Lost At Sea

by Erica Boyce

  “You have to let me know as soon as you get the results, okay?” Amanda said.

  Lacey nodded. All the bubbly helium had gone out of her.

  “Hey,” Amanda said. She bumped her shoulder against Lacey’s and turned back to the car. “You got this.”

  “Yeah, I know. Thanks,” Lacey said. The beetle’s feet tap-tap-tapped.

  * * *

  It didn’t take nearly as long as she’d hoped it would for the company to get back to her. A few weeks later, she finally checked her phone after helping her mom at a town festival for the day, and there was the email. “Your Family Tree Is Here!” the subject line said, all perky.

  “I’m gonna go upstairs and study,” she told her mom, eyes fixed to the phone.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” her mom said and stood up from the couch.

  Lacey froze. She’d found out. Did the company have a policy of notifying the parents? Had she given them her mom’s contact info? The night was such a blur, she couldn’t even remember. She’d have to come up with the perfect response for her mom, one that simultaneously reassured her that she was her true family and tempered her expectations about the results. It might be that she had no matches. She had no idea how many people out there had taken the test, and the chances seemed so slim that she was related to any of them.

  Before she could say anything, her mom reached up and cradled Lacey’s cheek. “Don’t work too hard, okay? You busted ass for me today. Tomorrow, you’re doing something fun. That will be strictly enforced.” She raised an eyebrow until Lacey smiled.

  “Aye, aye, captain,” Lacey said, and it sounded weak to her, but her mom released her and walked back to the couch.

  “Don’t know what I’d do without you, kid,” Maureen said. She folded herself back into the cushions with a happy sigh.

  “Probably perish.” Lacey turned away toward the stairs when her mom laughed.

  By the time she sat down at her desk and opened her laptop, her heart was roaring in her ears. She dialed Amanda’s number and pulled up her email while the phone rang. It rang and rang, and the beetle scratched circles in her head.

  Meanwhile, there was the subject line, in bold. “Your Family Tree Is Here!” Next to it, a little pop-up box from her email host: “Is this spam? Yes/No.”

  Her mouse hovered over the email. If she closed her eyes, she could picture what was there: a list of strangers with unfamiliar surnames that her birth parents may or may not share. More opportunities for dead ends. “More people to reject you and to tell you you don’t belong,” the beetle said.

  The phone went to voicemail. Amanda was probably with Derek.

  And then there was her mom. Reading downstairs, coiling a chunk of hair around one finger, squinting because she still insisted she was too young for glasses. She was always so gung ho about finding Lacey’s bio parents, but Lacey’d heard her talking about it with Mrs. Staybrook. She’d heard the thready fear in her voice. “Don’t know what I’d do without you, kid,” she’d said. It was Lacey’s job to make sure they’d never have to do without each other. Her mom had to know she was all of Lacey’s family.

  She moved the cursor to the pop-up box and clicked “Yes.” Yes, this was spam. With a whoosh, the message was deleted, unread. “You will no longer receive emails from this sender,” another pop-up box announced. Lacey breathed out.

  * * *

  The memory played in her head over and over as the night wore on. She could barely answer the nurses when they came to check on her. They frowned at their clipboards, chalking her unresponsiveness up to the aftermath of her overdose, but she kept feeling the cotton swab against her cheek, kept seeing the cursor moving before her eyes.

  She always assumed she’d see something of herself in her birth mother’s face. There’d be physical resemblances, sure, but also some sense of recognition or understanding. They’d look at each other and know instinctively. They would know things about each other that no one else did, things that came from nine months of sharing everything, from the tiny cells of herself she’d once read still floated around in her birth mother’s body like dust motes.

  What a stupid thing to think. All she’d ever seen of Ms. Bray was a mask. The same plastic face of concern she wore with all her clients. Lacey knew next to nothing about her, and Ms. Bray had worked hard to make it stay that way—not just while Lacey was at the clinic but for years before then.

