Secrets Haunt the Lobsters' Sea

by Charlene D'Avanzo

  My computer was on the kitchen table, and I weighed the call of my comfy bed against curiosity about the storm. As usual, curiosity won. I flipped the laptop open and scanned the NOAA weather site. The storm was a hurricane remnant that models predicted would have swung eastward out to sea from Carolina’s Outer Banks. Instead, it had barreled up the coast, flown across Cape Cod, and smashed into Maine’s shores, and catching everyone off-guard.

  NOAA quoted a back-peddling weatherman who blamed models based on historic data. I talked to the computer. “While you meteorologists denied climate change, climate scientists were developing their own models that anticipated stronger, more frequent, unpredictable storms. Go talk to them.”

  The weather was bad news for mariners, be they commercial fishermen or vacationers on sailboats and other craft. I pictured fishing boats in Macomek harbor thrashing wildly, straining on their moorings, and hoped my new friends were okay.

  Overhead, the light flickered. Waiting, I mentally ran through the location of flashlights and candles. Luckily, the power gods did not plunge Spruce Harbor into darkness. Grateful to be home, dry—and with electricity—I took a hot shower and slid under the covers with a sigh. Rain pelted the bedroom windows, but I didn’t hear it for long.

  By seven o’clock Sunday morning, I was sitting at my pub table overlooking the deck, mug of coffee in hand. Given the lack of anything healthy in my fridge, including milk, it was a good thing I could drink it black. I peered out at a grey, wet world. Trees, laden with water, slouched like old men. A barrel positioned beneath the gutter to collect rainwater overflowed onto the sodden grass. And it’d be raincoats and rubber boats for at least a few more days because, as NOAA informed me, “an unusual rain event stalled over the coast of Maine would likely deliver significant precipitation.”

  I’m a marine biologist, so water is one thing I’m prepared for. Outside, clad in red rain pants, green wellies, and a yellow slicker, I splashed about like a little kid.

  MOI’s parking lot was empty, not surprising given the time and day. I parked my car, trudged up the hill to the Neap Tide restaurant, and stepped into the usual early morning cacophony—lobstermen at the counter quarreling with one another, crew members throwing barbs across wooden tables, the racket of dirty dishes on their way to the kitchen. Passing the row of lobstermen on stools, I realized they were talking about our harbor and the storm.

  “Jeezum crow, it was bad out theah.”

  “You’re tellin’ me. Swear ta god, I thought it was gonna be bumper boats in the habah. Lobstah boats strainin’ on moorings like them chunks o’ granite on the bottom was gonna come right up.”

  I winged a prayer for the Macomek families and took my usual little table in the back corner. Sally, Neap Tide’s owner, slid a mug of black coffee toward me and wiped her forehead with her sleeve.

  I took a sip. As usual, it was hot, crisp, and chocolaty, “Sally, you make the best coffee. Hey, you live on Spruce Harbor River. What’s it like with this storm?”

  She rolled her eyes. “’Twas worse with Hurricane Floyd. Gawd, that was awful. But she’s runnin’ pretty good this mornin’. Bet our basement’s gonna be flooded. Okay, hon. What’s it gonna be?”

  My stomach had growled as I walked up the hill so I ordered the whole shebang—eggs, toast, hash browns, fishcakes.

  Sally patted her substantial chest and winked. “Be careful, Mara. Bettah put on them runnin’ shoes or you’ll look like me.”

  After breakfast I turned down River Road to check out the torrent. Descending, I walked faster and faster. Some people chase tornadoes, others rainbows. Swirling, rolling, pounding, dangerous, deadly—it’s the awesome power of water that makes my heart beat faster.

  I reached the bridge and looked down over the rail. The reach was normally littered with Volkswagen-size boulders, but no rocks were visible in the turbid torrent below. Trees sailed by like they were made of Styrofoam.

  “Goddamn.”

  The voice I knew so very well had come from behind. As I spun around, my hand flew to my heart. “Ted. I, ah, didn’t hear you walk up.”

