“Hughie? It’s not just about —”
“Look. Far as they know, I’m solo out here, okay? What they don’t know won’t hurt ’em.”
***
Winter fell quickly and with it a glumness in Sonny that troubled me more than the business with the light. “Look for anger,” I’d heard some expert say on CBC; wasn’t depression repressed rage, a feeling of helplessness? But Sonny never seemed helpless, even in his foulest moods; blame them on his prepubescence.
There hadn’t been a word from his father, and not a cent. I had other worries, too, namely sending Sonny out in the boat; at least it was a short crossing. But we heard reports all the time of lobstermen getting lost and tankers disappearing. December seas were the worst, Hugh said. I wasn’t keen on entrusting anybody with my boy, watching Sonny’s smallish figure in the bow through binoculars, Wayne’s bulk in the stern. As they disappeared around the next island, I’d do my best to visualize Sonny strolling safely to the bus stop.
Hugh kept up his chores in the tower, polishing the lens, straining the mercury. He shrugged off my apprehension, wouldn’t listen when I brought it up. He quit keeping the tower locked. “Who’d trespass this time of year?” He had a point, except I worried about Sonny sneaking up there, getting into things. In the distance the city looked dead, a silent, dodgy grey. The harder winter fell, the more I thought of Charlie hovering not over the tropics, but over pack ice.
The wind rattled the branches one day I went to meet Sonny; I liked being there as the boat chopped into sight. He never waved though, wouldn’t have if his life had depended on it. Heading home he trudged behind me, his knapsack flapping.
“How was your day?”
“Fine. Terrible.” A shrug, a scowl. His second teeth were still too big for his mouth. When I asked what he’d done at school, he said, “Nothin’.”
A movement in the bushes caught my eye, a fox with something in its mouth.
“You must’ve done something.”
Sonny threw his pack down in the kitchen, the dog all over him. “Where’s Hugh?” he wanted to know. His scowl lifted momentarily. “I’ve been wondering. You know what I’d reeeally like?” I braced myself. “A guitar, Mom. Electric.”
The memory of him playing air instruments on the beach flashed back, warming me as Hugh shuffled in. Hanging his coat over Sonny’s, he shooed the pack out of his way.
“Hey!” He slapped Sonny’s arm, then kissed me. His eyes were bright, his fingers icy on my cheek. “What’s with the kid, Tessie? You could scrape his lip off the floor.” He poured them each some pop. “So, Alex, who’d you hang out with today?”
“Like, nobody.” When he emptied his glass, Sonny’s mouth looked like the Joker’s on Batman. “A kid got caught smoking,” he let slip, eyeing us. I noticed a mark on his neck.
Kicking off his boots, Hugh noticed it too. “What happened to you, bud?”
The bruise looked to have teeth marks. Sonny twisted away. “Nothing. It don’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter.” He looked about to cry. “Sonny? Who ...?”
“Those girls after you or what? Get used to it, Alex. Good looking guy like you.”
Sonny grabbed his pack and ran upstairs.
“Wait a sec,” I yelled after him. “What’re you —”
“Leave me alone,” he screamed back. “I got homework. What’s it look like?”
Hugh finished off the pop, straight from the bottle. “I could drink a frigging bucket of that.” He smacked his lips. “Look. I’m not telling you what to do, God knows. But don’t you think he can figure out his own shit?”
***
The money wasn’t in Hugh’s drawer the next time I put away laundry. But I came across the envelope, taking a Thermos of tea to the lantern. Figuring Hugh was there, up I went—quietly—to surprise him. No small feat on those stairs.
But all I found was an ashtray with roaches in it, and a half- empty bottle of Windex on the ledge. The navigation book was there, too, his place marked with the envelope.