  And Ms. Bray knew everything there was to know about Lacey. Lacey’s chest tightened with humiliation when she thought about all the times she’d spilled her guts in Ms. Bray’s airless office. The times she’d cried and Ms. Bray had passed the tissue box, calm as could be. At least she hadn’t told her about the beetle.

  Ms. Bray had told the Staybrooks God knows what about her. And John had died because of it. Not because of Lacey, but because Ms. Bray had made Lacey sound desperate for his money. Ms. Bray was the one who made him think Lacey needed his help.

  His death wasn’t Lacey’s fault. Even the beetle didn’t contradict her on that.

  She should’ve opened that damn email. If she had, she might’ve seen “Bray” on the list and at least known to be wary around her. She might’ve learned John was her uncle, and she could’ve gone up and knocked on his door and told him. He would’ve been confused at first, disbelieving, maybe even angry. Not angry at her, though. Eventually, he would’ve hugged her and ordered a pizza for everyone, and they would’ve all eaten it together, the Staybrooks and her mom and her. She was sure of it.

  Now, it was too late. She punched the plastic side rail of her bed until it rattled and her knuckles stung. “Stupid, stupid,” she muttered, and the beetle echoed her. Ms. Bray had found the blue-black spot of loneliness at the heart of Lacey and pressed, hard. No matter how sick Lacey was, no matter how loudly the beetle screamed, Lacey could never forgive her for that. She lay back into the bleach-smelling pillow and squeezed her eyes shut.

  * * *

  She woke up to a hand touching her wrist. “Matt,” she whispered.

  He smiled a little. “Hey, Lace.” His face had grown hollower since she’d seen him, and the movement pushed his cheekbones out even further.

  She cleared the sticky sleep from her throat. She wondered if he could feel her pulse thumping through the vein under his hand. “How’d you know I was here?”

  He pulled his hand away and shrugged. “Mark texted.” One of his friends—their friends. “He was at the library when the ambulance came. I had to see if you were okay.”

  She nodded.

  He looked down at his feet and shoved his hands in his front pockets. “I sent you emails.”

  “I know,” Lacey said. “I had to ignore them. They wouldn’t let me—in rehab.”

  “Yeah. Yeah.”

  Lacey wanted to reach out for him and pull him in. Part of her wondered if he might’ve been the only person who ever saw her for who she truly was and loved her just the same. She’d even told him about the beetle one night, and instead of shrinking away or brushing it aside, he had swept the hair from her forehead and placed a kiss there. “Yeah,” he had whispered. “Me, too.”

  So she’d hoped, just a little, that he would find her. And now, here he was. A million miles away.

  “I tried to check myself in, you know,” he said. “To rehab? I drove all the way there, and then I just…I couldn’t. I wound up at Ophelia’s house. How fucked up is that?” His laugh was short and bitter. “I have to get out of town, you know? Start fresh.”

  She bit her lip. How many times had their friends talked about it? They didn’t need much to quit, they told each other. They just needed to get away from this shitty town, and they would all get better.

  He met her eye. He looked at her like he was asking for forgiveness, though there was nothing for Lacey to forgive. None of it was his fault.

  “You’ll get treatment w
hen you’re ready,” she said.

  “Sure.”

  They stood in silence for a minute, staring at each other. He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek, swift and sweet, just like the first time she kissed him in the car. “Later, Lace,” he said and turned to walk out the door. She wondered if she’d ever see him again. Maybe someday he’d come back and go to rehab. Or maybe his fresh start was a lot like the Fentanyl she’d kept in her wall: a promise to himself that he would ultimately break.

  She knew what the people at the clinic would say about him. “Emotionally vulnerable,” they’d call her. “Predatory enabler,” they’d call him. But that wasn’t all that they were. They were Lacey and Matt, too. And now, she was alone. “Everyone is gone,” the beetle said.

