Cape Grace

by Nathan Lowell

  Mary bit her lips and nodded. Waves of anxiety streamed from her. “I saw your father on his way into town.”

  Sarah nodded. “Would you like to come in? I can make us a pot of tea.”

  Mary shook her head, glancing back the way she came. “No.” She looked up the path to the beach. “Is this where you walk normally?”

  “Yeah. Come on.” Sarah led the way to the top of the headland. “High tide. It’ll be a couple of stans before there’s even much of the beach exposed to see.”

  Mary nodded and pushed her hair back from her face only to have the wind whip it back again almost immediately. She glanced at Sarah before looking back at the waves rolling up the shore. “It’s beautiful.”

  “It is. It’s always different, but it’s always beautiful.”

  Mary took a deep breath and stepped in front of Sarah. “You can’t marry him.”

  The wave of anxiety and fear rolling off the girl nearly staggered Sarah. “Who? Bobby?”

  “Yes. He’s not a nice guy.” She swallowed hard. “You probably don’t see it. He’s probably nice to you.”

  Sarah blinked, struggling to understand the roiling emotions buffeting the headland like some emotional gust front. “Why do you say that?”

  “He’s broken. Something isn’t right with him,” Mary said.

  “Has he hurt you?” Sarah asked.

  Mary shook her head and looked away down the beach, squinting into the wind that blew the hair back from her face. “No. Not me. Other girls. He’s vicious. Doesn’t take no for an answer.” She looked at Sarah. “You know what I mean?”

  “No,” Sarah said, feeling the truth in Mary’s words but having no anchor for them in her mind. “What does he do?”

  “Angela Stewart went out with him for a while. She said he forced her. When she didn’t like it, he slapped her.”

  “Really?” Sarah said, the ugly information failing to connect to her image of her future husband.

  “She’s not the only one. Half a dozen girls. He’s poison.”

  “Was this recent?” Sarah asked.

  Mary took a half step back and looked into Sarah’s eyes. “You don’t believe me.”

  Sarah reached out to touch Mary’s arm. “I do. I can feel it. You’re telling me the truth. I just don’t know how to deal with it.”

  Mary nodded and looked away. “No. Not recent. Before he started the bait thing.”

  “Before we started crabbing together?” Sarah asked.

  Mary nodded again.

  “Do you think he might have grown up a little since then?” Sarah asked.

  Mary looked up at her again. “No. I don’t.” She bit her lip but wouldn’t look away. “He’s broken. He won’t let you see it until it’s too late, but I had to try to warn you.”

  Sarah swallowed hard and blinked back tears. “Thank you.”

  Mary’s shoulders slumped and she sighed. “You’re going to marry him anyway, aren’t you.”

  Sarah turned her face into the wind and let its fingers stroke her hair. “Probably.”

  “You don’t need to do this, Sarah,” Mary said, tugging on Sarah’s arm.

  Sarah sighed and faced her friend. “I don’t see any other choice.”

  Mary nodded, her lips pressed into a line. “I know that feeling,” she said. “Having no choice.” She paused. “Then you rang my doorbell.”

  Sarah nodded. “I remember.”

  “You gave me a whelkie,” Mary said. “You gave me a choice.”

  “No,” Sarah said. “You always had a choice. The whelkie just gave it substance.”

  “You have a choice, too,” Mary said. “Do you have a whelkie?”

  Sarah laughed. “I have dozens.”

  Mary bit her lip and shook her head, just slightly. “You know what I mean.”

  Sarah looked back down the beach. “Yeah,” she said. “I do.”

  Mary pulled her into a quick hug and turned away, picking her way down the path down the headland. “You saved my life. I needed to warn you.”

  Sarah watched her go for a moment. “Thank you.”

  She thought the wind had eaten her words until Mary stopped at the bottom of the path, turning to look back up. “You’re welcome.” The sadness in the young woman’s face nearly toppled Sarah but Mary turned aside once more and strode out of view around the cottage, heading back to town.

