But she isn’t there. I’m sure because I check for her in each group of mourners. I study wave after wave of the sad-faced people who enter the church and take their seats. The music is like a hush, while a wash of grays and blues and blacks fills the pews in a steady stream. Only the ferry crew members cannot help their brightness. The gleaming buttons on their jackets, the bright stripes on their shoulders, the flash of gold on their hats. There are so many of them; it seems like the entire Washington State Ferry service has turned out for my dad’s memorial.
Neil and I sit in front, with George and Lisa. Behind us is my dad’s First Mate and several other captains with their wives and families. Compared to the solid ranks of them, our pew seems empty.
Despite the fact that I am here, that this is happening, I cannot seem to keep my mind focused. I am about to experience my dad’s memorial, I remind myself.
This is where you are, Ella. This is today.
I watch everyone with their programs in hand. I’m holding one, too. I try to read it, but the words just swirl together. I put it beside me on the seat—right on top of the box of my dad’s ashes that I placed inside a canvas bag and took from the house this morning, worried that leaving him behind for the service would be somehow careless or, worse, impolite. I keep my hand on top of the bag for a moment, but this doesn’t help me focus either.
I have only attended one other funeral—Nana’s—when I was fourteen. That service was nearly cheerful. All those old ladies, a sprinkling of old men, carrying on and on and telling each other stories. Stories about Nana doing this or that at some church picnic, about how nice the pastor’s message was, how he described Nana’s quick wit so perfectly. Mostly, though, I remember that they talked about their bodies and their illnesses and medicines. They compared aches and injuries, and I found this all so sad. I remember feeling so relieved that Nana died in such good health.
At that service, I remember my dad was sedate but not too upset, kind and polite to all the elderly couples, and he’d even joked with George about one of the women.
“Do you see who that is?”
“I don’t believe it.”
The woman in question had a crown of bright white hair and was nearly bent in half. She was dressed formally, down to a pair of white lace gloves, hat, and sparkling brooch.
“She was 100 years old when we were kids.”
“Agnes Johansson,” my dad said. “She’s been a widow for more than sixty years. Imagine that.”
I remember them both growing quiet. My dad tucking his chin. George looking away. My dad was as good as a widower, and I knew someday someone might say the same thing about him.
The service is surprisingly short. We sing a few hymns, listen to a scripture reading, Pastor Tim gives a short message. George and another of the ferry captains deliver two separate eulogies. I hover above it all as though the person they are talking about is someone I knew only briefly. Or someone I knew a long time ago. If I don’t talk to you tomorrow, then I won’t know you anymore until we re-acquaint ourselves through dialogue.
Pastor Tim stands up and announces that John Tomlinson was a great man, that we will surely miss him, that we will all remember him with “a reflection of his good nature in our hearts.” I nearly stand up and say that reflections are for magicians but instead, I hold the fingers of my right hand tightly in my left hand. He makes a final prayer that I try to mimic with my lips, as if this might help me. That maybe just by saying it all, I will feel some of its effect. And then the organist is playing and there is a line of people to let pass before me, shake hands with. People are so incredibly kind. Some of the women are crying. Most of the other ferry crew members—a line of men, their eyes conspicuously wrinkled from their days on the sea—are predictably stoic. Only Jonathan, my dad’s First Mate of many years, pulls me into his arms. He squeezes me so tight that I can hardly breathe. And the hug lasts so long that I begin to get used to it, I relax my shoulders and drop my head into the natural indent at his shoulder. I can smell his shirt beneath my nose, can smell something like kitchen grease and a whiff of coffee. He is trembling and this makes me begin to shake, too. When he finally lets go, he just walks away without a word, without a goodbye.
Lisa is holding my hand, and I don’t even notice this until I see that George has gone on ahead toward the back of the church and the reception that is planned downstairs. His duck boots clomp along the floor, echoing on the stone walls.
“Come down when you’re finished,” she says, dropping my hand and walking quickly to catch up with George.
