The Edge of Winter

by Luanne Rice

“Why can’t they realize how wrong this is?” Mickey asked.

  “Maybe they will,” her mother said.

  “But there’s no time!” Mickey said. “The crane’s going to pick up the U-boat in such a short time, and it will be gone forever.”

  “A lot can happen in a short time,” her mother said quietly. “Just think of the snowy owl.”

  Mickey fell silent. She glanced over at her mother, who looked happy, glowing, as if she had a secret. Maybe it had to do with such a successful opening last night, or maybe it was because she and Mr. O’Casey were friends again. Either way, Mickey didn’t believe that enough would happen in a short time; not to save the U-boat, anyway.

  “This came for you,” her mother said, sliding a blue envelope across the seat.

  Mickey took it; the mail must have come after they’d left for the gallery yesterday—the return address was Berlin.

  “Is it another one?” Shane asked from the back seat.

  “Yes,” she said, handing it to him.

  “Another letter from Germany?” her mother asked.

  “It’s the eleventh I’ve gotten,” Mickey said.

  “Mickey sent out fifty-five letters, to all the families who had relatives aboard the U-boat,” Shane said.

  “I know,” her mother said softly. “I remember you telling me that; I just didn’t know they’d really write back.”

  Mickey felt her mother’s eyes on her. It didn’t happen often—they were so close; but every once in a while Mickey surprised her mother. Maybe it was because they lived alone—Mickey’s father hadn’t lived with them for such a long time. Her mother was vigilant—it was as if she’d read all the books, as if she lived the TV commercial that asked “It’s ten o’clock—do you know where your children are?”

  Yes, and at eight and six and three and one o’clock, too. Mickey’s mother paid attention, to Mickey’s undying frustration and consternation. Mickey’s mother followed all the good-parent advice: she talked to her about drugs; she told her about the dangers of smoking; she patrolled her Internet use for online predators. So when a moment like this occurred, and Mickey managed to reach a goal without her mother’s help, she couldn’t help but feel a big surge of triumph.

  “It must have been such hard work, finding their current addresses,” Mickey’s mother said, her grin filled with admiration.

  “Research,” Mickey said proudly. “It’s one good thing about being your daughter—with all those catalogues you’ve written on elusive artists over the years, I’ve learned how to track things down.”

  “And you found all fifty-five?” her mother asked.

  “I wrote to the U-boat archive,” Mickey said. “And explained that I wanted to write to any surviving family members of U-823. The archive provides a service for any family members who want to be in touch with people who want to know about their relatives.”

  “At first Mickey thought they might not want to,” Shane said. “Because she’s American, and the men died over here.”

  Mickey nodded, trying to smile. She’d told him everything last night; watching the owls, thinking of what Joe O’Casey had told them about his brother and the war, it had all come pouring out.

  “But they did write back!” her mother exclaimed.

  Mickey nodded. “So much time has passed; they just seemed happy to know that someone was asking.”

  “Who are they?” her mother asked.

  “Daughters, sons, a couple of grandchildren; I wrote in English, and the ones who wrote back did it in English,” Mickey said. Her plan had been to collect as many letters as she could and then deliver them to Senator Sheridan. It had seemed like such a good plan at the time. But now, with everything moving so fast, the crane already here and ready to go, the next step seemed unattainable.

  “It must be weird,” Shane said. “Going about your life, just hanging out, and getting a letter like that out of the blue. Some people would probably just rather forget all about it.”

  “Like Damien’s daughters,” Mickey said sadly. “Mom, why do you think they didn’t come to the exhibit?”

  “I don’t know, honey,” her mother said. “Every family is different.”

  Yes, Mickey thought, but every family is the same, too. She sat in the front seat, looking out the window as they neared the beach. She thought she knew, maybe, why they hadn’t come. Some things were too hard; she thought of her father in jail, and shivered. Maybe Damien’s daughters had loved their father so much, and maybe he’d broken their hearts one time too many. Thinking of the letters she had gotten from Germany, she knew that children loved their parents in such different ways. It didn’t matter how old any of them were.

