Lost At Sea

by Erica Boyce

  The man fumbled for the remote on a shelf hidden behind the display case and unmuted it.

  “…have announced they’re winding down on the search for the local fisherman, which began less than twenty-four hours ago,” said Jane Montgomery, the area’s news anchor.

  The camera cut to a stern-looking man with a crew cut standing at the docks, seagulls swooping behind his head. According to the ticker below his face, he was a Coast Guard lieutenant. “My guys have looked as hard as they possibly could,” he said. “Generally, in cases like these, it’s almost impossible to find any trace of the missing man. The ocean is a big place, and we simply don’t have the resources to keep going on every search.” If he showed any remorse or sadness at this, the camera shut off before it was captured.

  “A tragic end to a story that’s become all too common in our community,” Jane said.

  The man behind the counter eyed Ella and muted the TV again.

  And now, Bill is here to give us an update on this weekend’s Haddock Holidays festival, Jane said silently.

  The man shook his head.

  Lacey reached out to touch Ella’s shoulder, but when the girl turned around, she was grinning. “Did you hear that?” she said. “No trace was found of him. That’s because he wasn’t fishing that night!” She sauntered over to the door.

  Lacey exchanged glances with the man and opened her mouth to say something. What the lieutenant said was true: most of the time, if a fisherman went missing, he was never found. The wakes had no caskets, just blown-up, grainy photos of the man, usually ones where he wasn’t quite looking at the camera. He would forever be in the wide, gray sea.

  “You coming or what?” Ella shouted from across the shop. She held the door open with her hip and crossed her arms. “We’ve got a lot more work to do.”

  “Yup, coming,” Lacey said.

  “We’ve gotta go find Jess next,” Ella said, scrolling through her phone. “She was probably the last person to see him, even if she is lying about what he did. I bet she would, to protect him.”

  Lacey closed her eyes. The cold sunlight shone red through her eyelids. “Hey, kidlet,” she tried gently. “Do you think maybe we should call it a day? We’ve already got a lot of stuff to think about, right?”

  Ella raised one incredulous eyebrow. “No way. I’m on a roll here. We’ve gotta figure this out before it’s a cold case,” she said.

  Lacey chewed on the inside of her cheek. “He never would’ve left you without saying goodbye, Ella.”

  Ella looked away. “You didn’t hear him yelling at my mom,” she said. “He was really, really mad. I think he just got carried away.” She turned back toward Lacey, fear on her face. She still wasn’t ready for the truth.

  Lacey nodded. “If you say so.”

  Ella marched ahead down the sidewalk. Lacey wondered fleetingly if she should call Mrs. Staybrook and have her retrieve her daughter. She was probably dealing with enough, though, with funeral arrangements and wills on top of her own grief. Ella clearly needed to do this in order to deal with what had happened to her dad. And Lacey had to be there for her when she finally accepted it.

  Lacey rolled her shoulders back three times, hoping to knead out the ache lodged near her spine. It didn’t work. She followed Ella down the road.

  * * *

  As they expected, they found Jess on the docks. She wasn’t working on the Diane & Ella, though. She stood a little ways back from it with her hands hanging limply by her sides. The other fishermen moved around her, their voices quieting as they approached, then crescendoing again as they walked on. None of them stopped to talk to her. If she happened to catch someone’s eye, they nodded at her, once, respectfully. An understanding.

  Ella broke through it all, of course. As soon as she stepped onto the pier, everyone surrounded her with their hearty voices, offering her tours of boats she’d already seen and bags of fresh seafood she didn’t need while they mouthed things worriedly to one another over her head. She smiled patiently at them and skirted through to Jess. They watched her go.

  The dock swayed unpleasantly as Ella grew closer. Finally, she tapped Jess on the shoulder, and the older woman pulled a smile across her face.

  “Hi, Ella,” Jess said, wrapping her arms around her in a hug. Ella allowed it. “How you holding up?”

