The Boatman's Wife(29)

It was worst when someone came up and shook her hand. Told her what a great guy Connor had been. She nearly lost it so many times. Stop it, stop it, she was wailing inside. Don’t talk about him as if he’s gone. Not yet.

With her mom busy with the food, her cousin Ryan hung by her side most of the time, batting some of the more insensitive folk aside.

‘Good guy, you’d think he was a real Downeaster,’ she heard time and time again. Solid. Honest. Hard-working. Straight-up guy, just like your dad. That made Lily mad. Especially when she saw all of her dad’s fishing mates crowded around him. Consoling him, as if he’d lost a son.

But did any of these people really know her husband? At the back of her head, she could see the words of the awful email swimming around. The one phrase that kept sticking:

I swear I’ll kill you.





What had her husband done to deserve such an email? And who was it from? A man? Or another woman?

‘I remember the time Connor just came right on over and cleared our yard of snow,’ their elderly neighbour, Arthur Pickford, was saying to her. ‘I invited him in for coffee and a little drop of bourbon after. He was such a decent fellow.’

Lily nodded, trying to smile at Arthur. Ryan had disappeared, and she just wanted to get away from the kindly old man. She’d no memory of Connor ever telling her he went over and swept Arthur’s yard. She thought she knew everything about her husband, and she didn’t even know this little thing. She felt hot all of a sudden. Her polo neck on her black wool dress was choking her, the rash on her arm felt like it was on fire, and her face was reddening. She needed air.



Outside on her parents’ back porch, it was already dark. Another day without Connor had passed. The snow was still falling, no longer wet, but dry and light, tickling her face as it landed on her cheeks. She saw the glow of a lit cigarette as Ryan turned around. He was mostly in shadow, some of the light from the house falling across the side of his face.

‘How are you holding up?’ he asked her.

‘Not great,’ Lily said, pulling up her sleeve and scratching her arm. ‘Say, give me one of those.’

Ryan offered her his packet of cigarettes, and she took one. He cupped his hand around it and lit it for her, and she inhaled deep into her lungs, letting smoke slowly plume out her nostrils.

She and Ryan watched the snow falling in silence as she took another drag on the cigarette. She was grateful he didn’t try to say anything to make her feel better.

‘I can’t take any more inside,’ Lily said. ‘Everyone’s so fake. Most of them treated Connor as if he was an outsider when he was alive.’

‘Aw, that’s not fair, Lily,’ Ryan said. ‘He sure was part of the community here. People liked him. Loved his cooking.’

‘But I loved him,’ Lily whispered.

‘I know.’ Ryan nodded, looking at her.

‘Ryan, tell me again about what happened out there?’ She saw Ryan tense up, and she knew it must be upsetting for him, but she had to know all the details. ‘I mean, weren’t there weather warnings? How did you get caught up in such a big storm without knowing?’

Ryan shifted his feet from side to side.

‘I don’t know what to say, Lily,’ Ryan said. ‘Surely your dad has told you everything? I mean, it was like any other day. We’d hauled all the traps up, emptied them out, and banded all the lobster.’

Lily imagined Ryan and Connor out on deck, hauling up the traps. Ryan as sternman would be pulling out lobster and measuring them, while Connor would be putting the fresh bait bags in and stacking the traps ready to drop. Her dad would be up in the wheelhouse, keeping an eye on the charts, listening to the weather reports.

‘Did Daddy come down and help Connor because he’s slow?’ Lily asked Ryan. ‘If I’d been with you, would he have been in the helm, heard the warnings from the Coast Guard about the storm coming in?’

‘No, he didn’t come down,’ Ryan said. ‘Me and Connor were doing good. I remember looking up into the sky, and I said to Connor, “It’s gone so dark.” It was the sky I saw first, and I knew by the clouds things were going to be rough.’

Lily said nothing. She wanted to hear the whole story. She needed to hear about the last hours of Connor’s life.

‘I called up to the wheelhouse, said to your daddy about the sky, and we could see the ocean getting real choppy. I told him we needed to head back quick like.’ Ryan looked away from Lily. Out at the falling snow. ‘He said we’d be okay. Drop the line of traps.’

‘What?’ Lily’s voice came out hoarse.

‘He said we’d be okay.’

‘But you said he also told you to drop the line of traps?’

Ryan shook his head, as if he were waking up. ‘It was getting real wild then. The wind lashing into us, and we’re staggering all over the deck, and taking on water. I said we should go back, like to hell with the traps. But Connor said we could drop the line.’ Ryan sighed. ‘I think he wanted to prove to your daddy he was a good lobsterman, you know, and also he knew how much money they could make.’

Lily pulled on her cigarette. It was making her feel sick now. Why had Connor been such a fool? Because he wasn’t brought up in Maine, working every weekend as a kid on the lobster boats. Ryan knew, as did Lily, when to let be. But what about her dad – he knew that too, surely?