by Amy Brill
“I know, you want to see the parade. Right, Mo?” Mary planted a kiss on the baby’s head.
“Let’s go, then.” At the last moment, Hannah grabbed her threadbare grey shawl from the peg by the door, feeling like a child with a security blanket but immediately grateful for the soft fall of the weave around her shoulders.
The crowds on Main heading for the water swarmed thick and sweaty. There was no breeze, and Hannah’s hair was heavy and damp at her neck. She linked her arm through Mary’s to avoid losing her.
A bandstand had been set up at the corner of Main and Federal, in front of the Bank and across from the new hotel, and the air smelled like fresh paint and new wood. Sawdust carpeted the street, seeping into the cracks between the cobblestones. The strains of music reached their ears as they wove through the throngs, and though Hannah kept expecting to see people she knew, it was near dark before Lilian and John appeared, and then Nell, and finally Millicent, who flew into Hannah’s arms as if she’d been released from a slingshot.
“I’ve been looking for you for days,” Hannah said, squeezing her friend’s shoulders. “I left two notes at your house. Where have you been?”
Millicent had been a consistent correspondent during Hannah’s travels, keeping her updated on the social lives of Islanders Hannah was barely acquainted with, as well as entertaining her with stories of her daily trials as a teaching assistant at a penny school in New Guinea. But even Millicent’s letters had been few and far between, with mysterious holes in the narratives left by earlier chapters that hadn’t made it across the Atlantic.
“My mother said someone had been by but she didn’t tell me who it was!” Millicent’s eyes went wide. “I heard you were on-Island but I didn’t believe you’d show up and not come and find me. Or write to say so.” She narrowed her eyes at Hannah. “Were you worried that I’d arrange a party of some sort?”
“I’m not so averse to festivities as to hide my plans from you,” Hannah said, squeezing Millicent’s arm. “I suppose your mother still blames me for diverting you from your destiny as a baker’s assistant.”
Millicent sighed and linked her arm through Hannah’s.
“Well, if I have any luck at all, I’ll be out of her house soon enough.” She shot a shy sideways glance at Hannah, and a smile spread across her cheek.
“Millicent? What don’t I know?”
“Not a what. A whom! And I hope to introduce you tonight, if I can find him.” She scanned the crowd. “I’m going to go hunt him down. I’ll find you!” And she sprang away, wading through the sea of people with a general’s purpose.
A string of firecrackers exploded nearby, and Moses began to cry.
“The procession is starting,” Mary said, swinging the baby up onto her back and securing him with a swath of linen she produced from somewhere on her person. Hannah marveled at the efficiency of her gestures, her sure hands. People swirled around them, and they edged toward the margins where the crowd was thinner.
The engine companies paraded by like a ragtag militia, saluting the selectmen as they passed; then came the Cold Water Army, an intimidating pack of women with bright blue sashes whose collective belief in temperance had the effect of dousing the crowd with actual cold water: the festive hum died down, and only rose up again when the Masons marched by and the band struck up a rousing tune.
Hannah saw Dr. Hall on the stage, gazing out over the crowd, and her eyes lingered on him for a moment. A swell of contempt twisted her gut. His betrayal still smarted; she had no desire to speak with him. When she turned back to Mary and the others, they’d disappeared. She was surrounded by strangers.
It was nearly dark. Boys roamed the crowd with baskets of candles for the procession. Hannah bought one and then waded into the river of Islanders lighting their wicks and holding their candles high. Hannah tried to spot Mary and the baby as the human tide began to snake through the streets, a buoyant stream of tiny flames, voices raised in song. She was lulled by the bobbing points of light, and drifted along as if in a dream, vaguely melancholy. She hadn’t yet told her family about the offer from Groton College. Today would be the day, she’d decided. When the parade was over, she would reveal her plans.
The procession turned the corner of Main, and Hannah paused to look again for her sister-in-law and nephew. The crowd parted and surged past like a river around a stone, but Mary and Moses were nowhere to be seen. Hannah edged carefully toward the storefronts, her candle wavering but still lit, and searched the faces in the crowd. Then she turned and tried to wade back in the direction she’d come from, elbowing and edging her way around the oncoming tide, head down, shoulders forward. She’d gotten only a few yards when someone gripped her elbow, holding her in place.
“If you please,” she said, wresting free before raising her chin and finding herself face-to-face with Isaac Martin.
Hannah felt her jaw drop, breath gusting in, her pulse fast and deep as thunder. It was impossible to form words. She raised her candle, a jerky motion lacking any grace, and squinted. It was him. He was staring back, equally surprised. The crowd jostled them closer to each other, then away, but he reached out and took her elbow again.
Questions sprinted through her head—Where had he come from? How long had he been on the Island?—and she felt a desperate rush of confusion. But she didn’t pull her arm away, and he didn’t let go. Like an awkward pair of dancers, then, they stumbled to the edge of the crowd, into the protective shadow of an overhanging roof.
The flickering light of a thousand candles wavered over his face. He looked frightened, and a little uncomfortable. He doesn’t know what to say, Hannah realized, remembering the first moment she’d felt their sameness, under a similar overhang. She was seared by the memory, and her hand flew to his cheek as if to confirm that he was real. His cheek was rough, unshaven. He put his hand over hers, swallowed, leaned in, and spoke into her ear.
