Casting Off

by Nicole R Dickson

  The wind pummeled her little bike as she rode down the darkening road, but she decided it would have been much worse had the stone walls not lined the street. By the time they made it to their cottage, Rebecca was feeling quite proud of herself at having ridden a bike across the island in a growing gale without injury to herself or her daughter. When she bumped off the asphalt at the O’Flaherty house and pedaled down the drive, to her surprise Sheila opened the door. Trace stood next to her.

  “Everything all right?” Rebecca called.

  “Aye. You can put the bike in the shed over there,” Sheila said, pointing to the left.

  Rowan jumped off the handlebars and Rebecca took the bike around the corner of the cottage, where she found a small shed attached to the house. With the bike safely stowed for the night, she followed Rowan into the house.

  “It’s really going to blow tonight,” Fionn Sr. said as Becky came through the door. “It’s coming in from the south. We brought extra peat and some candles just in case the electricity goes.”

  “It gets to howling and you can hear the wind through the thatch,” Sheila said. “But Danny, our youngest, came home from Doolin last summer and he and Tom replaced the roof then. It’ll not be blowing off, so no need to worry.”

  “Aye, Danny’s magic with thatchin’,” Fionn Sr. said.

  “You’ll be fine here, but if you want you can stay with us,” Sheila offered.

  “No—no, I think we’ll be okay.”

  “You’ll get a lot of coals from that what’s burning in there now. You’ll want to scoop them together into a pile and toss two more bricks of peat on the sides of the pile about half of an hour before you go to bed. Just like I showed you yesterday.”

  “A small, steady fire is better for heating and cooking than a large one,” Fionn Sr. told Rowan. “Takes less fuel and won’t singe your whiskers.”

  “I don’t have whiskers,” Rowan replied.

  “Trace does.”

  Rowan giggled.

  “We’ll keep an eye on you from our house,” Sheila said as she walked to the door. “You sure you’re all right? Sean says this’ll be a strong one. He’s not been wrong before.”

  “We’re good,” Rebecca replied. The wind burst into the room as Sheila opened the door.

  “House has been here more than a hundred years,” Fionn Sr. informed Rowan. “Hasn’t blown away yet. If it starts to scarin’ ya, Rowan, sing.”

  Fionn Sr. stepped out of the house, holding Sheila by the hand. Leaning on the door, Rebecca closed it with effort and then went to look out the window. She watched Fionn Sr. wrap his arm around his wife, presumably to keep her from blowing away. She turned around and gasped, startled. There stood Trace next to Rowan, wagging his tail.

  “What’s he doing here?”

  “He wants to stay with me,” Rowan replied, scratching Trace’s right ear.

  Rebecca rolled her eyes. “Come on, then. Let’s get our jammies on.”

  “You scared, Mama?” Rowan asked, following her mother toward the bedroom.

  To tell the truth, Rebecca was afraid, but she said to Rowan, “Nah. You heard what Mr. O’Flaherty said. This house has been here for over a hundred years. And they’re watching out for us. Not scared at all.”

  Rowan nodded. After they’d changed their clothes, Rebecca pulled out several books and she and Rowan read with Trace lying on the floor at the foot of the bed. The wind rattled the roof, making a sound like the cry of a great gull careening across a sea-chiseled cliff. Rebecca couldn’t tell if it was the nature of the gusts or the nature of the thatching that made it sound so. Whatever the cause, she lit several candles. As she blew out the match, the electricity failed.

  “We can’t read,” Rowan whispered.

  “Well, you go to bed,” Rebecca remarked, “and I’ll bank the fire.”

  She lit a stick of incense and set it upon its holder. As she tucked her daughter under the covers, she remembered the flashlight they’d brought. After spending the morning with Sheila that first day, Rebecca had unpacked and organized their things, and now she easily found the flashlight in the dresser drawer. She pulled it out and set it next to the bed.

  “If you get scared, turn on the flashlight.”

  “No, Mama, I’ll sing. That’s what Mr. O’Flaherty said to do.”

  “Well, he must know.”

