Migrations(59)

Nobody says a word about any of it. There are tireless efforts to fix what has gone. Léa and Dae work night and day on the equipment, sometimes getting things up and running again, mostly not. The rest of us work around the clock to keep the boat moving, scooping water out of the engine room and off the deck, trying to keep everything dry. Ennis rarely sleeps now that there is no autopilot, and he spends his days with charts, compass, and sextant, navigating the way sailors of old once did. It is terrifying, all of it, and I can feel fear coming off the sailors in waves, yet I can see in the captain a quiet kernel of passion sputtering to life, a return to the way the world once was. He doesn’t know this ocean and yet I think some ancient heart of him knows all oceans, the way some ancient heart of me does.

It’s not only Ennis and me who now take comfort in the red dots of the terns but the whole crew. One by one they have made their way to the bridge to ease their trepidation and check that the little beacons of hope are steering us true.

“It’s time to stop,” I overhear Anik say to him one day. “We had grand plans, and we made it a long way, but it’s over now, brother. The birds are too far ahead, and the ship’s failing.”

I think this will be it. We can’t limp on this way forever.

But all Ennis says is, “Not yet.”

I watch the captain return for the bridge, leaving Anik to stare after his friend. I know what Ennis must be thinking: we’ve come too far to stop now. He hasn’t reached whatever line it is he won’t cross. I don’t know where mine lies, but I haven’t reached it yet either.

I approach the first mate carefully, trying to offer support. “He’ll find us a way through this,” I say softly. “He’s strong.”

Without looking at me Anik flashes a bitter smile. “The stronger you are, the more dangerous the world.”





22

GALWAY, IRELAND ELEVEN YEARS AGO

On our one-year anniversary the thing I feel most is astonishment. Niall isn’t surprised in the least, but a part of me has always quietly thought this a frivolous adventure that would lead, ultimately, nowhere. We would discover too many qualities we didn’t like in each other, I would panic, leave, he would grow bored of me. Sometimes when I’m cleaning I imagine Niall and I are playing a monumental game of chicken, and I wonder who will be the first to admit how silly we are, to back down or laugh or throw in the towel, this was all good fun, wasn’t it, darling, but now back to our real lives, to the business of finding proper husbands and wives. Cohabiting with a stranger has been a terrifying, embarrassing nakedness.

But today, as with every day, I am astonished by how deeply we are falling in love.

What luck. What willpower.

To celebrate the anniversary we go to a couple of sessions in town, making our way from one pub to the next and listening to the circle of musicians in each. It is one of my favorite things to do because the fiddles always fill me with an inexplicable familiarity. The musicians gather, the music swells, and the shared pleasure is tangible.

After some time the songs shift, turning slow and melancholic. I know the tune from somewhere … Without warning it comes, the answer. My grandmother used to play it and hum along while she did the washing up. “Raglan Road.”

Niall reaches for my hand. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, sorry.” I shake my head. “Have you ever felt born in the wrong body?”

He squeezes my fingers.

I ask, “Who are you, do you think?”

Niall takes a sip of his wine. Probably trying not to roll his eyes. “Dunno.”

“We’ve spent every day together for a year and you’re still a stranger to me.”

We consider each other.

“You know me,” he says firmly, “where it matters.”

Which must be true because it feels true.

“But who am I?” Niall echoes. “What does it matter? How should I answer? How would you?”

Who am I?

“You’re right, I have no idea,” I say. “But I think it might live somewhere in the day Mam left. Why else would I keep going back there? Why else can’t I stop looking for her?”

Niall kisses my hand, which is also his hand, my mouth which is also his.

“Maybe mine lives in all the days my mother stayed,” he murmurs.

“Did she try, at least?”

He shrugs, takes some more drink. “We can only give what we have.”

“Do you want children?”

“Yes. Do you?”

This will change things. I almost lie to protect what we have, but even to me this lie feels too cruel, too damaging. “No,” I say. “I’m sorry. I don’t.”

Niall’s eyes shift. Something in him is so startled I don’t know if he will be able to settle back into place. The equilibrium of his certainty is thrown off balance.

“Why not?”

Because what if I left that child like my mother left me? What if my darkest fears are real and I truly have no control? How could I do that to a child?

“I don’t know,” I say, because my cowardice would choke me if I tried to give it voice. “I just don’t.”

“All right,” he says eventually, though this will not be the end of it. He says without warning, “I don’t think you should go tomorrow.”