On Elk Island there was only one way to cook lobsters: steamed in rockweed. The tide was out, so Mike and Snow offered to go down to the bay to gather seaweed and mussels. Everyone teased Mike, telling him to make sure he wore a life preserver, to kick off his snowshoes before deciding to take his next swim. Sarah was happy, and surprised, to see him taking the banter so well. Her son might act as if he had timber, but inside he was very sensitive.
‘It’s a new sport,’ he said. ‘I’m going to enter the next Olympics.’
‘Pond walking!’ Snow said.
‘Yeah, snowshoes are optional, but you have to fall through the ice and land on your feet. Making it out alive wins you a medal.’
‘Mike Talbot takes the gold for pond walking,’ Snow said, speaking into a saltshaker as if she were a TV sportscaster.
‘Maybe,’ Mike said, looking nowhere in particular, ‘the gold should go to your dad.’
Sarah said nothing, flabbergasted.
‘That’s a nice thing to say,’ George said. ‘But the tide’s flooding in, and if you don’t move fast, you’ll never get that rockweed.’
‘Come with us, George,’ Snow said, pulling his hand. ‘Show us the best spot for mussels.’
‘Ah, Mike knows. He’ll show you.’
‘Come on, George,’ Snow said. ‘Let’s take a walk down.’
Her father and the kids pulled on boots and parka and went down to the bay. Aunt Bess walked out of the room. Coming over to the stove, Will put his arms around Sarah. He kissed her throat, the side of her neck. Sarah’s skin tingled, and she wanted to take Will by the hand and go upstairs with him.
He wore old jeans and an untucked chamois shirt. The fabric was soft under her hands, and his arms were strong and hard. Kissing his mouth, Sarah leaned back and closed her eyes. But something clattered, Aunt Bess cleared her throat, and they were interrupted.
‘Let me help you,’ Will said, crossing the kitchen to take the battered old box from her.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I took these out to get a head start on Christmas, but I think I’ll leave them to you two. Sarah knows where they go.’
‘Stay, Aunt Bess,’ Sarah said.
Bess shook her head. She smiled enigmatically, looking from Sarah to Will. Sarah knew she wanted to leave them alone. She had seen them kissing.
‘Discreet,’ Will said, his arm around Sarah as Bess disappeared into her sewing room.
‘I know,’ Sarah said.
‘Let’s open the box,’ Will said.
Every ornament meant something. There were glass balls from her mother’s aunt in England, angels from her grandmother, tiny clam shells strung with red ribbon by Sarah when she was ten.
‘I haven’t seen this in so long,’ she said, holding a glass angel. Her mother’s mother had given it to them the year Sarah was born, just before she died; her mother had reminded her every year.
‘When’s the last time you were here for Christmas?’ Will asked.
Sarah closed her eyes, tried to remember. ‘A long time ago,’ she said. ‘Before Mike was born.’
‘I thought you’d have brought him out.’
‘I didn’t want to come to the island for Christmas,’ she said.
‘Why not?’
‘It reminded me of everything we didn’t have. An island family, a father for Mike. It was easier in Boston, with all the other single parents.’
‘It must have been sad,’ Will said. ‘Considering how much you love it here.’
‘I love Elk Island,’ Sarah said, leaning against him. She felt his breath against her head, drew closer. ‘But for a long time I wanted to stay away.’
‘I’m glad I brought you back,’ Will said.
‘So am I.’
They went outside to cut greens. The air was sharp, and their breath turned white. Will had a knife in his jeans pocket, and he used it to slice branches of white pine from a row of trees in the field. Sarah walked beside him, holding the boughs in her arms. Her eyes filled with tears; she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her: decorating a house for Christmas with a man who wanted to help, a man she loved.
‘That enough?’ he asked, looking down.
‘Yes, plenty,’ she said. He took the branches from her, and they walked back inside.
They covered the mantel with evergreens, placing Christmas balls among the boughs. Sarah’s mother had always tied red ribbons to everything at Christmas, around the pine branches and brass candlesticks and all the light fixtures, but Sarah’s hands were trembling too much. She felt such intense emotion, such passion and happiness.
