The Rattled Bones

by S. M. Parker

  My girl from the sea and the shore.

  The girl from Malaga.

  I check all the lines on the Rilla Brae, each one tied in cleat hitch knots, pulled secure. Onboard, the chum buckets are clean, tucked neatly into a corner of the deck. The wheelhouse is prepped for fishing, all the instruments cleaned and stored properly. I turn the key and head out to sea. Sam’s boat is moored off Malaga. I approach, drop anchor.

  Sam’s in his skiff by the time I’ve gathered my bag. “Wanna lift in my salty dog?” His expression as unsure as he is. He coasts his boat to a halt and grabs hold of my fender lines. “Can you climb on?’

  “I can.” I prove to myself that I can, even if my back hates me for the challenge.

  “To the island?”

  I nod. “Please.”

  “You’re sure?”

  I nod.

  Sam doesn’t row today; he uses the small five-horsepower engine to cut through the choppy waters. We don’t raise our words over the motor’s tinny roar. He rides the boat up onto the shore, beaching most of the skiff. Every movement jostles my aching limbs, but I climb out, my feet steadying on the ground.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Grateful for your help yesterday.” I give my lower back a small stretch. “Today would be very different if you hadn’t thought to run the rope through the pulley. I’m indebted.”

  He doesn’t meet my eyes, the scattered shells at his feet holding all his interest. “I’m glad I was there for you.”

  “Me too.”

  I’ve had too much time to think what would have happened if I’d been alone, the way Dad had been.

  “I feel like your accident was my fault.”

  “Your fault?”

  The sun on Sam’s face brings out the red in his solid cheeks. “I distracted you, talking about a stupid empty lobster trap. That’s why it happened.”

  “Not even.” I was the careless one, my mind always in some other space lately.

  “Your fall scared the shit out of me.”

  “I was pretty scared too.”

  He runs his fingers through his dark hair, and it cascades along the curves of his wide face like always. I feel him searching for words, struggling.

  “How long did you stay yesterday?”

  “A couple of hours.” He looks to the sun spraying over the waves. “Just until your friend Hattie came over.”

  “Yeah, she called me this morning. I don’t even remember her being there.”

  “You were pretty out of it.”

  “It was a shock to the system.” The near drowning, the rescue. But more, too. The words scratched in wood, the undersea voice I heard as clearly as I hear Sam now. And Reed and his anger. Gram and her unending selflessness.

  “Yesterday was crammed with its share of surprises.”

  “How do you mean?” I watch Sam, how he’s intent on a gull diving for fish. “Sam?”

  “Nothing. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

  “Technically you haven’t brought anything up yet.”

  He turns to me then. “Your grandmother told me about your father.”

  “Oh.” I’m not sure if this feels like relief or betrayal.

  “She was really upset last night. Told me how you were all she had left. How your mom went away when you were really young. I had no idea, Rilla.” He kicks at the broken shells. “I mean, I knew something was going on. . . .”

  “What happened to my dad . . . it was recent. I haven’t been okay to talk about it with anyone.”

  “I get that.”

  “And my mom isn’t around because she needed some help from psychiatrists.” I wait on his response. I wait for the taunts I heard as a kid, the way Reed called her crazy. But there is only Sam, listening. “I wasn’t trying to hide it from you. It was more that I liked that you didn’t know.”

  “Believe me, I’m a big fan of escapism.” He picks up a razor shell, the kind Hattie and I would pretend to shave our legs with in the mudflats long before we had leg hair to shave. “But I talked about your dad like he was here, alive. God”—he taps the razor shell to his palm—“I must have sounded so disrespectful.”

  “You didn’t. Not once.”

  “You have to know I never would’ve said anything about him if I’d known.”

  “I know, but I liked you talking about my dad like he was still here. You kept him alive in a way that was . . . unexpected.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Totally. I guess I didn’t want you to know about my parents because I didn’t want you to treat me differently. My family’s complicated.”

  “Whose isn’t?”

  No one’s. Hattie’s always had it harder with her mom. Reed lives with his grandfather because neither of his parents can stay sober even when they want to. It’s kind of always been an epidemic among fisherman that no one talks about.

  “I’m in Maine because my family got complicated.”

  “Not a dusty book?”

  He gives a small laugh, and I’m grateful for its sound. “Complications and a dusty book.”

  “Tell me.”

  “You don’t want to hear my story.”

  “I do.” I move to a large rock, my legs needing rest. Sam sits next to me.

  Against the harsh crash of the waves, Sam tells me his story. How it took nine years for him to be legally cleared for adoption. How the waiting on Child and Family Services nearly broke him, his family.

  “I have a biological aunt who wanted custody. My parents had no rights when they were foster parents so they had to let my brother and me go.”

  I know too much about foster care. So many kids I grew up with were raised by their aunts, grandmothers—or strangers who opened their homes to kids needing safe harbor. All because their parents struggled with demons and bad decisions. I haven’t seen a lot of happy endings. “How old were you?”

