Kit's Law (28 page)

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Shine’s gone and he’s never comin’ back. Shine’s gone and he’s never comin’ back. Sshhh, nothin’s goin’ to hurt you, now, nothin’s goin’ to hurt you. Remember what Sid said, God’s law. It’s God’s law.”

Most times she’d let me soothe her. Other times, the sudden touch of my hand upon her shoulder, or the sound of my voice if I spoke unexpectedly behind her, would startle her, and she’d rear out of the chair and wallop me across the face. Once, I dropped a plate while washing dishes, and she lunged out of the chair and slugged me so hard in the guts that it took a full minute before I could catch my breath again.

Aside from the stinging of her slap and the bruised ribs, I never minded. It wasn’t me that she was hitting, just whatever that sound was that made her jump. I took to doing most everything for her—fixing her meals, putting out her clothes in the morning. And the strangest of all, I took to mauling at her hair—the way she used to do with Nan’s. It calmed her when she went into her bad rocking spells. And it gave me something to do besides talking to her. It got so that it became soothing for me to run my fingers through those long, red strands, brushing and plaiting them, and coiling them around her head, always making sure they was neatly combed and prettily braided. She was starting to look like Nan, especially when her hair was coiled back from her face. It was startling to see her look like Nan. I always imagined she had entered the gully the same way as me and Pirate, as an offering that Nan took pity on.

It was pity I expect Nan might’ve felt for Mrs. Ropson, if she had been walking with me the day I almost ran into her in Haire’s Hollow, going into the post office to get her mail. She was all shrunken up inside a black winter’s coat, with a black hat and a veil covering her face, no different than one in mourning. I leaped off the road and ducked besides Jimmy Randall’s stagehead so’s she wouldn’t see me. The water lopped up over the edges of my boots and settled coldly around my feet, but I never moved. Rather the freezing Atlantic than the freezing blood between Mrs. Ropson and me.

I never laid eyes on the reverend. I had left off going to church some time before the graduation dance. I knew Nan wasn’t pleased, but I felt more at peace with God curled into a nook at Crooked Feeder than I did in the back pew of the church with the reverend pointing his finger of shame in my face. And I got more learning from curling up on the daybed with a book than sitting in Mr. Haynes’s classroom and trying to shut out the sight of his purple-webbed nose and chalk-grimed hands. Once, he drove by the gully and stopped. He never blew his horn, and when he seen me come out of the house and silently stare up at him, he drove off. Since the killing no one come by the gully blowing their horns any more.

Spring came. My pile of letters to Sid grew. I couldn’t think as to why I never received one from him, but I knew it wasn’t because they were never wrote. Each night I turned into my pillow I could see his yellow head bent over a piece of paper and writing as fast as he could to keep up with the words coming to his mind. No matter how many times I looked over his shoulder, all I ever read was “for you and for Josie,” “for you and for Josie.” And each morning I woke up, I wrote another letter of my own, crying, “It isn’t right!, it isn’t right!”

One dreary April afternoon after leaving the post office, I walked along the shore to Old Joe’s brother’s shack. Old Joe’s kelp-green motor boat was moored off from shore, and Old Joe was squatting with Doctor Hodgins in the middle of a fishing net they had spread out over the beach, mending the damage from the winter’s ice.

“How you doing today, Kit?” Doctor Hodgins sang out.

“Fine,” I said, plopping down on a rock and watching along with Doctor Hodgins as Old Joe weaved the wooden, arrow-shaped needle in and around the broken twine squares of the net’s mesh.

“You wanna help me with the Doc here?” asked Old Joe with a grin. “Funny thing, sir, he been stitchin’ up people for thirty year, but he can’t learn how to stitch up a net.”

Doctor Hodgins scratched his hair, giving me a baleful look.

“It’s like trying to do a fine stitch with double ball mitts on,” he said, eyeing the wooden shuttle layered with twine that old Joe was thrusting through a loop, then hauling back taut, forming a knot.

“Tell you what, Joe,” said Doctor Hodgins. “I’ll do your squid jigging come fall, while you hangs around the shore for a spell, mending the nets.”

I giggled.

“What’re you gigglin’ at?” asked Old Joe, quirking a brow.

“Nan always said you was afraid of squids.”

