Sea of Tranquility (26 page)

Once he was absolutely sure that Angie was fine, he announced, “That's it. We're getting all of you back to someplace safe.”

“I'm not leaving,” Angeline asserted.

“We'll be more careful, I promise,” Todd said, still feeling it was all his fault.

“Somehow,I don't feel like we should leave just yet,” Elise said.

“Jesus.” Bruce felt like he wanted to hit somebody or something. His family had gone insane on him. He looked at them. They had that unified Sanger family look he'd seen before — when they all wanted something very badly. It used to be just ice cream or a new TV or the movie channels, or maybe a trip to the Jersey Shore. Now this. “Okay, dammit. But I'm not going back to work until September and we're all back in Jersey and the kids are safely back in their seats at school.”

And that was the end of the family discussion.

The storm named Freda did come ashore and hit fast and hard, but there was no one in the cave, and by then the rescue workers had all gone home and Moses had his boat snug back at the government wharf. Two barns that had been waiting patiently for a good hard blow of ocean air toppled in upon themselves and brought a final end to long, honest careers of housing farm animals, hay, thoughts, and sweet memories of many island youths.

Sylvie's mind seemed to dance with the wind in the night. She did not mind its intensity and savoured the sound of the
swooshing treetops, the groan and creak of the walls of her old house. In her bed alone, she felt perfectly safe and warm and incredibly light. She felt as if she could fly or levitate if she so much as dared to dream it so.

Sylvie was certain she had tampered with the basic rules of the universe, the most fundamental principle of nature: the one that says it does what it does and pity the man or woman or child who gets in its way. But she had changed all that. Once, anyway. As the wind pushed and shoved at her house and all things on the island, some gave up grip: roots of small trees, shingles nailed to walls, children's toys laying about in a yard. A wheelbarrow upside down became a gymnast, did a back flip and landed upright and filled to the brim with sweet hurricane rain. Birds hunkered down — tiny goldfinches and sparrows on up to the shrewd and powerful ospreys, wings pulled tight to the sides to avoid the hazards of accidental night flight into the chaos of the tumultuous sky.

Waves pummelled the shale spit and gouged the land. The seas swept over the barachois ridges of loose stone here and there and fed new salt water to the ponds near Phonse's “lighthouse.” At the top of the hill in the middle of the junkyard, at least three car hoods left open — “engine bonnets” as the islanders called them — were ripped from their rusty hinges and sailed off like a small battalion of alien space craft, leaving the island altogether and splashing down in the bay where they floated on choppy seas for a brief instant and then sank to the bottom.

Freda would take a full six feet off the front of the island that night. She knocked down big trees along the shore, stole the soil of the bank, and laid claim to the ribbon of real estate that was now nothing more than bare, exposed rocks where once stood twenty-foot spruce trees at the edge of a forest. The tumble of ravaged trees
spilled over the rocks, their roots sticking up into the air, the root system of each toppled tree stripped and polished by the waves. It looked like a jungle of vines, a thousand medusa heads.

As Sylvie tried to go to sleep that night, she saw Freda as a perfectly satisfactory hurricane. Some kind of signal of beginnings or endings. A solution to an all-too-dry summer. A reminder of the power of things beyond themselves. Had Freda come ashore earlier, had the little girl died without the mercy of the winds and tides, all would be different. But it was enough to read portent into a day like this and carry it in your mind and heart.

Sylvie knew she was the link in the chain that saved this young one's life, and her actions seemed like the most important thing she had ever done. Maybe it was why she was still alive after all those years with husband upon husband dying on her. Some great, inexpressible lesson here about a woman and the art of living, a crazy thing that involved intimate dancing along a threshold of thoughts concerning death and life.

Sylvie had never been willing to accept the notions of death doled out by the churches. Too facile, too easy. Always the request that you did not try to understand God's higher purpose; it was not for mortals. Amazing that this little bit of whimsy satisfied some, but not her. Upon the burial of several of her men, clergy had come to give comfort, only to find their platitudes unwelcome. Sylvie had a personal relationship with death and it was not something many could even begin to comprehend.