  Sarah hugged herself against the wind’s chill and stared out to sea. Mary had come to warn her. Could she believe the warning?

  Did it make a difference?

  * * *

  Otto returned to an empty cottage, a sudden foreboding washing over him when he stepped through the door. No note awaited him on the kitchen table. “Sarah?” He walked through the cottage, peeking into her bedroom and checking the shop. Swallowing his fear he climbed the headland and looked down the beach. The tide had only just turned. The narrow strip of sand provided a path, albeit one blocked by stones and piles of driftwood along its length. Surely she hadn’t tried to navigate it.

  “Sarah!” he shouted into the wind before spotting her sitting on a rock at the foot of the trail, her red windbreaker like a splash of blood against the stone and sand.

  She looked up and waved before pushing herself off the stone and starting the climb up.

  He met her halfway. “Are you all right?” He stared into her face, noting the bloodshot eyes.

  She sighed and put on a smile that must have been for his benefit. It looked fake as hell. “Of course, Papa. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  He took her upper arm and fought the urge to wrap her in a hug. “I don’t know. I came back and the house was empty and I panicked, I guess.”

  She nodded. “Sorry. I didn’t think.” She looked up the trail. “Tea? Did you accomplish what you needed to in town?”

  He took her cue and started back up the trail, glancing at her as they went. “Tea sounds good. Yes. I think it went well.” He took a few steps. “Anything happen here?”

  “Remember Mary?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Your first whelkie.”

  “Yes,” she said. “She came to visit.”

  Otto nodded. “I think I saw her on my way into the village.”

  “Probably.”

  They crested the headland and started down the far side. “Did you have a good visit?” he asked.

  Sarah sighed and pursed her lips. “She came to warn me about Bobby.”

  Otto stopped dead in his tracks, the faint aroma of dead meat wafting past on the breeze, gone almost before it registered. “Warn you?”

  “Apparently he wasn’t nice to girls when he was younger,” she said, looking into his eyes as if searching for the answer to some unasked question.

  Otto looked away first. “I see.”

  “Do you?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “No, not really.” He stopped, his hand on the door. “Do you believe her?”

  Sarah nodded.

  The fear burned inside him but he forced himself to ask the question. “Has he ever been ... not nice to you?”

  Sarah shook her head. “Never.”

  “What do you want to do?” he asked, swallowing against his fear.

  Sarah looked away. “Do people change?”

  “Every day,” Otto said.

  She squinted up at him. “You believe that.”

  He nodded. “Every day.”

  “What if they’re broken inside?” she asked.

  Otto sighed and shook his head. “It depends. Different people heal different ways.”

  “You haven’t healed,” she said.

  Her words took his breath. He tried to speak but couldn’t get the words out. He wanted to tell her she was wrong, but she wasn’t. “No,” he said, finally. “Not completely.”

  She nodded. “But some.”

  “Some,” he said. “Having you has helped me heal.”

  “I see,” she said and nodded again. “Thanks.” She looked down for a moment before looking back at h
im. “So? Tea?”

  He’d meant the words as hopeful, encouraging. The pain behind her eyes told him how badly he’d failed. “Sounds good,” he said and held the door for her.

  She went in, slipping her windbreaker off and hanging it on its peg before going to the kitchen to fill the kettle.

  He took off his coat and hung it beside hers. His eyes stung and he turned away, afraid she’d see the fear in his eyes.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  Cape Grace: June 15, 2350

  SARAH TATUM—NOW—LOOKED at her husband. He stood in the doorway, his clothes looking like he’d only just thrown them on—one shirt-tail untucked, his jacket hanging off him like a trash bag. His belt hung open, the buckle making little ting-ting sounds as he shifted his weight. Even from across the room, he reeked of beer and leered at her in a way that curdled her stomach, raising bile to the back of her throat.

  “Quite the party, huh?” he said, bracing an elbow in the door jamb.

  “Not every day a Krugg gets married, I suppose,” Sarah said. “I’m sorry your parents couldn’t make it.”

