by Amy Brill
Hannah shook her head, all language having run out of her like milk from a cracked bucket.
“I don’t believe that she—” Dr. Hall said, but Phoebe silenced him with one hand raised.
“Let Hannah Price speak for herself,” she said.
Hannah swallowed. You are only saying what you have been taught.
“It is my position that the determination of truth from deceit does not rely on one’s island of origin, nor upon one’s occupation, nor upon the hue of one’s skin. It is my position that the world’s people pose no greater or lesser harm than any individual within our own esteemed ranks.” Dr. Hall sank into his seat as if being pulled down by an anchor. Ann Folger stared, slack- jawed.
“It is my position that determining the state of one’s spiritual health is best left to each individual. I do not believe that this Meeting nor any other association of persons possesses the ability or the right to make such an assessment.”
Once she had said the words, Hannah felt dizzy with understanding that they were truer than any she had uttered in the past months. Possibly years.
She bowed her head beneath the weight of it, the gravity of what she’d done bearing down on her. But as she turned and walked up the center aisle of the Meeting House for the last time, the heaviness lifted, and as she got closer to the door, relief flooded her body, lightening her bones, bearing her the final few yards until she was outside, in the daylight, invisible.
. 20 . An appeal
When the double doors closed behind her, Hannah hesitated. She blinked in the brightness of day, then turned away from Town and began to walk west. Air and sky, dirt and leaves, these were what she needed. Things devoid of malice. Without realizing it, she chose the path she’d taken with Isaac the day of the storm. It was the first time in months she’d walked without toting a bag filled with instruments and books and maps. My armor, she thought. Stripped of it, her body felt buoyant.
Poofs of dry dust shot out from beneath her boots with each step, dispersing and settling again upon the surface. Her footsteps would disappear with a gust of wind, all evidence of her passage erased as sure as the wake of a whaleship would disappear before its mate could scramble up the rigging. Evidence so easily dispersed seemed a perfect metaphor for the day; everything she thought she knew about herself and her neighbors had proven to be upside down. True was false; friends were foes. Sincerity, hypocrisy, humility, vanity—she doubted she could even tell one from the other anymore.
She turned onto the sandy track leading out to the beach. As she emerged onto the dune, expecting nothing but the twinkle of the waves below and a stretch of fine empty sand ahead, she stopped short. A lone figure sat upon the bluff, his back to her, leaning upon his elbows in a familiar posture.
Hannah took a step back, ready to flee by force of habit. But no— there would be no more of that. What she’d put in motion could not be recalled. As she stood, feeling frozen in place, she realized that she’d chosen this spot, among all the others on the Island, in hopes that she would find Isaac here. He was the person she wanted to see; she had nothing to gain by leaving. If anything, she owed him an apology. He’d called her attention to Truth, and she’d refused to see it. You are only saying what you have been taught.
She forced her feet forward. They felt like they were boiling in her high boots. As she drew near, he turned his head and smiled. He didn’t seem angry. Hannah unclenched her fists, which she’d shoved into her pockets, and dropped down beside him as if she’d done so every day of her life.
“I am surprise to see you here,” he said. “Are you not meeting this day?”
She shook her head. And then everything before her blurred as tears sprang to her eyes, spilling hot and shocking upon her cheeks and dripping onto her dress.
“What is happening?” Isaac asked, his voice gentle but fringed with worry.
“I’m sorry,” Hannah said. But a big heaving sob ripped through her. She bowed her head.
Isaac did not ask again, but he leaned toward her and drew her in. She let the ballast of his body support her as she wept, his solidity a small miracle amid the ruin. She cried for the loss of Meeting, for disappointment at how her individual neighbors, all people of conscience and faith, had hardened over the years into a unit so rigid it could not bend. Or would not.
She cried for the loss of her brother, and for the pain she’d caused Mary. She cried for Isaac, who had suffered because she had allowed herself to get too close to him. And she cried for the Island, the place she loved more than any other, her home that no longer felt like home. Yet she knew no other.