Tonight she had sweet confirmation of the intricacy of the pattern — beyond understanding, yes, perhaps, but at least there was room to manoeuvre caring and compassion into the picture. There was the hard weaponry of free will against the absolute conspiracies of death and nature. Large thoughts on a windy night. Rain pelted against the glass and became a symphony. It
had a beginning, a middle, and an end. There was crescendo as well as diminuendo. Harmony and dissonance. Structure and chaos. But mutability as well. Sylvie recalled her husband William Toye once referring to a big, blasty September storm as a “philosopher's gale.” That applied aptly well to this night.

Sylvie understood why she had linked the impending tragedy to the young man, Greg Cookson, who was required to fight his own fears and go into the cave, stay with the girl until further help arrived. She was the link in the chain of events that had saved the girl. It was as if she had gone into the cave herself.

A thing of beauty.

This lightness of being. The weight of history sloughed off. The burden of responsibility diminished for now at least. She felt the return of a familiar aching within her — not the loss of her husbands this time, but the absence of children in her home. But she had given up, long ago, the notion that she had been somehow punished for a crime she was unaware of. No, despite everything, she felt blessed, not damned. She had immense love for all children. One of her greatest fears now was that all the island children would be moved to Mutton Hill Harbour to be closer to the schools.

The island was about to change; the province had already made an offer on her house and land, assured her of a place to live in the Cedars Retirement Community ashore. A room of her own with a shared bath. TV in the rec room, meals in a cafeteria. Old men and women fumbling about together and doing arts and crafts in the afternoon or watching soap operas. Social events. All planned and scheduled. Imagine.

Just before Sylvie woke, she was dreaming of a sea at sunset. An old woman was rowing a dory alone far from land across dark blue water that was like a sheet of glass. Each oar stroke sent
calm, controlled ripples away from the boat as it slowly progressed through the placid, even benevolent, waters. The old woman's rowing was slow and sure. Sylvie could not see her face but she knew the old woman was herself.

In the morning Sylvie discovered that her old outhouse, which was in semi-retirement but still functional, had blown over in the night. Spruce boughs were scattered about her lawn, and the grass was like a sopping sponge. The island had been sea blasted, spit-polished, drenched good, and it would now drip dry and be good as new.

Greg Cookson did not sleep hardly at all that night and it was not just the fact that the old fish shack leaked like a sieve. He sat up all night with a cup of hot tea in his hands, refilled over and over, although he almost electrocuted himself on the old electric tea kettle as the rain dripped on his wrist when he went to unplug it for the third time.

Unlike Sylvie, Greg felt anchored by the density of purpose in his life. He pondered over the fact that people do not go out into the world craving to do good and dangerous deeds. He had swum underwater down a long, dark tunnel of the sea because an old woman had asked him to help a trapped child inside. How could he have mustered the will to do such a thing? He had been training himself for at least the last six years to be, above all else, a rational person, a controlled individual who would not allow others to manipulate his life. Each decision was to be made in a rational and orderly fashion. And in doing so, he now realized, he had robbed himself of both passion and compassion.

What was his true purpose? he asked himself over and over. Certainly he was not put here to provide data for some bloody computer, to take a government job or become a good corporate employee. Nor was he destined to be a lawyer.

No. Nothing like that. Now he had an island. He had a great storm raging out there all night to remind him that he had just barely removed himself from harm's way. He had a thankful family of islanders and this glow inside his head that he wished would never go away. He heard the old, loose cedar shingles on the roof rattle and thrum with wind and rain. A few took flight as if all their lives they had waited to become brittle birds on one dark, turbulent night like this.

Drenching bombardment of the island. Dark sounds. Sounds of war but, thankfully, no bodies to be counted.

Greg did eventually fall into a fitful sleep. And when he woke up, he burst outside into the sunlight and heard the birds. Nothing, nothing had prepared him for this feeling. It was like he had been asleep all his life.

