GOOD-BYE

On two index cards, my father left these notes in small black letters, front and back. I find them in the morning when I wake. My father writes in all caps.

Dear Sofie,

I’d drive all night for you. Get along with your mother. She’s working to get it together. Once you asked about fear. Your mother has survived more than a human should ever have to imagine. In Cambodia, soldiers took the children away to work in the fields. They starved the people, even the little children. I guess you’re old enough to know some of our background. I met your mom when I was working out of Rye Harbor. I nearly got my ear cut off in an accident on the boat. My family had no use for me, but this beautiful girl took care of me. The thing was, she was on the run from a situation in Lowell. I’m not saying it was good or bad, but she moved in and I loved her. But she’s got demons that are chasing her. I don’t know if she can get free. But I don’t give up on a person.

Love,

Dad

On a second card, was he talking more to himself in the wee hours? But he left it.

My fear is not the day they take our boat. The day I hose her down, paint her hull, haul her nets back to the Heights to mend next winter. Maybe crew for the last fishing boat out of Portsmouth.

My fear is that we shouldn’t have called her Karma. If you sell your karma, have you sold your soul? But she got me out in the dark all winter, chasing my soul.

I crumple the note in my fist. I did this. I did this.

I’m alone in our house. Nothing looks different. Not the light through the back window. The afghan on the couch, the ball of papers on the desk. My father doesn’t take anything. But everything’s different. Who is going to cook for you? I could have packed meals. At least breakfast to eat after he clears the dogleg. But he loves the expanse of ocean and horizon. For him, all the problems on shore fall away.

The government, the daughter, the daughter’s mother with demons. I imagine speeding through the snow roads down to the co-op, boarding the Karma just in time. Tell him, Dad, we’re going to be okay! Steam back in tonight. I’ll make chowder and biscuits. At least wait till spring. Wait. But he’d get back here. Be grounded all February since the season is closed. Grow a jagged beard. Follow the marine report. Watch the bend of the birch trees. Fishing. There’s no going forward. There’s no going back. We go round and round. Sinking.

I can’t see my father opening a Dunkin’ Donuts at 4:00 a.m. Doing the crossword in between Mrs. Bennett’s cream filled and the kids’ double sugars like Vincent. Growing bitter. That’s what grounded looks like.

- - -

Pilot and I plow a path into the new snow, heading down to the river. Once more I stand on the skeleton beams of the pier. The wind cuts into my face and my neck. Pilot races through the strip of horizon.

Alone in our house, I shower. It’s taking my mother and grandmother some time to get organized, so I have one day alone. I imagine my family crowding beside me, around me. Puppies in a bed. I dress. I sit on my bed and brush my hair. I lay my hands on my belly. It feels jumpy with tension, the way my father described the sea. I hear every sound in the house without him.

I look at my hands and suddenly see my grandmother’s hands—Yiey, as my father calls her. She sat with one palm lightly over the other as they rested on her belly. Like mine.

Rosa gives me a ride to the co-op to pick up my father’s truck before school. I go to Mr. Murray’s class, but I don’t want any of the world he’ll offer to me. My world is closed in. Now it’s February. A long dark month. As my father steams south, he’ll have only the new moon above.