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Aurora wanted to tell him that her mother had named her after the Aurora Borealis, the magical Northern Lights that she’d never managed to see before her death, despite begging Aurora, especially toward the end, to take her there. But it wasn’t like Aurora ever had enough cash for groceries, let alone two spare tickets to Iceland or Norway or wherever the heck the Northern Lights were.
“Anyway, the guys want to get back ASAP,” Brooks said, pulling her back to reality. “You in?” He then reached for her guitar and her suitcase, smiling generously. They both knew she had no other choice.
Aurora had never been on a boat before. She hadn’t considered this prior to applying to the residency, perhaps because she’d seen films with boats and read books with boats and assumed it would be easy. But as Aurora stood on the dock, gazing at the wide gap between the solid wood and the boat— a gap she was supposed to leap over to board, horror and fear shrouded any feeling of excitement she might have had.
“Come on!” Brooks called from the boat as he started the engine, and the motor rumbled within the water.
Aurora winced, and at that moment, Brooks’ face echoed with empathy. He jumped for the edge of the boat and reached out to take her hand. “Look me in the eye and jump,” he said. “I’ll get you the rest of the way.”
Aurora’s eyes filled with tears. Again, her mother’s face floated in her mind, screaming at her, “Don’t trust anyone, Aurora! As soon as you do, they’ll take you for everything! Everything you’re worth!”
But despite her deceased mother’s warning, Aurora linked her fingers with Brooks’, counted to three in her mind, and jumped onto the boat. Most of her expected to fall between the gap, to drop into the thrashing waves of the stormy water. When her feet landed on the solid floor of the boat, she gasped, pressing her free hand against her heart. She’d made it.
“Great. Take a seat down there,” Brooks said quickly, pointing toward an enclosed room beneath the deck. “We’ll be on the island in no time.”
Aurora met the eyes of each of the other fishermen as she grabbed the top of the staircase railing, all of whom looked at her with vague curiosity and, admittedly, annoyance. She was lagging, which meant none of them would make it home as quickly as they had planned. Aurora’s gut stirred with shame.
As the boat made its way out onto the sound, Aurora crossed and uncrossed her legs, peering out the small portal window on that level of the boat, which offered a view of the sloshing ocean. Brooks had already put her guitar and her suitcase down here, and they were tucked against a railing so they wouldn’t slide around too much. Aurora’s heart opened at the sight. She was struck with the realization that nobody had done anything half as nice for her in years.
Just before they reached the port, Aurora tossed her drying hair, trying to make herself look a little less like a wet rat who’d scampered through the kitchen door during a rainstorm. A part of her thought for sure that when she entered The Copperfield House, the Copperfields would take one look at her and insist that she leave, that she couldn’t stay with them, or that they couldn’t help her in the slightest.
Brooks and his coworkers tied the boat up to the dock, and Aurora tugged her guitar and suitcase up to the top deck, where the violent rainstorm had filtered to a soft sprinkle, one that felt nice and clean on her skin. Brooks reached for her guitar, and she passed it over to him so that he could place it delicately on the dock.
“You okay? Sometimes, people get sick down below,” Brooks said. “Especially in weather like this.” He then reached out for her hand, and Aurora gave it to him gladly, recognizing, now, the callouses across his palm from hard work out at sea.
“I’m great,” Aurora said, jumping onto the dock with more confidence this time. She’d even managed to carry her own suitcase. “It was my first time.”
“First time on a fishing boat?” Brooks asked her curiously.
“No. My first time on a boat.”
Brooks gave her a bug-eyed look that made her feel like an alien. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not!”
Brooks guffawed, then reached for her guitar and swung it slightly, waving to the other fishermen as he said, “I’m going to take Aurora to The Copperfield House. You good here?”
“You owe us next time, man,” one of them said, his voice friendly and lilting.
“Yeah, yeah. I know,” Brooks said, guiding Aurora off the dock, along the boardwalk, and finally to a parking lot where he placed her guitar and her suitcase in the back of his truck. Feeling foolish, like a little kid who needed help from an adult, Aurora got into the passenger side of his truck and buckled herself in. When Brooks jumped into the driver’s side, he snapped his hands against his thighs and said, “Really? You’ve never been on a boat?” He couldn’t get over it.
Aurora couldn’t help but laugh. “Why is that so crazy?”
“I was practically born on a boat,” Brooks explained as he turned the key in the ignition.
“Not all of us were raised on an island,” Aurora said, her heart lifting.Was she flirting with him?
“It’s hard for me to wrap my head around that,” he said.
“Such a spoiled islander,” Aurora joked.
“Guilty as charged,” Brooks said. “So, I take it you’re a musician?”
“Oh, because of the guitar case? It’s actually filled with silly putty and underwear.”
Brooks cackled, his eyes dancing toward hers. Aurora had forgotten that sometimes she could be funny.
“I’m a musician, yeah,” Aurora finally answered. “And a painter. Sometimes.”
