Casting Off

by Nicole R Dickson

  “Since she was born.”

  “That would be?”

  “Six years.”

  “Six years. A long time. Is it difficult for you?”

  “Nah, it’s easier alone. I see people arguing all the time about the kids. In grocery stores, in line at the gas station, at parks. No one to argue with when you’re doing it alone.”

  “You argued a lot with Rowan’s father?”

  “Not really. He just didn’t want what I wanted in life.”

  “What did you want?”

  “A house, a yard, kids, a dog. You know. Barbecues on July Fourth. He wanted—I’m not sure.”

  “He never said?”

  “Not really. Maybe to walk through a desert alone. Who knows?”

  “Hard to raise children while walking alone in the desert, I suppose.”

  “Not if you’re an Australian aborigine.” Rebecca laughed. “But I’m over it.”

  “You’ll never be an aborigine?” Father Michael said with a smile.

  “No. That relationship. Can’t blame him for being who he is.”

  Rebecca bit into the cake, looking out the window again. A rose-bud the color of raspberry sherbet fluttered in a gentle breeze beyond the glass. Rebecca’s heart fluttered, too.

  Rebecca stood shivering in the summer breeze that blew up the high cliff walls. Her 1968 Volkswagen Beetle sat just off the asphalt as cars flew by, heading south on Highway 1 toward Half Moon Bay. She froze. If any of them merely nicked the edge of her bumper, she and the car would tumble off the cliff into the ocean far below.

  So much had happened in the nine years since she’d started college. Sharon had left for home after they’d finished their bachelor’s degrees five years ago. Straight out of Berkeley, Rebecca had headed south to Los Angeles to begin her master’s, which she completed in two years. The day after her master’s graduation ceremony, her parents had been killed in an accident on Highway 5, on their way home to Redding. Without a pause to grieve, Rebecca continued on to studies for her doctorate. It was slow going, as her mind and heart continually ached with loss, distracting her from her purpose. Now, with three years of research under her belt, she had begun to write the dissertation. But the heaviness of grief weighed on her. No one would be coming to her graduation. No one was left to celebrate with her. She had no home, no family, and as she stood looking out over the Pacific Ocean, she began to cry, for there was not even anyone to come and help her with her broken-down car.

  “Hey,” a voice called behind her.

  Rebecca spun around and saw a young man about her age with sandy blond hair, blue eyes, and swimming shorts with Hawaiian flowers on them standing just behind her car.

  “You okay?” he asked, licking an ice cream cone he held in his right hand.

  “My—my car’s broken,” Rebecca replied, wiping her eyes.

  “That’s nothing to cry about,” he said with a smile. “These things are easy to fix. Here, hold this.”

  He held out his ice cream for Rebecca to take. As she reached for it, he pulled it quickly back.

  “Don’t eat it,” he said.

  “I—I won’t,” Rebecca replied, taking the ice cream cone as he held it out again. It smelled of raspberries.

  The young man skipped around to the back of the car and lifted the half-moon-shaped hood. Rebecca followed him, noting his blue Pontiac Firebird parked at an angle behind her car. His yellow surfboard was strapped to the top and his emergency flashers were on.

  “You surf?” he asked, peering at the engine.

  “I only boogie-board.”

  “I love the beach,” he said as he tinkered with a lever.

  “Me, too,” Rebecca replied.

  “You like raspberry sherbet?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. You can have the rest of that. This is going to take a while,” he said, and as he stood up, he smiled a big white smile.

  “I’m Dennis Mattos.”

  “I’m Rebecca Moray.”

  Rebecca started as a small bird with a black-and-white-spotted breast landed on the rose branch. It tilted its beady eye at her, blinking in the sun. It looked exactly like the little bird in the bramble outside her cottage’s bedroom window. Her heart raced as she raised her cool hand to her hot face.

  “Rebecca?”

  She glanced warily over at the priest. She wasn’t ready for this conversation. “I should go,” she said hoarsely.

  “You’re upset.”

