side 2: bù

December 12, 2024

“My love, a favor please...” Heather murmured to me, as we stood at the edge of the escarpment overlooking the tidal flats below.

I fought off the desire to put my coat over her shoulders as the snowfall continued to intensify. At least Lara is holding her close for a little warmth. Then again ... It doesn’t matter.

“Anything for you,” I said.

“Can you take off the forward rowing mechanism and put on the regular oarlocks?”

I looked down at where the rowboat sat on the gravelly landing and swallowed. “Of course. It’ll take me a little time.”

“We have all the time we need.”

I returned to the house, passing under the barren drying arbors to gather the needed parts and tools from the closet. Heather and Lara remained entwined, silent, as I started down the staircase. The request was odd, in a way, but I knew what Heather wanted. It was the same wish I’d often had as the three of us sat in the boat together. She wants to be able to see us ... as she rows. She had no need to navigate the rocks by sight, I knew, so facing backward was no issue in that regard. She’d never forgotten the mental map of the cove she’d maintained in her mind, refreshed during the many periods of sensory exile over the years.

For a moment, the effort that the rowing would demand caused a twinge in me. ‘We can buy a small motor ... It would be easier... ‘ In the end it was all nonsense, though. So many complicated ways one could do something, but it seemed, as always, that the simplest was the best. And the most like her.

Once I’d made the swap, I carried the hinged oaring system up to the house, a bit of an awkward effort with their gangly protrusions. Another journey down the stairs was needed, and all the while Heather and Lara remained in place, watching tenderly as I went about the necessary preparations. The snow fell even heavier now, graying the world. The sea was icy and calm, a steel colored etching that looked hand-drawn. Birds and insects were quiet in their absentia. No fishing lights distinguished the infinite and invisible horizon lines. I pulled my coat tighter and climbed up once more. When I reached the girls, I took a long steadying breath.

“Everything is ready.”

Heather nodded. We descended the stairs carefully, since the accumulation was clinging to each step. The view was dizzying, as we watched the flakes whir and dance in the invisible turbulence that ruled at the edge of the world. They fell quickly, advance heralds of our slow procession into the white expanse that they laid down. By the time we neared the trusty rowboat, I saw that it too had a thickening coating of snow on it. Not that it matters...

It was about then that my self-control started fraying. Not unlike the first time I walked across these rocks, so long ago ... The first of many reunions ... I could barely handle it then, and I can barely handle it now, even after everything...

Heather pulled out of our helping arms and turned to us. For a time, she looked into our eyes with unbridled feeling. The world blurred...

“Last chance to say anything, before the jump,” she whispered.

‘We love you... ‘

Then Lara and I rushed forward into a three-way embrace. Despite being clad only in a long blue dress, Heather seemed to burn us with her intense energy. We remained as one for the longest time. Everything flared up as an unfathomable passion connected us. The totality of our lives together, everything since the day we’d met in these very shallows ... All of it passed between us as we held each other.

But at last, the time would stretch no further. Heather was, as always, the first to relinquish the embrace. Lara stood mute, smiling through tears as I helped our love into the rowboat. There was very little in the bottom of the craft, none of the plastic bins and tools that would normally accompany the harvesting outings. Only a pair of solid wooden oars and a length of dark green line that was tied to the heavy iron anchor, a forged five-pointed figure: H for Heather...

She took to the central thwart, facing the stern. I stepped around to help her set each oar in place. Fighting off the intense waves of time that crashed against us, Lara and I pushed on the bulwarks until the boat floated free. I vaguely felt the icy chill of winter’s sea creeping up my legs as we stood in the shallows while Heather rotated the craft, pointing the bow away from us, toward the sea.

She gazed at us each in turn. ‘I’ll see you on the other side, my loves... ‘

Then she started to row. We backed out of the shallows, Lara nestling against me since our thick coats were not enough to prevent us from shivering. We watched as Heather slowly, even gracefully, pulled on the oars with what little physical energy she had left. It was only her body that was terminably failing her, though, so the infinite reserve of energy persisted within her spirit and mind, even now as she kept her smiling gaze on us through the thickening expanse of snow-filled air.