  Rebecca kissed Rowan’s forehead. Without shutting the door, she stepped into the living room. The storm thundered outside and Rebecca’s heart began to flutter. The screaming through the thatch came in waves, growing louder, then falling away.

  “Sounds like a banshee,” she muttered. Glancing around, she thought about how very small this cottage was and how close the sea; there was nothing but disintegrating cliffs between the house and the ocean.

  “It’s been here over a hundred years,” she repeated, her palms and feet tingling with sweat. Perhaps they should have gone with Sheila and Fionn Sr. to stay at their house. Turning around in place, Rebecca couldn’t decide what she should do next. As she pushed her hair away from her now sweating temples, she spied a small tuft of wool sticking out of her backpack.

  “Need to learn to spin.”

  As she pulled out the hand spindle and wool, she gave a shudder, for a great screech echoed through the roof. Stiffly, she went over to the sofa and put the hand spindle and wool down on the cushions. Then she went to the fireplace and used the small shovel to gather all the glowing embers of the fire together. She set two bricks of peat on the sides of the little mound, as Sheila had instructed her. The peat smoldered, creating gray-blue smoke, which rose up and wound its way about the fireplace. Soon it would go up the chimney and be free like she was. Rebecca thought then about Rose and Liz and their discussions regarding Sean and his wife, Claire. Turning around, Rebecca spotted herself in the small mirror that hung on the living room wall near the front door. Her brown hair fell in tangles about her shoulders as her wide mahogany eyes gazed back at her from her thin, heart-shaped face.

  “He was controlling,” she whispered to her reflection.

  Rebecca stood in front of her full-length mirror, admiring how the green woolen dress clung to her hips. Though Sharon had gone home four years before, shortly after graduating from college, she still must have had a clear enough picture of Rebecca in her mind to knit such a thing. It was by far the most beautiful birthday present Rebecca had ever received and she loved it. Smiling at herself, she felt as pretty as she had on the night of her senior prom.

  At that moment Dennis came into the bedroom, stepping between Rebecca and the mirror as he made his way into the bathroom.

  “I hate that dress,” he said quietly, stopping to adjust his hair in the mirror. “Makes your hips look as wide as a whale.”

  “I—I love this dress,” Rebecca replied, wincing at his stinging words.

  “It’s ugly.”

  “It is not,” Rebecca whispered, straightening the hem.

  Dennis turned around, eyeing her with his cold blue gaze. He stepped toward her. Rebecca backed up, her stomach churning.

  “Wear something else.”

  “No. It’s a dinner party and this is the nicest thing I have.”

  “I don’t want to be seen with a whale,” Dennis replied, taking another step toward her.

  “It’s a dress. It’s on my body. If I want to look like a whale, I will.”

  “I’m the one who has to look at you all night. You can take it off or I will. Which do you choose?”

  Rebecca stepped back, tears rising to her eyes.

  “Why does it matter so much to you, Dennis?”

  “Take it off or I will,” he repeated, taking two more steps toward her.

  Quickly, Rebecca slipped it over her head, shivering in her underwear.

  “Give it to me,” Dennis said softly, holding his hand out.

  Rebecca shook her head, holding the dress to her chest.

  “Give it to me, Becky,” he repeated louder.

 
“It’s my birthday present,” Rebecca whispered.

  Dennis ripped the dress away from her.

  “It’s mine,” Rebecca said.

  “You want to make me madder?” He was seething.

  “No,” Rebecca answered.

  “Put something else on or you’ll make us later than we already are,” he said and with that, Dennis left the bedroom with the dress.

  “It’s my birthday present,” Rebecca whispered as she wiped her eyes with her shaking hands, knowing she would never see the dress again.

  Rebecca turned from the mirror and watched the smoke and the memory hang about the fireplace. She waited for both to rise up the chimney and be gone. Only the smoke drifted away. The memory did not. Still Rebecca could see Dennis walking away with her dress.

  “He was controlling,” she said, feeling a cold hollow in her heart. She picked up the spindle and sat down on the sofa.