‘What’s this?’ Will asked, holding up a paper decoration from the box.
‘Oh,’ Sarah said. The sight of it pierced her through.
Mike’s star. He had made it in first grade. They had been living in Boston and wanted to send something to her father for Christmas. Sarah had cut a star out of cardboard and Mike had colored it with crayons. They had driven up to Swampscott, to gather sand and tiny shells and bits of seaweed, and he had glued them on. Sarah had sprayed it with shellac. Together they had mailed it.
‘My son made it when he was six,’ Sarah said.
‘It’s a good star,’ Will said.
‘My father kept it,’ Sarah said.
‘Why are you surprised?’
‘He can be so angry sometimes,’ Sarah said. ‘I always think of him throwing things out.’
‘I wonder why,’ Will said. ‘Considering the way he lives. With everything from the past, from your life, all around him.’
Sarah didn’t reply. She looked around, knowing Will was right. Was it because she had sometimes felt thrown away herself? That she hadn’t pleased her father by leaving this island to live in Boston, by getting pregnant, by being stood up at the altar? Gazing at Mike’s star, she knew: He hadn’t thrown her away. She had left on her own.
‘I’m hard on him,’ Sarah said.
‘No, you’re hard on yourself, Sarah,’ Will said.
She looked up at him. More than anything, she wanted to hear this man who seemed to know her so well explain her to herself. Her heart was going fast, and the pain in her back seemed worse.
‘You don’t seem to trust how much people love you,’ Will said quietly, holding her against his chest.
‘I don’t?’
‘Your father, your son. You can go easy,’ Will said, touching her hair.
‘How?’ she asked.
‘They love you, Sarah,’ he said. ‘They just can’t show it right.’
‘If I can’t see it,’ she began slowly, ‘how will I ever be able to know that it’s there?’
Will held her face in his hands. He looked her straight in the eye, his expression serious and unwavering. He held her gaze so long, she started to smile. Seconds were ticking by, a whole minute.
‘What?’ she laughed.
‘I just want to make sure you can see it,’ Will said.
‘See what?’
‘That I’m here,’ he said.
Mike waded into the tidal pool, filling a bushel basket with rockweed. The saltwater felt cold through his thick rubber boots, but nothing like the frozen pond. Here they were, almost as far north as you could get on the Atlantic coast, and the sea still held its warmth. Mike had asked some of the old lobstermen why this was so, and they had told him the Gulf Stream swept in here.
Mike wasn’t interested in lobstering, but sometimes he thought about being an oceanographer. He loved the sea so much, he missed it completely in Fort Cromwell. He wanted to study tides and currents, lobsters and whales, understand why the coastline was rocky in Maine and sandy in Florida. Use the same information lobstermen needed, but in a different way.
Mike had plenty of dreams. His grandfather subscribed to National Geographic, and Mike spent hours looking through back issues. He had learned that there was a profession called cultural anthropology, and it appealed to him a lot. You got to study the ways of different groups of people, figure out why they lived how they did. Mike thought it would be cool to observe the lobstermen in Elk Island and contrast them with the ones in Matinicus. It might be a way to know his father better.
Or maybe he’d just be a goose farmer. Take over the farm, raise geese, and work the land. Sell fowl and produce down quilts. Get someone else to kill the geese. Keep the family art alive.
‘Hey,’ his grandfather said, clucking at Snow. ‘Over here.’
She sloshed through the shallow pool, leaning over to see what he was pointing at.
‘Mussels!’ she gasped.
‘Biggest colony on the island. Don’t tell anyone,’ Grandpa warned.
Mike smiled. His grandfather was amazing. He ruled his land like a king. He knew where everything was, and he worked every bit of what he had. Last spring he had showed Mike the fiddlehead ferns. Growing on the shady side of a bog, curled so tightly into themselves, they were hidden from sight. Mike and his grandfather had picked some, fried them in butter, and had a feast.
