Our Homesick Songs Read online

  Martha didn’t call for the doctor until the day Meredith didn’t take any soup at all, couldn’t even hold it in her mouth. The bruise had spread up her chin and cheeks and it hurt too much to take the broth in. Meredith had been sick for almost three weeks.

  This is not good, said the doctor, her hand just under Meredith’s ear, patting down and around in a slow circle. Oh, she said. Oh, oh. You should have called me sooner.

  I’m sorry, said Martha, it was just the flu, we didn’t—

  The doctor pulled the blanket back, away from Meredith in one quick swoop. Her torso and legs down to the ankle on one side and to just below the knee on the other were purple-gray. One side of her stomach puffed big and strange. Molly took a step backward, away from the bed. Much, much sooner, said the doctor.

  I didn’t— said Martha.

  She’s going to have to come with me now, to South Island. We need to test blood.

  I’m sorry, said Martha, I—

  How were you to know? said the doctor, you’re only just children. Children all alone.

  I’m sixteen, said Molly, from the other side of the bed.

  Can we come with you? asked Martha.

  Not right now. Today you’ll only get in the way. She was packing things back into her bag without looking at them, hurried, frazzled. I, she said, I’m sorry. Martha couldn’t tell if it was to them or to Meredith. Come the day after tomorrow, said the doctor. You can come then. I can have someone sent by, before then, if you need help.

  No, said Martha. We don’t need them.

  No, said Molly. Thank you.

  •  •  •

  You’re eighteen, said Molly, after the doctor had bundled Meredith in her quilt and walked her shakily down to her boat and rowed off toward South Island. You’re already eighteen, she said to Martha. She said quiet as sinking stone, You should have said.

  Martha and Molly slept in different beds now, but still in the same room. After they’d turned off the light but before falling asleep, Molly said, I miss Mom and Dad.

  Martha didn’t answer, pretended to be asleep, because she knew if she tried to reply her voice would crack and break and Molly would have no one, no one at all.

  She waited until she was absolutely, totally sure that Molly was really sleeping, until she could see her eyelids fluttering with dreams, before she got up, put on her dressing gown, walked downstairs, put on her boots and her father’s raincoat, and walked out to the water.

  •  •  •

  It was raining, but only lightly, halfway between real rain and mist. Martha welcomed it onto the heat of her face and hands. The mermaid’s song was strong tonight, steady and full. Martha tried to sing along, tried to follow.

  There is a ship

  That sails the sea

  She didn’t have her net or needle or card with her. Instead, she picked up an old oar wedged between some rocks on the beach,

  It’s loaded deep

  put it in her small sitting-boat and pushed it out to the water.

  As deep can be

  She rowed and rowed and rowed until the waves stopped pushing her back and started pulling her out

  But not so deep

  and the water turned from shallows and sandbars to the deep dark of hidden and forgotten things,

  As the love I’m in

  and the mermaid’s voice grew fuller and realer, and closer and closer,

  I know not if

  until, just as the dawn sky became dusty with the idea of light,

  •  •  •

  I sink or swim

  she saw him. Not a mermaid. A boat and a boy. She rowed all the way to him.

  Just a boat.

  Just a boy.

  •  •  •

  Just a boy, she said.

  He stopped singing, turned around. Oh! he said.

  You’re not a mermaid, she said.

  Are you a mermaid? he said.

  No, she said, I’m Martha, just Martha Murphy.

  Oh, he said. I’m Aidan. Just Aidan Connor.

  You’re the one singing.

  Yes.

  All along, it was you singing?

  I suppose.

  How many years?

  Singing? How many years have I been singing?

  Yes.

  Um . . . five. I suppose it’s been a bit over five years.

  Oh, said Martha. And then, It has. It has been five years. Just a bit over five years. She let her hands fall away from the oar, her fingers still showing the grain of it, raised and red.

  Do you want to come in? said Aidan. To my boat, I mean. Come in for a while?

  OK, said Martha.

  They tied their boats together and Martha climbed over, into Aidan’s. They sat side by side on his bench and watched the rising sun.

  Are you OK? said Aidan.

  Yes, said Martha. Her right hand was clutched into itself.

  OK, said Aidan.

  But you should keep singing, said Martha.

  You want me to?

  Yes.

  So Aidan sang. He sang

  “The Water Is Wide”

  and

  “The Bog Flower Waltz”

  and

  “She’s Like the Swallow”

  and when he got to the end of this one, before he even had a chance to take in breath, Martha, without turning her head to look at him, still facing straight on to the sun, unclutched her hand, reached over and put it on his, and his insides twitched and flipped and then melted down, right down, and he knew, for one terrifying second, that this would be it, that this would be the gentle, terrible, perfect undoing of everything.

  I hope you catch all the fish, she said. I hope your nets are full to bursting. Then she stood up and climbed back over to her own boat.

  Martha Murphy?

  Yes, Aidan Connor?

  I’d like to see you again, on land.

  Yes.

  Yes?

  Yes, I suppose I’d like that too.

