Anchors, Part 1

So I was looking at some old books, classics. A lot of them were written in serial form, so here is a taste of a short story I wrote... in serial form. Half this week and half next week. I mentioned some of the ideas in it in an earlier post (in March) "Patience and Waiting." Enjoy.

Anchors

        The ocean reaches out in front of us towards the rising sun. The waves catch the sunlight in a reflected path of gold leading across Massachusetts Bay. I’m perched on the rocks, my little sister, Sadie, sits cross-legged in front of me. She’s five this year. The wind blowing off the water makes braiding her hair difficult, but I’m glad to spend this brief moment out here.
        Somewhere out there in a merchant ship is our father and two of our brothers. This is the first full year that Paul has been gone too. I look down at Sadie as I loop a bit of ribbon around the end of her brown braid. She leans back against me, her head warm against my breast.
        “When will they be back, Hope?”
        “I don’t know, soon.” I say. They’re gone on one of their long winter journeys but the crocuses are in bloom. They’ll be back. “Come on, it’s time to go help Mama.” We stand up, balancing on the rocks.
        “Do I have too? “She wraps her thin arms around my legs and looks up at me, her green-eyes big.
        My mouth twitches “We’ll see.” I rub the small ivory pendant around my neck with my thumb. The small anchor is warm to the touch. As we return to the house my mind wanders back to the autumn I was thirteen. That was the year Sadie was born.

* * *

        Papa, tan and lean from his summer voyages, had been home for a couple of weeks. During the summer trips he rode the coasts going down to Salem and Boston, and he was home for weeks between. I loved the summer because of it. He would show me how to draw with charcoal and tell his stories about strange sea creatures and exotic people. But orange streaks were beginning to appear on the pumpkins. He would soon be heading out to sea again for the long winter trading, that’s when he would be gone for months at a time, traveling to far off places, to trade for sugar and rum.
Nate and I had been climbing our favorite tree. “Land ho!” He called, his freckled face half hidden by his spyglass that he had crafted out of a tube of birch bark.
I climbed up beside him “What do you see?” He pointed towards the town of Ipswich, in the opposite direction of our home, only a few plumes of smoke visible from this far away.
“They must be savages, Cap’n.”
“You’re right. They must be the ones who took Little Paul, the cabin boy.”
We heard a bell chime on the wind. I climbed to the ground. “Come on Nate, we have to go.”
He kept staring through his birch bark.
“Come on!”
“Alright, alright.” He slid down the trunk, ripping the leg of his pants in the process. We gathered up the pile of branches that stood at the foot of the maple tree. We had been out gathering wood. We raced homeward.
        “Ha! I have more,” I called over my shoulder, arms filled with wrist sized branches.
        “Mine are bigger.” Nate ran past me on my right, but stumbled, his feet no longer on the path. He regained his footing just as I brushed past him, the rough bark of the maple logs pulling at his homespun shirt.
        We thundered to a stop next to the woodpile that was partially protected by the eaves of our little cottage. The chickens scattered at our approach. Our loads fell from our arms as we hurried to stack them neatly. We could smell Mama’s stew cooking. With the last log in place we tumbled inside, shoving each other through the doorway.
“I won,” I said.
“Did not.” Nate pushed me once more.
        “Settle down you two,” Mama said as she spooned stew into the smooth wooden bowls. “There’s enough for all.”
        My glare of triumph subsided into a smile as Nate and I sat down on the edge of the bed. Papa and Mama sat in the two roughhewn chairs. Little Paul and Tommy climbed up beside us, and Johnny, the smallest, a chunky two year old, sat on Papa’s knee. The stew was delicious, but we ate it as fast as we could. Sometimes after dinner, Mama would let us play hide and seek at dusk. After we finished I gathered up the bowls to wash them. She rested her hand on her barely swollen belly; with the new baby coming she was extra tired by the end of the work-filled days.
Papa placed Johnny on the ground to play with a pile of seashells, and went to stand behind Mama. With his hand on her shoulder he spoke.
        “Nate, your Mama and I think it’s high time you came to sea with me.”
        Nate’s face broke into a giant smile. “Really Papa, me? You think I’m ready?” He jumped to his feet making Tommy and Paul rock as if they were at sea in a storm.
        Papa nodded his head and smiled at Nate. Did I get to go too? I dropped the bowl I was holding. It skittered across the floor until it hit Johnny’s shells sending them cascading across the floor. He started howling. I didn’t care.
        “What about me, Papa?” I asked, looking up into his dark windblown face.
        His lips tweaked at the corners, like he was going to laugh, but when he glanced down at Mama who had reached over to Johnny, he stopped.
        “Hope girl,” he said, “the sea isn’t the place for you.” His voice was gentle, the way it was when he dusted Tommy off after a fall. I hated it.
        Nate danced over to me “I’m going to sea!” He grabbed my hands and tried to pull me into his dance, but I wouldn’t let him. I pushed him away.
        “It’s not fair. I’m older.”
        “But I’m a boy, silly.” Nate grinned. I pushed him again, making him step back. His smile slipped, and he stepped back again, his eyes serious and sorry.
        “Hope, don’t push your brother like that,” Papa said, his eyebrows lowering.
“But Papa. I’m better at hunting clams then he is, and I can climb any tree faster.”
Little Paul and Tommy’s eyes were huge looking at me.
“That’s not the point. You need to stay home with your mother.”
I stuck out my jaw. “It’s not fair. It’s boring here. I want to go sailing with you!” I looked around the room my eyes catching on the rough charcoal drawings of foreign flowers and strange fish that Papa had drawn. Evidence of his adventures. I pointed to my favorite drawing of dolphins jumping in moonlit waters. “I want to see it.”
Mama looked up at me from where she sat on the ground with Johnny. “Hope, that’s enough. You’re staying here with me.”
I stepped forward, my hands balled into fists. Papa looked at me so hard I felt as though I had been pierced by a knife. Something leaked out of me. I turned my back to my family and picked up another bowl. I swished it in the pail of water and scraped it and my hands against the cleansing sand.
I felt like a Nor’easter was howling through the cottage. But, besides Johnny whimpering, nothing else was heard.

