What the Waves Know (26 page)

Grandma Jo sniffled, tightening her grip on me. My mother's eyes were round, horrified, soft—loving.

“My God, Izabella Rae, you were six, no more than a baby. He was sick; it wasn't you. He refused to take the medication the doctors gave him. He knew you loved him. And, my God, he loved you more than air. It was the only thing that grounded him to reality. And all children hate their parents sometimes.”

“Some hate them most of the time.” Grandma Jo chuckled. “Your mother is the only child on earth who loves her parent all of the time.”

My mother rolled her eyes with a grin. “It wasn't your job to chase after him. It's a parent's job to stay, no matter what, whether you want them to or not.” She glanced pointedly at Grandma Jo. “He didn't leave because of you, baby. He adored you, and he knew you adored him.”

“I should have stopped him. If I'd gone with him, if I hadn't gotten my stupid bag—”

“You would be dead, too.” My mother's voice was hollow.

I felt Grandma Jo reach around me, touching my mother's shoulder.

“You were six,” she repeated. “He was wrestling demons that were deep and determined. You couldn't stop him. I
couldn't stop him. The best doctors in the world couldn't stop him.” She studied me very carefully, using the cherry of her cigarette to light another. Then she drew the smoke deep into her lungs and hesitated. “Do you remember anything else?”

I thought carefully, listening to the cliffs and the wind, but they were empty. I shook my head.

My mother sighed. “I don't know what he was doing, what he thought he was doing. Sometimes he thought he was being chased, other times he thought he was superhuman. It was dusk, and the deer were coming into the field to feed. Your dad was driving very, very fast—erratic. He swerved into the O'Malley's yard. Mr. O'Malley was away and Mrs. O'Malley was setting out salt licks.” My mother stopped speaking. “I don't think he saw her; if he did it was already too late.”

I felt the vomit rising in my throat again. That was it—that was why Riley had acted like he hated me.
More than one person's disappeared on this ridge.
His words from the first day I'd seen him on the cliffs whirled through me.
But I guess you already know that.
He'd killed her. Whether he'd meant to, or not, my father had killed her. And that was why Remy was so protective of Mr. O'Malley. He was the last parent she had left. I thought about the empty stool while we were making pies.
My mom and I have baked for the festival since I was toe high to a fiddler crab. Never missed a year yet.
That was probably why she'd been sticking around so close, too. We were the same—Remy and
I. Both of us had lost a parent that day; Mrs. O'Malley and my father left this world in the very same minute—together.

My mother just looked at me, then back at the blinking lighthouse.

My heart felt as though if it suffered any more, it would break into pieces so tiny it could never be glued back together again.

“He was trying to kill himself?”

Neither my mother or Grandma Jo answered, and that was answer enough. “I don't remember Mr. O'Malley or Remy.”

“They weren't here when it happened. I think something happened between Remy and her husband, and Mr. O'Malley went to get her on the mainland.”

The statement thrummed in my ear so loudly it knocked the air out of me. I rolled back onto the grass, closing my eyes. In one single sentence I knew what nobody else did about Remy. Mr. O'Malley leaving to get her was her “I hate you.” We were walking through the world with the same guilt and it was too heavy to carry alone. If I hadn't had a baby tantrum and screamed, “I hate you” on that very night. If she hadn't asked Mr. O'Malley to come get her that particular weekend. We were both moving through the universe searching for an “I'm sorry” big enough to fix it. But there wasn't one. She knew it and so did I, but not one other person could understand.

“By the time they got back, Grandma Jo had come to bring you to her house while I worked out the details.”

“Why wasn't there a funeral?”

“Your dad hadn't wanted that, Iz. And people were angry. They didn't know him. They didn't understand. Anyway, by the time the coast guard could recover the wreck, there wasn't anything left to bury. We had a small gathering at the beach in Tuckertown to say goodbye. You were just so distraught—you wouldn't talk, you wouldn't listen, you refused to cry. You wrote him a letter promising to wait on the step every night for him to come home, and for five months, you did. You refused to believe he was gone. You locked the memory away so deep even you couldn't get to it. Dissociative amnesia, that's what Dr. Boni called it, when a person isolates something so traumatic they can't live with the knowledge and barricades it away where the memory can't hurt them.”