  Her mother pulled into the parking lot at the ranger station, and Mr. O’Casey was waiting. Joe had arrived, too, and he was out of his car, talking to his son. Mickey held her breath, looking around for another car. She had hoped that Mrs. West would be here, too. Mickey’s mom had made Shane call to ask permission to dive: he’d woken his mother up with his call. She’d said yes, but be careful.

  Shane hadn’t said, but Mickey knew that he hoped she’d come to watch. She’d be leaving for North Carolina soon, figuring that with summer coming, Shane would be busy on the beach all day anyway. Mr. O’Casey had offered him a job raking the beach—even after his ninety-day community service was up. Of course he’d accepted; a beach job was even better than the surf shop. So it would have been nice, meant a lot to Shane, if his mother had come down today.

  “I’m sorry she’s not here,” Mickey said to him, holding his hand as they walked toward the ranger station.

  “She doesn’t like the beach,” he said. “Reminds her too much of my dad.”

  “I guess I can understand that,” Mickey said. Even though she didn’t, not exactly—she was having one of those, “It’s ten o’clock, do you know where your children are?” moments. Except she would have substituted “parents.” People needed to keep track of each other, the ones they loved.

  Otherwise, they could just slip away. Just like Damien had from his daughters, just like Mickey’s father had from her. And just like it seemed Shane’s mother was about to do.

  “I’m here,” she said, holding his hand hard.

  “I know,” he said, smiling.

  “Go down there, take a bunch of pictures, so no one ever forgets what once was here.”

  “The Battle of Rhode Island,” Shane said, looking out at the sea. “Right here on our shore. It’s going to be pretty awesome, diving the wreck with the guy who sank it up above.”

  “Joe.”

  “Yeah,” Shane said, gazing at the two O’Casey men standing together. Did seeing fathers make him miss his as much as it made Mickey miss hers?

  “This’ll be a big day for him, too,” Mickey said.

  “It would have been bigger if the owl…”

  Mickey nodded; he didn’t have to finish his thought. Midway through the night, the snowy owl had stopped flying. He had gone to the corner of his cage, his wing trailing slightly, as if the flight had been too much too soon. The female had landed beside him, grooming him quietly. Joe had told them not to consider it a setback, but to realize that healing happens for a reason.

  “Everything in its own time,” she said to Shane, echoing Joe. “Today, you’re going diving.”

  “I’ll get good pictures,” he promised, kissing her.

  Mickey held him, thinking of battles big and small, battles won, and the fight for the U-boat that felt already lost. Then she watched Shane as he ran into the station to change into his wetsuit and, instead of riding the waves on top, prepared to dive right down to the wreck of the vessel U-823.

  The day was fresh and clear—the wind low, and the sea calm. Joe sat at the helm of the big inflatable, navigating Tim and Shane out to the wreck. He wore his old hat, the one he’d worn on the bridge of the USS James the day he’d battled U-823. It made him feel young again, filled his mouth with the taste of the sea, and of commanding a ship. Only
today, the question was who was commanding whom.

  “Here we are,” Joe said, when he got to the spot.

  “Dad, the wreck’s a hundred yards east,” Tim said.

  “No, man,” Shane said. “Your dad’s right.”

  Tim shot the kid a dirty look. Joe tried not to smile. Joe had been shocked to get Tim’s call this morning, asking him to man the dive boat. It had been such a long time since they’d been out on the water together. When Frank was a young teenager, first starting to dive, they’d come out here together all the time—three generations of O’Caseys, all water dogs.

  As Frank got older, and he and Joe had started getting closer—talking about U-823 and the Battle of Rhode Island—Tim had started backing away. Maybe he’d resented all the early years, when Joe should have been talking to him; whatever it was, a small rift had turned into the Mariana Trench—the deepest ocean canyon in the world. So that’s why today was all the more important to Joe.

  Not to mention seeing Tim with Shane. Not that anyone could ever replace Frank—to think so would be a gash in Joe’s soul. But just to see his son reaching out to another young man, sharing with him his great knowledge of and love for the sea, gave Joe some ease. So he listened to the bickering with a hidden smile.

