, my dear, it says.

“What’s that song?” My words sound weak, as if I were too afraid to speak them.

“Song?” Gram bends to tug on my dock lines to make sure they’re secure.

I clear my throat. “The one you were singing.”

“Wasn’t me singing this time,” Gram says. She’s been the world’s biggest fan of ?The Who since forever ago. It’s not uncommon to hear her belting out “Pinball Wizard” while she’s beating eggs or glazing a pie. But today Gram puts her hand on my shoulder, like she knows maybe the song I’m asking about is in my head. Like she knows my head is crammed with too much noise. She gives my shoulder a gentle squeeze and the music stops.

We’re left to the beat of lapping waves and the chorus of brawling seabirds hovering always at the shore.

Gram boards the Rilla Brae as I study the rise of granite and trees that make up the forty acres of Malaga Island. I’m searching still for the girl, even from here. Listening for her song. Gram watches me carefully, an unasked question in her eyes. “Maybe Hattie’s singing.” She nods up at the house. “She’s waiting for ya.”

Hattie. The last girl I want to see.





CHAPTER TWO


Hattie is up by Gram’s medicinal garden, picking tiny blue petals off a forget-me-not as if she’s counting he loves me, he loves me not. I almost want Gram to reprimand her for this gardening offense and ban her from the property.

Hattie meets me in the middle of the lawn that holds the divots of our cartwheels, the scars of our bonfires—the wounds of all eleven years of our friendship.

“Hey,” she says, testing the waters.

“Hey.” I let the silence gather between us.

“So you won’t answer my texts.”

“There’s a lot going on.”

“Too busy to let me know how you’re holding up?”

“I’m fine.” Lie. I shift my feet in the grass and envy the stability of the ground.

“Do you wanna hang out? Keep your mind off stuff??”

I bristle, my back straightening. “My father’s death isn’t ‘stuff.’?”

“Of course not.” Hattie retreats a step, a concession so against her bold nature. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just thought you might want to go somewhere. You know, get away.”

Like Senior Celebration Day, the day after graduation? Hattie dragged me there even though I’d told her a hundred times that I didn’t want to go to another predictable quarry party.

“I can’t.” Maybe if I’d been working on the boat that day I could have radioed for help. Or maybe my father’s heart wouldn’t have had to work so hard if I’d been hauling traps with him.

“You can’t or you won’t?”

Can’t. Won’t. It’s hard to see the difference. “Both. I don’t know, Hattie.” I realize it’s not rational to blame her; I was the one who abandoned my dad. Still.

She casts her eyes to her feet. “Maybe I should go.”

I nod as if that’s even an answer. Because the last thing I can do is explain any of my actions to her. All I know is that forgiving her means forgiving myself for leaving my dad alone to die at sea. How can I ever be ready to do that?

Hattie turns, and I immediately feel a pull to run to her, get swallowed in her hug. But my feet are too grounded now. Stuck.

I focus on Gram’s blooming lilac bushes, their branches bending with the weight of their own beauty. The air is filled with the smell of the warm lilac compresses Gram would make to soothe my childhood cuts, calm suspicious rashes. Is there any combination of flowers that have properties powerful enough to quiet the agony of loss?

Hattie twists before disappearing around Gram’s garden. She fixes her eyes, hangs them on me with regret. “Losing you to Rhode Island next year scares the shit out of me, Rills. I just wanted one more day with you. An afternoon when we didn’t have to think about a future without each other.” Her plea now is so similar to the one that swayed me to ditch work on Senior Celebration Day, a lifetime ago. “If I’d known any of this would have gone down this way . . . I would have done it all differently and you know that. You know me, Rilla.”