by David Jurk
“She’s quite a pain in the arse on board, you know, and she told me the other night she’d prefer to stay here with you.”
His eyes went wide. The pipe in his mouth sent smoke trailing in thin wisps, his jaw working the stem.
“She said 'at tae ye, did she?” More smoke leapt away.
“I heard her say it,” Aulani agreed.
He drew his arm back, hugged the cat to his wool coat and she hunkered down against him in the cold wind.
“Yoo've baith become quite bapit, huv ye?” He watched us carefully. “Talkin' cats, indeed.”
I put my arm around Aulani.
“No doubt you’re right, Charlie. We’ve both gone completely daft. So, as I see it, we have no business trying to take care of an innocent cat. We’d deeply appreciate you taking over for us.”
He looked from Aulani to me and back again, his face red. His eyes were wet; from tears or wind I couldn’t say.
“A’ richt then, ah will dae it, but ainlie ‘til ye come tae yer senses,” he growled.
“Well, there is a condition,” I said, and his eyes narrowed.
“And whit wid that be?”
I glanced at Aulani with a smile.
“You need to give her a name. Can you imagine Aulani and I, out on the sea sailing along, and I turn to her and say, ‘Wonder how Charlie and that cat are doing?’ Just wouldn’t be very respectful, would it?”
He puffed like mad for a few seconds, glaring at me.
“Sae, it juist happens a’ve given her a bit of a private name awready, haven’t ah?” He settled the cat up a little tighter against himself.
“You old codger,” I said. “You’ve been holding out on us!”
“Ah teel ye, lad, ye watch fa yoo're callin' auld.” I grinned at him.
“Tell us,” Aulani said, clapping her hands in delight. “What have you named her?”
He hesitated, his face reddening. Then he shouted, crossing his arms, the cat tucked contentedly in one crook of an elbow.
“Tis Hope a’ve cried her. Hope, tis.”
“Charlie!” Aulani cried, “that’s perfect.” And she went to him and hugged him, kissed his face, whispered in his ear. He hugged her back, his eyes closed.
I went to them, waited for her to release him. When she did, I put my arm over his shoulder, leaned in. “We’ll be back, Charlie,” I whispered. “On the wind.”
“Ye best, laddie, or a wullnae be happy.” He paused. “She loues ye, lad.”
I searched his eyes.
“You think?” I whispered.
“Ah ken it fur certain,” he said and smiled at me. Then he stood back away from me and jabbed his pipe toward Windswept.
“Noo,” he growled. “Be aff wi’ ye afore ye wreck yer boat in this bludy win.”
We stroked little Hope one last time, then without a word turned and descended the rocky path to the pier. We readied the lines, then managed to raise both anchors after a bit of struggle and get them stowed. There was nothing for it then but to look upwards to the cliff where Charlie and Hope stood and raise our hands in sad farewell. It was eerily familiar, being on the lake, looking up to see the shock of white hair and the smoke from his pipe streaming in the wind. It was exactly the view I’d first had of him three weeks before – a lifetime ago.
Windswept floated free, rocking gently as swirls of wind caught the sides of the caldera and swept over us. I stood staring up at them and my father’s voice abruptly came to me, singing a verse from a song of his childhood.
Twas there that we parted, in yon shady glen,
On the steep, steep side o’ Ben Lomond,
Where in purple hue, the hieland hills we view,
And the moon coming out in the gloaming.
With heavy heart, I went to the tiller and Aulani to her spotting location at the bow, and slowly we crept out of the channel using motors only. We were fortunate to be on an ebb tide, keeping her straight and true through the passage required little more than playing the throttles, something that seemed natural to me now. And then we were out again, swinging to port immediately, the motors turned to full power to secure our way offshore, against the unfettered wind.
Once safely away from the rocks, Aulani came back to the cockpit and put her arms around me. Now out on the open sea, we faced nearly twenty knots of head wind, cold and sharp. I raised a shortened mainsail and Windswept eagerly took it up and fairly flew, free finally of the sheltering island, back in her element. We tore along under a double reef, both of us unsteady, having lost our sea legs after the long stay on land. We watched Raoul slide by us to port and as we passed the headland where the cottage was, saw the dark figure on the cliff, watching us. He raised an arm, held it aloft for a few seconds, then lowered it. It was too far to make out his face, to make out anything more than the color of the woolen coat. Arms around each other, we raised our arms in unison to him.
Sorrow overtook me, the tears torn from my face by the cold wind. Aulani wept with me; I could feel the muffled sobs of her breath against my chest. I could only imagine how Charlie felt and despite everything I knew, despite the faith I had in Aulani’s vision, I wondered again at what we were doing, what we were leaving. And what we were heading into.
We stood there for many minutes, finding comfort in each other, until we had found what peace we could in leaving. Sorrow, I knew too well, was a fruit too bitter to hold long in the mouth. Way leads on to way, and we faced an unknown journey.
At last, she pulled back from me, and with a quiet “Oh!”, reached into her pocket.
“I’d forgotten,” she said, putting her hand out to me. “I found this on the cabin floor.”
She dropped a small metal pin in my hand; the pair of wings that the kitten had dug up on Nikumaroro. I looked it over, then looked up at her.
“Was this your mother’s?” she asked.
“No, no,” I answered. “Just something I found – well something Hope found – on Nikumaroro.” But the question struck me as an odd one.
“Why would you think it my mother’s?”
“Well, because of the initials.”
“Initials?” I asked, and she must’ve seen something in my face.
“Owen,” she said, “hadn’t you seen them?”
I was completely bewildered.
“Seen what?”
“Here,” she said, and taking the pin back from me, she rubbed it a bit with her thumb, and held it out to me, turned upside down. I bent my face close to it, looked where she held it, then saw what I’d missed before. The letters AE very faint in the metal, nearly obscured with corrosion.
It was impossible, but there it was. Stunned, I looked up at her.
“Do you know how many people have looked for this, or something like this, over the years? How much money has been spent trying to find absolute proof of the end of her days?”
“End of whose days, Owen? What are you talking about?”
“Amelia Earhart,” I whispered. “This belonged to Amelia Earhart.” She stared at me with huge eyes.
“Are you joking?”
I shook my head, feeling numb.
“Hope scratched it out of the beach.”
We both stared at it, and compulsively I took it and placed it back in her pocket. She looked up, questioning.
I took a moment to put my thoughts together, then took hold of her hands.
“If there’s anyone on this Earth that carries forward her spirit, it’s you. I… I don’t know how many people are left out there but what I do know with certainty is that your vision of the new Earth as an island world, a family of people living in cooperation and caring for each other and for the planet – well, I’m pretty sure that Amelia Earhart would’ve deeply approved.”
I stopped and looked out at the ocean, realizing how very true it was. In many ways, it was a perfect legacy.
“So, you keep it; let her wings be an icon for you.”
She stared at me in silence, but her eyes were warm, and her a
rms were tight around me.
We stood together as Windswept surged forward on the tumultuous sea and Raoul diminished behind us, hardly more than a shadow, until it disappeared into the black waves.
There was no more for it then, nothing left to look back to and we turned and faced into the wind and readied ourselves for the journey ahead.
