Chapter Forty-Seven

Jack

He spun me around. I stared up into a stubbled face, lined and leathered by the sun. I smelled smoke and sweat, and something sickly sweet on his breath. He pulled me closer, his eyes struggling to focus.

“Tommy?” he said, less certain this time.

My heart was pounding out of my chest. He wasn’t supposed to be here yet! I forced myself not to run.

Now he really saw me. His brows lowered. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What are you doing at my house? In Tommy’s clothes?” His grip tightened on my shoulder. “What are you doing with his seal?”

He shook my shoulder until words came tumbling out. “I—I—I live here,” I stuttered. “My mam’s finding a place for us to live, and it’s secret with the divorce—”

“Maggie would have told me,” he growled.

But I couldn’t stop, and now Maggie’s story got mixed in with Mam’s. “—And my father can’t know, and I’m Maggie’s nephew, and my mam will—”

“Well, that’s a lie. She doesn’t have a nephew.” He let go of my shoulder and grabbed my wrist. “Give it to me.”

My stone selkie, my gift from the Moon—

And then Maggie was at the door. “Aran!” she shouted. “Give it to him!” It was too much for her. She shuddered, struggling to hold back a cough, and then hunched in pain as it ripped through her. Jack and I stared, frozen.

“Go on,” Maggie gasped between coughs. “Give him the seal.”

I opened my hand. The stone selkie lay on my palm, staring up at me—and then Jack snatched her and she was gone.

Inside, I rubbed my sore wrist while Maggie made Jack a cup of coffee. They sat at the kitchen table. He took a slim bottle from his pocket and poured something into the mug. It was the sickly sweet smell on his breath.

“Welcome home,” said Maggie. “I didn’t expect you for a few weeks yet.”

Jack’s head drooped and he stared down at his mug. “Yeah, well, that idiot captain decided he wanted a smaller crew. Too cheap to split the profits. Didn’t even give me half of what I should’ve made.” He took a leather holder from his pocket and threw it on the table.

But Maggie’s sad eyes were resting on the bottle. “Again, Jack?”

He glowered at her, his hands tightening around the mug. “That’s not the point, Maggie.” He lifted his head and leaned forward like he was ready to fight. “What’s this kid doing here, in my house, in my son’s room? He’s wearing Tommy’s clothes! What the hell haven’t you been telling me, Maggie?” Now he was yelling, and Maggie shrank down small. “I go off to work and it’s like I don’t even exist! Who’s the kid, and what’s he doing living in my house?” He slapped his hands down on the table, like he was going to push himself up. Then he’d be towering over her.

“I’ll go,” I said, inching toward the door.

“Oh, no you don’t,” said Jack. “Not until someone tells me what’s going on.”

For some reason Maggie didn’t tell him about Mam coming in the middle of the night. She spun a story with lots of fake details about how she’d met my mother at the store, and something about common names and a phone number that wasn’t working. But the last part was all too true. “She should have been back by now,” said Maggie. “She must have run into trouble.”

Jack shook his head. “Not our problem. Call Social Services. What do we pay taxes for? He can go into foster care.”

My gut wrenched around. I hadn’t expected to have to swim off so soon.

Then Jack’s big hands cradled his mug. In a softer voice, he said, “You’re sick, Maggie. Taking care of a kid’s going to make you sicker. And we can’t afford another mouth to feed.”

I was waiting for her to agree. She was wringing her hands, over and under, over and under. She looked up at him. “I . . . I like having him here, Jack.”

The softness fled. His face darkened. He stood, banging his chair into the table. At the counter, he jerked a drawer open and pulled out a ring jangling with metal shards.

“I’m going to have a drink with Harry,” he said.

“You shouldn’t be driving,” said Maggie.

He slammed the drawer and stormed out. The truck sped off in a spray of gravel.

Maggie was breathing shallow and fast, with a strange, wheezing sound. I helped her into the big chair by the fire. Her head fell back against the faded fabric. In her lap, her hands lay still and twisted, the dried-out roots of a toppled tree.

When she finally spoke, her voice came from far away. “Oh, Lord, Aran. What were you doing with Tommy’s seal?”

It felt like a slap in the face. The stone selkie couldn’t be Tommy’s. She was my courage. My gift from the Moon.

“Jack won it in a card game in Alaska. Said it was worth something, given how much they were betting. He carried it around like a lucky charm. Things were good back then. He worked hard. Didn’t drink much. The captains always took him on.”

I didn’t want to listen. I turned my head away, but she kept talking.

“He gave it to Tommy on his fifth birthday. You should have seen that boy’s eyes light up. He was always playing with it, making it little hidey-holes. He slept with it under his pillow. Jack would come home after months on the boat, and there’d come Tommy, running up with that seal in his hand.” She gave a deep sigh. “Lord, he loved that boy.”

Her voice grew lower.

“Jack was off on a salmon boat when Tommy got the fever. He was burning up. No matter what I did, the fever wouldn’t go down. Then he was writhing and twisting and didn’t know me anymore. I was so scared! I carried him out to the pickup and drove to the dock. The boat, the ambulance . . . I was sitting by his bed in the hospital, that cold, white room. Trying to get through to Jack on his boat. Holding Tommy’s hand. And then the doctor’s face . . .”

Her own face was as white as bone. The only thing left was sorrow; everything else had leached away.

“Back home, after we buried him, Jack searched for that seal for days. Like it could bring Tommy back.” She looked at me, shaking her head. “And now it turns up in your hand.”

Then she caught herself. She sat up straighter and tried to smile. “Don’t you worry, Aran. Jack’s all right when he doesn’t drink. I’ll figure something out. We still have a little time.”

Her words were brave, but her eyes said she didn’t know what to do.