Neil waits with me until everyone has filed past and headed downstairs.
“George said some of the mates have invited us for food, after the reception, I mean.”
“I think I’d rather just go home.”
His voice quiets. “It’s what people do, Ella. After something like this. They gather together. Keep each other company.”
I lean my head back to see his face. I note the shadows under his eyes, the slope of his nose. No longer just stubble, a real beard is forming along his jaw. His lips are chapped and rough and I reach a finger to my own, smooth across the skin.
“People will want to support you,” he says. “Make sure you’re okay.”
This stops me. “Are you okay?”
We are nearly alone in the church now. He folds his arms, clasping his right hand under the opposite elbow. His knuckles whiten. “I’ll tell them to wait for you.”
I watch Neil move away from me into the tide of well-wishers. There he goes, each step a measurable distance from myself. A pew. Two pews. Three pews. And then, to equal parts grief and relief, the back of his head suddenly seems so decided, so distinctly turned away. I’ve done it, I think. I’ve done what needs to be done. My first appointment is tomorrow.
I stay alone in the church with only the organ music floating around me. The organist is still playing, slogging through a quiet recessional with muted low notes. The notes bounce off the church’s brick walls and stained-glass windows. I sit myself down in the first pew to wait out the song, and see that I have left the box of my dad’s ashes in its lonely patch of velvet-covered pew. I pick it up and set it on my lap, spread my hands flat across the canvas-covered wood.
When I was six years old I fell off a swing set at a park. I’d been with George, I remember this so clearly because he’d taken me out for pizza and this was such an unusual treat. On the way home from the restaurant we stopped at Golden Gardens so I could play. I remember asking him to push me higher, I remember wanting to show off for him. And then I remember only the sudden lightness of my body, the dizziness in my head and belly as I slipped forward into the air, out of the swing seat, and then the awful thud as I hit the ground on my back. I could not speak, I could not breathe. I remember George’s face—its small tight mouth, his startled eyes—above me. It was like my lungs had collapsed inside of me, the thin membranes sticking together. I remember the panic, the awful choking panic.
I look at the box of my dad’s ashes and my lungs are collapsed again. I want to breathe. I want the in and out of air that means that I am moving forward, moving away from this awful stuck moment. But the air just won’t come. I try and I try. Nothing. I feel my face growing red, I feel a kind of gasp welling up inside my chest. But nothing. The organist isn’t playing her recession anymore, but something rapid and light. Something Baroque. But the speed of her fingers and feet cannot get my breathing working. The music moves quickly and my panic speeds up to meet it.
“I’d like to say a quick word,” comes a voice beside me. “If I may?”
Here is the face of an old woman leaning down toward me—through my panicked gasping, I mark out a pointy chin, tightly coiffed steel-gray hair, small moles along the cheek.
She sits down beside me. Her hair is so gray it is more like lilac. I am getting lightheaded now, praying I’ll manage an intake of breath.
I stare at her.
“Here, take this,” she says, pul
ling a handkerchief from her purse.
I try to speak. Only squeaks come out of my throat.
Then her face gathers itself, her eyebrows move against one another and starts thumping my back with a small bony hand. She just hits and hits and it hurts, I feel a burst of pain thread across my shoulders but she keeps hitting me and all at once my 6 year-old self is flying backward into the air, back to the swing and I am moving forward again, cradled in the sound of the organ music floating through the quiet church.
“Thank you,” I say, embarrassed now. My eyes darting down and up to this woman’s face.
She retrieves her handkerchief and folds it neatly in her lap. “You’ll be alright in a moment.” She swivels her head, takes in the church. “A bit bright, isn’t it? Aren’t churches supposed to be a little darker?”
I nod my agreement. I have thought this since stepping inside this morning.
“But nothing like that could keep me away. He was my captain, you see.”
What an odd thing to say and I tell her so.
