Our Homesick Songs Page 21

  To do what?

  To just be normal.

  John smiled. Pulled a burr from his trousers and threw it at the ground. Nobody’s just normal, Cora. Nobody. His hands smoothed the place where the burr had been. Beautiful nails. Impeccable nails. Call them tonight, Cora, he said. After your shift. Promise me you will.

  Or else you will.

  Yes.

  Cora watched her dogs, watched Giancarlo sniffing the ground, watched Giannina watch him. She sighed. OK, she said. I will.

  You promise?

  I promise.

  •  •  •

  They used the sound-compass to find their way back to camp, arranging it until it sounded for due north, and then walking in the opposite direction. Your mom told me you play violin, said John, stepping over a fallen tree, then moving aside so the dogs could get over too.

  I did, said Cora. But I had to sell it.

  You did?

  I did.

  That’s too bad.

  I guess.

  I have a sister, she used to play guitar. She would play and my mom and I would sing along.

  Not anymore?

  Not anymore.

  They separated at the road. John had to go back and change before his shift and Cora had to finish her rounds. Before they did, Cora asked, John, where are you from?

  Here.

  Here?

  Not far at all, pretty much here.

  Wow, lucky you.

  You think so?

  I think so.

  •  •  •

  Cora finished her rounds, saw no bears, put the dogs in for dinner and bed, got her own food, went to her room, picked up her phone and dialed home.

  Aidan was wiping down kitchen baseboards when the phone rang. He hung the rag over the side of his bucket and wiped his hands on his trousers and reached over to answer it.

  Hello?

  Dad?

  John’s new job was driving. Into town and back to the site, into town and back to the site. A trainer came with him on the first run and then left him to it. On his next run he made one extra stop on his way out of town, at the Gently Used Pawn Shop.

  She’s OK, Martha, she’s OK, said Aidan.

  I, said Martha. I—

  So you don’t need to cry, she said she’s OK.

  So you don’t need to cry either.

  She’s OK.

  She’s OK, Aidan, she’s OK, she’s OK, she’s OK.

  •  •  •

  They wanted her home. They wanted her now. She wanted to stay. She wanted more time. So they came up with a plan. A simple plan. At the end of this work cycle, not very long, not very long at all, Cora would take the camp shuttle down to the airport. She would meet Martha there, and they’d fly and ferry home together. Not forever, just for a week or so, to talk and pack and plan and to see Finn, to get Finn. She would call home or her mom at work every night until then. She didn’t tell them about the money, not yet.

  Cora was leashing up the dogs the next morning when Katya, the post girl, came by. I know you never come to the main site to check your box, she said. She put a package down between them. So I thought I’d bring you this myself. She smiled and her cheeks dimpled, still flushed from her jog over. Cora smiled back.

  Thanks, said Cora.

  Your dogs are beautiful, said Katya. She held a hand out for Giancarlo to sniff.

  You could come back tonight, said Cora, when I feed them, if you want.

  I’d like that, said Katya. Her hair was the summer brown of new tree bark.

  •  •  •

  The package wasn’t a proper package. Just a violin case with FOR DON (BEAR-SCARER) written on a piece of masking tape on the outside and a fully strung and ready violin on the inside. A one-line note had been tucked in, under the scroll:

  Play for your mother.

  Did you tell him?

  I did. Right after I got off the phone with you. He was already in bed, in her room, half asleep. I told him and his face changed. He got soft again, Martha, he got young again.

  You told him—

  That we found Cora. That she’s OK. That you’re coming home together and that we’ll all be here, again. That we won’t be broken anymore.

  And then? Did you tell him about what happens then? What we’re doing next?

  He was so relieved, Martha. He cried. He cried and cried and cried.

  You didn’t tell him.

  Not yet.

  We have to.

  I know. Just not yet.

  Soon.

  I know, I know.

  The camp will give us a family suite for a few weeks, until we can find a place in town. I asked. They said it was no problem. We’ll find schools, find real schools. It will be good for him, for everyone.

  I’ll tell him, Martha. I will tell him.

  It will be good, Aidan. We can make it good.

  The last letter Finn found was in the Atlantis house. Completely in code, all shapes and numbers, not any language. He showed it to his dad. Didn’t tell him about the others, but showed him this one, this last one. He was allowed to now, he figured, now that everyone knew where Cora was.

  This, said Aidan. I know this. I’ve seen this. He lifted his arms, mimed an invisible fiddle, checked the letter, moved his left hand slowly, finger by finger.

  The water is wide

  he sang,

  I can’t cross o’er

  It’s a song, he said. She’s sent you this song.

  •  •  •

  Finn worked in the Atlantis house now. The last stage in the last house. Under shining blue walls and mermaid lamps he underlined phrases and made a list:

  Night-time

  Directed

  Low

  Pulses, like a drum

  Through the water. For miles. And miles and miles.

  He looked at it, tapped it with his pencil. He drew a snake in the margin. A small yellow boot-snake who was blind in one eye. The point of the St. Patrick story, he thought, wasn’t St. Patrick. It was him first, but then everyone else too. It wouldn’t have worked without that. It wouldn’t have worked without everyone.

