The Sea is a Thief

by David Parmelee

  Rarely had a week gone by when he did not write to his aunt and uncle, and to his mother and father in Shoemakersville. None of his family could read. He could only hope that they had brought his letters to the pastor or someone else in town who could. If they had, they would know that he was safe and stationed in Philadelphia. He did not say much about Drewry’s Bluff, or the injury to his leg. He did not write of Anna Daisey or the trouble in Chincoteague. All that, he thought, could come later.

  When he stepped through the front door, his Uncle Walter was at his workbench in the shop and Aunt Margaret was slicing cabbage in the kitchen, much as they had been when he had come to say goodbye. They rushed as one to embrace him with loud cries of welcome.

  His aunt’s eyes filled with tears. “Our boy,” she sang out, dabbing at her face with the hem of her apron. “Our boy!”

  His uncle held him at arm’s length by the shoulders, taking the measure of him. “We’ve missed you, Sam, how we’ve missed you,” he said, shaking his head. “And the good Lord has brought you back to us! Are you back to stay, then?” The long trip had given him plenty of time to think, but still he found himself unprepared. The truthful answer would not be welcome. He fumbled for words. “For a short time,” he said. “And I must also visit mother and father --”

  Uncle Walter furrowed his brows, puzzled. Both of them looked older and wearier. The past few years must been difficult without him and Ethan.

  He crossed the room to set down his heavy bag. Aunt Margaret took notice of his limp right away.

  “Oh, Sam,” she said, cupping her hands to her face. “What has happened?”

  He gazed about the room he knew so well, each familiar object welcome to his sight, the view from every doorway imprinted on his memory. He had not been away so long, as one added up the days, but what changes had come. He looked into her kind face and anxious eyes and began to speak, intending to tell her some of the story, but for the moment he could only sink into a chair and ask for something to eat.

  They brought all the food that was close at hand: bread, chicken stew, apples from the cellar, and fresh cider. He ate it all quickly, and asked for more. Aunt Margaret took her usual joy in filling plate after plate. They sat together at the big plank table, and as he began to recover his strength they talked. He told them about the ships that he had crewed, the battles he had witnessed, and the two retreats from Drewry's Bluff. He did not tell them how close he had come to death. The injury to his leg, he said, was a small thing, and he had grown accustomed to it, but he was still a poor liar and they could see how it weighed on him. He declared with confidence that he had fared far better than others. That much, they knew, was true.

  They sent word to his mother and father, by way of a reliable boatman, that he was well and would come to see them shortly. He stayed four weeks in Port Clinton, sleeping until he was no longer tired and eating his fill of the food that tasted of home. He swam in the Little Schuylkill, cold as it was in springtime, and drank great quantities of ale at the expense of the canal boat pilots, who greeted him like a brother.

  He called on the Platt family. They assured him that Ethan was well, though they did not know when he might return. He offered a silent prayer of thanks for the life of his true friend.

  He did as much work in the shop as he could manage. He could see the fatigue lift from his uncle's shoulders. Despite his labors, or because of them, he grew stronger.

  When he knew it was nearly time for him to go he sat down with his aunt and uncle at dinner after Sunday services. He told them about Anna Daisey and the island of Chincoteague, and why he had to return to her there. At first they were skeptical, but by the time Sam had finished his story they knew that he had found something very good, and could not be persuaded in any other direction. They grieved that he had to go so far away, but in the end they gave him their blessing, and, with full hearts, wished him Godspeed. Neither they nor Sam knew when they might break bread together again.

  The fall of the year was the season that most reminded Anna Daisey of her father. The air grew cooler as September passed, and ducks began to gather on the marshes. When William Daisey was out after ducks in the fall, he would be away for long stretches of time. She missed him terribly, but when he returned there was money in his pockets and his cares were few. The Daisey home was a happier and more light-hearted place then.

  September of 1865 began rainy and cool, more like October. Anna could sense the autumn approaching, sneaking up on the island like a crafty highwayman slipping from tree to fading tree. Anna traveled to Assateague as often as she could, to draw while the weather was favorable and the light was good. It was a lonely place for her now. Elizabeth was gone; Sam was gone. Even when she rode her beloved Willow, she was riding from nowhere to nowhere. She found joy in riding, as she always had, but little joy in returning.

  The lighthouse leaned farther off-plumb as time went by. Anna saw the difference in the stance of the old building, damaged so badly in the gale and weakened by storms that followed. It remained empty. In such condition, no one could keep it. Sailors had to make do without its welcome warning light. Some in the town of Chincoteague said that a new lighthouse might be built now that the war had ended. Government surveyors would find a better location father inland and build a taller structure with a new gas light, brighter by far than the beeswax candles Elizabeth Reynolds had used. On summer afternoons Anna often lay in the sand and dreamed of keeping the new lighthouse herself.