  “I’m sorry. I—uh—I sh—”

  “You were saying you can’t blame him for being who he is.”

  “No, I can’t. He—he just wasn’t for me.”

  “You ever going to marry again?” the father asked.

  “Oh, I didn’t marry him, Father,” Rebecca replied absently, concentrating on slowing her heart. “I didn’t make that mistake.”

  She offered a half smile, wondering how that piece of information was being processed in the priest’s head. He just nodded.

  “So, Rowan’s father—you’re over him.”

  “You can only move forward if you let go the past.”

  “That is true,” Father Michael agreed.

  “I really need to go,” Rebecca repeated.

  The bird fluttered away, and as Rebecca watched it go, she spied an old man tottering past the father’s house. She wondered if it was Sean.

  “I have a couple of ganseys my grandmother made. Perhaps you’d like to see them. They’re very old.”

  Rebecca’s eyes brightened.

  “Maybe you can come back next Sunday and help me dig them out of the attic.” The priest stood up.

  “I’d like that.”

  “You introduced yourself as Rebecca. Are you Rebecca or Becky?”

  “Rebecca,” she answered. “My family calls me Becky.”

  “See you next Sunday, then, Rebecca,” Father Michael said, opening the kitchen door.

  With a nod, Rebecca stepped from his house and over to her bike. “Thanks for the tea.”

  “You’re welcome. Be careful of the bi—”

  “Bikes,” Rebecca interrupted with a smile. “I know.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Cable

  Cable. 1. A very simple stitch that looks incredibly difficult, for it appears as two ropes entwining each other, creating a single cable. A cable needle is best used for this stitch. 2. Traditionally represents the cables that hold the fishing nets to the boat, ensuring the strength and safety of the net, the continuation of the food supply, and, therefore, life. 3. The making of one person from two people, which creates greater strength, and the continuation of life, is, of course, a child.

  —R. Dirane, A Binding Love

  Sean opened his front door, taking in the scent of the sea and Sunday morning as he held his teacup to his lips. The wind was soft and from the east, blowing gently over the small hill that ran north to south down the center of the island. Though not cold, it wasn’t a summer’s breeze warmed by the island. Turning back to his house, Sean set his cup on the table beneath his front window, put on his old wool coat, and placed his cap upon his head.

  Before shutting his door, he checked the seashell in its nook. It was still half full of holy water. The need to fill the shell was the only event that would bring Sean to the church’s door, for he was not one to attend Mass. He hadn’t gone since Claire left. As he still had water in the shell, there would be no need to go to the church today.

  Stepping out into the world, Sean closed the door. A wavering to the left drew his attention from the group of bicycles that passed his house on their way south. It was a little leaf in the blackberry bramble waving at him in the morning breeze. He stared at it for a moment, memorizing the color. Then he stepped off his doorstep onto his gravel pathway, which led to the road.

  As Sean approached town, he contemplated the certain shade of green on that singular leaf. It was almost a pine color, though it had a slightly bluer hue, with a silver undertone. The little leaf
flittering in the morning breeze waved at him, as Claire had done when she saw him approaching from the sea.

  Standing on the beach in the silvery fog, Claire waited for Sean to find a wave that would bring his curragh onto the sand. Her dress was blue, but the sea and the fog gave it a greenish tint. As he laid upon his oars, Sean wondered at the movement of the fabric in the wind and the beauty of his wife.

  They had just been married and were making their home. But there were tales from the Continent. The Great War had ended nineteen years earlier, and whispers of conflict growing in the east drifted across Galway Bay onto the island like an earthy breeze before a great gale. Sean and Claire knew their time together could be short if that other storm built into a war.

  Though he had been out but three hours, Claire’s face was worn with worry. She smelled a gale upon the breeze, as had he, which was what brought him in early this day. This would be a small, watery tempest, but there would be a lasting bloody one soon on its heels, and so though the wave that could have brought Sean to shore rolled beneath his curragh, he let it pass. He wanted to watch Claire standing on the shore a little longer—to burn into his mind her beauty as she waited for him to come home.

