40
THE FERRY IS late. When Captain Joe appears, I will glimpse his boat, a dark stain on a landscape of water. This will be deceptive, of course, an optical illusion; I will be able to see the ferry long before it is anywhere near the islands.
A few minutes ago, Galen and Forest left the cabin together. I watched them pass, gesticulating, engaged in one of their endless, circular arguments, never to be resolved. I kept my gaze on them as they headed toward East Landing. A single word floated to me on the breeze: Sisters. No sharks have yet been sighted, but it is only a matter of time. The Rat Pack must be in the neighborhood even now. The summer cycle is resetting itself, beginning anew. Galen and Forest were on their way to check the Billy Pugh, to make sure that the mechanism is in good shape for my departure. Forest will oversee my passage to the deck of the ferry. I will leave the islands as I came — suspended above the ocean inside a terrifying, pendulous cage.
Captain Joe has just appeared, like a soap bubble blown over the horizon. An empty sky one minute, a boat the next. Soon I will make my way to East Landing, where Forest will be waiting for me. I will pass through the gauntlet of gulls one final time. It will be my last moment to breathe in the salt air, to brave the guano and the bird lice, to remember where I have been and why I am leaving.
I have been thinking about Galen’s book — about the eggers and the lightkeepers. There was a whole chapter, too, on the Miwok Indians. Residents of California, they knew about the archipelago — though they were never foolish enough to voyage there. On clear days, the Farallon Islands were visible from the coast: a haunted silhouette, broken shards of stone. The Miwoks believed that the place was as much a spiritual locale as a physical one. They imagined it to be an earthly hell where the souls of the damned were sent to live in discomfort and loneliness.
After the past year, I must agree. In this place, loss is a geographical force rather than an emotional one. Loss is the magnetic pull of the islands. Long ago, Galen suffered a gut-wrenching tragedy. I am sure he will stay here until he dies — a lost soul dominated and defined by the death of his wife. Forest has gone through a similar bereavement. Lucy, too, has been widowed, in her way.
And I am more like the others here than I would ever have cared to admit. I remember the first time I saw the islands in a photograph. My response was a throb of recognition. I felt immediately that I knew the place somehow, as though from a past life or a dream. In that moment, it felt as though I’d been waiting forever to find the islands — as though, perhaps, they’d been waiting for me.
I understand now why I first voyaged here. It has taken me all year to come to terms with that choice. Since your death, I have been looking over my shoulder, looking backward. I have been stuck in time. I have been writing letters to you — letters to no one, a body in a cemetery, a woman I knew for only a small part of my life. Hundreds of notes, some sitting in the Dead Letter Office of various cities, others buried and burned and scattered on the wind. I have never once questioned whether writing them was sane or healthy. Now, though, I can see that it was neither. Each letter has been an anchor chain, dragging me back into the past.
I have distanced myself from my father. I have stayed away from the twins, my grandparents, my cousins. I have eschewed all the normal paths through life — no mortgage, no long-term relationships, no permanence, no love. I have kept only what could be carried on my back. I have slept in deserts, canyons, and jungles. I have lived like a vagabond. In a way, I have been looking for the archipelago since the day you died. Of course I recognized the Farallon Islands when I first saw them in that snapshot. This place is the final refuge for people like me.
Oddly enough, the baby has proven to be my salvation. The accidental baby. The baby who came out of the worst possible circumstances. Without that tiny, burgeoning creature, I might have decided to stay on the islands indefinitely. The idea has certainly crossed my mind. Despite the unceasing howl of the wind, the creeping cold, the meager food stores, the rodents, the falling-apart plumbing, the lack of reading material, the broken crockery — I have always felt at home here, more so than anywhere else. The wildness and isolation are mother’s milk to me.
I could easily have become a permanent resident. I could have begun the process of cobbling together more funding or applying for intern status, insinuating myself so completely into the ebb and flow that the others could not do without me. Lucy, Forest, Galen, and me — the saddest quartet in the universe. Eating our meals together. Tagging the birds together. Forgetting the bustle of the mainland, the toot of car horns, the murmur of strangers’ voices. I imagine the islands drifting farther and farther away from shore. The four of us would look askance at any visitors to our little lepers’ colony. Castaways by choice. All of us halved — all of us haunted.
Captain Joe is closer now. The ferry is no longer a smudge; it has taken on recognizable contours, a prow, a deckhouse. But it is still a miniature version of itself, a ship in a bottle. I can scarcely see the white tumble of the wake.
I am thinking about my father. Dad at dawn in his sweat suit, gearing up for his morning run. Dad in the evening in front of the TV, bowl of popcorn in the lap. I have never given him a fair shake. In life you were a bright figure, so fiery and intense that you threw him into shadow. After you died, he stayed there, on the outskirts, in the half light. I have never confided in him. I have never really considered him; he has been furniture, as much a part of the house I return to as the kitchen cabinets and the mahogany bookshelves. I wonder how much of this he has understood.
Today I will return to the mainland.
Then, of course, my son will come. I may feel my water break without warning; I will be drinking tea at the kitchen table, perhaps, or taking a stroll through the old neighborhood, and suddenly I will become a human fountain, damp thighs and soaked shoes. During labor — Mick has told me — I will be more or less insane. The pain will be unbearable, yet I will bear it. I will enter an altered, exalted state, during which my mind will be shelved, pushed to one side, as my body takes over, fulfilling its deepest animal functions without my consciousness or consent. The baby will travel downward through the birth canal on a wave of blood. He will burst into the open air like a shark shattering the surface of the sea. The cord that joins us will be cut, and in that moment, the baby will be transformed. He will become a full-fledged human being — independent, breathing his own air, consuming his own food.
I will be transformed as well. A mother, like you but not like you. A single mother. I will reach out to my aunts. I will reconnect, tentatively, with my family. I will accept all the help I am given. I will need it. There is nothing more astonishing than a new baby. I will nurse that tiny animal and change his diapers. I will look up the words of half-remembered lullabies. I can picture my son — almost. Pink skin and tufted hair. Starfish hands reaching. Dark, smeary eyes, not quite adjusted to the light outside the womb. A belly as round and warm as fresh-baked bread. Months will pass, during which I will once again be lost to the world, but this time with purpose, inhabiting a private realm of blankets, booties, and downy skin.
Yet that is not the end of the story. The narrative goes on. Eventually, I will become a normal person. That is what the baby has done for me — grounded me, permanently and for the first time, to the rest of the human race. I will never again experience the kind of deprivation I have known on the islands. No matter what sort of life I am able to create for my son and me, it will be filled with comparative luxury. All the while, that boy will be growing. A toddler in diapers. A sturdy, tow-headed three-year-old, mounting a bicycle with training wheels. A child on the swings, head thrown back, hair flying, legs extended, printed against the sky like a gull in flight. The possibilities are endless. The time spins out in front me, a golden tunnel of years. A thousand choices. Time like sunlight. Time like wealth.