“I am looking everywhere for you,” he said.
At the sound of his voice—or maybe the scent of his skin, she wasn’t sure—all the blood in her body rushed to her stomach, then to her feet. She hurled herself forward, and they engulfed each other without words. Seconds ticked by, which felt like hours, cocooned in each other’s arms. Hannah felt as if she were suspended in a state of wonder, a beautiful darkness. When a sudden cry from the crowd pierced through, they broke apart. But the rush of bodies pushed on, insensible.
Still, she shook her head in warning, aware of the field of luminous faces just a few yards away. “We should walk.”
He gave a brisk nod, glancing at the crowd, then reached for her hand, leading her directly back into the swell of bodies in the procession. It was too crowded for anyone to see her hand in his. Hannah allowed herself to be swept along, pressed close to Isaac’s body by the crowd, clutching him tightly, nightfall now complete outside the nimbus of light from their candles. She pressed her face to his shoulder, inhaling his skin and his sea, everything about him that was familiar and yet foreign. The sheer relief of being close to him again felt like the tumblers of a lock falling open.
And on top of that, the smell of him made her feel what she imagined intoxication to be like: a hot, buzzing current running through her body, as undeniable as hunger. Like stubborn dreams, the sensation of his touch had returned to her body again and again over the years; the images that had flitted past before she could punch them away might as well have been disgraceful cartoons, flesh on flesh, a spectacle at best, an abomination to most, even to otherwise sane and decent people.
She moved forward, carried by the waves of people moving in the direction of the harbor, crushed too tight to speak. After a few minutes she heard the whiz and pop of the first fireworks. The procession surged forward. Isaac held on to her hand.
They went closer, the bright pop of cherry-red and white sparks high above them. Hundreds of faces tilted back and peered up like moon-lilies, drenched in wonder. Hannah looked, too, the bright display blazing over the waters of the harbo
r, lighting the ships and the masts, the rooftops and the shoreline, reflecting everything on the surface and above it in the mirror of the Bay, tipping the world upside down. Isaac moved behind her, circling her with both arms, leaning down as everyone looked up, burying his face in her neck. It was difficult to stand up straight. His hand was on her ribs, her belly, her thighs. So much heat, she felt branded. Her eyes fluttered, awash in light.
When the band struck up again and the crowd began to buzz, Isaac released her, tugging gently on her hand again before letting go. Feeling like a sleepwalker, she followed him through crowd, weaving around the countinghouse and along the edge of the wharves, continuing in silence down Pineapple Street.
They walked in silence until they reached Easton, enough room between them for a canoe, a flagpole, a coffin. The sounds and lights of the party faded. Isaac turned right and Hannah followed, heading back in the direction of the water on the other side of the harbor. When they reached the promontory at the very edge of the road, they went on by unspoken agreement, side by side now, until they stood at the very edge of the Island. In the distance, they could see the sparks still lighting over the water, the crowd a swaying skyscape of tiny candle flames.
They turned to face each other, closing the distance in an instant.
“When?”
His lips near the whorl of her ear.
“Today.”
She shivered.
“I wrote—I tried to tell you how sorry I am for how I—that I did not—that I could not tell you what was in my heart.” Hannah felt herself beginning to cry, great heaving sobs tearing through her chest as she tried to utter the words she had failed to say before.
But his hands were on her cheeks, then he was kneeling, and she was sinking with him. Pebbles and sand ground into her knees, their sting sharp and delicious as his lips took the words she might have spoken to explain her disappointment and her regret and everything else, but there were no words that she could conjure.
And she did not want words. Her body commanded her now. She did not try to speak again but gave all of her weight over to Isaac, her bones and the flesh around them, bridging the distance between them, releasing herself. She had never been so aware of her body; when he took the buttons of her dress one by one, investigating the triangle of skin between her neck and clavicle, the geometry of each rib, the softest and hardest places on her person, it was as if she had never seen or felt them herself.
Yet she’d been tethered to this body her whole life. It was the only thought she would remember later from the time that followed; how surprising it felt as each new part of her was revealed. Skin, flesh, freckle, bone. A dazzling Universe within and upon her.
Later—she wasn’t sure how much—they rested, her head on his arm. They lay on her shawl, on a slight incline, facing the Harbor. A blanket of stars flickered overhead. Across the water, candles still wavered in the hands of invisible revelers.
“A miniature Heavens,” Hannah said. “A thousand lights against the dark.” She sighed and shifted closer to him.
Here and there a tiny light bobbed in the dark and disappeared. The lighthouse beamed and diminished.
“There is so much I’ve wished to tell you,” Hannah whispered.
“Tell me.”
“I have seen so much. The observatories . . . in Europe. I’ve seen the colors of the stars. They’re so beautiful.” The words caught in her throat.
Isaac leaned closer, rested his head in the cradle of her neck.
“Betelgeuse is red. Pure red, like an autumn rose. Red as blood. Rigel is blue. Others are lilac, some are yellow.” She sighed and turned her face toward the Heavens as if basking in their light. “They are like a collection of precious stones, or . . . flowers. Flores.”