“Oh, yes. I live on Bremerton. And your dad even knew my grandchildren, you see. They ride with me sometimes. I take care of them a lot.” She huffs, and traces a fingernail with the pad of her thumb. Her hands are arthritic and knobby. I want to reach over and smooth out one of her bent knuckles.
“He knew your grandchildren?” Ferries are not like buses where everyone greets the driver and other commuters. Ferries keep their captains hidden away in the wheelhouse. Barred from public access by thick chains and locked doors.
The woman continues, “Your dad was very kind. He let me ride up top nearly every time.”
I stare at this woman. I always ride with the crew. Walking on with my dad a few minutes before the passengers load, finding a comfortable seat for myself in the row of bank seats behind the captain’s control deck. I try to quell the sting, the childish jealousy, at the thought of someone else getting preferential treatment besides myself.
“Yes,” the woman giggles, her bright eyes mischievous.
I say nothing. A vague memory wiggles at the back of my brain. My dad laughing and telling me during one of our weekly phone calls of an older lady who insisted she ride with the crew to make sure they weren’t sleeping or drinking on the job. My dad thought she was hilarious.
“He was always gracious,” this woman is saying. “He never argued with me. Not like some of the other captains. I wasn’t trying to be trouble.”
I say nothing. I see him smile at her, hold out his big hand to shake hers and lead her up to the wheelhouse, grinning and knowing she will entertain him on the ride across the Sound. I want to be held by that hand, too. I want to walk up those stairs behind his familiar shape and size.
“I must tell you how happy I am to finally meet you,” she says. “Your dad was very proud of you. You’re all he ever talked about. I feel like I know all about you. I’ve even heard some of your vet stories—you must be such a devoted veterinarian.” I watch the woman’s watery eyes dance across the altar, the pulpit, the wooden cross hanging in the apse of the nave. Her head nods a tiny bit each time her eyes alight on a new object.
And then her name lands in my mouth. “You’re Mrs. Baumann.”
“I knew he couldn’t forget about me,” she says, obviously pleased. Then her face smoothes out. “I am so sorry about this accident. What a useless tragedy.” She shakes her head and I grip that box of ashes.
“Yes,” I whisper, feeling the ferocious edge of this tiny soft-sounding word.
“But you were always what we talked about,” she says again.
The organist has finished that Baroque piece now and is launching into a prelude. She must be practicing, I realize, for another service or for next Sunday, and I am grateful for the reminder. Today will turn into tomorrow. And tomorrow into yet another day.
Mrs. Baumann scoots forward in the pew, leaning her body away from me. “I’ll leave you, this is a quiet lovely place for you right now. But can you point me toward your mother? I couldn’t quite make her out. I’d like to speak with her, too. Your dad told me so much about her. Was she that lovely woman with the flowers?”
“No,” I say, surprised at how quickly I can push this word from my lips. What a futile pact I made with my mother before the service. Of course she was here all along. All of my life her absence has taken up more space than her presence. “No,” I repeat. “Maggie’s not here.”
“Oh! She’s not?” Mrs. Baumann fumbles with the cuffs of her dark jacket. “She’s not here. Well, I suppose she didn’t have time to come up from Oregon?”
I swallow her question, pull it with the movement of my tongue into a place that is deep inside of me.
Mrs. Baumann smiles lightly. “John told me all about the commune. He really was an open-minded man, I think. Veterinarian daughters and hippie wives. I shouldn’t say that, though, you’ll think I’m a sexist. But at my age, well, anyway.” She pats her own hand with the other. She cocks her head at me. “It’s such a hard day, isn’t it? I lost my Andrew four years and three months ago. Even at my age it surprised me. Life is like that.”
The church is perfectly quiet now. Silent. A commune?
“He never said so, you know, but I could just tell he wasn’t happy at their separation. He wasn’t a man to complain, though, was he?”