  •  •  •

  After finishing dinner, mashed potatoes with cheese and bologna mixed in, Finn laid his fork and knife next to each other and said, Dad, you like singing, right?

  More than anything, except my family.

  And this place.

  Yes, yes, more than anything except my family and this place.

  OK, good. I think I’ll need you to sing with me soon.

  Of course, Finn, of course. After dinner tonight, now? I’m not doing anything; I could do that.

  Not yet, said Finn. Soon, though. The first night Mom and Cora are back, I think. OK?

  OK.

  And then you’ll have everything, Dad. You’ll have everything on your list. Your family and singing and this place. All together. That’ll be pretty good.

  I’d be happy with just one, or two.

  But you can have three. All three.

  I can. Sometimes I can.

  •  •  •

  The day the support checks were delivered, Finn waited outside, on the road. He saw Sophie before she saw him and ran over to catch her. She was in her summer uniform, navy-blue shorts, no more mittens.

  Hi, said Finn.

  Finn! she said. Long time.

  Sophie, do you play any instruments or sing?

  Hm. Well, I’m decent at bodhran, and, well, everyone can sing, can’t they?

  Sure, sure they can.

  •  •  •

  And he tended to his nets and traps and lights. There was one Jesus and one bike light that had gone out and that he had no more batteries for. He collected urchin shells from traps, ran his fingers along their patterns and bumps, kept the complete ones and dropped the broken ones back in the water one at a time, empty, sinking moons.

  Finn? called Aidan, from the kitchen to the hallway. Are you fre
e to talk? Are you busy right now?

  Finn had his arms full of shells. He was taking them up to Cora’s room, more of them. All her shelves were covered now, and the windowsill and the small table beside her bed.

  A bit, Dad. I’ve got a bike ride I need to do right after this, now that it’s not raining.

  OK. We’ll talk later. We’ll talk when you get back.

  •  •  •

  Finn biked down the long, empty ring road, riding with no hands whenever it was flat. He saw three caribou and six gulls. He rode with the wind all the way to the ferry port, to the little house that sat just before the parking lot and where Richard Peterson, the newest ferry and gas station manager, lived. The new guy from Ontario. He’d been there just a few weeks, just since Sheila McNabe finished her course and left for Vancouver. Finn had never actually met him, only knew of him through overheard phone calls between Aidan and Martha. He rang the doorbell and waited. He waited a long time. Rang it again. He was getting back on his bike when the door opened. Richard squinted through the screen like he hadn’t ever seen sun or sky. YES? he said through the wind. YES WHAT?

  HI, said Finn, standing back, words carried forward on wind, I’M FINN CONNOR AND I WAS WONDERING IF, MAYBE, YOU CAN PLAY ANY INSTRUMENTS OR SING AT ALL?

  •  •  •

  The next time Cora called, Finn got his dad to hold the phone up toward him while he played “The Water Is Wide” on his accordion. He made a few mistakes, but mostly he was doing it right. After the first verse, Cora said, Oh, oh, I get it! Wait, hold on . . .

  They heard her leave, move around a bit and then come back. OK, she said, start again. This time she played along. Once they got to the end, Finn and Aidan heard her put the violin down, back in its case. That’s it, she said. You got it.

  After they hung up the phone, but before Finn had a chance to go, Aidan said, Finn, we might leave.

  Finn was crouched down, doing up the buckles on his accordion case. What? he said.

  We, this family, might leave. Might leave here. After Martha and Cora come home. We’ll talk about it and then we might go. We’ll probably go.

  Finn stood up. Faced his father. His face pale behind his freckles. We still have a month, he said. The notices said. We still have a month and eight days, we—

  It’s time, said Aidan. It’s time now, Finn.

  Finn’s right hand clenched. We have a month and eight days, he said. I have a plan and if, if the fish come back, then you wouldn’t say we had to leave, then you wouldn’t say it was time, then you would—

  Finn, said Aidan, I don’t think—

  But what if? What if they did?

  Then, yes, we wouldn’t have to leave. We could work here. We could stay. But, Finn—

  Then we would stay?

  Then we would stay.

  •  •  •

  Finn rowed over to Mrs. Callaghan’s, pushing against the wind. All his flags were straight out, whipping with it. You shouldn’t have come, said Mrs. Callaghan. It’s too fierce.

  Do you know “The Water Is Wide”? asked Finn.

  Know it? Boy, I wrote it.

  Can we come and get you, in one week and one day? Can we row out and get you? You and your accordion?

  Will we go into Big Running or stay on-water?

  You can stay on-water.

  OK, then. You come get me. I’ll come.

  It was Katya, finally, who convinced Cora to come out one night, to leave her room. They held hands and walked down toward the main site; Cora brought her violin.

  There was a piano in the lodge lounge and a man was playing a waltz. There was beer and there were three other men playing cards and a man and a woman playing Scrabble and four more men just sat around the piano, listening. Some of them hummed along. When the pianist finished he turned around and saw Cora and said, Now you, now you play us something.