Finally, spent and aching, Hannah raised her head. Isaac looked down at her, his concern mixed with affection and confusion. As always, a hint of amusement. His own complicated face. How she adored looking at it.
A bright bit of color waving in the slight breeze caught her eye, and she looked to the east. A quilted bedroll was laid out upon the sawgrass. Isaac’s satchel lay beside it, his familiar green jumper peeking out from the top.
Puzzled, she turned to him.
“It was raining last night,” he said. “Everything is drying now.”
Hannah shook her head a little.
“Have you not been sleeping in the Atheneum, then?”
He shook his head.
“Not since our last meeting.”
Hannah pressed her lips together, but before she could answer, he squeezed her shoulder as if to show her that he wasn’t angry.
“I decide to sleep here, under the stars. But don’t worry: I replace the key in the box that very night.”
Hannah bit her lip. She’d checked her letterbox ten times in the last week, but the key had not reappeared. Her father’s words, months ago in front of the Atheneum in the dead of night, returned as if he were whispering in her ear: What does thee know of this person? She swept her mind for signs of doubt, and found none. And though she didn’t mean to consult her feelings, they made themselves known, like the insistent hymn of a pious neighbor. Isaac cared for her; he would not lie to her.
As if in answer, he sat up a little and released her, wrapping both his arms around his knees and looking out over the surf below. A half mile away, a couple was wading in the water. The woman held her skirts in one arm and the man’s elbow with the other. Hannah sighed and dried her cheeks with her sleeve. She didn’t want to think about the key now, or about what would happen when she went home that day, or woke up the next.
Isaac tilted his head in her direction, his eyes gentle.
“Do you wish to say what happened?”
“I’m adrift.” She didn’t want to be vague, but if she told him what had transpired, she knew he’d feel responsible. “Do you remember when you told me that I was only saying what I had been taught?”
He nodded, his eyes questioning.
“Well, it’s become clear that what I have been taught, and what I believe, have diverged. And what I thought would happen when Edward returned— I was wrong about that, too. I’m—” Hannah struggled to keep from crying again. “I feel as if I’ve been cut in two. Have you ever felt anything like that?”
It was hard to imagine that he had. Isaac seemed as even-keeled as a canoe cleaving through still water. She envied his composure, which came not from a rigid code of Discipline, as hers had, but from something else.
He gazed out at the water again.
“I’m sorry to hear about your brother. The feeling you describe— this makes me think of my own brother.”
“Is he on a whaleship?”
“He is dead.”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“It was a long time ago,” he said, glancing at her as if to comfort her. Her distress must have read on her face. “An accident. In the water.”
“What happened?”
“We were in the boat, my father, grandfather, Paulo, and myself. He was like a fish. Nine years of age. He slip into the water and my grandfather did not see. He was rowing. The oar
, it hit him.”
Hannah imagined the crack of the blow, cries of the men from the water, rowing fiercely toward shore, his brother’s limp body a delicate arc over his father’s outstretched arms. The sound of his mother’s wail rising, his grandfather’s silence afterward. Edward at that age had been all arms and throat, mischievous and gentle and clumsy and coarse all at once.
“You must miss him terribly,” she whispered.
A smile flickered like a candle across his face. He stretched his legs out in front of him and leaned back on his elbows in the sand.
“I remember him laughing. The time to cry is past. We are passing through this pain: we cry for him, pray for him, remember him. We tell our stories. Now I am only happy to think of him.”
Hannah thought of the silence around her own mother’s death, the smothering of any outward expressions of grief. “I wish we were able to speak of such things. When I lost my mother, I was so young, and when I got older we never spoke of her.”
Isaac looked horrified.
“If you do not speak of it, where does it go?”
“Where does what go?”
“The suffering.”
Hannah paused, then reached for his hand and curled his fingers into a fist before lifting it to her heart, holding it there, covered with her own.