  “Eight. My brother and I had just been cleared for adoption, and that triggered the state to go out and look for any blood relatives one last time.” He stands, clasps his hands around the back of his neck, the V of his arms sticking out behind each ear. “I’d never been so scared. All of a sudden I was in this new home, in a new state with a woman I didn’t even know. And my mom and dad were so far away.”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  “It’s the sadness I always remember. How being away from my parents made a hole in me.”

  “But she didn’t adopt you?”

  “No. Turned out, two young boys were too much for her to handle. So the state gave us back to our mom and dad a year later.”

  “A whole year?”

  “The longest year of my life.” He plucks a flat rock from the beach, skips the stone into the waves. It pops off the water twice before sinking into a swell.

  “And then you were adopted?”

  “Not for another four years. Bureaucracy at its finest.” He stares out at the ocean like he’s seeing something so much bigger than the sea. “My whole family lived those years in fear, petrified that another blood relative would come forward to claim me and my brother.”

  “But they didn’t?”

  “No.” He shakes his head like he’s shaking off the memory. “I only had one family. My mom and dad, my brother. But Child and Family Services couldn’t see that. They have to follow rules, protocols. It’s a broken system. There’s not a lot of room in the laws to accommodate what kids want. Or need.” He lets out a deep breath. “I spent most of my childhood living between two worlds, never knowing where I really belonged.”

  Sam’s “after everything.”

  He turns to me, smiles when he tells me how his adoption freed him, how he wasn’t afraid of losing his mom and dad after that day in court. The day he got a forever last name and a forever family. He knew then he’d forever have a place to call home. How in an instant the world became so much bigger for him and he wanted to see it all.

  We sit in the connectedness of our stories, our pasts that make today possible, t
he sea around us.

  He picks up an oyster shell, thumbs the iridescent pink interior. “I think that’s why I feel so drawn to what happened on Malaga, how the islanders were taken from the only home they’d ever known all because the government got in the way of people being a family. There’s a painful sort of symmetry to our stories.” He turns the shell over, rubs at the rough outer surface. “I just wish the people were still here, you know? So I wouldn’t have to be.”

  “I’m glad you’re here.”

  Sam looks at me, a smile in his eyes. “Yeah?”

  “I wish it were under different circumstances, but yeah.”

  “Huh.” Sam drops the shell, returns it to the beach. “I like being here because this place holds no memories. The sea is like nothing I’ve ever known. It’s a fresh start. After everything, you know?”

  I really can’t imagine; the sea has always been my everything. “Is your story the one you told me last night?”

  He smiles. “No. That one was about this island. About a grandfather, a—”

  “Father.”

  His face lights. “Ah! You were listening.”

  I squint to meet his eyes. “Only that part. Sorry.”

  “Nothing to be sorry for.” He comes to my side, shares the rock seat. “I was telling you about the king of Malaga—”

  “Wait. A king? Or a king in the way common to Maine islands?”

  He looks surprised. “You tell me.”

  “It’s pretty traditional for Maine islands to have a king. He’s more like a person who settles disputes, less like a crown-wielding monarch.”

  “You’re saying this happens still?”

  I nod. “Sure. Head out to Monhegan. Local rule is pretty important when you live year-round with less than a hundred people and you’re so remote. I imagine Malaga would have been the same.”

  Sam waves his hand as a prompt for more.

  “It’s nothing really,” I tell him.

  “Something is never nothing.”

  Small crabs skitter at the waterline, feeding in the space between earth and sea. “It’s just custom, part of the island way of life along this coast. It makes total sense if you think about it. Island families depend on one another for enforcing the law, educating children, mediating disputes. But mostly, for survival. Island life out here is hard and cut off from the mainland, even now. The communities are insular, protective.”

  His eyes squint against the glare of the sun. “So they need a king.”

  “Well, a ruler, yeah.” Doesn’t have to be a king, but the idea of a queen is a different conversation. “Usually a man with the deepest island roots serves as the king. But more often, he’s the best fisherman, since good fishing is the difference between life and death for islanders, especially during the winter months.”

  “We know the king of Malaga met with the governor when his party came to the island. He was the voice his community,” Sam says.

  “Sounds about right.” Even though Malaga’s particular history is still new to me, the culture of sea life is familiar. Malaga’s people were my people. Quiet. Hardworking. Unassuming.

  I stare out at the ocean, the way it rushes forth with its determined blue before retreating in a froth of white. Malaga sits on the edge of the world. No wonder its founder chose it for his home.

  “James McKenney moved to Malaga around 1870. He was the best fisherman, like you’re saying. Had the largest home, with two rooms.”

  McKenney. Another last name I recognize from this area. Sam’s notes told of how some Malaga residents changed the spelling of their names after the eviction, when they attempted to disappear into the mainland population, and how Malaga Island descendants are still here, still fishing the coast. I’ve gone to school with them, worked the water with them, but no one talks about the island. It’s taken a person from away to show me what’s been here all along.

  “A dig has already happened at McKenney’s home site. A few years ago. The university found bones from fish, birds, and pig—and some fishhooks and ceramics. That site in particular was key to determining how islanders kept livestock out here.”

  “And he was the king?”

  Sam nods. “Yep. He organized the island economy and was fully literate. By all accounts he was an articulate man.”