  Ella stepped back and slipped her hands into her back pockets. It looked like a pose she’d been practicing in front of a mirror. “I’m fine,” she said. She looked quickly up and down the dock. “You can stop lying now,” she said more quietly.

  Jess’s forehead furrowed. “Lying? About what?”

  “I know my dad didn’t go out on that tuna boat. I know he just ran away from us. It’s okay. I forgive you for covering for him. I know you’re his best friend after me. But now we’re looking for him”—at this, Jess noticed Lacey for the first time, lingering behind Ella and giving an embarrassed little wave—“and we’re retracing his steps. So where did you really last see him?”

  Jess’s breath stopped for a second. Where had she even come up with such a thing? “Honey.” The pet name sounded unnatural coming out of her mouth. She knelt to the ground. Ella was taller than she remembered, so Jess ended up squinting at her from below, the setting sun flaring into her eyes. “Your dad never would’ve left you. He loved you so much. And your mom, too,” she said. “I watched him get on that boat with my own eyes. I’m sorry,” she said again and again and again. “I wish I could help you find him. Believe me, I wish he was still out there.”

  Ella took one step back, then another. She might’ve backed clear off the other side of the dock if Lacey hadn’t caught her by the elbow. There was a scowl on her face. Jess braced herself for more of the blame.

  “Why are you still lying?” Ella said. “I thought you were my friend. Don’t you know I need him? I need to find him.”

  “I’m so, so sorry,” Jess said. Her knees had started to hurt. “I should’ve stopped him from going out. I knew the weather was no good. But he’d made up his mind. I just… Will you tell your mom how sorry I am, too?” She hated how pathetic she sounded.

  “He didn’t go,” Ella repeated. “Didn’t you hear? The Coast Guard stopped looking and everything.”

  Jess’s heart sank all the way down to the worn wood beneath her. She hadn’t heard. There was a special brand of hopelessness reserved for those unresolved losses and presumed deaths.

  “I can’t believe you won’t help me,” Ella said. “You’re a terrible person,” she yelled suddenly, and Jess feared she’d turn and run, slip and fall on the wet boards. But she walked, dignified, toward the parking lot, Lacey following close behind. Jess watched them go, avoiding everyone else’s stares.

  Chapter Sixteen

  July 5, 1998

  One day in July, Annie felt the baby kick for the first time. It felt like a misplaced hiccup. She sat up in bed, startled, and touched her stomach as if in reply. She still hadn’t seen any doctors or had any ultrasounds like the ones they showed on TV, but she felt certain it was a girl. She rolled to the floor, one hand at her back.

  Eve was in the living room. “It’s kicking,” Annie told her dazedly.

  “Aww!” Eve dropped her book on the floor and reached out to press her palm to Annie’s belly button, frowning when she didn’t feel anything. The night before, when Eve was scurrying around the apartment getting ready to meet Sophia at a party, she confessed to Annie that she planned to be married with “at least two babies” within the next five years. The fact that she’d never even had a serious boyfriend didn’t seem to trouble her.

  “Just wait,” Helen said at work. They were all standing around in the bathroom during one of those golden moments when there was a movie playing in each theater and no one was waiting to buy tickets or concessions. Annie sat on the counter between sinks and next to Sophia. Helen stood in front of them, le
aning on her mop. She tilted the mop handle toward Annie and pointed. “Soon enough, the little demon won’t hold still, and you won’t be able to get five minutes of sleep without getting punched in the ribs.” Helen had two kids, one and three.

  “Looking forward to it,” Annie said and exchanged head-shaking smiles with Helen. The truth was, every time Annie tried to imagine her life in the future—even just one week in the future—she drew a blank. Her mind wouldn’t let her think about where this path was leading her. For now, all she could focus on was the occasional ripple in her belly.

  The bathroom door swung open, and two middle-aged women walked in, glancing nervously at the three of them as they passed. Sophia sighed and hopped down while Helen helped Annie shimmy to the floor. They relocated to just outside theater four. After the theme music died down and the wash of people trickled out, they went to work.