“It stays,” she said. Bowing her head, she allowed her lips to rest on the small stretch of his hand that was exposed, the soft underbelly of his palm. They sat this way for some minutes, no sound but the breakers whispering against the sand.
“I must tell you something,” Isaac said, not looking at her. Hannah felt like lobsters were pinching her gut. She raised her chin and released his hand.
“The Pearl is ready to sail. I have word from Mr. Leary last night.”
“When do you go?” Hannah asked.
“The day after tomorrow.”
She inhaled. Heat and salt. Only a tiny hint of Isaac, as if he’d become the place. Sand and sky and skin comingled. There was no imagining her Island without him now. If she could even call it hers.
Hannah dug both her palms into the sand, burying them to the wrists.
“So there is time for one final lesson,” she said.
He smiled.
“If you are willing.”
“Come tonight,” she said, rising as if she’d gotten marching orders.
“To the Atheneum?”
“No. Come to my home.”
“Is it wise?”
“It’s what I want.” She paused, wondering how much to say. Their relationship was no longer about the lessons, or his advancement. When she was near him, Hannah felt both exhilarated and free at the same time, the way she felt when she was observing. The idea of parting from him was excruciating.
Hannah hovered above Isaac for a moment, shielding him from the sun. Backlit, she imagined herself silhouetted by light, her features blurred, indistinct. The sensation of his embrace returned to her, warming her body like sunlight. Her hand came to rest upon the tight curls that covered his skull, light as a dragonfly. They were soft, moss-like. She’d expected them to be more resilient, like springs.
“I’ll see you then,” she whispered, and turned toward home, to face whatever awaited her there.
* Hannah found her father at the kitchen table. When he looked up, he looked more sad than angry. “Thee has disappointed me,” he said after ten seconds passed in cold silence.
“I was not meaning to,” Hannah said. She sounded like Isaac, and the accidental mimicry struck her as funny, though there was nothing humorous about her present situation. She coughed to cover her smile. “It has naught to do with thee,” she added, hoping to soothe him.
Her words had the opposite effect. Nathaniel sat even straighter and raised one finger, though he did not point it at her. Instead, he tapped the table in a rhythm as steady as a metronome’s, each syllable an ominous drumbeat.
“I defended thee,” he said. “To those who questioned thy devotion, I said, ‘An undevout astronomer is mad.’ To those who said thee flouted Discipline, I stated that thy discipline was unparalleled as a matter of temperament. To those who said worse—well, they did not make their claims aloud. Not to me, anyway. Thy standing was already imperiled. But now—”
He shook his head. “Now, daughter, I’m afraid thee will have no choice but to remove with me. I see no prospects for thee here. In fact, thee might consider doing so immediately. I’m sure there will be plenty for thee to occupy thyself with in setting up our new household.”
Hannah sank down on the bench and picked a hangnail.
“The Atheneum provides plenty of labor,” she muttered.
“Hannah.”
She looked up, startled by his sharp tone.
“Thee clearly does not realize the gravity of the situation. I guarantee that thy position at the Atheneum is being reassigned as we speak.”
His statement stood between them like a glacier. She couldn’t see through or around it. She shook her head.
“What does one have to do with another? I don’t understand.”
“Does thee know of a single trustee who does not cleave to Discipline like a barnacle to a boulder?” he said. “Is thee so naïve as to think they will disregard thy actions at Meeting—and elsewhere—and continue to entrust thee with guidance over the most vulnerable minds on the Island?”