  In truth, she would not choose to live apart from her mother and Beau. When Anna recovered from her delirium her little family was very different. Beau watched over her. He watched from a distance, in a way that was distinctly Beau’s, but carefully nonetheless. But for the courage of one of her children, Mary Daisey knew that she would surely have lost the other. John Grinnald’s words proved prophetic: everyone in Chincoteague was proud of Beau Daisey. It changed him.

  Between Anna and her mother, it was as though a gauze curtain had fallen. Before the storm they loved each other, as a mother and daughter would, but afterwards Anna came to know her mother differently. They had faced the same enemy. Though both women had lived, the enemy had exacted its tribute from each. Anna saw her mother’s pain more clearly now, in a way she had not before; Mary knew with terrible precision exactly where the holes had been torn in her daughter’s heart. Mary was strong, by character and necessity. She was able to help Anna grow stronger. Mary was grateful for the gift of her daughter in a way she had never been before. Her gratitude became a gift to Anna.

  Assateague, the barrier island, was a place for the sunrise; Chincoteague, for the sunset. Anna preferred to leave Assateague during late afternoon, no matter how incomplete her drawings were. The failing light turned the sand grey and gloomy as the sun sank lower, while the west-facing farms and buildings of Chincoteague took on the warm glow of the reddening sky. Saying goodbye to Willow, Anna packed up her paper and pencils as the shadows lengthened on the final day of September. She dropped her basket in the bow of the rowboat and set out towards her home. As she crossed the channel she remembered an anniversary. Four years ago, the gunboat Louisiana had cast its anchor in Chincoteague channel. So long ago.

  Ethan Platt had come to her in June. Three months had passed since. Each day, her faith in Sam Dreher was tested anew. He had made a promise to her, and she a promise to him. Her promise would be kept. Each sunrise offered a chance for him to fulfill his. In three months, he had not come to her. The weight of the time pressed on her heart. She had not lost faith, but might, she feared, lose hope.

  As she pulled the rowboat up onto the little landing behind her home, she saw a figure, silhouetted by the setting sun, between the house and her father’s shed. She could not see his face. Her heart leapt into her throat at the very thought that it might be so, but she did not dare to believe it for fear that it might not. The figure began to walk towards her with an odd gait that she did not recognize.

  Suddenly he was close eno
ugh that the sun did not hide his face, but revealed it. She cried out and ran to him, her boat forgotten. It was Sam Dreher, all in one piece, and as he held her in his arms three years’ time disappeared.

  Some men are strong, some women equally so, and in adversity their strength increases. Yet there is no joy so welcome as the joy that comes when an angel visits to tell them that strength is unnecessary, and can be laid aside, for just a little while. For that passing golden time, as precious as the days when the first pale buds form on the willow, there is no care for what the future may demand. No thought need be given to the events of the next hour. In its place is a celebration of the sweet, uncapturable now. It will be gone soon enough, no matter how sweet, but for the moment it is greater than the human heart can otherwise conceive.

  Now a child is born, and takes breath; its mother holds it to her breast.

  Now a sailor, his ship lost to the storm, touches with his fingers the firm dry sand.

  Now a man and woman who love each other, kept apart for a thousand days, embrace once again, and see before them ten thousand days together.

  When their lips had parted, and met again, then briefly parted once again, he tried to tell her why it had taken him so long to reach her, but he could not. They could neither speak nor listen. They were one being, arms wrapped tightly around each other, his hands holding her face closely to his. There would be time to tell her of the letters he had written that could not be sent. He would show her the letters he had saved for her in his Bible, so that she would know how strong his feelings had been while they were apart.

  Later, he would tell her of the time he spent in Port Clinton, and the month he passed at his boyhood home on his parents’ farm, coming to know his family again, and finally bidding them goodbye with earnest tears. He would describe the weeks of travelling that brought him gradually back to Virginia. He would even tell her, reluctantly, of his fears that he would arrive too late, to find her wed to another. He would claim that these fears were fleeting and insubstantial, but she would know otherwise.

  They knew as they held other for those long minutes, as certainly as either had ever known anything, that their lives would be spent together on the island of Chincoteague. A living could be made there by a man skilled at carpentry, or a woman who could use pencils and paint to bring her island to those not fortunate enough to see it every day. A home needed to be built, and a family needed to grow, to heal the wounds left by loss.

  Sam Dreher ate with Anna and her family, then rested and slept. In the morning they both arose with the sun, and met behind her home, where the rowboat awaited.

  “Would you like to see the ponies on the island?” she asked him.

  “I believe I would, Anna,” he said.

  The sea is a thief; we know that it is. From Anna it took a father, a teacher, a small boat, and a new love. Sometimes, though, the sea is like a cluttered house: it does not steal, but only hides. In moments of rare calm, it hears faintly the strongest pleadings of our hearts, and yields back to us those things we love the most. With reluctant fingers, it tosses them back onshore. So it had done for Anna Daisey. The sea had seen fit to send back her Sam. She would not let it steal him again.