  He stepped onto the sidewalk next to the railing and hollered, “With this racket, I can see why. Lord, it’s amazing! Where’d all this water come from?”

  “Eventually, all things merge into one,” I said.

  Ted finished the sentence. “And a river runs through it.”

  We stood there side by side as the swirling, churning river raced down to the sea. I glanced at my former lover—the chiseled profile softened by dimples, soft lips, and wavy, straw-colored hair buffeted by the wind. My finger twitched as I longed to push a lock up off his eye.

  What do you say to the lover you backed away from but desperately wish you hadn’t? I went for safe—and lame.

  “Um, well, guess I’ll head up to the lab.”

  He turned and studied my face so long I could feel my cheeks reddening. Finally he said, “Think I’ll hang out here for a while.”

  I trudged up the hill, my emotions as chaotic as the river behind me. I could have said something, anything, that signaled my feelings for Ted. Even, “Ted, it’s great to see you” would have been better than nothing. Why didn’t I?

  “You’re afraid, that’s why,” I whispered. “You can buck five-foot waves in a long, skinny boat, but you can’t tell Ted you made a big mistake, love him desperately, and want to be with him.”

  I yanked open MOI’s back door and was halfway up the granite stairs to my floor when I stopped and slowly turned around. Something was different, not right. Closing my eyes, I let my other senses take over. The air was damp brine but more biting than usual. Eyes still closed, I strained to listen. The sound of seawater flowing through pipes briefly echoes up the stairs when someone opens the double doors to the basement, but what I was hearing was different—constant and much, much louder.

  I ran down the stairs and stopped short of the basement’s bottom step because it was underwater. Then I stepped down into water halfway up my calves and peered through the double door’s window.

  Dull sunlight spilled through rows of casement windows onto an aquatic maelstrom. White plastic pipes along the walls—the pipes that carried seawater in and out of aquaria and tanks—were submerged. Walkways between tables had become swirling streams. And scariest of all, rows of oversized aquaria normally four feet off the concrete floor on the wooden tables were inches from being submerged by the flood churning around them.

  I ran a finger through the water and touched it to my lips. The taste was brackish, not full-strength seawater like it should have been.

  Those aquaria held marine animals—fish, crabs, starfish, squid, mussels and clams—all of which would die in brackish water. And in one of the aquaria was Homer. I didn’t know how long a lobster lasted in half-strength seawater but guessed it was minutes.

  I sloshed through the water back to the stairs, yanked the cell phone from my back pocket, and called MOI’s emergency number. The phone rang once, twice, three times, four.

  “Come on. Come on.”

  Pause. “If this is an emergency, dial nine-one-one.…”

  I jabbed my finger to end the call. “Of course, it’s an emergency!”

  Spruce Harbor dispatch answered the 911 right away. “This is Dr. Mara Tusconi at MOI. The basement’s completely flooded and nobody’s answering the institution’s emergency number.”

  I didn’t recognize her voice. “Are you in any danger?”

  “No. No, I’m fine.”

  “Where are you, Dr. Tusconi?”

  “In the back stairwell near the basement.”

  “Okay. Stay right there. Emergency personnel will arrive very soon.”

  I lowered myself onto a dry step and stared at the double doors. Homer was in that flooded basement. If the swirling water poured into his home, my buddy would be swept out into an underwater hurricane. I pictured him tumbling into aquaria, nets, and other paraphernalia typically left lying about.

  “
That’s not gonna happen,” I said.

  Dropping the phone on the step, I got to my feet, splashed over to the double doors, and gave one a shove. The sudden deluge nearly threw me back against the stairs, but I managed to slide through the half-foot opening and let the door slam behind me. The cavernous room I knew so well was utterly unrecognizable. As a kid, I’d often crunched across the salt-encrusted floor and pressed my nose against aquaria to watch barnacles wave their lacy food collectors and baby lobsters zip about with their claws outstretched like tiny supermen.