Grandma Jo was staring into the night with tears silently streaming down her face, the way I had cried for eight years. In a way, it must have been the worst for her, watching all of her children drowning in a sea of hurt with no basket like Yemaya's to collect the pain in and wash it away.

“Would you like to go to the hospital?”

“We don't have a car.”

“Well,” my mother sighed, “Remy hijacked my car; I don't see any good reason I cannot hijack hers. Maybe
next time she'll bring me my own.” She stood up, offering me a hand, and turned to stare at the Great Purple Monster of Millbury. Grandma Jo gave each of us one of her famous hugs. “Know where Remy keeps the keys, or shall I hot-wire the beast?” We all laughed, wiping our eyes. That my mother would be seen driving the Monster was solid proof that things would never be the same again. And that was a good thing.

I started to nod, but stopped and instead said, “Yes.”

The word felt smooth and easy in my mouth.

This is what the
Oxford Dictionary
says about recollection. “
Recollection
: (1) the act or an instance of regaining memory; (2) a rejoining, or coming together of formally adhered units; (3) gathering that which has escaped or eluded us.
To
collect
: (1) to bring together into one body or place.”

This is what I say. Recollecting is picking up your empty basket and reclaiming the pieces that make you whole, and as Grandma Jo would say, “whether you want them or not.” It is picking up your stories one at a time and lining them up until they make sense; letting them take up space in the universe with a strong steady voice of their own; and refusing to let so much of yourself fall away that you are reduced to the weakest form of “to be.”

I spent the week after Mr. O'Malley's heart attack doing that—recollecting. I was surprised at the stories that cropped up, surprised to find there were not only stories
about my father but even more about my mother. Her face, although not always smiling, was there as she drove me to Sunday school, braided my hair, running her fingers through it in a way I thought had belonged to my dad. And sometimes, it was smiling for no good reason at all.

I had come to accept the legend of Yemaya; that mothers are a story all their own. You may choose not to read them some days, but their ink never fades and their words have an eerie persistence to them.

I was coming to understand that my mother did not hate me, only that some days, she hated loving me. That was a thing I understood right down to my toes. She had stopped smoking and started eating, letting the fog lift. We all had. And what we found within was not the monsters we had been terrified of but each other—all scared into our very own silence.

Two days after his heart attack I was bringing Mr. O'Malley a Tab from the soda machine at the hospital when I found Lindsey sitting next to his bed chatting about a passenger who had forced Telly to carry a case of seashells onto the ferry so he could make his own statue of Yemaya back in Millsbury. When I came in, she stood up, straightening her pants.

“Hi.” The word came out of her mouth wrinkled and awkward, and she seemed at a loss as to what to do with her hands.

“Hi,” I said, handing Mr. O'Malley his drink.

“I brought you this.” She leaned over and lifted my
sweater from the chair. It had been laundered and folded crisply into a neat square.

“Thanks,” I said, tucking it under my arm.

“Well, I guess I'd better get going. Feel better, Mr. O'Malley.”

“I'll be back before you realize I was gone.”

Lindsey turned to leave but paused at the door, then turned back to me.

“Thanks,” she said. “He's not a bad man, you know. Really, he isn't.” She seemed desperate for me to believe her. “It's just, since my mom died . . .”

“Yeah, I know,” I said.

“Yeah.” She gazed down at her feet, then back up at me. “Well, I guess I'll see you around.”

“If you ever need to talk or anything . . .” The words surprised me as they filled the room, surprised me all the more because I meant them. Riley told me it had only been two years since her mother died; I had miles on her and I knew how long those miles could be when you were walking them alone.

“Thanks.” Lindsey gave me a final nod and made her way down the hall. I didn't want to think about where she was headed or if there would be anyone waiting for her when she got there.

Remy caved first.
I guess she felt indebted after Mr. O'Malley's attack, or maybe she was just pissed that my
mother had stolen the Purple Monster—not once, but twice—over the past couple days. But four days after he was hospitalized and right back to complaining about the no-smoking policy at the hospital, Remy took the afternoon run to the mainland and returned in the BMW spitting shells this way and that, pulling into a tight doughnut outside the Booth House. The gray sparkle of it had dimmed with sea salt to a dull steely color, but my mother was glad to have it since it looked like we would be staying awhile.

