Anna Solomon - Leaving Lucy Pear

“Mum?”

A third boat had materialized. It had simply slipped in beside them, holding two men. They might have been unicorns at first, the vision was so surreal, until Emma fully registered the guns raised at their ears. She swatted the children’s heads down, felt her body depart itself, try to float.

“Federal agents, ma’am. Prohibition Bureau.”

“Mummy!” cried Joshua behind her, his voice muffled in her dress.

“Please. It’s just me and my children. Will you put down the guns?”

The larger man, his jowls softening, returned his gun to its holster, but his companion, bouncing a skinny leg, only dropped his hand slightly.

“What’s this?” he said, standing to peer into their boats.

“It’s nothing,” Emma said.

The larger man, in front, grabbed the gunwale of Emma’s boat and pulled her and the children in, as if reeling in fish. He leaned over to look, his shaggy head nearly brushing Lucy Pear, whose face twisted as if waiting to be hit — a fear Emma had not seen in her before. The man didn’t notice. “It really is,” he said as he peered into the boat. He looked quizzically at Emma. “What are you doing out here?”

She shrugged. “A tradition. The moon. We live just up the creek. We didn’t expect a fog.”

“A tradition,” sneered the thin man. “That’s what they all say. What about the moon? It’s not full, it’s not new. It’s nothing.”

“There’s nothing in the boats, Finny,” said the large man. “What’s your name, ma’am?”

“O’Hara. Maryann O’Hara,” Emma said. When even Joshua didn’t protest, she was relieved and disheartened. He was either so scared of the men, or so cognizant of the family’s guilt, or both, that he knew before he should have to keep his mouth shut.

“You want a ride?” asked the thin man, his gun bouncing on his thigh. “Back home ? We got power.” He jerked his head at an outboard motor strapped to the stern, which appeared to Emma like a large, ornate eggbeater.

“That’s kind of you to offer,” Emma said. “That’s very kind.” She spoke slowly, trying to delay, so she could think — think! Why didn’t she have a gun? What had Story been thinking, giving her these boats and not a gun? Roland had a gun but he’d taken it with him and besides, if she had a gun, what would she do with it? Even Liam, the oldest boy, could not reliably shoot a squirrel. So there was no gun and no one to shoot a gun and she had wasted time thinking of it. “Thank you, but we’re not far,” she said, wondering, as she said it, if maybe, if the men knew where they were and Emma told them how to go from here, she and the children could be dropped at the Thurston property, easy as that. But the Thurstons had no dock, and though their house was a distance from the creek, they might wake at the sound of a motor, and anyhow, wherever the men dropped them, they would surely wait to see — or hear, given the fog — Emma and the children enter a house. It would never work. She considered a sacrifice: she could ask the men to tow her and the kids back to the boatyard they had launched from, admit to “borrowing” the boats — no need to get into the business of their being (sort of) legitimately borrowed — declare that as her wrongdoing and get on with it. But there was an itchiness about the skinny one. He was angry, maybe, at not yet having busted anything up tonight, or stewing about some other thing, needing someone to nab. Who knew what such a man would do? If not to her or the children, then to Buzzi, who would be waiting for them, asleep in the black Chrysler that Story’s drivers used for such dealings, kind, bawdy Buzzi, who not tonight but regularly delivered other people to do other, more clearly illegal things. “Thank you,” she repeated. “We’ll wait for the fog to clear.”

“Maybe I’m not being clear,” said the skinny man. “It’s our pleasure to escort you. Make sure a lady gets home safe.”

“I’m grateful for your concern, Officer, but it’s our pleasure to stay.”

“I’m a federal agent!” He leaned forward, both hands on his gun, squinting at her. “What. You the ones taking all them pears? The serial harvesters ?” He laughed nastily.

“I haven’t heard about that.”

“Local cops told us. Weren’t supposed to. They kept it out the papers, some reason.” He scrunched his nose as if he’d smelled something bad, and Emma understood that Josiah Story must have been the reason. Her stomach rolled. “You’re doing something out here, lady.”

“We’re waiting out the fog, sir.”

He spit over the side of the boat. It must have been a large, well-made wad because it sounded like a rock, hitting the water. “Well, then. We’ll just wait with you.”

Emma did not look at her children. Her breath was sour with panic. The fog was beginning to loosen into tendrils; slivers of black could be seen; the men’s faces sharpened into view. The large one grinned. She calculated uselessly: if she admitted to the pear situation, their run would be over, the shack emptied, and Roland would come home to failure and scandal; if she tried for a lesser offense, having taken the skiffs, Buzzi might get caught up, and the local cops notified, who in turn would notify the boat owners, Story’s brother and Story’s father, who would question Story about Emma, which would likely lead to other revelations, about Emma’s pears, both actual and metaphorical, which would make for another, worse sort of scandal.

A groan split the air, distant yet clear: a vast, creaking, cracking chorus, as if a forest were coming down all at once. The marsh shuddered.

“What the fuck was that?”

The men’s eyes lit up. They might have licked their lips, their hunger was so clear. The big one yanked the motor to life, and they were gone.

Emma prayed, O Lord. O Lord in heaven, thank you. But as she watched the Feds disappear down the creek, as she heard the thrum of their motor die off, she knew that whoever or whatever had made that crashing sound — her first, implausible thought was a string of derricks collapsing — was in far more danger than she and the children had been and that this, their reprieve, had nothing to do with Jesus or Mary and everything to do with luck. Every one of her children had at some point come close to disaster. They had almost poked their eyes out, almost chopped their fingers off, almost expired from fever. There was polio, there was the woodstove, there were Roland’s axes, there was abandonment. Yet here they were, staring at her with astonishment. Adrenaline snaked up her legs. She gripped the oars hard to stop the shaking of her hands. The fog lifted, making way.

Under a blanket in the parlor, Ira read:

LOCAL CRAFT BELIEVED TOTAL LOSS

Sch. Esmerelda J. Mendosa Bound Home, Wrecks off Eastern Point

July 21—Late last night, the Esmerelda J. Mendosa, returning from the Grand Banks, smashed upon Webber Rock.

Capt. Mendosa and five members of the crew abandoned ship and rowed in the ship’s dories for shore. Two men are badly injured. Their names are given as Luis Pereira and Roland Murphy.

Residents of Eastern Point and beyond were awakened by the crash of the Mendosa, who lies now with her bow buried in rock, one mast fallen, a gaping hole in her side, and her engine room full of water.

According to members of the crew, the accident was due to dense fog. They could not see the signals from the lighthouses at Thacher Island or Eastern Point, and a whistle buoy they waited to hear had recently been removed from the water, leading them to believe the ship was farther offshore.