  Without a thought, torrents of storm water had swept aside manmade order along with a child’s precious memories.

  Stunned by the assault of the thundering inflow, I held onto the closest table in numbing cold water halfway up my thigh and forced myself to focus. Okay, Homer’s aquarium was about thirty feet in front of me. That wasn’t far, but I’d have to buck the current to get there. After I scooped him out of the tank, I’d need something to put him in for the trip back. A red bucket bobbed into an aquarium on next table over. Still holding on, I shuffle-waded over and floated it within reach on the way back.

  Jeans offer no protection against the cold, and my stinging calves and thighs were already on their way to uncontrollable numbness. As a sea kayaker, I knew how astonishingly fast hypothermia led to mental confusion. Quickstepping, the edge of the table at my belly and bucket in the crux of my arm, I pushed through the current.

  By the time I reached Homer minutes later, my legs were dead stumps. He lay in the bottom of his tank as usual but certainly knew something was amiss. Antennae raised and moving back and forth, he elevated his carapace off the bottom with his walking legs and shifted to and fro.

  “Come on, baby. I’m getting you out of here.”

  I dipped the bucket into the tank to partly fill it with seawater. Then, as gently as I could manage, I reached in and lowered the lobster into the bucket. He settled at the bottom and waved his eyestalks at me. “Buddy, I’ll take good care if it kills me.”

  My arms started to shake so violently I could barely hold onto the table. If I didn’t get the hell out of the water within a couple of minutes, I could slide into unconsciousness as Homer slid into deadly brackish water. Taking a couple of deep breaths to push down panic, I considered my options again. Rushing water in the direction I was going meant a faster return trip, but the current was also a hazard. I’d have to hold onto the table with uncontrollable digits and keep Homer’s bucket from drifting away. Swirling water made both bad options.

  I’d tried to walk a few feet toward the exit when I knew that wasn’t going to work. My senseless limbs wouldn’t obey commands from my brain.

  I glanced down at the lobster. He peered up at me. “Guess I’m going for a full body experience.”

  In one quick movement, I slid onto my back, stuck my legs out toward the doors, and grasped Homer’s upright bucket with my thighs.

  “Never had a lobster this near my privates before,” I announced.

  Homer and I rocketed toward the exit. We were nearly there when one of the double doors opened a bit. Ted poked his head through, stepped in, and stopped my accelerating arrival with his outstretched hands.

  13

  I didn’t remember telling the emergency folks I was only mildly hypothermic, but the nurse checking my blood pressure assured me I did.

  “Yes, ma’am. You came in like a wet dog, all wrapped in blankets tellin’ us that. We got you out of those soggy clothes and into bed with warm compresses on your middle. You warmed up pretty good.”

  Blinking, I turned my head on the pillow. I was lying in a hospital bed surrounded by a sliding white curtain.

  “Where am I?”

  “An urgent care facility just north of Spruce Harbor.”

  “The place on Route One?”

  “That’s it.”

  That I’d often driven by my present location was reassuring. Voices drifted through the curtains. “Sounds like there’s other people here.”

  “Yes, ma’am. This storm’s made all sorts of trouble for folks an’ you’re not the only one who got hypothermic.”

  “By the way, what was my temperature when I came in?”

  She patted my leg. “I know you’re an MOI scientist, deah. Ninety-five degrees. On the cusp of moderate hypothermia.” She pulled off the cuff. “Blood pressure’s very good. You should be able to go home soon. Your godfather Angelo is waiting to see you. Ready for him?”

  My smile answered her question.

  Angelo pulled back the curtain a bit and stepped in. “How’re you feeling?”

  “Good. They wanted to keep me here for a while but will release me in a little while. What time is it?”

  “Mid-morning, about ten.”

  “Fill me in on what happened. I’m still a little fuzzy.”

  Somber, he sat on the edge of the bed.

  I slid my hand toward him. He covered it with his own, warm and roughened by decades working on and around the sea.