  •  •  •

  After Martha was five or ten minutes away, back toward the mainland, the water churned, rocked beneath her in the way that meant whales. But the season wasn’t right for whales. Not for months. She looked around, back over toward the fishing boy’s boat. Beyond it, maybe fifty meters further out, was the biggest ship she’d ever seen, a dragger. Bigger than a whale. Rocking in its wake, Aidan Connor’s boat looked tiny, looked like almost nothing at all.

  Molly was waiting for Martha on a high rock. Was awake now, already, and was down, waiting for her, watching for her. The sun lit her from behind so she was just a silhouette. From Martha’s place in the boat, Molly looked like a sculpture, like someone had thoughtfully and carefully placed her there. If I can see her, she can see me, Martha knew. But they were still too far, much too far apart, to be able to call out, to hear or say anything. It would be half an hour at least until they could, or would have to, say anything at all.

  As Martha pulled the boat up, Molly came down to take her hand and steady her step. She stayed silent. Just kept her hand in her sister’s like that, all the way back across the rocks and up and across the road and down the lane and up the steps to their house. She didn’t say anything at all, so, finally, just before they opened the door and stepped back in, Martha said, I miss them too.

  And they stepped in, home. Molly had the coals going and cooked oats and berries, now cold, on the table.

  Hey, Molly?

  Yes?

  Do you think it’s true that all Connors are cheats?

  When young Aidan got home from his shift out on-boat, he took off his boots, hung up his coat, kissed his mother’s cheek, dusty with flour, and asked, Can a body change his name? Take his mother’s instead of his father’s?

  Do you mean is it legal? She dusted flour over a bowl of dough. Or to what extent it would work? She picked up a wooden spoon and pressed its back into the mixture, again and again.

  Both, I suppose.


  It’s perfectly legal. She put down the spoon, added more flour, picked it back up again and pressed it back into the mixture, heavier, more resistant. But you know as well as I do that it wouldn’t make any difference what people know you by, or what they know you as, unless you leave this place. She divided the dough and gave him half.

  That would defeat the purpose, I suppose, said Aidan. He kneaded his half down and she hers.

  Not to mention I’m not ready for you to leave, not yet, said his mother. I’ll die eventually. You can go then. Her hands in and out of the dough in an easy rhythm, like music without music.

  OK. His hands more slow, more careful; he was always sure he would do something to ruin everything at this point.

  So, who did you meet out there? A mermaid?

  The next morning, Martha got up early. She made two cups of tea and went and sat with them, with a book over each to keep them from cooling down too quickly, on the front step. She was waiting for the paperboy to pass by. The paperboy was actually Nuala Doyle, a girl, but everyone called her the paperboy anyway, out of habit. There was only one paper a week, and the Murphys didn’t get it, so Martha had to watch carefully to catch her between other houses. She caught sight of her just after six a.m., jogging away from the big merchant house at the end of the lane; she waved until Nuala noticed, confused, and jogged over. Martha handed her a dollar, the second cup of tea and an envelope that said

  Aidan Connor

  on the front. She was sure Nuala must be able to see her chest pounding under her sweater, but if she did she didn’t mention it. Jesus, Nuala said instead. I’m not a flippin’ postman. What people don’t seem to realize is I’m on a tight schedule. But just this once, OK? And thanks for the tea.

  She sat down on the step next to Martha to drink it, sticking the letter in with the small pile of rolled-up newspapers in her bag. It is real good tea, she said.

  Her paper route covered Big Running first, then Little Running after that. Halfway up the track between them, on a part-rotted stump she often used for sitting and smoking, Nuala stopped, sat and breathed warm onto the seal of Martha’s letter until it came up. She pulled out the folded paper inside, unfolded it and read:

  My Sister Meredith (the serious one) is sick and at South Island. I’ve gone to her.

  I’ll be back after that.

  I think I would still like to see you again, then.

  Martha M.

  before carefully refolding the paper, resealing the envelope as best she could, standing and continuing on her way, quick to make it before the tide came in.

  •  •  •

  Martha and Molly arrived at the South Island clinic that afternoon. There was a row of beds out front, each with a patient on it with a sleeping bag pulled up to their chins and a toque pulled down to their eyes. They looked like fish-bait worms. Some were asleep and some silently watched them go past, up the walkway.

  The sea air, said the doctor, a new doctor, walking over to meet them. It’s good for them. For everyone. Of course, I bring them in if it’s raining hard. She put a firm hand on Martha’s shoulder, steered her around and to the left. Or hailing, she said. Anyway, here she is. You can take a few minutes and then come and see me at my office. It’s just over there. She motioned toward the side of the clinic where there was a little boardwalk with a desk on it. On the desk were a number of fist-sized stones holding down piles of paper; the stacked corners were pulling and flapping in the wind. The doctor strode off toward it.

  Meredith was asleep. Her toque and sleeping bag were pink. Matching. Looking up and down the row, Martha realized they all were, each patient had their own matching toque and sleeping bag set. Meredith’s neighbors were orange and blue respectively.

  Meredith hates pink, whispered Molly.

  It’s OK, whispered Martha. Since the pink’s on her, she won’t have to look at it on anyone else. Her sick sister’s face was all yellow-gray now. All bruise.

  Should we wake her?

  No, I don’t think we should.

