by Liz Johnson
Oliver’s teeth clicked together a few times before he responded. “Whitakers have been fishing these waters for more than fifty years, and I think these old guys aren’t going to send out a welcome wagon if there’s change.”
Oliver pressed his hand to his stomach, wondering if he should have been the one to put on a motion sickness patch the night before. His insides were in knots, but as he braced his feet against the gentle rocking of the boat, he knew it was unrelated. The water had never made him ill. It had only ever held hope for the future.
A car door slammed, breaking the stillness of predawn, silencing the call of the morning birds. Even the crickets quieted down for a long moment.
It was too dark to see all the way to the parking lot. Too dark to see much beyond his outstretched hand. This was the whispering hour, just before the sun made its first appearance. Just him and his secrets, him and his memories. And God knew he didn’t want to whisper about them.
But he wasn’t alone any longer. Meg had arrived. He was certain it was her even before her rhythmic stride started down the dock.
He flipped on the boat’s light. It pushed away the darkness across the entire deck, and he could see her long arms swinging as she moved closer. When she arrived, her hair shimmered gold in the light. Though pulled back into a messy ponytail, it looked classic, beautiful. He wondered if it was as soft as it had been two days before.
Which only served to remind him of why he’d touched it in the first place.
“Morning, sun—” He stopped himself before he could call her by a nickname she probably wouldn’t appreciate.
Be her friend.
Holding out his hand to help her on board, he waited for her to take it. She paused on the metal ladder, her breaths audibly quick and shallow.
“Did you put a patch on last night?”
She nodded stiff and short.
“You worried about getting sick today?”
He blocked enough of the light that her face was in the shadow, and he couldn’t see her eyes. She didn’t have a reason to trust him yet, but he was going to do everything he could to give her one.
“Your dad used to tell me that being on a boat is no different than being rocked in a cradle. Spend enough time on it and it’ll put you right to sleep.”
Meg cocked her head. “You want me to sleep on the boat.”
“No. I want you to imagine it’s as safe as a cradle.”
“Right.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she took a half step back. “And why are you helping me exactly?”
He couldn’t give her an entirely honest response. Mostly truth would have to do.
“Your dad wants us to work together. We may be competing for the business, but the winner won’t be the person who runs the other off.”
Even beneath an oversized black sweater, her shoulders twitched and stiffened. He could feel the tension rolling off of her, the battle between knowing what she should do and what she wanted to do.
That left him only one option. “I’m sorry I’m right about this.”
She laughed. It started out as a small chuckle but grew into a beautiful chorus of high notes, the air around them dancing with humor.
It was the thing he’d wondered about since they were seventeen. What would it take to make her laugh? Apparently a little well-placed sarcasm on an early morning was all it took. But man, he felt like he’d just climbed a mountain or caught a season’s haul in one day. His heart felt swollen, taking up too much of his chest.
“Aren’t you the humble one?” she asked when her giggles finally slowed.
“Well, someone has to be, and I figured it might as well be me.” He held out his hand again. “Come on. The sun’s about to come up, and I want to show you my favorite spot.”
“Your favorite spot? How can you have a favorite spot on the ocean?”
It was his turn to chuckle. “Oh, you’ll see.”
Finally she took his hand, steadying herself as she stepped aboard. The boat rocked gently, and she stiffened, locking her knees.
“Try keeping your knees bent, like you’re ice skating. Try to move with the boat.”
She nodded and shifted her legs, overdoing the rocking motion, making the Pinch rock even more.
“Maybe not quite that much.” He stepped toward the helm and started the engine. The boat hummed to life, singing its own song, mingling with the birds and the bugs and the squeaking fenders between the other boats and the dock.
Meg ran a hand down her face and let out a deep sigh. “I know it’s coming, so I can’t relax.”
“But by this point on Saturday, you were basically the same color as that witch in The Wizard of Oz.”
“I don’t think that’s a compliment.”
“Wasn’t meant to be,” he said, cracking a smile. “But here’s one. You look like yourself this morning. Like you did yesterday.”
His gaze swooped from the top of her head to her long, pale legs. She wasn’t as feminine-looking as she’d been at church, her dress flirting about her knees and exposing her tanned arms, her hair swept up and showing off all of her neck—all of her beautiful neck. This morning she looked strong, determined, feet shoulder-width apart and hands fisted beside her cutoff jean shorts. The PEI Fisherman’s Association sweater had to have been her dad’s, dwarfing her frame but declaring that she belonged on the water just as much as he did.
He could show her the same. He hoped.
“You ready?”
She gave a small grunt and hung on to the metal railing as he steered them away from the dock and toward open water. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure she wasn’t hanging over the edge before giving the boat more power and picking up speed.
It wasn’t like lobster boats were built for recreation. No one was going to ski behind one. But the morning wind off the water combined with their pace made his skin tingle and his eyes water in the best possible way. The air smelled cleaner, clearer, the farther they got from shore. It smelled like possibilities.