Sometimes it is the very place your world ended that you have to return to if you want to start living again. I had spent eight years searching for my father, and he was here. I guess we both decided that made this place home.

I would be starting school after the Christmas holiday with real teachers and real kids, including Lindsey and Carly. It was hard to guess how things might have changed between us, but every time I saw Lindsey around town, I was reminded of Mary's sad eyes staring down at me in the church back in Tuckertown. How nobody should have her mother yanked from her world midstream. How we all fall differently when the world drops out from under us. Anger is a silence all its own, and I knew a thing or two about that.

October 26 was
cold; cold enough to cover the wheat tips with frost, making them look like tiny paintbrushes
dipped in glitter. I pulled my sweatshirt tight and headed down the narrow path toward the ridge. I'd been spending a lot of time there catching up with my dad, and every once in a while I caught Riley there visiting his grandmother. I had pretty much gotten my father up to speed with my life—my first period, Remy and how good she was for my mom. I'd even confessed to smoking every now and then. Now we mostly sat listening to the gulls together in silence.

And since Riley had stopped diving over the edge when he saw me, sometimes we just sat together saying nothing. Sometimes I just sat and pretended not to notice him watching me. But today it wasn't Riley I was searching for; there was something else I had to do. The bulge in my pocket was forcing a chilly dent into my thigh.

It was the day of the Great Feast, so I knew every single person on Tillings would be going into the village. But I knew where to find Yemaya, knew she would want what I had more than any old fish bones. I stood there for a long time watching the break wall crush waves into a thousand pearls. It's funny how one thing can smash into another until it becomes something else altogether. Secrets are dark scary rooms, but sometimes that is just the type of place a person needs to hide.

And here is a truth: letting those secrets go can be scary, too. But, I knew that was what she was waiting for.

Some things just make sense, and that it was Remy who first interrupted my silence is one of them.

“You're not planning on jumping, are you? Because I have had about all the losses I am willing to tolerate from this damn ridge.”

“Not today.” I laughed.

“That's good. Then I guess I'll join you. My feet are swollen up into watermelons. Would you believe I'm wearing Mr. O'Malley's slippers?” She sat down next to me and stuck her feet into the air over the ledge. “All that running back and forth from the ferry to the hospital. Thank God that old goat's coming home today.”

“He's going to be okay, isn't he?”

“Just as long as he doesn't ask me one time more for that hell pipe of his, giving me no option but to strangle him right there in his hospital bed. I have already told that man that I will not face the world as the only person with two parents fool enough to die hovering over salt licks. If he intends to die, he will not do so giving the deer of Tillings high blood pressure.” Remy shook her head, letting her eyes drift for a moment to another place and time.

“Mr. O'Malley had a heart attack after my mother passed away, too. His doctor has been telling him to quit smoking ever since, but he won't. First damn time I ever knew a doctor to be right.”

“I'm sorry about Mrs. O'Malley. Maybe—”

“Good Lord, child! Why don't you just jump off this cliff and save the world from yourself? Maybe if the fool of a man I'd married had not pushed me into a wall one
night, Mr. O'Malley wouldn't have felt the need to come break his nose and move me home the night my mother died. Maybe a million things would have been different. But if you hadn't come back here, Mr. O'Malley would have died. And that's a fact.”

I was still thinking about that when Grandma Jo came trundling down the path holding out a big white ball with great pride. My mother was behind her, looking tortured.

“Look! Look what I found! Puffballs, a whole bunch of them, enough for all of us.” The three of us stared at the mushroom in her hand curling up our noses.

“Nonsense! They're delectable; just wait until you taste them with tofu and soy sauce. The first time I had puffballs I was—” She was brought up short by the sound of an engine purring up Knockberry Lane.

We all watched in silence as Riley and his father helped Mr. O'Malley out of the patrol car. There was a short bout of bickering that we could not hear before they walked him out to where we stood beside the ridge.

“What in blazes do you think you're doing?” Remy's eyes flashed at her brother, who shrugged helplessly, then at her father. “You can turn yourself right back around and get those tired lungs into bed just like the doctor ordered.”

“Hush now.” Mr. O'Malley swatted a hand softly at his daughter, then laid it on my back. “I've got a thank-you that needs saying.” Riley's dad nodded over Mr. O'Malley's shoulder. Riley stood still as the break wall, but his emer
ald eyes had settled on me. I gave Mr. O'Malley a kiss on the cheek, then stepped back to stand beside Riley.

