Ellen Block: The Language of Sand

In spite of it all, Abigail felt at home.

Ironically, the part of the house she favored most was the place she’d taken the least advantage of. She hadn’t gone into the lighthouse since devising her scheme with the oil pail, and she’d missed her opportunity to take Bert up on his offer to check it for her.

“You could do it now.”

She awaited a noise, some discouraging response from the lamp room. The house was silent.

Perhaps Wesley Jasper doesn’t mind what you’ve done with the place.

The answer was based on a bigger question, one that would entail a trip to the lighthouse. With the hurricane quite literally on the horizon, Abigail’s courage was in dwindling supply.

“You could check on the pail after the hurricane has passed. That’s not an unreasonable arrangement.”

For days, she had been avoiding going to the lamp room and facing her fears; however, there would be no evading the storm.

Dark clouds menaced overhead as Abigail loaded the station wagon. The packing finished, it was time to go. She was having trouble leaving. She stood at the front door, staring in.

“I’ll be back soon,” she said, a pledge to the house and herself.

The grass out front had already grown perceptibly. In another week it would need cutting again. Abigail wanted to be here to cut the grass. She wanted it more than she’d wanted anything in months.

Cars crammed the island’s narrow sandy roads. Families were packed into trucks and minivans, luggage strapped to the roofs. Everyone was en route to the ferry, the mass exodus building into a traffic jam.

“This is what it must be like on Labor Day weekend.”

Only this was different. This was an evacuation.

Soon Abigail’s car was at a standstill. She couldn’t see far enough ahead to discern why. She decided to cut around the line by taking a side street and quickly got lost.

“I have absolutely no clue where I am.”

She traversed several roads until she saw a landmark she did recognize; Merle’s house. His windows had boards on them, and the floral wreath had been removed from the front door.

“You’re supposed to be on the ferry.” Merle was standing on his dock as she rounded into his backyard.

“I got stuck in traffic. Then I got lost.”

“Those are two phrases not normally uttered on Chapel Isle,” he said, putting a cooler in his boat.

“Do you think it’s wise to go fishing in this weather?”

“What weather?”

“Look at the sky. It’s about to rain.”

“It’s not raining yet . And I won’t be fishing. I’m checking my nets. Wanna come?”

“Me?”

“Why not? You missed the first ferry as it is. The line for the next is going to be as long as the Great Wall of China. Maybe longer.”

“When you put it that way, how could I resist?”

Merle climbed into the outboard with care. Given his size, the boat might have flipped if he got in too fast. With his injured ankle, he was taking it extra slow. As he helped Abigail in, she was already reconsidering.

“If this old tub will hold me, it’ll hold you, Abby. You can swim, though, right?”

“Very encouraging.”

The rain held off, thunderheads loitering in the sky. Merle headed into the bay with the boat riding low. The wake disappeared as fast as it rose.

“You ever been fishing before?”

“Once. My husband’s firm took its employees on a cruise to go snorkeling and deep-sea fishing. There was dinner and dancing afterward.”

“That’s not fishing. That’s yachting.”

The details of the company trip had remained sequestered in the recesses of Abigail’s mind until that very moment. She recalled being introduced to Paul’s coworkers and their spouses. There were hors d’oeuvres and chilled wine and soft music. She remembered being served grilled halibut and having sorbet for dessert. Paul was new to the firm at the time and was occupied making conversation as well as a good impression. He stole a second to come over and tell her how pretty she looked in her white cotton sundress, then kissed her on the cheek. For an instant, Abigail thought she could feel the kiss. It was only the wind on her face.

“Here we are.”

Merle slowed the motor when they entered a cove where groups of tall wooden poles jutted from the water.

“What are those?”

“Impoundments.”

Maneuvering between the poles, he released the line on one of them and hooked it to a peg on the side of the boat. Merle repeated the process until a net full of squirming fish floated to the surface.

“Let’s see what we got.”

After raking clumps of sea grass from the net with his fingers, he tossed aside the unwanted horseshoe crabs along with the punier fish. “Fortunately, I don’t have to measure like the commercial fishermen do. Any catch over thirteen inches is legal in the bay. Fourteen inches is legal in the ocean.”

He selected a meaty flounder, then dropped the net so the rest could escape.

“That’s a tremendous effort for one fish.”

“I’m an old man. Haven’t got much else to do. Say, I’m sorry about earlier.”

“Earlier?”

“When I mentioned fishing it seemed to, well, remind you of the past. I overheard Ruth telling you about my ex-wife and my boy. Wanted you to know it happens to me too. You’re going about your day and somebody says something that makes you think of them. Blindsides you.”

“Merle, I wasn’t prying. I—”

He waved away her concern. “Didn’t think you were. I just brought it up because I can commiserate.”

Merle placed the flapping fish in a cooler and shut the lid on it as it thrashed. Initially, that struck Abigail as callous. But what other choice did he have? Bludgeon it to death? Slit its torso with a knife? Suffocation was kind by comparison.

“What should I do?” Abigail asked in earnest.

“’Bout what?”

“About me, my life, what’s left?”

He thought hard before answering, as the fish continued to bump around inside the cooler. “I remember the first time I heard that phrase about the only sure things in life being death and taxes. I always took it to mean that what was for sure was that I was going to die and that I was going to have to pay taxes. Took a while to get it through this thick skull o’ mine that what it really means is that none of us goes without losing somebody we love. You can’t tell when you’re going to go or when somebody you care about will. What you can do is hope it’s later rather than sooner.”

Despite Merle’s fondness for skewed logic, he had distilled the enormity of grief into a simple, objective truth. The objectivity was what Abigail grappled with.

Dictionaries were intended to be impartial and exact, yet the act of defining a word reflected the passions and prejudices of the definer. Dictionaries required the faith of the user, faith dependent on the belief that the dictionary was beyond subjectivity, but the best dictionaries had come from those with the strongest personalities, the zealots and idealists who sought to teach and to preach, to politicize and to moralize. Abigail could try to be objective about her grief and acknowledge it for what it was, or she could define it by her own biases and feel it as it came. Either way, the definition didn’t make the hurt subside any faster.

“How do you do it, Merle? All I can think about is before and all I’ve got is after. What do I do after after?”

“Want me to tell you the secret?” he asked as he rehitched the lines to the poles.

“There’s a secret? What secret?”

“You positive you want to hear?”