  A screeching flute startled Sean from his past. Looking ahead, he

  found Rowan sitting on a ledge near Paddy Blake’s house. She was

  blowing on a tin whistle with a book on her lap.

  “That’s a nice pipe you’ve got there, Rowan. Where’d you get it?”

  “Fionn gave it to me.”

  “Ah. Well, he should know that a person doesn’t learn to play Irish music from a book. They learn from others. Has he helped you to play?”

  “Does he know how to play?”

  “All the O’Flahertys play one thing or another. Here.” From the sleeve of his worn blue gansey, Sean extricated a flute.

  “You play?”

  “I play—mostly when I fish. It helps the fish come to the line. Look. The fingers are not as important as the lips when you’re first learning.”

  Sean played a little tune.

  “Cool!”

  “To make high notes, you tighten your lips—lower notes, loosen them. Don’t blow harder. Let’s try this.”

  Sean played a four-note scale.

  “Do it again,” Rowan said.

  Sean played the scale, and as he did so, Rowan touched his fingers as he moved them on and off the holes in the pipe. Her mahogany eyes were as soft as her little hand, and pain rose again in his chest. He stopped, holding his heart.

  “You okay?”

  “Aye. You try,” he said hoarsely.

  Rowan played the scale. Her pipe squeaked on the last note.

  “Don’t blow too hard,” Sean whispered, slowly breathing in, trying to release the pain. “Tighten your lips at the edges like you’re going to smile.”

  Rowan played again. Peering over her shoulder, Sean watched Siobhan step out of her house. The little girl halted when she spotted him.

  Rowan stopped playing, following Sean’s gaze. “Siobhan!” she called. “Sean plays the flute!”

  Siobhan didn’t move as she stared at the old man.

  “You play?” he asked her.

  “A little. My ma teaches me.”

  “Good. Good. Would you like to learn a little with Rowan here?”

  With a reticent shrug, Siobhan tiptoed down the steps, skirted by Sean, and sat on Rowan’s other side.

  “Good,” he breathed. “Now show Siobhan.”

  As Rowan showed Siobhan the scale, Sean watched the little Yankee girl. Her eyes flicked quickly and opened wide when she spoke. They looked at him brightly, peering past his aged face, lighting up his very dark soul. It hurt him, yet he could do nothing but smile. When the pipe hit her lips, her tone was as clear as Joe’s—clean and smooth like a curragh floating in a calm summer sea with dazzling sparks of reflected sun tapping the body, warming the heart.

  Sean could think on his wife and Matthew. He could remember Liam and his youngest, Brendan. But Joe was a void—a place he could not visit often. As he listened to Rowan’s pipe playing a scale as easily as a seagull glides up and away from a cliff and slides down across the water, Sean could not stop the crushing pain in his chest.

  “That’s very good, Rowan. Siobhan, you too. You play well,” he said, tottering to his feet.

  “You leaving, Sean?” Rowan asked, grabbing his left hand to help steady him.

  “Aye. Have fish to catch or there’ll be no supper,” he muttered. “You keep practicing.”

  Sean pulled his hat down to his eyes and shuffled down the street toward Hernon’s Shop. The bikes and tourists were loud around him, yet he heard nothing but Rowan’s pipe on the breeze. He crossed the street at O’Flaherty’s Pub. Tilting his head in the direction of the church, he spotted a woman with straight brown hair peering out of Father Michael’s kitchen window. He wondered if it was Rowan’s ma. The old man lifted his foot and stepped into Hernon’s Shop.

  Standing frozen at the door, Sean growled under his breath at the tourists. They were talking and laughing. The line flowed from the counter, curved away from the door, and ended at the freezer in the back of the store.

  “You need something there, Morahan?” John Hernon called.

  “Has my wool come in?”

  “Aye—aye. Come on back.”

  Sean slid through the crowd. Many of the tourists smiled at him as he passed. He did not return the kindness. When he reached the door to the back room, the old man found John up on a stool, pulling a large white cotton bag down from a shelf.