  “It’s funny,” Helen said. She groaned as she bent to pick up an empty cardboard bucket. The popcorn it once held was scattered across the floor. “They all sit here and clap for some dude on the screen who just saved the world, but they can’t even manage to pick up after themselves. People in this town.”

  Annie snorted. “Not just in this town. It was the same in—where I come from, too.”

  “What are you going to name it?” Sophia said from out of the blue, two rows over.

  “I’m not naming it anything. I’m letting her adoptive parents decide,” Annie said slowly. She swept a gum wrapper into her dustpan.

  “So you’re actually going to give it up?”

  Annie paused and stood up straight. “Um, yeah. I’m not cut out to be a mom, not right now.”

  Sophia walked down the aisle toward her, gum snapping in her mouth. She stood before Annie and chewed. She shook her head. “I can’t imagine doing that after going through all this.” She pointed at Annie’s stomach. “I mean, aren’t you going to regret it? Letting someone else raise your child?”

  “She’s—it’s not going to be my child,” Annie said. She set her jaw and resumed her sweeping. “It’ll be someone else’s. Someone who can give her a better life.” She’d read that phrase in the welcome folder the adoption agency had given her. A better life. She liked that phrase. She held it close.

  “I don’t know about that,” Sophia sniffed. “A baby should be with its mother is what I think.”

  “Hey, numbnuts,” Helen called. “You done with your section yet, or am I gonna have to do that one, too, while you stand around and think?”

  Sophia walked back to her broom with a huff. Helen winked at Annie and smiled sadly.

  * * *

  Eve was the one who found the adoptive mother. Annie had left the stack of files on the floor of her room weeks before when the agency gave them to her. She hadn’t gotten around to sorting through them yet. Truth be told, even on top of the strange, unmanageable weight of picking parents for her child, the folders themselves made her a bit squeamish. There were so many dreams and wishes tucked into those manila folders.

  Eve seemed to love it, though, and cooed when she first saw the pile. “Just think,” she said, “the little one’s parents might be somewhere in there.”

  Annie let her have at it while she flipped through a magazine one night. She studied Eve’s face every time Eve opened a new folder.

  “Ooh, gonna have to say no to this one,” Eve said, tossing a folder across the floor. “Both of them are teachers, which means they’d probably go broke with a kid. Plus, you don’t want it to grow up with that kind of academic pressure.”

  Annie laughed and flipped back the cover to scan the paperwork. She could picture them in her mind’s eye: a couple in pale button-downs, smiling. She pushed the folder under her bed with the dust bunnies. That one was a maybe. Teachers loved kids, right? She laid her magazine on the floor next to her and caught another folder as Eve tossed it in her lap.

  “Nope,” Eve said. “One of their hobbies is getting new tattoos. Can’t be good for job prospects.”

  They got almost all the way through the pile this way. Eve had an uncanny knack for picking out the ways each would-be parent would ruin the baby’s life. Too religious, too many other kids (Annie filed this one away with the two teachers), shifty-sounding, mentioned “a warm and loving home” one too many times. “I mean, your home would be warm and loving, too,” Eve scoffed. “It’s just that you’d be broke all the time.”

  Annie looked down and flipped another page in the magazine while its pictures blurred.

  And then, on the second-to-last folder, Eve paused. “Oh!” she said. “This one’s a former ballerina! Isn’t that romantic?” Eve laid the folder on her lap and stared off at something over Annie’s shoulder. “Can’t you just imagine it?” she said dreamily. “Being a little girl with a dancer for a mother? I bet she tells the best stories.”

  “What’s the rest of it say?” Annie said.

  Eve flipped the pages back and forth. “I don’t see her husband anywhere. Ah.” Her face fell. “Single parent. Next.”

  The folder skidded across the floor and hit Annie’s knee. She picked it up. Her mother spent so much time accommodating her father, making his appointments and his dinner, letting him watch his favorite sitcom every Tuesday night even though Annie knew for a fact her mother hated that show. Maybe a single mom wouldn’t be such a bad thing. She could focus all that time and energy on the baby instead.

