As Waters Gone By Read online

  She was Rachel.

  And she knew Leah’s—Claire’s—phone number.

  * * *

  Emmalyn fingered the notebook-sized whiteboard she held in front of her. HOPE. A suited limo driver waiting near her at the carousel asked, “Are you giving it or taking it?”

  “What?”

  “Hope.” He pointed to the word. “You know, like, ‘Repent. The end of the world is at hand.’ Or ‘Smile. Your face will appreciate it.’ ”

  Emmalyn swallowed around the ever-present lump in her throat. This was the right thing to do, wasn’t it? Claire had sounded relieved. And life-weary. “Both.”

  The man moved ever so slowly a step farther away.

  Until two days earlier, Emmalyn didn’t know Duluth had an airport, much less an international one. Its proximity to the Canadian border made that logical, when she thought about it. Now she waited at the airport’s end of the line—Baggage Claim—for the world to change.

  It wouldn’t be hard to recognize a twelve-year-old girl traveling alone—a girl with Max’s eyes, lopsided dimples, and chin. But would Hope recognize Emmalyn, if not for the sign? The girl was six or seven the last time they saw each other. And Emmalyn hadn’t smiled enough back then.

  She’d rehearsed what she’d say the entire U-shaped trip from Bayfield to Duluth. By the time she pulled into Superior on her way to the bridge that crossed from Wisconsin to Minnesota at Duluth, she’d discarded every point of discussion. What does one say to a little girl whose mom is headed for rehab, her dad’s in prison, and now she’s exiled to a youth-forsaken island to live with a woman who’s always had a hard time looking her in the eye?

  Swallowed by the sea of travelers, the girl eventually emerged into an area open enough for Emmalyn to see her. So delicately beautiful. Clear skin. A gentle dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Dark, satiny hair that moved like angelfish fins as she walked.

  “How was your flight?”

  “Fine.”

  Good start. One-word answers.

  “Have you flown before?”

  “First time.”

  “Did you enjoy it?” Dumb question. She’d said good-bye to her mother for who knew how long.

  Hope looked at her feet. “I found out what a barf bag is for.”

  “Oh, honey.” Emmalyn put an arm around the thin shoulders, thin despite the winter coat. The shoulders shrugged her off.

  “Not me.” Irritation edged her voice. “The dude sitting next to me.”

  “Oh.”

  The baggage carousel shuddered to life. “What color is your bag?”

  “The color of a paper bag.”

  That poor child. How embarrassing for her. Emmalyn trained her eyes on the carousel, watching for a—

  Hope stepped forward and snatched a camel-colored suitcase from the carousel. By the time Emmalyn realized that’s what she meant by paper bag, Hope had wrestled the luggage to the floor and unlatched its telescoping handle.

  “Here, let me help with that.” Something in Emmalyn’s soul clenched. That one bag and the small carry-on were all she’d brought? Not your average pre-teen. Emmalyn tugged the larger piece into following and led the way to her parking spot.

  “Have you been to this area before, Hope?”

  Her plush boots shuffled against the pavement as they walked. “No.”

  Except for the shuffle, the girl walked like a dancer, head high, shoulders back. Defensive posture or good habit? Time would tell.

  “Are you hungry? I thought we’d stop somewhere here in Duluth or Superior. It’s quite a trip from here to the cottage, if you count the time for the ferry ride and its schedule.”

  “Okay.”

  “What kind of fast food do you like?” Emmalyn would tough out whatever she answered.

  “Does it have to be fast food?”

  “What? No. What were you thinking?”

  “There’s a place in Superior that was on a Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives episode. Their burgers are cheap but really good, Guy Fieri said. I looked them up online. The Anchor.”

  Emmalyn glanced at Hope as the girl thumbed her cell phone screen. “I’ve never been there. Sounds good.”

  “I thought the olive and cream cheese burger might be an interesting taste sensation.”

  Taste sensation? Who was this child? “I’m game if you are.”

  “They have a BLT, if you don’t want a burger. Listen to this,” she said, reading from her phone. “Our BLT is not blueberries, liver, and truffles.”