Mushrooms. In October they had gone into the woods, looking for chanterelles, little golden things that Mike would have called toadstools if his grandfather hadn’t pointed out the difference. ‘Good eating,’ Grandpa had said, handing him a chanterelle. Then he had handed him a toadstool, saying, ‘Puke your guts out and then you die.’ Returning home, Aunt Bess had mixed the chanterelles with heavy cream and served them on toast. So now Mike knew.
The mussels were blue-black, the color of the evening sky. Everyone picked a few, throwing them into a different basket from the seaweed. This could be his, Mike knew. This life of mussel picking at the edge of the Atlantic, two hundred acres of rolling hills and pine forests and a white house that had been in his family for over a century. Elk Island was in his blood.
‘Everyone, look!’ his grandfather bellowed.
They stopped what they were doing, dropped seaweed and mussels into the baskets, and gazed at the sky. It danced with cold fire. There, in the north, just over the house, was the aurora borealis.
‘What is it?’ Snow asked reverently.
‘Never seen it before?’ Grandpa asked.
Shaking her head, she didn’t speak. Mike moved closer, just so his arm could be touching hers while she saw something so incredible for the first time. The air shimmered gold and green, a forest of celestial Christmas trees. The trees shook and trembled, bending in some terrific wind. If he were an oceanographer, Mike could study the phenomenon. He would specialize in the waters of northern Maine, and any seaside activity, even atmospheric, high in the sky, would be fair game.
He wondered whether Marcellus College had programs in oceanography. He was pretty sure Cornell did.
‘What is it?’ Snow asked again.
Tell her, Mike.’
The northern lights,’ Mike said, gazing over the house. The aurora borealis.’
‘No way!’ Snow said.
‘Yep,’ Grandpa said, sounding satisfied, as if he had arranged to have them appear, as if he owned the land and everything on, over, and around it. If he were a cultural anthropologist, Mike could include Grandpa in his study. Old Maine farmers and their ways of life. Mike could write a book about him.
The aurora borealis! Oh, my God!’ Snow said. She pushed back the sleeve of her jacket, peered closely at her watch. It was too dark to see, but she kept trying.
‘What are you looking at your wrist for?’ Grandpa asked, sounding exasperated. ‘The show’s up in the sky.’
‘I want to know the time …’ Snow said.
Mike stepped in. His mother had given him a Timex Indiglo for his fifteenth birthday. All it took was the push of a button, and the time appeared, flooded in blue light. He stuck his wrist in front of Snow’s face, pressed the button, and there it was: a luminous display, just for her alone. Good thing the evening was so dark, or she’d see him turning red.
‘Eighteen hundred hours!’ she said.
‘Yeah.’
‘I saw the northern lights for the first time at eighteen hundred hours on November thirtieth,’ Snow said, holding on to Mike’s wrist even after she was finished looking at the time. This girl was incredible, Mike thought. His first sight of Snow had hit him like a ton of bricks, and here it came again.
‘Eighteen hundred hours,’ Mike said, thinking it was so cool to know a girl who talked like a navy man.
‘Let’s go get your mother,’ Grandpa said, already starting for the house. ‘To show her.’
Mike hung back. Snow stayed with him, watching his grandfather go.
‘Snow,’ he said.
‘What?’ she asked breathlessly.
‘Nothing,’ Mike said, bending down to kiss her. It wasn’t the first time he’d kissed a girl, but it was the first time he’d kissed Snow. She grabbed the sleeves of his jacket with tiny bare hands, her weight pulling him down as if her knees had given out, and forget the aurora borealis: Mike was seeing stars.
The whole family had stepped outside to see the northern lights, but thank goodness there was no way anyone could read Snow’s mind. She was thinking, ‘My first kiss, first kiss, Mike Talbot, Mrs Michael Talbot.’ She was standing between Sarah and her dad, just a few steps away from Mike, and she couldn’t stop smiling. Her lips were tingling, as if she had rubbed Ben-Gay on them.
‘Oh, my!’ Aunt Bess kept saying, clasping her old hands. ‘Oh, my!’
‘It’s not like we don’t see it plenty,’ George said.
‘Every time is like the first time,’ Bess said, staring at the sky.