  “I’m the park ranger,” Tim was saying. “I think I know where the U-boat is located, especially since my father’s the one who sank it.”

  “Mr. O’Casey, with all due respect, I surf out here every day,” Shane said. “It’s the wedge, man—the wave rises up right off the conning tower, falls back on itself, and blows out off the jetty.” He shielded his eyes, getting his bearings, nodded as if he was sure.

  “He’s right, Tim,” Joe said, throttling back so the engine idled, holding them relatively steady over the spot. Although both were available, he didn’t have to rely on electronics or check coordinates on the chart: he just knew. He felt it, as if U-823 were exerting an intense pull on him. The feeling spread through his legs and up his spine, electric and compelling. This was it, right under the water in this spot.

  “Okay, we’ll dive here,” Tim said.

  “Sorry, Mr. O’Casey,” Shane said.

  “I guess I know the refuge better than I do the water,” Tim said. Then, looking at Shane, “Look, if we’re going to be dive partners, you’d better call me Tim, okay?”

  “Okay,” Shane said, grinning.

  Then Joe heard Tim running through the rules. Stay together; the water was clear today, and they wouldn’t be going deeper than one hundred feet. They’d dive around the conning tower, take some pictures. They wouldn’t enter the wreck, and they wouldn’t even get close enough to get tangled in any of the fishing lines or nets that had snagged on the U-boat over the years.

  “You got that?” Tim asked.

  “Sure do,” Shane said.

  Joe dropped anchor; he knew the two men would use the line to guide themselves down to the U-boat and back to the surface. He heard Tim reminding Shane about the bends—every thirty-three feet of depth, the pressure increased to twice what it was at the surface. Nitrogen built up in the lungs, traveled into the bloodstream, and created a narcotizing effect on the diver.

  “Man, I’m certified, remember?” Shane asked.

  “I remember, but just in case,” Tim said. “You start hearing fish talking to you, or seeing men come out of the U-boat with machine guns, you let me know—and we’ll head back up. And we’ll take it slow; we’ll hang out on the anchor line on the way up, okay?”

  “Right.”

  “So the atmospheric pressure in our bodies can decrease gradually.”

  “Got it,” Shane said. He was polite, but Joe could hear his impatience. Was Tim hearing echoes of Frank, as Joe was? Young men being told how to do things…it never changed. Joe had experienced it with the men under his command, with his own son, and with his grandson.

  While Shane busied himself, adjusting his weight belt and fins, his mask and dive knife, Joe checked the walkie-talkie. Tim had given one each to him and Neve—standard park ranger issue—just in case. While Joe clicked the button, made a test call, heard Neve’s voice loud and clear, he looked up and saw Tim standing there.

  “Dad,” Tim said, “is there anything in particular you want to say?”

  “Say?” Joe asked, frowning.

  “Yes,” Tim said. “Anything you want me to do while I’m down there? Any specific pictures you want me to take?”

  Joe narrowed his eyes, felt the boat rocking beneath them, wondered how his son had managed to read his mind. Over the years, he had brought wreaths of flowers to the beach on April 17, the date of battle. He’d done it to commemorate the deaths of Johnny Kinsella and Howard Cabral, his two crew members who had died here; although their bodies had been recovered and were buried in their home states, to Joe, this was their grave.

  “I brought something,” he said. “I’d planned to drop it myself, after you and Shane went down.”

  “What is it?” Tim asked.

  Joe reached into the pocket of his windbreaker, pulled out a small miraculous medal, sterling silver, depicting the Virgin Mary, given to him by his mother when he’d made his first communion. He’d had it with him every day of the war; he believed it had kept him alive, made him a good commander. He’d been wearing it that April 17, and he’d always prayed that Mary would bless the souls of Johnny and Howie.

  “It’s this,” he said, handing it to Tim.

  “Your medal,” Tim said, looking at it; Joe knew it was a family talisman, along with his Navy hat and medals awarded to mariners in World War II: the Navy Cross, Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star, and Bronze Star.