I place my forehead against the pew back in front of me. I feel the wood press against the flat plane of my skull. The address book with the ferry names. The Champoeg. There is no ferry named The Champoeg. I’ve had the names of the ferries memorized since I was a little girl, a fun game to please my dad when we had company. I think again about everything I found at the cabin. All those homemade items. The carved figurines, the hand-knitted scarf. And Erica Reza talked about an experiment.
The woman brings her hands together and worries the tips of her fingers. “I’ve upset you, haven’t I? I just assumed she was your mother. John never said he’d been married twice. I didn’t think she could be a first wife. Oh, these things are so complicated these days. I’m so sorry. And you’ve just called her Maggie.”
I sit back up. I just stare at her.
“I’m so sorry. I should have been more careful. And of all days to put my foot in it.”
“No,” I say, stopping her protests with a hand on her hand. And then I do it, I admit that Maggie is my mother.
It is an extraordinary feeling to acknowledge a relationship you would rather deny. Hearing Mrs. Baumann’s indulgent understanding of what she must feel was my mother’s alternative lifestyle brings me back to my teenage self. The lies and omissions I handed my friends and teachers whenever the dangerous subject of my mother came up. The daydreams I could not help but entertain about what it would be like to come home, just once, to a healthy woman who might ask me about my day, sit down in front of the TV with me, take me for a walk along the beach, or pass me a book she had just finished reading.
“Why didn’t he tell me?” I ask Mrs. Baumann, still gripping her papery hand.
Her eyes twitch. “Tell you what, dear?”
“Why didn’t he ever say?”
Mrs. Baumann sits up and swivels her head toward the back of the church. When she turns back to face me, she pulls her hand away and says, “This is always the hardest day. Let’s get you downstairs.”
26
SO WHAT IF IT’S ALL AS SIMPLE AS I’ve believed all along. She left, she became another person. And so maybe she lives in a log cabin with a group of pot smokers. Maybe she’s now changed her name to Wisteria and wears her hair in two fiery red braids that fall all the way down her back and swing when she walks, which is barefoot, through the forest, singing to the birds, attending ceremonies with other teepee-dwellers during the full moon. Look at her—she’s so down-to-earth, so in tune with the movement of the clouds and the timing of the weather, the cycles of the harvests, the animals (no, not the animals, those are mine), the turning of the seasons, the growth of the food and the forests.
Maybe
she takes a vow of silence each year for months at a time, saying goodnight to her friends at midnight on the 21st of December and keeping absolutely quiet until the 21st of June, when she’ll walk out to a river and sing a song of forgiveness to the earth, when her voice will sound oily and harsh until she’s managed a few verses and then, when they hear her, her friends will join in and that day at the commune will be noisy and filled with stories. Does she still know how to tell stories? Has she told them her own?
Maybe she has lived in this cabin for several years, maybe she makes her own clothes out of bartered or recycled cloth and wool that she spins with the other men and women, knitting it in the mornings before an open fire in this communal camp. Do they read books together? Do they pray? Do these community members take hallucinogenic mushrooms once every two months on a day they have designated Mind Day. And when they trip all together in their clearing near their camp, what do her trips contain? Maybe she’s sees my dad and remembers what it was like to stand in the boat with him, her hand on his forearm, while the boat chuffed and skimmed the waves. Maybe her heart still races, her feet spread wide to keep her balance. And maybe, just maybe, in her drug-addled trips she remembers—just for a second, just long enough for the spark to fly from brain to nerve to belly—a little girl who looked just like her, whose hand held hers back, who always listened when she said, “Look!” and who followed. Who always, stupidly, followed.
“Look,” she says to her friends.
They look, their eyes glassy but trying.
No one can see where she’s pointing. No one can see the face that’s floated across the inside of her mind. And it doesn’t matter because it’s all gone so quickly. The reminder. The memory. A good thing, too, because there are chores to be done, food to be gathered and cooked, plants to praise, spices to grind. What is the ghost of a face when there is so much real goddamn work to be done?
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