‘You’re not a young girl, Bess,’ George scowled. ‘First time, nothing. Don’t we see it plenty, Mike? You don’t get air shows like this down New York way, do you?’
‘It’s amazing,’ Mike said. Snow smiled at his diplomacy. He was so mature. Just by answering so noncommittally, he had avoided hurting Aunt Bess’s feelings, George’s feelings, and his mother’s feelings.
Inching toward him, Snow slipped her hand behind his leg, found his hand hanging down, touched his fingers. His hand closed around hers, and all of a sudden she was holding hands with Mike Talbot. Right in the midst of their families! She felt the blood rush to her head.
‘Dad,’ Sarah was saying. ‘Remember when you and I were coming home from fishing one night, just bringing the boat into the bay, and –’
‘That’s right, that’s right,’ George said. ‘The aurora was red that night. We saw it from offshore, thought the house was afire.’
‘We did,’ Sarah said, talking straight to Will. She had her head tipped back, a love-smile in her eyes, looking up at him. And Will was gazing right back. He looked lost, bleary-eyed with love. Snow frowned a little. She wasn’t quite sure how to take what she was seeing.
But Mike laced fingers with her, and Snow felt that hot rush again.
‘We’ll be seeing the aurora till April up here, won’t we, Mike? Maybe even May?’ George asked, staring straight at Mike’s and Snow’s hands. Staring hard, as if he had X-ray eyes and wanted to pulverize the connection.
‘I don’t know, Grandpa. We saw it in the middle of May last year,’ Mike said. By his answer, he wasn’t making any promises about staying on the island. In fact, it sounded to Snow as if he was planning to leave.
‘And we’ll see it again!’ George exclaimed. ‘Dammit, come spring, we’ll be out here looking at the sky while all the people in New York State are gazing at the pollution. Right, Mike?’
‘Aurora is a good name,’ Snow said, partly to get Mike off the hook. She hadn’t decided what she was going to call herself next, and she liked ‘Aurora.’ But as pretty as it was, it didn’t have any connection to Fred.
‘Right, Mike?’ George asked again, his voice tight.
Aunt Bess clapped her hands. ‘All right, everyone,’ she said. ‘We’ve got lobsters to cook. Let’s get back inside.’
‘Lobsters and the northern lights,’ George said sullenly, looking from the hand-holding to Mike’s eyes, as if he knew he was losing the contest to keep him. ‘Two things no place does better than Maine.’
‘I know, Grandpa,’ Mike said helplessly, unable to reassure him. But he slipped his hand out of Snow’s to pat his grandfather on the shoulder.
Snow shrunk a little, trying not to feel hurt. He’d hold her hand again, she was pretty sure. But losing someone, even a little, even for a moment, felt awful to her. She didn’t know why Mike’s taking his hand away should make her feel so lonely. Standing among all these people she loved, Snow had an empty place deep inside. The hole made her heart ache, and it chilled her through and through. She blinked back mysterious tears. And it didn’t help, not one bit, when she looked at her father and saw him holding hands with Sarah secretly, out of everyone else’s sight, just as Snow had been doing with Mike one minute earlier.
No one could remember exactly how many minutes it took to steam the lobsters, but it didn’t matter. The Talbots had cooked them so often, they instinctively knew. The clams and mussels were done first, piled into one steaming bowl and set on the table with pots of melted butter. The lobsters came next, scarlet and festive, heaped on a big platter. There were baked potatoes for everyone, with an extra for Snow. Sarah made sure everyone had enough butter, and she couldn’t stop smiling at Will.
‘Maine lobsters, Maine potatoes. Ever been to Aroostook County?’ her father asked. ‘They grow the best potatoes in the country there.’
‘Not me,’ Snow said.
‘Can’t say I have,’ Will said.
‘Lot of potato farms up Aroostook way,’ George said. He leaned over toward Mike. ‘I’ll take you there come spring. We’ll herd up the extra cats and drop them off. Good ratting up in Aroostook.’