  Just stand here for a while?

  Yes, I guess so.

  So they stood. Molly smoothed out all the rumples on Meredith’s sleeping bag, bottom to top. Once she finished, at Meredith’s chin, the bag would bump back up again at her feet and Molly would start over. Martha watched Meredith’s face for anything, a tremor of her eyes under their lids, a movement of the lips in breath, anything at all. In her peripheral vision she could see Molly’s hands moving up the pink fabric and back down again, up and down.

  •  •  •

  She’s going to Gander, said the doctor. They were sitting on some moss-covered stones the doctor had positioned beside her desk. They’re sending a boat. It’ll be faster than the ferry, easier. A boat, then a car.

  What will they do there? asked Martha.

  The doctor lifted a rock off some papers, fingered through until she found the right one, glanced at it quickly and said, Tests.

  I thought you did tests already, I thought that’s why she came here, said Molly.

  She needs more, said the doctor. We can do blood, but we can’t do bone. She needs bone. She picked up the rock and put it back onto the papers. I’m sorry, she said.

  Bone? said Molly.

  Yes, said the doctor. Marrow. It’s, it’s standard, she said. In cases like this. It’s not as bad as . . . I mean, it doesn’t hurt as much as—she paused a moment, then started again, I am sorry, she said. They don’t have as much sea air there, in Gander, but there is a lake. She’ll be taken care of there. She will be OK. She lifted another rock, took a pamphlet out from underneath and handed it across the desk, toward them.

  YOUTH

  AND

  CANCER

  Martha reached out, put her hand over it.

  She’ll be OK? said Molly.

  Leukemia, said Martha.

  They’ll call you once the results are in, said the doctor. I can ask them to. I will ask them to.

  Leukemia, said Martha.

  Leukemia? said Molly.

  They’ll call you. I’ll ask them to call you. The doctor stood up again. I need to make my rounds, she said. But you can go say good-bye if you want. To your sister. For now. Good-bye for now. You can take as long as you want.

  •  •  •

  Meredith was still sleeping. They stood on either side of her.

  Good-bye, said Molly.

  Good-bye, said Martha.

  As they turned to go, Martha felt warmth, a hand, taking her own. She looked down and saw that it belonged to Meredith’s neighbor, all in orange. A very old man. Good-bye, he mouthed.

  •  •  •

  They stayed overnight on South Island, with a crabber who had known their mother once, and didn’t get back home until almost nightfall the next day. There was a folded note stuck to their door with a bit of chewing gum. It said

  Martha M.

  on the front and, under that, in smaller letters, in a different hand,

  (He gave me $3 and a Coke. NOTE: This is not a regular thing. I am NOT a postman.—N)

  Oh? said Molly.

  I’ll show you later, said Martha. If it’s important. She took the note down off the door and folded it into her skirt pocket.

  Later, when Molly was in the bathroom getting ready for bed, Martha went into Meredith’s room, their parents’ old room, closed the door behind her and took the note out of her pocket. Some of the gum had stuck to her skirt’s lining, so she had to unstick it carefully to get it out without ripping.

  You should have told me. I would have taken you in my boat. Not that there’s anything wrong with your boat. Still, I would have. If you need to go again, South Island or anywhere, you can always ask me.

  Aidan C.

  There was a knock on the door.

  Martha?

  Yes, Molly. Through the old, cracked wood.

  Do you think you’ll move away? Leave to be with him?

  We only just met, Molly. Just one
time.

  Still, will you?

  If I leave, it won’t be for ages, Molly, not for years.

  OK.

  Martha heard her get up and walk away, into their bedroom, into bed, then nothing but the wind on the water outside. She opened the door and went to bed herself, taking the note with her.

  •  •  •

  The call from Gander came three days later. Molly was inside, preparing wax for jars, so she was the one to answer it. Martha, who had been out on the porch untangling old twine and rolling it back into neat, ordered balls, heard the ring and came in and stood beside her sister. The twine that had been on her lap fell off and rolled down the front stairs, undoing itself in a straight, gray line. Normally, their phone never rang. If people had things to say, they would come to the door.

  OK, said Molly, pulling a chunk of her hair free from between her ear and the receiver.

  . . .

  OK.

  . . .

  OK.

  . . .

  No, I— OK.

  . . .

  OK, thank you.

  . . .

  No, it’s OK, thank you.

  . . .

  We will.

  . . .

  We will.

  . . .

  We will.

  After she hung up, Molly looked over to her wax, in a pot on top of another pot. It had cooled over, all gone hard. Goddammit, she said.

  What did they say? said Martha.

  Now I’ll have to start again.

  Molly, what did they—

  And I’m no good at getting it right, I’m too scared of burning it; I’m no good—

  Molly. Martha reached over and stopped her sister chipping at the hardened wax with a spoon. Molly, what did they say?

  Molly let the spoon go. It stuck into the wax, almost upright. She’s moved, she said. They got her to Gander, did some tests, and the tests were positive, which means negative, which means bad, they were bad, and they moved her again. Further away again. To St John’s. I don’t know why she had to move again. They didn’t say why. I don’t know why.

  Oh, said Martha. Did they—