As soon as they made it out to the open water, waves—still gentle but larger than in the bay—pitched the boat. He steered them west toward the Confederation Bridge, the rising sun skimming the horizon behind them.
“You okay back there?” he called over his shoulder, his voice rising above the engine’s hum.
When Meg didn’t respond, he risked a glance over his shoulder. She was more silhouette than figure against the gold, but the wind whipped her hair back and forth, her head tilted slightly to the right.
“Meg?”
“You’re right. That’s beautiful. I see why it’s your favorite spot.”
“Oh no.” He shook his head as he turned around. “This isn’t my favorite spot.”
She didn’t say anything else as she stared at the rising sun. It was moving fast this morning, and he pushed the boat to stay in the shadows, headed toward a faint halo of light spanning the Northumberland Strait.
More by instinct than by reading his instruments, he knew when to cut the motor and let them drift until they were almost stopped. The tides pushed the bow north, tugging it toward the still visible but distant shore.
“This is it?” she asked, staring into the dimness ahead. “The bridge?” She sounded less than impressed.
“Give it a minute.” He hunched over the railing, leaning his arms against the cool metal.
Meg paused a moment and then joined him, waiting and watching. Where the shore had nature’s morning song, the only sounds out here were swishing water and their light breathing.
And then suddenly it began. He’d have known the moment even if his eyes had been closed. Meg gasped, then grabbed his arm as the sunlight touched the point where the water met the piers of the Confederation Bridge.
In silence they watched the sun illuminate the bridge, taking it from the darkness into light, from dark brown to glowing gold against the morning sky. From the island’s shore to as far as they could see, it stretched and reached.
The
only thing that could add to the moment was the soundtrack to Star Wars and a voiceover from the guy who did movie trailers. Since he had neither of those things, Oliver simply watched. When the sun had fully risen, the bridge would be nothing more than thirteen kilometers of scientific wonder, the only physical connection between PEI and the mainland.
But in this magic moment, the bridge glowed.
“How did you find this?”
“Well, the bridge is a pretty big deal around these parts.”
Meg slapped his arm, not unlike one of Violet’s favorite moves. “You know what I mean. How did you find this spot, this moment?”
“Your dad let me take the boat out after I got my license, and . . . this was always my favorite time to be on the water. It’s so quiet.” He shrugged and frowned. “I just stumbled upon it. Kept coming back.”
“And why is it your favorite?”
He bit back another snide comment. Friends were real with each other. He had to be honest with her. And with himself.
“I guess maybe . . . You know how you sometimes have a problem, and you don’t think you’ll ever be able to figure it out?”
She nodded.
“This bridge must have taken thousands of people to build it. But if God gave some guy an idea for how to span thirteen kilometers of open water, then I figure he can probably show me a way through whatever I’m facing. The bridge reminds me that even if I don’t have a plan, God can figure it out.”
He didn’t look directly at her for a long minute, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw her watching the bridge turn back to cement. The light from her face began to dim until finally she said, “Jean M. Muller.” She pronounced it like the French name was supposed to mean something to him.
“Who’s that?”
“Jean Muller. He’s the engineer who built the Confederation Bridge.”
Oliver snorted. “And you know that why?”
“Doesn’t every high school girl have a crush on the brilliant mind that made a bridge that spans so much water and breaks up icebergs in the strait?”
He couldn’t hold back a real laugh this time. “I don’t know. I’ve never been a high school girl—but I tend to think they don’t.”
Meg’s shoulders rose and fell on an exaggerated sigh. “Fine. But I did. I wrote something like half a dozen papers on him and the bridge in school. One year I even did a science fair project on how the bridge breaks up ice.”
She probably hadn’t even realized she’d said the words science fair, but they made him squirm. Partly because he wanted to hear more about her project but couldn’t ask. And mostly because all he could see in his mind’s eye was the scattered shards of metal and plastic across the science room floor. The remains of a robot.
“You see a problem solved,” she said. “I see all the hours of math and physics that went into making that solution.”
“I suppose so. But it’s kind of the same thing, right? I mean, I may not know how, but I know it got solved. You know how—so doesn’t that give you a greater appreciation for the solution?”
“There are a lot of things that need solutions.” She said the words under her breath, but they required no interpretation.
“Ready to go back?”
She nodded as he flipped the motor on and steered them in the direction of their dock.
“You have to admit that was pretty cool,” he said after a long silence.
“That almost made getting up at four in the morning worth it. Almost.”
Oliver grinned to himself. “Well, get used to it. Now that you can stomach the water, you’ll be up early every day.”
She pressed a flat hand across her stomach, and her eyes grew wide.
“What happened? Forget to get seasick?”
She licked her lips, her eyebrows bunching together. “I think maybe I did. But I feel good.”
“Well, now that I know we won’t have to hold back your hair while you get sick . . .” He let his thought trail off as he really looked at her in her bright orange shoes and casual clothes. “Meg, do you have anything to wear on the boat?”
She looked down at herself, swiping her hand over her sweatshirt. “What’s wrong with what I’ve got on?”
