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The dense fog has wrapped itself around me, clinging to my slick yellow rain jacket and forming little water droplets that bead their way down my arms to my wrists. Despite the summer, the air is chilled, and the metal railing where my hand rests saps the warmth from my body. I pull my coat closer around me, shivering a little, but I won’t leave the deck. I’m trying to see the island that I know sits ahead of us in the fog, an island that I’ve thought of as home for the seven years that I’ve been gone.
BWOOOOOOOOOM.
The ferry’s foghorn cuts deafeningly through the silence. The only two other people on the deck, a couple who have been huddling together by the rail, turn and go back into the warmth of the cabin. I consider it for a minute. My sister Nora and Mom are inside, likely in the middle of their fourth game of cribbage. It’s Nora’s favourite game. Mom was always just okay at it, but over the last five days on the road from Ashburn it’s become a nightly ritual: find a cheap motel, check in, Mom on the phone, Nora and me setting up the game.
Six days ago. It feels like a world away.
The warm early summer sun baking the drought-dry grass in Ashburn, Saskatchewan. School had just ended, and all throughout town kids sat languidly in the sun waiting for the summer to really begin. I’d been in the library, where I’d be spending most of my summer days. The other kids at my school would be going to summer camp, taking swim lessons, and helping out with Heritage Day. I wouldn’t be doing any of those things. I was used to being different. I’d first noticed it a few years before, when I’d tried hockey. I wobbled out onto the ice at the town rink in borrowed skates, and the coach watched me fall twice before I made it to the blue line. Afterward he skated over, looked me up and down, and asked, “Where are you from?”
“Newfoundland,” I told him.
“And before that?” he asked.
I didn’t know what to tell him. I’d never really thought about it.
I looked around at the other boys, all of them blond, blue-eyed farm kids, already bigger than me and steadier on their skates, and imagined getting knocked into the boards. I’m not short, but next to them my skinny arms and legs looked like they’d snap. I never went back.
In the library I felt the gentle breeze of an oscillating fan that was trying to keep up with the summer heat. I watched as my mom sorted the books and prepared for the coming onslaught of the summer programs. In front of me was a composition notebook with the words proudly written at the top of the page.
I’m 11 years old, and this summer I’ll sail the high seas
I’d written those words as part of an optional assignment Mrs. Smith had given me for the summer. She was different from my other teachers. They’d all told me to quit daydreaming and stop doodling pictures of pirate ships and mermaids. Mrs. Smith had been more encouraging. “You have a creative mind, Mateo,” she’d told me at the end of the year. “That creativity will take you far in life if you can harness it instead of letting it take you off in daydreams.” Her assignment was simple: write a short story about what adventures I’d be having over the summer. I’d be starting grade six in the fall, and she’d told me to bring it to her when school started. She’d read it and let me know what she thought of it.
I hadn’t made any progress before we had to leave. When I’d written the words “I’ll sail the high seas,” I’d imagined my summer adventures mostly being between the pages of the adventure novels that I loved, full of pirates and swashbuckling. I hadn’t imagined standing here on the deck of a ferry crossing the Cabot Strait, the first of several boat rides we’ll likely be on before the summer is through.
The call had come that day while Mom and I were at the library. We’d returned in the afternoon to the blinking light on the answering machine, and Mom had pressed the play button.
The voice on the recording was a man’s, warm and friendly but serious. “Maeve Delmar, this is Reverend Hiscock. I’m not sure if you remember me from Greywater Arm. Well, I’m some sorry to be the bearer of bad news again, but I’ve just gotten word that Esteban passed last night. Apparently when he didn’t turn up at the Legion, one of his friends went to check on his house and found him. It was peaceful, in his sleep. Well now, if you wouldn’t mind to give me a call back, my dear, I’ll be here. The number is 709-555-0147.”
Mom called the Reverend back on the number he’d given, shooed me away, and then wound the phone’s cord around the corner of the kitchen to a quiet space.
Nora had protested the trip. She was supposed to attend pioneer camp over the summer, a camp put on by the local church where you could experience what it was like being an early settler in Saskatchewan. I’d played enough Oregon Trail to know that unless they were planning on giving all the kids dysentery, it wasn’t going to be the most realistic experience. Still, Nora loved settlers, and the prairies. Little House on the Prairie is her favourite book. She’d been only one when Dad passed, and all she’d really known was our little ranch in Ashburn. I’d been older – four – when we left, and I still held on to distant memories of the sea. In the end it was a promised trip to PEI to visit Green Gables that won Nora over. PEI isn’t the prairies, and Anne of Green Gables isn’t Little House, but she loves Anne too, and it would make up for missing pioneer camp.
“Mateo!” Mom’s voice calls me out of my thoughts from the cabin door. “We’re docking soon, bud. Come give us a hand with our stuff.”
“One more minute,” I call back. She gives a little nod before tucking back into the cabin.
I take one last breath of the cold salt air and then turn to go inside.
In the ferry cabin I pull off my coat, shaking the moisture from my messy dark hair. Nora is sitting dutifully, tucking the little plastic pegs into the slot on the back of the cribbage board. Mom is busy collecting our bags and making sure nothing has gotten left behind. As I walk up, she hands me my backpack and then, almost absentmindedly, brushes a messy curl from my eye. I meet her cool green eyes and she smiles, but I can tell the trip back – the days in the car, and now the ferry ride, almost docked on the island – is taking its toll on her.