Greg sat, then lay down, on the bright, wet stones along the shoreline and stared up into the empty blue sky. Life loomed grand and large and yet he knew that he needed to fix a plan for extending some degree of the euphoria he was feeling. Life could not always work in such a burst of risk and reward, but the events of yesterday were a trigger of some sort. He now realized he liked saving things. He helped save the girl. Now he needed something else to save. It was a big planet with a lot of problems. Where to begin?

He found some clean clothes in a bottom drawer and put on the blue jeans, the faded black cotton shirt, white socks. He slipped his feet into his damp shoes and splashed out into the puddles of the old road that led from the fish shack to the rest of the island community.

His feet found their way to the door of Kit Lawson, and he knocked a short tattoo.

She opened the door looking very sad, very tired, a bedraggled beauty with darkness about her face and that crazed look in her eyes. “Ocean of Storms, Sea of Rains, Sea of Crises, Seething Bay,” she said.

Greg recognized the names of moon geography, understood it had something to do with Kit's brand of madness. Could he love a woman this crazy? Did he want to get involved with all the baggage of her mental and emotional instability? He held out his hand to her. Yes, he did. Kit needed saving lest she drown herself in her private Sea of Crises or Ocean of Storms. Greg understood that he was diving headlong into Seething Bay as he invited himself inside.

Kit had learned about Angeline, trapped in the sea cave, and it made her all the more afraid of the world she lived in. “It's a very untrustworthy place. Nothing is fixed, nothing stays put. Everything is in danger of losing itself. Did you feel the storm try to destroy us all last night?”

“No, I felt the storm challenging us, and, realizing we were strong, it moved on.”

“Why did you go in there?”

“Because Sylvie asked me to.”

“Sylvie is a strong one. And good.”

“Yes. That's why I had to go in.”

“Sylvie is the Sea of Tranquility.”

“Is she?”

“She is. What was it like underwater?”

“I didn't think about it. I just swam. I didn't think I had enough air but I did.” He told her about holding his breath in bathtubs all through his childhood. “It paid off big time.” Then he paused.“Kit, are you all right?”

“No. I need help. I've been like this before but never on the island. I thought I was safe here.”

“Safe from what?”

“From everything. I thought I wouldn't feel the pain again.”

“I want to help.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“Twenty is very young.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-six.”

“Only six years' difference between us. If I were eighty-six and you were as old as Sylvie, there wouldn't be much difference, would there?”

“Right, but if I were seven, you'd only be one year old, and that would be a big difference.”

“Would it ever. You'd have to learn baby talk to communicate with me.”

Kit smiled. Doors were opening.“You had any breakfast?”

“No. I was going to have cornflakes but they got drenched. Turned to mush. Leaks in the roof.”

“Can I make you something?”

“Yes, if you don't mind feeding a younger man.”

“Do I have to speak baby talk?”

“Only if you want.”

It was a large breakfast and a good one. Everything in it was organic. There was ground coffee with honey and goat's milk, Gouda cheese, apples, granola that she had made herself, orange juice. And a story.

“You know I'd been living with a guy. John. He was a great person. When he got busted for growing marijuana he tried to explain that he was going to put the money into a good cause, a school for inner-city kids. A safe place for them to learn and to play and all that. Back in Boston. It didn't seem to matter. He'd been busted before. He took it okay, even tried to convince himself that the two years in prison would be like a learning experience. He really is that kind of a guy.”

Greg saw some thread of connection between him and John. Kit handed him a tattered photograph. Lovable looking, long-haired
hippie type with a goofy grin. Good intentions, bad plan of action. Wanted to save a bunch of kids in the Boston States.

“I missed him something awful. He writes and tells me jail is not so bad. Lots of new friends, new ideas. Says he's realizing how messed up the legal system is. Pot growers like himself side by side with guys who have committed violent crimes. He's reading law books, even taking a course of some kind. Says he's got it in his head that he wants to get involved with the movement to legalize marijuana. It has to be done, he says. When he gets out he's going to Vancouver to work with the people there.”