“Everything.”
eight
Meg squeezed her mom’s hand but didn’t get any response. “Mom,” she whispered. “Did you hear that?”
Her mom turned in her direction but didn’t make eye contact. And she hadn’t said a word all day. Meg met her dad’s gaze over her mom’s bowed head, and he offered only a grimace. Mom hadn’t heard anything that the doctor with fancy degrees wallpapering his office had said. Or at least she hadn’t understood any of it.
Meg wasn’t sure how much she herself had understood. But the bottom line was clear. The stiffness in her mom’s legs was getting worse, her balance dissolving. And her best chance for a diagnosis—and maybe a cure—was a specialist in Toronto.
“But the last doctor we saw said we should try to keep things normal, not take her away from the places she knows or do anything out of the ordinary,” Meg said. “She’s easily upset.”
From where he sat on the far side of a large wooden desk, Dr. Rubinski’s mouth drew into a tight line, and he folded his hands in front of him. His white lab coat pulled against his shoulders as he leaned forward. “That’s the best advice you could get at the time. But she needs a full scan and workup. We don’t have the resources to do that here, and my colleague in Toronto is one of the best neurologists in the country.”
Meg nodded, but her heart screamed that there had to be another way, a better way for them to fix her mom, to turn her back into the woman she’d been. Meg squeezed her fingers again, but there was still no reaction.
Sometimes her mom just wasn’t there. And how scary it would be to become alert in a strange place.
As Meg and her dad stood to leave, the doctor’s deep voice interrupted, and they dropped back into their chairs. “I want to help you manage your expectations.”
The words were anything but hopeful, and they stole her breath.
He closed his eyes before lifting them again. “Even with a diagnosis . . .” He shook his head as though he’d given up. The white flag of surrender.
What was the point of going to Toronto then? She wanted to demand that he give them something more, something helpful, but her mom was already slumped in her chair.
“We should get her home,” Meg said.
The doctor’s frown remained, the truth clear. “I’ll have my office manager call and set up an appointment for you. We’ll try to get her seen soon, so you may have to travel on short notice.”
“That’ll be fine,” Meg’s dad said. He turned to his wife and helped her up, tucking her under his arm and ushering her from the bright natural light of the office into the flickering fluorescents of the medical complex hallway. The white walls were bare, the brown carpet fresh. But all Meg could focus on was the glass door exit. Everything else disappeared as she trudged beside her mom, afraid to reach for her, terrified her mom wouldn’t respond—or worse, wouldn’t know who she was.
The doctors had ruled out everything they could. But without a diagnosis, no one knew what symptom might appear next, which part of her body might be the next to shut down.
Meg gasped for breath, but the air didn’t fill her lungs. She tried again, but she was broken. She finally stumbled outdoors, into the sun and trees and open spaces. They surrounded her, and if she still couldn’t get a deep breath, at least she could fake it. For another minute.
She held open the passenger door of her dad’s truck as he lifted her mom into the seat. With a gentle pat on her leg, Meg tried again to reach her. To no avail.
She closed the door, swallowing a silent sob. Keep it down. Hold it in.
Her dad didn’t need to see her lose it. He couldn’t handle anything else. She wouldn’t put him through anything else.
Wrapping her arms about his waist, she whispered, “The doctor in To
ronto will help.”
“I know. Just . . . take care of the business while I’m gone.”
“Of course I will. You take care of Mom. All right?”
Her dad’s face broke for just a moment. One second he was the strong man she’d known her whole life. The next his face contorted in a pain without words.
“Oh, Dad. It’s . . .” She held him tighter, wishing she could finish that sentence. But she didn’t know if it was going to be okay. And she wouldn’t make a promise she couldn’t keep. “We’ll get through this.”
When she looked up, big tears dripped down his face, falling off his chin and onto his shirt. Her eyes burned, and she blinked furiously to keep her own tears in line.
Be strong. Be strong. Be strong.
She repeated the words again and again until her spine was just a little straighter, her muscles solid enough to carry every fear and heartache her dad couldn’t. That was her job. Carry the weight.
He sniffled and swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. “You’re a good girl, Megan. I thank God that you’re mine.”
Oh, rats. She couldn’t hold it together much longer.
“Love you too, Dad. You should get Mom home.”
With that, she raced to her car, flung her purse inside, and threw herself behind the wheel. The temperature difference inside the closed-up sedan made sweat trickle down her back as she rested her forehead against the steering wheel.
Be strong.
But no amount of repeating that phrase could make it so. A hiccupped sob escaped from deep in her chest, from the place where it hurt to breathe. Wrapping her arms around her waist, she curled over on herself and let the tears she’d been fighting slip to freedom. One splashed on her leg, another landed on the steering wheel.
This was the first time—the only time—she’d allowed herself to cry about this. And it had to be her last.
Suddenly her phone chimed, and she whipped her head up, looking for her dad’s truck. But it was gone—probably long gone. At least he hadn’t seen her break down.