  Annie opened the folder. The woman’s essay sounded warm and genuine with a hint of a sense of humor. She lived in Minnesota, which was good—Annie would be able to picture her baby living a better life without having to worry about actually running into her and screwing everything up for the kid. The essay went on to explain that she’d been working the adoption circuit for two years with no luck, which was why she had filed with an agency way out in Massachusetts. She didn’t sound apologetic about it, though.

  “And this couple says they were born and raised here and never left from the sounds of it. Who would want that for their child?” Eve dropped the last folder and sighed. “Just a whole pack of losers. You’d better ask the agency if there are any other files you could look at.” She jumped to her feet and ran her hand over her own flat belly. “Back to studying for me. See you at dinner?”

  “Yup,” Annie said. When Eve had closed the door behind her, Annie tucked the dancer’s folder under her pillow. She’d been on the floor so long, her back was sore, but she stayed where she was, sitting butterfly-style, her legs cradling her stomach. She rested her head against the edge of her bed and closed her eyes.

  * * *

  That one October afternoon, it was surprisingly cold. Annie had spent half the night before sweating, her sheets twined stickily around her legs. She’d been having cramps ever since dinner that night, almost like she was getting her period. For a split second, she worried that she was losing the baby, but she was almost nine months along. It must’ve been the tuna noodle casserole. She’d tried to make dinner for her roommates that night, but it came out chunkier than she’d remembered, and even Eve had trouble finishing her plate.

  When it was finally time to get up, Annie’s back and neck were so wet, you’d think she’d just run a marathon. She wiped at her forehead with disgust and got in the shower as fast as she could. She dressed for the unseasonably warm fall weather they’d had the day before, throwing on a cardigan at the last minute just in case. But as she walked to the theater, cool air pinched at her ears. She wished she were wearing something she could close over her whale of a body.

  “New England, right?” Helen said when Annie finally pushed through the double doors. Helen drained her coffee cup and chucked it into the trash. “You okay, honey? You don’t look so hot.”

  “Thanks a lot.” Annie rolled her eyes, and Helen chuckled. “I didn’t get much sleep last night,” she admitted. “I was wicked hot, and I had these cramps? Like, right around my b
elly.”

  “Probably Braxton-Hicks.” Helen nodded. “They’re fake-out contractions. I had ’em for weeks with Dom. Sorry, babe.” She rubbed Annie’s back briskly. “Hey, guess what the little shit did this morning? Dropped my toothbrush in the toilet. On purpose, I swear. He’s lucky my mouth was full of Listerine at the time. Couldn’t cuss him out.”

  Annie laughed. She suspected Helen told her these horror stories to make her feel better about it all. She wasn’t sure if it was working. Once, Helen invited her to an early dinner at her house before their evening shift. Annie sat perched on the couch and turned down Helen’s husband’s offers of a soda. The baby stood on the floor and walked his uncertain way along the edge of the couch, clutching the cushions as he went. His bare feet slapped against the hardwood. She winced as his legs twisted around each other, finding the next step. When he reached her, he leaned against her knees and smiled proudly up at her. She clenched her hands together as tightly as she could and braced them against her stomach.

  * * *

  The pain grew worse over the course of the day. Once or twice, a cramp came while she was taking tickets and she had to stop in the middle of tearing off stubs. When she looked up, the customer was there, hand held out, staring at her middle. She handed the stub back to them and recited the theater number that was printed right there on it, as if they couldn’t read it themselves.

  And then, when she and Helen were mopping out the bathrooms in the middle of one of the matinee blocks, Helen did a spot-on impersonation of their manager, and Annie laughed so hard, she felt something warm and wet spread between her legs.

  “Dammit,” Annie said, straining to look at her pants. “I think I just peed myself. I swear I just went a couple minutes ago.”

  Helen stopped short and stared. Dirty water dripped from her mop to the floor. “Maybe those weren’t Braxton-Hicks after all. I think your water broke.”