At home we have a wall with photos of the family, mostly school pictures of Nora and me, but off to one side is a small photo of Mom, Dad, and me. I’m probably two in the photo, a toddler in boots and an oversized life jacket, my dark curls already messily covering my brown eyes. My dad is turned partly away from the camera, his hair a curly mess just like mine. He’s paying more attention to a small sailboat than to the photo being taken. Mom is standing on the wharf close by, the odd one out with her pale freckled face framed by her close-cropped red hair. She’s holding my hand, a smile on her face.
I’ve asked my mom what we were doing in the photo. Had we just gone sailing? “Oh… I don’t remember,” she always says, brushing it off. Once, when I was helping her dust all the frames, I popped the back off that one while she wasn’t paying attention and carefully took the picture out. Written on the back, in a neat cursive I didn’t recognize, was Maeve, Andrés and Mateo, Summer 1990. I wondered who’d written the names. I knew it wasn’t my mother’s handwriting. Could it be Dad’s, or maybe whoever took the photo?
It’s just after dark when the ferry docks. We pile back into the car and begin the long drive up the winding western coast toward Greywater Arm. Nora falls asleep almost before we’ve disembarked, but as Mom fiddles with the radio looking for something that isn’t static, I press my face to the window to try to make out the shapes of the boats in the water.
Eventually the paved road gives way to dirt, and then a bumpy driveway, before the car comes to a stop. Around us the darkness is almost total. Climbing out, I wait a minute for my eyes to adjust. “Wait here with Nora,” Mom says, slipping off toward where the house is shrouded in darkness. I stand in silence. The air here still has an early summer chill to it, but the dry crispness of Ashburn is gone; instead a damp, salty smell permeates the air. In the silence I can just hear the sound of waves crashing on the shore somewhere below.
“Okay,” Mom says, returning from the darkness. “I’m going to carry Nora in. You’re both in the room up the stairs to the left; I’ll be in the room to the right. Washroom’s at the end of the hall. Can you bring your suitcase?” I nod. She opens the back door of the car and carefully lifts Nora. I follow her through the darkness to the small house that stands there. Quickly taking a step ahead, I open the door for her and step into the dimly lit entrance. Mom heads up the narrow stairs, Nora still asleep in her arms. Leaving the bag by the door, I look around.
I have faint memories of this house. Stepping out of the entrance and into the living room to the right, I remember my grandfather, his dark weathered skin, bright smile, and the sparkle in his dark eyes, sitting in the large comfy armchair. Crossing the room, I look at the chair. There in the middle of it is a depression, from the nights spent sitting, reading, or playing cards. The room itself is exactly as I remember it, filled with nautical trinkets, pictures of sailboats, globes, and compasses. It’s cozy, someplace that seems to welcome you in, ask you to sit down and stay for a story, or two.
“We should get to bed.” It’s Mom. She’s come back down the stairs to grab another suitcase from the car. “It’s going to be a busy day tomorrow,” she adds.
“I just want to look around a little,” I say.
She seems to consider it for a moment before saying, “Okay, but not too late, eh? Turn the lights off on your way up.” She turns to go upstairs.
“Mom?” I call, catching her attention. “What’s going to happen to all the stuff here?”
She thinks for a moment. “Most of it will probably go to the Sally Ann. Maybe there are a few things we could sell, but I don’t think we can take it all back home with us.” I nod, then she adds, “If you see something you like, you can keep it, of course. He would have wanted you to have anything you wanted.” With that she turns and heads up to bed.
I turn to the bookcase in the corner of the room. The books are a mismatched collection of hardcovers and softcovers, large and small, mostly all about boats or sailing: histories, mysteries, and adventures. Then, off to one side, I spot two books, loosely leather-bound and seemingly identical. Pulling them out, I look at their plain brown leather covers.
I open the first one. The pages inside have been typed on what looks like an old typewriter. The title reads Tales from the 8th Sea, as told by Esteban Delmar, written by Andrés Delmar. Below the title is the dedication: To Nora, may these stories keep you safe. I open the other book. The same title, the same authors, but here the dedication reads, To Mateo, never stop yearning for adventure, but always come home.
I let my hand rest on the pages, then flip them forward a little. Each page has been typed one at a time, about sixty of them in each book. This is something my father made for me. Nora’s name is in the other one, so he must have made them after she was born, in that last year before he was lost. I imagine him up late at night, hunched over a typewriter at the table, writing each page.
I flip the book back to the beginning and stare at the dedication for a long time. Then I turn to the first page.
The Tale of the Mermaid and the Pirate
The story tells of a pirate who fell in love with a mermaid, her tail shimmering pearlescent in the moonlight, and she fell in love with him too. In the story the two are cursed to always be apart, him on a ship and her in the water. Until one day she dares to come on board the ship. But it’s a short-lived happiness, as the rest of the crew turns on him for bringing a mermaid on board. They tie him up and throw him in the ocean. It seems like a tragic end, but then, by magic, the sea gifts the pirate gills and a shimmering, pearlescent tail like hers, and he becomes a mermaid too, and together they swim the seas happily ever after.
With the story done, I realize just how tired I am. Leaving Nora’s book on the table, I tuck my copy under my arm, turn off the lights, and climb the narrow stairs to the bedroom Nora and I will be sharing.
The room has clearly been set up for Nora and me to visit: two twin beds, toy boats and sailors on the shelves. I climb into the empty bed and am asleep almost instantly.
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