Home was me, diving into the water, not even feeling the cold, pulling a gummy shark out by the tail while my mother laughed.
And later, home was Heath and me, starving and empty, kneeling in the wet sand over a dying fish, watching its life ebb away as the waves broke and climbed and broke again. The glorious endlessness of it all. We ate it over a beach fire, and it tasted like salt and salvation. My brother offering me the biggest pieces, because his love for me made him forget his own hunger.
It’s only at night, on a beach, watching the rods and looking out into all that darkness, that I feel at home. Fishing holds life and death. Breakdowns and breakthroughs. Hope and loss. Struggle and surrender. Life and death and life again.
The rest is just noise.
And I think of Trav, steady and silent, seeing me for who I really was and never once asking me to change. Trav, who recognized something in me that no one else ever noticed, except Heath. But unlike my brother, Trav didn’t flinch, or scold, or try to fix me when I showed him my shadows. He loved me in spite of them…orforthem.
Yes,I think, surprising myself.I want to come home.But first, I want to finish this. I want to find Donny Granger. I want to know what happened to my mum and why. I want answers to the questions that have haunted me all my life.
Jessie sits up, yawning. She climbs out of my lap and flops beside the fire, staring at the flames.
We’re silent for a moment until Heath says, “Come on.” He pulls me gently to my feet, and I’m so weak that my right knee buckles.I reach out instinctively, gripping my brother’s arm until my knee steadies.
I remain there for a long time. Half of me wants to fall back onto the sand and stare moodily at the water for the rest of my life. The other half wants to burn the whole town down.
My chest feels hollow, my pulse sluggish.
Sometimes it feels like there’s too much ugliness. Like it always wins out.
Wordlessly, Heath pushes a fishing rod into my hands. I wrap my fist around it, watch him walk down to the water. Jessie lifts her head. “Stay,” I tell her. “Stay.”
I follow Heath’s footsteps on the wet sand. My bare feet brush the water. It’s freezing cold but I barely feel it. I wade into the shallows until I’m standing at my brother’s side.
He casts in silence, and I stare into the water, thinking of my father. Of all the times he roamed this darkened beach where he nearly drowned. What was he thinking as it held him under? I see his black hair disappearing under the surface, see his outstretched hands held up like a plea. I shake my head, eyeing the water with anger. For shit’s sake. Why didn’t you just take him? How could you not know what he would become? And now we’re carrying his sins as if they were our own.
I wait, and the water answers.
Look deeper.
The wind whistles softly through the fishing line. A seagull cries out in the darkening sky. The waves break on the shore like a cymbal crashing. A symphony of ocean sounds. It’s beautiful. All of it. The waves. The water. You’d swear it listens. You’d swear it could heal.
And I ask it silently,
Free us from the past.
Please.
I cast my line, and I think I understand finally why my father kept coming back to the water. It’s the same reason I’m pulled back to the woods in my dreams. It ends where it begins.
“Hey,” Heath says, calling across the wind. “I love you so much.”
I look at him, really look, and for a moment, it’s like staring intoa warped mirror. Same eyes, same nose, same lips, even. But it’s more than just features. We share a too-quiet stillness, the kind that doesn’t come naturally. The kind you learn. This stillness isn’t peaceful. It’s tight and tense, all rigid shoulders and clenched jaws. I am the quiet, smaller echo of my brother. It’s painful and beautiful in a way, when you look at your brother and realize he’s broken in all the same places you are.
“I love you, too,” I tell him. “So much.”
We stand side by side in the water. The stars are out, providing little pinpricks of light. Jessie is half asleep by the fire. Our eyes meet and she wags her tail before softly closing them again.
Sometimes it feels like there’s too much ugliness. Like it always wins out.
But not tonight.
Tonight it’s beautiful.
Tonight we fish.
Chapter 13
