On her weekend off, Trudy drove Mercy to the Point to see the boats. The sun was getting warmer now, making her believe that summer was possible after all. They rolled down their windows and reclined in their seats and waited for a ship to come through the locks. The light on the rippling water was blinding. Mercy shielded her eyes with one hand, looking east then west, licking her pistachio ice cream with her already-green tongue. She ordered it every time; mostly, because of the colour.
“I remember my mom, Trudy.”
“I know. Me, too.”
“She had brown hair like mine. Light brown.”
“Yup.”
“She was pretty.”
“That’s true.”
“She gave me a necklace.” Mercy touched her throat. “Where is my necklace, Trudy?”
“Not sure, babe. It’s around somewhere. We can look when we get home.” Trudy remembered the necklace, too. A tiny silver shamrock pendant with a fake emerald, on a short silver chain. In some box or drawer or jam jar somewhere in that house. Needle in a shit-stack.
“It’s not lost,” asserted Mercy.
“No.”
“Maybe my mom is lost.”
“No, I’m pretty sure she knows her way home. It just might take her a little while, that’s all. She’ll be back.” Spoken with less conviction than she would have liked, than Mercy would have liked, but Trudy had never been a great pretender. She made an attempt at distraction. “Should we go see those unicorns again tomorrow?”
“Sure,” said Mercy, staring out the windshield. “I can show everybody my necklace!”
Trudy looked out her window at the water, glittering gold, the sun lifting a bit of mist off the surface. As always, the boat came from the direction you weren’t looking in. It came toward the back of her turned head, its enormous bow looming up out of the distance, wedging into the narrow channel.
Its smokestack-topped stern as big as a high-rise apartment building, unmoored from a city street and floating away down the river.
Away, away. Always away.