“I cannot see why my guidance should be questioned when so many of the devoted hold views that are vastly less Christian than those I expressed today. They claim to be pious but their actions speak otherwise. They say they hold no prejudice against the Negro race but recoil when one comes too close. They abhor violence but hurl cobblestones at those who voice unpopular opinions. Not to mention the conditions aboard their whaleships. They—”
“Enough.” Nathaniel stopped tapping and looked at Hannah directly. His voice was gruff, as if the effort of expressing emotions snagged his words like thorns. “There is no ‘they.’ No collection of conspirators. Thee does a disservice to thy own character by speaking so. It pains me. If thy mother were with us—” He paused, and Hannah wondered what aspect of Ann Gardner Price he was remembering. A walk in the garden? Their wedding day? Her body heavy with two lives growing within her? A flash of envy raced through her. She had nothing to counter with but her own self, forged from the flesh of that very woman.
“I believe that thee meant to do good,” he added, as if reading her mind. “But thee has done harm, Hannah. To thy name. And to mine own, regrettably.” He shook his head a little, then raised his chin. “Thee will cease these lessons immediately.”
Hannah raised her own chin, aware of how similar their profiles were. Like two views of the same coastline. But she felt like a stranger. If his invocation of her mother was meant to shame her, it had the opposite effect. She felt a surge of power.
“I believe my mother would be inclined to stand on the side of Truth, as I believed thee would,” she said. “I believe she would be proud. I certainly don’t see why she would be ashamed. Was she not a clear advocate for Truth as she saw it? Did she not challenge a notion if she found it unreasonable?” For the first time she could remember, Hannah felt the spirit of Ann Gardner spark to life in her. Perhaps she was not solely her father’s daughter after all.
But the look of pain on her father’s face—as if her words had struck a physical blow—doused her newfound zeal. Hannah swallowed and lowered her voice.
“In any case, the Pearl is leaving port on third day,” she went on. “My student will be aboard as second mate, hopefully with the ability to assist the captain and crew with their navigational duties. There’s no need to cease the few remaining lessons we have time for.”
All traces of hurt and sadness vanished as he rose to stand over her, as if he needed the higher position to cement his authority.
“I will not discuss it further,” he stated. “All communication with this person will cease at once. I will hear no more idle talk on the topic of my daughter�
��s associations. And I wish to hear no more from thee about the behavior of thy elders or anyone else. Thee has irrevocably tainted thy opportunity for a match hereabouts, and I’m told by William Bond that thee did not even consider George’s offer seriously, though I cannot imagine why. I wonder if thee gives any thought to the repercussions of thy actions at all. I don’t know anymore.”
He opened his mouth as if he were going to say more, but did not. Instead, he rose stiffly and left the room.
Hannah remained seated, her heart still pounding from the exchange. She’d never invoked her mother before. It was as if her conversation with Isaac had cracked a dam she hadn’t known existed, and now all sorts of ideas and feelings about that woman threatened to pour through. It was disturbing and exciting in equal measure, the first new idea of herself she had ever entertained.
Then she remembered what her father had said about her job. If it was true, and she was to be removed from her post at the Atheneum, she’d have no chance of staying on Nantucket. He was in no mind to support her. What she needed to do was go to Dr. Hall and make her case for keeping her job. If anyone on the Island would advocate on her behalf, he would be the one.
* She found him on the porch of his neat house, a fixture as steady and recognizable as the weather vane on the roof. Hannah knew every well-swept corner of his home, from his chronologically ordered library to the procession of teacups in every room, all half-full of lukewarm brew. As she approached in the grey twilight, calm descended, as if this were any other summer evening and she was on a mission of intellect, not mercy. She’d walked the path from her house on Little India to his on Pineapple for nearly twenty years; she could practically hear the blows of hammers from the summer they built New Wharf, the clang and thud from the old shipyard, and above all Dr. Hall’s own voice, urging rigor, helping her weave equations into Time, into distance, the way other women turned skeins of yarn into blankets, sweaters, socks.
He was as passionate as anyone she’d ever known about the value of knowledge, the importance of improvement. Surely he would support the rightness of her actions, even if he hadn’t stood up in Meeting and said so. He had much to lose, she reasoned, by making a public statement on her behalf; but surely a quiet word with the Atheneum trustees was well within his realm of influence.