“There, it's been said. Now get your old bones straight into bed. I set up the spare so I can stay with you for a few days,” Remy snapped.

“That's not what the doctor said,” Mr. O'Malley corrected. “He said no stress, and right now you're stressing me.” Remy hit Mr. O'Malley with the sleeve of her shirt. “Anyway, I brought a batch of maple leaves for your mum—all marbled up with orange and red just the way she likes 'em. I got them from the sugar maple beside the hospital—you know, sort of an ‘I'm sorry' for making her wait for me again.”

“Mom does not want you to die. You go rest; I'll throw them down for you.” Remy reached for the leaves, but Mr. O'Malley pulled them away.

“Just like you used to do at Christmas? Putting your name on other people's gifts! Get your own darn leaves; these are from me to your mother.”

“Fine. I'll walk with you, then.” Remy seemed to have cooled down a notch and took Mr. O'Malley's arm.

“You want to come?” He looked at my mother and held out a leaf for her to take.

“Thank you, Tom.” Her eyes were watery as she took hold of his other arm and they made their way to Witch's Peak.

“How come she gets a leaf?” Remy grumbled.

“Because she's nice to me.” He tightened his grip on his daughter.

“Well, there you go.” Riley chuckled. “Five crazy people standing on a cliff throwing dead leaves down to dead people. And all to apologize for not dying.”

I laughed aloud and when I looked up, he was staring right at me with something deep and unspoken in his eyes.

“I guess that makes you the only smart lunatic in the family,” I said. “I thought you were in a million pieces down there after you climbed down the edge.”

“I don't know why you'd care about a thing like that,” he said lightly.

“Well, I wouldn't, except who would boss me around on the ferry?” I teased.

“Remy.” We laughed in unison.

“You ought to do that more often.” He pushed the hair from my face and let his fingers brush down my cheek.

“What, wear my hair behind my ear?”

“Laugh.” His eyes softened.

“Hey, are you guys coming?” Remy called from the ledge. Riley laid his hand on the small of my back and led me to where they were standing. It occurred to me that sometimes families are created by death just as surely as they are by birth, and I knew that was just what had happened with us.

One by one, we turned our eyes to the waves below,
crashing over a beach the hue of chestnut skins, the color of slivered ships and wrecked lives. It was an eighty-foot drop down a sheer face of granite. I remembered the day my father had watched the gull diving and climbing off the cliffs of Anawan.
Someday I'm going to fly like that
. This ridge had ripped each of us apart and then put us back together. I remembered, too, what Grandma Jo used to say:
Izabella Rae, every great story begins in its weakest form and builds upward from there.
It was a story we did not choose, but we were all a part of it.

In the end, that's all any of us are—just a great caboodle of stories. They start when you're born and tell the world you were here when you're gone. And those stories are the realest thing about any of us, the stiff ribs of the life we have lived. They were all a part of mine: Remy, Riley, Grandma Jo, my mother, Mr. O'Malley, Telly, Lindsey and Carly, Mr. Herman, Libby, the salmon, the seagulls—even Mrs. O'Malley, whom I'd never met.

The gentle
shush, shush
of waves below filled the air, and the smell of sea salt wrapped around all of us, holding us together somehow. Here is a final truth: in the end, we are left standing not with those we choose but those we need in our lives. It was October 26, the Great Feast in honor of Yemaya, and I remembered exactly what Chief Tankin had said about this day:
She will gather her children back together beside the sea.

Mr. O'Malley mouthed something I couldn't make
out and tossed his fistful of leaves into the waves below, watching them churn in the froth.

“Do you want one?” My mother held a leaf out in my direction.

“No, thanks,” I said, shaking my head. “I brought something else.”

She looked at me with an air of curiosity but didn't ask what it was. When she turned to toss her leaves to the waves, I wriggled the small velvet satchel from my pocket, slipping the stone my father had given me that day at Potter's Creek free. Tucking it tightly in my palm the way my father had taught me to pitch a baseball, I walked out onto the overhang and threw it into the wind, watching it turn over and over, tumbling toward the sea. I let it fly with so much force that I could not even hear myself saying, “I'm sorry I told you to go. I never meant it, not for one second.” But, I'm pretty sure he heard me.