  The tension in Emmalyn’s shoulders relaxed a little. “A restaurant with a sense of humor. I like that.”

  Hope stole a quick glance at Emmalyn. “Me, too.”

  “Then you’re going to love The Wild Iris.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Where I work. I can’t wait to introduce you to Bougie and the rest of the crew.” Too much too soon? Emmalyn busied herself unlocking the trunk and loading the luggage into her car.

  It wasn’t until they were both belted in and Emmalyn backed out of the parking spot that Hope spoke again. “Bougie? A French name, isn’t it?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I’m taking French online. My school doesn’t . . . didn’t . . . offer it.”

  School. Right. Still some major glitches to get worked out.

  Hope shrugged out of her coat without removing her seatbelt. “It means ‘candle.’ Did you know that?”

  “I did. And it suits her perfectly.”

  Emmalyn focused on negotiating Duluth traffic. Hope leaned forward as they crossed the bridge into Wisconsin, entranced by the grain elevators, the barges, the immense seagoing vessels that had navigated their way through the series of Great Lakes to the Duluth harbor. Emmalyn kept her eyes on the road.

  The girl seemed fascinated, too, by the contrasts of flatter, calmer Superior. Her phone’s guidance system directed them to The Anchor. The massive anchor in front of the establishment might have been enough.

  “‘Hope is an anchor,’” Hope said as the two approached the entrance.

  Emmalyn shifted her purse handle on her shoulder. “I suppose it is.”

  “The verse. It’s my life verse, so far. Hebrews 6:19—‘Hope is an anchor.’ There’s more to it, but that’s the core thought.”

  The core thought? Emmalyn pinched back the guilt of having ignored this intriguing little girl for so long.

  Guilt won the round. She hadn’t ignored her. She’d rejected her. Subtly, of course. Or maybe not.

  Loud, noisy families and louder couples or groups of friends occupied the other tables in the compact Anchor eatery. Emmalyn and Hope fought through the noise to make conversation, so for that and a hundred other reasons, they said little.

  Hope asked for water with her meal.

  “Would you rather have a soda? Soft drink?”

  “Mom won’t let me drink that stuff.”

  Your mother is addicted to cocaine, Hope Elizabeth. But she must have done something right. “Good to know.”

  “You . . . you don’t have to follow all her rules,” Hope added, a shadow passing across her perfect face. “But, water’s fine.”

  The burgers were as delicious as touted. They finished their meals quickly without the pauses for lengthy conversation, and exited to the quiet crispness of the late November air.

  “Is The Wild Iris crazy like that?” Hope asked a mile or two down the road.

  Emmalyn chuckled. “It’s wild, but in other ways. Not that noisy. Pretty classy, actually.”

  Hope locked her gaze on the scene outside the passenger window. What must she be going through internally? She was smart enough to know her mom wasn’t well, and probably knew why.

  How long before she opened up about it? Would she ever?

  And how would Max react when he heard what Emmalyn had done? Their relationship couldn’t afford a blowout right now. But Hope couldn’t afford to be homeless, either. And Emmalyn couldn’t ignore the air hammer nudge
telling her she could do something about it, despite what that child had always represented to her.

  What if the biblical Rachel had said to Leah, “Here. Let me help you out with your kids”?

  It wasn’t as simple as that. So not simple. Not simple.

  “What grade are you in, Hope?”

  “Sixth.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “It’s going to be hard. Isn’t it.” Hope landed her sentence on a low note.

  “Hard?”

  “I looked it up online.”

  Interesting.

  Hope turned in her seat to face Emmalyn more directly. “Fifteen students at the school on Madeline Island? And it only goes through fifth grade?”

  “That’s what I’ve heard. I haven’t had time to look into it.”

  “That means riding the ferry every single day? Twice?” Hope swiveled to face forward. Silence enveloped the car’s interior again.

  “Do you want me to turn on the radio?” Emmalyn reached for the button.

  “No, thanks. How much farther?”

  “We have a long way to go.” A very long way.

