Alexis Smith - Marrow Island

When I tried to research Marrow Colony, I found only passing references on the blogs of Northwest environmentalists and Evergreen students. A few cruising guides mentioned that the Colony welcomed day visitors on their shores but discouraged campers. Their small harbor couldn’t accommodate anchorage for many boats. Their lavender goat cheese was a favorite at the Orwell farmers’ market.

I called the number for the Colony that Katie had written at the bottom of her letter and was sent directly to voicemail. The soft voice of a young woman with a Canadian accent told me that Marrow Colony messages were checked once a day, but that calls might not be returned immediately, due to the intermittent reception.

“This message is for Kathryn Paley,” I said. “Please tell her Lucie Bowen is on Orwell, and that I’m coming to see her as soon as I can find a boat.”

That evening I packed my backpack and an overnight bag with clothing for three days. I found after some inquiries in town that Joshua Coombs, an old captain from my dad’s days of working at the refinery, still ferried people to Marrow. I called his number and spoke to his wife, who told me the boat was already going to Marrow in the morning and I needed to be at the marina at 6:30 a.m.

I didn’t hear back from Katie. I barely slept all night, knowing I had to be up early, thinking about seeing her again, half worried that she wouldn’t be there, for some reason, that she had left in the time between her letter to me and my arrival.

Joshua Coombs squinted at me as I handed him my bags. It was just getting light.

“What’d you say your name was?” he asked.

“Bowen,” I said. I knew this was the name that interested him. “Lucie,” I added.

He stowed my bags but said nothing.

I looked up at the tops of the trees on the shore. Just standing on the dock made me queasy. I had forgotten about seasickness. Smaller boats had always set me off, my internal ballast shifting with the waves. I had thrown up on every boat my parents ever took me on as a kid. It was a family joke to hand me a sick bag with my life jacket and see how long I lasted before my breakfast came back up.

I had been so absorbed in my thoughts about seeing Katie again, I hadn’t thought about taking a pill for the boat. Katie’s visits to see me in Seattle during summer vacation had always brought on anxiety — an acid ache in my guts — my mind and body absorbed in the anticipation: What would she look like? How would she have changed? Would I still feel the same about her? It was the same every time; I was never sure if I wanted that heart-punched love to have vanished, or if I could stand to carry it around for another year. Every time I saw her again after some time, it was the same, though: she lit me up inside. It was a feeling I wouldn’t know again until I met Matt, though that fire had burned out within two years. What could ten years have done to my feelings for Katie?

Coombs gave me a hand, and I stepped up into the boat, a twin-hull catamaran, smaller than the older monohull he had captained to ferry the ArPac workers but decent: big enough for eight to ten, with a galley, some bunks, and a head below decks. I wondered whether the seasickness would still be a problem — casting my mind back over the years, looking for times when I had been on anything smaller than a commuter ferry since I was twelve, when we left the islands. I hadn’t been on a fishing boat; I hadn’t been sailing.

I was watching the shore, trying to get my sea legs, when Coombs handed me a cup of tea from a thermos.

“Going to pay your respects to your pa, are you?”

I looked at him blankly, not as surprised by a local with a long memory anymore, and said nothing. He poured himself a cup. I sat down and sipped the tea; it was scalding, faintly minty. I took deep breaths to calm rising nerves and blew them out over the steaming cup.

“My wife makes this tea from herbs in her garden,” Coombs said, pronouncing the “h” in herbs and drawing the word out. He took a swig from his enamelware mug, though it must have burned as it went down, because he coughed.

“Oswego tea, she calls it. Settles the stomach,” he said, after choking down the rest, somehow managing to sound both skeptical and proud of his wife’s command of folk wisdom.

“Thank you, I appreciate it,” I mustered.

“I remember your dad,” he kept right on. “I remember every one of the nine who didn’t make it, but especially the few I didn’t ever bring back.”

“There were only three,” I said, and he grunted. “You brought most of them back.”

I looked away. There was a man walking up the dock now, with a pack and a sleeping roll. It took me some concentration to recognize my companion at the clerk’s office.

“Is this our other passenger?” My voice caught in my throat on the word passenger . I took another sip of tea. I felt forlorn: I didn’t want to be on this boat with him, making small talk while I tried not to vomit. Why would he be going to Marrow?

Coombs hollered down to him, and Carey tossed him the sleep roll and hauled in the bag himself. When he saw me, he looked surprised and looked to Coombs — for an introduction, maybe. But Coombs just handed him a cup of steaming Oswego tea and went about pulling up anchor. Carey looked at the cup in his hand as if he wasn’t sure what to do with it.

“Good morning,” he finally said to me.

I lifted my teacup in acknowledgment and took a deep breath as the anchor came up. Carey sat down next to me. He was wearing a uniform this time, and the patch on his nylon parka said FOREST SERVICE. A park ranger. There was a park on Marrow Island, Fort Union, closed since the earthquake. We watched Coombs alternately whistling and cursing, carrying on a conversation with the boat’s various instruments.

“This is strange,” Carey said after a minute.

“It is,” I said. “You shouldn’t sit so close to me.”

“Oh — I’m sorry.” He moved to the bench opposite me. “I didn’t mean—”

“No — that’s no good either,” I said, imagining losing it on the deck between us or, worse, right onto his official khakis.

He stood up, but the boat was moving now, and he looked around, unsure of where to go. I could feel a rise in my throat every time I swallowed. My chest felt heavy.

“I’ll just sit up here.” He gestured to the cabin. “I apologize—”

“It’s not you,” I managed to get out. “I get seasick.”

He stopped and looked at me.

“Oh. That’s not strange,” he said matter-of-factly.

“If you say so.”

“I understand. Don’t worry about it,” he said. He was earnest, but there was a languorous undertone to everything he said, as if nothing could surprise him. He stood looking at me, then sat next to me again, but with about two feet between us. I didn’t object.

“It feels like the water knows I don’t belong on it, and it’s trying to toss me back on land,” I said. I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on words, on talking to him and talking myself out of the feeling.

The engine picked up speed as we left the harbor, and the forward motion became more rhythmic. When the wave of nausea passed, I realized that I had been leaning over at an awkward angle, with my head practically between my knees. I straightened up and leaned back. Carey stared off into the distance. After a moment he glanced back at me. I must have looked green, but he had the decency not to notice. He offered his hand. I switched my cup to the other hand and took his with my warm one.

“Carey,” he said. “We didn’t meet properly yesterday.”

“Lucie,” I said. His fingertips were cold, but I felt an urge to hold on to his hand. Tethered to him for that moment, my insides calmed, steadied by another body.