There were pictures inside it, photographs. I didn’t recognize the people in them at first. The shock of what they were doing stole my breath. One showed Wayne—it looked like Wayne, though it was hard to distinguish his features. His head was thrown back, his eyes shut—in laughter or pain, you couldn’t tell. In the next shot he was naked, sitting on a bed with a blue spread—I’d recognize that chest and that murky tattoo anywhere—except it looked like he was wearing pantyhose. Well, not quite wearing them; they were pulled up to his thighs. One hand was closed around his penis. There was someone else in the picture, half of someone. You could just make out a blue sweater, a peasant blouse, and jeans; someone laughing, the top of the head cut off, the mouth open, roaring. Reenie, maybe? No. Her hair was a reddish flare against her shoulder, a clasp sliding from it. A curve of belly above the jeans. It looked like the girl from the other picture, the school picture upstairs. Stretched across the bedspread was a shadow—the photographer’s?
***
At dusk Hugh appeared with a bouquet, a mix of treasures gleaned from the beach. Twists of frozen kelp beaded with periwinkles, Irish moss the palest pink, the bunch tied with a ribbon of fishing twine. In the, middle of the bouquet was a rose; a white one limp and smelly from riding the waves. Its centre was tight as a bullet, its leaves black. A rose, though, still a rose, like the ones at my mother’s visitation.
“It’s been ages, hasn’t it,” he said, “since I brought you that yellow one, remember? Tie a yellow ribbon, Tessie.” He laughed, and I pulled the flower from the seaweed and smelled it.
“Where the heck…?”
“A wedding? People get married on the ferry. Cruise ships. They do it all the time—Love Boat and all.” He held a corsage of Irish moss to my sweater.
Or a funeral. People did that too, got buried at sea.
“What’s the matter, Tess?” His voice was the sound inside a shell. He took my hand, rose and all, and kissed it.
Stalking in to raid the fridge, Sonny eyed the bouquet. “What the frig is that?”
In bed Hugh gathered me to him, the way you gather flowers—or weeds—or a sheet off the line. He buried his face against me. His beard felt like thistles. Moving from his arms, I could think only of the photographs—the girl and that pervert Wayne.
“Hughie?”
“What is it?” His voice was thorny, his touch cold. He slid his hand between my legs. “Warm me up, Tess. It’s so damn freezing out.” He was trembling as his leg pushed mine apart. “I love you, Tessie. You know that, don’t you? I love you.” Lapping, the word slid ashore, swamping me even as I imagined a finger—his?—lingering on a camera’s shutter button.
21
DEAD RECKONING
The photos burned a hole in my imagination. Now I couldn’t let Sonny go alone with Wayne; couldn’t bear the thought of him in that boat. Though part of me—a shrinking, nattering part—tried to deny it. In an open whaler? What can happen in five minutes? But nothing eased my disgust. Reenie was still in the picture, which seemed odd. Hugh said she and Wayne were talking about kids of all things. A joke.
Almost worse was wondering why Hugh had the pictures, though fear kept me from asking. Sometimes it’s necessary to close your eyes, which is what I did when he touched me. Until the chill of his hand made me think mercury and that worry pushed the other, more immediate ones away.
“You’re going for groceries again?” Hugh was bemused the first few times I accompanied Sonny ashore. But after a while, he seemed almost peeved. Nervous.
Nothing erased those images in my head. Yet I couldn’t speak. It was like being small again, a tiny kid being wakened to hear that my mother was gone. Gone where? Back to the hop-si-tal? My little voice, no no no, in the depths of the closet, the coolness of a fur coat against my cheek. The crack of light under the door had finally coaxed me out. But
then, as now, I could only let myself see as far as it would allow.
One morning close to Christmas I said I was going over to see Reenie, to see how she was. Hugh complained suddenly of a cramp.
“You should call a doctor,” I said, alarmed.
“Do you have to see her today? That ricket…you don’t even like Reenie.”
“D’you want me to phone someone?”
“No,” he said, “I’ll look into it. I will.” Just like that, his pains seemed to vanish, and his mood lifted. “Go on. If you want to see her that bad. Dunno why anyone would, but...” He stroked my hair and straightened my sweater—his sweater, a floppy Aran that fit me like a dress. He laid his hand on my throat as he kissed me, his thumb pressing my pulse. “Long as you come back. You wouldn’t leave me alone out here, would you?” He squeezed my fingers a little too tightly. “Christ, Tessie, you always have this effect on guys?”
