The Boatman's Wife(18)

‘A bit bruised and battered, but you’re good to go, Jack,’ the doctor said, in a voice which was far too cheerful.

Her father walked shakily across the room, leaning on her mother’s arm. ‘Let’s go, girls.’

‘I’ll drive,’ Lily said. Her mom would sit in the middle seat between Lily and her dad.

She couldn’t be close to him right now. Not the way she was feeling.



On the way home, her mom told Lily to stop at the store so she could get some groceries.

‘Now? Do you have to?’ Lily snapped, not wanting to be left in her pickup sitting next to her father.

‘We’ve got no milk, and no food for dinner,’ her mom said.

‘How can you think about food right now?’ Lily complained.

‘We’ve got to eat, darling,’ her mom said, gently.

After her mom got out of the car, the silence hung heavy and tense between Lily and her father. She broke it first.

‘How are you feeling?’ she asked him.

‘A bit sore,’ he said. ‘Bruises. Okay.’

Again, silence. Her father coughed. She could hear the nervousness in his voice as he spoke. ‘How are you, Lily?’

She felt a spike of anger in her belly. ‘Well, how do you think I am, Daddy?’ She turned on him.

He looked at her and flinched. She must look real mad, she thought, but she didn’t care.

‘Why the hell were you laying down traps when there was a big storm approaching?’

Her father shook his head. ‘I’ve done it before,’ he said. ‘We were unlucky.’

Lily shook her head, the word ‘unlucky’ wounding her. She’d always believed in her good fortune, but it had been a lie all her life. All that luck had built up to this moment of catastrophe.

‘That’s just not good enough, Daddy,’ she said. ‘Connor wasn’t experienced. Not like me. He wouldn’t have known to tell you to go back, nor Ryan.’

‘Ryan’s been fishing as long as you—’

‘You know what I mean, Daddy,’ Lily interrupted, exasperated. ‘Ryan wouldn’t stand up to you.’

‘It was an accident, Lily,’ her father said.

Lily’s hands gripped the steering wheel tight, and she felt as if the very breath was being squeezed out of her. She couldn’t speak, the pain of her loss hurt so much.

Her mom came back with the shopping and they set off again, her mom fussing over her dad, asking him every two minutes if he was okay.

Lily pulled up outside her parents’ house.

‘I’m going back home for a bit,’ she said to them.

Her mom looked alarmed. ‘Are you sure, Lily? Don’t you think you should stay with us for a while, until—’

‘Until when, Mom?’ Lily snapped, giving her dad a hard stare so that he looked away. She couldn’t be near him right now. She felt so confused and angry.

‘I’ll call you, Mom,’ she said, softening her voice.



She had left the door unlocked. Lily stepped across the threshold of her and Connor’s home.

Everything was exactly how it had been left yesterday morning, as she’d rushed out the door. The whole place felt like a museum now. A stray sock of Connor’s on the radiator, her mug of half-drunk coffee, and his good coat hanging by the back door, were all exhibits of their marriage. She could still smell her husband. His soft sandalwood lingering in each room. How could she ever sleep in their bed again? She lay down on its covers and closed her eyes. Inhaled deeply, to try to catch his scent off the pillows.

They’d bought this little wooden house with its views of the ocean the year they’d married. Used the money she’d saved from lobster fishing all her high school summers with her father as the deposit. Spent nearly a year doing it up. Painted the outside green, her favourite colour, and planted up the garden with hydrangeas and rose bushes. Lots of roses – that was their thing. Inside, the house was small, but had everything they needed. A cosy front room with a woodstove, and a kitchen with a high table and stools for breakfast. Upstairs, there were two bedrooms. In the bigger one, they’d put the old mahogany chest of drawers and closet that Lily had inherited from Pap when he died, and their new white ironwork bed. Mom had made them a quilt for the bed, patterned with red roses and blue forget-me-nots, with yellow trim.

The best thing about their bedroom was that from their bed, Lily could look out of the window and see the ocean. If she got out of bed and stood at the window, she could also see her parents’ house, which was down the road a way, also facing out to the ocean. Every time she stood at her bedroom window and looked at the ocean, at her parents’ house, and at the whole of their neighbourhood in Rockland, she had felt such peace. She had never wanted to be anywhere else, or go anywhere else in the world.

The second bedroom, Lily had named ‘the nursery’ in her head. Even though it was currently Connor’s den with his computer and gaming stuff, in her imagination, Lily had planned exactly how it would look one day. She’d seen the wallpaper already in a store in Portland. Yellow, with little green apples. She had her old baby blanket tucked away in a box, along with a mobile of fishes, starfish, and seahorses that she’d bought as a gift for her cousin Angie’s baby, Sam, but had fallen in love with so much she’d ended up keeping it.