  Setting the spindle to spin upon the floor with her right hand, Rebecca pulled the tuft of wool straight up with her left. A long strand of white yarn twisted between the spindle and the wool. As it wound, Rebecca could just make out the little fibers of hair pulling off the tuft of wool, making what appeared to be an upside-down triangle. Its base was in the wool itself and its point entered the strand of yarn attached to the spindle. She spun the hand spindle again and with her right hand no more than two inches below the triangle, she rolled the white strand of yarn between her thumb and index finger.

  “Not too tight,” she whispered, watching the wool in her left hand disappear into the yarn she rolled between her fingers. She spun the spindle again as the storm raged outside. When the last strand of wool disappeared from her left hand, she peered down at the spindle on the floor. It was wrapped with beautiful white yarn. She smiled.

  “Mama?” Rowan called from the bedroom. “I hear a bird singing.”

  “Birds don’t sing in storms,” Rebecca said, setting down the spinning and walking toward her daughter’s voice.

  “What’s that, then?” Rowan asked.

  Rebecca cocked her head, listening. From outside the bedroom window, she did hear the bird’s song. “You have the flashlight?”

  With a small shuffle and a grunt, Rowan flicked on the flashlight. Lifting her daughter into her arms, Rebecca walked over to the window and drew back the curtains. There, in the bramble, they spied the bird that had greeted them the morning of their arrival, now clinging to a branch, facing the wind, with rain pelting its feathers and face. Its little beak moved as it sang.

  “Is it singing ’cause it’s scared, Mama?”

  “Does it look scared to you?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Maybe it wants the wind to know that no matter how much it blows, it’s not going to be scared. See the nest?”

  Rebecca pointed the flashlight farther into the bramble, and the light fell upon another bird sitting on the nest.

  “Is that the mama?” Rowan said.

  “Maybe it’s the dad. It doesn’t look scared, either.”

  “Are there babies?”

  “They’re just eggs right now. Let’s go to bed.”

  Rebecca put Rowan back on the bed, then took the flashlight into the front room and blew out all the candles. After checking the fire one last time, she went back into the bedroom, turned off the flashlight, and crawled into bed.

  “I’m not afraid of the wind, either, Mama.”

  “Me neither,” Rebecca whispered, and with her daughter in her arms, she fell asleep, listening to the little bird singing over the gale.

  CHAPTER 11

  Diagonal Ribbing

  Diagonal Ribbing. 1. A pattern created by twisting stitches. It appears as the deep furrows of a field on a diagonal and is used as texturing. 2. The nature of learning.

  —R. Dirane, A Binding Love

  Thegale blew through, and early the next day Rebecca stepped out into the fog that had risen with the sun and shuffled slowly around the side of the house to get the bike. When she returned, Rowan skipped out of the cottage with the dog at her heels and they made their way toward Sheila’s house.

  Rebecca and Rowan walked close together through the thick fog floating in the morning air. The storm had left the gravel lane as wet and gray as the fog itself. With her feet crunching loudly in the still of the morning, Rebecca reached through the mist, testing to see how dense it was. Fog wasn’t just a type of weather to her; it was an entity—a living creature. Tule fog, the moisture that rose from the tule grass beds in the central valley of California, drifted thick in some places and thin in others, like it couldn’t make up its mind where it wanted to be. Whether she was wandering through her grandfather’s almond orchard in Turlock or walking to school in Redding, fog was one of Rebecca’s favorite things—an old friend. Her hand disappeared at arm’s length. She smiled, watching as Rowan trotted ahead and disappeared with the dog.

  “Is that Rowan Moray?” Fionn Sr.’s voice drifted through the fog.

  “Yeah!” Rowan exclaimed. She had become but a shadow to the right.

  Rebecca moved toward the dark apparition in the mist, rolling the bike slowly over the gravel.

  “Would you like to come with me to check on the cows?”

  “We were going to town,” Rebecca said. “She’s going over to play with Siobhan.”

  “I’ll take her. The cows are to the south anyway. The old mare should make it that much farther.”

  “Can I, Mama?”

  Rebecca looked at Rowan and Fionn Sr. in the mist. For a moment she hesitated, thinking perhaps it would be safer for Rowan to stay with her. But then she remembered how much fun Rowan had had the last time she went with Fionn Sr. and the old mare. Rebecca grinned.