  He took a breath and belched loudly with great vigor. He looked pleased with himself after. “I’m not,” he said. “My father would have been drunk under the table within half a stan and my mother would have been shrieking at him to stand up and be a man.”

  Sarah swallowed hard. The Bobby Tatum she’d known for stanyers couldn’t have been this drunken lout. Not all that time. “I didn’t know them,” she said.

  “I did.” Bobby took a step forward before taking his arm down. The sudden loss of support cost him his balance and he nearly fell on his face before recovering in a stagger that went two steps too long and landed him on the bed. “He beat her, you know.” He said it like it was lunch time. Like it really didn’t matter. “She took it like a woman, too.” He nodded and rolled over on his stomach, lifting his head to stare at her. He grinned at her for a moment before his eyes rolled up in his head and he passed out, the weight of his lower body dragging him off the bed and onto the floor.

  Sarah sighed. Some wedding night. She stood from the chair and pulled the zipper down, sliding the dress off her arms, holding the neckline while she stepped out of it. The fancy lingerie that her grandmother provided was nothing more than scratchy nylon, although the glimpse she caught of herself in the mirror made her smile. Tough luck, Bobby.

  She draped the gown on a hanger and hung on the end of the rod in the closet. She’d never wear that dress again.

  She stripped out of the underthings, put them into the hamper and pulled out a pair of her comfy pajamas. She still wasn’t used to this place. Bobby had insisted they move into his parents’ house, but she missed the ocean outside the cottage.

  Wrapping herself in a robe, she went to the window that looked out toward the sea. She couldn’t see it. A house and tree stood in the way, but she could feel it out there. She could feel the swells growing and sloshing over the sands. She was married. The company wouldn’t deport her.

  Her father would be pleased.

  She sighed. Unfair. She couldn’t imagine leaving St. Cloud. Even if they moved somewhere else along the coast, the ocean would be right there. Eternal. Always moving. Breathing the slow, deep waves in her tides. The hissing crashes of her waves on the rocks.

  What was it like before? Before humans. Before mankind shaped her. How did the boxfish come to be and how did they stay, their neurotoxins making people die or worse?

  She opened the window but the far-off sounds of waves on the cape couldn’t overcome the sound of the freezers humming at the warehouses along the shore. Even the calm night worked against her, keeping the waves quiet when she needed to hear their crashes, when she needed them angry. She took a deep breath, inhaling the scents of houses and people and vehicles and pets. The solitary rosebush in the neighbor’s garden too sweet on the night air, too tame to be a rugosa thicket heavy with hips and dangerous with thorns.

  She closed the window, latching it against the intruders who would never climb to test the opening when they only needed a solid kick to open the front door. She forced the muscles in her shoulders to relax, focusing on them, willing them to let go. She took a breath deep through her nose and then out again through parted lips. A wave of air over the beach of her body. Again. The cresting wave and the slow retreat. She made her own waves, standing there, staring into the night.

  She turned and looked at her husband. Passed out drunk on the floor beside the bed. Too many toasts. Too many glad-handing “buddies” who leered at her when he wasn’t looking at them. While he was leering at everybody else. And another toast, another pint. A couple of shots. She sighed and grabbed his collar, dragging him from beside the bed—off the rug at least—and almost to the bathroom. She lost her footing on the slick flooring in the bath and settled for getting his torso almost over the threshold. She lowered him to the floor. At least if he puked—more likely, when he puked—it would be easier to clean up there.

  She stepped around him, working her way out of the bathroom. She made it to the bed and sat, looking at him. Half in, half out of the bathroom. Face down on the tiles. Pants half off, showing the top of his skivvies, shirt untucked and hanging out of his jacket. Somewhere he’d lost his tie. She kept hearing the half slurred non-jokes about “gettin’ some” and “tappin’ that” while her father and grandparents seemed all but oblivious to the disgusting testosterone cocktail being mixed in front of them. About what would happen after the party.

  Tough luck, Bobby. You’re not getting any tonight.