‘Which are the extra cats?’ Snow asked politely, looking around the kitchen. Cats of all sizes and colors had swarmed in from the fields and barn. Smelling the lobster, they circled warily. The boldest ones had approached the table, reaching wily paws toward the bowl of empty clam and mussel shells. Shyer cats lurked in the shadows, behind the andirons, on top of the cupboards. There might be thirty altogether.
Sarah smiled. ‘These cats are all descendants of Desdemona,’ she said. ‘The kitten my mother had when she was young.’ She broke off a shred of lobster meat and fed it to the scrawny black cat rubbing against her legs.
‘I saw that,’ her father said ominously.
‘Sorry,’ Sarah said.
‘Feeding animals was always your specialty,’ he said. ‘Even when you knew better. How many times did your mother have to tell you they don’t do that in good families?’
‘I always forget,’ Sarah said, feeling extra benevolent toward her father since her talk with Will.
‘Which are the extra cats?’ Snow asked, sounding upset.
‘They’re all extra,’ George said. ‘If every one of them fell down the well, it’d suit me just fine.’
Sarah heard the bad mood closing in fast. She ate a piece of lobster meat, chewing slowly. This was their last dinner together, and her father was feeling it. He took a bite of claw meat, grimacing.
‘Blech,’ he said, spitting it into his napkin.
‘What’s wrong, George?’ Bess asked.
‘Garbage,’ he said. ‘Hillyer sent us all males. He knows damn well she-lobsters have the sweetest meat. Here, kitty.’ He put his plate on the floor, and two big brown coon cats began fighting over the carcass.
‘George!’ Bess said, dismayed.
‘I thought you weren’t supposed to feed the cats, Grandpa,’ Mike said jokingly.
‘What’s it to you?’ he asked, pushing his chair back. ‘When you’re just passing through? Don’t quote house rules unless you’re planning to stay in the house.’
‘Grandpa …’ Mike began, turning red.
‘Well?’ George asked. He had toppled his chair over, but he didn’t stoop to right it. Reaching over, Will quietly set the chair on its legs. Sarah felt the pressure of his knee against hers, but she couldn’t look away from her father.
‘Dad,’ she said softly. ‘Don’t. Please?’
‘Don’t what? Please what?’ he asked. His voice was furious, but his eyes were even worse. She caught him staring at her mother’s mother’s angel as if he wanted to break it.
‘What’s gotten into you?’ she asked.
‘What’s gotten into him?’ he asked, pointing at Mike. ‘That’s more like it!’
‘Nothing, Grandpa,’ Mike said steadily. ‘Come on, sit down and let’s finish dinner.’
‘Why, on account of it’s your last?’
Mike didn’t reply. Sarah felt her heart pounding. He had made up his mind. She could see by the way he was gazing at his grandfather with such love and regret. Bess was right; she had raised a good boy. He cared about the people he loved, didn’t want to hurt them or let them down. Now he looked at Sarah. His lips twitched, unable to smile.
‘Grandpa,’ Mike said.
‘Love gets folks into trouble around here,’ George said, glaring from Mike to Snow. He looked at Sarah. ‘Doesn’t it? Tell him.’
‘Dad, stop. Mike has to finish his education. You want that for him, don’t you? You know how important it is?’ Sarah asked. Her back had been feeling better, but suddenly the tension had returned. She felt the knot in her lower back, throbbing hard.
‘You got a college degree, Will?’ George asked.
‘Yes, from Trinity College!’ Snow blurted out, frowning at George as if he were her enemy.
‘It’s true, sir,’ Will said.
‘That what you want, Mike?’ George asked, his eyes steely. ‘You want more school?’
Mike shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ he said.
‘You do, honey?’ Sarah asked, her heart flooding with surprise and almost relief.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’ve been thinking maybe I do.’
The half-eaten lobsters lay on everyone’s plates. No one but the cats was interested in food. George stared at the fire. Sarah couldn’t take her eyes off her son.