  “No place safer than here,” she said.

  “Aye, girl,” Fionn Sr. replied.

  “Sure. Go ahead, Rowan.”

  “Come on, then,” Fionn Sr. said, lifting Rowan over the wall. Trace hurdled the wall right behind her, his wagging tail rippling the fog as he cleared the stones. Rebecca watched her daughter and Fionn Sr. fade away in the mist until they were nothing but ghostly murmurs sifting through the thick air.

  Inhaling deeply, Rebecca reached over to the wall and brushed the weathered stones with her hand. They were cold and rough, with moss sticking to them like barnacles. She thought she should go into town and try to talk to Rose and Liz, but as she stood there, she recalled that there was a small fort somewhere to the north of her cottage. She closed her eyes, hoping to hear its ancient walls calling to her. Instead she heard footsteps on the gravel coming at her from the direction of Sheila’s house.

  “Sheila?” she called.

  “No,” a man’s voice answered, and slowly from out of the fog Fionn appeared. His saddlebags were flung over his right shoulder and in his left hand he held a pink cardboard box tied with string.

  Rebecca’s stomach dropped to her feet as she backed closer to the wall.

  “Good day to you, Rebecca.”

  “Hi,” she replied coldly.

  “ ’ Tis a morning for tea and hot pasties.”

  Rebecca offered no response. She felt as cold and stiff as the stone wall on which she leaned.

  Fionn sighed. “Look. I apologize for racing off with your daughter.” “Really?” she answered.

  “Aye. I told ya that I wouldn’t and then I did. And, well, that’s not a way to have you . . . trust me.”

  “Right! And—”

  “I was just thinkin’ that you knew me because I’m Sharon’s friend. That I wouldn’t do anything to put Rowan in danger. I’m supposing it’s very important for the child to believe, without question, that her mum can protect her from anything when there’s no dad. I understand, Becky. I am sorry.”

  His very black eyes were soft, gazing into hers so quietly that Rebecca felt her throat tighten. She coughed.

  “Thank you,” she replied hoarsely.

  “Good. Now, I have a request.”

  “A request?”


  “Aye. If I do something to piss you off, I would like it if you wouldn’t wait to hit me with it when I’m leaving and then slam the door in my face.”

  “You’re the one—”

  “I’m the one who pissed you off. You’re the one who slammed the door in my face.”

  “You drove off with my daugh—”

  “I apologized. You accepted. You don’t get to hang on to that just so you don’t have to be wrong. You slammed the door in my face, Becky.”

  Fionn, of course, was right—right about the door, right about it being very wrong. She knew it was so when she did it. She hated being wrong.

  “All right,” she said, looking down. “I’ll tell you what’s pissing me off when it’s pissing me off.”

  Fionn’s eyes changed. They were still soft, but now they were as immobile and unfathomable as they had been the first night in the pub. He stood staring at her as if she hadn’t said anything, completely undisturbed by the dewdrop that hung from the spiral of red hair above his left eye. Rebecca fidgeted from left foot to right, uncomfortable at being the object of his black gaze.

  “Okay. I’m sorry for slamming the door in your face.”

  “Excellent!” He smiled a great smile and brushed past her, heading toward her house. “Let’s have tea.”

  “I—I was going out,” she stuttered.

  Fionn stopped and turned around. He was but a blur in the fog. “Where?”

  “Uh—to the fort.”

  “I’ll go with you. Then we’ll have tea.” He spun around and continued toward her house.

  “I—Rowan was going over to Siobhan’s,” Rebecca called after him. “I was going to be alone today.”

  “You know where the fort is?” His question was a bodyless voice in the mist.

  “No.”

  “So you’ll need to have someone show you. Especially in this fog. Come on, then.”

  With a scowl, Rebecca turned her bike around and grudgingly followed Fionn back to her house. She didn’t want to be with Fionn. He wasn’t supposed to come back to the island until Christmas. She wanted to be alone—to see and explore the fort by herself. All of her research since her time with Dennis had been solitary; it was the solitude she needed in order to balance her life. Finding the door to her cottage wide-open, Rebecca reluctantly leaned the bike against the house and stepped into the front room.