Isaac smiled, though his eyes were closed. He moved his cheek down to her chest, over her heart, and breathed against her as if buoyed by her vision of the jewel-colored stars.
“I found my comet,” Hannah whispered. “I saw it first in my mind— as you showed me. And when I opened my eyes, it was there. As if it had been waiting for me.” She closed her eyes, imagining the wanderer as it had appeared to her, as clear and obvious as the sun.
A warm breeze came off the headland, and Hannah drew in a deep breath. It was the most familiar air: salt and seaweed and fish. Her own skin, her sweat, mixed with Isaac’s, made it new.
“I am sorry I did not write,” Isaac said, propping himself up on an elbow so he could look down at her, his beautiful eyes solemn. “I was wishing to protect you. And I did not hear from you, so—”
“I am sorry my letters didn’t reach you. I don’t know why they didn’t.” Hannah shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, I suppose.”
“I wish I was receiving them. My journey was not . . . It was difficult.”
“The navigation, you mean?”
“This, too. But you should not be worrying: your teaching is excellent.” He grinned at her and Hannah leaned her cheek against his arms.
“What, then. Were you—were the men crude? Were there not enough provisions?” Her heart pummeled erratically at the thought of his suffering.
He sighed, cradling her head with his arm so that it nestled under his shoulder like a wing. For once she did not mind his pace, the time he took to gather his words like kindling.
“The men were as always. It is I who am changing.”
“How so?” The lights across the harbor had dwindled to a spark. Waiting for Isaac to answer, Hannah surveyed the sky. Altair, Deneb, Vega. Eagle, Swan, Lyre. Three constellations any child could pick out of the night sky. What would it be like to see the sky only in this way? A sparkling picture, pretty as a quilt. To lie each night beside a man and stare at the sky with no more care than for the next day’s supper, for nicely tatted lace, ripe tomatoes, clean aprons?
Hannah thought of Moses, the tug she’d felt when his little body pressed against hers, and imagined herself mothering, laundering, adding and subtracting her husband’s wage to add up to soup and silk and wool enough for the season. It was like imagining a duck in a desert. Then why was she thinking of it? Hannah squeezed her eyes shut and then popped them open again, grateful for the sight of her own sky and its endless, infinite geometry.
“When I am leaving my home I am yet a boy. I want only to avoid the army, to earn money, to have adventure. Also to help my family,” Isaac said. His voice wavered and Hannah glanced at him. He seemed to be struggling with a painful memory.
“I am everywhere in this world. I go north and west, Arctic and Pacific. After so much time I wish to advance my place—you are knowing all this.”
Hannah nodded but sensed there was more, and so did not move or speak. The soft lap of tiny breakers came into the quiet. Peepers and crickets rubbed their wings in the underbrush. Isaac swallowed— Hannah could hear the sound and put her hand to his throat to feel the throb of his muscles there. She felt him smile at her touch.
“And so,” she said, “you secured your position upon the Pearl.” He nodded.
“But before I can leave, I am stuck on this Island. Until I meet you. And this is changing me.”
Hannah concentrated on the meaning of his words. She felt gratified and confused in equal measure.
“Was it— is it a good change?” she ventured.
Isaac covered the top of her head with his broad palm, tilting her face to his.
“Not good or bad—only different.” He leaned in and kissed the top of her forehead, then turned back and rested again, his arms tucked under his head. “I am doing only one thing for more than ten years. I am on the watch or in the fo’c’sle, I am taking orders, I am giving orders. I can say the same fifteen things in five languages, and I am hearing the same thing each day from dawn to dusk. The crew and the boats, the heave and the haul, topgallants, stuns’ls, lobscouse.” The music of his voice was unchanged.
He stopped short, as if he’d been caught unaware by his feelings on the matter, and Hannah was surprised, too.
Isaac had always seemed to accept his role on a whaleship as obvious, necessary. He’d told her as much. But his voice betrayed him.
He grasped a fistful of sand and let it trickle out.
“I am spending more time on this Island than I have spend on land since I leave home,” he said. “If I am not meeting you, I would be spending all my time working and waiting. But you are showing me something different. Not only in the Heavens. Here. Upon the land.” Abruptly, he stood, and Hannah lowered her eyes, her cheeks warming at his nakedness.
He made no move to cover himself. Instead, he walked a few paces away, then continued on to the water. When she looked up, his back was to her, his body nearly invisible against the dark water, the crescent moon barely offering a silhouette.
“I no longer wish to crew a whaleship,” he said. “I no longer wish for a life upon the sea.”
“I see,” Hannah whispered, pulling her shawl up and around herself. Then she raised her voice so he could hear. “What do you wish for?”
She thought she could hear him smile, as if he, too, were remembering their long-ago conversation in the Atheneum. I am not a child, imagining a life that cannot be. Dreaming without purpose, he’d said. Did he now imagine a life that could include the impossible? Did he mean to include her?
“I once wished to go home,” he said, kneeling at the water’s edge, dipping his hands in and splashing water over his head and neck. “But I no longer have a home to go to.”