‘That’s marvelous,’ Aunt Bess said. No one could have told from her tone how disappointed she might be feeling at the thought of Mike leaving the island. ‘Finishing high school is admirable, and a college education is priceless. Not only for the career opportunities, but for the enrichment. To go through life with a working knowledge of, oh, art and music … literature. Arthur always said he never would have advanced the way he did if he hadn’t gone to Brown University. I only finished eighth grade, but traveling with Arthur was such an experience. As if I’d graduated from Pembroke!’
George looked over at her, then turned to Mike.
‘How did this happen?’ George asked. ‘I thought you were happy on the farm.’
‘I am,’ Mike said.
‘I don’t get it,’ George said.
‘All I wanted was to come to Maine,’ Mike said. ‘See where my parents were from. I was sick of school and sick of –’
‘What?’ George asked.
‘Life,’ Mike said, looking apologetically at Sarah. His gaze broke her heart, because how could she bear knowing her boy had been sick of life? When she, of all people, knew how precious and fleeting it was?
‘Who wouldn’t be without any ocean around?’ George asked.
‘Amen,’ Snow said, looking at him as if she wanted to mend their friendship. But George wouldn’t even blink.
‘When I came here, I got interested,’ Mike said, speaking straight to his grandfather. ‘That’s all I know. We’re just this little island in the middle of nowhere, and it’s so incredible. There’s so much to learn about. You know, the way the whales move through the passage between Elk Island and Little Gull? And why the mussels grow so thick here in the south, but you can’t find any in Otter Cove or Kings Bight? You have to practically be a scientist to lobster right –’
‘What else?’ Sarah asked.
‘The northern lights,’ Mike said. ‘Everyone thinks they happen when the air is cold, but that’s not true. When Grandpa and I saw them last May, the air was warm. That day had been eighty degrees …’
‘They occur at high latitudes,’ George said sullenly. ‘The aurora’s got nothing to do with air temperature. The closer to the poles you get, the better you see them.’
‘That’s the kind of stuff I mean,’ Mike said, ignoring everyone but his grandfather. ‘You tell me all these things, and I want to go off and learn more. I never had anyone talking to me like you.’
Sarah blinked, unable to move. She had done her best, instilling in Mike all the curiosity, thirst for knowledge, desire to learn that she could. Loving him with all she had, she had tried to be both parents to him, but all along she had known she wasn’t enough. Mike was all boy, and he had squirmed out of his mother’s reach early. Hearing him talk like this brought tears flooding to her eyes.
‘Like your National Geographics, Grandpa … they’re so interesting.’
‘Glad to be of service,’ George said. ‘Go on up in the attic and read them all you want.’
‘I’m coming back,’ Mike said. ‘That’s my plan. I want to go to college, and then I want to come back and run the farm.’
‘Round about the time we’re dead?’ George asked.
‘George, you look pretty healthy to me,’ Will said.
‘So did the American elm,’ George said. ‘And then the Dutch elm disease came along.’ His eyes shifted to Sarah, then away. She felt his stare, a reminder of how sick she had been, of how fast her mother had died. Tears were running down her cheeks. She was overwhelmed. Mike was coming home. That was all she wanted, but she couldn’t stand to see how hurt her father was. She leaned toward him.
‘Thank you, Dad,’ she said.
‘For what?’ he asked.
‘For helping Mike the way you have. Just listen to him! He wants to keep on with school, and it’s because of you. Thank you.’ She meant it with all she had, but her father wouldn’t even look at her.
‘Goddamn animals,’ he said as the cats, emboldened by their hunger, began climbing onto the table to sniff the plates. The lobsters had grown cold. The melted butter had hardened, and pools of brine had formed on the platter.
The pain in Sarah’s back numbed her right leg slightly. Shaking her foot, she accidentally kicked Snow under the table. Looking up to apologize, she caught Snow gazing at Mike.
‘I hate seeing these lobsters go to waste,’ Aunt Bess said, shaking her head. ‘We all left very sassy plates.’
‘That’s the good thing about being a vegetarian,’ Snow said. ‘You don’t feel so bad about leaving a potato.’
‘Don’t cry for the lobsters,’ George said bitterly, sticking his pipe into his mouth, biting down hard. ‘Here in Maine we’ve got plenty.’