“Where you think you’re going?”
Fury began to swoosh up inside me. I kept my voice as flat as I could and said, “Down to meet the ferry, Grandma. Remember? You said I should go and help Momma bring back the groceries.”
She looked strangely blank. “Well, hurry,” she said at last, beginning to rock again. “I don’t favor waiting here by myself.”
A small crowd of islanders had come by foot or bicycle and were already waiting the arrival of the ferry. They greeted me as I approached, pulling the red metal wagon that we used for hauling.
“Your Momma coming in?”
“Yes, Miss Letty. She had to take Caroline to the doctor.”
Sympathetic looks all round. “That child has always been so delicate.”
It was useless to withhold information; besides, for once, I didn’t care. “She had an earache, and Nurse thought she ought to go have Dr. Walton check it.”
Heads shook knowingly. “You can’t be too careful ’bout the earache.”
“Surely cannot. Remember, Lettice, when little Buddy Rankin come down with that bad ear? Martha thought nothing of it, and the next thing she knowed he got this raging fever. A pure miracle of the Lord the child didn’t go deaf, they said.”
Little Buddy Rankin was a seasoned waterman with two children of his own. I wondered idly what fixed memory they would have of me in twenty or thirty years.
Captain Billy’s son Otis emerged from the unpainted crab shipping shed. That meant the boat was coming in. He walked to the end of the pier ready to catch the line. Those of us waiting moved out of the lee of the building to watch the ferry chug in. It was small and, even before it was close enough to reveal its peeling paint, seemed to sag in the water. Grandma was right. It was an old boat, a tired boat. My father’s boat was far from new. It had belonged to another waterman before he bought it, but it was still lively and robust, like a man who’s spent his life on the water. Captain Billy’s ferry, though much larger, drooped like an old waiting woman. I buttoned my jacket against the wind and concentrated on Captain Billy’s sons Edgar and Richard who had jumped ashore and were helping Otis tie up the ferry with graceful, practiced steps.
My father had walked up. He smiled at me and touched my arm in greeting. For a happy moment, I thought he’d spied me from his boat and had come on purpose to say hello. And then I saw his gaze turn toward the hatch of the under deck passenger cabin. It was Momma he had come to meet and Caroline, of course. Hers was the first head out of the opening, wrapped against the wind in a sky blue scarf. Just enough of her hair had escaped to make her look fresh and full like a girl in a cigarette ad.
“Hey, Daddy!” she called out as she came. “Daddy’s here, Momma,” she said back over her shoulder toward the cabin. Our mother’s head appeared. She was having more trouble on the ladder than Caroline, for, in addition to a large purse, she was trying to negotiate a huge shopping bag.
Caroline, meantime, had skipped quickly around the narrow deck and jumped lightly to the dock. She kissed our father on his cheek, a gesture that never failed to embarrass me. Caroline was the only person I knew who kissed in public. It was simply not done on our island. At least she wouldn’t try to kiss me. I was sure of that. She nodded, grinning. “Wheeze,” she said. I nodded back without the smile. Daddy met Momma halfway round the deck and took the shopping bag. No unnecessary touching, but they were smiling and talking when they got off the boat.
“Oh, Louise. Thank you for bringing the wagon. There’re still more groceries in the hold.”
I smiled, proud of my thoughtfulness, conveniently forgetting it was Grandma who had sent me down to the dock.
Two other island women emerged from the cabin door, and then, to my surprise, a man. Men usually rode up top on the bridge with Captain Billy. But this was an old man, one whom I had never seen before. He had the strong stocky build of a waterman. His hair, under a seaman’s cap, was white and thick and hung almost halfway down his neck. He had a full mustache and beard, both white, and was wearing a heavy winter overcoat, despite the fact that it was April. And he was carrying what I imagined one might call a “valise.” It must have been heavy because he put it down on the dock as he waited quietly with the rest of us for Captain Billy’s sons to hand up the luggage and groceries from the hold.
Momma pointed out her two boxes, which my father and I loaded precariously onto the wagon. They were too large to fit into the bed of the wagon, so we perched them slantwise, tilting down into the middle. I knew I would have to go slowly, for if I hit a bump, there were likely to be groceries all over the narrow street.
All the time I was watching the stranger out of the corner of my eye. Two more ancient bags and a small trunk were brought up and put beside him. By now everyone was staring. No one would have so much baggage unless he planned to stay for quite some time.
“Somebody meeting you?” Richard asked, not unkindly.
The old man shook his head, staring down at the luggage piled around him. He looked a little like a lost child.
“Got a place to stay?” the young man asked.
“Yes.” He lifted his overcoat collar up as though to protect himself from the cold island wind and jerked his hat down almost to his bushy eyebrows.
By now the crowd upon the dock was positively leaning in his direction. The island held few secrets or surprises beyond the weather. But here was a perfectly strange man. Where had he come from, and where was he planning to stay?
I felt my mother’s elbow. “Come along,” she said quietly, nodding a good-bye at my father. “Grandma will be worrying.”
I had seldom felt so exasperated—to have to go home in the middle of this unfolding drama. But both Caroline and I obeyed, leaving the little scene on the dock behind, making our slow progress up the narrow oyster-shell street between the picket fences that enclosed each house. The street was only wide enough for four people to walk abreast. The crushed oyster shells underfoot rattled the wagon so that I could feel the vibrations in my teeth.
There was such a scarcity of high land on Rass that for generations we had buried our dead in our front yards. So to walk down the main street was to walk between the graves of our ancestors. As a child I thought nothing of it, but when I became an adolescent, I began to read the verses on the tombstones with a certain pleasant melancholy.
Mother, are you gone forever
To a land so bright and fair?