Breathe... I kept at this simplest of tasks, finding it extremely challenging. The blue eyes faded into the silver sheen of the widening mist. In time, the boat split the bay and passed into the rocky barrier that joined the calm cove with the open sea. Lara and I turned and made our way toward a little-used path that led up the side of the cliff. Near the top, we found a familiar flat stone and sat down, pressed close to each other.

We could see the boat easily from this perch, though it was distant. Smaller it grew, bobbing through the glacial waters, the oars cycling with decreasing frequency. It was at the edge of visibility when they stopped altogether and were withdrawn into the boat. The blue figure, which was the only bit of color that remained in the graying world just then, leaned over to reach into the water.

Lara shivered again as we both heard the crystalline song of a little metallic bell, faintly but plaintively sending her single-noted melody into the air and water.

The gray and blue scene became hazy and blurry as my eyes flooded. It was impossible to see now, but my mind didn’t need sight anymore. I remembered well our very first harvest in these waters, so long ago, when Heather had tied the dark green line around her waist ... Then she’d weighed the anchor and jumped into the sea, and so had begun the most wondrous of journeys back then.

‘The beginning of everything... ‘

Lara squeezed me tightly, her own thoughts blending with mine.

‘And also the end of everything... ‘

The world quieted. I wiped at my eyes to clear them and watched as the blue figure rose up, shining impossibly bright in the faded light.

‘And therefore the beginning of everything, again... ‘

The snow hung in midair, no longer falling, but patiently observing ... Everywhere, the swells were slowing, coalescing, gathering energy into the moment.

‘Three ... Two ... One... ‘

The sea slowed and came to a stop. The bell rang down into silence.

Jump...

When Heather set her mind to something, she was determined to see it through. We knew this. We always did. These days, it no longer scared us, though.

Lara and I remained on the flat rock, staring at the empty rowboat as it sat immobile in the frozen sea. Emptiness... That feeling fought within us, trying to gain a toehold, but we fended it off, focusing instead on our truest emotion: that of pure gratitude. It didn’t take long for it to explode through us and put an end to all other thoughts.

Neither my sister nor I moved, nor did we give any indication to each other of what we were about to do. The sounds simply emerged from our lips at the same time. We sang, a duet now, for the third voice would be silent going forward. Silent, like the sea.

‘Sing, sweet mountain, carry me... ‘

In response to the melodies, the waters began to move again. The undulations took hold of the buoy and therefore the bell joined in with us, singing a third part after all. A new part, but a union nonetheless.

The rowboat began to bob and drift. I’d expected her to have connected the breasthook to the buoy line, but as usual, I never knew what that girl was going to do next ... Not even now.

We continued to sing as the swells pushed the craft towards the shore again. With the experience of a million years, the currents guided it perfectly between sharp rocks and safely into the cove, where it floated calmly, growing ever larger in our sight. At last, the nose eased up onto the incline of the gravelly landing.

When we’d delivered the final coda of the song, the last two remaining lines, Lara and I stopped singing. The bell continued, alone.

Wordlessly we descended the trail and traversed the rocks once more. We met with our old friend, the nameless boat, in the shallows. I looked within: the oars remained, but also one more thing. Something new...

Breathe...

Sitting on the central thwart was a clear plastic bag, which contained a manila envelope within it. I handed it to Lara and then slid the rowboat along the snowy inclined landing until it was well out of reach of highest tide. After flipping it over, I took up the oars in my arms, and Lara and I climbed the path one last time.

We spent a moment standing in the clearing at the top of the trail. Nature reigned over the old campsite these days. The fire stones were scattered about, and dead leaves thickly matted the entire area, little tongues collecting the flakes that filtered through the spindly fingers of the bare tree limbs above. Only one thing remained that belonged to a different life: the run of a pair of thin ropes that stretched between two trees. The drying line... Now empty of silverprints.