  “You need help getting this home?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “All right, then.”

  John handed the bag to the old man.

  “Best go out the back door, there.”

  “Aye.” As Sean tossed the bag over his left shoulder, his back crackled under the weight. Maneuvering around John and the shelving units, he carefully stepped down the back stairs and headed south behind Hernon’s Shop.

  The sun was bright above him as he walked. By the time he was at the edge of town, he was sweating under the weight of the bag. With a little jump, the old man adjusted it on his shoulder. How many bags of wool had he carried home this way? He tried to count, endeavoring to ignore his body, which was heating up under the sun and his gansey and his wool coat.

  As soon as he could, Sean stepped off the asphalt onto the stone and dirt, which were soft under his shoes. He listened for the ocean, waiting for the wind to wipe his brow. As he listened, he could hear a pipe sliding up and down scales like a gannet flying in the island sky. He stopped abruptly, looking back over his shoulder. Surely he was too far away to hear her. But there was the scale, and very gently it came to him louder still on a little breeze that kissed his old cheek like a small child kisses a grandparent.

  “Rowan,” he whispered and as he clutched his heart, salty drops slid down his cheeks to his lips. Walking on, Sean convinced himself they were just sweat.

  CHAPTER 14

  Basket

  Basket. 1. A stitch that looks like a tightly woven basket, with interlacing squares. 2. Traditionally represents the fisherman’s basket, a large catch, and therefore bounty. 3. Honest intentions.

  —R. Dirane, A Binding Love

  Thewind was cool on her hot cheeks as Rebecca stepped out of Father Michael’s rose garden and headed for her bike. A mother and father were buckling two children into seats on the backs of two bicycles in front of Hernon’s Shop. Flipping her kickstand up with her foot, Rebecca glanced at the blue sky above and found it dotted with three puffy white-gray clouds. They floated slowly to the north as she placed her feet on her pedals and rode south. As she came around the corner at Dooley’s Bed and Breakfast, she skidded to a stop.

  A group of about twenty bicyclists had stopped in the middle of the street, looking at a map and discussing which direction they should go. Climbing off her bike, Rebecca wove between them and when she was in the m
iddle of the group, they all simultaneously straddled their bikes and pedaled off, like a school of fish darting away on an ocean tide. Their whizzing chains left a buzzing ring in her ears, so she decided not to climb back on her bike but rather to walk it to Rose’s house.

  When she reached the white cottage, no one awaited her outside the bright yellow door. Resting her bike against the house, Rebecca pulled her camera, DVD recorder, and tripod from her side baskets. As she reached up to knock on the door, it opened.

  “Good mornin’ to ya, Becky,” Rose said in greeting, her red shawl slipping from her shoulder.

  “Good morning, Rose.” Rebecca stepped inside the cottage, her eyes very slowly adjusting to its dim interior from the glare of the bright yellow door.

  “Did ya have a nice visit with the father?”

  “Yes, thanks,” Rebecca lied, setting her still-shot camera and DVD recorder on the table.

  “That’s fine. I have tea started.”

  “Rose, do you think I can see a gansey today? I’ve brought all my cameras and I need to—”

  “I still say she needs to spin on the wheel,” Liz muttered as she walked through the front door.

  “She will,” Rose replied. “But we have a great deal to show her. She can spin later.”

  Liz gently deposited a jumper on the table and made her way into the kitchen. Her eyes wide, Rebecca glanced from Liz to Rose to the sweater. Slowly, so as not to cause it to fly away, Rebecca stepped over to the table.

  The gansey was very old; she could tell by the way the yarn had flattened out and the white color of the fabric had yellowed. The wrists and elbows were worn and thinning, but still maintained their integrity.

  With a very calm exterior, Rebecca gleefully extended her tripod’s legs, securing them tightly. The cups for tea pinged softly as Liz brought them to the table. Rebecca attached the DVD camera to the tripod and turned it on. Angling it down to the table, she focused on the gansey.