  Back when Tim was young, Joe had kept them all hidden. Up in a drawer in the storage room, out of sight and out of mind. He’d come home from work or the bar some days, find Tim burrowing through the drawer, trying on the medals, reading the commendations. The only medal that had been out in the open had been this one, the miraculous medal, and only because Joe had never taken it off.

  “Why are you throwing it in?” Tim asked now.

  “Because it belongs here,” Joe said.

  “For your crew? Johnny and Howard?”

  Joe stared at the surface. He thought back to the battle, sixty-one years ago this month. To Joe, it felt like yesterday. He could still feel the adrenaline, that powerful mixture of fear and courage. He could smell the gunpowder, see the black conning tower—in that one moment the U-boat had surfaced. He had been face-to-face with his enemy, and the guns had fired, and Johnny and Howie were slaughtered.

  “Dad?”

  Joe had never been more filled with rage and grief. His men were dead, and the U-boat had attacked his home shore. He’d watched the black monster descend, bubbles rising to the surface, as if to mock the USS James. Those air bubbles had inflamed him—to think of the Germans breathing while two of his men were killed.

  Everything America stood for surged through him, and he’d known he would fight back and destroy the U-boat and every man aboard. He felt it personally, as if he were avenging murder. They were his adversary, the foe of everything good and decent and innocent in the world, the enemy of all that was sacred, not just here in Rhode Island, but abroad in the world.

  So he’d ordered the attack, and it had been monstrous and righteous. Hedgehogs, depth charges, everything he and the James had, every ounce of firepower, and every fiber of courage in each of his men. These Nazi sea lords had crossed the Atlantic in 1942 to pick off merchant ships, to destroy shipping and massacre American crews, and right now, April 17, 1944, Commander Joseph O’Casey was going to put an end to it.

  And he had.

  The oil slick had been the telltale. Done deal. The German officer’s hat and the shattered bits of chart table had just been more confirmation. But not enough for Joe—with Johnny and Howie on his mind, with Damien flying missions over Germany, with the very fate of the world in his heart, Joe had kept bombing.

  One more, he’d think, dr
opping another depth charge. And another. The circular pattern of explosions, of water boiling up to the surface, the oil slick spreading. Another depth charge. Joe had wanted to empty his hold, give the devils more than their due.

  The spring day had brought strange weather. Clear skies at dawn, then clouds scudding in and dumping snow on the sea and beach. Joe had looked up—after hours of fighting and bombing—to see aimless flakes falling. Thick snow covering the beach, as if with a blanket. And a flock of swans—that’s what had woken him up.

  Swans swimming at the water’s edge. Oblivious to what was going on just a hundred yards out, feeding in the shallows, their feathers radiant, whiter than the snow. Joe had thought of his brother: if only Damien were here to paint that. Berkeley—his sweet, sensitive, gentle brother. Why weren’t they together at Hanging Rock? Or even here, on Refuge Beach.

  Refuge Beach…the name occurred to him, and he literally stepped back from the helm. In that one instant, his ship was without a commander. It all flooded his mind: the swans, the shore, the snow. And that’s when he’d heard the pinging.

  That sound he never forgot. The tap, tap, tap…Coming from down below, audible on sonar and even—was it possible—to anyone with ears? Joe swore he’d heard the sound emanating through the waves, as if amplified by the water itself.

  The sound of Germans, trying to get out. Begging for help, for mercy, asking to be rescued. And there, just a hundred yards off Refuge Beach, Joe had declined to give them refuge. He knew right now, hands on the wheel of the dive boat, that if he could personally have dived down, opened the hatch of U-823, he wouldn’t have done it.

  He let those German sailors die. Their leader, Oberleutnant Kurt Lang, had been just twenty-four, the same age as Joe; he had killed Lang and his men, every last one of them, and he’d taken pride in doing it.

  “Dad?” Tim asked now.

  “Do you know how much I don’t want the U-boat taken away?” he asked fiercely. “Do you know how wrong I think it is?”

  “I do,” Tim said, and in the gravity of his voice and the steadiness of his eyes, Joe knew his son was appreciating the honor of the USS James.