  “I’m sorry to make you worry again,” I said.

  He gave my hand a little squeeze and released it. “You did a very good thing. With nobody in the building on a Sunday morning, who knows what could’ve happened if the water kept coming in.”

  “I assume it was the storm, but what did happen?”

  “MOI guys are still working that out. It looks like the main seawater outflow pipe got clogged at the same time storm drains outside overflowed into the basement. But the water’s got to go way down before they know. And before you ask, the lobster is fine. He’s in that big display aquarium on the first floor.”

  “Thanks for the update and, um, for not telling me that saving him was a harebrained idea.”

  He stood. “Of course it was harebrained. But you’ve done worse. I’m just happy to see you’re doing so well. They’ll tell me when can leave.”

  More tired than I wanted to admit, I said, “If you can give me a ride to my car, I’ll head home.”

  I closed my eyes to rest when the voice, his voice, drifted through my thoughts. Was I dreaming?

  “Mara?” Ted said. “Okay if I come in?”

  My mouth was so dry it was hard to talk. “Sure,” I croaked.

  He pushed the curtain aside and stepped in. I patted the bed.

  Ted chose the spot Angelo had just left. “You look pretty good. Feel okay?”

  I reached over for the glass beside the bed and sucked up some water though a straw. “That’s better. Yeah, I’m fine and can leave in a little while.” My hand itched to slide over his, but I didn’t move. “Hey, thanks for the help.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “I didn’t do much of anything, just opened the door a crack and got real surprised by an accelerating oceanographer with a bucket.”

  Ted’s positive attitude was a relief. After my kidnapping on Haida Gwaii, he’d complained that “trouble followed me around.” Since I didn’t go out of my way to find trouble—not usually, anyway—I considered the observation unfair. Was it my fault I happened to stumble across dead people a time or two? The difference of opinion hadn’t helped our relationship any.

  “Well,” I said, “the emergency crew arrived right after that, things got confusing, and I barely said ‘boo’ to you.”

  He stood. “You were kind of out it then. Just wanted to check that you’re okay.” He turned toward the curtain.

  “Ted?”

  He looked back. “Yeah?”

  “It’s really nice to see you.”

  The grin was shy. “Me too you.”

  I got home late in the day, stashed groceries in the fridge, and headed outside for a stroll along the beach. Crises have a way of helping you realize what’s really important. Writing grant proposals, reviewing research papers, and everything else on my to-do list could wait. I felt good, Homer was safe, MOI’s basement was draining, and the afternoon sun warmed my face. Everything I witnessed made me smile—bright red clusters of beach rosehips shining against the dune’s green
foliage, beach hoppers that defined pandemonium when I lifted the dried seaweed they hid under, terns that rocketed straight down into the sea and came up with a tiny fish.

  Even thinking about Ted didn’t hurt. Our interactions had been friendly if brief. Maybe things…I shook my head. That was too much to think about now.

  After a dinner of grilled salmon and salad, I watched a little TV, read my latest mystery until I was restless, and picked up an old newspaper lying on the coffee table. The date, September thirteenth, tugged at my brain. Of course, I thought, Lester said Buddy died on the thirteenth, an unlucky number, especially for fishermen. Someone on Macomek had mentioned another terrible event that took place on the thirteenth of some month. I closed my eyes for a moment and Abby’s voice drifted into memory. “Lester doesn’t go out the thirteenth of August, September, October, any month. That’s when he got caught in that awful storm and Cody, his sternman, died.”

  Before the basement flood interrupted my day, I’d planned to go online to read an account of that event. I flipped open the computer and searched with “Lester Crawford,” “Macomek,” and “storm” as keywords. I didn’t learn anything new, but the account led me to an obituary.

  Cody Booth September 13, 1975–September 13, 1995

  The family of Cody Booth sadly announce Cody’s untimely death, the result of a boating accident off Macomek island. Cody was born October 13, 1975 to Alice and Harold Booth and graduated from Rockland High School in 1993. Funeral services.…