“September 13, 1989.”
“Spell your last name for me.”
I reach for the Coke can, grasping it tight in my right palm. “Greenwood,” I say, clearing my throat. “Spelled like how it sounds.”
He looks up frowning. “Spell it anyway.”
I do. I listen to the scratch of his pen on the paper, wondering if it’s too late to flee.
They don’t have to know.
You don’t have to say a word…
He finishes writing and catches me staring at the door. “Can you tell me what brought you in here today?” he asks, pausing to glance at his notepad. “Minnow?”
I place the Coke can on my knee and grip it tight as my throat begins to close up. I can’t get any words out. I nod instead, once. My throat is so painfully tight it hurts to breathe. I crack open the Coke can and force myself to drink.
He waits, rotating the pen in his fingers. “They said you had some information about abalone poaching and illegal shark fishing?” he prompts, leaning forward. “It’s in Kangaroo Bay, you said?”
His eyes are eager, his patience thinning. Cops have always been suspicious of my town. They came in every few years, different uniforms, same questions. Always left with nothing because no one was talking.
Until now.
I drink again, struggling to swallow as my throat constricts. It feels like someone is choking me. I push the can back onto the table and clasp the base of my neck.
“Miss Greenwood,” he says directly, “are you able to talk?”
“Yeah, I’ll talk,” I finally say, my voice a whisper. “…I don’t know where to start.”
“Start at the beginning.”
That makes it easier. I sit silently, wondering how to begin. Intellingmystory, I’m also telling my father’s. And his before him. All of our sins and stories, tangled together like fishing line.
“I came back home last month and…” I begin.
But no…I close my mouth and stare intently at the floor. It’s not right to start the story there. Go back further. Where does my story begin? I wait in the hot silence, deaf to the bustle outside the door.
I see only my memories spinning slowly through my head. For the first time since I can remember, I allow myself to inspect them all. One after the other.
And then I see it.
I’m watching TV, cross-legged on the floor while Dad sharpens the knife behind me. I keep looking over my shoulder at him, terrified he’ll catch me looking.
I straighten up, my eyes drifting to the police officer’s. He taps his pen on the notepad, eyes narrowing.
“I can never think of my father without a knife in his hand.”
The policeman scribbles furiously, nose an inch from the paper. He can’t keep up with me as I pour out memory after memory.
“…Fish can tell a storm is coming days in advance. Can sense a change in the pressure system long before there’s any sign of rain. We were like that.
“…I keep my eyes fixed on that sliver of moon as my father draws near. He crouches in front of us, eye level to Heath but towering over me. ‘Look at me, Minnow,’ he says…”
Sometimes I have to pause because my voice is shaking too badly to continue. Sometimes I stare at the floor, and it becomes the rolling black ocean. Sometimes I’m standing on the hot beach, watching my brother reel in fish after fish.
But I keep talking. Keep telling the story.
I speak until my throat aches. Until I drain the Coke can, and the cop has taken pages of notes. Finally, he glances up like he’s waking from a trance. “I’ll get you another drink.”