  18

  Almost two months earlier, Emmalyn sat in line for the ferry from Bayfield to Madeline Island with an apple and her purse on the passenger seat. Dreamless. Resigned. With a trunkful of misdirected apprehension. This time, she had a passenger—a dreamless, resigned, apprehensive passenger, from all signs.

  “How much longer?” Hope sounded as if she were trying not to ask, but couldn’t help herself.

  “See where the ferry is now? It’ll take about fifteen more minutes for it to dock here. Then a bit for the current passengers to unload. We should be boarding in, oh, twenty minutes.”

  “But—”

  Emmalyn checked her face in the rearview mirror. No real point reapplying lip gloss now. They were nearly home. But she looked almost as tired as she felt.

  “But what, Hope?”

  The girl picked at a cuticle. “Daddy’s supposed to call in fifteen minutes.”

  “Cell phones have to be turned off while we’re on the ferry.”

  * * *

  She calls him Daddy.

  He calls her.

  “I’m sorry. It’s a safety factor, I assume.”

  First tears. Emmalyn imagined them in Max’s eyes, so similar to Hope’s. The girl worked hard to keep them from spilling. Her lips showed the strain of trying to stop the trembling in her chin. “Okay.”

  Breathless. Resigned.

  The prison system wasn’t conducive to the outside world’s “Can I call you back in a sec? In a jiffy?” A true unit of measure, according to Hope’s bottomless bag of trivia. Did you know that a jiffy is a thousandth of a second? Hope had injected into the mostly silent trip. If she was getting her information from the Internet, they might have to have a talk.

  Emmalyn clicked her seatbelt into place. “Are you buckled up?” She turned the key in the ignition and wiggled the Prius out of the queue of cars, across the parking lot, and into the empty side lot by the old cooperage next door. “When your dad calls, I’ll go for a walk so you can have some privacy.”

  “But the ferry—”

  “We’ll catch the next one.”

  Emmalyn reached over the backseat for her camera, grabbed her handknit Cora scarf for her neck, and waited behind the still steering wheel for Hope’s phone to ring.

  It wasn’t a ring. It was a ringtone: “Right Here Waiting for You.” Emmalyn blew Hope a kiss and shut the car door behind her. Blew her a kiss? Emmalyn, you have no clue how to do this, do you?

  The cooperage now housed a sporting goods and outfitter shop, vacant—or nearly so—this time of year. She walked the exterior of the property, close enough to keep an eye on the car but far enough for it to be obvious she was giving Hope space.

  A fountain of bile inched up her esophagus. Emmalyn was bending over backward for this twelve-year-old when she’d been out of communication with her husband much longer, apparently. Emmalyn. The wife. On paper, anyway.

  Emmalyn glanced through the windshield again, a diligent though untested caregiver. Hope covered her face with one hand, shoulders shaking. Oh, child. Emmalyn intentionally pointed her camera toward the now-docked ferry. It looked the part of a lumbering albatross but glided through the water in the bay more smoothly than Emmalyn imagined it could on all but the worst weather days. She checked the posted ferry schedule as the ferry unloaded and prepared for the return trip. They’d have to kill a good chunk of time in town before the next one. Story of her life.

  Maybe Hope would be interested in the shipwreck park. As sharp as the young woman was, she might find it educational rather than a testimony to despair. Would Emmalyn see it in the same light she had months ago? Or would she find the concept of a shipwreck park stirring, somehow, now that she’d seen even limping souls can dance?

  Emmalyn heard the car door open. Hope waved wildly. “He wants to talk to you. Hurry!”

  She jogged back to the car and took the phone. Her inhale was as jagged as if it had climbed stairs in her lungs. “Hey, Max.”

  “Em, I don’t know what to say.”

  She didn’t either, especially with Hope right at her elbow. “We’re all getting used to the idea.”

  “I can’t believe you’d do that.”

  “Without consulting you first? I know. There wasn’t much time to—”

  “I can’t believe you’d do it at all. I can only imagine what this is costing you . . . and I don’t mean financially. Oh, Emmalyn . . . ”

  Neither spoke for several moments, which seemed a tragic waste of limited time. “I’ll let you talk to Hope again,” she said. “We’ll have to discuss a few things.”