  And Katya smiled and said, Yeah, go on.

  So Cora did. She opened the latches and got out the fiddle and lifted it and played “She’s like the Swallow.”

  The listening men listened and two of the card men stopped and listened too and one of them started singing and then one of the Scrabble players too, the woman. When Cora finished she was warm, warmer than the night should be up there; she put down her violin for a minute and took off her sweater while Katya got them both beers. Then Cora tightened her bow a bit more, rosined it a bit more, counted a beat of four and started up “The Northern Long-Eared Bat Reel” and the card players whooped and stood up and started dancing and Katya and the Scrabble woman danced with them and the piano player figured out the chords and joined in and Cora played every repeat and the piano player laughed and followed until, after four times around, he pulled them off into another tune, a jig, around and around until Cora pulled him off into another, and back and forth, and another and another, as more and more people came and danced and drank and sang and danced and sang and sang.

  Cora kept an eye out for John all night, in among all the people coming and going and spinning and dropping, wanted to show him her violin, her playing, but he never came.

  The night before Cora and Martha came home was clear. It was dark and light at the same time, it was so clear. No fog, no mist, no rain, Finn could see right out across the water, past his flags and balloons and lights, out and out and out. He went to the hall, dialed the number, pulled the phone back into Cora’s room, shut the door, but stayed standing up this time, stayed where he could see out the window.

  We might go, he said.

  I know, said Mrs. Callaghan.

  And then you’ll be alone, you’ll be all alone here.

  I know.

  You don’t mind?

  Someone has to wait for the fish, Finn. For when they come back.

  You think they will?

  Everything does, eventually.

  It does?

  It does.

  The wind pushed against the window glass and Finn could feel it through his pajamas, against his skin; his flags pulled and pulled on the water.

  Do you want the story again? asked Mrs. Callaghan.

  Just the end, said Finn. Just tell me the end.

  OK:

  (1975)

  Martha worked and worked and worked and then was done, was ready. The wind bayed outside and the fire glowed inside and she ran her fingers through what she had made and, for the first time since her parents had died, she wanted something. Even though she had heard about his father, and his father, and his father, even though she had heard that all Connors were cheats, she wanted him, as sure and strong and full as her body, she wanted this.

  Aidan sat in his boat in the dark of fog and night and followed the blurred glow of moon out onto the sea and thought of Martha and thought, I can be bigger than myself, I can.

  He opened the parcel out on the water. It was from Martha and she had told him to open it out there, well and far out, alone. His hands tangled in it as he ripped the brown paper away. It was a net, a new net, made for him by her. He brought it to his face, smelled her fireplace, her hands. He threw it out over the side and the floats she’d sewn in held it up and spread it out and moving across the water and it was more than just net, it was words. He read them by the star- and moon- and mist-light:

  MARRY ME AIDAN CONNOR

  it said, in a thousand tiny knots.

  (1993)

  And then? asked Finn, the phone pressed warm into his cheek, his ear.

  And then everything, said Mrs. Callaghan.

  Martha waited just outside the airport door. It slid open and closed as people walked by, in and out, open and closed. It was a small airport; this was the only door.

  Her camp shuttle had dropped her off an hour and forty-five minutes before Cora’s would arrive. She knew this, but she still waited outside. Just outside the door, her suitcase propped against an ashtray. White cigarette sand blew onto her case whenever the door opened. In and out, in and out. Her eyes stung from watching the road; s
he needed to remind herself to close them, to blink.

  •  •  •

  The Deep Wood shuttle arrived after one hour and fifty-two minutes. Painted green and white, it drove up the road, then into the lot, then into the loading bay, then right up to the door, right up to Martha.

  Four passengers got out and off in a ballet of luggage and good-byes and then, from the back, a child. Her child.

  Cora’s skin was darker and her arms and legs were fuller, stronger. She looked adult; she looked grown-up. But all Martha could think, could say, was,

  My Baby,

  My Baby,

  My Baby.

  Cora had a suitcase from the same set as Martha’s. She had a violin.

  I’m not sorry, she said. But I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry, Mom.

  She didn’t want to cry, but she did.

  Cora and Martha were arriving on the afternoon ferry. Finn and Aidan got out of the car and watched the boat close the space between the water and the port, between Martha and Cora and Aidan and Finn.

  Aidan lifted his daughter like she was a child, like she was a girl. She pushed her face into his shoulder and closed her eyes and let herself be small.

  The car was alone in the lot, the pavement all around cracked with rock cress and sweet vetch and barrens willow, all breaking through.

  Finn and Cora sat side by side in the back while their parents lifted bags into the trunk, while their mother went to their father and leaned her forehead against his forehead, while her hair fell and blew between them so both their faces were hidden, while he put his arms around her and she put her arms around him.

  They drove past boulders, they drove past waterfalls.

  There was no one else, said Finn. Quiet, beneath the road noise. Too quiet for their parents, up front, to hear. You left and there was no one else but me.

  I was coming back for you, said Cora. I was always coming back.

  There was just me and the empty houses and the empty water and nothing else. Nothing else.