        The morning Papa and Nate left I moped around. Nate tried to talk to me, and so did Mama. Papa gave me the occasional sad look, but I ignored them all. The moment they were out of sight down the path towards the ocean I followed. Behind me I heard Johnny and Tommy crying. Mama was hushing them.
        I didn’t heed any of it. My feet pounded the trail that Nate and I had come up together so often before. Now I ran alone. He was leaving and I wasn’t going with him. Veering from the main path I headed towards my favorite climbing tree. It was a large maple, with a trunk thick as a mast and branches where old blankets hung like sails. Grabbing the lowest branch I swung myself up. I crouched there for a moment, caught my breath and then climbed upwards, away from my world. The rough bark caught at my hands as I climbed carelessly; it gave me a reason for the tears that threatened my eyes. Twigs pulled at my hair, but I climbed on until the main trunk swayed and I could see out towards the ocean. Nate, Little Paul, Tommy, and I had climbed trees for years, especially this one. We pretended they were the rigging of the ships Papa sailed. We had great adventures in foreign lands together. I had always known that someday Nate would go off to sea too, but somehow I always thought that I would go with him. We did everything together; gathered wood, taught Little Paul how to hunt for clams, fed the chickens, and played King of the Mountain. I always got to do what he did.
The wind blew and my legs started to shake from the strange position. I rearranged myself, no longer looking outwards to the setting sun. I lay my head against the bark. Mama never went to sea. None of the women did. Why would I be any different? I wished I had thought about this before, so I could have known what to do, how to feel.
        I sat there crouched against the swaying tree.
My tears stopped, and I scrambled out of the tree --out of the rigging. My sleeve was wet from rubbing it against my face. I walked home slowly. When I got there Mama stood at the fireplace. She hugged me, but didn’t say anything; neither did I.