  “Can I . . . call you sometime soon?” His request sounded like the end of a first date. An undercurrent of strength in his voice kept it from a pathetic plea.

  “I don’t want to cheat you out of time for Hope.”

  Another ocean-deep pause. “I never meant for any of this to happen.”

  “You take care, too. Here’s Hope.”

  She forced a smile as she handed the phone to the girl with Max’s bright eyes and curious dimples. Then she turned her face toward the water. Hope didn’t need to witness Emmalyn’s breakdown.

  * * *

  “Is this Lake Superior or Chee-kwah-MEE-gan Bay?”

  The ferry rumbled underneath them. Solid. Sure. Protective. Unconcerned about waves and water depth and the turmoil in the heart of a forgotten wife and an abandoned child.

  “It’s actually pronounced more like ‘Sheh-WAH-meh-gun.’ Crazy, huh? And the answer is both. Chequaumegon Bay is part of Lake Superior. You can just see a hint of some of the other Apostle Islands off to the left of us. There are twenty-two islands in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. But—”

  “I know. Madeline Island isn’t included. Probably because it’s the only one inhabited.”

  The girl’s brain must fire faster than others. How does she retain all these bits?

  “Will it be a lot colder here than in Montana?”

  “Every winter’s different, I hear. But the island is often more temperate because of the hills behind Bayfield and the buffer of the water. We’ll see how this winter treats us.” How long did Hope expect she’d have to stay with Emmalyn? She’d need to watch how she worded things.

  The ferry closed the distance between them and the Madeline Island/LaPointe dock.

  “Mrs. Ross?”

  They’d have to work on that, too. “Yes?”

  “Can I keep my phone?”

  “Of course. Oh.” Emmalyn toyed with financial numbers in her head.

  “Yeah. Not an easy question. I don’t think Mom can . . . pay you back. And I know Dad can’t.” She ran her finger around the perimeter of her phone while she talked.

  “Let’s not worry about those minor details right now.” Did Hope text a thousand friends a thousand times a day? Was it a minor detail?

  The ferry eased in
to its slot like a vessel much smaller and easier to maneuver. Hope stretched to watch what she could see above the high sidewalls of the ferry.

  “Before you ask,” Emmalyn said coyly, waiting for the signal to start the ignition, “it’s not far now.”

  That crooked smile on Hope’s face was worth the risk.

  * * *

  The last time she chauffeured someone’s first visit to Madeline Island, it was her sister, Shawna. The skeptic. The tattletale. The one who considered nature a rude inconvenience.

  Her first-timer today drank in the details. Hope Elizabeth didn’t converse much from the ferry landing on the duck’s tail to the duck’s chin hairs, but quick glances showed Emmalyn the girl caught the significance of the beauty through which they traveled.

  “That was the whole town?” she’d said, one of her few communications.

  “That was it. Someday I’ll take you the South Shore route. You’ll see more of the marina and the golf course—beautiful golf course.”

  “I’m not really into golf,” Hope had said.

  Yeah. Me neither.

  Despite the town’s inability to impress the twelve-year-old, the scenery between LaPointe and the cottage kept Hope’s head turning to catch everything within view.

  “This is it, Hope.”

  The girl glanced at the small shed with its narrow door and one high window. The cottage beyond it seemed to bloom before her eyes. They widened like time elapsed photography of a rosebud opening. “It’s a long ways out here.”

  “That’s true.” Emmalyn popped the button to open the trunk for the luggage.

  “This isn’t what I expected.”

  Trust me. It’s not what I expected either. Any of this.

  They’d barely had time to stomp snow from their feet on the entry rug when Hope said, “You have a dog?”

  “Hold back, Hope. She can be particular.” Emmalyn tried to step between them in the narrow entry of the cottage.

  But the girl had already scooted past her and dropped to her knees on the kitchen floor, arms wide open. It looked more like a reunion for the girl and dog than it did their first encounter.

  “What’s its name?”