The Rattled Bones(70)

My great-grandmother looks at Agnes with something like sorrow. “Agnes.” She wrings her hands. “I have to ask you to leave the linens at the back of the door from now on. I will be unable to answer should you knock.” She points to a spot near Agnes’s feet. “I’ll set a box there, for you to leave the clean things within.”

Agnes nods. “Certainly, ma’am.”

Gram’s mother hands something to Agnes. The jingle of coins. “I fear I will not see you again, dear.”

“I will always be close,” Agnes says. “Malaga is no distance at all.”

“Yes.” My great-grandmother’s face softens in the light. “I wish you and your family well. Be safe. You are a fine mother, Agnes.”

“It is fine to be a mother, Mrs. Murphy. I wish the same for you one day.” Agnes lifts the new parcel into her hands, a neat cloth wrap of dirty linens. She carries her child and her work back to her boat. A tune rises, one that is so familiar now. She sings this song to the child named Eleanor at her breast. Come here, come here, my dear, my dear.

And I call to Agnes over her song. I scream the words she has carved into my room, the words she sang in the sea: “I’m here! I’m here!”

Agnes sings to the sea, to the child. She doesn’t hear me, can’t see me. She doesn’t break her rhythm as she pulls her oars through the heaving swells, her boat headed toward Malaga.

My head warps with the thoughts racing too fast. The name Eleanor. My great-grandmother knowing my girl. The girl from Malaga. I dive to follow her, and the ocean rushes around me.

The waves bring my name, no different than they’ve brought Agnes’s song. “Rilla!” The sound carries through the thick of water, stretches into a melody.

Agnes. I push out a breath and bubbles burst around my lips.

“Rilla!” My name again, called from the water’s edge. “Rilla!” The sound is wonky, the syllables shimmering through to the underwater.

I swim to the sound. My heart thunders for the chance to know Agnes, ask after her child. Ask if the baby is my grandmother.

But when my head breaks the surface of the water, the world slips around me. “Rilla!” It is Sam’s voice.

“Sam!” Water fills my throat, scratches with its salt. Sam is on Fairtide’s dock. Fairtide’s aluminum dock. I cough up the seawater.

“Dinner’s ready.” Sam says it like no time has elapsed. Like I didn’t just visit the past. He boards the Rilla Brae and grabs a towel.

I tread in the water, unable to leave the sea that’s transported me through time. I want to dive underwater, find Agnes again, swim through years. I take a breath, ready for the plunge.

“Rilla?” Sam waves the towel for me.

I see the worried look on his face, how his eyes plead for me to be okay.

“You good?”

I turn to look at Malaga, so beautiful in the afternoon light. There is so much light now. And even though I can’t explain how it’s possible, I feel good. Settled. I feel the truth of it in my bones. As much as I want to follow Agnes into the past, I want to be in the present with Sam more. I climb the swim ladder and press the cotton against my face, dry my eyes. “I met her, Sam.”

“Who?”

“Agnes. My girl.”





CHAPTER TWENTY


After dinner, I tell Sam about Agnes’s visit to Fairtide, how she brought laundered linens and her newborn.

“Eleanor,” I tell him.

“Your grandmother’s name?”

“That’s why she’s here, Sam.”

We sit in silence for a long time, watching the moon rise above the trees on Malaga.

My mind hums, filled with bees. Calling up the story of Agnes so that it will never be buried again.

*

When I head inside, I find Reed in my room. He rises from my rocking chair, a piece of paper in his hand.

“Hey.” He says this small word like he didn’t say such huge things the last time he was here.

“Hey.”

“I’ve been waiting for you for a while.”

“You could have joined us.” Even as I say it I know it’s not what I would have wanted.

“I didn’t come here to see Sam. I just needed . . . wanted to say sorry. For everything I said about your mom and you. I was a shit, Rill. You didn’t deserve that.”

“I didn’t.” No one does.

Reed hands me the paper like a peace offering. “Thought you might like this.”

At the top of the form is Reed’s name, computer generated.

“It’s my GED. Only the first exam, but still, I passed.”

Despite everything, pride surges in me. “This is great, Reed, really.”

“It’s what you wanted, right? Education’s important to you, Rill.”

“It is, but I want you to get your diploma for you, not me.”

I sit on the edge of my bed and catch Malaga’s trees peeking through my window’s view. I wonder if Agnes is on the island tonight. Or closer, maybe. Could she be here now? Something about that possibility warms me.

“I still love you, Rill.”

“I’ll always love you, Reed.”

He combs his fingers through his hair, lets out a shallow breath. “That doesn’t sound promising.”