  But Ella. There was Ella. Ella was so excited. She wanted Lacey as a cousin, no matter how damaged and bruised and secondhand Lacey was. One day, when Lacey was better and they were all past the part of grieving when laughter seemed impossible, maybe they could be a family, Maureen and Lacey and Diane and Ella. There was that. That was something.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  It was quiet in the Break that night. Still packed with men standing sweatshirted shoulder to shoulder, but no one spoke above a murmur. Jimmy turned the radio down low. Hardly any tourists came by—a rarity for a Saturday night—and everyone was grateful for it. The tinkling of the bell over the door and the clueless laughter would’ve been too much.

  “I heard the kid flipped out when she saw his boot.”

  “Shit.”

  “I mean, can you blame her?”

  “I know.”

  “It’s weird. I mean, obviously I know better, but still…”

  “Yeah. I was holding out hope the Coast Guard would find him there, hanging onto a piece of the boat like that guy in Titanic.”

  “Didn’t that guy die?”

  “Whatever. Never saw it.”

  “Anyway, doesn’t matter. Not like that’s ever happened in the history of Devil’s Purse.”

  “Yeah, but if anyone could pull it off—”

  “It’d be him, for sure.”

  “Damn shame. What a loss.”

  “The wife’s gonna be on me again to sell the business and get another job.”

  “Yeah, mine, too. She always freaks out when things like this happen.”

  “You ever think about…?”

  “Nah, no way. Can’t sit at a desk all day. My back’s gone to shit after all those years standing at the wheel.”

  A small chuckle rumbled through the room.

  “Guess there’ll be a funeral soon, then.”

  Silence. Nodding.

  “Maybe a wake, too. Wasn’t he Catholic?”

  “A recovering one.”

  “Aren’t we all.”

  “I gotta give Diane the number of my sister’s husband. Kinda creepy guy, but he runs a real nice funeral home.”

  “Guess you’ve gotta be a little odd in the head to own a place like that in a town like this.”

  “At least business is booming for him!”

  “Jesus, Sammy.”

  “I’m just sayin’.”

  The men paused and sipped from their beers. A chirpy commercial for the local community college came on the radio. “When you’re ready for a change, our night school programs are here for you!”

  “You guys hear about what happened to the Carson girl?”

  “Yeah, in the library? My deckhand’s wife was there.”

  “I heard she almost died.”

  “Good Lord, I can’t imagine.”

  “She’s way too young to be dealing with all that, you ask me. Got her whole life in front of her.”

  “Should’ve been a damn good life, too. You know she got into Brown?”

  “And the first one to get in there outta DP High in decades, I guess. They got some sorta grudge against us down in Providence.”

  “Think she’ll still go?”

  “She’d better.”

  “This point, all I’m hoping is she doesn’t wind up dead.”

  “Yeah, talk shit about junkies all you want, but it makes you think when you see a young one trying to kill herself like that, you know?”

  “She’s a good egg, too. You ever met her?”

  “Course I’ve met her. Met everyone and their dog in this town.”

  “Nah, but I mean really met her? I talked with her once over at the Dunkie’s. Sweet kid, you could tell. Slipped me an extra Munchkin for free.”

  “Pretty sure they all do that.”

  “I know, I know, but she got all red-faced when I tried to give it back. She’s modest, more than you’d think, considering.”

  “I feel bad for her, adopted and all that.”

  “Why’s that? Maureen seems cool.”

  “Way better than my mom was.”

  “You think that’s why she…?”

  “Nah, no way. My aunt’s kid is adopted, and he’s just fine. Found his, what’s it called, biological parents last year.”

  “It’s just one of those things, I think, you know. Never can tell who’s gonna get sucked into that world.”

  “Way too many kids dying of it.”

  “She going back to rehab?”

  “Pretty sure. Maureen seems like the type to make her. Tough woman.”

  “Hope it takes this time.”