  “Where was his home?”

  “There.” Sam points to a raised ridge near the top of the island. “I’ve always wondered how much he knew about what was really going on. Like, did he know what the eviction notice really meant for his people?”

  “I don’t think anyone could’ve imagined that the residents would be kidnapped and committed to an institution. It’s hard to believe even now.” I tuck my chin against my gathered knees, the skin there hot, holding the noon sun. “Sam?” I draw up a question from my very own deep. “Was there a girl on the island? Someone around our age? She may have had an infant.”

  He shakes his head. “Not that I’ve come across.”

  All the pictures of children in Sam’s journal, the ones at the school, around the island, on the steps of their family homes . . . so many held the caption UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN.

  “But it’s possible? Maybe she was lost to history and you just don’t have a record of her? Like the old woman in the rocking chair.” Forever nameless.

  “Anything’s possible, Rilla. There’s a lot we don’t know about the island and its people. There could’ve been a teenage girl here. Why?”

  “Because I think I’ve seen her.” Anxiety makes my head light now that I’m admitting this vision out loud.

  “Online?”

  No. At my window. On the shore. In the deep. “Here. On the island.”

  “Here, here?”

  I smile even as my insides quake. “That’s a lot of doubt for not a lot of words.”

  “Touché.” He gives a small laugh, but his eyes look worried. “How do you mean you’ve seen her?”

  There’s so much I can’t make sense of. So much I need to unearth. And I know I can’t do it alone, so I risk telling him more. “I saw her that first day I met you on the island. She’s the reason I came ashore. And I’ve seen her since.” I let the words come because I think they’re supposed to be spoken. “The thing is . . . I think my mother may have seen her too.”

  “Oh.” His word is a mere push of breath.

  “You think I’m imagining it, don’t you?”

  He shakes his head. “Far from it.”

  My heart stutters. “Really?”

  “Really.” Sam stares at the ocean with all its secrets. “I mean, it’s different, sure. But I believe you. If you’ve seen her, I believe you.”

  “You said you didn’t believe in ghosts.”

  “I don’t, but I believe in you.”

  There’s a rush of emotion that pushes up from somewhere deep in my chest. Something like gratitude and relief. And something more? It washes through me and tears threaten. For someone believing the unbelievable. For someone believing in me so fiercely.

  Sam’s willingness to take such a huge leap of faith makes my words rush fast: “I think the girl was from here, Sam. I think something happened to her. Something that isn’t in your notes or any published article. Something maybe no one knows about.”

  “Like I said, anything’s possible.”

  And it feels possible. This girl, her story. She wants me to know her. “She’s trying to tell me something. I’m sure of it. But I don’t know what and I don’t know why.” I see Sam trying to focus on my words, but his eyes dart behind me for just a second—a quick flash of a movement that’s enough to make me turn my head.

  Reed’s boat approaches.

  Out on the water, Reed arcs his arms to get my attention.

  “I don’t think he’s waving for me,” Sam says.

  “I should see what he wants.” I stand. “Can you take me out?”

  “Hop in.” Sam climbs into his skiff, reaches for the engine pull, but hesitates. “I want to talk about this more if that’
s something you want.”

  “I do.”

  “Then I’m here,” Sam tells me.

  “No judgment?”

  “No judgment.”

  He twists the engine pull in his hand, still not ready to start the motor. “And, Rilla?”

  I meet his eyes.

  “My private thing has always felt shameful. Being a kid without a family or roots to call my own, it made me feel lost or unworthy or something. I’ve never told my private thing to anyone. You make me feel safe enough to risk that stuff.”

  “You have zero to feel ashamed of. Nothing about what happened to you was your fault.”

  “Try telling that to the little kid inside me.”

  “You can tell that little kid that his parents picked him out of all the kids. Because he was special. And worthy. Maybe you should remind that little kid inside how lucky that makes him.”

  “I think you just did.” Sam smiles a perfect smile, one I can’t help but return. “So my private thing’s safe?”

  “The safest.” The girl has become my most private thing, and Sam didn’t even question the possibility of her existence. Then or now. “You can trust me.”

  “I don’t doubt it. You’ve got a way of inspiring trust and making things . . . better. Even with my story of the king—you made it better.”

  “Better?”

  “All the knowledge you have . . . It added to the story I had. Made it richer.” He nods toward the island, its rocky edges, its spruce forest. “You make all of this more meaningful, more necessary.” Sam pulls the engine cord and the two-stroke motor chokes to life. The noise is too loud to talk over, and I’m not sure what I’d say if he could hear me. Thank you rushes through me, but the words aren’t big enough. I’m not sure any words are big enough.

  When we near Reed’s boat, Sam idles the engine, waves a hello to Reed that Reed doesn’t return.

  “Everything okay?” I ask him.

  “Your gram’s worried about you. Wants you home.”

  I nod. “I’ll head in.”

  “I’ll follow behind.”

  “Sounds good.” Despite the terrible things Reed said, I know he just wants me safe. No different from Gram.

  Sam takes me to the Rilla Brae and I climb aboard. “Will you be ready to fish tomorrow?” I ask.