“I’ll do the same. I just hope they don’t get delivered when I have a test or exam, or I’ll fail miserably.”
“You’ll fail at nothing,” he said, “because you’re brilliant.”
She smiled up at him. “I’ll try not to let that go to my head.”
They came upon a large piece of driftwood and separated to walk around it, then walked for a while in silence, ten feet apart, each of them enjoying the sensation of vigorous exercise in the fresh air and blood flowing robustly through their veins.
After a time, her father moved closer and walked beside Emma. “Maybe it was the wreck of theBelvedere,” he suggested, looking up at the cottony clouds in the sky, “that’s made this more difficult. It reminded me about loss, and ever since then, I’ve been thinking about your mother, about what she would have wanted for you.”
“What would that have been?” Emma asked, eager to know.
“She would have wanted you to follow your dreams. She was always keen for an adventure and believed we should all make the most of life while we’re fortunate enough to be alive and healthy. She would have hated for me to hold you back. She wouldn’t have stood for it.”
“I wish I could have known her,” Emma said.
“I wish that too. But here we are, and these were the cards we were dealt.”
Just then, an enormous gray seal, shrieking and barking, launched itself out of the waves and onto the beach.
“Watch yourself!” her father shouted.
Emma scurried away, and her father followed, keeping himself between Emma and the seal, which nipped at his heels. They ran and didn’t stop until they reached a safe distance and the seal retreated.
“Are you all right?” her father asked, out of breath.
“Yes. What about you?”
He bent to rub his ankle. “She snapped at me, but I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? Let me see.” Emma lifted the cuff of her father’s trousers and discovered a small gash above his Achilles tendon. “It’s not bad,” she said. “But we should put a bandage on it.” She lowered the trouser cuff and straightened.
“We should be getting back anyway,” he said, unfazed. “You still have some packing to do.”
They decided to walk through the interior on the return journey and avoid any further confrontations with overly aggressive seals on the beach.
The following morning, Emma stretched her arms over her head and said aloud, “Forty-eight hours until Boat Day.”
She rose from bed, dressed and washed, and ventured downstairs to the kitchen to cook a pot of oatmeal. Expecting to see her father at his desk with a cup of coffee as usual, she passed by his den, but his chairwas empty. She walked into the room and opened the curtains to see if he was out in the station yard. There were no signs of anyone, but it was still early, barely past the first glimmer of dawn.
Emma returned to the kitchen, filled a pot of water at the sink, and carried it to the stove. While she stood over the pot, waiting for it to boil, a memory surfaced, and she was carried back to the day she and Captain Harris had found Willow’s mother, dead in the sand. He had listened to everything she’d needed to say about the loss of her own mother. It was a moment that continued to echo in her mind—the sound of his voice in her ear, the touch of his hands, and the awakening in her body and soul.
She had hoped that by now, after an entire summer, the memories would come less often, but it still wasn’t the case, and she was losing patience with herself.
The water began to boil. With intention, she wrenched herself out of the past, measured a cup of dry oats, and dumped them into the pot. Giving it a stir, she listened for sounds of her father moving about upstairs. He was usually awake by this time, so she went hesitantly to the bottom of the stairs, listened more carefully, and still heard nothing.
Something felt not quite right.
Emma called up to him. “Papa? Are you awake?”
No answer.
She waited a few seconds, then climbed the stairs and knocked on his door. “Papa?”
Again, no answer, so she opened the door a crack, peered in, and saw him lying in bed, sleeping. The window was open. The curtains were billowing on gentle gusts of fresh air coming in off the water. A fly buzzed and bounced against the glass, looking for a way to escape.
Hesitantly, she approached, and abruptly began to perspire as she imagined her father not sleeping but dead, just like Willow’s mother lying in the sand. Emma’s pulse quickened. Her stomach lurched with sudden nausea, but she fought to ignore it and told herself that she was being foolish.
Using the back of her hand, she touched his forehead.