“Hah, Lizzy! I been sittin’ on them waters for a good many year, and I ain’t run from no squid yet,” Old Joe grumbled. “I minds the time when I seen one so big, he was longer than me boat, and just as wide, and his skin shimmerin’ so red beneath the water, it looked like he had a lantern in his guts. And he come up outta the water, he did, his tentacles first, as long as them on an octopus and just as strong. Yes sir, you could tell by the way they was curlin’ up and splayin’ out, how strong they was. And then up come the old humpback whale, sir, as big as the side of a house and black as tar. And his eyes, big as tea plates. And he eyeballed that squid for as long as it took for the squid to puff out his sides like a balloon and then let go with a jet of shit that smattered both his eyeballs. Well, sir, you want to see a whale blow! I dare say she blowed a bloody lake out of her blow-hole that day, and then she was rearin’ outta the water. And then I seen the swordfish—sneaking out from the shadow of me boat. They teams up, you know—the squid and the swordfish. And before the whale had a chance to dive, the swordfish come up and pierced him through his gullet. And with that, they both went under, the whale on top of the swordfish, and swordfish still with his sword stuck up through the whale. And then the squid let go with another spray of shit, and while the swordfish was gettin’ away, the squid wrapped his tentacles around the whale, makin’ sure they was good and stuck, and his beak was coverin’ the hole the swordfish made, and then he started suckin’ the blood outta the whale. Then they sunk down through the shit and I couldn’t see ’em. It was another twenty minutes before I seen ’em agin, goin’ out the bay, almost down by Chouse Brook, the whale rearin’ outta the water, the squid still stuck to him, suckin’ his blood, and the swordfish gunnin’ for his back to pierce another hole.”

Old Joe finished talking, still weaving his needle through the net, whilst me and Doctor Hodgins stared at him in silence.

“That sounds like a yarn I read in a school book,” I said,

“And so you might’ve read it in a school book,” said Old Joe. “’Cuz that’s where they ended up before the squid got all the blood sucked out of that whale—in St. John’s. And that’s where they makes up books, ain’t it, Doc, in St. John’s?”

Doctor Hodgins stirred besides me.

“Yup, that’s about right, Joe,” he said, clearing his throat and lifting up a section of the net for a closer inspection. “That about right, Kit?”

“Yup! That’s about right,” I say. “Good day to ye.” Shuffling to my feet, I started wandering back along the beach.

“Kit!”

I looked back. Doctor Hodgins was sitting back on his haunches, staring after me.

“There’s a letter for you,” he said, nodding towards the shack. “Besides the lamp.”

I continued to stand there, staring at him, then turned and ran for the shack. Bursting in through the door, I stopped and gaped in wonder at the white envelope sitting on the table, propped up by the lamp, with my name scrawled across its front in Sid’s fancy handwriting. Snatching it up, I stuck it inside my coat pocket and figured on running straight home, but sat down weakly on a chair and pulled it out of my pocket, again. Ripping open the envelope, I begin reading.

Dear Kit:

Doctor Hodgins just told me what I’ve suspected all along, that none of my letters have been getting to you. I expect the reverend has seen to that. I think of you always, waiting for me in the gully, and it gives me strength. I pray you’re still there when I return.

I’ve made a good friend here and my days have become fairly routine, which is a shame in some respects. At first, with everything being so strange, and with all the rules, it kept me always paying attention. I never noticed before how much we miss when we go about our days not paying attention. It seems kind of backwards, somehow, that the only time we’re ever really aware is when we’re youngsters, and seeing and learning everything for the first time. Maybe that’s how it is we can keep moving through later life, because we remember what it felt like to think nothing, and that then becomes our goal—to work our way back there again, and to delight in just being. That’s how I feel when I’m with you—I delight in just being. I’ll write to you again, Kit. I write to you every day, only I don’t mail them any more.

Love, Sid.

I carefully folded the letter and put it back in its envelope. It was just like Sid to be sitting in jail and thinking about the way of things. I laughed. Then cried. Then I laughed again and was reminded of the day in the gully when I had found Josie meeting Shine on the beach and had gone running and crying into Sid’s arms and saw for the first time how his smile dimpled the corner of his mouth.

Wiping the tears off my face, I put the envelope in my coat pocket and went outside. Doctor Hodgins was standing a little ways down from where Old Joe was hunched over the net, watching for me.

“When?” I asked after I’d come close enough. “When did you see him?”

“I just got back last night,” he said finally.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were goin’ to see him?”