  “It’s gotta take eventually. My nephew had to go three times, but now he’s the best damn welder in the state.”

  “Hey, yeah, I forgot about that. Good for him.”

  “She’ll pull through. We’ll help her. Nice kid.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Wednesday, November 15, 2017

  Every morning, Jess went to the Diane & Ella. She didn’t take it out, of course. She needed a permit to do that. And it wasn’t even hers yet; the paperwork was still being processed, and the boat was in legal purgatory. But no one questioned a longtime crewmember tending to the boat she worked on. Even if her captain was gone and lost.

  She was scrubbing away at a stubborn rust stain in one corner of the deck when someone called her name. She poked her head over the side of the boat—almost her boat—and there was Frank Callahan, squinting up at her.

  “Listen,” he said before she could greet him. “I’ve been a little shorthanded since my kid went back to college. You interested in picking up a few trips here and there?”

  “Oh.” Jess’s mouth opened, which was a mistake. The fumes from the bucket of cleaning fluid at her feet made her eyes water until she coughed. “Yeah, maybe,” she managed. “I’ll think about it.”

  Frank nodded and started to turn on his way when he hesitated. “And hey,” he said, “if you’re looking to get into another fishery, you could take your pick. There’s captains all over this town would take you in a heartbeat. Lobstering, cod-fishing, you name it. World’s your oyster.”

  “Thanks, Frank,” she said, but he’d already started walking back to his boat. He raised one hand over his head in reply.

  Jess sank to the floor, back against the deck railing. She pushed her fists into her eyes. Word must not’ve spread yet that the boat was hers and she could be her own captain now.

  Or could be they did know and their pity was for another reason. They’d all done the math themselves over and over again for their sons and grandsons. It would be nearly impossible for her to find a permit she could afford to buy outright with the bits and pieces of her crew wages she’d socked away over the years. She didn’t even have any assets she could sell for cash. She rented her apartment from the old woman who lived below her, and her truck was a piece of junk that she herself had bought used a decade ago.

  There was only the boat. She looked from bow to stern. There was the dark spot where she’d cut her palm with a shucking knife wh
ile working through a pile of scallops. Shucking without gloves was a rookie move, and she was not a rookie at the time. Just distracted. She’d almost cried from the embarrassment, but John had pretended not to notice. He’d bandaged up her hand and pulled a rubber glove over it to protect the wound, not making a single joke about her incompetence. He insisted she spend the rest of the trip in the wheelhouse while he shucked.

  And there was the spot he told her Diane was pregnant, smile wide. He’d been standing a few feet down from that when Diane called him to tell him she was in labor. He started running this way and that after he hung up, yelling nonsense instructions and hooking things that should’ve been unhooked. Jess followed behind him and corrected everything. She couldn’t imagine a luckier kid, to have John as a father. She wished she’d told him that.

  After an hour, she’d just about decided to take Frank up on his offer. She’d scrimp and save even more. She’d eat nothing but peanut butter sandwiches and hot dogs if she had to. She’d call the local permit broker at nine and four every day to ask if he’d seen any bargains lately. And in the meantime, she’d take good care of this boat. John’s boat.

  Her rear started buzzing. She was so lost in thought, it took her a moment to remember she’d stuck her cell phone in her back pocket. She grimaced a little when she saw Diane’s number flash across its face.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Diane said when all the awkward greetings were out of the way.

  Jess scratched at a fleck of paint that had embedded itself in the cuff of her sweatshirt. What was Diane going to accuse her of now? Not that Jess could blame her for lashing out when she’d gone by the Staybrooks’. Everyone grieved differently. She was just lucky Diane hadn’t gone to the Break with her theories.

  “What’s up?” Jess prompted after several seconds of silence ticked by.

  “I want to lease you the permit,” Diane said, rushed like she was afraid she’d change her mind.

  Jess had never heard her so flustered. Her heart hiccupped in her chest and began to lift in spite of itself. “Are you serious?”