  She lay back against the coverlet, arms flung over her head. Her eyes stared at the spot in the ceiling that hid the orbital from sight. What was Lette doing tonight? Was her great-grandmother “gettin’ some?”

  Congratulations. You’re married. The company can’t deport you.

  Yay.

  Mary’s words echoed in her head. “He’s broken.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Cape Grace: August 1, 2350

  BOBBY CAME INTO THE house ready to do battle with somebody. “Sarah? Where are you?” He slammed the front door behind him.

  She poked her head in from the kitchen. “Right here. What’s the matter?”

  “Where’s my dinner?”

  She checked the timer. “Be up in a couple of ticks. Just waiting for it to finish baking. You want a beer?”

  He stormed at her, his fish boots tracking mud across the entry way. “Damn right I want a beer. But I want my dinner. I want it now.” His voice echoed off the walls, rattling Sarah’s ears with the volume. He threw himself into his chair at the table and sat back, arms braced on the surface. “Why isn’t the table set?”

  She blinked at him. “What?”

  He glared at her, eyes narrowing. “Why isn’t the table set?” His words hissed from between his teeth.

  “What are you looking for?” she asked. “China and the good silver?”

  “I’m sitting at the table. Dinner is almost ready? Really? What am I going to eat off? The table?” He pounded the surface, making the salt and pepper shakers jump. “You were going to get me a beer, I believe. What happened to that?”

  “What’s gotten into you?” she asked.

  “Nothing. Not a damn thing.” He crossed his arms. “Look. I’ve just spent the day at sea, working my fingers bloody, and I’m wrecked. My feet hurt from standing on them all day. My arms are going to be lame tomorrow from all the lifting and pulling and crap. I’m home. I’m tired. I want my dinner and I don’t want any crap from you. That answer your question?” He sat, seething in his own juices and staring at the empty spot on the table in front of him like he expected the utensils would appear as if by magic.

  “All right then,” she said, crossing to the fridge and pulling out a can of the vile brew he favored. She crossed to the table and held the can up. “Would you like a glass? Perhaps you need me to open it for you?”

  He grabbed the can from her hand and slammed it onto the table.
“All I want is a little consideration.”

  “Well, let me get you a plate and some silverware. You sure you don’t want a glass?”

  His head turned slowly toward her. “Did I ask for a glass? No. You asked before. Did I say yes? No, I did not.” He took a few moments to glare at her. “Now, you are going to serve my dinner and stop asking stupid questions.”

  She froze for a moment, looking at him staring at her, something akin to hatred in his eyes. She felt nothing from him. She never had. Other people she could get a feel for, get a sense of what they were feeling, if not what they were thinking. Bobby had been a cipher from the first time she met him in school, hadn’t he?

  “Well?” he snapped, jolting her from her reverie.

  “Of course.” She crossed to the cabinet and pulled down a couple of plates. She stopped at the silver drawer and pulled out two full settings. She added two placemats from the linen drawer before crossing to the table. In a matter of moments she had a full place setting for each of them on the table.

  The timer dinged.

  “Just in time,” Sarah said. “Let me get this served up and we can eat.”

  He pulled the tab on his beer and upended the can in his mouth, gulping as the beer flowed down his gullet. He pulled the can away and sighed. “That’s better.”

  Sarah wiggled the baking dish out of the oven with some mitts and placed it on a hotplate on the counter. She dished up the fish, adding some mashed tubers, and a helping of greens to the plates. She placed one in front of Bobby and took the other to her place across the table. She sat and smiled at him, only to see the storm clouds in his face.

  “What is this?” he asked, his voice low like the distant rumble of thunder.

  She looked down at her plate and then at his. “Baked stuffed mouta. There’s a little cheese in the stuffi—”

  “It’s fish,” he said, cutting her off.

  “Well, yes.” She shrugged. “Is that a problem?”

  “I’ve been up to my ass in fish all day and I come home to find more fish?” His voice swirled around the kitchen, a gust front of anger. “Whatever made you think this was an acceptable meal?”