“I hadn’t planned on going to see him.” He shrugged, his eyes squinting against the sun and blocking what was unspoken. “But when I found myself in Gander this week, I decided to take a jaunt to St. John’s.” He shrugged.

I waited for something more, but receiving nothing, left him there, mending his broken nets with Old Joe, and hurried home. Josie wasn’t inside. Looking out the window, I saw her cooped down on the grassy spot behind the house, looking down over the gully. Digging a couple of cookies out of one of Mrs. Haynes’s butter-stained bags, I went outside and joined her.

“Have one,” I said, passing her the cookie.

She took the cookie and idly began eating it.

“What’re you thinkin’ about?” I asked, hugging the letter from Sid in my pocket.

She shoved the rest of the cookie into her mouth and slewed her eyes warily towards me.

“Do you remember what it was like when Sid was here?” I asked.

“Sid’s gone.”

“But he’ll be comin’ back, someday.”

“Sid’s gone.”

“Look.” I pulled out the letter and waved it in front of her face. “It’s from Sid. He’ll be comin’ home, someday. Not yet, but … ”

I got no further. Whipping around, she drove her fist into my ribs and ripped the letter from my hand.

“No,” I gasped, grabbing after her as she reared to her feet. “Here, give it back. I’ll read it to you.”

“That’s Sid’s letter,” she barked, glaring down at me. “Sid’s letter.” Then she was bounding for the gully.

At least she still knows how to bound, I thought dismally, rising carefully to my feet and limping back inside the house

The next day Doctor Hodgins came to visit. He was looking more sombre than usual, and I expect it had to do with my letter from Sid.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, as he noted me flinching from twisting around too quick.

“Nothin’,” I said. “Cup of tea?”

“Did she hit you, again?”

I nodded.

“Let me see that,” he said gruffly.

“I’m fine.”

“I’ll judge that, young lady.”

I groaned, not for the first time the past twenty-four hours, and let Doctor Hodgins examine my ribs.

“You’ve got a bruised rib,” he announced.

“No kiddin’,” said I.

“Kit.” He sank down in the rocking chair, looking up at me. “Kit, have you given thought of leaving here? Haire’s Hollow, I mean. Now hear me out,” he said, holding up his hands at the look of protest that crossed my face. “I’m not talking about shipping you off to God knows where. I have a friend—a wonderful friend—Milly Rice. She has a boarding house in St. John’s, it’s a decent place, and she … well, she’s getting on in years and the last time we talked, she mentioned getting someone in to help her.”

“I’m not leavin’.”

“What’s here for you?”

“She’s here.”

“You can take her with you.”

“She won’t leave here.”

“She won’t? Or you won’t? Kit, my work here is done. I’ll move with you.”

“I’m not leavin’!” I yelled.

He came to his feet and we stood staring at each other. Then he turned on his heel and marched off up over the bank to his car. I watched after him from the doorway, wondering how much of his wanting me away from the gully might have to do with his wanting a way out of Haire’s Hollow himself. A chill crept over me, and I wrapped my arms protectively around myself. There was a power in whatever it was that bound Doctor Hodgins to me and Josie, a power strong enough to make him lie in the face of God, nailing him to a cross of his own making. Whatever that power was, he was helpless to fight it. And however it touched on me and Josie, we were equally as helpless in its quandary.

G
ODFATHER’S
C
OVE

I
T WAS LATE
S
EPTEMBER, JUST PAST MY
sixteenth birthday, when I sat up in bed one night with a sudden start. Something had woke me. Josie’s snores rumbled through the hallway and her bedsprings creaked as she tossed and turned for comfort. I lay back down, but sat up again as a dull thud sounded from outside. Holding my hand to my racing heart, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and crept down the hallway.
Thud!
It sounded louder as I stepped into the kitchen.
Thud! Thud!
Clasping my hands in front of me as if I were in prayer, I walked steadily towards the door.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Perhaps it was Doctor Hodgins not being able to sleep.
Thud!
Perhaps it was Shine’s ghost come back to haunt me.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
I reached my hand to the doorknob. Silence. Perhaps it was the wind gusting up the gully playing tricks on me, thumping a loose plank against the side of the house. But I knew who it was. And when I hauled open the door and seen him standing there in the blue light of the night, with the moon shining silver on his hair, and a burst of fuzz on his chin, my knees buckled, and I would’ve dropped if he wasn’t swooping towards me and lifting me off my feet and holding me tight against him.