As I was getting ready to leave, nagging Sonny to brush his teeth, Hugh dug something out of the freezer. Strawberries, tiny fairy ones left over from the summer. “Say hi to Reenie.” He put one on my tongue.
He stood waving while Sonny and I skidded and windmilled across the yard, sheer ice till we reached the rocky part of the beach. I looked back once, pushing my hair out of my eyes, those floppy cuffs like weights.
Out of the blue Sonny said, “You gonna marry him or what, Mom?” The look in his eyes was like an older man’s, my father’s, out of patience.
“Huh?”
“Like, duh.”
“Should I?” Tucking my hands inside my sleeves, I braced for a question about Charlie.
“Hugh’s a goon. An arsehole.” His voice was full of dreadful conviction. I swatted at him; without meaning to, clipped his ear. He reeled from me, making a show of it. “You’re a goon too!” His yell was worse than a slap.
I wanted to hit him. Instead I tried pulling him to me.
“Le’ go—I’ll be late!” As he jerked away, I caught the smell of oatmeal and milk.
Wayne was waiting, the fur on his greasy parka spiky with spray. “You comin’?” he said to me, grabbing Sonny’s backpack. “Take ’er easy, guys. You go for a swim, I ain’t fishing youse out.”
Eyeing his mitts on the tiller, I thought of the girl—Julie. What had possessed her?
Waves slapped the bow and Sonny ducked out of the wind. “How’s Reenie?” I said, making conversation. Wayne grunted something unintelligible. On the other side I followed Sonny to the road, then started towards the yellow bungalow.
Wayne’s truck soon purred beside me. “She ain’t home, if that’s who you’re looking for.” He sounded pissed off now, accusing. Their yard was in sight, the Toyota missing. His door slammed and I could feel his bulk behind me. “I dunno what you said to her,” he muttered, and without speaking I crossed and doubled back towards the bus stop. I didn’t want to embarrass Sonny standing there with the other kids, so I just smiled and kept going.
With the wind pushing me, I walked clean to the base, ending up—crazy as it sounds—once more on Avenger. The car was gone this time. Joyce LeBlanc was digging something out of her mailbox. She looked twice when she saw me, and hollered down, “Willa Jackson? Oh my jeez, is that you?”
I hurried around the curve then cut across someone’s yard to get back to the highway. Cars buzzed past. When a bus came along, I flagged it down. Amazingly, the driver—a woman—pulled over. I asked which bus went into the city.
“Hop on,” she said.
The bus shunted around for an hour, eventually letting me off on a downtown street crammed with traffic. The air pulsed. Throngs of people shouldered past, disappearing into office towers—women wearing sneakers with pantyhose and suits, men in overcoats. The noise made me edgy, as if I’d been yanked from sleep. I ducked into a store, but the lights and music and blank faces chased me outside again. I walked aimlessly, half expecting the streets to lock into a circle. What a concept, the open-endedness of blocks, lines. I breathed all of it in till my lungs hurt, then headed back to the bus stop.
There was a book shop kitty-corner to it, with used paperbacks, nautical charts, and a cat curled in the window. Going inside to warm up, I took my time perusing the shelves. I was feeling guilty now, ashamed for lying to Hugh. Something caught my eye: a yellowed copy of A Popular Guide to the Saints. While my hands thawed, I flipped through it and found Teresa. The patron saint of heart attack victims, her write-up said, and headache sufferers. I’d hoped for a picture, but there wasn’t one. Our chit-chat came back to me, the feel of Hugh’s tongue tracing my spine. “It’s the shadows under your eyes, Tess. The way your neck bends, like a spruce in a gale.”
“Okay, then. So who are you?” Watching for bodies, and lightning off the bows of container ships; Hughie, who couldn’t dog paddle to save his life.
I started to look for Elmo, then checked the price. Only a couple of bucks, so I paid for it and left, just in time, too, as the bus shuddered up. On board, I found the entry. Poor Saint Elmo, patron of the seasick and sufferers of appendicitis, martyred by men who’d used a windlass to winch out his intestines.
Willa, call me Willa.
“What’re you so sad about?” His question out of the blue, once, like a squall.
“But I’m dancing inside!” Like a hornet over the marsh, not touching down.
By now it was well past lunchtime. It seemed like the right bus, but we took forever reaching the bridge, even longer crossing it. Then I had to transfer. When I finally boarded the bus to the Passage it was almost three o’clock.
Wayne was hiding out in his eco-shed, as Hugh called it. Lately it doubled as our mailbox, the post office dropping stuff there for us to pick up. Wayne had been drinking.
“Sheeesh,” he rambled. “I’ve already been over once. Your little guy wondered where the hell you were. Shark musta ate her, I said.”
Sonny.
Wayne’s look made my skin crawl. It took coaxing to get him to take me across. But he seemed to have forgotten our little run-in that morning. Halfway over, he pulled something from his pocket and handed it to me: a crumpled red envelope. It was addressed to Alex, the writing Charlie’s.
The sun was sinking as I slid and skidded through the woods, a rattling tunnel of twigs and animal sounds against the softer push of waves and the port’s rumble. That piece of mail weighing my pocket, the noises followed me like the sluggish moon barely lighting the trail.
Sonny was home alone, starving but otherwise okay. Hugh had gone off somewhere to jam; odd that Wayne hadn’t mentioned it. Oreo had attacked the garbage. Picking up the mess, I threw supper together, then helped Sonny with some math.
“You smell different,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “Weird.”
Waiting till his knapsack was packed for the morning, I finally passed him the envelope. It had a strange postmark and inside was a card, which got ripped in his rush to open it. On it was a boat with a Christmas tree for a sail. A hundred-dollar bill slipped out, Sonny barely noticing as he buried his nose in the card.
***
Closing in on Christmas, Hugh and I talked—not an argument, not a heart to heart, but something in between. It was during a freezing rainstorm; a fire blazed in the woodstove as ice pellets hit the window. The power had gone out; all you could hear was the generator roaring from the base of the tower. We had Scrabble spread out in the candlelight. Too many vowels, not enough consonants. The game was going nowhere. Hugh said, “You think about him, don’t you?”
“Who, Sonny?”
“Charlie. Don’t you.”
I took a sip of tea. “Sometimes.”
“Think you’ll go back with him?” It was more an accusation than a question.
My letters clicked together, breaking the awful silence. “Why would you ask that?”
“I can tell,” he said.
“Tell what?�
�
“You’ve been going somewhere else, haven’t you.”
Rain slammed the panes. The lamp flickered, the ancient kerosene one we’d begun keeping in the porch.
“Well ...” I hesitated, then it spilled out. “It’s not easy, you know…”
“What isn’t?”
“This…place.” I barely knew where to begin. “The way everything leads, well, back to where you frigging started,” I tried to joke.
He opened his mouth to say something but stopped, as if he’d forgotten what it was. Closing his eyes, he rubbed his forehead, sighing. “And you’re surprised?” I just looked at him. Then he grinned. “What’d you expect? You knew there wasn’t a fuckin’ bridge.” He reached across to pour more tea.
I sat there, swallowing. “Remember … that girl?” My stomach churned. The rest of me felt tied to the chair.
“Girl? Um, Tess, could we be more specific?” I didn’t laugh. “Which one?” He gave me a dull look.
“The jumper,” I said quietly, an odd relief rippling through me. It pulled into a knot as the image of the body rushed back. “Jesus, Hugh.” It came out a whisper, and there was a pause. All you could hear was sleet and the flames guttering. “What if Sonny’d seen it?”
“I’d jump too, if you left me.” His voice was quiet, matter- of-fact, and the force of it took a moment to hit.
Numbness seized me, then let go. “Oh, Hugh.” My mouth took over. “Don’t be foolish.” It was like telling Sonny, Eat your peas or I’ll...
What?
“It’s not foolish. You think I’m shitting you, but it’s true. I’d—”
Jump: my brain spun at the idea. Other words, names, clung and spiralled with it. Julie. Wayne. Tessie, Elmo.
“Plans,” I blurted out, to stop the spinning. “We need to figure something out. If I’ve got a problem, it’s wondering where we’ll be. I don’t think the island’s—”
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